University of Virginia Library

On General Arnold

At Freedom's call, see Arnold take the field,
With Honor, blazoned on his patriot shield!
His gallant deeds a dazzling luster spread,
And circling glories beamed around his head.
But, when estranged from Freedom's glorious cause,
Renouncing Honor, and its sacred laws,
Impelled by motives of the basest kind,
Which mark the vicious, mean, degenerate mind:
To virtue lost, and callous to disgrace,
The traitor hiding, with the hero's face;
His cankered heart, to sordid views a slave,
To Mammon yielding all that freedom gave,
Enleagued with fiends of that detested tribe,
Whose god is gold, whose savior is a bribe,
Could basely join, his country to betray,
And thus restore a ruthless tyrant's sway;
On freedom's sons impose the galling yoke,
And crush each foe to vice, beneath the stroke;
Not all his laurels in the field obtained!
Not all that Philip's son, by conquest gained!
Not all that once adorned great Caesar's brow!
Nor, all that Washington may challenge now!
Could save a wretch, whom crimes, like these, debase,
So far beneath the rank of human race!
But, stung with keen remorse, his guilty soul,
In vain, shall seek repose, from pole to pole;
Perpetual anguish shall torment his breast,
And hellish demons haunt his troubled rest;
Not even death shall shield his hated name,
For, still, the caitiff shall survive to fame;
By fate's decree! who thus pronounced his lot:
“Too bad, to live! too base, to be forgot!
Thy crimes succeeding ages shall proclaim,
And Judas be forgot, in Arnold's name!”