The works, in verse and prose, of the late Robert Treat Paine, Jun. Esq ::

While vernal years in swift succession roll,
And fancy's gairish prospects cheer the soul;
Beneath Mæcenas' guardian care, my muse
With panting breast her infant song pursues.

To teach the rapid moments, as they fly
Beyond the utmost ken of mortal eye,
The smile of sportive pleasure to assume,
And bid the flowers of hope unfolding bloom;
To gild with bright improvement's flattering ray;
The fond remembrance of each passing day;
To mould the heart by sentiment and truth,
And bind the olive round the brow of youth;
These were the motives, which inspired the verse,
Though neither bold, nor elegantly terse,
Though in the strains no dazzling beauties shine,
Though poesy reject each embryo line;

Yet simple numbers, unrefined by art,
Here paint the warm effusions of the heart.
The lettered bigot, with sarcastick phlegm,
And lifeless system, may the song condemn;
But let proud criticks frown, whene'er I sing,
'Tis not to them I tune my vocal string;
If my harsh notes disgust your nicer ear,
Avert your heads, ye are not forced to hear.
While I adventure on the sea of song,
Propitious learning wafts my bark along;
Yet see, at candour's throne the suppliant sues,
In the low accents of the lisping muse.

[Bright is the sun beam, smiling after showers]

“An undevout astronomer is mad.”
Young.

[_]

[Written Nov. 17, 1790]

Bright is the sun beam, smiling after showers;
Sweet are the pleasures of the rural groves,
When pearls, unnumbered, deck the morning grass;
But sweeter still the joys of evening walk,
Brighter the glories of the unbounded God.

Hail, sacred eve, thy presence sweet I woo,
Where pensive Solitude with rambling feet,
Strays through thy dusky groves, to view the works
Of heaven's high King; or, sunk in rapture's trance,
With silent gratitude delights to hear
Nature's soft harp, “the musick of the spheres,”
Which chant in endless notes Jehovah's praise!

Come then, sweet nymph, thy mildest breath impart,
To swell the youthful muse's artless reed;
Faintly to echo, with unskilful trill,
One note of Nature's universal song.

The sun, fatigued with his diurnal course
Through heaven's high summit, sunk to soft repose,
The Zephyrs, loaded with the rich perfumes

Of yon tall hill, in gay luxuriance clad,
Whispered invitement to the bower of joy,
And by the ambrosial presents, which they brought,
Urged their request, and won my willing soul.
To the fair spot I rove; a devious way
In many wanderings leads me to the height.
Along its brow a shaggy ridge of rocks,
High towering, keeps the distant fields in awe,
Enhedged with flowers, and shrubs, and vines, and thorns,
Which in luxuriant confusion grew.

Deep boiling o'er the top from confluent springs,
A river rolls adown the sloping hill;
From the high rocks the dashing current leaps
In one broad sheet, till, spreading by degrees,
The white foam flashes o'er the pointed crags,
Which with continual rage embroil its waves;
Now whirl in eddies, now in loud cascades
Roll the vexed current; while with rapid speed
Waves crowd on waves, to escape the rocks, and gain
The peaceful harbour of the quiet vale.

How short this ever varying scene of life!
How troubled too with woes! Thus down the stream
Of cares, perplexities, distress and wants,
As waves on waves, so generations crowd.
See, the vain bubble, floating down the surge,
From yon bright cloud a purple tincture draws;
But mark yon rock; its beauties; they are fled!
Thus wrecked, shall vanish all the world calls great;
Not all his purple can protect the king.
The busy world, and all the joys it boasts,

Where harpy Care and Disappointment reign,
Are like the billows of the troubled sea;
While calm Content and Solitude, sweet pair,
Like the soft lustre of Hesperian day,
E'er sweetly smile to lure us from the storm.
When sin disturbed the peace of Eden's bowers,
And man, degenerate, to her banners fled;
All-bounteous Heaven, although provoked to wrath,
Sent these fair visitants with exiled man,
To guide him in the paths, which lead to peace.
Here then they come! Their silent tread I hear.
God to their smiles creative power has given,
For here they smile, and second Eden blooms.
The gilded roof, the regal dome they fly,
And here with mild Philosophy retreat.
To shady grots, where Contemplation reigns,
They lead the heavenly pensive maid; 'tis here
That purest happiness delights to dwell.
Can he, who in these solitary seats
Retired, enjoying philosophick ease;
Can he, whose study and delight 's to scan
The laws, which regulate the starry world,
Be so infatuate, as to think that Chance,
Presiding, held the sceptre of the sky,
Gave Nature birth, and linked in one great chain
Creation's scale, from angels to the worm?

Dun night her sable curtain draws around,
And with diffusive darkness, far and near,
Burying the cot, the palace, and the tower,
Calls Reason's eye from objects here below,
To trace the wonders of the spangled sky.

Far as the eye can sweep in utmost range,
Where spheres on spheres in bright confusion roll,
Where swift Philosophy with towering speed
Extends her wings, and from the blazing height
Of Sirius descries more distant worlds;
These are thy wonders, great Jehovah; these,
As all their various orbits they perform,
Speak forth thy majesty and endless praise.
The mighty pillars of the universe,
The ethereal arch, with starry curtains hung,
Thy hands have made; through the stupendous frame
Loud hallelujahs and hosannas sound,
Wafting thy glory to unnumbered worlds,
In Nature's language, understood by all.
Yet though to us unbounded these may seem,
Throned on the height of thy omnipotence,
Thou look'st abroad with all discovering eye,
And all creation far beneath thee rolls.
'Tis thou, who check'st in mid career the storm,
Which on the wings of furious whirlwinds sweeps;
When battling clouds, in horrid ruin, crush,
And their pent wrath in bursting lightnings pour.
When raging winds, from Æolus released,
From its foundations heave the boiling deep,
And heaven-topped waves in liquid mountains rise,
And leave old ocean's dark recesses dry;
Thou smils't;—the main subsides, to smile with thee.

When, in the car of wrath, thou thunderest forth
To scour the nations with afflictive rod;
Before thy chariot wheels, self rolling, flies
Pale Awe, and strikes the universe with dread.

The tall hills tremble, and the valleys rise;
Guilt's tottering knees in mad distraction beat,
And the rent poles re-echo with thy voice.
One angry look from thee would cause the world
To dwindle into nought; one wrathful word
The universal edifice to fall,
And its high columns moulder into dust.

What soul but quakes, when thy deep thunders roll,
Or starts affrighted, when thy lightnings fly?
The astonish'd earth confesses power divine,
And, trembling, owns the presence of its God.
Shall not devotion then, with early day
Enkindling, glow, nor at the setting sun,
Man, thy own offspring, praise thy glorious name?
Forbid it, heaven, that he again should sin
Against the light of all your brilliant orbs,
And be expelled from earth's unblest abode,
An Eden, sure, compared to hells below!

Can there exist a son from Adam sprung,
How abject e'er from native dignity,
Or, in the vale of ignorance remote
From the bright sunshine of the learned world,
Who but uplifts his eye to yon bright vault,
Views all the glories, which emblaze the pole,
And doubts, one moment, their Creator's power?
All nature 's vocal with the voice of God;
From sphere to sphere Jehovah's name resounds;
E'en savage Indians, with untutored souls,
“See God in clouds, and hear him in the winds.”

If then one high Supreme presides o'er all;
As he, who is not deaf to Nature's voice,
Can't but confess; who then can be so mad,
As to refuse, to that omniscient Power,
Devotion, due to his omnipotence?
And in rebellion rise against his arm,
Whose breath created, and enlivens nature?
The soul of man, too feeble to endure
The vile transgression, shudders at its sight.

But there are such, who in the moral world
With genius blest, by fostering wisdom nursed,
Who oft have ranged the illimitable sky,
In vain conception of some selfish end,
Nor given to God the glory of his skill.
With vain idolatry and frenzy fired,
They reach the utmost verge of mortal ken,
Nor once perceive the features of a God
In wide magnificence illumine all.
They see the grand machine unvarying roll,
Nor once discern the arm, that moves the whole,
In “light ineffable,” they soar aloft,
But stain its purity with blackest crime.
Recoiling Reason startles at the deed,
And Nature's self, with indignation fired,
Blushes to view her own perversity.

Dark night with deepening gloom draws on apace;
The russet groves no trembling zephyr moves;
In majesty ascends night's brilliant queen;
The lengthened shades o'er every field extend,
And light, promiscuous, beautifies each scene.

Hard by the murmurs of the chrystal stream,
A sudden voice I hear; amazed I stand,
Catch every sound, and still the voice returns!

Behold a sage advancing through the groves,
The moonbeam trembling on his silver locks.
Again I listen, but his voice has ceased!
Time's ruthless hand with wrinkles knit his brow;
A long white beard descended from his chin;
A sudden awe thrills through my every limb;
He stops, abrupt, beside a purling stream,
Where chaste Diana kissed the silver wave.
Fair in the azure chambers of the east,
His raptured eyes beheld the radiant maid;
The spangled constellations of the heavens,
Lost in surprise, astonishment, he viewed;
“These are thy works, eternal Father; thine
“Nature's great altar of unceasing praise,
“Raised in the temple of unbounded space!
“Blest be that God who smiled upon my birth,
“Whom sent a guardian angel from the sky
“To snatch me from the wreck, which threats the world,
“Amid these lone retreats, to range the stars,
“Those gems, that with unsullied lustre shine,
“To grace the crown of high Omnipotence.”
He ceas'd; his lips in faltering silence hung;
But silence spoke, devotion was not dumb.
The tear of gratitude gush'd from his eye,
And the pure transport melted all his soul.

Hail, bright Philosophy, thy pages ne'er
Could boast a fairer dignity to man!

Of morals pure, and of a heart sincere,
In him the virtues, all resplendent, shone.
“Yon river,” spoke the sage, “which foams along,
“Its waves perplexed, by craggy rocks enraged,
“Points to my eye the picture of the world,
“Where care corrodes all happiness below.
“From the tumultuous scenes of worldly strife,
“Where pride's gay, tinsel train, in fashion's sun,
“Bask like the butterfly, a day to charm,
“To these green bowers, and rural groves I came,
“And sought retirement in her native shade.
“The heaven which mortals vainly seek below,
“In earthly gew-gaws, and in princely state,
“May here be found, if earth a heaven produce.
“By contemplation led, we walk on high;
“And here by fond anticipation taste
“That bliss, which virtue shall hereafter crown.
“While Nature's laws direct the starry world,
“And mortals think they're wise if skill'd in these,
“Let sages, more contemplative, unite,
“To adorn mankind, the virtues to display,
“Those stars, which glitter in the moral sky.
“The voice of Nature is the voice of praise;
“Yon orbs but shine, our gratitude to raise.”

He ceas'd; for admiration then began,
And honoured with a tear the pride of man.

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF BOWDOIN.

“Pallida more æquo pede pulsat pauperum tabernas,
“Regumque turres.”
Hor. 4th ode, 1st book.

Death's dread decrees must be obeyed;
Grim king, inexorably just!
That arm, which strikes the humble shed,
Levels the palace with the dust.

[_]

[Written Feb. 13, 1791]

Pale is the mournful eye of setting day;
The gloomy fields in weeds of woe appear;
O'er the dim lawn dread horror bends his way,
And solemn silence bids the mind revere.

Beneath thick glooms the distant landscape fades;
The sad moon weeps o'er yon funeral ground;
Hark! the dull rippling stream the ear invades;
The soul, wild staring, startles at each sound!

What ghastly phantoms round me seem to rise!
With this just lecture on their tongues they come;
In yonder spot Fame's great colossus lies;
A Bowdoin moulders in the humble tomb!

How short the fleeting hour assigned to man!
To Virtue's nobler charge the task is given,
Beyond the grave to extend the narrow span,
And gain a blest eternity in heaven.

Yes, 'tis a glorious truth, that man, refined
From all the impurities of sordid clay,
No more an exile on vile earth confined,
Shall shine amid the stars of endless day.

Hark! the sad voice of death, with solemn sound,
Calls from their distant caves the sleeping gales!
The gales with sighs the awful voice resound,
And tears of grief bedew the echoing vales.

Across the fields see heavenly Virtue stray;
Philosophy, dejected at her side,
And Love celestial bend their pensive way,
And give free vent to grief's impetuous tide!

Mid the dark melancholy walks of death,
Towards a stately monument they rove;
And hang on the tomb their votive wreath,
A wreath with mingled honours fondly wove.

From realms of purest happiness they flow,
To adorn the grave where their dear votary slept;
The world they found suffused in tears of woe,
And feeling for its loss in pity wept.

Around the tomb the heavenly spirits stand,
In all the plaintive eloquence of grief;
“Here rest in peace, thou patriot of thy land,
“Sage of the world, and Virtue's darling chief!”

“Let spring immortal o'er thy ashes bloom;
“To thee let earth the laurelled wreath resign;
“The ivy and the olive deck the tomb;
“For valour, eloquence, and peace were thine!”

“Well may thy friends bedew thy hallowed urn,
“Ambition weep, despairing of thy fame;
“Well may thy country o'er thy relicks mourn,
“And wondering earth immortalize thy name.”

Weep o'er the grave, which Bowdoin's dust entombs;
In him such splendid traits their charms unite,
Like the bright lamp, which heaven and earth illumes,
He shone the sun of philosophick light!

In him the patriot virtues all combined;
In him was Freedom's voice divinely heard;
Soft grace and energy adorned his mind,
And constellated excellence appeared.

How oft have senates on his accents hung,
And viewed the blended powers of genius meet,
In flowing musick, melting from his tongue,
Strong, without rage, and without flattery, sweet.

When Massachusetts' patriot sages met,
To snatch from fate their country's falling name,
His arm, like Jove's, upreared the sinking state,
And raised a pillar in the dome of fame.

His noble soul no selfish motive fired;
His country's glory was his godlike aim;
In danger prudent, resolute, admired;
And every action but enhanced his fame.

Beneath his friendly wing the muses found
A father, smiling on-their infant lyre;
There Art and Science were with bounty crowned,
And Learning owned a Bowdoin for her sire.

In him rejoiced the sons of want and grief;
From him the streams of social friendship ran;
With generous pity, and with kind relief,
He traversed life in doing good to man.

O'er life's broad sea he spread his full blown sail,
Secure amid wild faction's stormy roar;
By wisdom guided, caught the flying gale,
And gained the port, eternal glory's shore.

Justly to celebrate his deathless praise,
No muse, like ours, can string her grateful lyre;
Nor even Pindar such bold notes could raise,
Nor to the sun on waxen wings aspire.

When in the field resistless Hector met,
To express he conquered, we but say he fought;
Suffice it then the ear of fond regret,
To tell that Bowdoin always nobly thought.

Sprung from a race, to nought but virtue born,
Advanced by industry to pomp and state;
Yet he, beholding these with eyes of scorn,
Rose above fame, and dared be truly great.

Long have we hoped kind Temperance would wield,
To guard her favourite, her defensive arms;
Around his honoured life would spread her shield,
And long secure him by its potent charms.

But, ah! fallacious hopes! Oh sweet deceit!
Dear, flattering dream, which partial Fancy wrought
In Friendship's loom, who, with fond pride elate,
Viewed the rich texture of illusive thought!

Imperial Reason, weeping o'er his fate,
Hurled from her empire, rules his breast no more.
Where is that voice, which saved a falling state,
Which charmed the world, and taught e'en foes t' adore?

When wintry time's tempestuous billows roar,
O'er the dark storm Death spreads his horrid wings;
Swept are proud empires from the foaming shore,
And beggars mingle in one grave with kings.

Where are the splendours of the Attick dome?
Where haughty Carthage, towering to the sky?
Where the tall columns of imperial Rome?
In the vile dust, where pride is doomed to lie.

Bowdoin, the glory and delight of all,
The prince of science, Misery's feeling friend,
Bedecked with blooming honours, too must fall,
And to the mansions of the grave descend.

Could human excellence, with power sublime,
Charm from barbarian Death's destructive hand
The ruthless scythe of all destroying Time,
Bowdoin were still the senate of the land.

But greatly smiling in his latest breath,
Like Phœbus blazing from his western throne,
His soul, unconquered, through the clouds of death
More radiant beamed, and more divinely shone.

Ye mournful friends, suppress the bursting tear;
Bowdoin is gone his native skies to claim:
Forgive the youth, who, weeping o'er his bier,
In this fond verse inscribes his sacred name.

[Blest be the sage, whose voice has sung]

“Know then thyself; presume not God to scan;
“The proper study of mankind is man.”
Pope's Essay on Man.

[_]

[Written March 23, 1791.]

Blest be the sage, whose voice has sung,
And to the world such counsel given!
Sure 'tis an angel's warning tongue,
The language of benignant Heaven!

When first in Eden's roseate bowers,
Gay, youthful Nature held her throne,
Around her tripped the blithesome Hours,
And all the Loves and Graces shone.

Celestial Virtue saw the dame,
Enthroned amid her joyful band,
And glowing with Affection's flame,
He blushed, he sighed, and asked her hand.

Struck with his tall, majestick form,
His rosy cheek, his sparkling eye,
Her breast received a strange alarm,
And unsuppressed, returned the sigh.

At Hymen's shrine no vows are paid,
For mutual love their hearts unites;
Carols were sung from every shade,
And Eden echoed with delights.

At length, their pleasures to complete,
Fair Happiness their amours blest;
Gay was her form, her temper sweet,
And mildest charms adorned her breast;

Mild as the bosom of the lake,
When Zephyr from the western cave
Dares not the level chrystal break,
And breathes a perfume o'er the wave.

But joy on eagle pinions flies;
Thus oft in June's resplendent morn,
When golden lustre paints the skies,
Thick lowering clouds the heavens deform.

Beneath the earth's dark centre hurled,
Where on their grating hinges groan
The portals of the nether world,
Apostate Vice had raised her throne.

A spirit of angelick birth;
But blemished now with blackest stains,
Degraded far below the earth,
To realms, where endless darkness reigns.

Far from his ebon palace strayed
This fiend to earth with giant pace;
His eyes a lurid frown displayed,
And horror darkened all his face.

Through Eden's shady scenes he roves;
A sweetly warbling voice he hears;
When, lo, beneath the distant groves,
Nature in sportive dance appears!

He saw, he gazed with rapture warm,
Resolved to gain the fair one's heart;
His haggard, foul, disgusting form,
He decks in all the charms of art.

His face, o'erclouded late with gloom,
His limbs, in tattered garb arrayed,
Assumed the flush of youthful bloom,
The pomp of regal robes displayed.

Dazzling with gems, a crown he bore;
'Twas grace his easy motions led;
A gentle smile his features wore,
And round a sweet enchantment spread.

From his smooth tongue sweet poison flowed;
Fair Innocence, her careless heart
Decoyed, forsook her native road,
Lost in the wilderness of art.

Sad tears and bosom-rending sighs
The mournful nymph pours forth in vain;
Vain are the streams of Sorrow's eyes,
To wash away the crimson stain.

Hopeless she wandered and forlorn,
In bitterest woe; her plaintive tale
Was heard, the echo of the lawn,
And the sad ditty of each gale.

While thus she roved in deep disgrace,
Her bosom torn with conscious shame,
An infant from the foul embrace
Is born, and Misery is her name.

Her eyes emit a haggard glare;
Her mien a savage soul expressed;
With grim Medusa's snaky hair;
And all the father stood confessed.

The groves, which once, in green array,
The admiring eye attentive kept,
No more appeared in verdure gay;
And Eden's fading beauties wept.

Pale was the sun, with clouds obscure;
Wild Lamentation mourned in vain
To cleanse the soul, with guilt impure,
And reinstate the golden reign.

Beauty 's a flower of early doom,
Exposed to all the intrigues of art;
For when is lost its tender bloom,
The thorn is left, a bleeding heart.

Triumphant Vice to his drear courts
Returns to rule the infernal plains;
There Misery with her sire resorts,
To forge for man her torturing chains.

But Virtue, to redeem the earth,
In Eden opes his tranquil seats;
Asylum safe of injured worth,
Here Happiness with him retreats!

Virtue and Vice, with clashing sway,
The empire of the world divide;
Vice oft deludes the feet astray,
But Virtue is the surest guide.

Vice, in whose form no grace is seen,
Assumes detested Flattery's guise;
Veils in a smile her hideous mien,
And captivates weak mortal eyes.

While Virtue, in each beauty decked,
In spotless purity arrayed,
Our wandering footsteps would direct,
But blinded man disdains his aid.

Severe Experience soon will learn
The stubborn bosom to repent;
The opened eyes too late discern,
What they must then in vain lament.

But see a kind deliverer rise!
Her feeling breast Compassion warms,
To purge this film from mortal eyes,
And strip delusion of its charms.

Behold Self-Knowledge quits the skies!
Ithuriel's magick spear she bears;
From her approach pale Error flies,
And all the mind's dark host appears.

Disrobed of all his borrowed plumes,
Gay Vice no more the eye allures;
While Virtue's native lustre blooms,
And with its charms the soul secures.

The wreath of once triumphant Vice
Now withers on his languid head;
No more his guiles the world entice,
For, with his fraud, his charms are fled.

Ye, whose excursive souls pretend
The Almighty's boundless power to scan;
Whose thoughts against the heavens contend,
Nor stoop to earth to think on man;

Who, like the lion in his cave,
Or eagle on his rocky height,
With swelling pride austerely grave,
Frown modest Virtue from your sight;

Who proudly view with scornful eyes
The tender scenes of social love;
Contemning Friendship's dearest ties;
The imps of self-dependent Jove;

Hear, learned fools: When life shall end,
Like the light cinders of a scroll,
Will stars or spheres from heaven descend,
To comfort your desponding soul?

Virtue alone can smooth the brow
Of haggard Death with smiles of joy;
Persuasive lead the sons of woe
To pleasures, which can never cloy.

Be Virtue then by all caressed!
Virtue the glooms of life will cheer;
With eye impartial search thy breast,
While Virtue lends a listening ear.

[Ye, who enjoy the bliss of social ease]

“Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto.”
Terence, Heaut:

I am a man, and interested in all the concerns of humanity.

[_]

[Written April 13, 1791.]

Ye, who enjoy the bliss of social ease,
Who drink the sweets of Freedom's passing breeze,
Taught by your fortune, learn, with generous mind,
To soothe the woes, and feel for all mankind.

While Pride's imperial sons in splendour vie,
And with a meteor glare delude the eye;
While bold Ambition copes for deathless fame,
That tinsel glitter of a glorious name;
Behold the generous soul, who feels for man,
The great adherent to the Saviour's plan,
In the dark cell of languid woe appear,
And the sad heart with smiling bounty cheer;
Or in the cruel dungeon's dreary shade,
Where stern Oppression fettered millions laid,
Hear his mild voice amid the lurid gloom,
Recall the fleeting spirit from the tomb!

Sweet are the pleasures, that from love arise;
Sweet the warm rapture, when, with eager eyes,
And swelling with the gairish hopes of youth,
Young genius springs to clasp a long sought truth;

But more extatick joys, those scenes impart,
When flowing from a warm and grateful heart,
The sweet eulogiums of relieved distress
The generous heart with pleasing transport bless.
Hail, kind Philanthropy, thou friend of earth,
Creation's mildest, fairest, noblest birth!
Bright are thy features, as the blush of even,
And more complacent than the smile of heaven.
Sweet is the musick, which thy voice distils,
As the soft murmurs of the purling rills;
More gladly echoed through Misfortune's ear,
Than the blithe carols of the vernal year.
Benignant parent of the tear and sigh!
Heaven-born Benevolence, whose gracious eye,
By pity fired, the blandest smile bestows,
That cheers this gloomy scene of mortal woes.

When savage Nature her dominion kept,
And each mild Virtue in oblivion slept,
Then pale eyed Misery and Oppression rose,
And plunged mankind adown the abyss of woes.
Dire Rage and War around the nations strode,
And Havock grimly smiled o'er seas of blood.
The dearest ties of love were stained with gore,
And Peace and Friendship ruled the world no more.

The sprightly virgin in her tender bloom,
Torn from her lover's arms, by cruel doom,
With tears of anguish, trickling from her eyes,
O'er his dear marble bids the cypress rise.

Stript of the solace of their aching hearts,
Those tender ties, which social love imparts,
See hoary sires, around the funeral bier,
In silent sorrow drop the mournful tear!
Brutal barbarians, with stern pride elate,
Trampling on every right of civil state;
Traitors to every law of gracious Heaven,
By Nature's voice to all her children given;
Unfeeling monsters, tyranny their creed,
Who never blushed but at a virtuous deed,
With wanton fury kept the world in awe;
Their sword was justice, and their nod was law.

But, to relieve the miseries of man,
Benevolence on earth her reign began.
Of heavenly birth the virgin goddess shone,
And all the virtues hovered round her throne.
But scarce the precepts of her friendly tongue,
To hostile realms the sweets of peace had sung,
And strove with warm persuasion to control
The warring passions of each barbarous soul;
When, lo, a monster from his Stygian cave
Laid the mild virgin in the silent grave.
'Twas Persecution, whose dread right hand bore
A flaming faulchion, wet with human gore.
Detested Bigotry, (oh foul disgrace!)
And blinded Ignorance, of monkish race,
To this blood-thirsty, hellish fiend gave birth,
Who with such miseries scourged the groaning earth.
Cursed be the bigot, whose religious light
Comes through the medium of a jaundiced sight!

Lo, Superstition fills the papal throne,
And guiltless victims at her footstool groan!
Lo, Death proscribes each disbeliever's head;
See, on the rock their tortured limbs are spread;
Their strained nerves tremble to each mangling blow;
Hark, the soul-piercing shrieks of dying woe!
Stroke follows stroke until they move no more,
And streams of blood gush out from every pore.

Yet in the storm of this tempestuous time,
When Superstition fostered every crime;
When servile priests pronounced with impious tongue,
Nor understood the jargon which they sung;
When Romish bigots, who made nations bleed,
Knew not the letters, which composed their creed;
E'en then, in Albion's soil, a glorious few,
To virtue's cause, to freedom's interest true,
With anxious toil preserved from total night
Mild toleration's feebly glimmering light.
But short, alas, her empire in the land,
Where factious nobles bear supreme command!

As the faint splendour of the solar beam,
When vapours intercept the golden stream,
Emits through thin, transparent clouds a blaze,
Which on some distant spire in triumph plays;
But while the eye admires the partial ray,
The pale and watery lustre melts away;
Thus transient, all the milder virtues fled,
And kind Compassion veiled her tender head,
Till true Religion, with that magick power,
Which bade old Ocean's billows cease to roar,

Benevolence raised from her mouldering tomb,
And bade new laurels on her brow to bloom.

All hail, Columbia; to thy western skies,
Where sacred Freedom's lofty temples rise,
The virgin goddess bends her azure flight,
On the fleet pinions of diffusive light!
She comes, with love's fervescent rays t' illume
The vale of woe, and cheer its awful gloom;
To snatch mankind from the cold arms of Death,
And reinspire with being's transient breath.

But, ah! will ye, who fought in Freedom's cause,
To die in battle, or defend her laws;
Will ye, when Fortune has your efforts crowned,
And deathless laurels round your temples bound;
Will ye, such bold achievements now disgrace,
Nor grant your freedom to all human race?
Shall the poor Africk blot your rising fame,
And sue for freedom with neglected claim?
In the dark cell, where anguish turns with pain
His tortured limbs, indented with the chain,
See Æthiopia's sons, because the day
Upon their skin has glanced too warm a ray
From social joy, from their dear native land,
By Fraud's ungenerous artifice trepanned,
Far to the west o'er swelling surges borne,
In slavish toil a life of woe to mourn!
Blush, blush, vile despots, who, for lucre's sake,
Through every natural bond of freedom break!
Although with honour crowned, Columbia's name
May sound eternal through the trump of Fame;

Though shouting millions her new system boast,
By Solons planned, t' unite her jarring host;
Yet while the Africk clanks Oppression's chain,
And these unfeeling, brutal tyrants reign,
Though decked with all the splendid charms of state.
Her blemished character can ne'er be great.

Hail glorious æra, when the genial rays
Of mild Philanthropy in one broad blaze
Shall round the world benignant lustre dart,
And warm the haughty tyrant's frozen heart,
When Africk's millions shall to freedom rise,
And with loud rapture rend the yielding skies;
Columbia's eagle then, with wings unfurled,
Shall shadow with its plumes the subject world.

[Vice lives coeval with the age of time]

[_]

[Written August 24, 1791.]

Vice lives coeval with the age of time,
A Syren form, enchantress half divine.
Before yon sun, in youthful splendour clad,
Illumed with sportive beams the new-born earth;
Before the planets round their reverend sire
Through Heaven's wide plains performed their mystick dance;
Even then among the sapphire thrones of God,
Skilled in Egyptian herbs and magick lore,

The nymph bewitching came; her tuneful voice,
Sweet warbling, drew the thronging seraphs round;
And while they seemed delighted with the song,
The artful traitress, with Circassian smile,
Gave the full bowl of poison to their lips;
They quaffed; and soon perceived its magick power
Invade, inveigle, and subdue their souls.

Thus by her perfidy betrayed, they fell
Down the dark dungeon of Almighty wrath,
Where flames sulphureous flash a livid glare,
And ravenous vultures on their vitals prey,
Which undiminished grow, nor aught consume;
Thus an eternity of years to groan,
Cursing in penal fire the treacherous wretch,
Who led their daring spirits to rebel.

When thus her power innumerous saints subdued,
To earth she came, and in the breast of man
Instilling poison sweet, and lawless wish
To rob the central tree of Paradise,
Drove him, an exile from the realms of joy.
O'er earth's wide plains, inhospitable wilds,
Where crags menace defiance to the sky;
Through forests, deepened with Carpathian gloom,
Where midnight deaths in secret ambush lie;
O'er scenes like these, with Providence his guide,
He roamed unfriended, hopeless and forlorn;
In contemplation sad of follies past;
Lamenting oft, in bitterness of soul,
The fatal taste of the forbidden tree.
Without the embellishments and aid of art,

The earth exhibited a dreary waste.
No lofty cities, then, with glittering spires
And massy walls of mountain rocks composed,
Reared their tall turrets, and with Atlas vied,
Who should sustain the starry vault of heaven.
No rural hamlet, then, with peaceful shades,
And groves in verdure of perennial bloom,
Oft kissed with rapture by the sportive gale,
Courted the wretched traveller's weary feet
To the sweet blessings of a frugal board.
'Twas his to wander mid tenebrious wilds,
Where deeply grave, majestick Horror reigns;
Where savage beasts so fiercely yell and roar,
That Sol, affrighted at the dismal sound,
Ne'er dared to dart within the dreary scene
A single ray to dissipate the shade.
Such were the horrors of his vagrant path,
And such the woes, which disobedience brought;
Through all his race the dire contagion ran;
Disease and want and treachery filled the earth.

What rending grief must wound our parent's breast,
When erst from Paradise his feet were driven;
What heart-felt torture must his bosom sting,
Then to reflect, that, for his fault alone,
Ages of ages of his sons unborn
Should suffer all the pangs of guilt and woe,
Hear the dire curse, which his own follies wrought,
And feel the lash of wrath, which he provoked.

Perhaps, elate on Fancy's darling wing,
(For she with wretched mourners is a guest)

He oft beheld on life's tempestuous tide,
His offspring struggling with the adverse surge,
Wrecked on adversity's Charybdian coast;
Now borne aloft upon the swelling surge,
Now plunging headlong down the dark abyss,
Where boiling quicksands rave with madding foam,
And pour through parting waves their oozy surf;
Where sea-green caves, like sepulchres appear,
To catch the spirit, fainting with fatigue.
While raging seas in mad rebellion rise,
And rocks and winds and bellowing oceans war;
While daring surges lift their heads to heaven,
Loud thunders, bursting with tremendous roar,
Roll through the quaking sky their muttering wrath;
The hapless strugglers on the briny deep,
Each effort vain, and whelmed in dark despair,
Their eyes erect to heaven with languid look,
Upbraid the parent, author of their woes,
And, cursing Adam, sink to rise no more.
Such were perhaps the scenes, our common sire
With self-accusing fancy sadly drew;
And with the bitterest grief, that mortals feel,
Bemoaned the deed irrevocably cursed.

Cease, tender parent, thy invective plaint;
No more thy breast with lamentations wound;
Oh, wipe the dark suspicion from thy soul,
That e'er thy race could with ungenerous voice
Pronounce a curse upon thy reverend head!
Sooner shall Winter in his frigid arms
Embrace the blooming Spring, the type of heaven;
Sooner the turtle, when the parent dove

Has built her nest in insalubrious spot,
Oft ravaged by the fierce rapacious foe,
Forget the author of its tender life,
And cease to coo the harmless notes of love.

Long as the blue-waved seas, in lucid lapse,
Shall roll majestick through the caverned earth;
Long as the year shall blossom with the spring,
With summer ripen, and with autumn yield;
Long as the sun, the powerful king of day,
Shall ride triumphant in his car of light;
Till Nature's self shall droop with hoary age,
And sleep, low mouldering, in her silent tomb,
Formed of the mighty wrecks of falling worlds;
Till then thy name shall pervagrate the earth,
Herald of Love, and monitor of Heaven.

ON SENSIBILITY.

Sprightly and gay as love, as pure as truth,
The soul of beauty, and the pride of youth,
Demands my song; while my infantine muse
On waving wing, the heaven-born theme pursues.

No tuneful choir, who haunt Pieria's shade,
Do I invoke to lend their sacred aid;
My muse would beg alone Maria's smile,
To inspire her numbers and reward her toil,
And proud I'll feel, if Mary's hand bestow
Her favourite myrtle on my honoured brow.

When first mankind obeyed tyrannick sway,
The softer virtues in oblivion lay;
Then pale Affliction with her iron rod,
And Carnage dire around the nations strode.
Man sunk to vile debasement's lowest grade,
And lived “with beasts joint tenants of the shade.”
That fond endearing love which Nature formed,
Which one each breast to social friendship warmed,
Which once to generous deeds the world inspired,
To deeds which listening ages have admired,
No more prevailed, but lust, revenge and ire,
With brutal fury set the world on fire.
Tyrants and kings their lawless empire spread,
And from the sanguine earth the Virtues fled.
Though whelmed in woe and misery severe,
Such as e'en Nero must have wept to hear;
Though torn from all the objects of their love,
By dread seclusion, by a long remove;
Yet such was man's degenerate groveling state,
He added torture to the wounds of fate.
The generous fervour of the social flame
Was now unknown, or only known in name.
Pale-eyed Despair now raised her ebon throne,
And Pity knew no sorrows but her own.

Without a friend to calm his throbbing heart,
And from his breast to wrench Misfortune's dart,
Each in himself beheld his last resort,
Too weak, too frail his sorrow to support;
No generous tear bemoaned another's grief,
No friendly sympathy bestowed relief;
Tyrants beheld their easy victims fall,
And one wide common grave threat death to all.
But, to relieve the miseries of man,
Sweet Sensibility her reign began;
Beneath the mildness of her gentle reign,
The smiling virtues blessed the earth again;
Candour and Friendship, sweet ethereal pair,
Dispelled the lurid clouds of dark despair;
Those realms, which in the shades of darkness lay,
Shut from the light of learning's splendid day,
Or in the vale of misery, distressed
With every woe, that grieves a mortal breast,
With heart-felt joy perceived Compassion near,
From Sorrow's eye to wipe her bursting tear,
And mid the dungeon's insalubrious gloom,
Beheld the rose of consolation bloom.
Sweet Sensibility, pure is thy sway,
As the clear splendours of Hesperian day;
Bright is thy form, as when the clouds of even,
Enchase with flaming gold the azure heaven;
Soft is thy bosom, as the silver waves,
When gentle zephyrs, from their western caves,
Breathe a mild perfume o'er the rippling stream,
Which smiles effulgent in the solar beam.
Prompt is this breast, the wretched to release,
To allay his suffering with the voice of peace;

Thy love unbounded, as the boundless day,
Glows with the warmth of summer's noontide ray;
From thy kind tongue the sweetest honey flows,
To soothe the anguish of our bitterest woes.
When the dread king of terrors' ruthless dart,
Arrests a fond companion's bleeding heart,
And rifles youth of all his vernal bloom,
And lays the aged in the mouldering tomb;
When weeping virgins mourn a tender mate,
The hapless victim of a cruel fate;
When youthful lovers o'er their fair one's grave,
The funeral turf with briny sorrows lave;
When Hope no longer cheers their streaming eyes,
And drear despair's impervious clouds arise;
Then, Sensibility, thy power is known,
Thou never leav'st the wretch to weep alone.
With mild Persuasion's gently pleasing strain,
You love to ease his bosom-rending pain,
And, while the mourner lends a patient ear,
You answer sigh for sigh, and tear for tear;
Till, by the magick sympathy of woe,
His wounds are healed, his sorrows cease to flow!
Hail, Sensibility! thou soul of love,
'Tis thine the various scenes of bliss to prove;
The tear, we shed upon another's grief,
The woes, we suffer for our friend's relief,
Afford more pleasure to the feeling heart,
Than all the pomp and pride of wealth impart!
The silken sons of luxury and ease,
With vain magnificence, the crowd may please;
The chief, victorious, quits the embattled ground,
The blood-stained laurels round his temples bound;

The marble bust may tell to future age,
Some glorious villain on the present stage!
But what are riches, but an empty name?
And what is glory, but the toy of fame?
What is the mighty laurel, gained in fight?
To this the private murderer has a right.
Envy, the brightest character may rust;
The loftiest monuments are laid in dust;
Lo, brazen statues moulder and decay,
And hoary Time sweeps all the world away!
Then, where is glory, where the proud and great?
Where is the tyrant with his pomp and state?
Beggars and kings are destined to one grave;
Death deals alike to monarch and to slave.
Then learn, O man, to traverse out the year
Of fleeting life, which Heaven has lent thee here.
Be prompt to offer, with a kind relief,
The friendly pillow for the sons of grief.
Let feeling sympathy for every woe,
Which groaning mortals suffer here below,
Let Sensibility with heavenly fire,
With generous charity, thy soul inspire;
That, when pale Death this dreary scene shall close,
Millions may shout thee from this world of woes.
This is the noblest monument of praise,
Which human excellence on earth can raise;
This is the trophy, which with power sublime
Shall baffle all the wrath of hoary time.
But why, my muse, dost thou with daring wing,
Attempt so great, so bold a theme to sing?
Lo! in Amelia's breast the charms you tell
In sweet complacence and perfection dwell;

Maria, too, the feeling throb has known;
There Sensibility erects her throne.
Though beauty deck the fair external form
With all the elegance of every charm;
Though sense and virtue in the soul combine,
And like the stars in bright resplendence shine;
If Sensibility, that lovely guest,
Should prove a stranger to the virgin breast,
Beauty and sense and virtue must appear
But sounding names, which only fops revere;
Like some fair image, which the mimick strife
Of Sculpture's hand has made resembling life,
Which wants that nervous vigour to acquire,
That spreads through every limb the vital fire;
But Sensibility, the queen of grace,
Soft, as Amelia's sweetly blooming face,
From every stain the heavy soul refines,
And with a smile in every feature shines;
To every charm a milder beauty lends,
The fairest form with fairer tints amends;
A gentle mildness to the breast imparts,
Attracts, enchants and captivates our hearts;
Sprightly and gay as love, as pure as truth,
The soul of beauty, and the pride of youth.

A PASTORAL

[_]

[Written April 10, 1790.]

The shades of night with sleep had fled away;
Heaven's rising scale now flamed with new-born day;
Now fragrant roses plumed the crest of dawn,
And tears of joy arrayed the smiling lawn;
The early villagers had left their beds,
And with their flocks had whitened all the meads.

Beneath the embowering covert of a grove,
Whose blooming bosom courts the smiles of love,
Melodious songsters tuned their warbling strains,
And charmed the satyrs and admiring swains.
So soft their notes, that Echo silent hung,
And Zephyr ceased to breathe, to hear the song;
Shepherds, to join the tuneful war, forsook
Their native shade and left their peaceful crook;
The choral song awaked each rising day,
And larks forgot to sing their matin lay.

Long had young Corydon, outvied by none,
The ivy wreath from all his rivals won;
Till, from a mountain's side, whose lofty brow
Whitens with pride, and spurns the plains below,
Young Damon, versed in polished numbers, came,
And claimed the laurel of Aonian fame.

No sooner morn had cheered the skies with light,
And modest fields blushed from the embrace of night,
Than Corydon and Damon sung their loves,
And the sweet notes breathed softly through the groves.

DAMON.
Hark! how the birds from every blossom sing,
And early linnets hail the purple spring!
Melodious notes ascend from every spray,
And vocal forests wake the dawning day;
Spring trips the meads, and opes the sky serene,
And gentle breezes cool the pleasing scene.
When one soft chorus purls from crystal streams,
Tunes Nature's harp and murmurs joyful hymns;
Why sit we idle, when all nature's gay,
And lively Fancy gilds the morning ray?

CORYDON.
Our flocks together graze the flowery plain;
Sing then, while I attentive hear the strain:
But let no mournful song your voice employ;
Spring's florid pencil paints no scenes but joy.
No stake I offer, for a bribe can fire
No minds, but such as vulgar thoughts inspire.
Begin the song, for now the crocus glows,
And toiling bees explore the flagrant rose.

DAMON.
Ye Mantuan daughters, leave your cooling shades,
Where lavish Science all her flowerets spreads;
Come with your needed aid, inspire my lays,
And fill the grove with fair Myrtilla's praise.

CORYDON.
Come then, great Worth, and teach me how to glow,
And with thy sweetness teach my verse to flow.
Come, my Constantia, and inspire my lays,
For thou alone sing'st equal to thy praise.

DAMON.
Ye vernal gales, who fanned the ambrosial grove,
Where first Myrtilla crowned my sighs with love,
On your soft wings let Damon's numbers float;
Ye feathered songsters, swell the echoing note;
Trees, whisper praises, and ye meads, look gay,
For fair Myrtilla warms the amorous lay.
When flaming Sirius robed Apollos' brow,
With fiercer heat and scorched the world below,
I saw the fair one, rambling o'er the meads;
The drooping willows reared their mournful heads,
The fainting birds again began to sing,
And smiling Nature fondly thought 'twas spring.
Not chaste Dictinna with her silver train
Appeared so graceful, or could cause such pain.
With eyes and feet averse she fled the green,
And turned to see if she had fled unseen.

CORYDON.
Here Spring's gay lap, once poured forth all its stores,
And Joy's soft breezes winged the rolling hours,
The brightening landscapes swelled with teeming grain,
And smiling Ceres plumed the floating plain.
But now no more these rural scenes delight,
Nor flowery prospects glad our raptured sight.

Constantia's gone; Spring paints the blooming meads,
But to confess, how she, without her, fades.
The noisy town attracts the fair one's eye,
To seek the pleasures of a milder sky.
Then droop, ye flowerets, for Constantia's gone,
And joy no more shall glitter on the thorn.
The bees may well forget their waxen store,
And beauteous nature smile in spring no more.
No more Arabian gales their odours shed,
Beauty and sweetness with Constantia's fled.
Elegiack ditties chant o'er Spring's sad urn,
And Philomel shall teach the woods to mourn.
The eve comes on, in solemn brown arrayed,
And weeps in dews that fair Constantia's fled.
Nectarean streams the oak forgets to yield,
And lurking tares o'errun the uncultured field.
The gales are taught to sigh; the waving reed
Trembles the ditty to the mournful mead.

DAMON.
The Muses haunt Parnassus' cooling groves,
And blooming Paphos courts the smiles and loves;
But if Myrtilla shall prefer the plain,
Here Venus smiles, and here the Muses reign.

CORYDON.
In spring the open lawn delights the eye,
And cooling groves, when Sirius fires the sky;
When Autumn purples o'er the fruitful field,
To pluck the fruits which trees luxuriant yield;
But in my heart one constant passion glows;
My love-sick breast none but Constantia knows

Come, visit then, my fair, the enamelled mead;
For thee the myrtle weaves its friendly shade.
Here crystal streams meander through the grove,
And every zephyr wafts the strains of love.
Come, lovely maid, more beauteous, than the morn,
And with your smiles these sylvan scenes adorn.
Though spring's return hath damasked o'er the field,
And in the rose her gayest plumes revealed,
Nature, to gain her own, must speak your praise,
She in your blush a fairer rose displays.
Come, my Constantia, leave the busy town,
And teach another Eden here to bloom.
To thee the feathered choir devote their lays,
And warble lavish musick in your praise.
When with your lyre you swell melodious songs,
E'en Orpheus owns to thee the wreath belongs.
The wolf shall fawn at thy soft tale of love,
And amorous trees shall crowd into a grove.
At thy return, the rose shall bloom again,
And breathe new fragrance o'er the joyful plain.
Autumn's rich cup shall pour its blissful stream,
And joy's bright nectar overlook the brim.
But, hark! yon hills resound a pleasing theme,
And frisking lambkins gambol to the hymn.
In vain, ye gales, that cool meridian heats,
Ye strive to hide from whence you stole your sweets.
Constantia comes; at that revered name,
Tygers forget to rage, and wolves grow tame.

DAMON.
To you the palm I yield; yours be the praise,
For 'tis Constantia, shines throughout your lays.

Hail, queen of Muses! now the tuneful Nine
Shall court thy smile, and in your praise combine.
But, hark! the plains the pleasing name resound;
Constantia's come, tunes all the vocal ground,
While her bright charms such joyful smiles diffuse,
To speak her worth, let silence hush the muse.
To give the fair her meritorious praise,
Numbers would fail, and sound itself must cease

[The unweeting swain, while Nature round him spreads]

The unweeting swain, while Nature round him spreads
Her rich luxuriance o'er the fertile meads,
By custom forced, assumes his native plough,
And feels no pleasure, but from labour flow,
But where proud Learning pours her golden blaze,
The curious eye the wondrous world surveys;
Sees thousand beauties paint the cheek of day,
And all Elysium glitter from a spray;
Sees craggy mountains rear their daring throne,
While suppliant vales the sovereign monarch own.
While gay confusion decks the varying scene,
What floods of glory burst from Heaven's bright mien.
What glittering gems adorn the crown of night;
The mind is lost in regions of delight!
Here rolls majestick, Dian's silver car;
Here heaven stooped down to embrace her brightest star,

When Newton rose, sublimely great, from earth,
And boldly spoke whole systems into birth.
Around the walls of heaven the planets roll,
And her resplendent pavements gild the pole.
Behold the son of wisdom joyful rise,
And wing his native element the skies;
See him, rejoicing, leave this mean abode,
And lost in rapture 'mid the thrones of God,
Unnumbered pleasures swell his heaving breast;
Words are too feeble, silence speaks the rest!

THE REFINEMENT OF MANNERS AND PROGRESS OF SOCIETY.

[_]

[An Exhibition Poem, delivered in the chapel of Harvard University, September 27, 1791.]

The natural world, by Heaven's stupendous plan,
Is formed an emblem of the life of man.
Vain is the wish, that Spring's Favonian reign,
With Autumn's golden stores, should crown the plain;
And vain the hope, in life's first dawn, to find
Those nerves of thought, that grace the ripened mind.
Nature, too proud in one poor garb to appear,
Varies her livery with the varying year.
Her laws, unchanged by Time's insidious power,
Unravel centuries or revolve an hour;

Her stated order, to the seasons given,
Rolls round with equal ease the stars of heaven.
Clothed from the wardrobe, blooms the roseate spring,
And warbling birds and harmless poets sing.
Prompted by her, the Muse, with doating eyes,
Beholds her callow plumes, and pants to rise;
With half-formed hopes, and fears ne'er felt before,
She spreads her fluttering wings, but dreads to soar.
But while old Autumn, on the fertile plain,
Totters and groans beneath the weight of grain;
While grateful peasants reap the bearded ear,
And golden Plenty crowns the fading year;
While Harvard's sons, whom Fame with smiles surveys,
Throng to the harvest of their well-earned praise;
May not the Muse, ambitious of a name,
Put in her sickle for one “sheaf” of fame?

Far from Pieria's sacred stream remote,
On half-strung lyre, she tunes her lisping note;
The rise of manners from their fount to trace,
From savage life, transformed, to social grace;
Till the rough diamond of the human mind,
By care assiduous, and by skill refined,
From all the blemish of its native stone,
In varied beams of polished brilliance shone.
This be her theme, and should her numbers fail,
So great a theme will prove a friendly veil.

The mind of man by gradual rise improves;
Ambition's noblest spring his bosom moves.
This prompts the soul with ardour to excel,
In thinking rightly or in acting well;

But when dark clouds the savage mind o'erspread,
Refinement droops, and Friendship's self is dead.
No more bright Reason in her zenith shines;
Down to the west the mental sun declines;
And sunk to vile debasement's lowest grade,
Man lives “with beast, joint tenant of the shade.”

Created life was formed for some great end;
A centre must be, where its motions tend.
As high as heaven its azure arch sustains,
Deep as the gloom, where dreary Chaos reigns,
Sublimely awful, and immensely great,
Is raised the firm, perennial wall of fate;
On the dark frontiers of creation laid,
Where boundless space extends a rayless shade.
Here Time's destroying arm in vain has strove,
The mighty fabrick from its base to move;
Here angels too, rebellious sons of light,
Once rose in arms to raze the bounds of night;
The solid rock resists their raging power,
The battering Aries, and the thundering ore;
Against the wall their harmless weapons break;
What God has raised, not earth and heaven can shake.

Two mighty barriers bound this transient span,
Barriers, too lofty for the stride of man;
Lucina here, sits smiling at his birth,
There Death, triumphant o'er the bleeding earth.
Lo! on the cradle's down the infant sleeps;
Lo! on its urn the tender parent weeps!
No human force can brave the assaults of age;
No strength of mind can shield the hoary sage;

The world is swept by time's impetuous wave,
And man flouts downward to the common grave.

To fill this fleeting hour, this narrow space,
With actions, worthy an immortal race;
To teach the rapid moments, as they fly,
Beyond the utmost ken of mortal eye,
To assume the smile of Virtue's placid mien;
With social pleasures sweeten every scene;
To form the manners, quell proud War's alarms,
And, wide extending Friendship's open arms,
With generous love to clasp in one embrace
The mighty household of the human race;
This is the task, the pleasing task of man;
The great perfection of Jehovah's plan;
This is the gate to Paradise below,
A safe asylum from each mortal woe.

Morals, like ore extracted from the mine,
Though crude at first, by art are taught to shine.
These to a nation a complexion give,
With these republicks fall, with these they live.
Nations with these in civil power increase,
In strength of war and all the sweets of peace.
To these the softer arts their polish owe,
From this vast fount the streams of science flow.
Here law and justice mutual sources find,
And hence the virtues, that adorn mankind.

But statesmen still o'erlook this mighty cause,
And modern Dracos trump their penal laws;

With lordly edicts rule a groaning state,
And trust that laws will humble souls create;
And, lest old Time should spy such gross defects,
Inverting nature, causes name effects.
When souls depraved the curule chair obtain,
And through the realm, the same great evils reign,
Can feeble laws the publick heart reform,
Exalt the morals and avert the storm?
Behold on high the amber tide of day,
Which rolls refulgent from the solar ray;
Rivers from springs, and seas from rivers flow;
From humble shrubs majestick forests grow;
The rising manners of an infant state
Will be the parent of its future fate.
These, like the living current of the heart,
Through every breast their vital influence dart;
Brace every nerve and man the dauntless soul,
Preserve each member and support the whole.
But when dread Vice, with her infectious stains,
Pollutes the blood, that warms the publick veins,
Corrosive poisons through the vitals roll,
Impair their vigour, and corrupt the soul.
Vice clogs the channels of the sanguine tide;
Virtue refines and bids the currents glide;
These arm with strength, or shrink the trembling nerve,
Destroy the body, or in health preserve.

Years have on years, on ages ages rolled,
But each new sun the same great truth has told;
That morals still a nation's fate comprise,
Sink to the earth, or lift it to the skies;

These swell the page experience has unfurled,
Exalt a throne, or crush a falling world;
Then hear, O Earth; with shouts applausive own
The voice of Time, through History's clarion blown!

When savage Nature her dominion kept,
And each mild Virtue in oblivion slept;
To scourge mankind a group of monsters rose,
And headlong plunged them down the abyss of woes.
Through barbarous hordes, dire War and Horror strode,
And Havock grimly smiled o'er seas of blood.
The dearest scenes of love were stained with gore,
And Peace and Friendship ruled the world no more.

Ferocious clans, whom natural wants provoke,
Whose necks ne'er groaned beneath a galling yoke,
Armed for the horrors of inhuman strife,
Aim the deep wound, and plunge the deadly knife,
Winged by the sweeping gale, their feet resound,
And scarcely print a vestige on the ground;
The dews, that glisten on the spiry grass,
Forget their dread, nor tremble as they pass;
Heaven's rapid steeds, the mighty winds submit,
And own the swifter motions of their feet.
Not with such fury drives the rattling hail,
As when these weapons fill the sounding gale;
O'er floods, o'er hills, their savage vengeance flies,
Like ocean storms, and lightens like the skies.
No fear of death their dauntless souls deplore;
Death is a friend when glory is no more.
Their thundering arms in victory's dazzling car,
Waged with the world a predatory war;

And, with whole rivers of fraternal gore,
Swelled ocean's waves to heights unknown before.
They followed conquest, where their sachems led,
And climbed to fame o'er mountains of the dead.

Still rose unfelled the forest's towering oak;
The plough was then unknown; unknown the yoke.
The soil uncultured gave no harvest birth;
Unlocked remained the granary of the earth.

The human soul, in this unpolished state,
Lay all benighted in the clouds of fate.
Unskilled in useful and instructive art,
A blinded frenzy raved in every heart.
No friendly scene then charmed the smiling eye;
No heart exulted in the social tie.
By wants surrounded, and to slaughter driven,
Lost was each semblance of the parent heaven.
Compared to man in this ferocious age,
Enthralled in darkness and unbridled rage,
Tygers no more a savage nature claim,
And howling wolves in all their wrath are tame;
E'en the fierce lion in his horrid den
Seemed a civilian to the monsters, men.

Such were the scenes, which savage ages saw,
When brutal frenzy waged fraternal war;
Nor modern days from these exemption claim;
Oh! Europe, blush, for thou hast seen the same!

Where sullen Russia's frowning turrets rise,
Bare to the fury of the northern skies,

Suspicion, Cruelty, Revenge resort,
The privy council of a tyrant's court.
At their dread bar a guiltless virgin led,
Fell on the shrine, where many a saint had bled;
Mild, as the evening, as the noon day, bright,
Pure and unblemished, as the stars of light.
The primrose, blushing on the fragrant heath,
Appeared a poppy to her sweeter breath;
The lily's self was blackness to her skin,
It shone reflected from her soul within.
While the full tear hung glistening in her eye,
The tyrant's voice decreed her fate,—to die!
Death at the sound his savage office cursed,
And scarce had heart to execute his trust.

Lo! now the virgin to the scaffold led,
A sweet complacence o'er her features spread!
The ministers of death, though old in blood,
Lost in surprise, in silent wonder, stood;
While she, too fair, too pure for Slander's breath,
Serenely smiled, and hailed the approach of death.
The moment came; on Fate's slow wheel it run;
Time saw, and dropped a tear, and rolled it on!
The moment came, and Death's barbarian crew
The snow-white mantle from her bosom drew.
Pale Fear with many a throb her bosom swelled,
And Hope, our last, our dearest friend, repelled.
Her cheek, which once of Parian marble shone,
Formed of the lily, and the rose full blown,
Now seemed a morning sky, with blushes spread,
Where trickling tears a glistening radiance shed;

While Modesty averts her bashful eye;
The sight would tempt an angel from the sky.

Now to the post her tender wrists are bound;
With cruel chains her body lashed around.
Her tears, her shrieks no hardened breast inspired;
No bosom throbbed; and Pity's self expired.

“I die,” the virgin cries, “without a stain;
“Guiltless I die, by dark injustice slain!”

Stung to the quick, lo! brutal Torture raves;
With foaming rage her iron cordage waves!
Her vengeful arm the horrid knout displays,
And, as exposed the virgin's bosom lays,
With mangling blows provokes the spouting gore,
While tears unseen, and shrieks unheard deplore;
Redoubled strokes the quivering members tear,
Strip off the flesh, and lay the vitals bare!
Ye Heavens! why sleeps the thunder in the sky?
Speak but the word, Barbarity shall die!
Being's great wheel revolves, and now deranged,
Lo! man and brute their rank have interchanged!
A sight so moving, bids no pangs arise
In man's hard breast; he views with smiling eyes;
While savage beasts in sympathy appear,
And roll in silent grief the gushing tear.
Rocks strive in vain their pity to conceal,
And, spite of nature, learn for once to feel.
E'en Heaven itself, when it from high beheld
A nymph, whose form her soul alone excelled,

Bear all the pangs, that Torture could bestow,
Dropped down a gracious tear to end her woe;
The tear descended from the world above,
From that pure region of eternal love,
Down to the blood-stained page of mortal life,
Where glared in crimson hate, revenge, and strife,
Wept, as it fell, the loss of virtuous shame,
And blotted from the scroll the virgin's name!

In this drear age, which ignorance o'erspread,
When Frenzy reared her snake-encircled head,
Mankind long grovelled in their native dust;
On their dark minds no glimpse of reason burst.
A gloomy film was spread o'er mortal eyes,
Like the thick veil, which shrouds the spangled skies,
When, dimly seen, the wandering fires of night
Through heaven's dark glass emit a watery light.
The earth, enveloped in the impervious gloom,
Appeared a dismal, solitary tomb.
Cimmerian Dulness seized the throne of Jove,
Convened her clouds, and thronged the vault above;
Till daring Genius burst surrounding night,
And shone the day-star of returning light;
Till Reason's sun in eastern clime appeared,
From heaven's blue arch the shrouding vapours cleared,
With plastick heat the soul of man illumed,
And all the mental world in verdure bloomed.

Ages of darkness now had rolled away,
Ere man, awakening, hailed the dawn of day;
E'er heaven-descended, soul-refining grace
Shone in the cralde of the human race.

In Ægypt first her youthful charms were seen,
To sport with rusticks on the Memnian green.
Here first her social powers on earth began,
To polish savages, and form the man;
Here first for use, and here for pleasure sought,
The various sources of instructive thought.

Here Agriculture claims her glorious birth;
Here first the ploughshare turned the furrowed earth;
Here bounteous Plenty beamed her infant smile;
And here immerged beneath the pregnant Nile
Her “cornu copiæ,” till it held no more,
And poured luxuriance round the Ægyptian shore.
The hardy swains with joyful hearts appear,
To reap the bounties of the fruitful year,
While waving crowns old Autumn's brows entwine,
The golden orange and the blushing vine.

Such are the blessings of indulgent skies,
When heaven in dews the thirsty glebe supplies;
When cultured furrows swell the implanted grain,
And vegetation crowns the gladsome plain.
From latent seeds the wealthiest harvests rise;
The sun must dawn, before he lights the skies.
Industrious virtue constant bliss enjoys;
For labour recreates, when leisure cloys.

Hail, Ceres! second parent of mankind!
Hail, great restorer of the human mind!
In fame's bright record be enrolled thy birth,
The era of regenerated earth!

Thy arm the tyrant from his throne has hurled,
And roused from slumber the lethargick world;
Thy hand broke off the shackles of control,
And gave new freedom to the imprisoned soul.
To thee the Arts their first existence owe,
And Commerce owns, from thee her sources flow.
Thy voice decreed; in heaven the voice was heard,
And sky-born Virtue on the earth appeared.
Thou bad'st the sightless mind of man to see,
And human nature seems renewed by thee!

Where auburn Ceres o'er the waving plain
Rolls her light car, and spreads her golden reign;
The swains industrious, and inured to toil,
Inclement Sirius, and the rugged soil,
With hope's fond dreams their swift-winged hours beguile,
And view in spring the embryo harvest smile;
Far from the cares, that gorgeous courts molest,
And all the thorns, that pageant pomp infest;
Contentment's wings o'erspread their straw-thatched cot,
And Health and Hymen bless their happy lot.
Day bounds the labour of the teeming soil,
And night unbends the aching nerves of toil.
The hard fatigues, that daily sweat their brows,
Add charms to rest, and raptures to repose;
Labour and Sleep vicissive thrones maintain,
The downy pillow, and the sun-burnt plain.
By mutual wants induced, the rustick band
Soon learn the blessings of a friendly hand.
The rugged hardships of the plough they share,
And soothe ferocious minds by mutual care.

Their social labour social warmth inspires,
And dawning friendship lights her purest fires.
Their generous breasts with growing ardour burn,
And love for love, and heart for heart return.
Thus private friendship forms the social chain,
And links the barbarous tenants of the plain.
Still, like a herd, they rove, with laws unblest,
No civil head to govern o'er the rest;
Till some wise sire, whose silver tresses flow,
And form a mantle of the purest snow,
Quivering with age, and venerably great,
Assumes the sceptre, and the chair of state.
The obedient tribes the palsied sage revere,
Whose wisdom taught them, both to love and fear;
Their filial breasts, unbought by courtly bribes,
With reverence see the father of the tribes;
His voice is fate, and not a lisp could fall,
That was not thought an oracle by all;
With eyes of homage, they beheld his age,
And called their realm the household of the sage.

Pleased with his reign, which met too soon a close,
The tribes beneath elective kings repose.
Now laws are formed to guard the rights of man,
And peace and freedom bless the social plan;
Now art, the offspring of the ingenious mind,
Completes the system and adorns mankind.

A VALEDICTORY POEM

[_]

[Delivered on the 21st of June, 1791, being the day when Mr. Paine and his class left College.]

Long have the zephyrs, in their sea-green caves,
Shunned the calm bosom of the slumbering waves;
While halcyon Pleasure nursed her tender brood,
Spread her smooth wings, and skimmed the tranquil flood.
The rising gale now curls the lucid seas;
The canvass wantons with the buoyant breeze;
The bark is launched; we throng the crowded shore,
Eye the dark main, and hear the billows roar;
The tender scene unfolds; our bosoms melt;
And silence speaks the throbs, we all have felt.
Here let us pause, and ere our anchors weigh,
And shoreless ocean bounds the vast survey,
Let Friendship, kneeling on the weeping strand,
Kiss her last tribute to her native land.

Sweet, lovely Cam, no more thy rural scenes,
Thy shady arbours, and thy splendid greens,
Thy reverend elms, thy soft Idalian bowers,
Thy rush-clad hamlets, and thy lofty towers,
Thy spicy valleys, and thy opening glades,
Thy falling fountains, and thy silent shades;
No more these dear delights, that once were ours,
Smile time along, nor strew our couch with flowers.

Hail, winding Charles, old Ocean's favourite son,
To his vast urn thy gay meanders run.
Diffusing wealth, thou rollest a liquid mine;
Earth drinks no current, that surpasses thine!
Thy cooling waves succeed the sleeping hearth,
The peasant's fountain, and the muses' bath.
Yet, fairest flood, adieu! our happy day
Like thy smooth stream, has flowed unseen away.
No more thy banks shall bear our sportive feet;
No more thy waves shall quench the dogstar's heat
Our fate reflected in thy face we view;
Thou hast thy ebb, and we must bid adieu!
Hail, happy Harvard! hail, ye sacred groves,
Where Science dwells, and lovely Friendship roves!
Ye tender pleasures, and ye social sweets,
Which softened life, and blessed these tranquil seats!
To part with you—a solemn gloom is spread;
The sigh half-stifled, and the tear half-shed.

Come then, my friends, and, while the willow weaves
A weeping garland with its drooping leaves,
Let Friendship's myrtle in the foliage flow,
And Wisdom's ivy wreath the shaded brow.
Life is a stage, with varied scenery gay,
But scenes more various mark the chequered play.
Virtue and Vice here shine in equal state,
The same their wardrobe, and the same their gait;
Here gay delusions cheat the dazzled eyes,
And bliss and sorrow intermingled rise.
The soil of life their equal growth manures;
One sky supports them, and one sun matures.

Deep in the bosom of each distant clime,
Their roots defy the furrowing share of time.
Alike they bloom, while circling seasons wing
The raving whirlwind and the smiling spring.
One luckless day the extremes of fate surveys,
And one sad hour sees both the tropicks blaze.

A bitter tincture every sweet alloys,
And woes, like heirs, succeed insolvent joys.
Hard is the lot of life, by fears consumed,
Or hopes, that wither, ere they well have bloomed!
Who breathes, may draw the death-infected air;
Who quaffs the nectar, must the poison share.
Untainted pleasures soon the taste would cloy;
Woe forms a relish for returning joy.
The raging storm gives vegetation birth;
And thunders, while they rock, preserve the earth.

Vain are the gilded dreams, that Fancy weaves,
With the light texture of the sybil's leaves.
Sweet are the hours of Life's expanding years,
When drest in splendour, every scene appears.
Romantick hopes illusive phantoms feed;
New prospects open as the old recede;
In flowering verdure, smiling Edens rise,
And isles of pleasure tempt the enamoured eyes;
Still unexplored new beauties strike the sight,
Till Fancy's wings grow weary in their flight.

Resplendent bubbles, decked with every hue,
Whose tints entrance the most enraptured view,

Throng every prospect, gild each rolling hour,
Frame the wild dream, and haunt the silent bower.
These airy forms our fond embrace decoy,
Elude our grasp, and stab expected joy;
Cameleon-like, with every hue they glare,
Their dress the rainbow, and their food the air.
Thus gleams the insect of a summer's night,
The glistering fire-fly's corruscating light.
Awhile it wheels its undistinguished flight
Through the dark bosom of impervious night,
'Till from its opening wings, a transient gleam
Smiles through the dark, and pours a lucid stream;
But while the glitter charms our gazing eyes,
Its wings are folded, and the meteor dies.

Maturer years in swift succession roll,
Enlarge the prospect and dilate the soul;
Tully outstripped lies grovelling in renown,
And Virgil weeps upon his faded crown.
Grouped in one view the extremes of life are joined,
Arabia's bloom with Lapland's ice combined;
Calypso's grotto with the field of arms;
Ajacian fury with Helenian charms;
Bright faulchions lighten in the olive grove,
And helmets mingle with the toys of love.
Here modest Merit mourned her blasted wreath,
While laurels crowned the ghastly scull of Death.
Here towering pedants proudly learnt to sneer
On wits, whom they had sense enough to fear;
The midnight lamp with native genius vied,
Mimicked its lustre, and its fire supplied.

The nuts of grace, the rattles of the stool
Bribed and adorned the blockhead of the school.
O'er Youth's gay paths delusive snares are spread;
Soft Syrens sing, and smile Resistance dead;
Ixion's fate forgot, the busy croud
Pursue a Juno, but embrace a cloud.
From Lethes' stream is filled the flowing bowl,
And sweet oblivion whelms the drowsy soul;
No screams of murdered Time its slumbers break,
And lounging Indolence forgets to wake.
Ease for a while may charm the dormant mind,
Pervert our reason, and our judgment blind;
But, soon, alas! the magick spell will fly,
And tears bedew Reflection's downcast eye.
Corrosive years one downy hour repay;
The bud, too forward, blossoms to decay.

With cherished flames the youthful bosom glows,
And Hope luxuriant in the hot-bed grows.
Self-flattering Fancy here her influence sheds,
Young genius blossoms, and its foliage spreads;
But if too fierce the sultry splendours shine,
And swelling growth distend the aspiring vine,
No skilful hand the excrescent limbs to prune,
At morn to water, and to shade at noon;
In wildly-fertile efflorescence rise
The encumbered branches, and the victim dies.

Thus burning skies o'er India's arid soil
In noblest verdure clothe each blooming isle,
While sickly vapours taint the scorching breeze,
Awake the earthquake, and convulse the seas;

The thirsty glebe exhausts each purling stream,
And Death in ambush glistens from each beam.

But nobler souls an equal temper know,
Nor soar too vainly, nor descend too low.
Heaven's angry bolt first strikes the mountain's head,
And sweeping torrents drench the lowly shed.
Heroick Worth, while nations rise and fall,
Securely propped, beholds this circling ball;
Like the firm nave, which nought can sink or raise,
The whirls of fortune's wheel unmoved surveys.

Ye watchful guardians of our youthful band,
Your worth our praise, your cares our love demand.
Long have your toils the parent's office graced,
Formed the young thought, and pruned the rising taste.
Infantile genius needs the fostering hand,
Its buds to open, and its flowers expand;
And bounteous Heaven this nursery has designed,
To rock the cradle of the infant mind.
Long have you slaked the thirst of ardent youth
From this clear fountain of untainted truth.
Faithful to censure, eager to commend,
To act the critick, and to feel the friend;
Watchful to lend unasking Merit aid,
And beckon modest Virtue from the shade;
These are the blessings, which your smiles bestow;
These are the wreathes, that crown your laureat brow;
And these, enrolled on Memory's faithful page,
Fame shall transcribe, and sound to every age.

And when grey Time shall knit the wrinkled brow,
And wintry age shall shed its mantling snow,
Some reverend father in the chair of state,
Quivering with age, and venerably great,
Shall cast o'er life a retrospective view,
And bless the soil, where infant greatness grew;
And while the long review his breast shall swell,
Here shall his mind with filial fondness dwell;
While transport glistens from the falling tear,
And Death, grown envious at the sight, draws near,
The good old man, with this expiring sigh,
“Let Harvard live,” shall clasp his hands and die.

This sacred temple and this classick grove
Proclaim your merits, and our grief approve.
The painter's skill may shade the glooms of fate,
And fancied woe the griefless eye dilate;
We spurn the glaring tapestry of art;
Truth's noblest pencil is a grateful heart.
Long may your days in gay succession run;
Long may you bask in Fortune's smiling sun;
Long o'er these happy seats may you preside,
The boast of Harvard, and your country's pride.
Our filial bosoms shall your names revere;
Truth has a tongue, and gratitude a tear.
Waves crowd on waves, on ages ages roll,
And we retire, that you may reach the goal.
Here for a while your busy feet may rove,
To cull the flowers of this Lycean grove.
Like you, we passed the distant threshold by,
While Hope looked forward with a wishful eye;

Like you, we gazed on Fame's immortal door;
You tread the path, that we have trod before;
And scarce the sun his annual tour has made
Since we with joy this solemn day surveyed.
But, ah! our joy was but an April morn;
The rose has faded and has left the thorn.
Feel then the wound, before you meet the dart;
Like us you follow, and, like us, must part.

The bloom of youthful years is doomed to fade;
The brightest noon a sullen cloud may shade;
And we, my friends, to whom each bliss is given,
This happy spot, this vicinage of heaven,
Each painful sense, each tender woe endure,
And bleed with wounds, which Friendship cannot cure.
While gaily sparkling from the realms of night,
Smiles the fair morn, and spreads her golden light,
Grown dark with fate, the solemn skies appear,
And distant thunders strike the astonished ear;
The tempest lowers, the rapid moments fly,
And moistening friendship melts in every eye.

Oft, when employed in life's prospective view,
This gloomy hour a mournful tribute drew.
Oft have we shuddered at this solemn day,
And gazed till tears had dimmed the visual ray.
Now the dark scene, which Fancy once surveyed,
And o'er our brightest pleasures cast a shade,
Bids the warm stream of real grief to flow,
The silent elegy of speechless woe.
Long have we wished this painful day removed;
Affection framed the wish, and Hope approved.

Long have we hugged the dream with fond deceit,
And strove by tears to intercede with Fate.
But, ah! in vain, for now the rapid sun
Four annual circuits through the heaven has run;
In our sad ears the solemn dirges ring,
And our last hope is flitting on the wing.

With swifter course the new-born moments fly;
Here wipe the tear, suppress the bursting sigh.

Oft have we rambled o'er the flowery plain,
And freely followed Pleasure's smiling train;
Oft have we wandered o'er the breezy hill,
And traced the windings of the purling rill;
Where the dark forest glooms the silent walk,
Has prattling Echo learnt of us to talk;
Oft on the river's flowery banks we've ranged,
To all the woes of future life estranged;
Oft on the scenes, which airy Fancy drew,
We fondly gazed and fondly thought them true.
But now no more these social sports delight;
No song the ear, no landscape charms the sight.
From grove to grove the airy songsters play,
All nature blooms, and smiling heaven looks gay;
But, ah! for us no verdant meadow blooms;
No songsters warble, and no sun illumes;
These can but lend another shade to woe,
And add new tortures to the poignant blow.
No more we mingle in the sportive scene,
The gay palestra, and the tufted green.

The fatal sheers the slender thread divide,
And sculptured urns the mouldering relicks hide;

Far deeper wounds our bleeding breasts display,
And Fate's most deadly weapon is—to-day.
To-day we part; ye throbs of anguish, rise,
Flow, all ye tears, and heave, ye rending sighs!
Come, lend to Friendship's stifled voice relief,
And melt the lonely hermitage of grief.
Sighs, though in vain, may tell the world we feel,
And tears may soothe the wound, they cannot heal.
To day we launch from this delightful shore,
And Mirth shall cheer, and Friendship charm no more;
We spread the sail o'er life's tumultuous tide;
Ambition's helm, let prudent Reason guide;
Let grey Experience, with her useful chart,
Direct the wishes of the youthful heart.
Where'er kind Heaven shall bend our wide career,
Still let us fan the flame, we've kindled here;
Still let our bosoms burn with equal zeal,
And teach old age the warmth of youth to feel.
But ere the faithful moment bids us part,
Rends every nerve, and racks the throbbing heart,
Let us, while here our fondest prayer ascends,
Swear on this altar, “that we will be friends!”
But, ah! behold the fatal moment fly;
Time cuts the knot, he never could untie.
Adieu! ye scenes, where noblest pleasures dwell!
Ye happy seats, ye sacred walls, farewell!
Adieu, ye guides, and thou enlightened sire;
A long farewell resounds our plaintive lyre;
Adieu, ye youths, that press our tardy heel;
Long may it be, ere you such griefs shall feel!
Wild horrors swim around my startling view;
Fate prompts my tongue, and, oh! my friends, adieu.

THE NATURE AND PROGRESS OF LIBERTY.

[_]

The following Poem was delivered on Commencement day, at Cambridge, when Mr. Paine proceeded Bachelor of Arts, July 1792.

Hail, sacred Freedom! heaven-born goddess, hail!
Friend of the pen, the sickle and the sail!
From thee the power of liberal thought we trace,
The great enlargement of the human race.
Thou hast recalled, to man's astonished sight,
Those joys, that spring from choice of doing right;
That sacred blessing, man's peculiar pride,
To follow Reason, where she ought to guide;
Nor urged by power the devious path to run,
Which Reason warps our erring feet to shun.
What Reason prompts, 'tis Freedom to fulfil;
This guides the conduct, that directs the will;
That with the “rights of man” from Heaven descends,
And this with Heaven's own shield those rights defends;
Bound by no laws, but Truth's extensive plan,
Which rules all rationals and social man;
Essential laws, which guide in wide career
The rapid motions of the boundless sphere.
There Order bids the circling planets run
Through heaven's vast suburbs round the blazing sun;
Directs an atom, as it rules the pole,
Reigns through all worlds, and shines the system's soul;
This moves the vast machine, unknown to jar,
And links an insect with the farthest star.

Thus Freedom here the civil system binds,
Cements our friendships, and illumes our minds.
She bids the varying parts of life cohere,
The sun and centre of the social sphere.
Freedom in joys of equal life delights,
Forbids encroachment on another's rights,
Contemns the tyrant's proud imperial sway,
Nor leaves the subject for the sceptre's prey.
She curbs ambition, bold incursion checks,
Nor more the palace, than the vale protects.
From her the noblest joys of mortals spring;
She makes the cot a throne, the peasant king.
Her presence smooths the rugged paths of woe,
And bids the rock with streams of pleasure flow.
No raven's notes her sacred groves annoy;
There Sickness smiles, and Want exults with joy.
There never drooped the willow of Despair,
Nor pressed the footstep of corroding Care.

Hard is the task, which civil rulers bear,
To give each subject freedom's equal share;
But still more arduous to the statesmen's ken,
To check the passions of licentious men.
The licensed robber, and the knave in power,
Whose grasping avarice strips the peasant's bower,
Would glean an Andes' topmost rock for wealth,
And feed, like leeches, on their country's health.
The man, who barters influence for applause,
Libels the smile, and spurns the frown of laws.
Licentious morals breed disease of state,
And snatch the scabbard from the sword of fate.

These were the bane, which ancient ages knew;
On freedom's stalk the engrafted scion grew.

Long had the clouds of ignorance gloomed mankind,
And Error held the sceptre of the mind;
Long had the tyrant kept the world in awe,
Swords turned the scale, and nods enacted law;
But where mild Freedom crowns the happy shore,
Law guides the king, and kings the law no more.
No threatening sword the forum's tongue restrains;
No monarch courts the mask, when Reason reigns.
Here glows the press with Freedom's sacred zeal,
The great Briareus of the publick weal.

Dire wars, those civil earthquakes, long had raged,
Seas burst on seas, and world with world engaged;
Freedom allured the struggling hero's eye,
Of arms the laurel—of the world the sigh.

But, ah! in vain the clarion sounds afar,
Vain the dread pomp, and vain the storm of war;
In vain dread Havock saw her millions die;
Vain the soft pearl, that melts the virgin's eye;
Vain the last groan of grey expiring age,
To move the marble of despotick rage!
In that dark realm, where science never shone,
On earth's own basis stands the tyrant's throne.
One murder marks the assassin's odious name,
But millions damn the hero into fame;
And one proud monarch from the throne was hurled,
That rival sceptres might dispute the world.

Freedom beheld new foes the old replace,
And ne'er extinct the despot's hydra race;
Still some usurper for the crown survived;
She stabbed a Cæsar, but Augustus lived.
So meanly abject was the vassaled earth,
Rome blazed a bonfire for a Nero's mirth;
While, like the insect round the taper's blaze,
The crowd beheld it with a thoughtless gaze.
No daring patriot stretched his arm to save
His country's freedom from oblivion's grave;
The slave, who once opposed the crown in vain,
Found a new rivet in his former chain.

Thus raged the horrors of despotick sway,
Till Albion welcomed freedom's dawning ray;
Which, like the herald of returning light,
Beamed through the clouds of intellectual night.
But here environed was the human path,
Cramped the free mind, and chained the choice of faith.
Religious despots formed the impious plan,
To lord it o'er the consciences of man.

This galling yoke our sires could bear no more;
They fled, for freedom, to Columbia's shore.
Truth for their object, Virtue for their guide,
They braved the dangers of an unknown tide.
The patriarch's God of old preserved the ark,
And freedom's guardian watched the patriot's bark.
The shrine of freedom and of truth to rear,
They left those scenes, which social life endear;
To Britain's courts preferred the savage den,
The free-born Indian to dependent men.

For this, the parting tear of Friendship fell;
For this, they bade their parent soil farewell!

In these dark wilds they fixed the deep laid stone,
On which fair Freedom since has reared her throne.
But still a cloud their civil views confined,
And gloomed the prospect of the pious mind;
While Britain claimed with laws our rights to lead,
And faith was fettered by a bigot's creed.

Then mental freedom first her power displayed,
And called a Mayhew to religion's aid.
For this dear truth, he boldly led the van,
That private judgment was the right of man.
Mayhew disdained that soul-contracting view
Of sacred truth, which zealous Frenzy drew;
He sought religion's fountain head to drink,
And preached what others only dared to think;
He loosed the mind from Superstition's awe,
And broke the sanction of Opinion's law.
Truth gave his mind the electrick's subtle spring,
A Chatham's lightning, and a Milton's wing.
Mayhew hath cleansed the bigot's filmy eye;
Mayhew explored religion's native sky,
Where ever radiant in immortal youth,
Shines the clear sun of inexhausted truth;
Where time's vast ocean, like a drop would seem,
The world a pebble, and yon sun a beam.
He struck that spark, whose genial warmth we feel
In heavenly charity's fraternal zeal.

Soon blazed the flame, with kindling ardour ran,
And gave new vigour to the breast of man.
Swift as loud torrents from a mountain's brow
Plunge down the sky, and whelm the world below;
Our patriots bade the vast idea roll,
And round Columbia waft a common soul.
Freedom resumed her throne; her offspring rose,
Braved the dread fury of despotick foes,
Explored the source whence all our glory ran,
Columbia's freedom and the “rights of man;”
Europa's wish, the tyrant's dread and rage,
The noblest epoch on the historick page!

Hail, virtuous ancestors! seraphick minds!
Heroes in faith, and Freedom's noblest friends!
With filial fervour grateful memory calls,
To bless the founders of those sacred walls!
You gave to age a staff—a guide to youth,
Yon fount of science, and that lamp of truth.
Where Knowledge beams her soul-enlivening ray,
There Freedom spreads her heaven-descended sway.
Learning's an antidote of lawless power;
Enlighten man, and tyrants reign no more!

Hail, sacred Liberty! tremendous sound!
Which strikes the despot's heart with awe profound;
Bursts with more horrour on the tyrant's ears,
Than all the thunders of the embattled spheres;
More dreadful than the fiend, whose noxious breath
Consigns whole nations to the realms of death;
Than all those tortures, which Belshazzar felt
Convulse his tottering knees, his bosom melt,

When on the wall the sacred finger drew
Jehovah's vengeance to the monarch's view;
His visage Terrour's palest veil o'ercast,
And Guilt with wildest horrour stood aghast!
Such direful tremours shake the tyrant's soul,
When Liberty unfolds her radiant scroll.

Hail, sacred Liberty, divinely fair!
Columbia's great palladium, Gallia's prayer!
From heaven descend to free this fettered globe;
Unclasp the helmet, and adorn the robe.
May struggling France her ancient freedom gain;
May Europe's sword oppose her rights in vain.
The dauntless Franks once spurned the tyrant's power;
May Frenchmen live, and Gallia be no more!

May Africk's sons no more be heard to groan,
Lament their exile nor their fate bemoan!
Torn from the pleasures of their native clime,
Each sigh rebellion—and each tear a crime,
Their only solace, but to brood on woes,
Or, on the down of rocks their limbs repose!
Weak with despair, slow tottering with toil,
Bleeding with wounds, and gasping on the soil,
No friend, no pity, cheers the hapless slave,
No sleep but death, no pillow but the grave.
Blush, despots, blush! who, fired by sordid ore,
Like pirates, plunder Africk's swarming shore;
To western worlds the shackled slave trepan,
And basely traffick in “the souls of man!”
Vile monsters, hear! Time spreads his rapid wings,
And now the fated hour in prospect brings,

When your proud turrets shall to earth be thrown,
And Freedom triumph in the torrid zone!
May tyranny from every throne be hurled,
And make no more a scaffold of the world!

Where'er the sunbeam gilds the rolling hour,
Wings the fleet gale, and blossoms in the flower;
May Freedom's glorious reign o'er realms prevail,
Where Cook's bright fancy never spread the sail.
Long may the laurel to the ermine yield,
The stately palace to the fertile field;
The fame of Burke in dark oblivion rust,
His pen a meteor—and his page the dust;
Faction no more the enlightened world alarm,
Nor snatch the infant from the parent's arm;
May Peace, descending like the mystick dove,
Which once announced the great Immanual's love,
On Freedom's brow her olive garland bind,
And shed her blessings round on all mankind!

A PASTORAL.

So fair a form was ne'er by Heaven designed
But with its charms to enslave and bless mankind.
So pure a mind, such high unrivalled worth,
But to recall a paradise on earth!

Then, ye fair Nine, the trembling muse inspire;
In raptured notes awake her feeble lyre;
Now swell your boldest strains! Maria's praise
Claims all the majesty of Homer's lays.

MORNING.

Now Phosphor swells the clarion note of morn,
And all the hostile clouds of night are gone;
Ambrosial zephyrs ope the fragrant flowers,
And rosy Health attends the jocund hours.
The Morn, with pearly feet advancing, leads
Joy's smiling train, and blushes o'er the meads.
The golden flood of light o'er eastern hills
She pours, and every breast with rapture fills.
The ocean, sheathed in light's effulgent arms,
Rolls his high surges bright with borrowed charms.
The little hills around their carols sing;
The vales with soft mellifluous echoes ring;
The early lark attunes her matin lay,
And vocal forests hail the approach of day.

The vigorous huntsman leaves his downy bed,
And mounted swiftly scours along the mead.
Hark! the shrill clarion's winding note resounds;
Hark! the air trembles with the cry of hounds.
The raging wolves through gloomy forests prowl,
The tawny lions through the meadows howl.
Lo! o'er the fields Maria bends her way;
The gazing hounds forget their trembling prey;
The grateful woods repeat Maria's name,
And all the savage race, inspired, grow tame.

The youthful shepherd, who had housed his flock
Within the dark recesses of a rock,
To screen them from the wolf's resistless jaw,
Needs now no crook to keep his foe in awe;
For, while his notes Maria's name resound,
The wolf no more infests the peaceful ground.

In beauty clad, more beauteous than the morn,
The fair Maria trips the dewy lawn;
The ambroisal zephyrs, from each meadow, seek,
To steal new perfumes from her fragrant cheek;
Celestial Virtue guides her wandering feet,
And Science courts her to her fair retreat.
Here shall the rose grow, free from every thorn,
And here her life be fair, be sweet as morn.

NOON.

Now the fierce coursers of the sultry day
Breath from their nostrils the meridian ray;
Beneath such heat the landscape faints around;
The birds forget to sing, the woods to sound;
The withered rose forgets perfumes to yield,
And murmuring brooks mourn o'er the drooping field.

The sprightly lambs, which in the morning played,
And near a fount their fleecy form surveyed,
On the green tuft, the limpid stream o'erflows,
Subdued by heat, their weary limbs repose.

The sweating ploughman leaves his sultry toil,
To quench his thirst from crystal streams, that boil

O'er the rough pebbles, which incessant chide,
As o'er the fields they in meanders glide.

The love-sick swain now leaves his drooping flock,
And seeks retreat beneath some shelving rock,
Which Spring's fair hand, with fairest flowers, has graced;
Here he retires the heat of day to waste.

All Nature droops; no joy the meadow yields:
How languid is the green, which graced the fields!
But see, Maria comes, by zephyrs fanned;
See how the gales the enlivening flowers expand.
Spontaneous roses in her footsteps spring;
The fields revive, the cheerful warblers sing;
The drooping forest now the lyre resumes,
In fair Maria's praise each landscape blooms;
Now tears of joy array the smiling lawn,
And soaring larks would fondly think, 'twas morn.

EVENING.

Retiring day now blushes o'er the heaven,
And slow in solemn brown brings on the even;
Now silent dews along the grass distil,
And all the air with their sweet fragrance fill;
Now chaste Diana, with her silver train,
In her bright chariot rising quits the main;
Now all the stars in bright confusion roll,
And with their lustre gild the glowing pole.
The happy swains now seek the ambrosial groves,
On their sweet pipes to warble forth their loves.
'Twas here reclined beneath the leafy shade,
While busy thought Maria's form surveyed,

The artless --- with his rude pipe retired,
To sing those carols, which his love inspired.
His pipe, though rude, ne'er swelled a treacherous lay;
His pipe and bosom owned Maria's sway.
'Twas here he taught the woods her name to sound,
And her soft praises echoed all around.

Not far retired, the object of his love
With her sweet strains enchanted all the grove;
While bending forests listened to the tale,
And her sweet notes re-echoed o'er the vale.
A nightingale, who, from a neighbouring spray,
Attentive heard Maria's matchless lay,
With envy saw the well deserved meed,
Bloom with new honours to adorn her head.
She thrice essayed to emulate the lay,
And thrice her wandering thoughts were led astray.
Charmed by the musick of Maria's song,
Her heedless notes forgot to pass along.
A sudden quivering seized her tender throat;
She ceased to breathe her sweetly plaintive note;
Her languid wings she fluttered on the spray,
And at the shrine of Envy sighed her life away.

Thus, fair Maria, in your wondrous praise,
The youthful muse has sung her feeble lays;
And though your name is all that in them shines,
Forgive the errors of her artless lines.
Your true, conspicuous merit e'en will claim
A rank immortal on the list of fame.

As on one tree, when sin had not beguiled,
Blossoms and fruits in sweet confusion smiled.
So youth's gay flowerets in your features bloom,
And wisdom's sacred rays your mind illume.

REFLECTIONS ON A LONELY HILL, WHICH COMMANDED THE PROSPECT OF A BURYING GROUND.

Here museful Thought and Contemplation dwell;
Here Silence spreads her horrors round;
Hark! the dull tinkling stream from yonder cell!
The soul recoils at every sound!

Startled, I view new phantoms round me rise,
And seem to chide my dull delay;
View yonder spot where human greatness lies;
Thus all must moulder and decay.

Hark! from afar the solemn sounding bell
Fills the dull ear with plaints of woe;
'Tis Death awakes, and spreads the warning knell;
Through the sad gates the mourners flow.

The distant landscape fades; thick glooms arise;
Twilight the sombre scene surveys;
While tears, in dew drops, glisten in her eyes,
And faintly shroud her pitying rays.

When blooming spring adorns the verdant mead,
Zephyrs arise from every grove;
The notes of joy along the woodland spread,
And breathe the fragrant sweets of love.

O'er hill, o'er dale the nimble huntsmen bound,
And wake the morn to health's employ;
With variegated flowers the mead is crowned;
Spring wantons in the bowers of joy.

But sultry summer wings the Sirian ray,
Whose heat subdues the blooming field;
The fair blown flowerets wither and decay;
The trees unripened fruitage yield.

Now the black tempest gathers from afar;
With horror all the horizon's bound;
Now clashing clouds along the ether war,
And pour their inundations round.

[When ---'s graces bid the pencil break]

When ---'s graces bid the pencil break
Through Nature's barriers, and the canvass speak;
Lo! stooping Time stands gazing at the form,
And e'en his frigid limbs with love grow warm.
But when her lofty muse commands the page
To soothe the passions, or inspire with rage,
Charmed with each line the hoary despot stands,
And ruin's uplift scythe drops from his hands.

FRAGMENT.

The splendid morn with flaming light had graced
The gold fringed clouds, the curtains of the east;
Invited by the breeze to taste the sweets
Which breathe in Harvard's venerable seats,
Beneath her flowery groves and bowers I strayed;
Morpheus had just forsook the happy shade;
He saw me, rambling o'er the morning dew,
And in my face enraged his poppies threw;
Pressed with the load, my heavy eyelids close,
And in the shade my drowsy limbs repose.
When to my eyes an aged dame appeared,
Gazed on the scene and treasured all she heard.
Upon her brow deep thought in furrows lies,
And wild anxiety distorts her eyes;
Me thus accosting in my cool resort;
“I come,” says she, “from Wisdom's brilliant court,
“Where fair Maria, of immortal name,
“Holds the high sceptre with unbounded fame.
“My name's Investigation, fondly sought,
“Where Truth can please the mind, or warm the thought.
“Then follow in my steps to yonder shade;
“There stands a mirror to the eye displayed;
“In it each virtue of the deepest breast,
“And every vice and fault appear exprest.
“'Twas there Maria bade me lead your eyes,
“To amend each error, and to make you wise.”
My willing hand then to the path she drew;
I fondly bade to vice a long adieu!

We lost the matin carol of the lark,
And entered in the grove;—'twas still and dark.
A solemn silence sat on every scene,
And envious night veiled spring's delightful mien.
In mazy rout we rove the winding road,
And oft retrace the path we once have trod,
'Till through the transient gloom a ray of light,
From the broad mirror, beamed upon our sight.
Above a running brook, the mirror's gleam,
With bright reflection, tinged the glassy stream;
Hence light, emerging round, the grove displayed,
'Till faintly dim it mingled with the shade.
Cheered by the feeble ray through many a maze,
We turn our feet and reach the mirror's blaze.
Fair Truth, the spotless offspring of the sky,
Rayed in a robe of flowing white, stood by;
With gentle voice she thus accosts my guide:
“Hail, honoured maid, fair Reason's noblest pride!
“Oft hast thou won the prize of bliss supreme,
“And these fond warbling groves chose thee their theme;
“And oft have I, enticed by fond regard,
“The stainless laurel for your brow prepared.
“But say, fair nymph, whence come you thus again?
“What happy mortal follows in your train?”
To whom my guide, “Where fair Maria's court
“For exiled Wisdom opes a kind resort,
“Thence I return, at her command, once more
“These spotless groves and blest retreats to explore;
“To teach this youth thy undissembling lore;
“In thy pure mirror to display each stain
“Which blots his bosom, or what virtues reign.”

Then heavenly Truth her magick sceptre moved,
And from the mirror all its gloss removed.
The undazzled eye could now unhurt behold
The inmost secrets of the breast unfold.

[Sage Cadmus, hail! to thee the Grecians owed]

Sage Cadmus, hail! to thee the Grecians owed
The art and science, that from letters flowed;
To thy great mind indebted ages stand,
And grateful Learning owns thy guardian hand.
Without the invention of a written tongue,
E'en Fame herself no lasting notes had sung;
Thy brow she crowns with tributary bays,
And sounds thy glory in immortal lays.

Hark! a swift whirlwind rushes through the heaven;
Before its wrath the stateliest oaks are riven.
Say! is the thunderbolt from Jove's right hand,
Launched on the earth to scourge a guilty land?
Say! have the embattled winds, in eddies whirled,
Joined their whole force to storm the shivering world?
Lo! bold Demosthenes advances forth,
His voice, like thunder bursting from the north;
Dread Philip hears, and trembles from afar;
Greece springs from slumber to the field of war.
From his keen eyes the livid lightnings dart,
And freedom's flame from breast to breast impart.

TRANSLATION OF THE FIRST ECLOGUE OF VIRGIL.

MELIBŒUS.
While you, O Tityrus, beneath the shade,
Which the broad branches of this beech display,
Devoid of care, recline your peaceful head,
And warble on your pipe the sylvan lay;
While vocal woods to your enchantment yield,
And Amaryllis' praise with joy resound,
We wander far from home, by fate compelled,
And leave our peaceful cot, our native ground.

TITYRUS.
These are the blessings, which a God bestowed;
His bounteous hand e'er proved a God to me;
The tender lamb oft stains his shrine with blood,
And by his leave my herds rove o'er the lea;
Beneath his smiles I live with joy and ease,
And carol on my pipe whate'er I please.

MELIBŒUS.
I envy not your fortune, but rejoice,
While raging tumults in the country reign,
While the inveterate sword each field destroys,
That happiness still smiles along your plains.
But, adverse fate still frowns where'er I go;
My fleecy goats with pensive gait I lead,

And this I drag along with much ado,
Who just now yeaning in the hazle shade,
Departing thence forsook her tender young,
The little hope of my decreasing fold,
On the cold bosom of a flinty stone.
Dire omens oft have all these ills foretold!
I should have seen, of reason not bereft,
Yon oak, which grew so fair, by lightening riven,
And the hoarse raven, croaking from the left,
Presage the vengeful storm of frowning heaven.
But, tell me, Tityrus, who is this God,
That on his favourite swain such gifts bestowed?

TITYRUS.
A fool I was to think the city Rome,
Whither we drive our tender herds from home,
Like Mantua; thus I might likewise dare
Bitches with whelps, and dams with kids compare;
As well the great to small a likeness own;
But regal Rome erects her lofty throne,
Above the cities, which around her shine,
As the tall cypress o'er the creeping vine.

MELIBŒUS.
What mighty cause could force you thus from home,
And urge the fond desire of seeing Rome?

TITYRUS.
Freedom; whose ray at length disclosed its light,
After old age had blossomed all its white,
Upon my hoary chin it came at last,
After long years of slavery were passed,

After my love for Galatea ceased,
And beauteous Amaryllis warmed my breast;
For while in Galatea's love enchained,
Nor freedom's hope, nor rural cares remained;
Though frequent victims thinned my rising fold,
And many a cheese for the ingrate city sold,
Yet still for her I spent whate'er I earned,
And still with empty purse I home returned.

MELIBŒUS.
Why Amaryllis to the gods complained,
And why the trees their ripened loads sustained,
I cease to wonder; Tityrus, for thee
Her vows were made, and fruitage bent each tree;
The groves, the fountains wish for your return,
And 'twas for this the pine's tall branches mourn.

TITYRUS.
What could I do? Love still inflamed my heart,
Nor suffered me from slavery to depart.
Return I could not, for a gracious ear
The auspicious gods there granted to my prayer;
There first I saw the youth, whose altars burn,
With grateful incense at each month's return;
'Twas there he kindly gave my steers again
To own the yoke, my herds to graze the plain.

MELIBŒUS.
O, happy sire, for you your fields remain,
For you, shall plenty smile along your plain;
Although the marshy bulrush overspread,
And flinty rocks clothe o'er the neighbouring mead;

Yet shall no dire contagion waste your flock,
Nor noxious food the pregnant kine provoke.
Fortunate man! what pleasures on you wait;
Here, where the well known river winds its flood,
Where sacred groves embower a cool retreat,
Where gales, to fan you, breathe from every wood.
From yonder hedge, which guards the neighbouring ground,
Where Hyblean bees the willow grove surround,
Still shall their murmurs slumbering, as they creep,
O'er the closed eyelids spread the balm of sleep;
While from yon craggy rock the pruner's song,
Your slumbers shall with pleasing dreams prolong;
Nor shall the dove forget her cooing note,
And from the elm the turtle's musick float.

TITYRUS.
Sooner the stag the earth for air shall change,
The fish on shore retreating ocean cast;
Along the Tygris' banks the German range,
The exiled Parthian of the Arar taste,
Than from my grateful breast his angel face,
E'en hoary Time be able to erase.

MELIBŒUS.
But, we in exile from our native lands,
Shall seek retreat in Africk's parching sands;
To swift Oasis or to Scythia haste,
Or from the world to Britain's cloistered waste.
And must we thus our hapless fate deplore,
And ne'er our eyes review our native shore;
Or shall some future year restore my throne,
The lowly cot, those meadows once my own?

And shall the impious soldier seize my field?
For the barbarian shall the harvest yield
Its annual products? Ah! what horrid wars,
And scenes of misery spring from civil jars?
For whom have I beneath the sultry sun
Thus tilled my ground? the labour's all that's mine.
Go, Melibœus, haste, your pear-trees prune,
In beauteous order plant the tender vine;
Go, my once happy, now deserted flock,
No more beneath the verdant grot I lay,
Nor view you grazing on the craggy rock,
No more upon my rural pipe I'll play;
No more shall you upon the hillock's top,
The flowery shrub or bitter osier crop.

TITYRUS.
With me at least to night lay by your care,
We can for you a bed of leaves prepare;
With ripened apples, which the fields afford,
Chestnuts and milk we'll store the frugal board.
Now the blue vapours o'er the hills arise,
And smokes from village chimneys paint the skies.
Now setting Phœbus meets his western bed,
And from the hills the lengthening shadows spread.

TRANSLATION OF THE TENTH ODE, SECOND BOOK OF HORACE.

Addressed to Licinius.

If o'er life's sea your bark you'd safely guide,
Trust not the surges of its stormy tide;
And while you dread the tempest's horrid roar,
Avoid those shoals, which threaten from the shore.

The happy few, who choose the golden mean,
Free from the tattered garb, the cell obscene,
From all the world's gay pageantry aloof,
Spurn the rich trappings of the envied roof.

The stately ship, which cuts the glassy wave,
Is oftener tossed than skiffs, when tempests rave:
The tower, whose lofty brow sustains the sky,
With greater ruin tumbles from on high:
The lightning's bolt, with forky vengeance red,
Vents its first fury on the mountain's head.

The mind, where Wisdom deigns her genial light,
Led by the star of Hope in adverse night,
Fortune's gay sunshine never can elate—
Dauntless, prepared to meet the frowns of Fate.

'Tis Jove who bids the dashing tempest swell,
And the bright sun the stormy clouds dispel.

If o'er your paths clouds now should cast a gloom,
Soon will the scene in brighter prospects bloom:
Apollo does not always strike the lyre,
Nor bid the arrow from his bow aspire.

When raging grief and poverty appear,
Strengthen thy sickening heart, and banish fear.
When you are wafted by a prosperous gale,
Learn wisely to contract the swelling sail.

TRANSLATION OF THE FIFTH ODE, FIRST BOOK OF HORACE

Addressed to the courtesan Pyrrha.

Who, fair Pyrrha, wins thy graces?
What gay youth imprints a kiss?
Or in roseate groves embraces
Urging thee to amorous bliss?

To delude to your caresses
What young rake, or wanton blade,
Do you bind your golden tresses,
In plain elegance arrayed?

Soon the unhappy youth, deploring,
Shall lament thy proud disdain;
Thus, the winds, tempestuous roaring,
Rend the bosom of the main.

He, who's now thy beauty prizing,
In thy smiles supremely blest,
Dreams not of the storm that's rising,
To disturb his peaceful breast.

Misery's sharpest pang he suffers,
Who, secure from all alarms,
Like all thy deluded lovers,
Clasped a serpent in his arms.

Once, thy deep intrigues unknowing,
I embarked upon the deep;
Boisterous storms, dread horrors blowing,
Roused me from lethargick sleep.

Billows were around me roaring,
When great Neptune's friendly aid,
Me to Rome again restoring,
There my grateful vows I paid.

STANZAS ON RECEIVING A FROWN FROM CYNTHIA.

A gloomy cloud in heaven appears,
And shrouds the solar ray;
All Nature droops, and bursts in tears,
And mourns the loss of day.

What wrath has sent the tempest down
To gloom the azure sky?
Lo! Cynthia's mien assumes a frown,
And Colin heaves a sigh!

Yes, Cynthia frowns!—in mourning clad
Young Colin seeks the plain,
And there in silent sorrow sad,
Sighs, weeps, and sighs again.

Ah! luckless hour! the lover cries;
Vain Hope! no more beguile!
Ah! seek no more, in Cynthia's eyes
The sunbeam of her smile!

Once in the days of happier fate,
In smiles she tripped the lea;
But I, with fondest pride elate,
Thought all those smiles for me.

Where once benignant beams were shed,
Now sad displeasure lowers:
On Colin's fond, devoted head,
The storm, dark rolling, showers.

The fount of grief has now grown dry,
And tears no more can now;
No more can trickle from the eye,
The streams of mental woe.

Cynthia, behold a captive heart;
Its real anguish see,
Transcending all descriptive art;
It bleeds alone by thee!

So deep a wound can never close,
The heart cannot endure,
You opened all its bleeding woes,
And you alone can cure.

Then deign a gentle smile of grace;
On Colin's bosom shine;
And, raptured at so fair a face,
Elysium will be mine!

TRANSLATION OF THE NINTH ODE, THIRD BOOK, OF HORACE.

Dialogue between Horace and Lydia.

HORACE.
When no fond rival's favoured arms
With rapture clasped thy snowy charms;
When but to me thy smile was given
It warmed me like the smile of heaven.
Thus blest, I envied not the state
Of Persia's monarch rich and great.

LYDIA.
When Lydia's smile allured thee more
Than Chloe's sweet seducing power,
Then did the cords of love unite
Our hearts in mutual delight;

Then so revered was Lydia's name,
I envied not great Ilia's fame!

HORACE.
The Cressian Chloe now detains
My soul in fascinating chains:
She tunes the harp's melodious strings,
But with much sweeter musick sings:
Could dying snatch my love from death,
How gladly would I yield my breath!

LYDIA.
Me, Calaïs, to love inspires;
Our bosoms glow with gentlest fires.
In him has every graced combined—
But, oh! what charms adorn his mind!
I twice the pangs of death would bear,
If Fate my Calaïs would spare!

HORACE.
Say, what if former love aspire,
And glow with an intenser fire?
Say, what if Chloe's charms I spurn—
Will Lydia to my arms return,
And bid the Paphian queen again
Unite us with a stronger chain?

LYDIA.
Though light as cork, your passions reign,
And rougher than the raging main;
Though Calaïs by far outvies
The great enlightener of the skies;
Yet from his eager love I fly,
To live with you, with you to die!

THE LAURELLED NYMPH.

Addressed to Philenia.

Where famed Parnassus' lofty summits rise,
With garlands wreathed, and seem to prop the skies,
There bloomed the groves, where once the tuneful choir
In boldest numbers waked the sounding lyre.
Fast by the mount descends the sacred spring,
Whose magick waters taught the world to sing.
Hence men, inspired, first tuned the rural strain,
And sung of shepherds and the peaceful plain,
The beauteous virgin and Idalian grove,
And all the pains and all the sweets of love;
But soon the Muse, with glowing rapture fired,
Seized the bold clarion, and the world inspired;
To arms, to arms, resounds from either pole,
Steels every breast, and man's each daring soul.
Wide Havock reigned; the world with tumult shook;
Thick lightnings glared, and muttering thunders broke;
The boisterous passions waged continual wars;
The sun grew pale, and terror seized the stars.
But, hark! soft musick floats upon the gale!
'Tis Harmony herself, who chants the tale!
A strain so sweet, so elegantly terse,
Joined with such lofty majesty of verse,
Arrests Apollo's song-enraptured ear,
A nobler carol, than his own, to hear.
The astonished muses cease their feebler song;
No more the tabor charms the village throng;

The aërial tribe in air suspend their wings;
All Nature's hushed; for lo, Philenia sings!
Philenia sings, and sings the soldier's toil,
Blest with the lovely virgin's generous smile.
The bards of old, who sung of wars and loves,
Of iron ages, and Arcadian groves,
Around Philenia's brow the laurel twine,
And vie in honouring genius so divine.
Hence, if in after age a bard should hope
To gain those tints which grace the verse of Pope;
In Sorrow's gently sympathizing flow,
To make each bosom feel another's woe;
Or Virtue's heavenly portrait to display,
In the full light of beauty's golden ray;
To sing of patriots in the martial strife,
The gallant soldier and heroick chief;
To paint in colours that can never fade;
Let him invoke Philenia to his aid.
Her smile shall bid these varied charms expand,
As vernal flowers by gentlest zephyrs fanned.
In her bold lines may admiration see
Impartial Justice rule the fair decree.
Not, like the sun, whose lustre shines on all,
Do her diffusive panegyricks fall.
While Faction's idols meet repulsive shame,
The wandering outcasts from the dome of Fame;
The patriot glories in his laurel crown,
Decked with the deathless verdure of renown.
To adulation's fawning scribes belong,
With guile to captivate the giddy throng;
To rend from Honour's brow his laureat plume;
To trample down the generous stateman's tomb;

100

To gild with servile Flattery's dazzling beam,
The imperial meteor of a baseless dream.
But when Philenia charms the listening throng,
'Tis Virtue's praise inspires the noble song.
Her Muse, who oft her venturous bark had rode,
On Learning's wide, immeasurable flood,
Whose crowded canvass touched at every shore,
New mines of golden letters to explore;
In Fancy's loom Pierian webs hath wrought,
Decked with the varied pearls of splendid thought;
Perennial roses round the work appear,
And all the beauties of the vernal year.
She, like a Newton, in poetick skies,
Shall e'er on Fame's triumphant pinions rise.
When Death's cold slumbers shall have sealed that eye,
Whose radiant smiles with solar splendours vie;
When that warm tongue, from which such musick flows,
Shall in the tomb in quietude repose;
Thy deathless name through Envy's clouds shall burst,
And baffle hoary Time's corroding rust.
Then those fair portraits, which thy muse has drawn,
Which the long gallery of Fame adorn,
Through Nature's fated barriers shall break,
Start into life, and all thy praises speak.

101

ODE TO COMPASSION.

All hail, divine Compassion! see
Low at thy shrine, my bended knee!
Lend to my verse thy melting glow,
And all the tender plaintiveness of woe!

The man who feels when others grieve,
And loves the wretched to relieve,
Enjoys more true delight,
Than he, who in the fields of war
Triumphant rolls his thundering car,
And gains the laurels of the fight!
Than he, whom shouting realms proclaim,
The victor of mankind, the boast of Fame.

Sweet Compassion! noblest friend;
From thy native skies descend;
Gently breathing through the heart,
All thy tender warmth impart!
Lure us from the gloomy cell,
Where Indifference loves to dwell!
Come with Truth, celestial maid,
In her brightest robes arrayed;
And with Bliss, delightful prize,
Blessing our enraptured eyes!

Behold! the heavens of heavens unbar
Their golden portals wide;

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In glory clad, thy train appear;
Upon the spheres they ride.
Pleased with a Howard's glorious fame,
Thou comest from realms above,
To kindle at his tomb the flame
Of universal love;
To crown with wreaths of endless bloom,
And joy, that never fades,
The man, whose heavenly paths illume
Misfortune's dreary shades.

Welcome, on earth, thy golden reign!
Now hideous vice, and tottering pain
Shall quickly flee away.
As hills of snow in face of day
In winter their high heads display;
But, melted by the vernal beams,
Their mass dissolves in liquid streams:
So by thy genial ray
Inspired, the frozen cheek of woe
Shall feel soft Rapture's pleasing glow,
And tears of joy around the world shall flow.

THE GOLDEN AGE.

TRANSLATED FROM OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

When Faith and Honesty with willing hand,
Swayed the blest sceptre of the smiling hand,
Then bloomed the Golden Age; then all mankind
Beneath the bowers of sweet content reclined,

103

No brazen records kept the crowd in awe,
For innocence supplied the want of law;
No conscious guilt disturbed each peaceful bower,
No fierce tribunal grasped despotick power,
Nor pale Revenge pursued with endless wrath;
But peace with flowers bestrewed life's rugged path.
The lofty pine, which crowned the mountain's brow,
Where clouds of green around the horizon flow,
Had not yet sought the distant world t'explore;
Nor heard the ocean's wild tumultuous roar.
Ambition had not yet inflamed mankind,
Within their cots by sweet content confined.
War's ruthless hand had not the rampart raised,
No hostile standards o'er the meadows blazed,
No threatening clarions taught the field to bleed,
Nor brazen horns aroused the martial steed,
No savage sword cut short the vital breath,
Nor glittering helmets braved the approach of death.
In soft delight, far from the din of arms,
The world reposed, secure from all alarms;
No shining share the fertile vallies tore,
Spontaneous earth her rich luxuriance bore;
Divine Content, whose charms ne'er fail to please,
Fed on the fruits, which bent the labouring trees.
The smiling berries, which on mountains glowed,
Or blush beneath the brambles on the road,
The sacred acorn, shaken by the wind,
Supplied the daily wants of all mankind.
Unceasing spring breathed fragrance round their bowers,
And soft Zephyrus fanned spontaneous flowers.
The earth untilled, with smiling fruitage glowed,
And round the fields the yellow harvest flowed.

104

The heavenly nectar from the skies was showered;
And streams of milk along the meadows poured;
The verdant oak with honey bathed the plain,
And blest Content prolonged the golden reign.

[Such bounteous flowerets from so fair a hand]

[_]

Addressed to Harriot, who presented the author with a bunch of roses, saying, she had preserved them a long while, and that they were the fairest of the season.

Such bounteous flowerets from so fair a hand,
The warmest thanks from Friendship's pen demand;
Ere yet the expanding buds perfumed the air,
Blest with the nurture of thy tender care,
The bloom they copied of celestial grace,
The lovely pictures of thy lovelier face.
Thine are those tints, which charm the admiring eye;
Thine the fair lustre of each fragrant dye.
On the free bounty of thy smile they live,
And to the world their borrowed splendour give.
Thus planets glitter on the robe of night,
And from the sun receive their silver light.
The flower, which blooms beneath the vernal ray,
Owes all its beauty to the orb of day;
For though the lily boasts its spotless form,
Yet Sol's pure lustre gave it every charm.
Thus mildly brilliant those effulgent eyes,
Which bade the fainting rose in bloom to rise,
Which each in Beauty's sky a golden sun,
Claim all those plaudits, which the rose has won.

105

Then, Rapture, cease on Harriot's gift to gaze,
And, Admiration, hold thy eager praise!
For though e'en Justice this encomium deigns,
That in its charms her faint resemblance reigns,
Yet while her tongue such lavish praise bestows,
In her, in her we view a fairer rose.

VERSES TO A YOUNG LADY, LATELY RECOVERED FROM SICKNESS.

With gloomy clouds of dismal dread,
The horizon sullenly is bound;
The sun, obscured, weeps through the shade;
The zephyrs mourn along the ground,
Where Darkness reigns,
Where Woe's sad strains
Wind o'er the plains.

Valuated with Terror's sable veil,
Fringed with the sunbeam's glossy hue,
Deep lies the solitary vale,
Where round the grove a rural crew,
In smiling throng,
With sweetest song,
Charm Time along.

106

Thus seated in the breezy shade,
Before them in the winding vale,
Appeared a sweetly pensive maid,
Whose silence spoke the melting tale
Of one, who trod
From Health's abode,
Misfortune's road.

From her sad eye the tear of grief,
Unknown, gushed silently along;
The swains were moved to her relief,
And Pity wept amid the throng.
They thought their eyes,
Saw, in disguise,
One from the skies.

Lovely, as Morn, who weeps in dews;
Mild as the fragrant breath of Even;
Though streams of woe her eyes suffuse,
She shone the silver queen of heaven.
Dian her guide,
Fair Beauty's pride
In sense outvied.

While thus the swains, in rapture's trance,
Her lonely wandering steps surveyed,
Two seraphs on the wing advance,
Contending for the heaven-born maid.
So great the prize,
That e'en the skies
Viewed with surprise!

107

One of the seraphs thus began:
“My name is Fame; on earth I sway;
“The glory, pride, and boast of man,
“The world's proud kings my voice obey.
“From pole to pole,
“My glories roll;
“I rule the whole.

“Long have I made yon fair my pride,
“The brightest gem my crown adorned;
“Her name Oblivion's power defied,
“And all his low attempts has scorned.
“Forbear your claim,
“Ne'er will her name
“Descend from Fame.

“But say, if you can boast to share
“The affections of yon turtle dove,
“Why, with the storms of bleak despair,
“Do you afflict her from above?
“To force is vain;
“Where'er I reign.
“No slaves complain.”

The angel sent from heaven replied;
“We doom the fair to Mercy's road,
“To wean her love from mortal pride,
“To bliss supreme in heaven's abode.
“To heaven restore,
“A mind too pure
“For earth's wild shore.

108

“Angels with envious eyes have seen,
“Earth in her smiles supremely blest.”
He spoke; the swains beheld the scene,
And admiration swelled each breast.
Sweet queen of worth,
Heaven gave to earth
Thy angel birth!

Loud echo rent the joyful skies:
“Sweet visitant, with us remain;
“Where'er you smile, Misfortune flies,
“And Heaven enraptures all the plain.
“Hail, to thee, Fame;
“Long may'st thou claim
“The virtuous dame!”

They sung; the cloudy mists retire;
The azure skies in smiles expand;
Burst through the clouds, the solar fire
Flamed in wide lustre round the land.
From sickly fears
The fair appears.
Hail, golden years!

TRANSLATED FROM SAPPHO.

Well may the happy youth rejoice,
Who, to thy arms a welcome guest,
Hears the soft musick of thy voice,
And on thy smiles may freely feast.

109

As gods above, securely blest,
He envies not the throne of Jove;
Endearing graces with his breast,
And sweetly charm him into love.

Ah, adverse fate! unhappy hour!
With horror, at thy form I start!
My faltering tongue forgets its power,
And struggling passions rend the heart!

Quick flames enkindle in my veins;
Impervious clouds my eyes surround;
Deep sighs I heave; wild Frenzy reigns;
My ears with dismal murmurs sound!

My colour, like the lily, fades;
Rude tremours seize my throbbing frame;
A gelid sweat my limbs pervades,
And strives to quench the vital flame;
My quivering pulse forgets to play;
Enraged, confused, I faint away!

ODE TO WINTER.

No fragrance fills the playful breeze;
No flowers the fields adorn:
But bare and leafless are the tress,
And dreary is the lawn.
For bliss-destroying Winter reigns,
The Lapland tyrant of the plains.

110

The crystal lakes unruffled stream,
With face serene, as even,
Whose surface in the solar beam,
Shone with the smile of heaven;
Chilled by cold Winter's frigid sway,
Reflect no more the face of day!

The nymphs no longer trip the field,
Nor, from the crowded green,
Fly, in some grove to lie concealed,
Yet hope their flight was seen.
No more, amid the sylvan dance,
Smiles round the soul-subduing glance!

And sylvan Pleasure's voice is hushed;
And the sweet roseate dye,
Which on the cheek of Nature blushed,
No more delights the eye.
Oh! thus the cheek of Beauty fades,
When wintry age its bloom pervades!

111

A SONG.

THE LASS OF EDEN GROVE.

In Eden grove there dwells a maid,
Adorned by every grace;
The pearls, that deck the dewy shade,
Fairer confess her face.

The sun has spots, the rose has thorns,
And poisons mix with love;
But every spotless charm adorns
The Lass of Eden grove.

The sparkling, soft, cerulean eye;
Bright Virtue's starry zone;
The smile of Spring's Favonian sky;
These charms are all her own.

The sun has spots, &c.

The frozen veins of age have felt
New youth in Eden grove;
Her smiles, like spring, the frost can melt,
And warm the heart with love.

The sun has spots, &c.

The monarch quits his dazzling throne,
And seeks her rural lot,
To find in her a richer crown;
A palace in a cot!

The sun has spots, &c.

112

While toy-enamoured eyes admire
The gaudy bubble, Fame;
Her virtues brighter joys inspire,
And softer honours claim.

The sun has spots, &c.

Her charms the noblest laurel prove,
The hero's meed outshine;
And round the brow of faithful love,
Perennial garlands twine.

The sun has spots, &c.

When Cupid all his darts has hurled,
From her he draws supplies,
And Hymen's flambeau lights the world
From her resplendent eyes.

The sun has spots, &c.

To her, sweet nymph, the captive soul,
Pours forth its votive lay;
'Tis bliss to own her soft control;
'Tis rapture, to obey.

The sun has spots, the rose has thorns,
And poisons mix with love;
But every spotless charm adorns
The Lass of Eden grove.

113

2. PART II.
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

115

EDWIN AND EMMA.

AN EPITHALAMIUM.

Hail, to the natal hour of nuptial joy,
When life, from Nature's second birth, begins;
When the fond lover, and the damsel coy,
Are born in wedlock, Love's connubial twins!

Ingenuous Edwin! whom pale Envy's frown,
For thee half-brightened to a smile, applauds;
Who, mid the leaves of Harvard's bay-wrought crown,
Entwin'st the wreath, which female taste awards.

Enchanting Emma, whose translucent face,
Like heaven's expanse, a ground work was designed,
Where Nature's hand her brightest gems might place,
To shine a picture of the perfect mind.

Blest, favoured pair, of rival charms the pride,
By Fortune nursed, by gay Refinement bred;
Unconscious Beauty, modest Worth allied,
By Cupid's hand to Hymen's temple led.

116

Whate'er in Love's bright landscape charmed your view,
May you, in sweet reality, enjoy;
Feel all, that Hope of rapture ever drew;
Live all, that Fancy ever dreamt of joy!

When man primæval walked with parent Heaven,
Eden his table crowned, and Eve his bed;
But, when by Fate's sad alternation driven,
He chose the bride, and from the garden fled.

More happy Edwin! 'tis thy lot assigned,
Not, Adam-like, to waver which to leave;
But, favoured youth, to find them both combined,
Thy Eve, an Eden; and thy Eden, Eve!

Auspicious union! with thy silken sweets,
Should sensual life her sackcloth joys compare;
The best morceau, that Epicurus eats,
Is but a tear-wet crust—a beggar's fare!

Lo! o'er yon night-wrapped precipice afar,
Gay, smiling, lingers Love's benignant queen!
There, rapt in ecstacy, she checks her car,
To feast her eyes upon the bridal scene!

A scene, so bright, that well might choirs above
Envy the lavish bliss, to mortals given;
Pant for the raptures of connubial love,
And wish, that wedlock was no sin in heaven!

Oh, happy pair, to every blessing born!
For you, may life's calm stream, unruffled, run;
For you, its roses bloom, “without a thorn,”
And bright as morning, shine its evening sun!

117

Yours be each joy, that easy affluence brings;
Each tranquil pleasure, that esteem can prove;
Each tender bliss, that from Affection springs,
And all the thrilling luxuries of love.

May not a tear in Emma's eyelid melt,
But that, which flows to meet her Edwin's kiss;
May not a throb in Edwin's breast be felt,
But that, which palpitates for Emma's bliss!

And when life's drama, like some worn out toy,
No more shall dazzle with its wonted charms;
Like old Anchises from the flames of Troy,
May Age retire in young Affection's arms!

Soft as the ringdove breathes her dying coo,
Serene, as Hesper gleams the dusky heath,
Be Emma's sigh, that wafts the world adieu;
Be Edwin's smile that gilds the lip of death.

But, Penseroso, hush thy dirge-toned string!
Each sprightly note should trill a fuge of mirth;
And, ere their souls to yon bright skies you wing,
Let them enjoy a prior heaven on earth!

118

A MONODY, TO THE MEMORY OF W. H. BROWN.

Pale sleeps the moonbeam on the shadowy surf;
Lorn to the gale, elegiack willows wave;
Cold-glistening, fall the night-dews on the turf;
And Nature leans upon her Pollio's grave.

Clouds veil the moon—'tis Nature garbed in woe;
The willow droops—'tis plaintive Nature sighs;
The night-dews fall—they are the tears, that flow
On Pollio's flower-wreathed urn, from Nature's eyes.

Yes!—he was doating Nature's favourite son;
The fostering muses fondly nursed the child;
His infant prattle into numbers run,
And Genius, from his opening eyelids, smiled.

In life maturing, Fancy's attick germ
The stalk of judgment with its blossoms graced;
Nor feared corroding Envy's latent worm,
The frost of criticks, nor the drought of taste.

At length full beamed the summer of his prime;
No fixed star—a rolling sun, he shone;
Now glanced his rays on Beauty's temperate clime;
Now flamed his orb o'er Grandeur's torrid zone.

119

As burnt the bush to Moses' raptured gaze,
Nor lost its verdure 'mid the flame divine;
Thus bloomed his song in rhetorick's splendid blaze,
Nor drooped the vigour of his nervous line.

With charms to move, with dignity to awe,
His tragick muse the lyre of pathos strung;
Loud wailed the horrors of fraternal war,
And dying Andre struggled on her tongue.

In either eye, a liquid mirror moved;
A tender ray illumed each crystal sphere;
While thus she sung the hapless chief beloved,
His life, the smile received—his fate, the tear.

With features, formed the moral laugh to hit,
Thalia knew his useful scene to frame;
And, scorning ribaldry, that trull of wit,
Preserved the chastity of lettered fame.

Ithaca's queen, his comick pencil drew,
Whom suitor-hosts, so long, in vain, adored;
Who, to the widowed bed of wedlock true,
Lived Sorrow's nun at riot's festive board.

His prose, like song, without its numbers, glowed;
Correctly negligent, with judgment bold:
Here reasoned sentiment, there humour flowed;
Now flashed the thought, and now the period rolled.

120

Swift, as the light to Nature's suburbs wings;
Quick, as the wink of Heaven's electrick eye;
Lo! Pollio's mind, with subtle vigour, springs;
And volumes, sketched in thoughts, perspective lie.

Not Cato-like, a miser of applause,
He loved the genius, that eclipsed his own;
Nor dreamt, like Johnson, that by Nature's laws,
He reigned the Sultan of the classick throne.

To censure, modest—generous, to commend;
To veteran bards he left of taste the van;
A keen eyed critick—still, a tender friend;
An idol'd poet—but, a modest man.

Such Pollio was!—but heaven, with hand divine,
Deducts in period, what it adds in boon;
Life's April day, with brighter beams, may shine,
But meets a sunset, in a cloud, at noon.

Felt ye the gale?—It was the Sirock blast,
That spreads o'er burning climes Death's gelid sleep!
Hear ye that groan? 'tis dying Pollio's last;
And Friendship, Genius, Virtue, speechless, weep!

“Oh, Pollio, Pollio!”—all Parnassus cries!—
Their breasts the grief-delirious muses beat;
Torn from their brows, the withering garland dies;
And drooping groves this funeral dirge repeat:

“Lamented Pollio, o'er thy sacred tomb,
“The laurel-sprig we plant, the turf to shade;
“Bathed by our tears, its spreading boughs shall bloom,
“'Till Fame's most verdant amaranths shall fade!

121

“No towering marble marks thy humble dust,
“Yet there shall oft our pensive choir repair;
“Thy modest grave can boast no sculptured bust,
“Yet Nature stands a weeping statue there!”

SELF-COMPLACENCY.

Let no rude Care, with anxious thoughts, invade,
Nor print her footstep in my chosen shade!
O'er the wide world I've traced the tour of day,
Where restless Love has taught my feet to stray;
If Anna's taste this favourite spot approve,
I'll drop the Scythian, and forget to rove.
All hail, ye deserts, bend a pitying ear,
A sound unknown, a human voice to hear!
Wave your tall brows, to hail a stranger-guest,
Whose throbbing bosom seeks in you a rest.
Proud earth, adieu! Your smile I ask no more,
Nor all your sordid, soul-contracting ore!
The Syren's bowl, and pleasure's deep abyss
Yield to the crystal fount a tranquil bliss.
The purest joy will ever love to dwell
In the lone confines of the hermit's cell;
On him the day lamp sheds its mildest beam,
His board the forest, and his cup the stream.
Like him, the menial arts of life forsook,
To hold pure converse with the babbling brook;

122

Here let me rove amid these wild retreats,
The bee of Nature's yet untasted sweets;
Here let my feet, o'erwearied, find repose,
My head a pillow, and my griefs a close!
The simple pleasures of uncultured earth
Can please no palate of exotick birth;
Lost is the social fire, with all its joys,
Lost is the splendid dome, with all its toys.
A long adieu! to all the world calls great,
Fame's glittering baubles, and the pomp of state!
Far from the tumults of the roaring sea,
The waves of Fortune roll no more for me.
Far from the vultures of corroding strife,
And all the senseless butterflies of life,
Here have I flown to trace new soils of bliss,
And clasp rude Nature in her loose undress;
Her naked graces Rapture's throb impart,
And spurn the pencil and the veil of art.
Beauty ne'er blushed, of harmless man afraid,
Nor asked a fig-leaf in the secret shade.
Oft in the modish circle, have I seen
The thoughtless canvass of a pictured mien;
And grown genteel, by Fashion's dire constraints,
The well-laced spider in a hectick faints.
Art can but mimick; Heaven alone must give
That innate force, by which the graces live.
The form and colour artists oft disclose,
But who has sketched the fragrance of the rose?
Ye dames, ambitious of applauding eyes,
Shall vile cosmeticks tempt the dubious prize?
Refine the heart, nor stoop to arts so base;
Sense never sparkled in a painted face!

123

Mine be the nymph, whom native charms adorn;
Who looks on Fashion's painted mask with scorn;
Who never spread the Syren's artful guise
To chain attention, or entrance surprise;
Who ne'er would wish the rising scale of fame,
If she, ascending, sunk a sister's name;
Who never heard, without a kindling glow,
The boast of Virtue's too successful foe.
Such be the fair, to whom my hopes would rise,
Whose soul gives language to her sparkling eyes;
Whose smile the gloomiest scene of life can cheer,
With rapture glisten, or dissolve a tear;
Whose charms with softness clothe her modest mien,
As light pellucid, and as heaven serene;
Whose lovely converse sweetens every boon;
Whose cheek the morning, and whose mind the noon.
Ah! lovely Anna! these are traits divine,
And Fancy's pencil glows with charms, like thine!
Come then, thou dearest, heaven-congenial maid,
And rove with me the grove, the hill and glade!
Behold those rocks of huge colossal size,
Whose cloud-girt tops appear to prop the skies;
Like them, above the world, we'll soar sublime;
Like them, our love shall brave the rage of Time!
Here rich Luxuriance waves her ample wing,
And spreads a harvest mid perpetual spring;
But ne'er can Nature's flowery charms endear,
If Anna, Nature's blossom, be not here.
Come then, my fair, and bless my lonesome hours,
And grace the palace arbour of the bowers.
All Nature waits my Anna to receive;
A second Eden wants a second Eve.

124

[Where'er the vernal bower, the autumnal field]

[_]

[The following Stanzas were addressed to the late Thomas Brattle, Esq. soon after he had embellished his seat at Cambridge, in a manner highly creditable to the taste of that worthy gentleman.]

Where'er the vernal bower, the autumnal field,
The summer arbour, and the winter fire;
Where'er the charms, which all the seasons yield,
Or Nature's gay museum can inspire,

Delight the bosom, or the Fancy please,
Or life exalt above a splendid dream;
There, Brattle's fame shall freight the grateful breeze,
Each grove resound it, and reflect each stream.

Each bough, that waves o'er brown Pomona's plains,
Each bud, that blossoms in the ambrosial bower,
Nursed by this great Improver's art, obtains
A nobler germin, and a fairer flower.

The rural vale a kind asylum gave,
When Peace the seats of ermined woe forsook;
Retirement found an Athens in a cave,
And man grew social with the babbling brook.

Here, happy Brattle, 'twas thy envied place,
In gay undress fair Nature to surprise;
By Art's slight veil to heighten every grace,
And bid a Vauxhall from a marish rise.

The airy hill-top, and the Dryad's bower,
No more shall tempt our sportive nymphs to rove;

125

This willow-shade shall woo the social hour,
And Brattle's mall surpass Arcadia's grove.

Fair Friendship, lovely virgin, here resort;
Here with thy charms the joy-winged morn beguile:
Thy eyes shall glisten eloquence to thought,
And teach the cheek of hopeless gloom to smile.

Here too, thy modest damsels oft shall pass,
Yield a soft splendour to the evening beam,
Gaze at the image in the watery glass,
And blush new beauty to the flattering stream:

While the pleased Naiad, watching their return,
As oft at morn her sportive limbs she laves,
Hears their loved voice, and leaning on her urn,
Stops the smooth current of her silver waves.

ADDRESSED TO MISS B.

Poor is the friendless master of the globe,
And keen the ingrate's heart-inserted probe;
But keener woes that wretch is doomed to prove,
The poorer hermit of unfriended love!

Oh, woman! subtle, lovely, faithless sex!
Born to enchant, thou studiest to perplex;
Adored as queen, thou play'st the tyrant's part,
And, taught to govern, would'st enslave the heart.

126

Now, cold as ice-plant, fickle as the wind,
Nor pity melts, nor pride can fix thy mind;
Now, warm and faithful as the cooing dove,
Thou breath'st no wish, and sing'st no note, but love!

In thee has Nature such elastick power,
She changes seasons, as she turns the hour;
In one short day, you roll through every sign,
From Passion's tropics, to Decorum's line.

Now from above, in vertic-heat you blaze,
And melting stoicks half enamoured gaze;
Now, dim from far your rays obliquely gleam,
And freeze the current of the poet's stream.

Thus, through our system, Nature's frolick child,
Fair woman, roves, a comet, bright and wild;
Supreme in art, our purblind sex she rules:
Wits may be lovers—lovers must be fools.

TO CLORA.

Thou nymph satirick, for a nymph thou art,
Whose varying lyre, like thy once doubtful sex,
Can with its tones the nicest ear perplex,
And numb with wonder the still pondering heart!

Thou, whom Menander joys to call a nymph,
Whose lips have freely quaffed the sacred lymph;
Who erst, in sweet Eliza's lovely guise,
Didst bless the vision of these mental eyes.

127

Thou injured maid, to gain whose secret name,
Intent I've listened with arrected ear;
Patrolled the whispering gallery of Fame,
And walked the watch-tower of the winds to hear!

Thou injured maid, to thee this verse belongs:
The lyre, that caused, shall expiate thy wrongs!

When first the soft Eliza tuned her lyre,
In notes, the pathos of whose dulcet swell
Might charm a Zeno with its potent spell,
And the fond passion, which she felt, inspire;

Enamoured Pride, from Fancy's hill-top, heard
The softened musick of the fluttering strain;
While Echo, prattling like the human bird,
Rechanting, chanted every note again.

But Judgment, wrinkled with a frown severe,
Checked the young rapture, which thy lays inspired;
Though Hope's pleased eye the page proscribed admired,
And shed upon the sweet forbidden fruit a tear.

Weak Jealousy outspread her saffron wing,
And, through the infection of the jaundiced hue,
Saw from Eliza's garb a monster spring,
In voice a Circe, and in poison too:

A magick chantress, from whose Hyblean tongue,
While fell the honied melody of praise,
Alas! impervious to the soul's fixed gaze,
A vocal death from every note she flung!

128

SONNET TO ELIZA.

Ah! do the Muses, once so coy and shy,
Pursue Menander, hard as legs can lay?
By Heavens, Menander swears, he will not fly,
But meet their gentle ladyships half way!

What! shall this coward bard turn pale with fear,
When clinging round his knees these virgins lie?
Is he afraid of drowning in a tear,
Or being blown to atoms by a sigh?

No, dear Eliza, with expanded arms
I turn to clasp the fair one that pursues;
But, struck with such divinity of charms,
Shrink from alliance with so bright a muse.

Yet weep not, that from Hymen's yoke I've slipt my neck,
For you've escaped a bite, while I have lost a spec.

SONNET TO BELINDA.

Pathetick chantress! Nature's feeling child!
Thou, like thy parent, rulest a variant sphere
Where Judgment ripens, Fancy blossoms wild;
Thy page the landscape, and thy mind the year.

Oft in the rainbow's heaven-enchasing beams,
Thy hand, sweet limner, many a pencil dips;
And oft receive Pieria's sacred streams
New inspiration from Belinda's lips.

129

Pure, as the bosom of the virgin rose,
Blooms the rich verdure of a heart sincere;
And e'en Belinda's smile more radiant glows,
Through the clear mirror of the pearly tear.

But, ah! her lyre in hushed oblivion sleeps,
While Edwin mourns, and all Parnassus weeps.

MENANDER TO PHILENIA.

[_]

[During the years 1792 and 1793, Mr. Paine, beside other contributions to that Miscellany, published in the Massachusetts Magazine such pieces, as appearing there under the signature of Menander. As those pieces are addressed to a lady whose title to the first place among our native poetesses is undisputed and indisputable; and as, in order to understand Menander, it is indispensably necessary, that Philenia may be easily consulted, no apology is required for inserting Mrs. Morton's verses in this collection. The first piece of this correspondence, which was originally published in the Massachusetts Mercury of February, 1793, as were also the second and third pieces, alludes to a Poem entitled, “Beacon-Hill,” supposed to be then preparing by Philenia for the press.]

Blest be the task, along the stream of Fame,
To waft the Patriot's and the Hero's name!
Blest be the Muse, whose soft Orphean breath
Recalls their memories from the realms of death!
And blest Philenia, noblest of the choir,
Whose hallowed hands attune Columbia's lyre!
'Tis thine to bid the deathless laurel bloom,
And shade departed Virtue's sacred tomb;
While pruned by thee, its loftier branches grow,
And yield new honours to the dust below!

130

'Tis thine, like Joshua, sun of Glory stand!
And gild the urn of Freedom's martyred band!
While in thy song, with charms illustrious, shine
Gods, shaped like men, and men, like gods, divine!
Hail, lofty Beacon, hill of Freedom, hail!
Thy torch her herald to the distant vale!
What various scenes, from thy commanding height,
The horizon paint—the turning eye delight!
Loud Ocean here, with undulating roar,
Calls daring souls to worlds unknown before;
While mazing there, like Fancy's wanton child,
Charles curls along, irregular and wild.
Here, Commerce, decked in all the wings of Time,
Courts the fleet breeze, and ranges every clime;
There the gay villa lifts its lofty head,
The social mansion, and the humbler shed.
But nobler honours to thy fame belong,
And owe their splendour to Philenia's song.
Beacon shall live the theme of future lays;
Philenia bids—obsequious Fame obeys.
Beacon shall live, enbalmed in verse sublime,
The new Parnassus of a nobler clime.
No more the fount of Helicon shall boast
Its peerless waters, or its suitor-host;
To thee shall every fabled muse aspire,
And learn new musick from Philenia's lyre.
No more the flying steed the bard shall bear,
Through the wild regions of poetick air;
On nobler gales of verse his wings shall rise,
While Beacon's eagle wafts him through the skies.
'Tis here Philenia's muse begins her flight,
As Heaven elate, extensive as the light:

131

Here, like this bird of Jove, she mounts the wind,
And leaves the clouds of vulgar bards behind.
Her tuneful notes, in tones mellifluous flow,
With charms more various, than the coloured bow.
Here, softly sweet, her liquid measures play,
And mildest zephyrs gently sigh away;
There, towering numbers stalk, majestick rise,
Like ocean storm, and lighten like the skies.
While here, the gay Canary charms our ears,
There, the lorn Philomel dissolves in tears.
While here, the deep, grave verse slow loiters on,
There, the blythe lines in swift meanders run.
Thus to each theme responds her echoing lay;
Bold, without rashness; without trifling, gay:
Serene, yet nervous; easy, yet sublime;
With modulation's unaffected chime;
Soft, without weakness; without frenzy, warm;
The varying shade of Nature's varying form.
Let souls, elated by the pomp of praise,
The arch triumphal, or the busto raise;
Bid marble, issuing into life, proclaim
Their bubble greatness in the ear of Fame!
Gay trifles, pictured out on Glory's shore,
Which Time's first rising billow leaves no more!
'Tis thine, Philenia, loveliest muse, to raise
A firmer monument of nobler praise!
Thou shalt survive, when Time shall whelm the bust,
And lay the pyramids of Fame in dust.
Unsoiled by years, shall thy pathetick verse
Melt Memory's eye upon the Patriot's hearse;
And while each distant age and clime admire
The funeral honours of thy epick lyre,

132

What Hero's bosom would not wish to bleed,
That you might sing, and raptured ages read?
'Till the last page of Nature's volume blaze,
Shall live the tablet, graven with thy lays!

PHILENIA TO MENANDER.

Blest Poet! whose Eolian lyre
Can wind the varied notes along,
While the melodious Nine inspire
The graceful elegance of song.

Who now with Homer's strength can rise,
Then with the polished Ovid move;
Now swift as rapid Pindar flies,
Then soft as Sappho's breath of love.

To nobler themes attune that strain
Whose magick might the soul subdue.
Calm the wild frenzies of the brain,
And every fading hope renew.

Ne'er can my timid Muse aspire,
To wake the harp's majestick string;
Nor with Menander's “epick” fire,
The deeds of godlike heroes sing.

My lute, with many a willow bound,
Flings the lorn pathos to the gale;
While o'er the modulated sound,
The sighs of Sympathy prevail.

133

'Tis for thy eagle mind to tower
Triumphant on the wing of Fame;
To dash the idiot brow of Power,
And waft the Hero's laurelled name;

To sketch the full immortal scene,
Each mental and each pictured view;
Meandering Charles embowered in green,
The warrior's turf impearled with dew;

The hapless maid whose plighted truth,
And peerless beauties could not save
The brave, heroick, victim-youth,
Dishonoured by a felon-grave.

Where the red hunter chased his prey,
The hand of culturing Science reigns;
Where forests arched the brow of day,
The temple lights its glittering vanes.

Such are the themes, thou minstrel blest!
That to thy classick lyre belong,
While Genius fires thy passioned breast
With all the eloquence of song.

Thine be the chief, whose deeds sublime
Shall through the world's wide mansion beam,
Unsullied by the breath of Time,
Exhaustless as his native stream.

Divine Menander, strike the string;
With all thy sun-like splendour shine;
The deeds of godlike heroes sing,
And be the palm of Genius thine!

134

MENANDER TO PHILENIA.

The star, that paves the blue serene,
Or sparkles on the brow of even,
Courts from the sun that lucid mien,
Which gems the glittering mine of heaven:

The breeze, that spreads its Cassia wing,
Perfumes the breath of scentless air
From rich bouquets, which jocund Spring
Selects from Nature's gay parterre:

Thus too, Philenia, muse supreme,
Whose clear, reflecting pages shine,
Like the translucent, crystal stream,
The mirror of a soul divine:

Thus, from thy lyre, Menander's ear
The song-inspired vibration caught;
Thus, from thy hand, his temples wear
A wreath, which thou alone hast wrought.

To thee his muse aspired with pride,
And sealed her carol with thy name,
Whose signet gave, what Heaven denied,
A passport at the door of Fame.

True merit shines with native light,
Obscurest shades ne'er cloud its blaze;
For, diamond like, it gilds the night,
And dazzles with unborrowed rays.

135

Hence, with a zeal of equal flame,
The world has with Philenia vied,
While Admiration winged her fame,
And modest Merit blushed to hide.

But, ah, thy lavish praise forbear!
'Twere madness to believe it due;
For none, but Nature's fondest care,
Deserves a glance of Fame from you.

To me no charms of verse belong;
The tints of every classick grace,
Mild Contemplation, nurse of song,
Beamed from thy muse-illumined face.

When thy “lorn pathos” fills the gale,
Wild Fancy learns of Truth to weep,
Romance forgets her tragick tale,
And Werter lulls his griefs to sleep.

Serene, amid the bursting storm,
You check the frenzied passion's scope,
And, radiant as an angel form,
Smile on the death-carved urn of Hope.

Thy magick tears leave Slander mute,
They melt the Stoick heart of snow;
And every willow on thy lute,
Has proved a laurel for thy brow.

136

SONNET TO PHILENIA, ON A STANZA, IN HER ADDRESS TO MYRA.

[_]

The Stanza, which suggested this Sonnet, is highly encomiastick on Mr. Paine. It is here given from the Massachusetts Magazine of Feb. 1793.

“Since first Affliction's dreary frown
“Gloomed the bright summer of my days,
“Ne'er has my bankrupt bosom known
“A solace, like his peerless praise.”

Thy “bosom bankrupt!”—fair Peru divine
Of every mental gem, that e'er has shone,
In dazzled Fancy's intellectual mine,
Or ever spangled Virtue's radiant zone.

Thy “bosom bankrupt!”—Nature, sooner far,
Shall roll, exhausted, flowerless springs away;
Leave the broad eye of noon, without a ray,
And strip the path to heaven of every star.

Thy “bosom bankrupt!”—Ah, those sorrows cease,
Which taught us, how to weep, and how admire;
The tear, that falls to soothe thy wounded peace,
With rapture glistens o'er thy matchless lyre.
Ind and Golconda, in one firm combined,
Shall sooner bankrupt, than Philenia's mind.

137

THE COUNTRY GIRL TO MENANDER.

Yes! 'twas thy numbers, sailing on the breeze,
Floating in rich luxuriance, 'mongst the trees,
That caught my ear, as heedlessly I strayed,
O'er the soft velvet of the verdant glade.
'Twas thy own trembling lyre, I knew it well,
That gave the magick spring, the glowing swell;
That, borne on wings seraphick, glided by,
And filled my soul, with richest melody.
Oft, have I heard thy rapturous, treasured strains,
When roving careless, 'midst the dewy plains;
Oft, has thy well known lay joyed my rapt soul,
When sunk unnoticed, 'neath the rising knoll;
Whilst catching from afar the golden note,
I've bid my praises, on the zephyrs float.
Amid thick woods, and close embowering shades,
Stupendous rocks, and verdant flowery glades,
I've heard thy matchless, thy resistless strains,
Whilst lilies spread them o'er the lengthening plains.
To thee unknown, except by kindred fire,
That taught me how to love, and how t' admire,
I've hailed, have sung—and oft have sought to gain
One sweet responsive chord, to my dull strain.
Lost to all thoughts, or cares, for other's lays,
Philenia's brow alone thou crown'st with bays;
To her rich mine a monthly tribute send'st,
Nor to a younger vot'ry ever lend'st
A single warbling note of love, or praise,
Though sought, though urged, in ev'ry ardent gaze.

138

STANZAS TO THE COUNTRY GIRL.

Blest nymph unknown! fair minstrel of the plain!
When lyres of swelling grandeur cease to please,
Shall charm thy simple, nature-breathing strain,
Where sweetens Beauty's tone mellifluous ease.

Coerced by Fate, my Muse had sighed farewell,
A long farewell to all Apollo's train;
But thou hast charmed her from Retirement's cell,
And strung her loosened, tuneless chords again.

Thus while pale Morpheus walks his midnight rounds,
Soft Musick's echoing voice the ear invades;
And, Orpheus-like, with life renewing sounds,
Recalls the soul from Sleep's unconscious shades.

Say, in what region, what Arcadian skies;
What ville Elysian, what Castalian grove;
Where Tempean bowers, and Attick Edens rise,
The school of Genius, and the lap of Love?

Oh! where, O! tell me, where is thy retreat?
What myrtles twine their arms to shade thy path?
What Naiad's grotto forms thy mid-day seat?
What bank thy couch, what envied stream thy bath?

Tell me but this, and lo! Menander flies,
To hail the fair, whose picture Fancy views;
T'unmask the face, which charms him in disguise,
And clasp the Nymph, as he has kissed the Muse.

139

THE COUNTRY GIRL TO MENANDER.

Oh! cease thy too seducive strain,
Nor touch the warbling harp again;
The rapturing tones invade my heart,
And Peace and Rest will soon depart;
Love, with his downy, purple wing,
Will to my breast his roses bring;
But, ah! beneath their roseate dye,
The sharpest thorns of Anguish lie:
Then hush the enchanting, soul-detaining lyre,
And let Indiff'rence quench the kindling fire.

Yet, oh 'tis rich, to hear the trilling sounds;
On the full swell,
With rapture dwell,
As the slow numbers steal along the grounds;
Then as they rise in air,
And on the fragrant zephyrs float,
And wanton there,
How sweet, to catch the silver note!
But Wisdom wills the stern decree,
And puts a lasting bar, 'twixt love and me.
The streams of joy, that Cupid sips,
And where he laves his gilded plumes,
Must never glisten on the lips,
She says, where sober Wisdom blooms.

Thou call'st me from my native grove,
And bid'st me tell where 'tis I rove;

140

It is, the Goddess bids me say,
Where Love and thou must never stray:
Where Peace and Pleasure constant bloom,
And Rapture smiles around the tomb.
But though alone, with mental eye,
This form thou ne'er must view;
In answer to this deep drawn sigh,
Breathe me one last adieu;
So may full tides of joy around thee flow,
And life's more fragrant flow'rets ever blow.

SONNET TO THE COUNTRY GIRL.

Haste, Zephyr, fly, and waft to Anna's ear
This bosom echo—'tis my heart's reply;
Say, to her notes I listened with a tear,
And caught the sweet contagion of a “sigh.”

But, ah! that “last adieu!” oh! stern request!
Cold, as those tides of vital ice, that roll
Through the chilled channels of the maiden breast,
When prudish Sanctity congeals the soul.

O'er Fancy's fairy lawn, no more we rove;
No more, in Rhyme's impervious hood arrayed,
Hold airy converse in the Muse's grove,
While you a shadow seemed, and I a shade.

For know, Menander can thy features trace,
Nor more thy verse admire, than idolize thy face!

141

SONNET, TO ANNA-LOUISA, ON HER ODE TO FANCY.

Say, child of Phœbus and the eldest Grace,
Whose lyre melodious, and enchanting face,
The blendid title of thy birth proclaim;
Say, lovely Naiad of Castalia's streams,
Why thus thy Muse on Fiction's pillow dreams,
And fondly woos the rainbow-mantled Dame?
When stern Misfortune, with her Gorgon frown,
Congeals the fairy face of Bliss to stone,
Hope to the horns of Fancy's altar flies;
But what gay nun would seek asylum there,
When Beauty, Love and Fortune crown the fair,
And Hymen's temple greets her raptured eyes?
Then haste, sweet nymph, to bless the ardent youth;
Then, Fancy, “blush to be excelled by Truth.”

STANZAS TO ANNA, ON HER VISIT TO PHILADELPHIA.

Come, power ethereal, whose mellifluous aid
Taught Shenstone's lyre with dulcet swell to move,
Sweet, as the minstrel of the evening shade,
Soft, as the languor in the eye of Love!

142

Come, lend my artless hand thy magick charm,
To deck the wreath, on Anna's brow entwined;
In notes majestick, as her heavenly form;
In verse irradiant, as her brilliant mind.

From the bleak sky of Boston's sea-girt shore,
The Sun and Anna seek benigner plains;
Where'er he shines, rude Winter storms no more,
Where'er she visits, Spring florescent reigns.

She smiles—and all the Loves their arrows wing;
She moves—the Goddess by her gait is known;
She chants—and all inspired, the Muses sing;
She speaks—'tis peerless Anna's self alone!

All welcome, lovely fair-one, queen of grace,
Thou sigh and hope, by every heart expressed;
Add to the sparkling triumphs of thy face,
The humble tribute of Menander's breast!

TO TRUTH.

[_]

The two following Pieces were written in answer to some one, who, under the signature of Truth, had attacked Mr. Paine in language, here distinguished by inverted commas.

“Begs not, but steals!” If ought with furtive view
From elder bards my muse hath e'er purloined,
She scorns those artless thefts, performed by you,
Who steal the dross, but leave the gold behind.

“With all the charms of lofty nonsense graced!”
Such “nonsense” surely can't with thine agree;

143

On me the robes of Dulness thou hast placed;
Thank Heaven, I'm not a fool in rags, like thee.

“The discounts few!” Hadst thou, dull cynic, cast
O'er Fame's bright ledger a correct survey,
There thou hadst found Philenia's dues so vast,
That all the Muses can't the interest pay.

Should'st thou, to soothe departed Credit's ghost,
At Taste's or Honour's bank present a note,
With Conon's and Ezekiel's names endorsed,
And were the sum applied for, but a groat;

No just director, were the signer known,
Would trust so base an applicant a stiver;
To thy responsorship would clip the loan,
And, cent per cent, curtail it—to a cypher.

Henceforth, let “Truth” a liberal spirit learn,
For female genius claims a deathless mead;
Henceforth those low, aspersive insults spurn,
Which Truth would blush to write, and Genius weep to read.

TO TRUTH.

Well, “Truth,” the snails, upon the tuneful mount,
Would twist and lift their sluggish limbs about,
While thy dull fingers duller numbers count,
And drag the limping legs of Rhyme, slow, lin-ge-ring out.

144

So, “Dulness” owns me for a “favourite son!”
Thank ye, good Sir, that worse ye don't abuse us;
This self-same strumpet, ere her time was run,
Swore thee on Chaos, a Naturæ lusus!

Ah! is the praise of fools no proof of merit?
Their censure, surely then, an envied “praise” is,
And blest be all the stars, that I inherit
So large a portion of your evil graces!

“Then dare be honest, and to Knavery own?”
Hadst thou the office of confessor claimed,
Then might I kneel, and all my sins make known,
To one, of whom e'en “Knavery” is ashamed!

“The greatest fool, that lives!”—Why heaves that groan?
I'll wear no wreath, that costs my friend a tear;
The cap receive again, 'tis thine alone;
For you, like Cæsar, find on earth no peer!

“As Sense, the accountant, sure has entered sound!”
This error on the clerk of “Fame” must fall;
I'm proud, that in her books my name is found;
With thee she opens no account at all!

“And find the whole amount not half a sous!”
As well might ants about the Alps declaim,
And garret-criticks preach upon Peru,
As “Truth” the lowest coin of Genius name.

“Philenia's sergeant!” Pride adores the thought!
The humblest halbert, which Pieria's queen
From Taste's bright armoury gives, were cheaply bought
With all the epaulets of envious Spleen!

145

Though all my “puffs” not one recruiter drew,
I'll not thy more successful drumstick rob;
Yes! oft I've heard thee beat the loud tattoo,
And with thy long-roll muster Wapping's mob!

Thy Gorgon train array, in battle ire;
Philenia triumphs with unaided Charms;
Like Rome's illustrious chief, her magick lyre
Could speak a tuneful Myriad into arms.

By “puffs” Menander “seeks his fame to raise!”
Thy sickly fame were shocked by means so rough;
The mildest breath puts out the Taper's blaze,
And bubbles vanish at the slightest “puff!”

“My sinking credit!”—Should it sink to wreck,
'Tis joy, to hear thee own, my credit rose;
Thine, by a fall, can never break its neck,
The tide can never ebb, before it flows!

Thou son of Zoilus, hail! His pulpit host
Exult in thee, a second leader gained;
Whose greatest praise the vilest grub might boast;
Whose only glory is a laurel stained!

But I'll no longer war against a foe,
On whom too condescending Justice snears;
A foe, so lost to every tender glow,
That Adamant a Sensitive appears!

The surly Critick, who with envy blind,
To shine the pedant, with the man would part,
In Fame's ascending scale may raise his mind,
While in the falling balance sinks his heart.

146

Poor is the ruffian victor of the field,
Where tortured feelings melt the female eye,
Where wounded Tenderness, compelled to yield,
Leads the barbarian's triumph with a sigh.

STANZAS TO A YOUNG LADY ON A BAMBOO FAN, ACCIDENTALLY TORN.

Erst, wanton Toy, 'twas thine to move,
By beauty's lovely queen caressed;
While, waving, like the wing of love,
Thou fanned'st a flame in every breast!
'Twas thine, in her imperial hand,
The cold to warm, the proud subdue;
The female Franklin's magic wand,
Olivia's sceptre, sweet Bamboo!

Whene'er the Nymph displayed thy charms
Thy airy flutters graceful move;
Each bosom, throbbing soft alarms,
Appeared an aspen leaf of love.
And while, too fondly, thought the maid
To smile unseen, when veiled by you;
Her treacherous eyes the plot betrayed,
And dazzled through the thin Bamboo.

But oh! ye Loves, whence heaves that sigh,
And whence those tears, ye Graces, flow?
Why swells the sorrow-glistening eye?
Why ventilates the breast of woe?

147

“'Tis rent! Olivia's fan is rent!
“Farewell, our triumphs! Fame, adieu!”
Alas!—But why, this wound lament?
'Tis glory to your loved Bamboo!

Two rival Zephyrs, knights of air,
Contended for Olivia's lip;
To dwell, like Epicureans there,
And riot on the nect'rous sip;
To that pure fount, of chaste delight,
These Chesterfields of æther flew;
Rushed on the Fan, which checked their sight,
And rudely tore the soft Bamboo.

Ah! could I gain the ear of Jove,
To list propitious to my prayer,
This sole request my wish should prove,
That I thy envied form might bear.
Then, from the nymph I'd steal a kiss,
And sigh, in plaintive zephyrs too;
While tender tales of love and bliss,
I'd whisper from the fond Bamboo!

149

THE PRIZE PROLOGUE:

Spoken in the character of Apollo. BY Mr. C. POWELL, AT THE OPENING OF THE FIRST THEATRE, IN BOSTON, JANUARY, 1794.

151

When first, o'er Athens, Learning's dawning ray
Gleamed the dim twilight of the Attick day;
To charm, improve, the hours of state repose,
The deathless father of the Drama rose.
No gorgeous pageantry adorned the show;
The plot was simple, and the scene was low.
Without the wardrobe of the Graces, drest;
Without the mimick blush of Art, caressed;
Heroick Virtue held her throne secure,
For Vice was modest, and Ambition poor.

But soon the Muse, by nobler ardours fired,
To loftiest heights of Scenick verse aspired.
From useful Life her comick fable rose,
And Epick passions formed her tale of woes:
The daring Drama heaven itself explored,
And gods descending trod the Grecian board.
The scene expanding, through the temple swelled;
Each bosom acted, what each eye beheld:
Warm to the heart, the chimick Fiction stole,
And purged, by moral Alchymy, the soul.

Hence Artists graced, and Heroes nerved the age,
The sons or pupils of a patriot stage.
Hence, in this forum of the virtues fired,
This living school of Eloquence inspired;

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With bolder crest, the dauntless warrior strode;
With nobler tongue, the ardent statesman glowed;
The void of Life instinctive morals filled,
And Fame herself with chaste Ambition thrilled;
Imperial Grief gave social Pity birth,
And frightened Folly feared instructive Mirth.

Thus Athens reigned Minerva of the globe;
First, in the hemlet—fairest in the robe;
In arms she triumphed, as in letters shone,
Of Taste the palace, and of War the throne.

But, lo! where, rising in majestick flight,
The Roman eagle sails the expanse of light!
His wings, like Heaven's vast canopy, unfurled,
Stretch their broad plumage o'er the subject world.
Behold! he soars, where climbing Phœbus rolls,
And, perching on his car, o'erlooks the poles!
Far, as the chariot winds its radiant way,
His empire follows on the ebb of day;
And Rome and Light revolve with rival fires,
And Cesar governs, when the Sun retires.

Bland nurse of Genius! mother queen of Grace!
Lo! Cecrops' throne is Ruin's charnel place!
Long ages past, with beating wing, have swept
Thy crumbling tomb, and as they smote, have wept;
Now, Time's grey eve, serene with lingering day,
Sheds o'er thy wrecks his sad sepulchral ray!
Departed Athens! round thy sullen shores,
Choaked with thy gods, thy vexed Pyræus roars,

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Once proud to glitter where thy columns stood,
That Heaven might see thy temples in his flood.
From their cold altars all thy priests have flown,
And hermit Silence worships there alone!
O'er thy drear mound no dirge thy muses swell;
Mute is the breath, that filled their votive shell.
Pierced at their shrines, the sacred sisters fled,
Veiled their stained breasts, and pitied while they bled;
Then, grouped in air, they showed the wounds they bore,
And dropped their broken lyres, to sound no more.
The Chissel's life still loves the realm it graced,
And weeps in marble o'er thy sculptured waste;
O'er broken cenotaphs and mouldering fanes,
Sits black Despair, while pagan Wonder reigns;
Where frowned thy Sages, from their niches thrown,
The prophet raven fills the vacant stone;
With Arab scars the Parian hero bleeds,
And Beauty's statue sleeps in groves of weeds;
Minerva's temple vainly greets the stars,
And pirates shelter on the rock of Mars.

Where lightens now, the Drama's vivid eye,
Whose glance reformed, where'er its beams could fly?
Who, when Desire was fond, and Art was young,
So rudely sported, and so simply sung?
Yet, when thy realm was wild, and dark with fate,
Could charm the tumult, and allay the state?
Could gently touch the film, that made thee blind,
And pour new day o'er thine infatuate mind?

Where, now, thy lofty Muse, thou bard divine!
Who bade a nation's wealth adorn her shrine!

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Who, graced their passions, and their pride to move,
A people's homage, and a senate's love,
With gorgeous drapery, and imperial air,
Awed mobs to think, and “wonder why they were;”
Who with her pencil moved the state-machine,
And swayed a faction, as she turned a scene;
With Art's last glories bade her temple flame,
And gave to Virtue, all she won from Fame;
Who o'er a realm her vast proscenium threw,
And saw all Athens in one splendid view;
With Attick genius moral truth impressed,
And taught a nation, while she charmed a guest!

In vain Illyssus flowed, or Locris bled,
The vital virtue of my heart had fled!
What though to victory patriot Valour wades;
Or musing Science consecrates thy shades;
While thankless Praise on dangerous Glory frowns,
And Envy banishes, whom Fortune crowns;
While the blest seer, who taught all, Nature knew,
Receives a chalice for the heaven he drew.

In vain thy Epick heroes wake with rage,
And stalk like spectres o'er thy trembling stage!
Ruled by caprice, with varying passion raised,
As rhetorick flattered, or as triumph blazed;
Bound by no law, a trope could not repeal,
Just to no merit, faction could not feel;
A crowd of schools, and a scholastick crowd,
Light, though forensick, impotent, though loud;
Wild by abstraction, and by fiction vain,
Crude by refinement, and by sense insane;

155

With quick conceits thy fickle fancy burned,
With learning fooled thee, 'till thy folly learned;
With clamoruus Wisdom waged its patriot feud,
'Till words alone defended publick good,
Disgusted Pallas her allegiance broke,
Ilium revived, and bade thee pass the yoke.

Dear wild of Genius! o'er thy mouldering scene,
While Taste explores, where Time's rude step has been,
Thy marble fragments, and thy desert mart,
Frown Fate to Faction, and Despair to Art;
Alike they mark thy frenzy and thy fame,
Record thy glory, and confess thy shame!

Bare and defenceless to the blast of war,
The gates of Greece received the victor's car;
Chained to his wheels, was captive Faction led,
And Taste transplanted bloomed at Tyber's head.
O'er the rude minds of Empire's hardy race,
The opening pupil beamed of lettered grace.
With charms so sweet, the houseless Drama smiled,
That Rome adopted Athens orphan child:
With bounty cloathed her, and with kindness cheered,
Her fancy copied, and her satire feared;
Vice, fashion, folly—to her power resigned,
And bowed an empire to the Muse's mind.
Wealth, honour, fame her Cesar's hand bestowed,
Wit, virtue, grace repaid the debt, she owed;
Life breathed in fable, eloquence in mien,
And manners taught how morals should be seen.
From Beauty's touch no mail could guard the heart,
Rome conquered science and was ruled by art.

156

Transplanted Athens' in her stage revived,
Her patriots mouldered, but her poets lived.
Fledged by her hand, the Mantuan swan aspired;
Glanced by her eye, e'en Pompey's self retired;
And raptured Tully half his graces caught,
While Roscius bodied all the forms of thought.
Sheathed was the sword, by which a world had bled;
And Janus blushing to his temple fled:
The Globe's proud butcher grew humanely brave;
Earth staunched her wounds, and Ocean hushed his wave.

Augustan Rome, with sad, prophetick eye,
Beheld her empire circle round the sky;
And saw along the ever rolling view,
Her shadow tremble, as her pennons flew.
Around her throne Pretorian cohorts stood,
Yet Fiction governed what her arms subdued.
O'er vassal man she dared not reign alone,
And called the Drama to support her throne;
And shook her sceptre, and her legions led,
When spoke the Larva, or the Arena bled.

At length, though huge of limb, by power oppressed,
Groaning with Slavery's mountain on their breast,
Her giant nations struggled from disgrace,
And Rome, like Ætna, tottered to her base.

Thus set the sun of intellectual light,
And, wrapped in clouds, lowered on the Gothick night.
Dark gloomed the storm—the rushing torrent poured,
And wide the deep Cimmerian deluge roared;

157

E'en Learning's loftiest hills were covered o'er,
And seas of dulness rolled, without a shore.
Yet, ere the surge Parnassus' top o'erflowed,
The banished Muses fled their blest abode.
Frail was their ark, the heaven topped seas to brave,
The wind their compass, and their helm the wave;
No port to cheer them, and no star to guide,
From clime to clime they roved the billowy tide;
At length, by storms and tempests wafted o'er,
They found an Ararat on Albion's shore.

Yet sterile proved the cold, reluctant Age,
And scarcely seemed to vegetate the stage;
Nature, in dotage, second childhood mourned,
Outlived her wisdom, and to straw returned.
But, hark! her mighty rival sweeps the strings;
Sweet Avon, flow not!—'tis thy Shakespeare sings!
With Blanchard's wing, in Fancy's heaven he soars;
With Herschel's eye, another world explores!
Taught by the tones of his melodious song,
The scenick Muses tuned their barbarous tongue,
With subtle powers the crudest soul refined,
And warmed the Zombia of the dormant mind.
The World's new queen, Augusta, owned their charms,
And clasped the Grecian nymphs in British arms.

Then triumphed Nature with imperial Art,
The Drama's province was the human heart.
No tint of verse can paint the extatick view,
When Garrick sighed the Muse his last adieu!
Description but a shadow's shade appears,
When Siddons' looks a nation into tears!

158

But, ah! while thus unrivalled reigns the Muse,
Her soul o'erflows and Grief her face bedews;
Sworn at the altar, proud Oppression's foe,
She weeps, indignant for her Britain's woe.
Long has she cast a fondly wishful eye,
On the pure climate of the Western sky;
And now, while Europe bleeds at every vein,
And pinioned forests shake the crimsoned main;
While sea-walled Britain mid the tempest stands,
And hurls her thunders from a thousand hands;
Lured by a clime, where, hostile arms afar,
Peace rolls luxurious in her dove drawn car;
Where Freedom first awoke the human mind,
And broke the enchantment, which enslaved mankind;
Behold! Apollo seeks this liberal plain,
And brings the Thespian Goddess in his train.
O, happy realm! to whom are richly given
The noblest bounties of indulgent Heaven;
For whom has Earth her wealthiest mine bestowed,
And Commerce bridged old Ocean's broadest flood;
To you a stranger guest, the Drama, flies;
An angel wanders in a pilgrim's guise!
To charm the fancy and to feast the heart,
She spreads the banquit of the Scenick art.
By you supported, shall her infant stage
Pourtray, adorn, and regulate the age.
When rages Faction with intemperate sway,
And grey-haired Vices shame the face of day;
Drawn from their covert to the indignant pit,
Be such the game to stock the park of Wit;
That park, where Genius all his shafts may draw,
Nor dread the terrors of a forest law.

159

But not to scenes of pravity confined,
Her polished life an ample field shall find;
Reflected here, its fair perspective, view,
The stage, the Camera—the landscape, you.

Ye circling fair, whose clustering beauties shine
A radiant galaxy of charms divine;
Whose gentle hearts those tender scenes approve,
Where pity begs, or kneels adoring love;
Ye sons of sentiment, whose bosom fire
The song of pathos, and the epick lyre;
Whose glowing souls with tragick grandeur rise,
When bleeds a hero, or a nation dies;
And ye, who, throned on high, a Synod sit,
And rule the turbid atmosphere of wit;
Whose clouds dart light'ning on our comick wires,
And burst in thunder, as the flash expires.
If here, those eyes, whose tears with peerless sway,
Have wept the vices of an Age away;
If here, those lips, whose smiles with magick art,
Have laughed the foibles from the cheated heart;
On Mirth's gay cheek, can one bright dimple light;
In Sorrow's breast, one passioned sigh excite;
With nobler streams, the Buskin's grief shall fall;
With pangs sublimer, throb this breathing wall;
Thalia too, more blythe, shall trip the stage,
Of Care the wrinkles smooth, and thaw the veins of Age.

And now, Thou Dome, by Freedom's patrons reared,
With Beauty blazoned, and by Taste revered;
Apollo consecrates thy walls profane,—
Hence be thou sacred to the Muses reign!

160

In Thee, three ages in one shall conspire;
A Sophocles shall sweep his lofty lyre;
A Terence rise, in chariest charms serene;
A Sheridan display the polished scene;
The first, with epick Grief shall swell the stage,
And give to virtue fiction's noblest rage;
The second, laws to Beauty shall impart,
And copy nature by the rules of art;
The last, great master, ends invention's strife,
And gilds the mirror, which he holds to life!
Thy classick lares shall exalt our times,
With distant ages and remotest climes;
And Athens, Rome, Augusta, blush to see,
Their virtue, beauty, grace, all shine—combined in thee.

161

THE INVENTION OF LETTERS:

A POEM, WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF THE PRESIDENT OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY; AND DELIVERED, IN CAMBRIDGE, ON THE DAY OF ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT, JULY 15, 1795.

162

TO HIS EXCELLENCY GEORGE WASHINGTON, WHOSE CIVICK AND MILITARY VIRTUES DESERVE A NOBLER EULOGIUM, THAN THE “INVENTION OF LETTERS” CAN BESTOW, THIS POEM IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, BY AN OBEDIENT AND GRATEFUL CITIZEN,
THE AUTHOR.

163

Scarce had the cedar cleft the virgin wave,
That erst to Tyre its chaste embraces gave;
Scarce had the bold Phœnician, forced to roam
By barren nature and a desert home;
His vales of rock exchanged for Ocean's field,
And left the plough's, the trident's beam to wield;
When Cadmus, eldest heir of classick fame,
First gave each element of thought a name.
Of oral tongue the varying sounds he caught,
For every tone a varying emblem wrought;
From signs a word; from words a period flows;
A page succeeds, and next a volume grows.

Thus, on the surface of the polished rind,
He sketched the features of the viewless mind;
At length aspired to rhetorick's colouring grace,
And pictured thought, as artists shade the face.

Now to Achaia's rude, unlettered shore,
His glorious art the bold discoverer bore.
In that calm seat of innocence and ease,
Where Nature strove to bless, and Life to please:

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No ruffling passion shook the placid breast,
For Anger's fluid surface was at rest.
With rising sun, the swain his course renewed,
His flock conducted, or his Daphne wooed;
And when his vows she heard in dale or grove,
Her smile was friendship; but her blush was love.
No jealous fear, as roving arm in arm,
Her brow could wrinkle, or her heart alarm;
As chaste, as Eve, when she, in virtue pure,
Without a fig-leaf thought her charms secure.

Soon, for the sceptre, was the crook resigned,
And arts and arms employed the active mind.
From Attick climes, the Cadmean tablet spread,
And Roman eyes the page of Athens read.
By Genius sunned, by fond Ambition nursed,
Forth from its germ the flower of Science burst.
Now rose the temple; now the clarion rung;
The forum thundered, and the Muses sung:
Now flew the shuttle; now the quarry broke;
There breathed the canvass; here the marble spoke.

Be such the lay to sons of elder time,
Whose green tombs flourish in immortal prime.
May no rude Saracen's unhallowed tread
Profane the ashes of the classick dead!
But let the pedant, whelmed in learned dust,
Who values Science only for its rust,
No more presume with bigot zeal to raise,
O'er modern worth, the palm of ancient days.
No more let Athens to the world proclaim,
Her classick phalanx holds the field of fame;

165

No more let delving Tyre's mechanic host
The birth of letters, as of commerce, boast;
And thou, proud Tyber! vaunt those waves no more,
Which once a Cesar bathed, a Virgil bore!
The barbarous Rhine now blends its classick name,
With Rome's, Phœnicia's, and Achaia's fame;
See, midst her waves, their fragrance to restore,
He dips the laurels, which your heroes wore;
Green with new life, and chastened of their dust,
Restores each chaplet to its votive bust.
Sovereign of Art, Invention's noblest son,
He claims the bays, which every art has won;
Of fame unenvious, living worth rewards,
And loves the genius, which his page records.

Egyptian shrubs, in hands of cook or priest,
A king could mummy, or enrich a feast;
Faustus, great shade! a nobler leaf imparts,
Embalms all ages, and preserves all arts.

The ancient scribe, employed by bards divine,
With faultering finger traced the lingering line.
So few the scrivener's dull profession chose,
With tedious toil each tardy transcript rose;
And scarce the Iliad, penned from oral rhyme,
Grew with the bark, that bore its page sublime.

But when the Press, with fertile womb, supplies
The useful sheet, on thousand wings it flies;
Bound to no climate, to no age confined,
The pinioned volume spreads to all mankind.

166

No sacred power the Cadmean art could claim,
O'er time to triumph, and defy the flame:
In one sad day a Goth could ravage more,
Than ages wrote, or ages could restore.

The Roman hemlet, or the Grecian lyre,
A realm might conquer, or a realm inspire;
Then sink, oblivious, in the mouldering dust,
With those who blest them, and with those who curst.
What guide had then the lettered pilgrim led,
Where Plato moralized; where Cesar bled?
What page had told, in lasting record wrought,
The world who butchered, or the world who taught?

Thine was the mighty power, immortal sage!
To burst the cearments of each buried age.
Through the drear sepulchre of sunless Time,
Rich with the trophied wrecks of many a clime,
Thy daring genius broke the pathless way,
And brought the glorious relicks forth to day.

To thee the historian's pen, indebted, owes
The map of ages, which his page bestows:
From thee e'en Fame inhales the air, she breathes,
And crowns thy brows with tributary wreathes!

The Press, that engine, formed to rouse mankind,
To expand the heart, and civilize the mind,
In feats, like these, each statesman has outdone;
From Nimrod's house of peers, to Chatham's peerless son!

167

By Freedom guarded, and by Virtue graced,
It weeds the morals, while it prunes the taste.
But when, in thraldom of oppressive chains,
The curb of power the liberal press restrains,
Vice, who has charms, Circassia never knew,
In voice a Circe, and in poison too,
With luring dimples, and with wanton smiles,
The eye enamours, and the heart beguiles.
In publick veins her foul infections roll,
Seduce the nation, and corrupt its soul.

Had Vulcan's web, which once, in realm of Jove,
Trapped in crim. con. the tripping queen of love,
Of late at Gaul's lascivious court been spread,
Ere fettered Type from dread Bastile was led;
The magick seine, such shoals its wires had caught,
Like Peter's net, had broken with the draught!

The mystick Fossil, whose attracted soul,
With fond affection, seeks its kindred pole,
To bless the globe, had ne'er explored the wave,
But, Cortes-like, discovered to enslave.
Had letters ne'er the bold ambition crowned,
And Printing polished what the magnet found;
In vain had Gama traced the orient way,
And Europe stretched her wings 'mid Indian day;
In vain Columbus, spurning Neptune's roar,
Gave earth a balance, and the sea a shore,
'Till truth-winged Science, bursting Error's night,
Shed her religion, where she beamed her light.

168

But most that triumph of the press we prize,
Which bade the slumbering rights of Nature rise;
Stripped of his mask, the despot's face displayed,
And showed the world the monster, they obeyed.

Not Tell's fleet arrow sped with surer art;
Not Cordé's dagger deeper cleft the heart;
Not tower-armed elephant, nor bursting mine,
The battering aries, nor the blazing line,
With deadlier prowess spread their fatal rage,
Than Type, indignant for an injured age.
When patriots, leagued a nation to redress,
At tyrants point the artillery of the press,
Loud, o'er the gorgeous canopy of state,
It falls, like Erie; and it strikes, like Fate;
Wide as La Plata, as the Andes high,
Its thunders echo, and its lightnings fly;
To heaven appealed, ascends the dread decree;
The tyrant falls—America is free!

Long may our nation guard the rights, she boasts;
Green be the tombs where sleep her patriot hosts.
May war-worn Scipio reap the field, he gained,
Nor see his laurels stripped, his honour stained!
Ne'er may a warrior's urn reproach the brave,
Ungrateful Rome, thou can'st not rob my grave!

By smiling Peace, and fruitful vallies blest,
By freemen loved, by distant climes caressed,
Columbia rules a brave and generous land,
And scatters blessings, where her laws command.

169

What though no wave Pactolian laves her shore,
Nor gleam her caverns with Peruvian ore;
Rich is the soil, through which her rivers run,
And all her diamonds ripen in the sun.
Let torrid climes in sterile caves infold
Their gleaming vineyards of luxuriant gold;
Let India boast the philosophick churl,
Who starves an oyster, to create a pearl.
Thee happier wealth, Columbia, Fate has given,
Nor gleans from famine what descends from heaven.
Thy native mines nor rod nor art require,
To dig by magick, nor to purge by fire;
And chymick skill, thy glittering veins to trace,
Resigns thy bosom, to survey thy face.

Beneath the shade, which Freedom's oak displays,
Their votive shrine Apollo's offspring raise.
With youthful Fancy, or with matron Taste,
They cull the meadow, or explore the waste;
Each tract, they culture, verdant life perfumes;
With Judgment ripens, or with Genius blooms.

In strength of scene, delights a Ramsay's page;
With classick truth, a Belknap charms the age;
In cloudless splendour, modest Minot shines;
And Bunker flames, in Allen's glowing lines.
By sister arts and kindred powers allied,
The Trumbulls rise, the lyre's and pencil's pride;
And every muse has carved Philenia's name,
On every laurel in the grove of Fame.

170

From Harvard's fount, by native springs supplied,
Presiding Science rolls her copious tide.
Blest seat of letters, to thy sacred walls
This festive day my fond remembrance calls!
In Life's broad road, whate'er my path may be,
Full oft shall Memory turn to gaze on thee;
Still, like some faithful ghost, delight to dwell,
And hover o'er the spot, she loved so well!

A lurking moth in every art we find,
That braves the weakness of the human mind.
Born in the pore, it burrows through the heart,
And kills the oak, whose leaf it could not start.

In yon drear garret, Faction's dark recess,
Her nightly dæmons load the groaning press.
With cobwebs hung, she rubs her sleepless eyes,
While Norfolk spiders weave her half-spun lies.
Her motley brood by law, nor gospel tied,
Whom honour cannot bind, nor reason guide,
The dregs of nature and of vice compose;
For Envy these creates, and Folly those.
In tricks expert, or buzzing on the wing,
Like apes, they mimick, or, like insects, sting!
And still another useless proof supply—
The sun that warms a monkey, breeds a fly!

For place or power, while demagogues contend,
Whirled in their vortex, sinks each humbler friend.
See Crispin quit his stall, in Faction's cause,
To cobble government, and soal the laws!

171

See Frisseur scent his dust, his razor set,
To shave the treaty, or to puff Genet!
In doubtful mood, see Mulciber debate,
To mend a horse-shoe, or to weld the state!
The whip's bold knight, in barn, his truck has laid,
To spout in favour of the carrying trade!
While Staytape runs, from hissing goose, too hot,
To measure Congress for another coat;
And still, by rule of shop, intent on pelf,
Eyes the spare cloth, to cabbage for himself!

Envy, that fiend, who haunts the great and good,
Not Cato shunned, nor Hercules subdued.
On Fame's wide field, where'er a covert lies,
The rustling serpent to the thicket flies;
The foe of Glory, Merit is her prey;
The dunce she leaves, to plod his drowsy way.
Of birth amphibious, and of Protean skill,
This green-eyed monster changes shape at will;
Like snakes of smaller breed, she sheds her skin;
Strips off the serpent, and turns—Jacobin.

Each hero's seat her lawless steps invade,
From George's banks, to Vernon's laurel shade.
E'en to thy brow, immortal Freedom's Sire!
Her pagan hands, in sacrilege, aspire!
Can'st thou, great Chief, her thankless sons forgive,
Who owe to thee the soil, on which they live?
These senseless reptiles, who, with Slander's bane,
The bright medallion of thy life would stain,
Yield to the glories of thy deathless name,
The noblest tribute ever paid by fame.

172

The beams of Phœbus shower their brightest blaze,
When Heaven is shadowed by the clouds they raise:
And the proud pyramids, that propped the sky,
Whose spires were scarcely kenned by mortal eye;
Whose height the loftiest strides of Art surpassed,
Were measured only by the shade they cast.

Oh, Washington! thou here, patriot, sage!
Friend of all climates; pride of every age!
Were thine the laurels, every soil could raise,
The mighty harvest were penurious praise.
Well may our realms thy Fabian wisdom boast;
Thy prudence saved, what bravery had lost.
Yet e'er hadst thou, by Heaven's severer fates,
Like Sparta's hero at the Grecian straits,
Been doomed to meet, in arms, a world of foes,
Whom skill could not defeat, nor walls oppose;
Then had thy breast, by danger ne'er subdued,
The mighty buckler of thy country stood;
Proud of its wounds, each piercing spear would bless,
Which left Columbia's foes one javelin less;
Nor felt one pang, but, in the glorious deed,
Thy little band of heroes, too, must bleed;
Nor throbbed one fear, but, that some poisoned dart
Thy breast might pass, and reach thy country's heart!

By Heaven ordained, ne'er in the sea of Fame
Shall sit the disk of thy resplendent name;
But, like yon Arctick star, forever roll,
In ceaseless orbit, round the glowing pole.

373

Could Faustus live, by gloomy Grave resigned;
With power extensive, as sublime his mind,
Thy glorious life a volume should compose,
As Alps immortal, spotless as its snows.
The stars should be its types—its press the age;
The earth its binding—and the sky its page.
In language set, not Babel could o'erturn;
On leaves impressed, which Omar could not burn;
The sacred work in Heaven's high dome should stand,
Shine with its suns, and with its arch expand;
'Till Nature's-self the Vandal torch should raise,
And the vast alcove of Creation blaze!

176

THE RULING PASSION;

AN OCCASIONAL POEM, WRITTEN BY THE APPOINTMENT OF THE SOCIETY OF THE PHI BETA KAPPA; AND SPOKEN, ON THEIR ANNIVERSARY, IN THE CHAPEL OF THE UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE, JULY 20, 1797.

177

Range we through Nature's social walks, to scan
That little world, that greater wonder, man.

So intimate is the analogy between the physical and moral kingdoms, that man is not unfrequently styled a microcosm. To define every feature of the resemblance, would fill volumes; and were the natural history of this “Biped without feathers,’ in all his affections, seasons, and properties, written with the greatest perspicacity, it would demand more talent and labour, than the philosophical or botanical researches of a Linnæus, or a Darwin.

The Sage's study, which but few improve;
Religion's mystery, which none remove;
Reason's proud toy; in his machine unite
Powers, dense as earth; conceptions, rare as light;
Its wheels more complex, than the central sphere,
Which guides a comet, while it moulds a tear;
Its springs more subtle, than the secret soul,
Which bids a world cohere, an atom roll.

Less by himself, than others, understood;
More led by sense, yet more with mind endued;
His nature oftener sets our world at odds,
Than Jove, in Ovid's “Green-Room” of the gods.

There is a Magazine of theatrical biography published annually in London, called “The Green-Room;” which is not only replete with sketches of the dramatick characters of the actors and actresses, but is sometimes enlivened with the tender anecdote of private amour.

Ovid, who “took a peep behind the curtain” of Olympus, has Pasquin-ized the intrigues of Jupiter's court in the same figurative style of elegant “tete à tete!”

Since, then, the wisest are as dull, as we,
In one grave maxim let us all agree;
Nature ne'er meant her secrets should be found,
And man's a riddle, which man can't expound!

178

Then let us shun the rapt seer's loftier flight,
For paths more pervious to our ken of sight;
Vain were our pride, like Icarus of yore,
In realms of fire, on wings of wax, to soar;
Ours be the Muse, who humbler tracts essays;
Descends from theory, and life portrays.
On what man is, the schools may disagree,
We only know him, as he seems to be.

In beings, formed their own pursuits to guide,
No wonder moves it, and excites no pride,
When bards, less curious than Lavater, find
Some spring of action ruling every mind.

Like Egypt's gods, man's various passions sway;
Some prowl the earth, and some ascend the day:
This charms the fancy, that the palate feasts;
A motley Pantheon of birds and beasts!

The Egyptian mythology was so heterogeneous and absurd, that, not confined to the extensive regions of animated nature, that hieroglypical nation stupidity descended to the vegetable world, to fill the niches of their temples. “In Egypt,” says a learned writer, “it was more difficult to find a man, than a God.”

Were the wild brood, who dwell in glade and brake,
Some kindred character of man to take;
In the base jackall's, or gay leopard's mien,
The servile pimp, or gay coquette, were seen;
The patient camel, long inured to dine
But once a fortnight, would a poet shine;
The stag, a cit, with antlered brows content;
The rake, a pointer, always on the scent;
The snake, a statesman; and the wit, a gnat;
The ass, an alderman; the scold, a cat;
The wife, a ring-dove, on the myrtle's top;
The wolf, a lawyer; the baboon, a fop!

179

Life is a print-shop, where the eye may trace
A different outline, marked in every face;
From chiefs, who laurels reap in fields of blood,
Down to the hind, who tills those fields for food;
From the lorn nymph, in cloistered abbey pent,
Whose friars teach to love, and to repent,
To the young captive in the Haram's bower,
Blest for a night, and empress of an hour;
From ink's retailers, perched in garret high,
Cobwebbed around with many a mouldy lie;
Down to the pauper's brat, who, luckless wight!
Deep in the cellar first received the light;
All, all impelled, as various passions move,
To write, to starve, to conquer, or to love!
All join to shift Life's versicoloured scenes,
Priests, poets, fiddlers, courtesans and queens;
And be it pride, or dress, or wealth, or fame,
The acting principle is ne'er the same.
Each takes a different rout, o'er hill, or vale,
The tangled forest, or the greensward dale.
But they, who chiefly crowd the field, are those,
Who live by fashion—constables and beaus.
The first, I ween, are men of high report,
The law's staff-officers, and known at court.
The last, sweet elves, whose rival graces vie,
To wield the snuff-box, or enact a sigh:
To Fashion's gossamer their lives devote,
The frieze, the cane, the cravat and the coat
In taste unpolished, yet in ton precise,
They sleep at theatres, and wake at dice;
While, like the pilgrim's scrip, or soldier's pack,
They carry all their fortune on their back.

180

From fops, we turn to pedants, deep and dull;
Grave, without sense; “o'erflowing, yet not full.”

A parody on part of the last line in the following passage of Denham's “Cooper's Hill.”

Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong, without rage; without o'erflowing, full.”

See, the lank book-worm, piled with lumbering lore,
Wrinkled in Latin, and in Greek fourscore,
With toil incessant, thumbs the ancient page,
Now blots a hero, now turns down a sage!
O'er Learning's field, with leaden eye he strays,
Mid busts of fame, and monuments of praise.
With Gothick foot, he treads on flowers of taste,
Yet stoops to pick the pebbles from the waste.
Profound in trifles, he can tell, how short
Were Æsop's legs, how large was Tully's wart;

Æsop, the Phrygian, the most celebrated fabulist of antiquity, was not only disfigured in his legs, but was deformed in almost every other part of his body.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, the father of Roman oratory, is said to have received his last appellation, from an uncommon excrescence on his cheek, resembling a Cicer, or vetch.

And, scaled by Gunter, marks, with joy absurd,
The cut of Homer's cloak, and Euclid's beard!

Thus through the weary watch of sleepless night,
This learned ploughman plods in piteous plight;
'Till the dim taper takes French leave to doze,
And the fat folio tumbles on his toes.

Born in the fens of Dulness, dank and mute,
Where lynx might sleep, and half-starved owlet hoot;
With head of adamant, and nerves of steel;
Without or pulse to throb, or soul to feel;
Not Warren's glory could one bliss supply,
Nor Trenck's captivity excite a sigh.
Should Beauty's queen, in all her charms disclosed,
As when to Paris' wondering eyes exposed,
She loosed her cestus, and unyoked her doves,
And stood unveiled 'mid Ida's conscious groves,
Attempt, with lovliest attitude of Art,
To warm the polar current of his heart;

181

Vain were the toil, as Alexander's plan,
To carve mount Athos to the form of man!

Next in the group, a love-lorn maid we trace,
Whose heart was virtue, and whose form is grace.
In Life's gay prime, when passion, pure as truth,
Bids the blood frolick through the veins of youth;
The plighted vow her easy ear received,
The proffered faith her glowing heart believed.
Artless herself, she thought the world so too,
Nor feared those vices, which she never knew.
Ill-fated girl, thy erring steps declare,
Truth should suspect, and Innocence beware!

Ere, ripe for bliss, consenting hearts unite;
Ere retrospection chill the young delight;
The airy web of Fancy's dreams to prove,
Unbind the bandeau from the brow of Love!

Sad be the hour, in Memory's page forlorn;
The cypress shade it, and the willow mourn;
When the fond maid, subdued in Reason's trance,
Child of Desire, and pupil of Romance,
Beneath the pensile palm, or aloed grove,
Like Cleopatra, yields the world for love.
Poor is the trophy of seductive Art,
Which, but to triumph, subjugates the heart;
Or, Tarquin-like, with more licentious flame,
Stains manly truth to plunder female fame.
Life's deepest penace never can atone,
For Hope deluded, or for Virtue flown.

182

Yet such there are, whose smooth, perfidious smile
Might cheat the tempting crocodile in guile.
Thorns be their pillow; agony their sleep;
Nor e'en the mercy given, to “wake and weep!”
May screaming night-fiends, hot in recreant gore,
Rive their strained fibres to their heart's rank core,
Till startled Conscience heap, in wild dismay,
Convulsive curses on the source of day!

But, see, what form, so sprigged, behooped, and sleek,
With modern head-dress on a block antique,
Trips through the croud, and, ogling all who pass,
Stares most demurely, through an Op'ra glass!
Sunk in the wane, she courts the gay parade;
A belle of Plato's age, a sweet old maid.
While lived her beauty, (for 'tis now a ghost!)
The fair one's envy, and the fopling's toast;
What slaughtered hearts by her fierce eye-beams fell,
Let Fiction's brokers, bards and tombstones, tell.
Fled are the charms, which graced that ivory brow;
Where smiled a dimple, gapes a wrinkle now:
And e'en that pouting lip, where whilom grew
The mellow peach-down, and the ruby's hue,
No more can trance the ear with sweeter sounds,
Than fairies warble on enchanted grounds!

Now, hapless nymph, she wakes from dreams of bliss,
The knee adoring, and the stolen kiss;
And for the Persian worship of the eye,
Meets the arch simper of the mimick sigh.
Still she resolves her empire to regain,
And rifles Fashion, tortures Art, to reign.

183

Oft at the ball, she flaunts, in flowers so gay,
She seems December in the robes of May;
And oft, more coy, coquettes behind her fan
That odious monster—dear, sweet creature, man!

At length, grown ugly, past the aid of gold;
And, spite of essences and rouge, grown old;
Each softer passion yields to Pride's controul,
And sour Misanthropy usurps her soul.
Now, first on man, the spleeny gossip rails,
Arraigns his justice, and his taste assails;
Till, as her tea's exhausted fragrance flies,
Her wit evaporates, her scandal dies.
Yet still invidious of the art to bless,
She blasts the joys, she lingers to possess;
And, while on Hymen's bridal rites she sneers,
Her pillow trickles with repentant tears.
While thus, to all her sex's pleasures dead,
She vents her rage on Adam's guilty head,
Who rather chose, than lose his rib for life,
To have the crooked member made a wife;
From waking woe to visioned bliss she flies,
And dreams of raptures, which her fate denies.
The tender flame, which warmed her youthful mind,
By affectation's mawkish rules confined,
Though quenched its heat, illumes with many a ray,
The tedious evening of her fading day;
And though unknown, unnoticed, and unblest,
Still suns the impassive winter of her breast.

Next comes the miser, palsied, jealous, lean,
He looks the very skeleton of Spleen!

184

'Mid forests drear, he haunts, in spectred gloom,
Some desert abbey, or some druid's tomb;
Where, hersed in earth, his occult riches lay,
Fleeced from the world, and buried from the day.
With crutch in hand, he points his mineral rod,
Limps to the spot, and turns the well-known sod;
While there, involved in night, he counts his store,
By the soft tinklings of the golden ore;
He shakes with terror, lest the moon should spy,
And the breeze whisper, where his treasures lie.

This wretch, who, dying, would not take one pill,
If living, he must pay a doctor's bill,
Still clings to life, of every joy bereft;
His god is gold, and his religion theft!
And, as of yore, when modern vice was strange,
Could leathern money current pass on 'change,
His reptile soul, whose reasoning powers are pent
Within the logick bounds of cent per cent,
Would sooner coin his ears, than stocks should fall,
And cheat the pillory, than not cheat at all!

To fame unknown, to happier fortune born,
The blithe Savoyard hails the peep of morn;
And while the fluid gold his eye surveys,
The hoary Glaciers fling their diamond blaze;
Geneva's broad lake rushes from its shores,
Arve gently murmurs, and the rough Rhone roars.
'Mid the cleft Alps, his cabin peers from high,
Hangs o'er the clouds, and perches on the sky.
O'er fields of ice, across the headlong flood,
From cliff to cliff he bounds in fearless mood.

185

While, far beneath, a night of tempest lies,
Deep thunder mutters, harmless light'ning flies;
While, far above, from battlements of snow,
Loud torrents tumble on the world below;
On rustick reed he wakes a merrier tune,
Than the lark warbles on the “Ides of June.”
Far off, let Glory's clarion shrilly swell;
He loves the musick of his pipe as well.
Let shouting millions crown the hero's head,
And Pride her tesselated pavement tread;
More happy far, this denizen of air
Enjoys what Nature condescends to spare:
His days are jocund, undisturbed his nights;
His spouse contents him, and his mule delights!

All hail, sweet Poesy! transcendent maid!
To whom my fond youth's earliest vows were paid;
Who, dressed in sapphire robes, with eye of fire,
Didst first my unambitious rhyme inspire;
Lured by whose charms, I left, in passioned hope,
My Watts's Logick for the page of Pope;
If e'er regardful of thy wildered sons,
For whom so gingerly Life's current runs;
Who, like the slaves, beneath the iron sway
Of cursed Mezentius lingering, loath the day,
Doomed, horrid Fate! the living Muse to see,
Bound to the mouldering corpse of Penury;

Mezentius, a prince of the Tyrrhenes, a contemner of the gods, was the inventor of the savage punishment of binding the devoted offender to the putrescent body of some victim, sacrificed to his barbarity.

Descend, like Jove, suffused in golden shower,
And on our garret-roofs the rain drops pour!
But if the current of Castalia's waves
No Wicklow mine, no Georgian acre, laves;

186

If still bleak Want must chill thy votaries' fire—
Their taste extinguish, and take back thy lyre.

Where you send genius, send a fortune too;
Dunces by instinct thrive, as oysters woo!
For ne'er were veins of ore by chymist found,
Except, like Hebrew roots, in barren ground!

Those spots of earth, which are impregnated by mineral strata, are generally distinguished by the desolate aridity of their surface, which is totally insufficient to support the vegetation even of graminous productions.

Each scribbling wight, who pens a birth-day card,
Was born, as grannams say, to be a bard!
Which is, in prose, if rightly understood,
To chum with spiders, and catch flies for food.

In Youth's gay flush, when first the sportive Muse
Each bright ephemera of the brain pursues;
Ere sobered Fancy, touched by Reason's ray,
Sees all her frost-work castles melt away;
Were, then, the enthusiast bard, like Moses, led
To Pisgah's top, and life in vision spread;
There, while he blessed the promised land, were told,
The Canaan, he must ne'er possess, was gold;
How many minstrels of the classick lay
Had left the Appian, for the Indian way!
How few would lumber, negligent of pelf,
The Printer's garret, or the Grocer's shelf!

Fame, that bright phantom, flitting, vain, and coy,
Is all the meed, which poets e'er enjoy;
Nor e'en her fickle, short embrace possess,
'Till all her charms have lost the power to bless.

187

Heroes and bards, who nobler flights have won,
Than Cesar's eagles, or the Mantuan swan,
From eldest era, share the common doom;
The sun of Glory shines but on the tomb.
Firm, as the Mede, the stern decree subdues
The brightest pageant of the proudest Muse.
Man's noblest powers could ne'er the law revoke,
Though Handel harmonized what Chatham spoke;
Though tuneful Morton's magick genius graced
The Hyblean melody of Merry's taste!

Robert Merry, esquire, the only pupil in the school of Collins, who possesses the genius of his master, is the author of those elegant poems in the British Album, signed Della Crusca, of Paulina— the Pains of Memory, and several dramatick pieces. In the summer of 1791, he married Miss Brunton, a celebrated actress in Covent-Garden theatre, and no less admired for her pre-eminent talents as a daughter of the Buskin, than esteemed as a woman of unblemished principles, and polished accomplishments.

Mrs. Morton, of Dorchester, the reputed authoress of an heroick Poem, of much merit, entitled “Beacon-Hill,” may, without hesitation, be announced the American Sappho.

Time, the stern censor, talisman of fame,
With rigid justice, portions praise and shame:
And, while his laurels, reared where Genius grew,
'Mid wide Oblivion's lava bloom anew;

It is a fact, that, in countries, subject to volcanick inundation, the subsiding lava super-induces a fertility of soil, not to be equalled by the most exuberant luxuriance of the tropical climates.

Oft will his chymick fire, in distant age,
Elicit spots, unseen on ancient page.

So the famed sage, who plunged in Etna's flame,
'Mid pagan deities enshrined his name;
'Till from the iliack mountain's crater thrown,
The Martyr's sandal cost the God his crown.

Empedocles is recorded, in fabulous history, to have leaped into the flames of Ætna, to obtain, in the dark ages of paganism, an apotheosis for his memory; but the brass slipper, which he had worn during his hermitage in a cave of the mountain, was soon after thrown up by the volcano, and exposed the impostor to the world.

So too Italia's victor paused, of late,
While the red war beleagured Mantua's gate,
And bade his myrmidons the village spare,
Where Virgil first inhaled his natal air.

This event, so honourary to the character of Buonaparte, took place soon after the capitulation of Mantua. The village, which boasts the nativity of this immortal bard, lies in the suburbs of that city.

While thus of chequered life our motley lay
Has sketched a various, though a crude survey,
Say, shall Columbia's sons the theme prolong?
Their “Ruling Passion” claims our noblest song.

188

Theirs is the pride, bequeathed by glorious sires,
To guard their Lares, and protect their fires;
To rear a race, enlightened, brave and free,
Heirs of the soil, and tenants of the sea;
Whose breasts the Union shield, its laws revere,
As country sacred, and as freedom dear.

Long as our hardy yeomanry command
The rich fee-simple of their native land;
While, mid the labours of the ripening plain,
They form the phalanx, and the courser train;
While, in our martial school, are chiefs enrolled,
As Lincoln prudent, and as Putnam bold;
While, Catiline expelled, our senate prize
Hearts, just as Russell's; heads, as Bowdoin's, wise;
While guides our realm a patriot sage, who first,
When Power's volcano o'er our nation burst,
Unawed, like Pliny, saw the flame aspire,
And cities sink in cataracts of fire;
Undaunted heard the rocking of the spheres,
While all Vesuvius thundered in his ears:

The first eruption of this mountain happened in the 79th year of the Christian era. Pliny, the elder, a man no less renowned for forensick than military powers, was at that time commander of a fleet in the bay of Misenum. Unintimidated by the terrible phenomenon, he hastened with his ships to the relief of the nobility and peasants, whose villas and farms had been ingulphed in the flames. In this benevolent and heroick attempt, he died by suffocation. This eruption destroyed the cities of Herculaneum, and Pompeii. To support the poetick allusion, it may be necessary to add, that the burning of the towns of Charlestown and Fairfield, in the revolutionary war, affords but too prominent a trait in the similitude.

No longer dread Columbia's gallant host,
The fierce invader, lowering on their coast;
Nor wiles of traitors, nor Corruption's power;
Nor Blount's conspiracy, nor Randolph's “flour!”

Of late, in Gorgon's hall, from Anarch's tub,
What Rhetorick graced the orgies of the Club?
But now, an injured people, wiser grown,
Taught dear Experience, by the wrongs they've known;
This maxim hold, which much fine spouting saves,
Ex-clusive patriots are con-clusive knaves!

189

Stern power of justice, whose uplifted hand
Would sweep from earth Sedition's wayward band;
Scourged by their crimes, redeem the scattered host,
Nor let the remnant of her tribe be lost;
With arm relenting, to their morbid gaze,
The mystick serpent of thy mercy raise:
The sins of Faction, now deceased, forgive,
While her repenting sons look up and live!

From foreign feud, and civil discord free,
As is Columbia, may she ever be!
May Europe's storms ne'er damp the generous flame,
Which warms each bosom for his country's fame!
Long roll between our shores the Atlantick tide;
Wide as our hemispheres, our laws divide!
And should some earthquake, with more powerful vent,
Than that, which Dover's cliffs from Calais rent,
With prisoned force insurging Neptune's reign,
Convulse the deep foundations of the main,
Till both the continents, in Nature's fright,
Cleft from their bases, totter to unite;
May Fate the closing empires intervene,
And raise, when Ocean sinks, and Alps between!

In realms, where Law and Liberty unite,
In the broad charter of co-equal right,
Where publick Will invests the civil sway,
Where those, who govern, must in turn obey;
From Party's chrysalis, unseen to rise,
The buzzing beetle of Ambition flies.
What time, those fiends accursed no longer draw
The People's sanction from the People's law;

190

What time, the choral hymn of Union flows,
And Concord's temple hears a nation's vows;
When every sect supports, with patriot zeal,
One universal creed, the publick weal:
Then, blest Columbia, shall thy spotless fame
Shine, like the vestal lamp's perennial flame!
Then shall thy car disperse, thy Trident awe
The hovering hordes of predatory war;
Thy neutral flag protect its wealthy sail,
Freight every tide, and charter every gale;
The deep Patowmac's sea-like breast sustain
The keels of fleets, the commerce of the main:
And, while their giant shades project from high,
The walls of Washington shall lift the sky;
And see, expanding round thy Civick Dome,
The bay of Naples, and the towers of Rome!

When Asian kingdoms, whelmed in moral guilt,
By Terror governed, as on rapine built,
Like lost Palmyra, only shall be known,
By sculptured fragments of Colossal stone;
When thou, as musing Tully paused and wept,
Where Syracuse and Archimedes slept,
With solemn Sorrow and with pilgrim feet,
Shalt trace the shades of Vernon's still retreat,
And, as the votive marble's faithful page
Inscribes to Fame the Saviour of his age,
Shalt dew the knee-worn turf, with streaming eyes,
Where, urned in dust, the mighty Fabius lies:
Thy realm, maturing 'mid the feathery flight
Of ages, trackless as the plumes of light,

191

In vigorous youth, the vital power shall prove
Of private Virtue ripening publick Love;
Which, Ægis-like, shall more thy foes appal,
Than China's fence, or Albion's floating wall;
Shall bid thy empire flourish and endure,
Thy people happy, and thy laws secure;
Thy Phœnix-Glory renovate its prime,
Extend with Ocean, and exist with Time.

198

DEDICATORY ADDRESS;

SPOKEN BY MR. HODGKINSON, OCTOBER 29, 1798, AT THE OPENING OF THE NEW FEDERAL THEATRE, IN BOSTON.

Flammis refectum, ruinis virescit.

199

Once more, kind patrons of the Thespian art,
Friends, to the science of the human heart,
Behold the temple of the Muse aspire,
A Phœnix stage, which propagates by fire!

Each fault rescinded, and each grace renewed,
By magick reared, and with enchantment viewed,
Our dome, new mantled, 'mid its ravaged wall,
Stands, like Antæus, stronger by its fall;
And like Creusa's ghost, in Trojan strife,
Its spectre rises larger than its life!

Ye, who have oft with pleased observance traced
Each latent charm our mimick life has graced;
Whose hearts yet ache, when Retrospection views
The woes and wanderings of the scenick Muse;
Since from the cradle of her young renown,
Her infant warblings lured the listening town,
To that dark era, when one luckless hour
Her empire ravaged, and dethroned her power,

200

Till proudly towering o'er the Gothick waste
Through chaos smiled this paradise of taste.
The mystick maids, who here unite their reign,
Whom bards and actors oft implore in vain,
With Truth's warm rapture, bid you welcome all,
Gents, belles, and godships, to their fairy hall;
Where Shakespeare's spirit, who delights to flit
O'er criticks' noses, snoring in the pit,
Like Hamlet's father, armed from casque to sandals,
Shall “visit oft the glimpses of” our candles!

If blest by those kind smiles, whose beams impart
Pulse to the brain, and vigour to the heart,
The Drama now her languid powers will rear,
The laugh awaken, and exhale the tear;
Correct, yet animate, she aims to join
Salvator's clouds with Hogarth's waving line,
And hopes, aspiring, by your favour warmed,
Again to charm you, as she once has charmed.

Nor need her friends, with Fear's retorted glance,
Recall the horrors of her late mischance,
When wrapt in bursting flames, and awful gloom,
She saw her temple mouldering to her tomb!
No more shall Nero's ravished eye behold
The usurping element these walls enfold;
Nor shall one tear from houseless Genius start,
To glut the savage pleasure of his heart!

To guard our fane, Apollo tuned his lyre,
And leagued the gods of water and of fire;

201

Crumped Vulcan deigned his Cyclop den to quit,
And clothe in Panoply the Dome of Wit;
While Neptune gave an urn, of such vast use,
'Tis always filling, like the widow's cruse!

Now, (heaven forbid!) by hidden ways and means,
Should whelming fire again invest our scenes,
Lest on your heads the blazing roof should fall,
We'll spring the Aqueduct, and drown you all!
“I'll burn first, smoke me,” cries a spruce young bobby,
“Splash me, I shan't be fit to walk the lobby!
“If roast or drown's the word, your fire commence, Sir,
“That clownish water always spots my spencer!”

How wise men differ! Water, some would think,
Would wash away the stain of taylor's ink!
But don't swoon, beaus! another mode we'll try,
To save our lives, and keep your ruffles dry.
From fire and water your escape is certain;
Your shield of safety is—our Iron Curtain!

Ladies and gentlemen, my duty claims
To tell you, that our Stage is all in flames!
The fire, though strange to you the sight might be,
First caught Mont Blanc, and then burnt up the sea;
The actors, like Octavian from his cave,
Rush from the Green-room, not to help, but rave;
While each one scampers in the other's way,
Like fops' umbrellas in a rainy day!
But let no belle in sweet hystericks fall;
Our Iron Curtain will protect you all!

202

In elder time, when first the Stage was reared,
'Twas nursed by patriots, and by traitors feared;
Its glowing scenes, the fire of States supplied,
For Valour's praises waked Ambition's pride;
And still the Drama, with corrected zeal,
Exists an engine of the publick weal.
Smeared with sedition, should the hand profane
Of plotting knaves, our nation's Chief arraign,
The indignant Stage would glory in the task,
From lurking demagogues to strip the mask;
Drag the dark traitor into publick shame,
And nail him to the pillory of Fame!
In such a cause, the powers of verse would rise,
'Till seared, and headless, Faction's hydra dies;
And the stern eagle would suspend his wing,
To listen, while the federal Muses sing.

No scite of clime can long protect a race,
Whose souls are reckless of their realm's disgrace.
Bid stormy oceans roll, and mountains rise,
Faction will cross them, and pollute your skies;
Her cursed miasma speeds its fatal way,
The gale impregnates, and attaints the day;
Her subtle root with equal vigour strikes,
In Gallia's hotbed, or in Holland's dykes.
On coldest shores, her rank luxuriance grows,
As Hecla flames 'mid Thule's endless snows.

Where laws are fashioned by the publick will,
The helm of state demands a master's skill.
The social compact is a bond so weak,
The feuds of party can the cement break;

203

When cracked, like Rupert's drop, it mocks controul,
Snap but the point, and you destroy the whole.

In such mild climes, if true to Freedom's cause,
The people's virtue will support the laws;
And Publick Spirit crush, with arm elate,
The fiend, who dares “to clog the wheels of state.”

In France, whose motley breed extremes delight,
Who grin like monkeys, or like tygers fight,
Autun's meek priest, whose conscience knows no qualm,
Except the cravings of an itching palm;
Who, born a miser, and a prelate reared,
His flock deserted, when their fleece was sheared.
The ancient patriots from their niches jostles,
And calls French pirates, Liberty's apostles!
This, though the bishop spoke it, is no brag,
For he's the Judas, and still bears the bag!

But, thanks to heaven, who propped our wavering state,
And saved its glory from Venetian fate,
This silk-worm knave in vain has wound his maze,
In vain his basilisk eye has fixed its gaze;
In vain the holy pimp his toils has spread,
And smoothed Delilah's lap for Sampson's head.

Led to the altar, by his wiles ensnared,
Columbia stood, for sacrifice prepared;
High flamed the pyre; her struggling arms were bound;
The steel was lifted for the fatal wound;
When, like the angel, who, by God's command,
The filial off'ring saved from Abraham's hand,

204

Our guardian, Adams, robed in light divine,
Burst through the clouds which veiled the impious shrine;
The dagger seized, the felon chords released,
And snatched the victim from the apostate priest!

France stood aghast; the palsying wonder ran;
The five kings trembled in their dark divan!
Compelled new schemes of vengeance to devise,
They changed the lion's for the hyæna's cries.
No more their menanced wrath assailed our ears;
In sooth they seemed, “like Niobe, all tears!”

As some old Bawd, who all her life hath been
A fungus, sprouting from the filth of sin;
Whose dry trunk seasons in the frost of Vice,
Like radish, saved from rotting by the ice;
When threatening bailiffs first her conscience awe,
Not with the fear of shame, but fear of law,
Sets out at sixty, in contrition's search,
Rubs garlick on her eyes, and goes to church!

Thus Europe's courtezan, well versed in wiles,
Whose kisses poison, while the harlot smiles,
With pious sorrow hears our cannon roar,
And swears devoutly, that she'll sin no more!

Our rescued nation long will bless the day,
Which hailed their Adams cloathed in civick sway;
Which saw again our eagle's pinions reared,
His olive courted, and his arrows feared.

205

Long shall the fame of our illustrious Sage,
The peerless statesman of a peerless age,
With quenchless splendour beam through many a clime,
And light the darkling avenues of Time.
His deeds, on Glory's marble page engraved,
Shall live coeval with the realm, he saved;
And when, in Heaven beloved, as honoured here,
He shines the regent of some brighter sphere,
Nations shall mark the epoch of his birth,
With festal gratitude, and sainted mirth;
And ages, yet unborn, with grateful breast,
Shall rise, and call the shade of Adams blest!

206

ADDRESS

Delivered on the occasion of Master John H. Payne's first appearance on the Boston Stage, in the character of Young Norval.

Friends of the mimick world! our scenes this night
An age of fame has sanctioned to delight!
Oft to their aid the Fabling Muse has come,
And called up Roscius, from his shroud at Rome!
We, loath to wake again the classick ghost,
A native Roscius on our boards can boast.

A shepherd boy, in Celtick fiction drest,
The fire of Nature struggling in his breast,
Forsook his cottage to atchieve a name,
And found a mother, where he sought for Fame!
Proud from her hand, the laurel he receives,
While tears of rapture glitter on its leaves!

This night, a brother champion will advance,
In Thespian tournament to break the lance!
He throws no gauntlet at a critick age,
Nor dares with wits a rude encounter wage;
Yet, like the Norval of a sterner clime,
He hopes a boy's ambition is no crime!
Like him, he dares aspire to earn a name,
Your heart, his mother, your applause, his fame!

207

Blest, if your eyes with beams of Pleasure burn;
And humbly proud, if they correct, to learn!

Thus, would he preface, with ingenuous tongue,
That manly worth, which should not pass unsung.
Though o'er his head Life's spring has scarcely smiled,
A classick actor cannot be a child!
The rays of Fancy youthful bosoms warm,
Learning and Life, maturer minds inform!
Yet here, in manhood's dawn, he dares to raise
The torch of Science, to the shrine of Praise!
By Genius fired, he yields to Passion's glow;
Nor rules by verse the prosody of woe!
The tear of feeling Art can ne'er supply;
The heart must moisten, e'er it melts the eye!

His caves of voice no measured thunders roll;
He speaks from nature, and he looks from soul!
In all the Drama's technick lore untaught,
He reads by sentiment, and moves by thought.
When love-lorn Pathos pours its melting moan,
Truth's fibre trembles at his touching tone!
When o'er the scene contending Passions fly,
He groups the shadows with a Poet's eye.
And when his brows the hero's plumes erect,
“The blood of Douglas, can itself protect;”
Through Fiction's range, he gives, with skill profound,
Genius to Grace, and eloquence to Sound!
The tragick code of artificial speech
Taste may reject, or discipline may teach;
But, as the eye the trackless ridge explores,
Genius o'erleaps the cliff, where Labour never soars!

208

A humble weed transplanted from the waste,
Formed the proud chapiter of Grecian taste.
Chance dropped the weight its yielding foliage twined,
And drooped, with graceful negligence inclined.
Sculpture a model saw, to Art unknown,
Copied the form, and turned the plant to stone!
The chiselled weed adorned the Temple's head,
And gods were worshipped, where its branches spread!
If in our Norval, candid judges find
Some kindred flower, to grace the stage designed;
If, to the pressure, Fortune has imposed,
You owe those talents, Art had ne'er disclosed;
If, like the graced Acanthus he appear,
Be you Callymachus, be Corinth here!

209

EPILOGUE TO THE SOLDIER'S DAUGHTER.

[_]

[Spoken by Mrs. Stanley, in the character of the Widow Cheerly.]

Before the fatal knot is fairly tied;
Before I change the widow for the bride;
Once more at this tribunal I appear,
A Soldier's Daughter and a volunteer.
Such am I now, though not by martial laws,
I volunteer it, in my sex's cause.
Ladies, I one proposal fain would make,
And trust you'll hear it for your country's sake.
While glory animates each manly nerve,
Shall gentle woman from the contest swerve?
No!
We'll form a female army—of reserve;
And class them thus: Young romps, are pioneers;
Widows, sharp-shooters; wives, are fusileers;
Maids, are battalion, that's—all under twenty;
And as for light troops, we have those in plenty!
Our smart, gay milliners, all decked with feather,
Are corps of infantry for summer weather!
Our belles, who, clad in cap and pantaloons
Shoot as they fly, shall be our light dragoons.
Old maids are spies; still fond of war's alarms,
They love the camp, although they don't bear arms!
Flirts are our van; for they, provoking elves!
Draw on a battle; but ne'er fight themselves.

210

Our prudes shall sap and mine; well versed to feign,
They fear no danger, though in ambush ta'en;
For who'd suspect a prude, could lay a train?
Gossips, who talk by rote, and kill by prattle,
Shall serve for bulletins to every battle.
Vixens the trumpet blow; scolds beat the drum;
When thus prepared, what enemy dare come?
Those eyes, that even freemen could enslave,
Will light a race of vassals, to their grave;
So shall the artillery of female charms
Repel invaders, without force of arms.

If this succeeds, as I the scheme have planned,
I hope, at least, the honour of command.
Trained on this field, and disciplined by you,
I'm doomed to pass your critical review;
For all recruits are, by the law's direction,
Women, or soldiers, subject to inspection.
In love, or arms, which claims the greater skill,
Eyes that can rifle, or carbines that kill?
Which best displays the tacticks of the art,
To storm a city, or subdue a heart?
Yet one distinction woman's fate obtains;
When towns capitulate the victor reigns;
The vassal prisoner bows him to the stroke,
And owns the master, that imposed the yoke.
But woman, vanquished, still pursues the strife,
She yields her freedom, to become a wife,
And thus surrenders, but to rule for life!
A Carthian war she wages with her eyes;
Routed, she triumphs, and, triumphant, flies;

211

For new campaigns, she deigns to be outdone,
And grounds her arms to slaves, her eyes have won.

Not so the band, who till Columbia's soil,
Disdaining peril, and inured to toil,
A firm, proud phalanx, whose undaunted hand
A bulwark rears to guard their native land;
And teach invading foes, that host to fear,
Which boast the name of patriot volunteer.
What say ye now? If you approve my plans,
Receive your general, with “presented fans!”

Now, brother soldiers, dare I sisters join?
If you, this night, your efforts should combine,
To save our corps from anxious Hope and Fear,
And send out Mercy as a volunteer,
To whose white banner should the criticks flock,
Our rallying numbers might sustain the shock;
The sword shall drop, then cease impending slaughter,
If Mercy's shield protect—the Soldier's Daughter.

212

[Farewell, a long farewell! dear patrons, friends]

[_]

The following lines were spoken as a Valedictory Address, by Miss Fox, a child about five years old, at her benefit in May 1807.

Farewell, a long farewell! dear patrons, friends!
This parting scene my infant bosom rends,
For spite of all my joy to see you here,
My heart will throb, and gush the frequent tear.
In you, my foster parents I behold;
Your kindness bade my tender mind unfold;
Warmed by your smiles, you saw me sportive run,
A little insect, fluttering in the sun;
Urchin I am, but me you've always loved,
My faults you pardoned, and my tricks approved;
My heart will break to be removed from you,
And oh! my mother—she has loved you too.
Full well you knew the faults of childish years;
The bud must blossom, e'er the fruit appears;
And oft, by smiling, you have seemed to say,
I'd grow a woman on some future day.
And then, some beau gallant my face might charm,
“Heaven save the mark,” these eyes may do some harm.
Oh! how I've longed, that I might older grow,
To join this mimick world of joy and woe;
And teach some future scene, with graceful ease,
To charm like Stanley, or like Powell please;
But, oh! those fairy prospects now are o'er,
Farewell! perhaps we part to meet no more;

213

Pardon a child, forgive her artless tears,
She leaves the friends she loves, esteems, reveres;
Whate'er in life may be my varied lot,
Boston, dear Boston, ne'er shall be forgot;
Nor time shall bar, nor distance interfere,
My heart shall still return to visit here;
And if Success attend my riper days,
How proud I'll be to have deserved your praise.

Farewell, a sad farewell! sires, guardians, friends!
May Heaven, whose bounty all our blessings sends,
Pluck from Life's path the thorn that would molest,
And smooth Death's pillow, as you sink to rest!
And then receive you, borne on white winged hours,
Through opening clouds, to Joy's eternal bowers!

214

EPILOGUE TO THE CLERGYMAN'S DAUGHTER.

Gay, as the belle, who lightens down the ball,
While half, who gaze, can scarcely move at all;
Pert, as the elf, who, at a tonsor's shop,
Pops in a phantom, and pops out a fop;
As vain, as beauty, and as fashion, witty,
A tooth-pick Epilogue should lounge the city:
And prattle, comme il faut,—with nought to say,
A world of words—the newest kind of way!

Such was dame Epilogue, when blithe and young,
Of every belle she was herself the tongue;
Then, a whole peerage would a play engage,
If she but simpered, “All the world's a stage,”
But now, in vain she sports her ancient airs,
For all the “men and women” have turned “players.”
Such is the strife among the motley rout,
They strip the actors, while they turn them out.
From Shakespeare's wardrobe each a fragment snatches,
And bustles through his part—in “shreds and patches!”
All loud alike, none perfect but in scraps,
They all gesticulate, but no one claps.
Puns by descent, are wit by common law;
And every foundling bon mot knows papa!

215

No prompter checks the jargon universal,
For Life's a Spouting Club,—without rehearsal.

The smart frizeur, who deals in tropes and strops,
Exclaims—“a frost, a killing frost,”—in crops!
And vents, at fashion's cue, all cues to doff,
“A deep damnation on their taking off!!”
The fop demurs—“to be or not to be;”
“Off with his head!” roars Bobadil, and clips—a flea!
“We fly by night!”—while boasts the swindling spark,
Tipstaff “peeps through the blanket of the dark!
“My bond,—I'll have my bond,”—old Foreclose cries;
“Who steals my purse steals trash,”—the bard replies;
“Out, damned spot!” snarls old Miss Pimple Fret;
“There's rue for you,”—whispers her arch soubrette.
The love-sick cook-maid lisps—hist, Romeo, hist!”
“And snip,—the tailor,—rants, “List, list, oh! list!”

While thus the stage is filled with masquerade,
And bankrupt Thespis mourns his plundered trade,
What, if in turn,—'tis justice fairly due,—
The actor's eye-glass takes a squint at you!

Sir Fopling Classick is a wight, I ween,
Who reads to quote, and dresses to be seen;
The prince of folly, and the fool of wit,
He plots a dinner, to campaign a hit;
With well-drest wisdom, tout à fait he looks,
The sage of fashion and bon-ton of books.
In scenick unities so strict is he,
Time, place and action—touch and take rappee!

216

Anon, heigho! his critick sneeze emphatick,
Proclaims the raptures of effect dramatick.
In life's great play—no Stagyrite to shine—
His plot is woman, and his moral wine.
Thus with a muse, a mistress and a bottle,
Gay Skeffington surmounts grave Aristotle.

His own reverse, and yet himself the time,
A bard in powder, and a beau in rhyme;—
A man of coral,—such are fashion's powers!
A plant of stone,—that vegetates and flowers;
A fragrant exhalation,—raised to fade,—
From roseate rhetorick, and rose pomade;—
A sweet confection, fit for love or—tea,
A lettered lozenge,—stuffed—poeticé;—
Sir Fopling dashes, while his goblet pours,
And who can doubt, an empty glass encores!
His tropes and figures into ferment whipt,
See, in the froth of words, his tube is dipt!
The bubble floats,—from classick suds refined,—
It shines—it bursts—and leaves no foam behind!
Choice spirits all—his scavoir vivre club
Have tickled trouts, and sure may hook a chub!

Who delves to be a wit, must own a mine,
In wealth must glitter, ere in taste he shine;
Gold buys him genius, and no churl will rail,
When feasts are brilliant, that a pun is stale.
Tip wit with gold;—each shaft with shouts is flown;—
He drinks Campaign, and must not laugh alone.
The grape has point, although the joke be flat!
Pop! goes the cork!—there's epigram in that!

217

The spouting bottle is the brisk jet d' eau,
Which shows how high its fountain head can throw!
See! while the foaming mist ascends the room,
Sir Fopling rises in the vif perfume!

But ah! the classick knight at length perceives
His laurels drop with fortune's falling leaves.
He vapours cracks and clenches as before,
But other tables have not learnt to roar.
At last, in fashion bankrupt, as in pence,
He first discovers undiscovered sense—
And finds,—without one jest in all his bags,—
A wit in ruffles is a fool in rags!

Lorn through the lobby see the Poet steal,
Fregetting life, while he can live to feel;
To blank oblivion yielding private woe,
While publick virtue gives one tear to flow;
And, charmed with fiction, that her sorrows bless,
His fancy riots in the loved distress.
But ah!—illusion sweet of tears and smiles,
Where virtue revels, while romance beguiles,
What cheerless hours doth destiny delay,
Till recollected life returns with day!—
When he, who wanders with a poet's name,
Must live on friendship, while he starves on fame!

Blest be the bard, whose tender tale inspires
The passioned scene with virtue's holiest fires;
Who draws from brightest eyes the moistened soul
And bids their tributes glitter, as they roll!

218

To moral truth when loveliest grace is given,
The smile of Beauty is a ray from heaven;—
Soft as the fairy web, Arachne weaves
To ward the night-dew from the lily's leaves;
Chaste as the pity of Aurora's tears,
When the web trembles with the pearl it bears.

Yon dapper Dash—who screens the lobby fire—
Is doughty Peter Paragraph, Esquire,—
Forever knowing—and forever known,—
The gay Court Calender—of all the town.
His brilliant fancy wings such rapid flights,
That his pen flashes,—like the northern lights!
On fashion's face he marks each patch and pimple,—
Notes all the Belle Assemble—to a dimple!
Keeps dates of wrinkles—sets each freckle down,—
And knows the age of each old maid in town!
—Puff, and Post Obit,—naught is he perplexed on,—
And, Death or Marriage,—he is Clerk or Sexton!
Whate'er the theme,—his is the quill to grace it,—
From “consumatum est”—to grave—“hic jacet!”
Wherever folly lies—in wise perdue,—
Quick as heat lightning—and as harmless too,
He splinters words, as gamesters rattle dice,
And sparkles, like a man, who chops on ice.
In daily lounge, Cornhill pavé he passes,
To study signs, and ogle looking glasses!
His spleen—at vulgar gutters—never rankles;
He thanks their mud—for every pair of ankles!
Nor thinks,—while feasting on caprice and whim,—
One grace too naked, or one fop too slim!

219

Belles, beaux, and blankets,—tiffanies and teas,—
He borrows all he knows, from all he sees.
Then home for fame,—to scribble to be sure,—
For every traveller must write a tour;—
He gives the world the gleanings of his ramble,
As nuts are thrown to monkies,—for a scramble!

Eh!—I've a full length Critick in my eye!
Shall I or not?—He'll catch me, or I'd try!
Egad, I'm in for't!—see, he's at me too!
Pray, Sir, turn round,—I'll take a profile view.
Nay!—nouns and pronouns save such want of grace!
A Poet look a critick in the face!
Such courage ne'er was known 'mong rhyming elves,
Since they, who're criticks now, wrote tags themselves.
Streams, when neglected, sink to common sewers,
And disappointed Authors turn Reviewers!
Like stagnant pools, they breathe putrescent air,
From the green film, their fetid bosoms bear.
Fie!—frown not,—WE, who catch the trick of faces,
Must rouse the passions, to excite the graces:
Now,—in what Act, Sir, was our—epitasis?
The busy, bustling action of our play?
“The scenes with Abigail”—ha! there you say!—
“The eyes of beauty beamed with lightning there,”
“When hopeless virtue proudly spurned despair.”
Caught by a twinkle from “the eye of beauty!”
A Critick too!—most Stocick Sir,—my duty.—
Nature will break,—encase her how you will,—
A Cat in pattens is Grimalkin still.

220

But soft, he speaks—“An Epilogue may sport
“With a broad patent, like a fool at court;
“But while you laugh by text, and rail by rote,
“Your author's fable has our warmest vote.”—
I thank you, Sir,—I'll have that down by note.
“His Hero needs no advocate at bar;—
“We see his virtues in its native spar!
Now,—what of Sindal?—How did he appear?
“Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear!”
“In crime accomplished, and in wit refined,
“His very genius blurred the grace of mind.”
But what of Gripe?—“Such knaves elude the law,
“And live, like leeches, on the blood they draw.
“When Gripe the balance with his conscience made,
“He kept his vices, as his stock in trade.—
“Spawned in the alley, by its logick reared,
“He shaves a note, as Smallpeace shaves a beard;
“And both so well their office understand,
“They trim you smooth,—and yet conceal the hand!”

Oh! what is man, who, thus debased by pelf,
All human nature sinks in human self;
Who basely pilfers, with unfeeling joy,
A mother's picture from an artless boy!
When man's deserting soul forsakes his breast,
To pine a death-watch in a miser's chest,
The starving hypocrite allegiance swears,
To gold and grace, to poverty and prayers;
And, not one joy his flickering lamp to cheer,
Lives without love, and dies without a tear!
Such are the, “Gripes,” the meanest of their tribe,
Who cheat themselves, and chuckle at the bribe;

221

Who bury nature, ere her mortal doom,
And drag existence in a living tomb.

In life's dark cell, pale burns their glimmering soul;
A rush-light warms the winter of the pole.
To chill and cheerless solitude confined,
No spring of virtue thaws the ice of mind.
They creep in blood, as frosty streamlets flow,
And freeze with life, as dormice sleep in snow.
Like snails, they bear their dungeons on their backs,
And shut out light,—to save a window tax!

Not so gay Cœlebs lives, nor wife, nor child,
E'er blessed his arms, or on his bounty smiled;
Yet, touched by nature, his affections glow,
And claim their kindred to the man of woe.
Mid wine and mirth while rolls his daily round,
The secret want, the meek distress is found;
Silent as light, and, like its source, serene.—
His bounty gives unknown, and warms unseen.
He feels, while tears the sacred joy confess,
Man likens God, when he has power to bless.

Criticks there are, who boast a noble race;
Who twine with genius every lettered grace;
Candid to censure, generous to commend,
The polished scholar, and the faithful friend,
Loved by the Muse, they feel the poet's fire,
And soothe the minstrel, while they tune his lyre;
On private merit, publick fame they raise,
For every Nation shares its Author's praise.

222

EPILOGUE TO THE POOR LODGER.

Enter Harriet.
With anxious heart, that beats for perils past,
Your happy Harriet now comes home, at last:
A home, indeed! where oft, each generous mind
With fame has cheered her, and with taste refined:
Where first, her powers indulgent to disclose,
You op'd the petals of the budding rose;
Bade the young stalk, with trembling blossoms, rise,
Warmed by your beams, though foreign to your skies,
And placed,—oh, grateful joy! with fondest care,
The fostered flow'ret in your own parterre!

Enter Sir Harry.
Sir Har.
Sure, such a flower would flourish, any where?

Har.
Gallant, Sir Harry—

Sir Har.
—Harley, happy lover!
But I, as happy, am for life,—

Har.
—a rover—
Forever on a voyage,—

Sir Har.
—that ne'er is over.

Har.
Spoke like a gownsman—

Sir Har.
—No, I scorn the schools,
Wit may be wisdom, but all wits are fools.

223

Har.
The slaves of fools—the most unlucky elves—
Life's feast they cater—

Sir Har.
—but ne'er eat themselves—
One bliss they have, all other joys, above—

Enter Lord Harley.
L. Har.
What's that, Sir Harry?—

Sir Har.
(With allusion.)
—To be blest in love.

L. Har.
And none should envy, whom the fair approve.

Sir Har.
(Assuming himself.)
White hours attend you—I bang up—Adieu!
Ask not my rout—for none I ever knew—
And yet there's one I always shall pursue—
(Mimicking.)
Cross channel, take chaise, down glass, look profound—
“Eh!—I say—Coachee—whither am I bound?”
[Going off; noise without, between the Widow and Joblin. Sir Harry looking out.
Prime!—Our old widow sparring like Mendoza!

Widow entering, and Joblin.
Wid.
Not I! don't think I'll pay—

Job.
—Dick's fortin—

Wid.
—No, Sir,
Mai fois! (Bridling.)

Job.
I'll charge it, then, as I'm—

Dick.
(Popping in.)
—a grocer.

Job.
Dick, claim your rights, and don't stand there a grinning—

Wid.
You marry Harriet—

Dick.
—Yes—I'm very winning—
I courted purely—

224

Job.
—put on all his graces—
And looked and talked—

Dick.
—as fine as aunty's lace is.

Sir Har.
And sighed, no doubt, as sweet as father's mace is.

Wid.
No wife, no fortune—

Sir Har.
—what a city drove!

Dick.
Then I be certain, I be crossed in love—

L. Har.
Ne'er mind it, Dick, 'tis no great odds in life,
To lose a fortune, or,—

Job.
—to gain a wife—

Sir Har.
(Who has been reconnoitering the Widow.)
Pray, did this gay antique ere chance to pop
Within the purlieus of a frizeur's shop?

Wid.
Did'st ever see, the making—

Sir Har.
—of—

Dick.
—a fop!

Sir Har.
Prime and bang up!—Why, widow, Dick's a wit;
Give him the fortune, he'll have need of it!

Job.
Nay, fear not, Dick—be witty as you will—
I wrote a rebus once—

Dick.
—who nibbed the quill?

L. Har.
(To Widow Danvers, who has been talking apart with him. At the same time Poor Lodger enters above.)
Your generous offer I can ne'er reprove;
But I have wealth enough in Harriet's love.

Har.
(Advancing.)
Nay, since a fortune be in search of owners,

P. Lodg.
(Coming down.)
Adopt our author, and be you the donors! (To the audience.)

Fortune, who feeds all other fools on earth,
Was never present at a Poet's birth!

225

The oaf of Nature all her care partakes;
The child of mind she smiles on, and forsakes.
And though each Muse has sought her fond regard—

Job.
She ne'er would stand godmother to a bard.

P. Lodg.
Each well-dressed driv'ler lettered fame exacts,

Sir Har.
Well!—Books are lettered only on their backs.
There's pedigree in dress; none else has charms;
A coat of fashion is a coat of arms!

P. Lodg.
Hence the wise world, not wiser than of old,
That toiling chemist, still extracting gold,
Neglecting still Wealth's noblest use and end,
To polish man, and social life defend,
Calls sacred genius Nature's waste of pains,
The gift of Fortune—

Job.
(Who has been fidgetting.)
—Cures the want of brains!

Wid.
There, Dick—

Sir Har.
—Conclusive—

Dick.
—Father, don't you sham?

Job.
I'll prove, by ledger—

Dick.
—what a wit I am.

Har.
Since then a wit yourself with wealth; to spare it,
Reward our Poet—

Job.
—he shall have our garret!

Dick.
No father—had “Poor Lodgers” there, enough.

Sir Har.
What would your wisdom, then?—

Dick.
—write him a Puff!

Har.
Truce to our trifling;—now, our author craves
That just decision, which condemns, or saves.

P. Lodg.
(Coming forward.)
A father, rescued by a child, disowned—

Har.
Has, by his kindness, every fault atoned.

226

L. Har.
We all are wanderers—all mistake our way—

P. Lodg.
Yet faithful Nature never goes astray.
Life's a great Inn; and each is but a guest;
Beneath this roof, then, let us take our rest.
And while, to errors past, I drop a tear—

Har.
May our “Poor Lodger” find a welcome, here!

228

MONODY ON THE DEATH OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL SIR JOHN MOORE.

“He was the mark and glass, copy and book,
“That fashioned others.”
Shakespeare.

229

Scene, Corunna....Time, Evening Twilight.

What glitt'ring form sweeps hurried o'er the main,
And, hov'ring, ponders o'er yon dark champaign,
Where bleak Corunna's bleeding waste extends,
And war's red bolt from bursting clouds descends?
I know Thee now, by thy majestick charms;
Bright Island Goddess, Queen of arts and arms!

High on thy barque, alone, thou spurn'st the flood,
Which deluged nations still o'erwhelms with blood.
The foaming tempest, while it strikes thy shore,
Exalts thy flag, and bids thy forests roar.
Calm on the surge, thy fixed, unaltering eye
Surveys the storm that breaks against the sky;
O'er mountain waves, along the whirlwind's race,
It dares the journey of the blast to trace.

But now, alas! thy robes imperial flow,
In all the frantick negligence of woe;

230

With burning bosom, o'er the darkling wave,
Thou com'st to kneel beside thy Warriour's grave;
Where sacred sleeps, in village turf enshrined,
That gallant form, which breathed a nation's mind.
Fame o'er his recent sod no statue rears,
But Victory writes his epitaph in tears!
Let Triumph weep! In Freedom's generous van
To die for glory, is to die for man;
The bleeding Patriot, with a seraph's eye,
Sees through each wound a passage to the sky.

Lamented Moore! how loved, how graced, wert Thou!
What air majestick dazzled on thy brow!
By genius raised, and by ambition fired,
To die distinguished, as to live admired;
In battle brilliant, as in council grave;
Stern to encounter, but humane to save;
Virtue and valour in thy bosom strove,
Which most should claim our homage or our love.
In thee they flowed without the pulse of art,
The throbbing life-blood of thy fervid heart;
While, warm from Nature, panting Honour drew
That vital instinct, Heaven imparts to few;
That pride of arms, which prompts the brave design,
That grace of soul, which makes the brave divine!

His heart elate, with modest valour bold,
Beat with fond rage, to vie with chiefs of old.
Great by resolve, yet by example warmed,
Himself the model of his glory formed.
A glowing trait from every chief he caught;
He paused like Fabius, and like Cesar fought.

231

His ardent hope surveyed the heights of fame,
Deep on its rocks, to grave a soldier's name;
And o'er its cliffs to bid the banner wave,
A Briton fights, to conquer and to save.

On martial ground, the school of heroes' taught,
He studied battles, where campaigns were fought.
By science led, he traced each scene of fame,
Where war had left no stone without a name.
Hills, streams and plains bore one extended chart
Of warriors' deeds, and showed of arms the art.
The tactick canvass all its lore revealed,
The seize the moment, and dispose the field.
Here, still and desperate, near the midnight pass,
Couched ambush listened in the deep morass;
There, Skill, opposed by Fortune, shaped its way,
With prompt decision, and with firm array;
Here, paused the fight, and there the contest raved,
A squadron routed, or an empire saved!

It has been universally allowed, that the classical and military advantages of Sir John Moore's education were superiour to those of any modern English General. These great opportunities of improvement to his tactical intuition were afforded in the school of living history, on the scite of battles, marked with the vestiges of victory and defeat, of stratagem and fortune. The scenes, over which he dwelt with the fondest devotion, were those, which had formed the theatre of the wars of the illustrious Frederick; a hero, who, on one day could not place his foot on one inch of sand, which would own his impression as a master; and who, on on the next day, was the lord of an empire, and, by the fame of his talents, the awe, the astonishment and the admiration of Europe. The line of the poem above quoted alludes to the celebrated battle, which achieved this glorious event.

Had this distinguished military prince transmitted to the present incumbent on his throne that character and science of arms, which were so much admired, and so enthusiastically studied by Sir John, when he travelled under the tutelage of his father, with the Duke of Hamilton—the day, in which we live, would have been spared the shame to have witnessed the disgraceful and perfidious flight of Jena, nor would it have so painfully perceived the terrible distinction, between,

“A squadron routed, or an empire saved!”

But national hypocrisy, like the fraud of individuals, is always punished by a signal Providence. The affectation of sovereignty is but the shadow of power; and while the hundred arms of Briareus gave him the reputation of a Giant, yet this would have been but an empty proclamation of strength, had he not been inspired with the courage to lift even one of his fingers at his enemy.

“Has toties optata exegit Gloria pænas.”

Inspired on fields, with trophied interest graced,
He sighed for glory, where he mused from taste.
For high emprize his dazzling helm was plumed,
And all the polished patriot-hero bloomed.
Armed as he strode, his glorying country saw,
That fame was virtue, and ambition law;
In him beheld, with fond delight, conspire
Her Marlboro's fortune and her Sidney's fire.
Like Calvi's rock, with clefts abrupt deformed,
His path to fame toiled up the breach, he stormed;
Till o'er the clouds the victor chief was seen,
Sublime in terrour, and in height serene.

It has been the fate of Sir John Moore, a fate most severely unpropitious to the reputation and honour of some administrations of the British Cabinet, to be envied, opposed, checked, cramped and neglected, (durante potestate) from the first onset of his military life. His great talents, dauntless courage, commanding person, practical knowledge, gallant virtues, contempt of selfishness, inaccessibility to party, firmness in battle, and generosity to his army, and above all, his rapid and comprehensive foresight of the fears and the hopes of a jejunely projected expedition, and his own rejected map of an admirable campaign, which might, in all military and geographical calculation, have reduced the invaders of Spain to submission or flight, condemned him to the honourable neglect of the ministry, whom he despised. But this persecution had been practised before, and under the same influence. At the siege of Calvi, one of the mountainous, and the best fortified towns in Corsica, and to which the line in the Poem refers, Sir John was eminently distinguished. It was the last, and was deemed the impregnable strong hold of the Island. From the eminence of its rocks, and the danger of its access, it demanded a veteran and a hero in the art of war, to assault and reduce it to surrender. This exploit of skill and of honour Sir John undertook and performed; and this intrepid and scientifick General's services in Corsica were rewarded by the impolitick and calculating ingratitude of an invidious ministry.

232

His equal mind so well could triumph greet,
He gave to conquest charms, that soothed defeat.
The battle done, his brow, with thought o'ercast,
Benign as mercy, smiled on perils past.
The death-choaked fosse, the battered wall, inspired
A sense, that sought him, from the field retired.
Suspiring pity touched that godlike heart,
To which no peril could dismay impart;
And melting pearls in that stern eye could shine,
That lightened courage down the thundering line.
So mounts the sea-bird in the Boreal sky,
And sits where steeps in beetling ruin lie;
Though warring whirlwinds curl the Norway seas,
And the rocks tremble, and the torrents freeze;
Yet is the fleece, by Beauty's bosom prest,
The down, that warms the storm-beat Eyder's breast;
Mid floods of frost, where Winter smites the deep,
Are fledged the plumes, on which the Graces sleep.

In vain thy cliffs, Hispania, lift the sky,
Where Cesar's eagles never dared to fly!
To rude and sudden arms while Freedom springs,
Napoleon's legions mount on bolder wings.
In vain thy sons their steely nerves oppose,
Bare to the rage of tempests and of foes;
In vain, with naked breast, the storm defy
Of furious battle, and of piercing sky;
Five waning reigns had marked in long decay,
The gloomy glory of thy setting day;
While bigot power, with dark and dire disgrace,
Oppressed the valour of thy gallant race.

233

No martial phalanx, led by veteran art,
Combined thy vigour, or confirmed thy heart:
Thy bands dispersed, like Rome in wild defeat,
Fled to the mountains, to intrench retreat.

Rome was built on its own seven hills, which gave security to its glory, while its virtue remained. Yet its inhabitants, reared to habits of legionary discipline, and bold in their contempt of death, had not, for near five hundred years, any knowledge, either of the fosse and glacis of a city, or of the entrenchment and palisade of a camp. When stormed by Brennus, defeated by Pyrrhus, or overwhelmed by Hannibal, the citizens of Rome, despairing of its safety, fled either to the rock of the Capital, or to the mountains, which surrounded it. The Romans gained their first knowledge of intrenchment from the conquered camp of the Grecian hero, Pyrrhus.

O'er hill, or vale, where'er thy sky descends,
The pomp of hostile chivalry extends.
High o'er thy brow, the giant glaive is reared,
Deep in the wounds of bleeding nations smeared.
Ere Britain's shield could catch th' impending blade,
Thy helm was shattered, and thy arm dismayed.
Yet, while the faulchion fell, thy brave ally
Cheered, with a blaze of mail, thy closing eye;
By hosts assailed, her little Spartan band
Braved the swift onset, and the cool command.
Historick glory rushed through British veins,
And shades of Heroes stalked Corunna's plains;
While Gallia saw, amid the battle's glare,
That Minden, Blenheim, Agincourt, were there!

Loved as the sport, where erst, on Abraham's height,
Fate aimed her dart, as victory glanced her light:
Where bleeding Wolfe, with virtue's calmest pride,
Enjoyed the Patriot, while the Warriour died:

Firm, as the conflict, when the tumults roar
Rome's last great Hero woke on Egypt's shore;
When Abercrombie swelled the urn of fame,
And mixed his dust with Pompey's mighty name:

Bold, as the blast, which winged the blaze of war,
Round the rough rocks of trembling Trafalgar;

234

When Nelson, lightening o'er the maddened wave,
Bade Ocean quake beneath his coral cave;
And, heavenward gazing, as his God retired,
Thundered in triumph, and in flames expired:

Illustrious Moore, by foe and famine prest,
Yet, by each soldier's proud affection blest,
Unawed by numbers, saw the impending host,
With front extending, lengthen down the coast.
“Charge! Britons, Charge!” the exulting chief exclaims,
Swift moves the field; the tide of armour flames;
On, on they rush, the solid column flies,
And shouts tremendous, as the foe defies.
While all the battle rung from side to side,
In death to conquer, was the warriour's pride.
Where'er the unequal war its tempest poured,
The leading meteor was his glittering sword!
Thrice met the fight; and thrice the vanquished Gaul
Found the firm line an adamantine wall.
Again repulsed, again the legions drew,
And fate's dark shafts in vollied shadows flew.
Now stormed the scene, where soul could soul attest,
Squadron to squadron joined, and breast to breast!
From rank to rank, the interpid valour glowed;
From rank to rank, the inspiring Champion rode.
Loud broke the war-cloud, as his charger sped;
Pale the curved lightening quivered o'er his head!
Again it bursts! Peal, echoing peal, succeeds!
The bolt is launched; the peerless Soldier bleeds!
Hark! as he falls, Fame's swelling clarion cries,
Britania triumphs, though her Hero dies!

235

The grave, he fills, is all the realm she yields,
And that proud empire deathless honour shields.
No fabled Phœnix from his bier revives;
His ashes perish, but his Country lives!

Immortal Dead! with musing awe, thy foes
Tread not the hillock, where thy bones repose!
There, sacring mourner, see, Britania spreads
A chaplet, glistening with the tears she sheds;
With burning censer, glides around thy tomb,
And scatters incense, where thy laurels bloom;
With rapt devotion sainted vigil keeps;
Shines with Religion, and with Glory weeps;
With Grief exults, with Extacy deplores;
With Pride laments, and with despair adores!
Sweet sleep Thee, Brave! In solemn chaunt, shall sound
Celestial vespers, o'er thy sacred ground!
Long ages hence, in pious twilight seen,
Shall quires of seraphs sanctify thy green;
At curfew hour, shall dimly hover there,
And charm, with sweetest dirge, the listening air!
With homage tranced, shall every pensive mind
Weep, while the requiem passes on the wind;
Till, sadly swelling, Sorrow's softest notes,
It dies in distance, while its echo floats!

No stoneless sod shall hold that mighty shade,
Whose life could man's wide universe pervade.
No mould'ring prison of sepulchral earth,
In dumb oblivion, shall confine thy worth;
The battle heath shall lift thy marble fame,
And grow immortal, as it marks thy name.

236

Heaven's holiest tears shall nightly kiss thy dust,
That dawn's first smiles may gem the hero's bust;
And pilgrim Glory, in remotest years,
Shall seek thy tomb, to read the tale, it bears.

EPITAPH.

“Stop, Ruin! stay thy scythe! here slumbers Moore;
“Whom Honour nurtured, and whom Virtue bore!
“A nation's hope, adored by all the brave;
“Heaven caught his soul, and Earth reveres his grave!
“Sublime, the Christian, and the Hero, trod;
“His Country all, he loved, and all, he feared his God!”

242

3. PART III.
ODES AND SONGS.

243

ODE. RISE COLUMBIA.

[_]

Written for, and sung at the first Anniversary of the Massachusetts Charitable Fire Society, 1794.

When first the Sun o'er Ocean glowed,
And Earth unveiled her virgin breast,
Supreme mid Nature's vast abode,
Was heard the Almighty's dread behest:
Rise, Columbia, brave and free,
Poise the Globe, and bound the Sea!

In darkness wrapped, with fetters chained,
Will ages grope, debased and blind;
With blood the human hand be stained,
With tyrant power, the human mind.
Rise, Columbia, &c.

But, lo, across the Atlantick floods,
The Star-directed pilgrim sails!
See! felled by Commerce, float thy woods;
And, clothed by Ceres, wave thy vales!
Rise, Columbia, &c.

Remote from realms of rival fame,
Thy bulwark is thy mound of waves;
The Sea, thy birth-right, Thou must claim,
Or, subject, yield the soil it laves.
Rise, Columbia, &c.

244

Nor yet, though skilled, delight in arms;
Peace and, her offspring, arts be thine;
The face of Freedom scarce has charms,
When on her cheeks no dimples shine.
Rise, Columbia, &c.

While Fame for thee, her wreath entwines,
To bless, thy nobler triumph prove;
And, though the eagle haunts thy pines,
Beneath thy willows shield the dove.
Rise, Columbia, &c.

When bolts the flame, or whelms the wave,
Be thine to rule the wayward hour!
Bid Death unbar the watery grave,
“And Vulcan yield to Neptune's power.”
Rise, Columbia, &c.

Revered in arms, in peace humane,
No shore, nor realm shall bound thy sway;
While all the virtues own thy reign,
And subject elements obey!
Rise, Columbia, brave and free,
Bless the Globe, and rule the sea.

245

ODE. ADAMS AND LIBERTY.

[_]

Written for, and sung at the fourth Anniversary of the Massachusetts Charitable Fire Society, 1798.

Ye sons of Columbia, who bravely have fought,
For those rights, which unstained from your Sires had descended,
May you long taste the blessings your valour has bought,
And your sons reap the soil which their fathers defended.
'Mid the reign of mild Peace,
May your nation increase,
With the glory of Rome, and the wisdom of Greece;
And ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

In a clime, whose rich vales feed the marts of the world,
Whose shores are unshaken by Europe's commotion,
The trident of Commerce should never be hurled,
To incense the legitimate powers of the ocean.
But should pirates invade,
Though in thunder arrayed,
Let your cannon declare the free charter of trade.
For ne'er shall the sons, &c.

The fame of our arms, of our laws the mild sway,
Had justly ennobled our nation in story,
'Till the dark clouds of faction obscured our young day,
And enveloped the sun of American glory.

246

But let traitors be told,
Who their country have sold,
And bartered their God for his image in gold,
That ne'er will the sons, &c.

While France her huge limbs bathes recumbent in blood,
And Society's base threats with wide dissolution;
May Peace like the dove, who returned from the flood,
Find an ark of abode in our mild constitution.
But though Peace is our aim,
Yet the boon we disclaim,
If bought by our Sov'reignty, Justice or Fame.
For ne'er shall the sons, &c.

'Tis the fire of the flint, each American warms;
Let Rome's haughty victors beware of collision,
Let them bring all the vassals of Europe in arms,
We're a world by ourselves, and disdain a division.
While with patriot pride,
To our laws we're allied,
No foe can subdue us, no faction divide.
For ne'er shall the sons, &c.

Our mountains are crowned with imperial oak;
Whose roots, like our liberties, ages have nourished;
But long e'er our nation submits to the yoke,
Not a tree shall be left on the field where it flourished.
Should invasion impend,
Every grove would descend,
From the hill-tops, they shaded, our shores to defend.
For ne'er shall the sons, &c.

247

Let our patriots destroy Anarch's pestilent worm;
Lest our Liberty's growth should be checked by corrosion;
Then let clouds thicken round us; we heed not the storm;
Our realm fears no shock, but the earth's own explosion.
Foes assail us in vain,
Though their fleets bridge the main,
For our altars and laws with our lives we'll maintain.
For ne'er shall the sons, &c.

Should the Tempest of War overshadow our land,
Its bolts could ne'er rend Freedom's temple asunder;
For, unmoved, at its portal, would Washington stand,
And repulse, with his Breast, the assaults of the thunder!
His sword, from the sleep
Of its scabbard would leap,
And conduct, with its point, ev'ry flash to the deep!
For ne'er shall the sons, &c.

Let Fame to the world sound America's voice;
No intrigues can her sons from their government sever;
Her pride is her Adams; her laws are his choice,
And shall flourish, till Liberty slumbers for ever.
Then unite heart and hand,
Like Leonidas' band,
And swear to the God of the ocean and land;
That ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

248

ODE.

[_]

Written for, and sung at the fifteenth Anniversary of the Massachusetts Charitable Fire Society, 1809.

GRAND RECITATIVE.

Bleak lowered the morn; the howling snow-drift blew;
Rude piles of devastation smoked around;
While houseless Outcasts, shivering o'er the ground,
Bade the sad phantoms of their Homes adieu;

AIR.

Ah! mouldering wrecks! ye flit in fearful trance,
And the vision of frenzy recall,
When in horror we leaped, with a fugitive glance,
From the flames of yon desolate Wall!
See, now, with blighting melancholy bare,
Like the monument stone at a sepulchre placed
It weeps o'er this ruinous waste,
As it totters and rocks in the air.
In vain, sweet pleading Pity calls;
Or the cry of shrill Terror appals;—
Bending, beetling, crushing o'er the crowded way,
Hark! it cracks! see, it falls!
And wretches forget all their griefs in dismay.

RECITATIVE.

But lo! along its crumbling base,
With vacancy's ecstatic pace,
All-reckless, a heart-broken mourner repair;

249

Grief has reason beguiled,
And with melodies wild,
Invoking her child,
She wanders like Hope, and bewails like Despair.

AIR—Andante.

My Boy beneath this ruin lies!
Lost William! hear a Mother's sighs!
Through blasts that freeze, and paths that burn,
Thy tombless dust she comes to urn.
Now I thy cherub spirit see!
It spreads its doating arms to me!
It smiles in air! while piteous grace
Softens the sorrows of its face.
Vain was thy Mother's frantick flight
To snatch thee from the Fiend of Night!
Thy Couch, alas! thy funeral pyre,
Mid shrieks of horror, sunk in fire!

ALLEGRO FURIOSO.

Now to clouds of purple light,
Where William sits, I'll steal my flight!
Cold is this crazy crust of clay,
He beckons to a warmer day!
Wealth! I'm a happier wretch than you,
And laughing bid the world, Adieu!

250

SONG. TO ARMS, COLUMBIA!

[_]

Written for, and sung at the Anniversary of the Massachusetts Charitable Fire Society.

Tune—“HE COMES! HE COMES!

To arms, to arms, when Honour cries,
Nor shrink the brave, nor doubt the wise;
On foes, by earth and Heaven abhorred,
'Tis Godlike to unsheathe the sword!
To arms, Columbia! rule thy natal sea,
United, triumph; and resolved, be free.

Columbia's Eagle soars so high,
He kens the sun with sovereign eye;
Nor cowers his wing, when tempests pour,
Nor perches, when the thunders roar.
To arms, Columbia, &c.

Like Glory's dazzling bird of day,
Our realm should hold imperial sway;
Mid clouds and light'nings firmly stand,
Though Faction's earthquake shake the land.
To arms, Columbia, &c.

251

Shall Gallia bid our oaks descend,
Her rubrick banner to defend?
Enslave those forests, reared to reign,
The future monarchs of the main?
To arms, Columbia, &c.

Can glow-worm vie with noontide Sun,
Or Lodi's chief with Washington?
Can Earth her maniack moon obey,
Or Frenchmen free Columbians sway?
To arms, Columbia, &c.

Revenge! Revenge! The flag's unfurled!
Let Freedom's cannon wake the world,
And Ocean gorge on pirates slain,
'Till Truxton Nelsonise the main!
To arms, Columbia, &c.

The fate of nations waits the hour,
Foretold to end the serpent's power;
When fallen realms shall break their trance,
And Adams bruise the head of France.
To arms, Columbia! rule thy natal sea,
United, triumph; and resolved, be free.

252

SONG. RULE NEW-ENGLAND.

[_]

Written for, and sung at the Anniversary of the Massachusetts Charitable Fire Society, May, 1802.

What arm a sinking State can save,
From Faction's pyre, or Anarch's grave?
Pale Liberty, with haggard eyes,
Looks round her realm, and thus replies,

Rule New-England! New-England rules and saves!
Columbians never, never shall be slaves.

New-England, first in Freedom's Van,
To toil and bleed for injured man,
Still true to virtue, dares to say,
Order is Freedom—Man, obey!

Rule, &c.

Gloomed, like Cimmeria's beamless day,
Our realm in misted error lay,
Delusion drugged a nation's veins;
And Truth was philtered in her chains.

Rule, &c.

'Twas now the witching time of night,
When grave yards yawn, and spectres fright;

253

While patriot fiends, with dæmon glare,
Flash, shriek and hurtle in the air!

Rule, &c.

Alone, amid the coil serene,
New-England stands, and braves the scene,
Majestic as she lifts her eye,
The stars appear—the dæmons fly.

Rule, &c.

At length the dawn, like that, which first
Upon primeval Chaos burst,
Athwart our clime its radiance throws,
And blushes at the wrecks, it shows.

Rule, &c.

Old Massachusetts' hundred hills
Awake and chaunt the matin song;
A realm's acclaim the welkin fills,
The federal Sun returns with Strong.

Rise, &c.

And thou, pale orb of waning light,
Democracy, thou changeling Moon,
Art doomed to wheel thy maniac flight,
Unseen amid the cloudless Noon.

Rule, &c.

254

ODE. THE STREET WAS A RUIN.

[_]

Written for, and sung at the Anniversary of the Massachusetts Charitable Fire Society, June, 1804.

The Street was a Ruin, and Night's horrid glare
Illumined with terror the face of Despair;
While houseless, bewailing,
Mute Pity assailing,
A Mother's wild shrieks pierced the merciless air,
Beside her stood Edward, imploring each wind,
To wake his loved sister, who lingered behind;
Awake, my poor Mary,
Oh! fly to me, Mary;
In the arms of your Edward, a pillow you'll find.

In vain he called, for now the volum'd smoke,
Crackling, between the parting rafters broke;
Through the rent seams the forked flames aspire,
All, all, is lost; the roof's, the roof's on fire!

A flash from the window brought Mary to view,
She screamed as around her the flames fiercely blew;
Where art thou, mother!
Oh! fly to me, brother!
Ah! save your poor Mary, who lives but for you!
Leave not poor Mary,
Ah! save your poor Mary!

255

Her visioned form descrying,
On wings of horror flying,
The youth erects his frantick gaze,
Then plunges in the maddening blaze!
Aloft he dauntless soars,
The flaming room explores;
The roof in cinders crushes,
Through tumbling walls he rushes!
She's safe from Fear's alarms;
She faints in Edward's arms!

Oh! Nature, such thy triumphs are,
Thy simplest child can bravely dare.

256

ODE. SPIRIT OF THE VITAL FLAME.

[_]

Written for, and sung at the Anniversary of the Humane Society, May, 1804.

Air.—ADAGIO.

O'er the swift-flowing stream, as the tree broke in air,
Plunged a youth in the tyrannous wave;
No ear heard his shriek; faint with toil and despair,
He sunk, and was whelmed in his grave!

RECITATIVO.

See, Humanity's angel alights on the scene!
Though the shadows of Death have dissembled his mien;
See, his corse is redeemed from the Stream's icy bed,
And a mother's wild grief shrieks, “Alas! he is dead!”

Air.—LARGO MAESTOSO.

Spirit of the Vital Flame,
Touch with life his marble frame,
From the day-star's radiant choir,
Bring thy torch of quenchless fire,
And bid a mother's hope respire!

ALLEGRO.

Hither, sparkling cherub, fly!
Mercy's herald, cleave the sky!

257

To human prayer, benignant Heaven
The salient spring of life has given;
And Science, while her eye explores
What power the dormant nerve restores,
Surveys the Godhead, and adores;
And him, the first of Glory's clan,
Proclaims, who saves a fellow man!

MAESTOSO.

Spirit of the Vital Flame!
Touch again his marble frame!
Bid the quivering nerve return,
'Till the kindling eye discern
A mother's tears with rapture burn!

ALLEGRO ASSAI.

Behold the quickening Spirit raise
The trembling limb, the wandering gaze!
Instinct listens! Memory wakes!
Thought from cold Extinction breaks;
Reason, motion, frenzy, fear,
Religion's triumph, Nature's tear,
Almighty Power, thy hand is here!

258

ODE.

[_]

Written for, and sung at the celebration of the Artillery Election, June 4, 1797.

Tune—“THE HERO COMES.”

When first the Mitre's wrath to shun,
Our Grandsires travelled with the sun,
Columbia's wilds they sought from far,
And Freedom shone their guiding star.

CHORUS.

Seize thy clarion, Fame,
Let the Poles proclaim,
Each illustrious name,
That crossed the pathless wave.
Join, ye martial throng,
Fame's immortal song,
Bid the chorus roll along,
Long live the brave.

In battle brave, in council wise,
They bade the school of Valour rise,
Whose pupils awed the astonished world,
And Freedom's sacred flag unfurled.

CHORUS.

Seize thy clarion, Fame,
Let the Poles proclaim,
Each illustrious name,
That bade these banners wave.
Join, &c.

259

While o'er our fields, with havock dyed,
Bellona rolled her crimsoned tide,
Like Beauty's lovely goddess rose
Bright Freedom from our sea of woes.

CHORUS.

Seize thy clarion, Fame,
Let the Poles proclaim,
Every hero's name,
That dared our rights to save.
Join, &c.

Well skilled to guide the helm of state,
Like Howard good, like Chatham great,
A chief was ours of deathless fame,
And Hancock was the godlike name.

CHORUS.

Seize thy clarion, Fame,
Let the Poles proclaim,
Hancock's glorious name,
Whose soul disdained the slave.
Join, &c.

Columbia wept; the Virtues sighed,
And Freedom mourned when Hancock died;
While choirs of seraphs sung on high,
He's welcome to his native sky.

CHORUS.

Seize thy clarion, Fame,
Let the Poles proclaim,
Hancock's deathless name,
Has triumphed o'er the grave.
Join, &c.

260

To arms! to arms! when Freedom calls,
No pang the hero's breast appals;
But when the trumpet's clangours cease,
Let Virtue tune the lute of Peace.

CHORUS.

Seize thy clarion, Fame,
Let the Poles proclaim,
Freedom's glorious flame
Shall soon inspire the slave.
Join, ye martial throng,
Fame's immortal song,
Bid the chorus roll along,
Long live the brave.

261

SONG. THE YEOMEN OF HAMPSHIRE.

[_]

Written for, and sung at the celebration of the Artillery Election, June 4, 1801.

Tune—“ADAMS AND LIBERTY.”

To the shades of our ancestors loud is the praise,
That descends with their deeds, and inspires by reaction!
To the heirs of their glory the pæan we raise,
The “Yeomen of Hampshire,” the Victors of Faction;
Be theirs the proud tale,
That though Anarch assail,
Each ploughman still sings to the Stream of his Vale.

CHORUS.

Roll on loved Connecticut, long hast thou ran,
Giving blossoms to Nature, and morals to Man.

Where'er thy rich waters erratick display
Thy deluge of plenty, like Nile, overflooding;
The Mind and the Season thy impulse obey,
And patriot Virtue and Spring are in budding;
While each leaf, as it shoots,
With its promise of fruits,
Proclaims the thrift moisture, that cultures its roots.

262

CHORUS.

Roll on loved Connecticut, long hast thou ran,
Giving blossoms to Nature, and morals to Man.

Through the vallies of Hampshire, bright Order's abode,
Thou lovest in gay circles to range and to wander;
While pleased with thy empire, to lengthen the road,
Thou givest to thy channel another meander;
And when on the way,
Near Northampton you stray,
How slow moves thy current its homage to pay!

CHORUS.

Roll on loved Connecticut, long hast thou ran,
Giving blossoms to Nature, and morals to Man.

Again flow thy stream, as sublimely it rolled,
In triumph effulgent, from Freedom reflected;
On that festival day, when Old Anarch was told,
That his arts had been foiled, and his Foe was elected;
When thy bright waves along,
Reechoed the song,
To the Christian, the Statesman, the Patriot Strong;

CHORUS.

Whose course loved Connecticut like thine, has ran
To cultivate Nature, and moralise Man.

263

MASONICK ODE.

[_]

Written for, and sung at the Anniversary of the Massachusetts Lodge, on the visitation of the Grand Lodge, 1796.

Sweet Minstrel, who to mortal ears
Canst tell the Art, which guides the spheres.
Blest Masonry, all hail!
With Nature's birth thy laws began,
To rule on earth fraternal man,
And still in Heaven prevail.

O'er Matter's modes thy mystick sway
Can fashion Chaos' devious way,
To Order's lucid maze;
Can rear the cloud-assaulting tower,
And bid the worm, that breathes its hour,
Its humble palace raise.

From nascent life to Being's pride,
The surest boon thy laws provide
When wayward fate beguiles:
The tears, thou shed'st for human woe,
In falling shine, like Iris' bow,
And beam an arch of smiles.

264

Come, priest of Science, truth arrayed,
And with thee bring each tuneful maid,
Thou lov'st on Shinar's plain;
Revive Creation's primal plan,
Subdue this wilderness of man,
Bid social Virtue reign!

265

ODE.

[_]

Written for, and sung at the Anniversary of the Sons of the Pilgrims, December 22, 1800.

Tune.—“PRESIDENT'S MARCH.”

Sainted shades! who dared to brave,
In Freedom's ark, the pathless wave,
Where, scarcely kenned by lynx-eyed fame,
No traveller but the Comet came,
And driven by Tempest's ravening blast,
Were wrecked upon our wilds at last;
How rose your faith, when through the storm
Smiled Liberty's celestial form,
Her lyre to strains of seraphs strung,
And thus the sacred pæan sung:

CHORUS.

Sons of Glory, patriot band,
Welcome to my chosen land!
To your children leave it free,
Or a desert let it be.

Round the consecrated rock,
Convened the patriarchal flock,
And there, while every lifted hand
Affirmed the charter of the land,
The storm was hushed, and round the zone
Of Heaven, the mystick meteor shone,

266

Which, like the rainbow, seen of yore,
Proclaimed that Slavery's flood was o'er,
That pilgrim man, so long oppressed,
Had found his promised place of rest.

Sons of Glory, &c.

Festive honours crown the day,
With garlands green and votive lay,
From whose auspicious dawn we trace
The birth-right of our favoured race,
Which shall descend from sire to son,
While seasons roll, and rivers run;
Till Faction's cankerous tooth devour
Of fatuate man each virtuous power;
Till dark intrigue our empire guides,
And patriot worth no more presides!

Sons of Glory, &c.

Heirs of pilgrims, now renew
The oath your fathers swore for you,
When first around the social board,
Enriched from Nature's frugal hoard,
The ardent vow to Heaven they breathed,
To shield the rights their Sires bequeathed!
Manes of Carver! Standish! hear!
To love the soil, you gave, we swear;
And midst the storms of state be true
To God, our country, and to you.

Sons of Glory, &c.

267

SONG. THE GREEN MOUNTAIN FARMER.

[_]

Written in 1798, on Washington's accepting the command of the United States army.

Blest on his own paternal farm;
Contented, yet acquiring;
Below ambition's gilded charm,
Yet rich beyond desiring;
The hill-born rustick, hale and gay,
Ere prattling swallows sally,
Or ere the pine-top spies the day,
Sings cheerly through his valley;

CHORUS.

Green Mountains' echo Heaven's decree!
Live Adams, Law and Liberty.

With love and plenty, peace and health,
Enriched by honest labour,
He cheers the friend of humbler wealth,
Nor courts his prouder neighbour.
At eve, returning home, he meets,
His nut-brown lass, so loving,
And still his constant strain repeats,
Through groves and meadows roving.

268

CHORUS.

Green Mountains' echo Heaven's decree!
Live Adams, Law and Liberty.

Should Faction's wily Serpent spring
With treacherous folds to intwine him,
Undaunted by his venomed sting,
To flames he would consign him;
The hardy yeoman, like the Oak,
That shades his wood-land border,
Would baffle Anarch's vengeful stroke,
And shelter Law and Order.

CHORUS.

Green Mountains' echo, still would be!
Live Adams, Law and Liberty.

Should hostile fleets our shores assail,
By home-bred traitors aided,
No free-born hand would till the vale,
By slavery degraded;
Each youth would join the patriot brave,
To die proud Freedom's martyr,
And shed his latest drop, to save
His country's Glorious Charter.

CHORUS.

Green Mountains' echo then would be,
Fight on, Fight on for Liberty.

But hark! the invading foe alarms,
Responsive cannons rattle;
And Washington, again in arms,
Directs the storm of battle.

269

The locust swarm of Gallick fiends
He sweeps to mid-way ocean;
While fame the vaulted Ether rends,
With conquest's loud commotion.

CHORUS.

Shout! Shout! Columbians, Heaven's decree;
'Tis Washington and Victory!

270

ODE.

[_]

Written for, and sung at the Anniversary of the Boston Female Asylum, September 24, 1802.

Shall man, stern man, 'gainst Heaven's behest,
His cold, unfeeling pride oppose!
To thankless Wealth unlock his breast,
Yet freeze his heart to Orphan's woes.
Weak Casuist! where yon thunder broke!
Seest how the livid light'ning glares!
Behold! it rives the knotted oak,
But still the humble Myrtle spares.

Let stoick valour boldly brave,
The wars and elements of life!
But, more like Heaven, who stoops to save
A being, sinking in the strife;
Poor Exiles! wandering o'er this sphere,
Through scenes, of which you form no part;
Loved Orphan girls! come welcome here,
The Asylum of the human heart.

Sweet Charity! thou spright benign,
Who oft art seen in Angel form,
To point the sunbeam, where to shine,
Or rein the coursers of the storm!

271

Oh! through yon dark and dripping cell,
Where Sorrow's out-cast offspring weep,
Flash, as when Peter's fetters fell,
And bid the woes, that guard them, sleep!

Warmed by thy beams, the frost unkind,
Which blasts sweet woman's vernal years,
In dew exhaled, shall leave behind
Pure Gratitude's unsullied tears!
So shall our Orphan girls no more,
Lament the untimely blight of woe;
But reared to virtue, thrice restore
To generous man the debt, they owe.

Blest Providence! whose parent power
All being gives, for all provides;
Co-equal, when it blooms the flower,
As when it curbs old Ocean's tides!
See, lorn and piteous, at thy throne,
Love, Mercy, Hope and Homage sue;
They weep for sorrows, not their own,
They bend, dear Orphan girls, for you!

272

ODE.

[_]

Written for, and sung at the Anniversary of the American Independence, July 4, 1806.

Tune—“WHILST HAPPY IN MY NATIVE LAND.”

Wide o'er the wilderness of waves,
Untracked by human peril,
Our fathers roamed for peaceful graves,
To deserts dark and sterile.
No parting pang, no long adieu
Delayed their gallant daring;
With them, their Gods and Country too,
Their pilgrim keels were bearing.
All hearts unite the patriot band,
Be liberty our natal land.

Their dauntless hearts no meteor led,
In terrour o'er the ocean;
From fortune and from man they fled,
To Heaven and its devotion.
Fate cannot bend the high born mind
To bigot usurpation:
They, who had left a world behind,
Now gave that world a nation.

273

The soil to till, to freight the sea,
By valour's arm protected,
To plant an empire brave and free,
Their sacred views directed:
But more they feared, than tyrant's yoke,
Insidious faction's fury;
For oft a worm destroys an oak,
Whose leaf that worm would bury.

Thus reared, our giant realm arose,
And claimed our sovereign charter:
Her life-blood warm from Adams rose,
And all her sons from Sparta.
Be free, Columbia! proudest name
Fame's herald wafts in story:
Be free, thou youngest child of Fame,
Rule, brightest heir of Glory!

Thy Preble, mid the battle's ire,
Hath Africk's towers dejected;
And Lybia's sands have flashed with fire,
From Eaton's sword reflected.
Thy groves, which erst the hill or plain
Entrenched from savage plunder,
To Naiads turned, must cleave the main,
And sport with Neptune's thunder.

274

ODE.

[_]

Written for, and sung at the Anniversary of the American Independence, July 4, 1810.

Hail! Hail, ye patriot spirits!
Ye chiefs of valiant deed!
To war-scarred bosoms point no more,
Your wounds no longer bleed.
Oh! ever bless the festal shrine
Your hovering shades explore!
While laurel-crowned, ye glide around,
And the Seraph Anthem pour—
It is our country's natal day,
We hail it and adore!

High o'er the rock of ages,
See Independence stride,
Her shield she stretches o'er the vale,
Her spear across the tide.
The harvests of her teeming soil,
She bids the waves expand,
Though tempest roars, around her shores,
It dies along her strand;
For the arm, that can the plough direct,
The trident can command.

275

The storm, that rent her forests
A thousand ages past,
Now sweeps their branches as they fly
Along the ocean blast.
Through every clime her banners float,
And greet the Northern Wane,
Where dimly bright, with wheeling light,
He pales the freezing plain;
And sees new Stars beneath the pole,
New Pleiads on the main.

The Sea is valour's charter,
A nation's wealthiest mine:
His foaming caves when ocean bares,
Not pearls, but heroes shine;
Aloft they mount the midnight surge,
Where shipwrecked spirits roam,
And oft the knell, is heard to swell,
Where bursting billows foam.
Each storm a race of heroes rears,
To guard their native home.

But not the storm, that courses
The mountain and the deep,
Like Rapine's secret, whirling pool,
With tyrant, power can sweep:
Th' Imperial Gulf can whelm the keel,
Which tempests proudly bore;
In smooth serene, it glides unseen,
Till all its caverns roar;
Till all its hidden ledges crash,
And all its whirlwinds pour.

276

Rise, man's immortal spirit,
Stern Independence, rise;
Mid wrecks, that choak the pirate's cave,
Your tattered banner lies.
In fierce Napoleon's midnight cells
Your gallant sailor grieves;
In chains he lies, and wistful sighs
Towards his country heaves.
Rise Independence, wear thy crown,
Or strip its oaken leaves.

277

ODE.

[_]

Written for, and sung at the Anniversary of the American Independence, July 4, 1811.

Tune—“BATTLE OF THE NILE.”

Let patriot pride our patriot triumph wake!
The Jubilee of Freedom relumes a Nation's soul!
On land, or main, no right of realm forsake.
Though warriour storms, like ocean tempests, roll.
Spread your banners, let Commerce, Industry directing,
Mantle the waves, by courage, Wealth protecting!
And new honours while we pay
To our Country's Natal Day,
Let us build her great renown,
From a soil and sea our own;
For Commerce, Agriculture, Art—rewarded shall be!

Huzza! Huzza! Huzza! Huzza! Huzza!
Heaven gave to Man the Charter to be free.
Huzza! Huzza! Huzza! Huzza! Huzza!
Columbia lives, and claims the great decree.

Arise! Arise! Columbia's Sons, Arise!
Assert, on the ocean, your Ocean's sovereign law;

278

No hostile flag shall hover in your skies;
No pirate keep your mariners in awe.
Be the rights of your shores by Cannon Law expounded,
And your waters shall be safe, where hook and line are sounded.
On the shoals of Newfoundland,
Let your tars and boats command,
For a Mine of wealth you keep
In the Bank beneath the deep,
Whose Charter, awful Charter, is renewed by every sea.

Huzza! Huzza! &c &c. &c.

If equal justice neutral laws proclaim,
No power will presumptuous your sovereignty disgrace;
Among your Stars inscribe a Nation's name,
Your flag will guard, our freedom and your race.
Base submission, inviting indignity and Plunder,
Like a worm, kills an Oak, which should have braved the thunder.
Though beneath the rifting ball,
Should the mountain monarch fall,
Still in majesty he reigns,
And, though prostrate, rules the plains;
And scios, blooming scios, spring, to renovate the tree.

Huzza! Huzza! &c &c. &c.

Arouse! Arouse! Columbia's Sons, Arouse!
And burst through the slumber of faction-dreaming fears;
Bid Cannons shake the tempests from your brows,
And the clouds shall echo glory on your ears.
When the trumpet of Victory, Independence claiming,
Swelled o'er your hills, from fields in battle flaming;

279

When the Freedom of the land,
By your Patriotick Band,
To this Temple was consigned,
'Twas with Washington enshrined,
That the Charter, sacred Charter, there, immortal should be.

Huzza! Huzza! &c. &c. &c.

280

ODE.

[_]

Written for, and sung at the Anniversary of the Faustus Association, October 3, 1809.

Tune—“Adams and Liberty.”

On the tent-plains of Shinah, Truth's mystical clime,
When the impious turret of Babel was shattered,
Lest the tracks of our race, in the sand-rift of Time,
Should be buried, when Shem, Ham and Japheth were scattered,
Rose the genius of Art,
Man to man to impart,
By a language, that speaks, through the eye, to the heart.

CHORUS.

Yet rude was Invention, when Art she revealed,
For a block stamped the page, and a tree ploughed the field.

As Time swept his pennons, Art sighed, as she viewed
How dim was the image, her emblem reflected;
When, inspired, father Faust broke her table of wood,
Wrought its parts into shape, and the whole reconnected,
Art with Mind now could rove,
For her symbols could move,
Ever casting new shades, like the leaves of a grove.

281

CHORUS.

And the colours of Thought in their elements run,
As the prismatick glass shows the hues of the Sun.

In the morn of the West, as the light rolled away
From the grey eve of regions, by bigotry clouded,
With the dawn woke our Franklin, and, glancing the day,
Turned its beams through the mist, with which Art was enshrouded;
To kindle her shrine,
His Promethean line
Drew a spark from the clouds, and made Printing divine!

CHORUS.

When the fire by his rod was attracted from Heaven,
Its flash by the type, his conductor, was given.

Ancient Wisdom may boast of the spice and the weed,
Which embalmed the cold forms of its heroes and sages;
But their fame lives alone on the leaf of the reed,
Which has grown through the clefts in the ruins of ages;
Could they rise, they would shed,
Like Cicero's head,
Tears of blood on the spot, where the world they had led.

CHORUS.

Of Pompey and Ceser unknown is the tomb,
But the type is their forum, the page is their Rome.

Blest genius of Type! down the vista of time
As thy flight leaves behind thee this vexed generation,
Oh! transmit on thy scroll, this bequest from our clime,
The Press can cement, or dismember a nation.

282

Be thy temple the mind!
There, like Vesta, enshrined,
Watch and foster the flame, which inspires human kind!

CHORUS.

Preserving all arts, may all arts cherish thee;
And thy science and virtue teach man to be free!

The following explanatory notice of this Ode is extracted from the Port Folio.

In this Ode, the great stages of the art are poetically described in the three first verses; to each of which there is an appropriate chorus. Printing upon blocks with immoveable types was invented by the descendants of Noah, “on the tent-plains of Shinah,” and was nearly coeval with the first rude assays at agriculture. But the art remained in this state of imperfection, till “father Faust broke her tablet of wood,” and invented the moveable type. In succeeding generations the art received various improvements, prior to the era of Franklin, who first united the genius of philosophy to the art of the mechanic.

How would Antiquity “hide her diminished head,” could she “burst her cearments,” and survey the comforts and elegances, which flow from the art and science of modern life! Her heroes and sages would shed

“Tears of blood on the spot where the world they had led,”

at their limited means of greatness; but they would with holy aspirations bless the “genius of type,” which had so widely diffused their glory and so permanently embalmed their fame.

The concluding verse impresses a salutary lesson, and conveys a noble moral. We fervently hope that neither the lesson, nor the moral will pass unregarded by the conductors of literary and political Journals; for they stand at the fountains of publick opinion and direct the course of its torrents.

283

ODE.

[_]

Written for, and sung at the Anniversary of the General Eaton Fire Society, January 14, 1808.

Tune—“GOD SAVE THE KING.”

Blest be the sacred fire,
Whose beams the man inspire,
Panting for praise!
Renown her laurel rears,
Not in a nation's tears,
But in the Sun, that cheers
Her hero's bays.

In Afric's cells confined,
Columbia's sons had pined,
'Mid hopeless gloom:
By native land forgot,
By friend “remembered not,”
They delved their captive spot,
And hailed their tomb!

284

Who, for the brave, could feel?
Who warm, with patriot zeal,
Their country's veins?
Eaton, a glorious name!
Struck, from the flint of fame,
A spark, whose chymick flame
Dissolved their chains.

O'er Lybia's desert sands,
He led his venturous bands,
Hovering to save;
Where Fame her wings ne'er spread
O'er Alexander's head,
Where Cato bowed and bled
On glory's grave.

Though earth no fountain yield,
Arabs their poignards wield,
Famine appal;
Eaton all danger braves,
Fierce while the battle raves,
Columbia's Standard waves,
On Derne's proud wall,

Long to the brave be given,
The best reward of Heaven,
On earth beneath!
His country's Spartan pride,
To honest fame allied,
No serpent e're shall glide
Under his wreath,

285

Blest be the sacred fire,
Whose beams the man inspire,
Panting for praise!
Renown her laurel rears,
Not in a nation's tears,
But in the Sun, that cheers
Her Hero's bays.

286

ODE.

[_]

Written for, and sung at the Anniversary of the Massachusetts Association, for improving the breed of Horses, October 21, 1811.

Tune—“TALLY HO.”

The Steeds of Apollo, in coursing the day,
Breathe the fire, which he beams on mankind;
To the world while his light from his car they convey,
Their speed is the blaze of his mind.
Thus Ambition, who governs of honour the chace,
Keeps Life's mettled Coursers in glow;
For Fame is the Gaol, and the World is the Race,
And, hark forward! they start! Tally ho!

All ranks try the turf; 'tis the contest of life,
By a heat to achieve a renown;
And so thronged are the lists in the emulous strife,
That but few know what steed is their own;
For many, like Gilpin, alarmed at the blood,
Lose their rein and their course, as they go:
While the Rider, high trained, knows each pace in his stud,
And, hark forward! he flies, Tally ho!

The Hero's a War-horse, whose brave, gen'rous breed,
Scorns the spur, though he yields to the rein;
Blood and bone, at the trump-call he vaults in full speed,
And contends for his own native plain.

287

In battle he glories; and pants, like his Sire,
On the soil, where he grazed, to lie low;
See his neck clothed with thunder, his mane flaked with fire,
While, hark forward! he springs, Tally ho!

The Statesman's a Prancer, so tender in hoof,
He curvets, without fleetness or force;
In the heat of the field, when the race is in proof,
He gallantly bolts from the course!
With his canter and amble, he shuffles his way;
And no care of the sport seems to know;
Till he sees, as he hovers, what horse wins the day,
Then, hark forward! he shouts, Tally ho!

The Farmer's a draught, the rich blood of whose veins,
Acts with vigour the duties, he owes;
He's a horse of sound bottom, and nurtures the plains
Where the harvest, that nurtures him, grows.
At his Country's command, on her hills or her fields,
Which her corn and her laurels bestow;
Firm in danger he moves, and in death never yields,
But, hark forward! he falls, Tally ho!

Columbia is drawn by the Steeds of the sky,
The long journey of Empire to run;
May her coursers of light never scorch as they fly,
And their race be the age of the Sun!
Nor distanced by Time, nor in Fame e'er forgot,
May her track still be known by its glow;
Like Olympian dust, may it stream o'er the spot,
Where, hark forward; she rode, Tally ho!

288

ODE. SPAIN, COMMERCE AND FREEDOM.

[_]

Written for, and sung at the celebration of the Spanish Festival. January 24, 1809.

Sound the trumpet of Fame! Swell the Pæan again!
Religion a war against Tyranny wages:
From her couch springs, in Armour, Regenerate Spain,
Like a Giant, refreshed by the slumber of Ages!
From the cell, where she lay,
She leaps in array,
Like Ajax, to die in the face of the Day:

CHORUS.

And Swears, from pollution, her Empire to save,
Her Flag and her Altars, her Home and her Grave!

In the land of her Birth she rejoices to find,
From her old race of Heroes, a young generation,
In whose souls no dismay kills the nerve of the mind,
Who gaze upon Death with devout contemplation;
Whose Standard on high,
Like a Comet, will fly;
And consume, while it lightens, its neighbouring sky!

289

CHORUS.

They have sworn from pollution her Empire to save,
Her Flag and her Altars, her Home and her Grave!

O'er her hills, see the Day-Star of Glory advance!
Its beams warm her cliffs, and unfetter her fountains!
But, a pestilent Planet, it blazes on France!
A Meteor of blood, through the mist of the Mountains!
Like a Dream in the Air,
See, the Pyrennees glare!
A castle of Fire, on a Rock, blear and bare!

CHORUS.

Its flames from pollution her Empire shall save,
Her Flag and her Altars, her Home and her Grave!

Brave Isle of the Oak! On thy Patriarch Tree,
Science blossoms, where Freedom her shelter has taken!
Earth was weighed by an Acron! and ruled is the Sea!
What thy Newton had balanced, thy Nelson has shaken!
Trident Queen may'st thou reign,
'Till thy thunder regain
The rights of Mankind, in the battles of Spain!

CHORUS.

'Till her Sword from pollution her Empire shall save,
Her Flag and her Altars, her Home and her Grave!

Thy Shield, gallant Britain! impends from the sky,
Like the Star in the East, on the Morn of Salvation!
Through the dark Empyrean it bursts on the eye,
The Beacon of Man, in the march of Creation!

290

In the World's sacred War,
Agincourt, Trafalgar
Thy Steeds deck with laurels, and herald thy Car!

CHORUS.

For with Spain thou hast sworn from pollution to save,
Thy Flag and thy Altars, thy Home and thy Grave!

Dear, Natal Columbia! Fair Last-born of Time!
May the Orphan of Fame be the Heir of Dominion;
But, the Nest of thy Eagle looks Bleak, though Sublime,
On a Cliff, where each Tempest can shatter his pinion!
Round an Aerie so high;
The rude whirlwinds will fly,
Unless, with thy Forests, the blast thou Defy!

CHORUS.

And swear from pollution like Spain, thou wilt save,
Thy Flag and thy Altars, thy Home and thy Grave!

Oh! to Spain, let thy Gratitude redolent burn,
First, thy Freedom to own; First, thy Shores to discover!
Hark! her Patriots, with pride, tell the Tyrant they spurn,
That the New World she found, and the Old will recover!
For Commerce and Thee!
She unbosomed the Sea,
And demands that the Gates of the Ocean be Free!

CHORUS.

Then, swear from pollution like Spain, Thou wilt save,
Thy Flag and thy Altars, thy Home and thy Grave!

Bright Day of the World! dart thy lustre afar!
Fire the North with thy heat! gild the South with thy splendor!

291

With thy glance light the Torch of Redintegrant War,
Till the dismembered Earth effervesce and regender!
Through each zone may'st roll,
'Till thy beams at the Pole,
Melt Philosophy's Ice in the Sea of the Soul!

CHORUS.

'Till Mankind from pollution their birth-right shall save:
Their Flag and their Altars, their Home and their Grave.

Hail! Spirit of Spain! mount thy Battlement-walls!
With thy voice shake the clouds! break the dream of subjection!
Like a new-risen Spectre, thy Helmet appals!
And Pavia Recoils at thy Dread Resurrection!
Oh! may France, the new Rome,
Never destine thy doom,
'Till the Pyrennees sink, and thy realm is a Tomb!

CHORUS.

Rise! and swear from pollution thy Empire to save!
Let thy Flag and thy Home be thy God and thy Grave!

292

ELEGIAC SONNET,

INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF M. M. HAYS, Esq.

Here sleepest thou, Man of Soul! Thy spirit flown,
How dark and tenantless its desert clay!
Cold is that heart, which throbbed at sorrows moan!
Untuned that tongue, which charmed the social day?

Where now the Wit, by generous roughness graced?
Or Friendship's accent, kindling as it fell?
Or Bounty's stealing foot, whose step untraced
Had watched pale Want, and stored her famished cell?

Alas, 'tis all thou art! whose vigorous mind
Inspiring force to Truth and Feeling gave,
Whose rich resources equal power combined,
The gay to brighten, and instruct the grave!

Farewell, Adieu! Sweet Peace thy vigils keep;
For Pilgrim Virtue sojourns here to weep!

293

ADDRESS

[_]

Written for the Carriers of the Boston Gazette, January 1, 1802.

Again the Sun his fiery steeds has driven,
To melt with day the clouds of nether heaven.
T' Antarctic skies he shoots his torrid beams,
And bids the Naiads bathe in polar streams;
On diamond hills of ice, unsunned before,
He points his focus, and new oceans roar;
The vast suffusion gushes down the sides
Of mother earth, and gives St. Pierre his tides;
While floating Glaciers gem the torrent's way,
Exult in light, and, as they shine, decay.
Nations, from under ground, pop out their heads,
To hail the spiral morning as it spreads;
And gaze with wonder, (poor benighted souls!)
On that bright orb, which Candles gives and Coals.
Each Nymph, with furs thrown off, her face discloses,
To breathe an air that does not bite off noses;
And leaves a six-month's fire, to gather roses!
While nature, all alive, with Spring bedight,
Peals her hosannas to the Power of Light.

But while the joys of polar realms and tribes,
The newsboy with red-lettered rhyme describes,
'Tis fit, though bards and beggars love to roam,
To shoot a distich at great folks at home.

294

And here, alas, with aching heart and sad,
His Pegasus must needs become a Pad;
For sure the Muse should shuffle in her gait,
When nought but thorough pacing suits the State.

Who to the clime his pliant habit forms,
Has boots for mire, and roquelaures for storms;
But the news-pedlar, bold as man of rhymes,
Will face the whirlwind and will cuff the times!

Unlike the scene, which erewhile cheered the soul,
But which we left behind us at the pole,
Is this drear season, which, of life bereft,
Gives up to Bankruptcy, what Anarch left.
Cold to the patriot's heart, and newsboy's knuckles,
Misfortune on our backs it doubly buckles;
In trade's great toe it sticks a festering splinter,
And gives us peace, democracy and winter;
Threatens a frost, to freeze our current cash,
To snap our crockery, our credit smash;
With banded hordes it fills our publick roads,
Our smoaking streets with prostate mansions loads;
Frost-nips the banks, internal taxes clips,
Makes carpenters of worms, to bore our ships;
From emigration takes off all its shackles,
And a Swiss Dray-horse in state-harness tackles;
Capacity it gives to every rogue,
And finds certificate of birth in—brogue;
Distinction levels, all allegiance blends,
And whisky cits, from bogs, to congress sends;
All strangers naturalizes—all embraces,
With no exception, but the hue of faces;

295

Felons from Newgate 'scaped, and vermined straw,
To rail at feather-beds, and common law;
Fools with long ears, who bray, when Patriots bawl,
Or knaves transported—with no ears at all.
But while to vagrant tribes our laws are kind,
The sable sans-culottes no mercy find;
Alas! how moral, how humane, the times,
When Philosophs compile a code of crimes!
A deadly sin the Negro's breast imbues,
He loves the female, more than Mammoth does;
And viler still to him, whose pointer nose
Smells not a poppy, as it smells a rose;
The Negro, formed a slave from Nature's hands,
“Sweats more at pores, and less secretes at glands.”

Sad and reversed, as this drear scene appears,
There are, who batten on a Patriot's tears;
But still on them the same privations fall,
The Sun's a common good, and cheers us all;
And when on other realms, and distant skies,
He showers that radiance, he to us denies,
The “eager and the biting air” we feel,
May chill the limbs, but nerves the heart with steel,
For poor in soul is he, who calm can view
That plastic orb, which erst, to order true,
Th' Ecliptic path in equal course did run,
And shone the civil, like the natural sun,
Now o'er our dark horizon's ridge incline
A watery lustre, and a sloping line;
Beyond th' Equator keep his rolling throne,
And in the southern solstice shine alone!

296

TO MISS F.

[_]

The following lines appeared in the Centinel, February, 1793. They were sent to a beautiful young lady, on hearing her express a wish to ascend in Blanchard's Balloon.

Forbear, sweet girl; your scheme forego,
And thus our anxious troubles end:
That you will mount, full well we know,
But greatly fear you'll not descend.

When Angels see a mortal rise,
So beautiful, divine and fair,
They'll not dismiss you from the skies,
But keep their sister Angel there.

[True, gentle bard, should lovely Grace]

[_]

To the above, Mr. Paine soon after wrote the following reply.

True, gentle bard, should lovely Grace
On aeronautick pinions rise,
Angels would own their “Sister's” face,
Thrice welcome to her native skies.

But conscious should the nymph remain,
Earth's loud laments would rend their ears:
They'd send the Heroine down again,
To sooth and bless a world in tears.

University of Virginia Library

1. PART I. JUVENILE POEMS.

Consisting chiefly of COLLEGE EXERCISES.

PREFACE.

[Bright is the sun beam, smiling after showers]

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF BOWDOIN.

[Blest be the sage, whose voice has sung]

[Ye, who enjoy the bliss of social ease]

[Vice lives coeval with the age of time]

ON SENSIBILITY.

A PASTORAL

[The unweeting swain, while Nature round him spreads]

THE REFINEMENT OF MANNERS AND PROGRESS OF SOCIETY.

A VALEDICTORY POEM

THE NATURE AND PROGRESS OF LIBERTY.

A PASTORAL.

MORNING.

NOON.

EVENING.

REFLECTIONS ON A LONELY HILL, WHICH COMMANDED THE PROSPECT OF A BURYING GROUND.

[When ---'s graces bid the pencil break]

FRAGMENT.

[Sage Cadmus, hail! to thee the Grecians owed]

TRANSLATION OF THE FIRST ECLOGUE OF VIRGIL.

TRANSLATION OF THE TENTH ODE, SECOND BOOK OF HORACE.

Addressed to Licinius.

TRANSLATION OF THE FIFTH ODE, FIRST BOOK OF HORACE

Addressed to the courtesan Pyrrha.

STANZAS ON RECEIVING A FROWN FROM CYNTHIA.

TRANSLATION OF THE NINTH ODE, THIRD BOOK, OF HORACE.

Dialogue between Horace and Lydia.

THE LAURELLED NYMPH.

Addressed to Philenia.

ODE TO COMPASSION.

THE GOLDEN AGE.

TRANSLATED FROM OVID'S METAMORPHOSES.

[Such bounteous flowerets from so fair a hand]

VERSES TO A YOUNG LADY, LATELY RECOVERED FROM SICKNESS.

TRANSLATED FROM SAPPHO.

ODE TO WINTER.

A SONG.

THE LASS OF EDEN GROVE.

2. PART II. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

EDWIN AND EMMA.

AN EPITHALAMIUM.

A MONODY, TO THE MEMORY OF W. H. BROWN.

SELF-COMPLACENCY.

[Where'er the vernal bower, the autumnal field]

ADDRESSED TO MISS B.

TO CLORA.

SONNET TO ELIZA.

SONNET TO BELINDA.

MENANDER TO PHILENIA.

PHILENIA TO MENANDER.

MENANDER TO PHILENIA.

SONNET TO PHILENIA, ON A STANZA, IN HER ADDRESS TO MYRA.

THE COUNTRY GIRL TO MENANDER.

STANZAS TO THE COUNTRY GIRL.

THE COUNTRY GIRL TO MENANDER.

SONNET TO THE COUNTRY GIRL.

SONNET, TO ANNA-LOUISA, ON HER ODE TO FANCY.

STANZAS TO ANNA, ON HER VISIT TO PHILADELPHIA.

TO TRUTH.

TO TRUTH.

STANZAS TO A YOUNG LADY ON A BAMBOO FAN, ACCIDENTALLY TORN.

THE PRIZE PROLOGUE:

Spoken in the character of Apollo. BY Mr. C. POWELL, AT THE OPENING OF THE FIRST THEATRE, IN BOSTON, JANUARY, 1794.

THE INVENTION OF LETTERS:

A POEM, WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF THE PRESIDENT OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY; AND DELIVERED, IN CAMBRIDGE, ON THE DAY OF ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT, JULY 15, 1795.

THE RULING PASSION;

AN OCCASIONAL POEM, WRITTEN BY THE APPOINTMENT OF THE SOCIETY OF THE PHI BETA KAPPA; AND SPOKEN, ON THEIR ANNIVERSARY, IN THE CHAPEL OF THE UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE, JULY 20, 1797.

DEDICATORY ADDRESS;

SPOKEN BY MR. HODGKINSON, OCTOBER 29, 1798, AT THE OPENING OF THE NEW FEDERAL THEATRE, IN BOSTON.

ADDRESS

Delivered on the occasion of Master John H. Payne's first appearance on the Boston Stage, in the character of Young Norval.

EPILOGUE TO THE SOLDIER'S DAUGHTER.

[Farewell, a long farewell! dear patrons, friends]

EPILOGUE TO THE CLERGYMAN'S DAUGHTER.

EPILOGUE TO THE POOR LODGER.

MONODY ON THE DEATH OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL SIR JOHN MOORE.

1. PART I.
JUVENILE POEMS.

2. PART II.
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

3. PART III.
ODES AND SONGS.