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;

102

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.

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.

1. PART I.
JUVENILE POEMS.