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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

EPIGRAM by WILLIAM COWPER

Poet Analysis

First Line: TO PURIFY THEIR WINE SOME PEOPLE BLEED
Last Line: GOOD CAUSE WHY PLANTERS NEVER TRY THEIR OWN.
Subject(s): INNOCENCE;
(PRINTED IN THE "NORTHAMPTON MERCURY.")

To purify their wine some people bleed
A lamb into the barrel, and succeed;
No nostrum, planters say, is half so good
To make fine sugar as a negro's blood.
Now lambs and negroes both are harmless things,
And thence perhaps this wondrous virtue springs.
'Tis in the blood of innocence alone--
Good cause why planters never try their own.



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