Sonnet. on Launching Some Bottles Filled With Knowledge into the Bristol Channel

Vessels of heavenly medicine! may the breeze

Auspicious waft your dark green forms to shore;

Safe may ye stem the wide surrounding roar

Of the wild whirlwinds and the raging seas;

And oh! if Liberty e'er deigned to stoop

From yonder lowly throne her crownless brow,

Sure she will breathe around your emerald group

The fairest breezes of her West that blow.

Yes! she will waft ye to some freeborn soul

Whose eye-beam, kindling as it meets your freight,

Her heaven-born flame in suffering Earth will light,

Until its radiance gleams from pole to pole,

And tyrant-hearts with powerless envy burst

To see their night of ignorance dispersed.