The miscellaneous works of David Humphreys Late Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States of America to the Court of Madrid |
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 | The miscellaneous works of David Humphreys |  |
Is it for this, thy thirst for taxes drains
The sweat and tears that fertilize the plains?
Is it for this, vain pageant of an hour!
Thou mak'st the nations groan beneath thy pow'r?
Torn from their friends, to war thy vassals fly,
Live for thy pastime, at thy mandate die?
But say, insensate! when thy wheels no more
Shall roll in carnage or be clogg'd with gore,
Say, what the meed, when (all thy triumphs past)
Thou sink'st in black oblivion's gulf at last?
So that broad stream that sweeps unbounded plains,
Great Mississippi, wastes the wide domains,
When sudden swoln with congregated rills,
That rush and thunder from a thousand hills,
He hastes resistless to his ocean-grave,
The sire of rivers! —now a nameless wave!
The sweat and tears that fertilize the plains?
Is it for this, vain pageant of an hour!
Thou mak'st the nations groan beneath thy pow'r?
Torn from their friends, to war thy vassals fly,
Live for thy pastime, at thy mandate die?
But say, insensate! when thy wheels no more
Shall roll in carnage or be clogg'd with gore,
Say, what the meed, when (all thy triumphs past)
Thou sink'st in black oblivion's gulf at last?
So that broad stream that sweeps unbounded plains,
Great Mississippi, wastes the wide domains,
When sudden swoln with congregated rills,
That rush and thunder from a thousand hills,
He hastes resistless to his ocean-grave,
The sire of rivers! —now a nameless wave!
| The miscellaneous works of David Humphreys | |