Poems of Freneau :: :: University of Virginia Library

IN ages past, when smit with warmth sublime,
Their bards foretold the dark events of time,
And piercing forward through the mystic shade,
Kings yet to come, and chiefs unborn survey'd,
Amittai's son perceiv'd, among the rest,
The mighty flame usurp his labouring breast:—
For thus, in dreams, the voice unerring came
Of Him, who lives through every age the same:

“Arise! and o'er the intervening waste,
“To Nineveh's imperial turrets haste;
“That mighty town to ruin I decree,
“Proclaim destruction, and proclaim from me:
“Too long it stands, to God and man a foe,
“Without one virtue left to shield the blow;
“Guilt, black as night, their speedy ruin brings,
“And hottest vengeance from the King of Kings.“

The prophet heard—but dared to disobey,
(Weak as he was) and fled a different way;
In Joppa's port a trading ship he found
Far o'er the main to distant Tarshish bound:

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The price of passage to her chief he paid,
And there conceal'd with wandering sailors stay'd,
His purpose fixt, at once perverse and blind,
To leave his country, and his God behind.

But He who spread the ocean's vast expanse,
And views all nature with a single glance,
Forth from its prison bade the tempest fly—
The tempest swell'd the ocean to the sky;
The trembling barque, as the fierce billow knocks,
Scarce bears the fury of repeated shocks;
Her crew distrest, astonish'd and afraid,
Each to his various god in anguish pray'd,
Nor trust alone to penitence and prayer,
They clear the decks, and for the worst prepare,
The costly lading to the deep they throw,
That lighter o'er the billows she may go,
Nor with regret the wealthy cargo spared,
For wealth is nothing when with life compared.

But to the ship's remotest chambers fled
There pensive Jonah droop'd his languid head,
And, new to all the dangers of the deep,
Had sunk, dejected, in the arms of sleep—
'Twas then the master broke the prophet's rest,
And thus exclaim'd, and smote his frantic breast—
“O sleeper, from thy stupid slumbers rise,
“At such an hour can sleep invade thine eyes?—
“If ever thou to heaven didst send a prayer,
“Now send thy warmest supplications there,
“Perhaps thy God may pity our distress,
“And save us, foundering in this dark abyss.”

Thus warn'd, the seer his vows repentant paid—
Meantime, the seamen to their fellows said:
“No common waves our shatter'd vessel rend,
“There must be one for whom these storms impend,
“Some wretch we bear, for whom these billows rise,
“Foe to the gods, and hated by the skies;
“Come, since the billows all our arts defy,
“Come, let the lot decide for whom we die.”

195

Instant the lots amidst the vase they threw
And the markt lot dejected Jonah drew!

Then thus their chief the guilty man address'd,
“Say, for what crime of thine are we distrest?
“What is thy country, what thy calling, say,
“Whence dost thou come, what potentate obey?
“Unfold it all, nor be the truth deny'd.”—
The master spoke, and Jonah thus reply'd:

“A Hebrew I, from neighbouring regions came,
“A Jewish prophet, of no vulgar fame:
“That God I fear who spread this raging sea,
“Who fixt the shores by his supreme decree,
“And reigns throughout immeasurable space,
“His footstool earth, the heaven his dwelling place.
“But I, regardless of his high command,
“His mandate slighting, fled my native land,
“Fool that I was, from Joppa's port to fly,
“Who thought to shun his all-pervading eye!
“For this the tempest rends each tatter'd sail,”
“For this your vessel scarce supports the gale!

The seamen heard, distracted and dismay'd;
When thus again their trembling pilot said:
“How couldst thou thus, ungenerous as thou art,
“Affront thy patron, and with us depart?—
“Lo! for thy crimes, and not our own, we die;
“Mark, how the wild waves threaten from on high,
“Our sails in fragments flit before the blast,
“Scarce to its station we confine the mast;
“What shall we do, unhappy man, declare,
“How shall we act, or how direct our prayer,
“That angry Neptune may his rage restrain,
“And hush once more these tumults of the main?”

The seer reply'd, “The means are in your power
“To still the tempest in this dreadful hour:—
“High on the sea-beat prow will I ascend,
“And let the boldest of your crew attend
“To plunge me headlong from that giddy steep
“Down to the bosom of the unfathom'd deep;

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“So shall the ocean from its raging cease,
“And the fierce tempest soon he hush'd to peace:—
“'Tis for my crimes this angry ocean raves,
“'Tis for my sin we plough these fearful waves;
“Dislodge me soon—the storm shall then decay,
“Which still grows louder while on board I stay.”

Thus he—but they, to save their vagrant guest,
Refus'd as yet to grant his strange request,
And though aloft on mountain waves they ride,
And the tost galley reels from side to side,
Yet to their breasts they drew the sweepy oar,
And vainly strove to gain the distant shore:
The ruffian winds refuse that wish'd retreat,
And fiercer o'er the decks the billows beat.

Then to the skies the chief his prayer addrest,
“Thou Jove supreme, the greatest and the best!
“Because thy sovereign pleasure doth require
“That death alone must satisfy thine ire,
“O spare us for thy dying prophet's sake,
“Nor let us perish for the life we take;
“If we are wrong, his lot was thy decree,
“And thou hast done as it seem'd best to thee.”

Then from the summit of the washy prow,
They plunged the prophet to the depths below,
And straight the winds, and straight the billows cease,
And every threatening surge lay hush'd in peace;
The trembling crew adore the Power Supreme
Who kindly thus from ruin rescued them;
Their vows they send to his imperial throne,
And victims offer to this God unknown.

Canto II.

When from the prow's intimidating height
They plung'd the prophet to the realms of night,
Not long he languished in the briny deep,
In death's cold arms not yet decreed to sleep.—
Jehovah saw him, from the abodes of bliss,
Sunk to the bottom of the vast abyss,

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And bade a whale, the mightiest of the kind,
His prophet in these dismal mansions find—
The hostile form, approaching through the wave,
Receiv'd him living to a living grave,
Where three long days in dark distress he lay,
And oft repenting, to his God did pray—
The power benign, propitious to his prayer,
Bade the huge fish to neighbouring shores repair—
Instant the whale obey'd the high command,
And cast him safe on Palestina's strand.

The prophet then his past transgressions mourn'd,
And grateful, thus to heaven this thanks return'd:
“Afflicted from the depths of hell I pray'd,
“The dark abyss of everlasting shade:
“My God in mercy heard the earnest prayer,
“And dying Jonah felt thy presence there.
“Because I dared thy mandate disobey,
“Far didst thou plunge me from the face of day:
“In the vast ocean, where no land is found,
“The mighty waters closed thy prophet round:
“On me the waves their utmost fury spent,
“And all thy billows o'er my body went,
“Yet then, surrounded by the dismal shade,
“Thus to my MAKER from the depths I said:
“Though hid beneath the caverns of the main,
“To thy blest temple will I look again,
“Though from thy sight to utter darkness thrown,
“Still will I trust, and trust on thee alone—
“With anguish deep I felt the billows roll,
“Scarce in her mansion stay'd my frighted soul;
“About my head were wrapt the weeds of night,
“And darkness, mingled with no ray of light;
“I reached the caves the briny ocean fills,
“I reached the bases of the infernal hills,
“Earth, with her bars, encompass'd me around,
“Yet, from the bottom of the dark profound
“Where life no more the swelling vein supplies,
“And death reposes, didst thou bid me rise.

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“When fainting nature bow'd to thy decree,
“And the lone spirit had prepar'd to flee,
“Then from my prison I remember'd thee,
“My prayer towards thy heavenly temple came,
“The temple sacred to JEHOVAH'S name.—
“Unhappy they, who vanities pursue,
“And lies believing, their own souls undo—
“But to thine ear my grateful song shall rise,
“For thee shall smoke the atoning sacrifice,
“My vows I'll pay at thy imperial throne,
“Since my salvation was from thee alone.”

Canto III.

Once more the voice to humbled Jonah came
Of HIM, who lives through every age the same:
“Arise! and o'er the intervening waste
“To Nineveh's exalted turrets haste,
“And what to thee my SPIRIT shall reveal,
“That preach—nor dare the sacred truth conceal—
“To desolation I that town decree;
“Proclaim destruction, and proclaim from me.”
Obedient to JEHOVAH'S high command,
The prophet rose, and left Judea's land,
And now he near the spiry city drew,
(Euphrates pass'd, and rapid Tigris too:)
So vast the bulk of this prodigious place,
Three days were scant its lengthy streets to trace;
But as he enter'd, on the first sad day,
Thus he began his tidings of dismay:

“O NINEVEH! to heaven's decree attend!
“Yet forty days, and all thy glories end;
“Yet forty days, the skies protract thy fall,
“And desolation then shall bury all,
“Thy proudest towers their utter ruin mourn,
“And domes and temples unextinguished burn!
“O Nineveh! the GOD of armies dooms
“Thy thousand streets to never-ending glooms:

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“Through mouldering fanes the hollow winds shall roar,
“And vultures scream where monarchs lodg'd before!
“Thy guilty sons shall bow beneath the sword,
“Thy captive matrons own a foreign lord.—
“Such is the vengeance that the heavens decree,
“Such is the ruin that must bury thee!”

The people heard, and smit with instant fear,
Believ'd the fatal warnings of the seer:
This sudden ruin so their souls distrest,
That each with sackcloth did his limbs invest,
From him that glitter'd on the regal throne,
To him that did beneath the burden groan—

Soon to their monarch came this voice of fate,
Who left his throne and costly robes of state,
And o'er his limbs a vest of sackcloth drew,
And sate in ashes, sorrowful to view—
His lords and robles, now repentant grown,
With equal grief their various sins bemoan.
And through the city sent this loud decree,
With threatening back'd, and dreadful penalty:

“Ye Ninevites! your wonted food refrain,
“Nor touch, ye beasts, the herbage of the plain,
“Let all that live be humbled to the dust,
“Nor taste the waters, though ye die of thirst:
“Let men and beasts the garb of sorrow wear,
“And beg yon' skies these guilty walls to spare:
“Let all repent the evil they pursue,
“And curse the mischief that their hands would do—
“Perhaps that GOD, who leans to mercy still,
“And sent a prophet to declare his will,
“May yet the vengeance he designs, adjourn,
“And, ere we perish, from his anger turn.”

JEHOVAH heard, and pleas'd beheld at last
Their deep repentance for transgressions past,
With pity moved, he heard the earnest prayer
Of this vast city, humbled in despair;
Though justly due, his anger dies away,
He bids the angel of destruction stay:—

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The obedient angel hears the high command,
And sheathes the sword, he drew to smite the land.

Canto IV.

But anger swell'd the haughty prophet's breast,
Rage burn'd within, and robb'd his soul of rest;
Such was his pride, he wish'd they all in flame
Might rather perish than belie his fame,
And GOD'S own bolts the tottering towers assail,
And millions perish, than his word should fail.
Then to the heavens he sent this peevish prayer—
(Vain, impious man, to send such pinings there):

“While yet within my native land, I stay'd,
“This would at last reward my toil, I said,
“Destruction through the Assyrian streets to cry,
“And then the event my mission falsify;
“For this I strove to shun thy sight before,
“And sought repose upon a foreign shore;
“I knew thou wert so gracious and so kind,
“Such mercy sways thy all creating mind,
“Averse thy bolts of vengeance to employ,
“And still relenting when you should'st destroy,
“That when I had declar'd thy sacred will,
“Thou would'st not what I prophesy'd fulfill,
“But leave me thus to scorn, contempt, and shame,
“A lying prophet, blasted in my fame—
“And now, I pray thee, grant my last request,
“O take my life, so wretched and unblest!
“If there I stay, 'tis but to grieve and sigh;
“Then take my life—'tis better for to die?”

“Is it thy place to swell with rage and pride,”
(Thus to his pining prophet, God reply'd)
“Say is it just thy heart should burn with ire
“Because yon' city is not wrapt in fire?
“What if I choose its ruin to delay,
“And send destruction on some future day,
“Must thou, for that, with wasting anguish sigh,
“And, hostile to my pleasure, wish to die?”

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Then Jonah parted from the mourning town,
And near its eastern limits sate him down,
A booth he builded with assiduous care,
(Form'd of the cypress boughs that flourish'd there)
And anxious now beneath their shadow lay,
Waiting the issue of the fortieth day—
As yet uncertain if the Power Divine
Or would to mercy, or to wrath incline—

Meantime the leaves that roof'd this arbour o'er,
Shrunk up and faded, sheltered him no more;

But GOD ordain'd a thrifty gourd to rise,
To screen his prophet from the scorching skies;
High o'er his head aspired the spreading leaf,
Too fondly meant to mitigate his grief,
So close a foliage o'er his head was made,
That not a beam could pierce the happy shade:
The wondering seer perceiv'd the branches grow
And bless'd the shadow that reliev'd his woe;

But when the next bright morn began to shine
(So God ordain'd) a worm attack'd the vine,
Beneath his bite its goodly leaves decay,
And wasting, withering, die before the day!
Then as the lamp of heaven still higher rose
From eastern skies a sultry tempest blows,
The vertic sun as fiercely pour'd his ray,
And beam'd around insufferable day.
How beat those beams on Jonah's fainting head!
How oft he wish'd a place among the dead!
All he could do, was now to grieve and sigh,
His life detest, and beg of God to die.

Again, JEHOVAH to his prophet said,
“Art thou so angry for thy vanish'd shade—
“For a mere shadow dost thou well to grieve,
“For this poor loss would'st thou thy being leave?”—

“My rage is just, (the frantic prophet cry'd),
“My last, my only comfort is deny'd—
“The spreading vine that form'd my leafy bower;
“Behold it vanish'd in the needful hour!

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“To beating winds and sultry suns a prey,
“My fainting spirit droops and dies away—
“Give me a mansion in my native dust,
“For though I die with rage, my rage is just.”

Once more the Almighty deign'd to make reply—
“Does this lost gourd thy sorrow swell so high,
“Whose friendly shade not to thy toil was due,
“Alone it sprouted and alone it grew;
“A night beheld its branches waving high,
“And the next sun beheld those branches die;
“And should not pity move the LORD of all
“To spare the vast Assyrian capital,
“Within whose walls uncounted myriads stray,
“Their Father I, my sinful offspring they?—
“Should they not move the creating mind
“With six score thousand of the infant kind,
“And herds untold that graze the spacious field,
“For whom yon' meads their stores of fragrance yield;
“Should I this royal city wrap in flame,
“And slaughter millions to support thy fame,
“When now repentant to their God they turn,
“And their past follies, low in ashes, mourn?—
“Vain thoughtless wretch, recall thy weak request,
“Death never came to man a welcome guest;—
“Why wish to die—what madness prompts thy mind?
“Too long the days of darkness thou shalt find;
“Life was a blessing by the Maker meant,
“Dost thou despise the blessings he has lent—
“Enjoy my gifts while yet the seasons run
“True to their months, and social with the sun;
“When to the dust my mandate bids thee fall,
“All these are lost, for death conceals them all—
“No more the sun illumes the sprightly day,
“The seasons vanish, and the stars decay:
“The trees, the flowers, no more thy sense delight,
“Death shades them all in ever-during night.
“Then think not long the little space I lent—
“Of thy own sins, like Nineveh, repent;

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“Rejoice at last the mighty change to see,
“And bear with them as I have borne with thee.”

[w. 1768]

1786

Debemur morti nos nostraque!—

The PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT

A Dialogue

Written in 1769.

Scene. Egypt.

Persons.

Traveller, Genius, Time.

Traveller.
Where are those far-famed piles of human grandeur,
Those sphinxes, pyramids, and Pompey's pillar,
That bid defiance to the arm of TIME—
Tell me, dear GENIUS, for I long to see them.

Genius.
At Alexandria rises Pompey's pillar,
Whose date is but of yesterday, compared
With those prodigious fabricks that you see
O'er yonder distant plain—upon whose breast
Old Nile hath never roll'd his swelling stream,
The only plain so privileged in Egypt;
These pyramids may well excite your wonder;
They are of most remote antiquity,
Almost coeval with those cloud-crown'd hills
That westward from them rise—long ere the age
That saw old Babel's tower aspiring high,
Then first the sage Egyptian architects
These ancient turrets to the heavens rais'd:—
But Babel's tower is gone, and these remain!

204

Traveller.
Old Rome I thought unrival'd in her years,
At least the remnants that we find at Rome,—
Deep are they sunk in dark antiquity;—
But these, you tell me, are of older date.

Genius.
Talk not of Rome!—Before they lopt a bush
From the seven hills where Rome, earth's empress, stood,
These pyramids were old—their birth-day is
Beyond tradition's reach, or history.

Traveller.
Then let us haste toward those piles of wonder
That scorn to bend beneath this weight of years—
Lo! to my view, the aweful mansions rise
The pride of art, the sleeping place of death!
Are these the four prodigious monuments
That so astonish every generation—
Let us examine this, the first and greatest—
A secret horror, chills my breast, dear Genius,
To touch these monuments that are so ancient,
The fearful property of ghosts and death!—
And of such mighty bulk, that I presume
A race of giants were the architects.—
Since these proud fabricks to the heavens were rais'd
How many generations have decay'd,
How many monarchies to ruin pass'd!
How many empires had their rise and fall!
While these remain—and promise to remain
As long as yonder sun, that gilds their summits,
Or moon or stars their wonted circuits run.

Genius.
—The time will come
When these stupendous piles you deem immortal,
Worn out with age, shall moulder on their bases,

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And down, down, low to endless ruin verging,
O'erwhelm'd by dust, be seen and known no more!—
Ages ago, in dark oblivion's lap
Had they been shrouded, but the atmosphere
In these parch'd climates, hostile to decay,
Is pregnant with no rain, that by its moisture
Might waste their bulk in such excess of time,
And prove them briefly mortal.—
'Twas on this plain the ancient Memphis stood,
Her walls encircled these tall pyramids—
But where is Pharaoh's palace, where the domes
Of Egypt's haughty lords? all, all are gone,
And like the phantom snows of a May morning,
Left not a vestige to remember them!

Traveller.
How shall I reach the vertex of this pile—
How shall I clamber up its shelving sides?
I scarce endure to glance towards the summit,
It seems among the clouds—When wast thou rais'd
O work of more than mortal majesty—
Was this produced by persevering man,
Or did the gods erect this pyramid?

Genius.
Nor gods, nor giants rais'd this pyramid—
It was the toil of mortals like yourself,
That swell'd it to the skies—
Seest thou yon' little door? Through that they pass'd,
Who rais'd so high this aggregate of wonders!
What cannot tyrants do,
When they have subject nations at their will,
And the world's wealth to gratify ambition!
Millions of slaves beneath their labours fainted
Who here were doom'd to toil incessantly,
And years elaps'd while groaning myriads strove
To raise this mighty tomb—and but to hide
The worthless bones of an Egyptian king.—

206

O wretch, might not a humbler tomb have done,
Could nothing but a pyramid inter thee?

Traveller.
Perhaps old Israel's race, when here oppress'd,
Rais'd, in their years of bondage, this dread pile.

Genius.
Before the Jewish patriarchs saw the light,
While yet the globe was in its infancy
These were erected to the pride of man—
Five thousand years have run their tedious round
Since these smooth stones were on each other laid,
Five thousand more may run as dull a round
Ere Egypt sees her pyramids decay'd.

Traveller.
But suffer me to enter, and behold
The interior wonders of this edifice.

Genius.
'Tis darkness all, with hateful silence join'd—
Here drowsy bats enjoy a dull repose,
And marble coffins, vacant of their bones,
Shew where the royal dead in ruin lay!
By every pyramid a temple rose
Where oft, in concert, those of ancient time
Sung to their goddess ISIS hymns of praise;
But these are fallen!—their columns too superb
Are levell'd with the dust—nor these alone—
Where is thy vocal statue, Memnon, now,
That, once, responsive to the morning beams,
Harmoniously to father Phoebus sung!
Where is the image that in past time stood
High on the summit of yon' pyramid?
Still may you see its polish'd pedestal—
Where art thou ancient Thebes?—all buried low,
All vanish'd! crumbled into mother dust,

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And nothing of antiquity remains
But these huge pyramids, and yonder hills.

Time.
Old Babel's tower hath felt my potent arm,
I ruin'd Ecbatan and Babylon,
Thy huge Colossus, Rhodes, I tumbled down,
And on these pyramids I smote my scythe;
But they resist its edge—then let them stand.—
But I can boast a greater feat than this,
I long ago have shrouded those in death
Who made these structures rebels to my power—
But, O return!—These piles are not immortal!
This earth, with all its belts of hills and mountains,
Shall perish by my hand—then how can these,
These hoary-headed pyramids of Egypt,
That are but dwindled moates upon her body,
That on a little, little spot of ground
Extinguish the dull radiance of the sun,
Be proof to death and me?—Traveller return—
There's nought but GOD immortal—HE alone
Exists secure, when Genius, and Time,
(Time not immortal, but a viewless point
In the vast circle of eternity)
Are swallowed up, and, like the pyramids,
Leave not an atom for their monument!

[w. 1769]

1786

THE POWER of FANCY.

Written 1770.

Wakeful, vagrant, restless thing,
Ever wandering on the wing,
Who thy wondrous source can find,
FANCY, regent of the mind;
A spark from Jove's resplendent throne,
But thy nature all unknown.

208

THIS spark of bright, celestial flame,
From Jove's seraphic altar came,
And hence alone in man we trace,
Resemblance to the immortal race.

Ah! what is all this mighty WHOLE,
These suns and stars that round us roll!
What are they all, where'er they shine,
But Fancies of the Power Divine!
What is this globe, these lands, and seas,
And heat, and cold, and flowers, and trees,
And life, and death, and beast, and man,
And time,—that with the sun began—
But thoughts on reason's scale combin'd,
Ideas of the Almighty mind?

On the surface of the brain
Night after night she walks unseen,
Noble fabrics doth she raise
In the woods or on the seas,
On some high, steep, pointed rock,
Where the billows loudly knock
And the dreary tempests sweep
Clouds along the uncivil deep.

Lo! she walks upon the moon,
Listens to the chimy tune
Of the bright, harmonious spheres,
And the song of angels hears;
Sees this earth a distant star,
Pendant, floating in the air;
Leads me to some lonely dome,
Where Religion loves to come,
Where the bride of Jesus dwells,
And the deep ton'd organ swells
In notes with lofty anthems join'd,
Notes that half distract the mind.

Now like lightning she descends
To the prison of the fiends,

209

Hears the rattling of their chains,
Feels their never ceasing pains—
But, O never may she tell
Half the frightfulness of hell.

Now she views Arcadian rocks,
Where the shepherds guard their flocks,
And, while yet her wings she spreads,
Sees chrystal streams and coral beds,
Wanders to some desert deep,
Or some dark, enchanted steep,
By the full moonlight doth shew
Forests of a dusky blue,
Where, upon some mossy bed,
Innocence reclines her head.

SWIFT, she stretches o'er the seas
To the far off Hebrides,
Canvas on the lofty mast
Could not travel half so fast—
Swifter than the eagle's flight
Or instantaneous rays of light!
Lo! contemplative she stands
On Norwegia's rocky lands—
Fickle Goddess, set me down
Where the rugged winters frown
Upon Orca's howling steep,
Nodding o'er the northern deep,
Where the winds tumultuous roar,
Vext that Ossian sings no more.
Fancy, to that land repair,
Sweetest Ossian slumbers there;
Waft me far to southern isles
Where the soften'd winter smiles,
To Bermuda's orange shades,
Or Demarara's lovely glades;
Bear me o'er the sounding cape,
Painting death in every shape,
Where daring Anson spread the sail
Shatter'd by the stormy gale—

210

Lo! she leads me wide and far,
Sense can never follow her—
Shape thy course o'er land and sea,
Help me to keep pace with thee,
Lead me to yon' chalky cliff,
Over rock and over reef,
Into Britain's fertile land,
Stretching far her proud command.
Look back and view, thro' many a year,
Caesar, Julius Caesar, there.

Now to Tempe's verdant wood,
Over the mid ocean flood
Lo! the islands of the sea
—Sappho, Lesbos mourns for thee:
Greece, arouse thy humbled head,
Where are all thy mighty dead,
Who states to endless ruin hurl'd
And carried vengeance through the world?—
Troy, thy vanish'd pomp resume,
Or, weeping at thy Hector's tomb,
Yet those faded scenes renew,
Whose memory is to Homer due.
Fancy, lead me wandering still
Up to Ida's cloud-topt hill;
Not a laurel there doth grow
But in vision thou shalt show,—
Every sprig on Virgil's tomb
Shall in livelier colours bloom,
And every triumph Rome has seen
Flourish on the years between.

Now she bears me far away
In the east to meet the day,
Leads me over Ganges' streams,
Mother of the morning beams—
O'er the ocean hath she ran,
Places me on Tinian;
Farther, farther in the east,
Till it almost meets the west,

211

Let us wandering both be lost
On Taitis sea-beat coast,
Bear me from that distant strand,
Over ocean, over land,
To California's golden shore—
Fancy, stop, and rove no more.

Now, tho' late, returning home,
Lead me to Belinda's tomb;
Let me glide as well as you
Through the shroud and coffin too,
And behold, a moment, there,
All that once was good and fair—
Who doth here so soundly sleep?
Shall we break this prison deep?—
Thunders cannot wake the maid,
Lightnings cannot pierce the shade,
And tho' wintry tempests roar,
Tempests shall disturb no more.

YET must those eyes in darkness stay,
That once were rivals to the day—?
Like heaven's bright lamp beneath the main
They are but set to rise again.

FANCY, thou the muses' pride,
In thy painted realms reside
Endless images of things,
Fluttering each on golden wings,
Ideal objects, such a store,
The universe could hold no more:
Fancy, to thy power I owe
Half my happiness below;
By thee Elysian groves were made,
Thine were the notes that Orpheus play'd;
By thee was Pluto charm'd so well
While rapture seiz'd the sons of hell—
Come, O come—perceiv'd by none,
You and I will walk alone.

[w. 1770]

1786

Milton's Paradise Lost, B. II, v. 1052.

212

THE PRAYER OF ORPHEUS.

Sad monarch of the world below,
Stern guardian of this drowsy shade,
Through these unlovely realms I go
To seek a captive thou hast made.
O'er Stygian waters have I pass'd,
Contemning Jove's unjust decree,
And reached thy sable court at last
To find my lost Eurydicè.

Of all the nymphs, so deckt and drest
Like Venus of the starry train,
She was the loveliest and the best,
The pride and glory of the plain.
O free from thy despotic sway
This nymph of heaven-descended charms,
Too soon she came this dusky way—
Restore thy captive to my arms.

As by a stream's fair verdant side
In myrtle shades she rov'd along,
A serpent stung my blooming bride,
This brightest of the female throng—
The venom hastening thro' her veins
Forbade the freezing blood to flow.
And thus she left the Thracian plains
For these dejected groves below.

Even thou mays't pity my sad pain,
Since Love, as ancient stories say,
Forced thee to leave thy native reign,
And in Sicilian meadows stray:
Bright Proserpine thy bosom fired,
For her you sought unwelcome light,
Madness and love in you conspired
To seize her to the shades of night.

But if, averse to my request,
The banished nymph, for whom I mourn,

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Must in Plutonian chambers rest,
And never to my arms return—
Take Orpheus too—his warm desire
Can ne'er be quench'd by your decree:
In life or death he must admire,
He must adore Eurydicè.

The AMERICAN VILLAGE, &c.

Where yonder stream divides the fertile plain,
Made fertile by the labours of the swain;
And hills and woods high tow'ring o'er the rest,
Behold a village with fair plenty blest:
Each year tall harvests crown the happy field;
Each year the meads their stores of fragrance yield,
And ev'ry joy and ev'ry bliss is there,
And healthful labour crowns the flowing year.

Though Goldsmith weeps in melancholy strains,
Deserted Auburn and forsaken plains,
And mourns his village with a patriot sigh,
And in that village sees Britannia die:
Yet shall this land with rising pomp divine,
In it's own splendour and Britannia's shine.
O muse, forget to paint her ancient woes,
Her Indian battles, or her Gallic foes;
Resume the pleasures of the rural scene,
Describe the village rising on the green,
It's harmless people, born to small command,
Lost in the bosom of this western land:
So shall my verse run gentle as the floods,
So answer all ye hills, and echo all ye woods;
So glide ye streams in hollow channels pent,
Forever wasting, yet not ever spent.

214

Ye clust'ring boughs by hoary thickets borne!
Ye fields high waving with eternal corn!
Ye woodland nymphs the tender tale rehearse,
The fabled authors of immortal verse:
Ye Dryads fair, attend the scene I love,
And Heav'n shall centre in yon' blooming grove.
What tho' thy woods, AMERICA, contain
The howling forest, and the tiger's den,
The dang'rous serpent, and the beast of prey,
Men are more fierce, more terrible than they.
No monster with it's vile contagious breath,
No flying scorpion darting instant death;
No pois'nous adder, burning to engage,
Has half the venom or has half the rage.
What tho' the Turk protests to heav'n his ire,
With lift up hand amidst his realms of fire;
And Russia's Empress sends her fleets afar,
To aid the havock of the burning war:
Their rage dismays not, and their arms in vain,
In dreadful fury bathe with blood the plain;
Their terrors harmless, tho' their story heard,
How this one conquer'd, or was nobly spar'd:
Vain is their rage, to us their anger vain,
The deep Atlantic raves and roars between.

To yonder village then will I descend,
There spend my days, and there my ev'nings spend;
Sweet haunt of peace whose mud' wall'd sides delight,
The rural mind beyond the city bright:
Their tops with hazles or with alders wove,
Remurmur magic to the neighb'ring grove;
And each one lab'ring in his own employ,
Comes weary home at night, but comes with joy:
The soil which lay for many thousand years
O'er run by woods, by thickets and by bears;
Now reft of trees, admits the chearful light,
And leaves long prospects to the piercing sight;
Where once the lynx nocturnal sallies made,

215

And the tall chestnut cast a dreadful shade:
No more the panther stalks his bloody rounds,
Nor bird of night her hateful note resounds;
Nor howling wolves roar to the rising moon,
As pale arose she o'er yon eastern down.
Some prune their trees, a larger load to bear
Of fruits nectarine blooming once a year:
See groaning waggons to the village come
Fill'd with the apple, apricot or plumb;
And heavy beams suspended from a tree,
To press their juice against the winter's day:
Or see the plough torn through the new made field,
Ordain'd a harvest, yet unknown to yield.
The rising barn whose spacious floor receives
The welcome thousands of the wheaten sheaves,
And spreads it's arms to take the plenteous store,
Sufficient for its master and the poor:
For as Eumoeus us'd his beggar guest
The great Ulysses in his tatters drest:
So here fair Charity puts forth her hand,
And pours her blessing o'er the greatful land:
No needy wretch the rage of winter fears,
Secure he sits and spends his aged years,
With thankful heart to gen'rous souls and kind,
That save him from the winter and the wind.

A LOVELY island once adorn'd the sea,
Between New-Albion and the Mexic' Bay;
Whose sandy sides wash'd by the ocean wave,
Scarce heard a murmur but what ocean gave:
Small it's circumference, nor high it's coast,
But shady woods the happy isle could boast;
On ev'ry side new prospects catch'd the eye,
There rose blue mountains to the arched sky:
Here thunder'd ocean in convulsive throws,
And dash'd the island as it's waters rose:
Yet peaceful all within, no tumults there,
But fearless steps of the unhunted hare;

216

And nightly chauntings of the fearless dove,
Or blackbird's note, the harbinger of love.
So peaceful was this haunt that nature gave,
Still as the stars, and silent as the grave;
No loud applause there rais'd the patriot breast,
No shouting armies their mad joy confest,
For battles gain'd, or trophies nobly won,
Or nations conquer'd near the rising sun;
No clam'rous crews, or wild nocturnal cheer,
Or murd'rous ruffians, for no men were here.
On it's east end a grove of oak was seen,
And shrubby hazels fill'd the space between;
Dry alders too, and aspin leaves that shook
With ev'ry wind, conspir'd to shade a brook,
Whose gentle stream just bubbling from the ground,
Was quickly in the salter ocean drown'd:
Beyond whose fount, the center of the isle,
Wild plumb trees flourish'd on the shaded soil.
In the dark bosom of this sacred wood,
Had fate but smil'd, some village might have stood
Secluded from the world, and all it's own,
Of other lands unknowing, and unknown.
Here might the hunter have destroy'd his prey,
Transfix'd the goat before the dawn of day;
And trudging homeward with his welcome load,
The fruit of wand'rings thro' each by-way road:
Thrown down his burthen with the needless sigh,
And gladly feasted his small family.
Small fields had then suffic'd, and grateful they,
The annual labours of his hands to pay;
And free his right to search the briny flood
For fish, or slay the creatures of the wood.

THUS spent his days in labour's pleasant pain,
Had liv'd and dy'd the homely shepherd swain:
Had seen his children and his children's heirs,
The fruit of love and memory of years
To agriculture's first fair service bent,

217

The work of mortals, and their great intent.
So had the Sire his days of pleasure known,
And wish'd to change no country for his own:
So had he with his fair endearing wife,
Pass'd the slow circle of a harmless life;
With happy ignorance divinely blest,
The path, the centre and the home of rest.
Long might the sun have run his bright career,
And long the moon her mantled visage rear;
And long the stars their nightly vigils kept,
And spheres harmonious either sung or wept:
He had not dream'd of worlds besides his own,
And thought them only stars, beyond the moon;
Enjoy'd himself, nor hear'd of future hell,
Or heav'n, the recompence of doing well;
Had scarcely thought of an eternal state,
And left his being in the hands of fate.—
O had this isle such souls sublime contain'd,
And there for ages future sons remain'd:
But envious time conspiring with the sea,
Wash'd all it's landscapes, and it's groves away.
It's trees declining, stretch'd upon the sand,
No more their shadows throw across the land.
It's vines no more their clust'ring beauty show,
Nor sturdy oaks embrace the mountain's brow.
Bare sands alone now overwhelm the coast,
Lost in it's grandeur, and it's beauty lost.

THUS, tho' my fav'rite isle to ruin gone,
Inspires my sorrow, and demands my moan;
Yet this wide land it's place can well supply
With landscapes, hills and grassy mountains high.
O HUDSON! thy fair flood shall be my theme,
Thy winding river, or thy glassy stream;
On whose tall banks tremendous rocks I spy,
Dread nature in primaeval majesty.
Rocks, to whose summits clouds eternal cling,
Or clust'ring birds in their wild wood notes sing.

218

Hills, from whose sides the mountain echo roars,
Rebounding dreadful from the distant shores;
Or vallies, where refreshing breezes blow,
And rustic huts in fair confusion grow,
Safe from the winds, secur'd by mountains high,
That seem to hide the concave of the sky;
To whose top oft' the curious hind ascends,
And wonders where the arch'd horizon bends;
Pleas'd with the distant prospects rising new,
And hills o'er hills, a never ending view.
Through various paths with hasty step he scours,
And breathes the odours of surrounding flow'rs,
Caught from their bosoms by the fragrant breath,
Of western breezes, or the gale of death.
Then low descending, seeks the humble dome,
And centres all his pleasures in his home,
'Till day returning, brings the welcome toil,
To clear the forest, or to tame the soil;
To burn the woods, or catch the tim'rous deer,
To scour the thicket, or contrive the snare.

SUCH was the life our great fore-fathers led,
The golden season now from BRITAIN fled,
E'er since dread commerce stretch'd the nimble sail,
And sent her wealth with ev'ry foreign gale.—
Strange fate, but yet to ev'ry country known,
To love all other riches but it's own.
Thus fell the mistress of the conquer'd earth,
GREAT ROME, who ow'd to ROMULUS her birth,
Fell to the monster LUXURY, a prey,
Who forc'd a hundred nations to obey.
She whom nor mighty CARTHAGE could withstand,
Nor strong JUDEA'S once thrice holy land:
She all the west, and BRITAIN could subdue,
While vict'ry with the ROMAN eagles flew;
She, she herself eternal years deny'd,
Like ROME she conquer'd, but by ROME she dy'd:

219

But if AMERICA, by this decay,
The world itself must fall as well as she.
No other regions latent yet remain,
This spacious globe has been research'd in vain.
Round it's whole circle oft' have navies gone,
And found but sea or lands already known.
When she has seen her empires, cities, kings,
Time must begin to flap his weary wings;
The earth itself to brighter days aspire,
And wish to feel the purifying fire.

NOR think this mighty land of old contain'd
The plund'ring wretch, or man of bloody mind:
Renowned SACHEMS once their empires rais'd
On wholesome laws; and sacrifices blaz'd.
The gen'rous soul inspir'd the honest breast,
And to be free, was doubly to be blest:
'Till the east winds did here COLUMBUS blow,
And wond'ring nations saw his canvas flow.
'Till here CABOT descended on the strand,
And hail'd the beauties of the unknown land;
And rav'nous nations with industrious toil,
Conspir'd to rob them of their native soil:
Then bloody wars, and death and rage arose,
And ev'ry tribe resolv'd to be our foes.
Full many a feat of them I could rehearse,
And actions worthy of immortal verse:
Deeds ever glorious to the INDIAN name,
And fit to rival GREEK or ROMAN fame,
But one sad story shall my Muse relate,
Full of paternal love, and full of fate;
Which when ev'n yet the northern shepherd hears,
It swells his breast, and bathes his face in tears,
Prompts the deep groan, and lifts the heaving sigh,
Or brings soft torrents from the female eye.

FAR in the arctic skies, where HUDSON'S BAY
Rolls it's cold wave and combats with the sea,
A dreary region lifts it's dismal head,

220

True sister to the regions of the dead.
Here thund'ring storms continue half the year,
Or deep-laid snows their joyless visage rear:
Eternal rocks, from whose prodigious steep
The angry tiger stuns the neighb'ring deep;
While through the wild wood, or the shrouded plain,
The moose deer seeks his food, but often seeks in vain.
Yet in this land, froze by inclement skies,
The Indian huts in wild succession rise;
And daily hunting, when the short-liv'd spring
Shoots joyous forth, th' industrious people bring
Their beaver spoils beneath another sky,
PORT NELSON and each BRITISH factory:
In slender boats from distant lands they sail,
Their small masts bending to the inland gale,
On traffic sent to gain the little store,
Which keeps them plenteous, tho' it keeps them poor.
Hither CAFFRARO in his flighty boat,
One hapless spring his furry riches brought;
And with him came, for sail'd he not alone,
His consort COLMA, and his little son.
While yet from land o'er the deep wave he plough'd,
And tow'rds the shore with manly prowess row'd.
His barque unfaithful to it's trusted freight,
Sprung the large leak, the messenger of fate;
But no lament or female cry was heard,
Each for their fate most manfully prepar'd,
From bubbling waves to send the parting breath
To lands of shadows, and the shade of death.
O FATE! unworthy such a tender train,
O day, lamented by the Indian swain!
Full oft' of it the strippling youth shall hear,
And sadly mourn their fortune with a tear:
The Indian maids full oft' the tale attend,
And mourn their COLMA as they'd mourn a friend.

NOW while in waves the barque demerg'd they strive,
Dead with despair, tho' nature yet alive:

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Forth from the shore a friendly brother flew,
In one small boat, to save the drowning crew.
He came, but in his barque of trifling freight,
Could save but two, and one must yield to fate.
O dear CAFFRARO, said the hapless wife,
O save our son, and save thy dearer life:
'Tis thou canst teach him how to hunt the doe,
Transfix the buck, or tread the mountain snow,
Let me the sentence of my fate receive,
And to thy care my tender infant leave.
He sigh'd, nor answer'd, but as firm as death,
Resolv'd to save her with his latest breath:
And as suspended by the barque's low side,
He rais'd the infant from the chilling tide,
And plac'd it safe; he forc'd his COLMA too
To save herself, and what could mortal do?
But nobly scorning life, she rais'd her head
From the flush'd wave, and thus divinely said:

Of life regardless, I to fate resign,
But thou, CAFFRARO, art forever mine.
O let thy arms no future bride embrace,
Remember COLMA, and her beauteous face,
Which won thee youthful in thy gayest pride,
With captives, trophies, victors at thy side;
Now I shall quick to blooming regions fly,
A spring eternal, and a nightless sky,
Far to the west, where radiant SOL descends,
And wonders where the arch'd horizon ends:
There shall my soul thy lov'd idea keep;
And 'till thy image comes, unceasing weep.
There, tho' the tiger is but all a shade,
And mighty panthers but the name they had;
And proudest hills, and lofty mountains there,
Light as the wind, and yielding as the air;
Yet shall our souls their ancient feelings have,
More strong, more noble than this side the grave.
There lovely blossoms blow throughout the year,

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And airy harvests rise without our care:
And all our sires and mighty ancestors,
Renown'd for battles and successful wars,
Behold their sons in fair succession rise,
And hail them happy to serener skies.
There shall I see thee too, and see with joy
Thy future charge, my much lov'd Indian boy:
The thoughtless infant, whom with tears I see,
Once sought my breast, or hung upon my knee;
Tell him, ah tell him, when in manly years,
His dauntless mind, nor death nor danger fears,
Tell him, ah tell him, how thy COLMA dy'd,
His fondest mother, and thy youthful bride:
Point to my tomb thro' yonder furzy glade,
And show where thou thy much lov'd COLMA laid.
O may I soon thy blest resemblance see,
And my sweet infant all reviv'd in thee.
'Till then I'll haunt the bow'r or lonely shade,
Or airy hills for contemplation made,
And think I see thee in each ghostly shoal,
And think I clasp thee to my weary soul.
Oft, oft thy form to my expecting eye,
Shall come in dreams with gentle majesty;
Then shall I joy to find my bliss began
To love an angel, whom I lov'd a man!
She said, and downward in the hoary deep
Plung'd her fair form to everlasting sleep;
Her parting soul it's latest struggle gave,
And her last breath came bubbling thro' the wave.

THEN sad CAFFRARO all his grief declares,
And swells the torrent of the gulph with tears;
And senseless stupid to the shore is borne
In death-like slumbers, 'till the rising morn,
Then sorrowing, to the sea his course he bent
Full sad, but knew not for what cause he went,
'Till, sight distressing, from the lonely strand,
He saw dead COLMA wafting to the land.

223

Then in a stupid agony of pray'r,
He rent his mantle, and he tore his hair;
Sigh'd to the stars, and shook his honour'd head,
And only wish'd a place among the dead!
O had the winds been sensible of grief,
Or whisp'ring angels come to his relief;
Then had the rocks not echo'd to his pain,
Nor hollow mountains answer'd him again:
Then had the floods their peaceful courses kept,
Nor the sad pine in all it's murmurs wept;
Nor pensive deer stray'd through the lonely grove,
Nor sadly wept the sympathising dove.—
Thus far'd the sire through his long days of pain,
Or with his offspring rov'd the silent plain;
'Till years approaching, bow'd his sacred head
Deep in the dust, and sent him to the dead:
Where now perhaps in some strange fancy'd land,
He grasps the airy bow, and flies across the strand;
Or with his COLMA shares the fragrant grove,
It's vernal blessings, and the bliss of love.

FAREWELL lamented pair, and whate'er state
Now clasps you round, and sinks you deep in fate;
Whether the fiery kingdom of the sun,
Or the slow wave of silent Acheron,
Or Christian's heaven, or planetary sphere,
Or the third region of the cloudless air;
Or if return'd to dread nihility,
You'll still be happy, for you will not be.

Now fairest village of the fertile plain,
Made fertile by the labours of the swain;
Who first my drowsy spirit did inspire,
To sing of woods, and strike the rural lyre:
Who last shou'd see me wand'ring from thy cells,
And groves of oak where contemplation dwells,
Wou'd fate but raise me o'er the smaller cares,
Of Life unwelcome and distressful years,

224

Pedantic labours and a hateful ease,
Which scarce the hoary wrinkled sage cou'd please.
Hence springs each grief, each long reflective sigh,
And not one comfort left but poetry.
Long, long ago with her I could have stray'd,
To woods, to thickets or the mountain shade;
Unfit for cities and the noisy throng,
The drunken revel and the midnight song;
The gilded beau and scenes of empty joy,
Which please a moment and forever die.
Here then shall center ev'ry wish, and all
The tempting beauties of this spacious ball:
No thought ambitious, and no bold design,
But heaven born contemplation shall be mine.
In yonder village shall my fancy stray,
Nor rove beyond the confines of to-day;
The aged volumes of some plain divine,
In broken order round my hut shou'd shine;
Whose solemn lines should soften all my cares,
And sound devotion to th' eternal stars:
And if one sin my rigid breast did stain,
Thou poetry shou'dst be the darling sin;
Which heav'n without repentance might forgive,
And which an angel might commit and live:
And where yon' wave of silent water falls,
O'er the smooth rock or Adamantine walls:
The summer morns and vernal eves should see,
MILTON, immortal bard my company;
Or SHAKESPEARE, DRYDEN, each high sounding name,
The pride of BRITAIN, and one half her fame:
Or him who wak'd the fairy muse of old,
And pleasing tales of lands inchanted told.
Still in my hand, he his soft verse shou'd find
His verse, the picture of the poets mind:
Or heav'nly POPE, who now harmonious mourns,
“Like the rapt seraph that adores and burns.”
Then in sharp satire, with a giant's might,
Forbids the blockhead and the fool to write:

225

And in the centre of the bards be shown
The deathless lines of godlike ADDISON;
Who, bard thrice glorious, all delightful flows,
And wrapt the soul of poetry in prose.

Now cease, O muse, thy tender tale to chaunt,
The smiling village, or the rural haunt;
New scenes invite me, and no more I rove,
To tell of shepherds, or the vernal grove.

1772

South wind.

THE DESERTED FARM-HOUSE.

This antique dome the insatiate tooth of time
Now level with the dust has almost laid;—
Yet ere 'tis gone, I seize my humble theme
From these low ruins, that his years have made.

Behold the unsocial hearth! where once the fires
Blazed high, and soothed the storm-stay'd traveller's woes;
See! the weak roof, that abler props requires,
Admits the winds, and swift descending snows.

Here, to forget the labours of the day,
No more the swains at evening hours repair,
But wandering flocks assume the well known way
To shun the rigours of the midnight air.

In yonder chamber, half to ruin gone,
Once stood the ancient housewife's curtained bed—
Timely the prudent matron has withdrawn,
And each domestic comfort with her fled.

The trees, the flowers that her own hands had reared,
The plants, the vines, that were so verdant seen,—
The trees, the flowers, the vines have disappear'd,
And every plant has vanish'd from the green.

So sits in tears on wide Campania's plain
ROME, once the mistress of a world enslaved;

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That triumph'd o'er the land, subdued the main,
And Time himself, in her wild transports, braved.

So sits in tears on Palestina's shore
The Hebrew town, of splendour once divine—
Her kings, her lords, her triumphs are no more;
Slain are her priests, and ruin'd every shrine.

Once, in the bounds of this deserted room,
Perhaps some swain nocturnal courtship made,
Perhaps some Sherlock mused amidst the gloom;
Since Love and Death forever seek the shade.

Perhaps some miser, doom'd to discontent,
Here counted o'er the heaps acquired with pain;
He to the dust—his gold, on traffick sent,
Shall ne'er disgrace these mouldering walls again.

Nor shall the glow-worm fopling, sunshine bred,
Seek, at the evening hour this wonted dome—
Time has reduced the fabrick to a shed,
Scarce fit to be the wandering beggar's home.

And none but I its dismal case lament—
None, none but I o'er its cold relics mourn,
Sent by the muse—(the time perhaps misspent)—
To write dull stanzas on this dome forlorn.

1775

THE CITIZEN'S RESOLVE.

“Far be the dull and heavy day
“And toil, and restless care, from me—
“Sorrow attends on loads of gold,
“And kings are wretched, I am told.
“Soon from the noisy town removed
“To such wild scenes as Plato lov'd,

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“Where, placed the leafless oaks between,
“Less haughty grows the winter green,
“There, Night, will I (lock'd in thy arms,
“Sweet goddess of the sable charms)
“Enjoy the dear, delightful dreams
“That fancy prompts by shallow streams,
“Where wood nymphs walk their evening round,
“And fairies haunt the moonlight ground.

“Beneath some mountain's towering height
“In cottage low I hail the night,
“Where jovial swains with heart sincere
“Welcome the new returning year;—
“Each tells a tale or chaunts a song
“Of her, for whom he sigh'd so long,
“Of Cynthia fair, or Delia coy,
“Neglecting still her love-sick boy—
“While, near, the hoary headed sage
“Recalls the feats of youth's gay age,
“All that in past time e'er was seen,
“And many a frolic on the green,
“How champion he with champions met,
“And fiercely they did combat it—
“Or how, full oft, with horn and hound
“They chaced the deer the forest round—
“The panting deer as swiftly flies,
“Yet by the well-aimed musquet dies!

“Thus pass the evening hours away,
“Unnoticed dies the parting day;
“Unmeasured flows that happy juice,
“Which mild October did produce,
“No surly sage, too frugal found,
“No niggard housewife deals it round:
“And deep they quaff the inspiring bowl
“That kindles gladness in the soul.—

“But now the moon, exalted high,
“Adds lustre to the earth and sky,
“And in the mighty ocean's glass
“Admires the beauties of her face—

228

“About her orb you may behold
“The circling stars that freeze with cold—
“But they in brighter seasons please,
“Winter can find no charms in these,
“While less ambitious, we admire,
“And more esteem domestic fire.

“O could I there a mansion find
“Suited exactly to my mind
“Near that industrious, heavenly train
“Of rustics honest, neat, and plain;
“The days, the weeks, the years to pass
“With some good-natured, longing lass,
“With her the cooling spring to sip,
“And seize, at will, her damask lip;
“The groves, the springs, the shades divine,
“And all Arcadia should be mine!

“Steep me, steep me, some poppies deep
“In beechen bowl, to bring on sleep;
“Love hath my soul in fetters bound,
“Through the dull night no sleep I found;—
“O gentle sleep! bestow thy dreams
“Of fields, and woods, and murmuring streams,
“Dark, tufted groves, and grottoes rare,
“And Flora, charming Flora, there.

“Dull Commerce, hence, with all thy train
“Of debts, and dues, and loss, and gain;
“To hills, and groves, and purling streams,
“To nights of ease, and heaven-born dreams,
“While wiser Damon hastes away,
“Should I in this dull city stay,
“Condemn'd to death by slow decays
“And care that clouds my brightest days?

“No—by Silenus' self I swear,
In “rustic shades I'll kill that care.”

So spoke Lysander, and in haste
His clerks discharg'd, his goods re-cased,
And to the western forests flew
With fifty airy schemes in view;

229

His ships were set to public sale—
But what did all that change avail?—
In three short months, sick of the heavenly train,
In three short months—he moved to town again.

1786

THE DYING ELM.

Sweet, lovely Elm, who here dost grow
Companion of unsocial care,
Lo! thy dejected branches die:
Amidst this torrid air—
Smit by the sun or blasting moon,
Like fainting flowers, their verdure gone.

Thy withering leaves, that drooping hang,
Presage thine end approaching nigh;
And lo! thy amber tears distill,
Attended with that last departing sigh—
O charming tree! no more decline,
But be thy shades and love-sick whispers mine.

Forbear to die—this weeping eve
Shall shed her little drops on you,
Shall o'er thy sad disaster grieve,
And wash your wounds with pearly dew,
Shall pity you, and pity me,
And heal the langour of my tree!

Short is thy life, if thou so soon must fade,
Like angry Jonah's gourd at Nineveh,
That, in a night, its bloomy branches spread,
And perished with the day.—
Come, then, revive, sweet lovely Elm, lest I,
Thro' vehemence of heat, like Jonah, wish to die.

1779

230

ON RETIREMENT:

A hermit's house beside a stream
With forests planted round,
Whatever it to you may seem
More real happiness I deem
Than if I were a monarch crown'd.

A cottage I could call my own
Remote from domes of care;
A little garden, wall'd with stone,
The wall with ivy overgrown,
A limpid fountain near,

Would more substantial joys afford,
More real bliss impart
Than all the wealth that misers hoard,
Than vanquished worlds, or worlds restored—
Mere cankers of the heart!

Vain foolish man! how vast thy pride,
How little can thy wants supply!—
'Tis surely wrong to grasp so wide—
We act as if we only had
To triumph—not to die!

1786

The PICTURES OF COLUMBUS,

The Genoese

Picture I.
Columbus making Maps.

AS o'er his charts Columbus ran,
Such disproportion he survey'd,

231

He thought he saw in art's mean plan
Blunders that Nature never made;
The land in one poor corner placed,
And all beside, a swelling waste!—
“It can't be so,” Columbus said;

“This world on paper idly drawn,
“O'er one small tract so often gone
“The pencil tires; in this void space
“Allow'd to find no resting place.

“But copying Nature's bold design,
“If true to her, no fault is mine:
“Perhaps in these moist regions dwell
“Forms wrought like man, and lov'd as well.

“Yet to the west what lengthen'd seas!
“Are no gay islands found in these,
“No sylvan worlds that Nature meant
“To balance Asia's vast extent?

“As late a mimic globe I made
“(Imploring Fancy to my aid)
“O'er these wild seas a shade I threw,
“And a new world my pencil drew.

“But westward plac'd, and far away
“In the deep seas this country lay
“Beyond all climes already known,
“In Neptune's bosom plac'd alone.

“Who knows but he that hung this ball
“In the clear void, and governs all,
“On those dread scenes, remote from view,
“Has trac'd his great idea too.

232

“What can these idle charts avail—
“O'er real seas I mean to sail;
“If fortune aids the grand design,
“Worlds yet unthought of shall be mine.

“But how shall I this country find!
“Gay, painted picture of the mind!
“Religion holds my project vain,
“And owns no worlds beyond the main.

“'Midst yonder hills long time has stay'd
“In sylvan cells a wondrous maid,
“Who things to come can truly tell,
“Dread mistress of the magic spell.

“Whate'er the depths of time can shew
“All pass before her in review,
“And all events her eyes survey,
“'Till time and nature both decay.

“I'll to her cave, enquiring there
“What mighty things the fates prepare;
“Whether my hopes and plans are vain,
“Or I must give new worlds to Spain.”

History informs us this was his original profession: and from the disproportionate vacancy observable in the drafts of that time between Europe and Asia to the west, it is most probable he first took the idea of another continent, lying in a parallel direction to, and existing between both.

The Inquisition made it criminal to assert the existence of the Antipodes.

Picture II.
The Cell of an Inchantress.

Inchantress.
Who dares attempt this gloomy grove
Where never shepherd dream'd of love,
And birds of night are only found,
And poisonous weeds bestrew the ground:
Hence, stranger, take some other road,
Nor dare prophane my dark abode;
The winds are high, the moon is low—
Would you enter?—no, no, no:—

233

Columbus.
Sorceress of mighty power!
Hither at the midnight hour
Over hill and dale I've come,
Leaving ease and sleep at home:
With daring aims my bosom glows;
Long a stranger to repose,
I have come to learn from you
Whether phantoms I pursue,
Or if, as reason would persuade,
New worlds are on the ocean laid—
Tell me, wonder-working maid,
Tell me, dire inchantress, tell,
Mistress of the magic spell!

Inchantress.
The staring owl her note has sung;
With gaping snakes my cave is hung;
Of maiden hair my bed is made,
Two winding sheets above it laid;
With bones of men my shelves are pil'd,
And toads are for my supper boil'd;
Three ghosts attend to fill my cup,
And four to serve my pottage up;
The crow is waiting to say grace:—
Wouldst thou in such a dismal place
The secrets of thy fortune trace?

Columbus.
Though death and all his dreary crew
Were to be open'd on my view,
I would not from this threshold fly
'Till you had made a full reply.

234

Open wide this iron gate,
I must read the book of fate:
Tell me, if beyond the main
Islands are reserv'd for Spain;
Tell me, if beyond the sea
Worlds are to be found by me:
Bid your spirits disappear,
Phantoms of delusive fear,
These are visions I despise,
Shadows and uncertainties.

Inchantress.

Must I, then, yield to your request!
Columbus, why disturb my rest!—
For this the ungrateful shall combine,
And hard misfortune shall be thine;—
For this the base reward remains
Of cold neglect and galling chains!
In a poor solitude forgot,
Reproach and want shall be the lot
Of him that gives new worlds to Spain,
And westward spreads her golden reign.

Before you came to vex my bower
I slept away the evening hour,
Or watch'd the rising of the moon,
With hissing vipers keeping tune,
Or galloping along the glade
Took pleasure in the lunar shade,
And gather'd herbs, or made a prize
Of horses tails and adders eyes:
Now open flies the iron gate,
Advance, and read the book of fate!
On thy design what woes attend!

235

The nations at the ocean's end,
No longer destin'd to be free,
Shall owe distress and death to thee!
The seats of innocence and love
Shall soon the scenes of horror prove;
But why disturb these Indian climes,
The pictures of more happy times!
Has avarice, with unfeeling breast,
Has cruelty thy soul possess'd?
May ruin on thy boldness wait!—
Advance, and read the book of fate.

WHEN vulture, fed but once a week,
And ravens three together shriek,
And skeleton for vengeance cries,
Then shall the fatal curtain rise!
Two lamps in yonder vaulted room,
Suspended o'er a brazen tomb,
Shall lend their glimmerings, as you pass,
To find your fortune in that glass
Whose wondrous virtue is, to show
Whate'er the inquirer wants to know.

The fifteenth century was, like many of the preceding, an age of superstition, cruelty, and ignorance. When this circumstance therefore is brought into view, the mixture of truth and fiction will not appear altogether absurd or unnatural. At any rate, it has ever been tolerated in this species of poetry.

In 1498 he was superseded in his command at Hispaniola, and sent home in irons. Soon after finishing his fourth voyage, finding himself neglected by the Court of Spain after all his services, he retired to Valladolid, in Old Castile, where he died on the 20th of May, A.D. 1506.

Picture III.
The Mirror.

Columbus.
Strange things I see, bright mirror, in thy breast:—
There Perseverance stands, and nobly scorns
The gabbling tongue of busy calumny:
Proud Erudition in a scholar's garb
Derides my plans and grins a jeering smile.
Hypocrisy, clad in a doctor's gown,
A western continent deems heresy:
The princes, kings, and nobles of the land
Smile at my projects, and report me mad:
One royal woman only stands my friend,
Bright Isabell, the lady of our hearts,
Whom avarice prompts to aid my purposes,

236

And love of toys—weak female vanity!—
She gains her point!—three slender barques I see
(Or else the witch's glass deceives mine eye)
Rigg'd trim, and furnish'd out with stores and men,
Fitted for tedious journeys o'er the main:
Columbus—ha!—their motions he directs;
Their captains come, and ask advice from him,
Holding him for the soul of resolution.
Now, now we launch from Palos! prosperous gales
Impel the canvas: now the far fam'd streight
Is pass'd, the pillars of the son of Jove,
Long held the limits of the paths of men:
Ah! what a waste of ocean here begins,
And lonely waves, so black and comfortless!
Light flies each bounding galley o'er the main;
Now Lancerota gathers on our view,
And Teneriffe her clouded summit rears:
Awhile we linger at these islands fair
That seem the utmost boundaries of the world,
Then westward aiming on the unfathom'd deep
Sorrowing, with heavy hearts we urge our way.
Now all is discontent—such oceans pass'd,
No land appearing yet, dejects the most;
Yet, fertile in expedients, I alone
The mask of mild content am forc'd to wear:
A thousand signs I see, or feign to see,
Of shores at hand, and bottoms underneath,
And not a bird that wanders o'er the main,
And not a cloud that traverses the sky
But brings me something to support their hopes:
All fails at last!—so frequently deceiv'd
They growl with anger—mad to look at death
They gnash their teeth, and will be led no more;
On me their vengeance turns: they look at me
As their conductor to the realms of ruin:
Plot after plot discover'd, not reveng'd,
They join against their chief in mutiny:
They urge to plunge him in the boiling deep

237

As one, the only one that would pursue
Imaginary worlds through boundless seas:—
The scene is chang'd—Fine islands greet mine eye,
Cover'd with trees, and beasts, and yellow men;
Eternal summer through the vallies smiles
And fragrant gales o'er golden meadows play!—
Inchantress, 'tis enough!—now veil your glass—
The curtain falls—and I must homeward pass.

Picture IV.
Columbus addresses King Ferdinand.

Prince and pride of Spain! while meaner crowns,
Pleas'd with the shadow of monarchial sway,
Exact obedience from some paltry tract
Scarce worth the pain and toil of governing,
Be thine the generous care to send thy fame
Beyond the knowledge, or the guess of man.

This gulphy deep (that bounds our western reign
So long by civil feuds and wars disgrac'd)
Must be the passage to some other shore
Where nations dwell, children of early time,
Basking in the warm sunshine of the south,
Who some false deity, no doubt, adore,
Owning no virtue in the potent cross:
What honour, sire, to plant your standards there,
And souls recover to our holy faith
That now in paths of dark perdition stray
Warp'd to his worship by the evil one!

THINK not that Europe and the Asian waste,
Or Africa, where barren sands abound,
Are the sole gems in Neptune's bosom laid:
Think not the world a vast extended plain:
See yond' bright orbs, that through the ether move,
All globular; this earth a globe like them
Walks her own rounds, attended by the moon,

238

Bright comrade, but with a borrowed lustre bright.
If all the surface of this mighty round
Be one wide ocean of unfathom'd depth
Bounding the little space already known,
Nature must have forgot her wonted wit
And made a monstrous havock of proportion.
If her proud depths were not restrain'd by lands,
And broke by continents of vast extent
Existing somewhere under western skies,
Far other waves would roll before the storms
Than ever yet have burst on Europe's shores,
Driving before them deluge and confusion.

But Nature will preserve what she has plann'd:
And the whole suffrage of antiquity,
Platonic dreams, and reason's plainer page
All point at something that we ought to see
Buried behind the waters of the west,
Clouded with the shadows of uncertainty.
The time is come for some sublime event
Of mighty fame:—mankind are children yet,
And hardly dream what treasures they possess
In the dark bosom of the fertile main,
Unfathom'd, unattempted, unexplor'd.
These, mighty prince, I offer to reveal,
And by the magnet's aid, if you supply
Ships and some gallant hearts, will hope to bring
From distant climes, news worthy of a king.

It is allowed by most historians, that Ferdinand was an implicit believer and one of the most superstitious bigots of his age.

Picture V.
Ferdinand and his First Minister.

Ferdinand.
What would this madman have, this odd projector!
A wild address I have to-day attended,
Mingling its folly with our great affairs,
Dreaming of islands and new hemispheres
Plac'd on the ocean's verge, we know not where—
What shall I do with this petitioner?

239

Minister.
Even send him, sire, to perish in his search:
He has so pester'd me these many years
With idle projects of discovery—
His name—I almost dread to hear it mention'd:
He is a Genoese of vulgar birth
And has been round all Europe with his plans
Presenting them to every potentate;
He lives, 'tis said, by vending maps and charts,
And being us'd to sketch imagin'd islands
On that blank space that represents the seas,
His head at last grows giddy with this folly,
And fancied isles are turned to real lands
With which he puzzles me perpetually:
What pains me too, is, that our royal lady
Lends him her ear, and reads his mad addresses,
Oppos'd to reason and philosophy.

Ferdinand.
He acts the devil's part in Eden's garden;
Knowing the man was proof to his temptations
He whisper'd something in the ear of Eve,
And promis'd much, but meant not to perform.

Minister.
I've treated all his schemes with such contempt
That any but a rank, mad-brain'd enthusiast,
Pushing his purpose to extremities,
Would have forsook your empire, royal sir,
Discourag'd, and forgotten long ago.

Ferdinand.
Has he so long been busy at his projects?—
I scarcely heard of him till yesterday:
A plan pursued with so much obstinacy
Looks not like madness:—wretches of that stamp
Survey a thousand objects in an hour,

240

In love with each, and yet attach'd to none
Beyond the moment that it meets the eye—
But him I honour, tho' in beggar's garbs,
Who has a soul of so much constancy
As to bear up against the hard rebuffs,
Sneers of great men, and insolence of power,
And through the opposition of them all
Pursues his object:—Minister, this man
Must have our notice:—Let him be commissioned
Viceroy of all the lands he shall discover,
Admiral and general in the fleets of Spain;
Let three stout ships be instantly selected,
The best and strongest ribb'd of all we own,
With men to mann them, patient of fatigue:
But stay, attend! how stands our treasury?—

Minister.
Empty—even to the bottom, royal sir!
We have not coin for bare necessities,
Much less, so pardon me, to spend on madmen.

Picture VI.
Columbus addresses Queen Isabella.

While Turkish queens, dejected, pine,
Compell'd sweet freedom to resign;
And taught one virtue, to obey,
Lament some eastern tyrant's sway,

Queen of our hearts, bright Isabel!
A happier lot to you has fell,
Who makes a nation's bliss your own,
And share the rich Castilian throne.

Exalted thus, beyond all fame,
Assist, fair lady, that proud aim
Which would your native reign extend
To the wide world's remotest end.

241

From science, fed by busy thought,
New wonders to my view are brought:
The vast abyss beyond our shore
I deem impassable no more.

Let those that love to dream or sleep
Pretend no limits to the deep:
I see beyond the rolling main
Abounding wealth reserv'd for Spain.

From Nature's earliest days conceal'd,
Men of their own these climates yield,
And scepter'd dames, no doubt, are there,
Queens like yourself, but not so fair.

But what should most provoke desire
Are the fine pearls that they admire,
And diamonds bright and coral green
More fit to grace a Spanish queen.

Their yellow shells, and virgin gold,
And silver, for our trinkets sold,
Shall well reward this toil and pain,
And bid our commerce shine again.

As men were forc'd from Eden's shade
By errors that a woman made,
Permit me at a woman's cost
To find the climates that we lost.

He that with you partakes command,
The nation's hope, great Ferdinand,
Attends, indeed, to my request,
But wants no empires in the west.

Then, queen, supply the swelling sail,
For eastward breathes the steady gale
That shall the meanest barque convey
To regions richer than Cathay.

242

Arriv'd upon that flowery coast
Whole towns of golden temples boast,
While these bright objects strike our view
Their wealth shall be reserv'd for you.

Each swarthy king shall yield his crown,
And smiling lay their sceptres down,
When they, not tam'd by force of arms,
Shall hear the story of your charms.

Did I an empty dream pursue
Great honour still must wait on you,
Who sent the lads of Spain to keep
Such vigils on the untravell'd deep,

Who fix'd the bounds of land and sea,
Trac'd Nature's works through each degree,
Imagin'd some unheard of shore
But prov'd that there was nothing more.

YET happier prospects, I maintain,
Shall open on your female reign,
While ages hence with rapture tell
How much they owe to Isabell!

The ancient name for China.

Picture VII.
Queen Isabella's Page of Honour writing a reply to Columbus.

Your yellow shells, and coral green,
And gold, and silver—not yet seen,
Have made such mischief in a woman's mind
The queen could almost pillage from the crown,
And add some costly jewels of her own,
Thus sending you that charming coast to find
Where all these heavenly things abound,
Queens in the west, and chiefs renown'd.
But then no great men take you by the hand,
Nor are the nobles busied in your aid;

243

The clergy have no relish for your scheme,
And deem it madness—one archbishop said
You were bewilder'd in a paltry dream
That led directly to undoubted ruin,
Your own and other men's undoing:—
And our confessor says it is not true,
And calls it heresy in you
Thus to assert the world is round,
And that Antipodes are found
Held to the earth, we can't tell how.—

But you shall sail; I heard the queen declare
That mere geography is not her care;—
And thus she bids me say,
“Columbus, haste away,
“Hasten to Palos, and if you can find
“Three barques, of structure suited to your mind,
“Strait make a purchase in the royal name;
“Equip them for the seas without delay,
“Since long the journey is (we heard you say)
“To that rich country which we wish to claim.—
“Let them be small!—for know the crown is poor
“Though basking in the sunshine of renown.
“Long wars have wasted us: the pride of Spain
“Was ne'er before so high, nor purse so mean;
“Giving us ten years' war, the humbled Moor
“Has left us little else but victory:
“Time must restore past splendor to our reign.”

Picture VIII.
Columbus at the Harbour of Palos, in Andalusia.

Columbus.

In three small barques to cross so vast a sea,
Held to be boundless, even in learning's eye,
And trusting only to a magic glass,
Which may have represented things untrue,
Shadows and visions for realities!—
It is a bold attempt!—Yet I must go,

244

Travelling the surge to its great boundary;
Far, far away beyond the reach of men,
Where never galley spread her milk-white sail
Or weary pilgrim bore the Christian name!

But though I were confirm'd in my design
And saw the whole event with certainty,
How shall I so exert my eloquence,
And hold such arguments with vulgar minds
As to convince them I am not an idiot
Chasing the visions of a shatter'd brain,
Ending in their perdition and my own?
The world, and all its wisdom is against me;
The dreams of priests; philosophy in chains;
False learning swoln with self-sufficiency;
Men seated at the helm of royalty
Reasoning like school-boys;—what discouragements!
Experience holds herself mine enemy,
And one weak woman only hears my story!—
I'll make a speech—“Here jovial sailors, here!
“Ye that would rise beyond the rags of fortune,
“Struggling too long with hopeless poverty,
“Coasting your native shores on shallow seas,
“Vex'd by the gallies of the Ottoman;
“Now meditate with me a bolder plan,
“Catching at fortune in her plentitude!
“He that shall undertake this voyage with me
“Shall be no longer held a vulgar man:
“Princes shall wish they had been our companions,
“And Science blush she did not go along
“To learn a lesson that might humble pride
“Now grinning idly from a pedant's cap,
“Lurking behind the veil of cowardice.

“FAR in the west a golden region lies
“Unknown, unvisited for many an age,
“Teeming with treasures to enrich the brave.
“Embark, embark—Columbus leads the way—
“Why, friends, existence is alike to me

245

“Dear and desireable with other men;
“What good could I devise in seeking ruin?
“Embark, I say; and he that sails with me
“Shall reap a harvest of immortal honour:
“Wealthier he shall return than they that now
“Lounge in the lap of principalities,
“Hoarding the gorgeous treasures of the east.”—

Alas, alas! they turn their backs upon me,
And rather choose to wallow in the mire
Of want, and torpid inactivity,
Than by one bold and masterly exertion
Themselves ennoble, and enrich their country!

Picture IX.
A Sailor's Hut, near the Shore
Thomas and Susan

Thomas.
I wish I was over the water again!
'Tis a pity we cannot agree;
When I try to be merry 'tis labour in vain,
You always are scolding at me;
Then what shall I do
With this termagant Sue;
Tho' I hug her and squeeze her
I never can please her—
Was there ever a devil like you!

Susan.
If I was a maid as I now am a wife
With a sot and a brat to maintain,
I think it should be the first care of my life,
To shun such a drunkard again:
Not one of the crew
Is so hated by Sue;
Though they always are bawling,
And pulling and hauling—
Not one is a puppy like you.

246

Thomas.
Dear Susan, I'm sorry that you should complain:
There is nothing indeed to be done;
If a war should break out, not a sailor in Spain
Would sooner be found at his gun:
Arriving from sea
I would kneel on one knee,
And the plunder presenting
To Susan relenting—
Who then would be honour'd like me!

Susan.
To-day as I came by the sign of the ship,
A mighty fine captain was there,
He was asking for sailors to take a small trip,
But I cannot remember well where:
He was hearty and free,
And if you can agree
To leave me, dear honey,
To bring me some money!—
How happy—indeed—I shall be!

Thomas.
The man that you saw not a sailor can get,
'Tis a captain Columbus, they say;
To fit out a ship he is running in debt,
And our wages he never will pay:
Yes, yes, it is he,
And, Sue, do ye see,
On a wild undertaking
His heart he is breaking—
The devil may take him for me!

Picture X.
Bernardo, a Spanish Friar, in his canonicals.

Did not our holy book most clearly say
This earth is built upon a pillar'd base;

247

And did not REASON add convincing proofs
That this huge world is one continued plain
Extending onward to immensity,
Bounding with oceans these abodes of men,
I should suppose this dreamer had some hopes,
Some prospects built on probability.
What says our lord the pope—he cannot err—
He says, our world is not orbicular,
And has rewarded some with chains and death
Who dar'd defend such wicked heresies.
But we are turning heretics indeed!—
A foreigner, an idiot, an impostor,
An infidel (since he dares contradict
What our most holy order holds for truth)
Is pouring poison in the royal ear;
Telling him tales of islands in the moon,
Leading the nations into dangerous errors,
Slighting instruction from our brotherhood!—
O Jesu! Jesu! what an age is this!

Picture XI.
Orosio, a Mathematician, with his scales and compasses.

This persevering man succeeds at last!
The last gazette has publish'd to the world
That Ferdinand and Isabella grant
Three well-rigg'd ships to Christopher Columbus;
And have bestow'd the noble titles too
Of Admiral and Vice-Roy—great indeed!—
Who will not now project, and scrawl on paper—
Pretenders now shall be advanc'd to honour;
And every pedant that can frame a problem,
And every lad that can draw parallels
Or measure the subtension of an angle,
Shall now have ships to make discoveries.

THIS simple man would sail he knows not where;
Building on fables, schemes of certainty;—

248

Visions of Plato, mix'd with idle tales
Of later date, intoxicate his brain:
Let him advance beyond a certain point
In his fantastic voyage, and I foretell
He never can return: ay, let him go!—
There is a line towards the setting sun
Drawn on an ocean of tremendous depth,
(Where nature plac'd the limits of the day)
Haunted by dragons, fond of solitude,
Red serpents, fiery forms, and yelling hags,
Fit company for mad adventurers.—
There, when the sun descends, 'tis horror all;
His angry globe through vast abysses gliding
Burns in the briny bosom of the deep
Making a havoc so detestable,
And causing such a wasteful ebullition
That never island green, or continent
Could find foundation, there to grow upon.

Picture XII.
Columbus and a Pilot.

Columbus.
To take on board the sweepings of a jail
Is inexpedient in a voyage like mine,
That will require most patient fortitude,
Strict vigilance and staid sobriety,
Contempt of death on cool reflection founded,
A sense of honour, motives of ambition,
And every sentiment that sways the brave,—
Princes should join me now!—not those I mean
Who lurk in courts, or revel in the shade
Of painted ceilings:—those I mean, more worthy,
Whose daring aims and persevering souls,
Soaring beyond the sordid views of fortune,
Bespeak the lineage of true royalty.

249

Pilot.
A fleet arrived last month at Carthagene
From Smyrna, Cyprus, and the neighboring isles:
Their crews, releas'd from long fatigues at sea,
Have spent their earnings in festivity,
And hunger tells them they must out again.
Yet nothing instantly presents itself
Except your new and noble expedition:
The fleet must undergo immense repairs,
And numbers will be unemploy'd a while:
I'll take them in the hour of dissipation
Before reflection has made cowards of them,
Suggesting questions of impertinence)
When desperate plans are most acceptable,
Impossibilities are possible,
And all the spring and vigour of the mind
Is strain'd to madness and audacity:
If you approve my scheme, our ninety men
(The number you pronounce to be sufficient)
Shall all be enter'd in a week, at most.

Columbus.
Go, pilot, go—and every motive urge
That may put life into this expedition.
Early in August we must weigh our anchors.
Time wears apace—bring none but willing men,
So shall our orders be the better borne,
The people less inclin'd to mutiny.

Picture XIII.
Discontents at Sea.

Antonio.
DREADFUL is death in his most gentle forms!—
More horrid still on this mad element,
So far remote from land—from friends remote!
So many thousand leagues already sail'd

250

In quest of visions!—what remains to us
But perishing in these moist solitudes;
Where many a day our corpses on the sea
Shall float unwept, unpitied, unentomb'd!
O fate most terrible!—undone Antonio!
Why didst thou listen to a madman's dreams,
Pregnant with mischief—why not, comrades, rise!—
See, Nature's self prepares to leave us here;
The needle, once so faithful to the pole,
Now quits his object and bewilders us;
Steering at random, just as chance directs—
O fate most terrible! undone Antonio!—

Hernando.
Borne to creation's utmost verge, I saw
New stars ascending, never view'd before!
Low sinks the bear!—O land, my native land,
Clear springs and shady groves! why did I change
Your aspect fair for these infernal wastes,
Peopled by monsters of another kind;
Ah me! design'd not for the view of man!

Columbus.
Cease, dastards, cease; and be inform'd that man
Is nature's lord, and wields her to his will;
If her most noble works obey our aims,
How much more so ought worthless scum, like you,
Whose whole existence is a morning dream,
Whose life is sunshine on a wintry day,
Who shake at shadows, struck with palsied fear:
Measuring the limit of your lives by distance.

Antonio.
Columbus, hear! when with the land we parted
You thirty days agreed to plough the main,
Directing westward.—Thirty have elaps'd,
And thirty more have now begun their round,
No land appearing yet, nor trace of land,

251

But distant fogs that mimic lofty isles,
Painting gay landscapes on the vapourish air,
Inhabited by fiends that mean our ruin—
You persevere, and have no mercy on us—
Then perish by yourself—we must return—
And know, our firm resolve is fix'd for Spain;
In this resolve we are unanimous.

Juan de Villa-Real
to Columbus.
(A Billet.)
“I heard them over night a plot contriving
“Of fatal purpose—have a care Columbus!—
“They have resolv'd, as on the deck you stand,
“Aiding the vigils of the midnight hour,
“To plunge you headlong in the roaring deep,
“And slaughter such as favour your design
“Still to pursue this western continent.”

Columbus,
solus.
Why, nature, hast thou treated those so ill,
Whose souls, capacious of immense designs,
Leave ease and quiet for a nation's glory,
Thus to subject them to these little things,
Insects, by heaven's decree in shapes of men!
But so it is, and so we must submit,
Bending to thee, the heaven's great chancellor!
But must I fail!—and by timidity!
Must thou to thy green waves receive me, Neptune,
Or must I basely with my ships return,
Nothing accomplish'd!—not one pearl discover'd,
One bit of gold to make our queen a bracelet,
One diamond for the crown of Ferdinand!
How will their triumph be confirm'd, who said
That I was mad!—Must I then change my course,
And quit the country that would strait appear,
If one week longer we pursued the sun!—
The witch's glass was not delusion, sure!—
All this, and more, she told me to expect!—

252

(To the crew)
“Assemble, friends; attend to what I say:
“Signs unequivocal, at length, declare
“That some great continent approaches us:
“The sea no longer glooms unmeasur'd depths,
“The setting sun discovers clouds that owe
“Their origin to fens and woodland wastes,
“Not such as breed on ocean's salt domain:—
“Vast flocks of birds attend us on our way,
“These all have haunts amidst the watry void,
“Sweet scenes of ease, and sylvan solitude,
“And springs, and streams that we shall share with them.
“Now, hear my most importunate request:
“I call you all my friends; you are my equals,
“Men of true worth and native dignity,
“Whose spirits are too mighty to return
“Most meanly home, when nothing is accomplish'd—
“Consent to sail our wonted course with me
“But one week longer, and if that be spent,
“And nought appear to recompence our toil,
“Then change our course and homeward haste away—
“Nay, homeward not!—for that would be too base—
“But to some negro coast, where we may hide,
“And never think of Ferdinand again.”

Hernando.
One week!—too much—it shall not be, Columbus!
Already are we on the verge of ruin,
Warm'd by the sunshine of another sphere,
Fann'd by the breezes of the burning zone,
Launch'd out upon the world's extremities!—
Who knows where one week more may carry us?

Antonio.
Nay, talk not to the traitor!—base Columbus,
To thee our ruin and our deaths we owe!
Away, away!—friends!—men at liberty,
Now free to act as best befits our case,

253

Appoint another pilot to the helm,
And Andalusia be our port again!

Columbus.
Friends, is it thus you treat your admiral,
Who bears the honours of great Ferdinand,
The royal standard, and the arms of Spain!
Three days allow me—and I'll show new worlds.

Hernando.
Three days!—one day will pass too tediously—
But in the name of all our crew, Columbus,
Whose speaker and controuler I am own'd;
Since thou indeed art a most gallant man,
Three days we grant—but ask us not again!

Picture XIV.
Columbus at Cat Island.

Columbus,
solus.
Hail, beauteous land! the first that greets mine eye
Since, bold, we left the cloud capp'd Teneriffe,
The world's last limit long suppos'd by men,—
Tir'd with dull prospects of the watry waste
And midnight dangers that around us grew,
Faint hearts and feeble hands and traitors vile,
Thee, Holy Saviour, on this foreign land
We still adore, and name this coast from thee!
In these green groves who would not wish to stay
Where guardian nature holds her quiet reign,
Where beardless men speak other languages,
Unknown to us, ourselves unknown to them.

Antonio.
In tracing o'er the isle no gold I find—
Nought else but barren trees and craggy rocks

254

Where screaming sea-fowl mix their odious loves,
And fields of burning marle, where devils play
And men with copper skins talk barbarously;—
What merit has our chief in sailing hither,
Discovering countries of no real worth!
Spain has enough of barren sands, no doubt,
And savages in crowds are found at home;—
Why then surmount the world's circumference
Merely to stock us with this Indian breed?

Hernando.
Soft!—or Columbus will detect your murmuring—
This new found isle has re-instated him
In all our favours—see you yonder sands?—
Why, if you see them, swear that they are gold,
And gold like this shall be our homeward freight,
Gladding the heart of Ferdinand the great,
Who, when he sees it, shall say smilingly,
“Well done, advent'rous fellows, you have brought
“The treasure we expected and deserv'd!”—
Hold!—I am wrong—there goes a savage man
With gold suspended from his ragged ears:
I'll brain the monster for the sake of gold;
There, savage, try the power of Spanish steel—
'Tis of Toledo —true and trusty stuff!
He falls! he falls! the gold, the gold is mine!
First acquisition in this golden isle!—

Columbus,
solus.
Sweet sylvan scenes of innocence and ease,
How calm and joyous pass the seasons here!
No splendid towns or spiry turrets rise,
No lordly palaces—no tyrant kings
Enact hard laws to crush fair freedom here;
No gloomy jails to shut up wretched men;
All, all are free!—here God and nature reign;

255

Their works unsullied by the hands of men.—
Ha! what is this—a murder'd wretch I see,
His blood yet warm—O hapless islander,
Who could have thus so basely mangled thee,
Who never offer'd insult to our shore—
Was it for those poor trinkets in your ears
Which by the custom of your tribe you wore,—
Now seiz'd away—and which would not have weigh'd
One poor piastre!
Is this the fruit of my discovery!
If the first scene is murder, what shall follow
But havock, slaughter, chains and devastation
In every dress and form of cruelty!
O injur'd Nature, whelm me in the deep,
And let not Europe hope for my return,
Or guess at worlds upon whose threshold now
So black a deed has just been perpetrated!—
We must away—enjoy your woods in peace,
Poor, wretched, injur'd, harmless islanders;—
On Hayti's isle you say vast stores are found
Of this destructive gold—which without murder
Perhaps, we may possess!—away, away!
And southward, pilots, seek another isle,
Fertile they say, and of immense extent:
There we may fortune find without a crime.

He called the island San Salvador (Holy Savior). It lies about 90 miles S. E. from Providence.

The best steel-blades in Spain are manufactured at Toledo and Bilboa.

This island is now called Hispaniola.

Picture XV.
Columbus in a Tempest, on his return to Spain.

The storm hangs low; the angry lightning glares
And menaces destruction to our masts;
The Corposant is busy on the decks,
The soul, perhaps, of some lost admiral

256

Taking his walks about most leisurely,
Foreboding we shall be with him to-night:
See, now he mounts the shrouds—as he ascends
The gale grows bolder!—all is violence!
Seas, mounting from the bottom of their depths,
Hang o'er our heads with all their horrid curls
Threatening perdition to our feeble barques,
Which three hours longer cannot bear their fury,
Such heavy strokes already shatter them;
Who can endure such dreadful company!—
Then, must we die with our discovery!
Must all my labours, all my pains, be lost,
And my new world in old oblivion sleep?—
My name forgot, or if it be remember'd,
Only to have it said, “He was a madman
“Who perish'd as he ought—deservedly—
“In seeking what was never to be found!”—
Let's obviate what we can this horrid sentence,
And, lost ourselves, perhaps, preserve our name.
'Tis easy to contrive this painted casket,
(Caulk'd, pitch'd, secur'd with canvas round and round)
That it may float for months upon the main,
Bearing the freight within secure and dry:
In this will I an abstract of our voyage,
And islands found, in little space enclose:
The western winds in time may bear it home
To Europe's coasts: or some wide wandering ship
By accident may meet it toss'd about,
Charg'd with the story of another world.

A vapour common at sea in bad weather, something larger and rather paler than the light of a candle; which, seeming to rise out of the sea, first moves about the decks, and then ascends or descends the rigging in proportion to the increase or decrease of the storm. Superstition formerly imagined them to be the souls of drowned men.

Picture XVI.
Columbus visits the Court at Barcelona.

Ferdinand.
Let him be honour'd like a God, who brings
Tidings of islands at the ocean's end!
In royal robes let him be straight attir'd,
And seated next ourselves, the noblest peer.

257

Isabella.
The merit of this gallant deed is mine:
Had not my jewels furnish'd out the fleet
Still had this world been latent in the main—
Since on this project every man look'd cold,
A woman, as his patroness, shall shine;
And through the world the story shall be told,
A woman gave new continents to Spain.

Columbus.
A world, great prince, bright queen and royal lady,
Discover'd now, has well repaid our toils;
We to your bounty owe all that we are;
Men of renown and to be fam'd in story.
Islands of vast extent we have discover'd
With gold abounding: see a sample here
Of those most precious metals we admire;
And Indian men, natives of other climes,
Whom we have brought to do you princely homage,
Owning they hold their diadems from you.

Ferdinand.
To fifteen sail your charge shall be augmented:
Hasten to Palos, and prepare again
To sail in quest of this fine golden country,
The Ophir, never known to Solomon;
Which shall be held the brightest gem we have,
The richest diamond in the crown of Spain.

Picture XVII.
Columbus in Chains.

Are these the honours they reserve for me,
Chains for the man that gave new worlds to Spain!
Rest here, my swelling heart!—O kings, O queens,
Patrons of monsters, and their progeny,

258

Authors of wrong, and slaves to fortune merely!
Why was I seated by my prince's side,
Honour'd, caress'd like some first peer of Spain?
Was it that I might fall most suddenly
From honour's summit to the sink of scandal!
'Tis done, 'tis done!—what madness is ambition!
What is there in that little breath of men,
Which they call Fame, that should induce the brave
To forfeit ease and that domestic bliss
Which is the lot of happy ignorance,
Less glorious aims, and dull humility.—
Whoe'er thou art that shalt aspire to honour,
And on the strength and vigour of the mind
Vainly depending, court a monarch's favour,
Pointing the way to vast extended empire;
First count your pay to be ingratitude,
Then chains and prisons, and disgrace like mine!
Each wretched pilot now shall spread his sails,
And treading in my footsteps, hail new worlds,
Which, but for me, had still been empty visions.

During his third voyage, while in San Domingo, such unjust representations were made of his conduct to the Court of Spain, that a new admiral, Bovadilla, was appointed to supersede him, who sent Columbus home in irons.

Picture XVIII.
Columbus at Valladolid.

1

How sweet is sleep, when gain'd by length of toil!
No dreams disturb the slumbers of the dead—
To snatch existence from this scanty soil,
Were these the hopes deceitful fancy bred;
And were her painted pageants nothing more
Than this life's phantoms by delusion led?

259

2

The winds blow high: one other world remains;
Once more without a guide I find the way;
In the dark tomb to slumber with my chains—
Prais'd by no poet on my funeral day,
Nor even allow'd one dearly purchas'd claim—
My new found world not honour'd with my name.

3

Yet, in this joyless gloom while I repose,
Some comfort will attend my pensive shade,
When memory paints, and golden fancy shows
My toils rewarded, and my woes repaid;
When empires rise where lonely forests grew,
Where Freedom shall her generous plans pursue.

4

To shadowy forms, and ghosts and sleepy things,
Columbus, now with dauntless heart repair;
You liv'd to find new worlds for thankless kings,
Write this upon my tomb—yes—tell it there—
Tell of those chains that sullied all my glory—
Not mine, but their's—ah, tell the shameful story.

After he found himself in disgrace with the Court of Spain, he retired to Vallodolid, a town of Old Castile, where he died, it is said, more of a broken heart than any other disease, on the 20th of May, 1506.

[w. 1774]

1778

THE SILENT ACADEMY.

Subjected to despotic sway,
Compelled all mandates to obey,
Once in this dome I humbly bowed,
A member of the murmuring crowd,
Where Pedro Blanco held his reign,
The tyrant of a small domain.

By him a numerous herd controuled,
The smart, the stupid, and the bold,
Essayed some little share to gain
Of the vast treasures of his brain—

260

Some learned the Latin, some the Greek,
And some in flowery style to speak—
Some writ their themes, while others read,
And some with Euclid stuffed the head—
Some toiled in verse, and some in prose,
And some in logick sought repose—
Some learned to cypher, some to draw,
And some began to study LAW.

But all is ruined, all is done,
The tutor to the shades is gone,
And all his pupils, led astray,
Have each found out a different way.

Some are in chains of wedlock bound,
And some are hanged and some are drowned;
Some are advanced to posts and places,
And some in pulpits screw their faces;
Some at the bar a living gain,
Perplexing what they should explain;
To soldiers turned, a bolder band
Repel the invaders of the land;
Some to the arts of physic bred,
Despatch their patients to the dead;—
Some plough the land, and some the sea,
And some are slaves, and some are free;
Some court the great, and some the muse,
And some subsist by mending shoes—
While others—but so vast the throng,
The Cobblers shall conclude my song.

1786

THE VERNAL AGUE.

Where the pheasant roosts at night,
Lonely, drowsy, out of sight,
Where the evening breezes sigh
Solitary, there stray I.

Close along a shaded stream,
Source of many a youthful dream,

261

Where branchy cedars dim the day
There I muse, and there I stray.

Yet, what can please amid this bower,
That charmed the eye for many an hour!
The budding leaf is lost to me,
And dead the bloom on every tree.

The winding stream, that glides along,
The lark, that tunes her early song,
The mountain's brow, the sloping vale,
The murmuring of the western gale,

Have lost their charms!—the blooms are gone!
Trees put a darker aspect on,
The stream disgusts that wanders by,
And every zephyr brings a sigh.

Great guardian of our feeble kind!—
Restoring Nature, lend thine aid!
And o'er the features of the mind
Renew those colours, that must fade,
When vernal suns forbear to roll,
And endless winter chills the soul.

1786

A SATIRE

In Answer to a Hostile Attack.

(First written and published 1775.)

Long have I sat on this disastrous shore,
And, sighing, sought to gain a passage o'er
To Europe's towns, where, as our travellers say,
Poets may flourish, or, perhaps they may;
But such abuse has from your coarse pen fell
I think I may defer my voyage as well;

262

Why should I far in search of honour roam,
And dunces leave to triumph here at home?

Great Jove in wrath a spark of genius gave,
And bade me drink the mad Pierian wave,
Hence came these rhimes, with truth ascrib'd to me,
That swell thy little soul to cruelty:
If thus, tormented at these slightly lays,
You strive to blast what ne'er was meant for praise,
How will you bear the more exalted rhyme,
By labour polished, and matured by time?

Devoted madman! what inspired thy rage,
Who bade thy foolish muse with me engage?
Against a wind-mill would you try thy might,
Against a castle would a pigmy fight?
What could thy slanderous pen with malice arm
To injure him, who never did you harm?
Have we from you been urgent to attain
The mean ideas of your barren brain?
Have I been seen in borrowed clothes to shine,
And, when detected, swear by Jove they are mine?
O miscreant, hostile to thine own repose,
From thy own malice thy destruction flows!

Blessed be our western world—its scenes conspire
To raise a poet's fancy and his fire,
Lo, blue-topt mountains to the skies ascend!
Lo, shady forests to the breezes bend!
See mighty streams meandering to the main!
See lambs and lambkins sport on every plain!
The spotted herds in flowery meadows see!
But what, ungenerous wretch, are these to thee?—
You find no charms in all that nature yields,
Then leave me to my grottoes and the fields:
I interfere not with your vast design—
Pursue your studies, and I'll follow mine,
Pursue, well pleas'd, your theologic schemes,
Attend professors, and correct your themes,
Still some dull nonsense, low-bred wit invent,
Or prove from scripture what it never meant,

263

Or far through law, that land of scoundrels, stray,
And truth disguise through all your mazy way;
Wealth you may gain, your clients you may squeeze,
And by long cheating, learn to live at ease;
If but in Wood or Littleton well read,
The devil shall help you to your daily bread.

O waft me far, ye muses of the west—
Give me your green bowers and soft seats of rest—
Thrice happy in those dear retreats to find
A safe retirement from all human kind—
Though dire misfortunes every step attend,
The muse, still social, still remains a friend—
In solitude her converse gives delight,
With gay poetic dreams she cheers the night,
She aids me, shields me, bears me on her wings,
In spite of growling whelps, to high, exalted things,
Beyond the miscreants that my peace molest,
Miscreants, with dullness and with rage opprest.

Hail, great BRIGHT GENIUS, foe to honest fame,
Patron of dunces, and thyself the same,
You dream of conquest—tell me, how, or whence?
Act like a man and combat me with sense—
This evil have I known, and known but once,
Thus to be galled and slandered by a dunce,
Saw rage and weakness join their dastard plan
To crush the shadow, not attack the man.

What swarms of vermin from the sultry south
Like frogs surround thy pestilential mouth—
Clad in the gard of sacred sanctity,
What madness prompts thee to invent a lie?
Thou base defender of a wretched crew,
Thy tongue let loose on those you never knew,
The human spirit with the brutal joined,
The imps of Orcus in thy breast combined,
The genius barren, and the wicked heart,
Prepared to take each trifling miscreant's part,
The turn'd up nose, the monkey's foolish face,
The scorn of reason, and your sire's disgrace—

264

Assist me, gods, to drive this dog of rhyme
Back to the torments of his native clime,
Where dullness mingles with her native earth,
And rhymes, not worth the pang that gave them birth!
Where did he learn to write or talk with men—
A senseless blockhead, with a scribbling pen—
In vile acrostics thou may'st please the fair,
Not less than with thy looks and powdered hair,
But strive no more with rhyme to daunt your foes,
Or, by the flame that in my bosom glows,
The muse on you shall her worst fury spend,
And hemp, or water, thy vile being end.

Aspers'd like me, who would not grieve and rage!
Who would not burn, GIANT, to engage?
Him and his friends, a mean, designing race,
I, singly I, must combat face to face—
Alone I stand to meet the foul-mouth'd train,
Assisted by no poets of the plain,
Whose timerous Muses cannot swell their theme
Beyond a meadow or a purling stream—
Were not my breast impervious to despair,
And did not Clio reign unrivalled there,
I must expire beneath the ungenerous host,
And dullness triumph o'er a poet lost.

Rage gives me wings, and fearless prompts me on
To conquer brutes the world should blush to own;
No peace, no quarter to such imps I lend,
Death and perdition on each line I send;
Bring all the wittlings that your host supplies,
A cloud of nonsense and a storm of lies—
Your kitchen wit—SANGRADO'S loud applause
That wretched rhymer with his lanthorn jaws—
His deep-set eyes forever on the wink,
His soul extracted from the public sink—
All such as he, to my confusion call—
And though ten myriads—I despise them all.

Come on dear satyrist, come—your muse is willing,
Your prose is merry, but your verse is killing—

265

Come on, attack me with that whining prose,
Your beard is red, and swine-like is your nose,
Like burning brush your bristly head of hair,
The ugliest image of a Greenland bear—
Come on—attack us with your choicest rhimes,
Sound void of sense betrays the unmeaning chimes—
Come, league your forces; all your wit combine,
Your wit not equal to the bold design—
The heaviest arms the muse can give, I wield,
To stretch a green goose floundering on the field,
'Swiggen, who, aided by some spurious muse,
But bellows nonsense, and but writes abuse,
Insect! immortal and unfading grown,
But by no deeds or merits of its own—
So, when some hateful monster sees the day,
In spirits we preserve it from decay,
But for what end, it is not hard to guess—
Not for its value, but its ugliness.

Now, by the winds which shake thy rubric mop,
(That nest of witches, or that barber's shop)
Great Satirist hear—Be wise in times to come,
A dunce by nature, bid thy muse be dumb,
Lest you, devoted to the infernal skies,
Descend, like Lucifer, no more to rise—
Sick of all feuds, to reason I appeal
From wars of paper, and from wars of steel,
Let others here their hopes and wishes end,
I to the sea with weary steps descend,
Quit the mean conquest that such swine might yield,
And leave one poet to enjoy the field.
In distant isles some happier scene we choose,
And court in softer shades the unwilling muse,
Thrice happy there, through peaceful plains to rove,
Or the cool verdure of the Orange grove,
Safe from the miscreants that my peace molest,
Miscreants, with dullness and with rage opprest.

[w. 1775]

1786

266

The HOUSE of NIGHT

A Vision

[_]

Advertisement—This Poem is founded upon the authority of Scripture, inasmuch as these sacred books assert, that the last enemy that shall be conquered is Death. For the purposes of poetry he is here personified, and represented as on his dying bed. The scene is laid at a solitary palace, (the time midnight) which, tho' before beautiful and joyous, is now become sad and gloomy, as being the abode and receptacle of Death. Its owner, an amiable, majestic youth, who had lately lost a beloved consort, nevertheless with a noble philosophical fortitude and humanity, entertains him in a friendly manner, and by employing Physicians, endeavours to restore him to health, altho' an enemy; convinced of the excellence and propriety of that divine precept, If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink. He nevertheless, as if by a spirit of prophecy, informs this (fictitiously) wicked being of the certainty of his doom, and represents to him in a pathetic manner the vanity of his expectations, either of a reception into the abodes of the just, or continuing longer to make havock of mankind upon earth. The patient finding his end approaching, composes his epitaph, and orders it to be engraved on his tombstone, hinting to us thereby, that even Death and Distress have vanity; and would be remembered with honour after he is no more, altho' his whole life has been spent in deeds of devastation and murder. He dies at last in the utmost agonies of despair, after agreeing with the avaricious Undertaker to intomb his bones. This reflects upon the inhumanity of those men, who, not to mention an enemy, would scarcely cover a departed friend with a little dust, without the certainty of a reward for so doing. The circumstances of his funeral are then recited, and the visionary and fabulous part of the poem disappears. It concludes with a few reflexions on the impropriety of a too great attachment to the present life, and incentives to such moral virtue as may assist in conducting us to a better.

1.

Trembling I write my dream, and recollect
A fearful vision at the midnight hour;

267

So late, Death o'er me spread his sable wings,
Painted with fancies of malignant power!

2.

Such was the dream the sage Chaldean saw
Disclos'd to him that felt heav'n's vengeful rod,
Such was the ghost, who through deep silence cry'd,
Shall mortal man—be juster than his God.

3.

Let others draw from smiling skies their theme,
And tell of climes that boast unfading light,
I draw a darker scene, replete with gloom,
I sing the horrors of the House of Night.

4.

Stranger, believe the truth experience tells,
Poetic dreams are of a finer cast
Than those which o'er the sober brain diffus'd,
Are but a repetition of some action past.

5.

Fancy, I own thy power—when sunk in sleep
Thou play'st thy wild delusive part so well
You lift me into immortality,
Depict new heavens, or draw scenes of hell.

6.

By some sad means, when Reason holds no sway,
Lonely I rov'd at midnight o'er a plain
Where murmuring streams and mingling rivers flow,
Far to their springs, or seek the sea again.

7.

Sweet vernal May! tho' then thy woods in bloom
Flourish'd, yet nought of this could Fancy see,
No wild pinks bless'd the meads, no green the fields,
And naked seem'd, to stand each lifeless tree:

268

8.

Dark was the sky, and not one friendly star
Shone from the zenith or horizon, clear,
Mist sate upon the woods, and darkness rode
In her black chariot, with a wild career.

9.

And from the woods the late resounding note
Issued of the loquacious Whip-poor-will,
Hoarse, howling dogs, and nightly roving wolves
Clamour'd from far off clifts invisible.

10.

Rude, from the wide extended Chesapeke
I heard the winds the dashing waves assail,
And saw from far, by pictures fancy form'd,
The black ship travelling through the noisy gale.

11.

At last, by chance and guardian fancy led,
I reach'd a noble dome, rais'd fair and high,
And saw the light from upper windows flame,
Presage of mirth and hospitality.

12.

And by that light around the dome appear'd
A mournful garden of autumnal hue,
Its lately pleasing flowers all drooping stood
Amidst high weeds that in rank plenty grew.

13.

The Primrose there, the violet darkly blue,
Daisies and fair Narcissus ceas'd to rise,

269

Gay spotted pinks their charming bloom withdrew,
And Polyanthus quench'd its thousand dyes.

14.

No pleasant fruit or blossom gaily smil'd.
Nought but unhappy plants and trees were seen,
The yew, the myrtle, and the church-yard elm,
The cypress, with its melancholy green.

15.

There cedars dark, the osier, and the pine,
Shorn tamarisks, and weeping willows grew,
The poplar tall, the lotos, and the lime,
And pyracantha did her leaves renew.

16.

The poppy there, companion to repose,
Display'd her blossoms that began to fall,
And here the purple amaranthus rose
With mint strong-scented, for the funeral.

17.

And here and there with laurel shrubs between
A tombstone lay, inscrib'd with strains of woe,
And stanzas sad, throughout the dismal green,
Lamented for the dead that slept below.

18.

Peace to this awful dome!—when strait I heard
The voice of men in a secluded room,
Much did they talk of death, and much of life,
Of coffins, shrouds, and horrors of a tomb.

19.

Pathetic were their words, and well they aim'd
To explain the mystic paths of providence,
Learn'd were they all, but there remain'd not I
To hear the upshot of their conference.

270

20.

Meantime from an adjoining chamber came
Confused murmurings, half distinguish'd sounds,
And as I nearer drew, disputes arose
Of surgery, and remedies for wounds.

21.

Dull were their feuds, for they went on to talk
Of Anchylosis, , and the shoulder blade,
Os Femoris, Trochanters —and whate'er
Has been discuss'd by Cheselden or Meade:

22.

And often each, to prove his notion true
Brought proofs from Galen or Hippocrates—
But fancy led me hence—and left them so,
Firm at their points of hardy No and Yes.

23.

Then up three winding stairs my feet were brought
To a high chamber, hung with mourning sad,
The unsnuff'd candles glar'd with visage dim,
'Midst grief, in ecstacy of woe run mad.

24.

A wide leaf'd table stood on either side,
Well fraught with phials, half their liquids spent,
And from a couch, behind the curtain's veil,
I heard a hollow voice of loud lament.

25.

Turning to view the object whence it came,
My frighted eyes a horrid form survey'd;

271

Fancy, I own thy power—Death on the couch,
With fleshless limbs, at rueful length, was laid.

26.

And o'er his head flew jealousies and cares,
Ghosts, imps, and half the black Tartarian crew,
Arch-angels damn'd, nor was their Prince remote,
Borne on the vaporous wings of Stygian dew.

27.

Around his bed, by the dull flambeaux' glare,
I saw pale phantoms—Rage to madness vext,
Wan, wasting grief, and ever musing care,
Distressful pain, and poverty perplext.

28.

Sad was his countenance, if we can call
That countenance, where only bones were seen
And eyes sunk in their sockets, dark and low,
And teeth, that only show'd themselves to grin.

29.

Reft was his scull of hair, and no fresh bloom
Of cheerful mirth sate on his visage hoar:
Sometimes he rais'd his head, while deep-drawn groans
Were mixt with words that did his fate deplore.

30.

Oft did he wish to see the daylight spring,
And often toward the window lean'd to hear,
Fore-runner of the scarlet-mantled morn,
The early note of wakeful Chanticleer.

31.

Thus he—But at my hand a portly youth
Of comely countenance, began to tell,

272

“That this was Death upon his dying bed,
“Sullen, morose, and peevish to be well;

32.

“Fix't is his doom—the miscreant reigns no more
“The tyrant of the dying or the dead;
“This night concludes his all-consuming reign,
“Pour out, ye heav'ns, your vengeance on his head.

33.

“But since, my friend, (said he), chance leads you here,
“With me this night upon the sick attend,
“You on this bed of death must watch, and I
“Will not be distant from the fretful fiend.

34.

“Before he made this lofty pile his home,
“In undisturb'd repose I sweetly slept,
“But when he came to this sequester'd dome
“'Twas then my troubles came, and then I wept:

35.

“Twice three long nights, in this sad chamber, I,
“As though a brother languish'd in despair,
“Have 'tended faithful round his gloomy bed,
“Have been content to breathe this loathsome air.

36.

“A while relieve the languors that I feel,
“Sleep's magic forces close my weary eyes;
“Soft o'er my soul unwonted slumbers steal,
“Aid the weak patient till you see me rise.

37.

“But let no slumbers on your eye-lids fall,
“That if he ask for powder or for pill

273

“You may be ready at the word to start,
“And still seem anxious to perform his will.

38.

“The bleeding Saviour of a world undone
“Bade thy compassion rise toward thy foe;
“Then, stranger, for the sake of Mary's son,
“Thy tears of pity on this wretch bestow.

39.

“'Twas he that stole from my adoring arms
“Aspasia, she the loveliest of her kind,
“Lucretia's virtue, with a Helen's charms,
“Charms of the face, and beauties of the mind.

40.

“The blushy cheek, the lively, beaming eye,
“The ruby lip, the flowing jetty hair,
“The stature tall, the aspect so divine,
“All beauty, you would think, had center'd there.

41.

“Each future age her virtues shall extol,
“Nor the just tribute to her worth refuse;
“Fam'd, to the stars URANIA bids her rise,
“Theme of the moral, and the tragic Muse.

42.

“Sweet as the fragrance of the vernal morn,
“Nipt in its bloom this faded flower I see;
“The inspiring angel from that breast is gone,
“And life's warm tide forever chill'd in thee!

43.

“Such charms shall greet my longing soul no more,
“Her lively eyes are clos'd in endless shade,
“Torpid, she rests on yonder marble floor;
“Approach, and see what havock DEATH has made.

274

44.

“Yet, stranger, hold—her charms are so divine,
“Such tints of life still on her visage glow,
“That even in death this slumbering bride of mine
“May seize thy heart, and make thee wretched too.

45.

“O shun the sight—forbid thy trembling hand
“From her pale face to raise the enshrouding lawn,—
“Death claims thy care, obey his stern command,
“Trim the dull tapers, for I see no dawn!”

46.

So said, at Death's left side I sate me down,
The mourning youth toward his right reclin'd;
Death in the middle lay, with all his groans,
And much he toss'd and tumbled, sigh'd and pin'd.

47.

But now this man of hell toward me turn'd,
And strait, in hideous tone, began to speak,
Long held he sage discourse, but I forebore
To answer him, much less his news to seek.

48.

He talk'd of tomb-stones and of monuments,
Of Equinoxial climes and India shores,
He talk'd of stars that shed their influence,
Fevers and plagues, and all their noxious stores.

49.

He mention'd, too, the guileful calenture,
Tempting the sailor on the deep sea main,

275

That paints gay groves upon the ocean floor,
Beckoning her victim to the faithless scene.

50.

Much spoke he of the myrtle and the yew,
Of ghosts that nightly walk the church-yard o'er,
Of storms that through the wint'ry ocean blow
And dash the well-mann'd galley on the shore,

51.

Of broad-mouth'd cannons, and the thunderbolt,
Of sieges and convulsions, dearth and fire,
Of poisonous weeds—but seem'd to sneer at these
Who by the laurel o'er him did aspire.

52.

Then with a hollow voice thus went he on,
“Get up, and search, and bring, when found, to me,
“Some cordial, potion, or some pleasant draught,
“Sweet, slumb'rous poppy, or the mild Bohea.

53.

“But hark, my pitying friend!—and, if you can,
“Deceive the grim physician at the door—
“Bring half the mountain springs—ah! hither bring
“The cold rock water from the shady bower.

54.

“For till this night such thirst did ne'er invade,
“A thirst provok'd by heav'n's avenging hand;
“Hence bear me, friends, to quaff, and quaff again
“The cool wave bubbling from the yellow sand.

55.

“To these dark walls with stately step I came,
“Prepar'd your drugs and doses to defy;
“Smit with the love of never dying fame,
“I came, alas! to conquer—not to die!”

276

56.

Glad, from his side I sprang, and fetch'd the draught,
Which down his greedy throat he quickly swills,
Then on a second errand sent me strait,
To search in some dark corner for his pills.

57.

Quoth he, “These pills have long compounded been,
“Of dead men's bones and bitter roots, I trow;
“But that I may to wonted health return,
“Throughout my lank veins shall their substance go.”

58.

So down they went—He rais'd his fainting head
And oft in feeble tone essay'd to talk;
Quoth he, “Since remedies have small avail,
“Assist unhappy Death once more to walk.”

59.

Then slowly rising from his loathsome bed,
On wasted legs the meagre monster stood,
Gap'd wide, and foam'd, and hungry seem'd to ask,
Tho' sick, an endless quantity of food.

60.

Said he, “The sweet melodious flute prepare,
“The anthem, and the organ's solemn sound,
“Such as may strike my soul with ecstacy,
“Such as may from yon' lofty wall rebound.

61.

“Sweet music can the fiercest pains assuage,
“She bids the soul to heav'n's blest mansions rise,
“She calms despair, controuls infernal rage
“And deepest anguish, when it hears her, dies.

62.

“And see, the mizzling, misty midnight reigns,
“And no soft dews are on my eye-lids sent—!

277

“Here, stranger, lend thy hand; assist me, pray,
“To walk a circuit of no large extent.”—

63.

On my prest shoulders leaning, round he went,
And could have made the boldest spectre flee,
I led him up stairs, and I led him down,
But not one moment's rest from pain got he.

64.

Then with his dart, its cusp unpointed now,
Thrice with main strength he smote the trembling floor;
The roof resounded to the fearful blow,
And Cleon started, doom'd to sleep no more.

65.

When thus spoke Death, impatient of controul,
“Quick, move, and bring from yonder black bureau
“The sacred book that may preserve my soul
“From long damnation, and eternal woe.

66.

“And with it bring—for you may find them there,
“The works of holy authors, dead and gone,
“The sacred tome of moving Drelincourt,
“Or what more solemn Sherlock mus'd upon:

67.

“And read, my Cleon, what these sages say,
“And what the sacred Penman hath declar'd,
“That when the wicked leaves his odious way,
“His sins shall vanish, and his soul be spar'd.”

68.

But he, unmindful of the vain command,
Reason'd with Death, nor were his reasonings few:
Quoth he—“My Lord, what frenzy moves your brain,
“Pray, what, my Lord, can Sherlock be to you,

278

69.

“Or all the sage divines that ever wrote,
“Grave Drelincourt, or heaven's unerring page;
“These point their arrows at your hostile breast,
“And raise new pains that time must ne'er assuage.

70.

“And why should thus thy woe disturb my rest?
“Much of Theology I once did read,
“And there 'tis fixt, sure as my God is so,
“That Death shall perish, tho' a God should bleed.

71.

“The martyr, doom'd the pangs of fire to feel,
“Lives but a moment in the sultry blast;
“The victim groans, and dies beneath the steel,
“But thy severer pains shall always last.

72.

“O miscreant vile, thy age has made thee doat—
“If peace, if sacred peace were found for you,
“Hell would cry out, and all the damn'd arise
“And, more deserving, seek for pity too.

73.

“Seek not for Paradise—'tis not for thee,
“Where high in heaven its sweetest blossoms blow,
“Nor even where, gliding to the Persian main
“Thy waves, Euphrates, through the garden flow!

74.

“Bloody has been thy reign, O man of hell,
“Who sympathiz'd with no departing groan;
“Cruel wast thou, and hardly dost deserve
“To have Hic Jacet stampt upon thy stone.

75.

“He that could build his mansion o'er the tombs,
“Depending still on sickness and decay,

279

“May dwell unmov'd amidst these drowsier glooms,
“May laugh the dullest of these shades away.

76.

“Remember how with unrelenting ire
“You tore the infant from the unwilling breast—
“ASPASIA fell, and CLEON must expire,
“Doom'd by the impartial God to endless rest:

77.

“In vain with stars he deck'd yon' spangled skies,
“And bade the mind to heaven's bright regions soar,
“And brought so far to my admiring eyes
“A glimpse of glories that shall blaze no more!

78.

“Even now to glut thy devilish wrath, I see
“From eastern realms a wasteful army rise:
“Why else those lights that tremble in the north?
“Why else yon' comet blazing through the skies?

79.

“Rejoice, O fiend; Britannia's tyrant sends
“From German plains his myriads to our shore.
“The fierce Hibernian with the Briton join'd—
“Bring them, ye winds!—but waft them back no more.

80.

“To you, alas! the fates in wrath deny
“The comforts to our parting moments due,
“And leave you here to languish and to die,
“Your crimes too many, and your tears too few.

81.

“No cheering voice to thee shall cry, Repent!
“As once it echoed through the wilderness—
“No patron died for thee—damn'd, damn'd art thou
“Like all the devils, nor one jot the less.

280

82.

“A gloomy land, with sullen skies is thine,
“Where never rose or amaranthus grow,
“No daffodils, nor comely columbine,
“No hyacinths nor asphodels for you.

83.

“The barren trees that flourish on the shore
“With leaves or fruit were never seen to bend,
“O'er languid waves unblossom'd branches hang,
“And every branch sustains some vagrant fiend.

84.

“And now no more remains, but to prepare
“To take possession of thy punishment,
“That's thy inheritance, that thy domain,
“A land of bitter woe, and loud lament.

85.

“And oh that HE, who spread the universe,
“Would cast one pitying glance on thee below;
“Millions of years in torments thou might'st fry,
“But thy eternity!—who can conceive its woe!”

86.

He heard, and round with his black eye-balls gaz'd,
Full of despair, and curs'd, and rav'd, and swore:
“And since this is my doom,” said he, “call up
“Your wood-mechanics to my chamber door:

87.

“Blame not on me the ravage to be made;
“Proclaim,—even Death abhors such woe to see;
“I'll quit the world, while decently I can,
“And leave the work to George my deputy.”

88.

Up rush'd a band, with compasses and scales
To measure his slim carcase, long and lean—

281

“Be sure,” said he, “to frame my coffin strong,
“You, master workman, and your men, I mean:

89.

“For if the Devil, so late my trusty friend,
“Should get one hint where I am laid, from you,
“Not with my soul content, he'd seek to find
“That mouldering mass of bones, my body, too!

90.

“Of hardest ebon let the plank be found,
“With clamps and ponderous bars secur'd around,
“That if the box by Satan should be storm'd,
“It may be able for resistance found.”

91.

“Yes,” said the master workman, “noble Death,
“Your coffin shall be strong—that leave to me—
“But who shall these your funeral dues discharge?
“Nor friends nor pence you have, that I can see.”

92.

To this said Death—“You might have ask'd me, too,
“Base caitiff, who are my executors,
“Where my estate, and who the men that shall
“Partake my substance, and be call'd my heirs.

93.

“Know, then, that hell is my inheritance,
“The devil himself my funeral dues must pay—
“Go—since you must be paid—go, ask of him,
“For he has gold, as fabling poets say.”

94.

Strait they retir'd—when thus he gave me charge,
Pointing from the light window to the west,
“Go three miles o'er the plain, and you shall see
“A burying-yard of sinners dead, unblest.

282

95.

“Amid the graves a spiry building stands
“Whose solemn knell resounding through the gloom
“Shall call thee o'er the circumjacent lands
“To the dull mansion destin'd for my tomb.

96.

“There, since 'tis dark, I'll plant a glimmering light
“Just snatch'd from hell, by whose reflected beams
“Thou shalt behold a tomb-stone, full eight feet,
“Fast by a grave, replete with ghosts and dreams.

97.

“And on that stone engrave this epitaph,
“Since Death, it seems, must die like mortal men;
“Yes—on that stone engrave this epitaph,
“Though all hell's furies aim to snatch the pen.

98.

“Death in this tomb his weary bones hath laid,
“Sick of dominion o'er the human kind—
“Behold what devastations he hath made,
“Survey the millions by his arm confin'd.

99.

“Six thousand years has sovereign sway been mine,
“None, but myself, can real glory claim;
“Great Regent of the world I reign'd alone,
“And princes trembled when my mandate came.

100.

“Vast and unmatch'd throughout the world, my fame
“Takes place of gods, and asks no mortal date—
“No; by myself, and by the heavens, I swear,
“Not Alexander's name is half so great.

101.

“Nor swords nor darts my prowess could withstand,
“All quit their arms, and bow'd to my decree,

283

“Even mighty JULIUS died beneath my hand,
“For slaves and Caesars were the same to me!

102.

“Traveller, wouldst thou his noblest trophies seek,
“Search in no narrow spot obscure for those;
“The sea profound, the surface of all land
“Is moulded with the myriads of his foes.”

103.

Scarce had he spoke, when on the lofty dome
Rush'd from the clouds a hoarse resounding blast—
Round the four eaves so loud and sad it play'd
As though all musick were to breathe its last.

104.

Warm was the gale, and such as travellers say
Sport with the winds on Zaara's waste;
Black was the sky, a mourning carpet spread,
Its azure blotted, and its stars o'ercast!

105.

Lights in the air like burning stars were hurl'd,
Dogs howl'd, heaven mutter'd, and the tempest blew,
The red half-moon peeped from behind a cloud
As if in dread the amazing scene to view.

106.

The mournful trees that in the garden stood
Bent to the tempest as it rush'd along,
The elm, the myrtle, and the cypress sad
More melancholy tun'd its bellowing song.

107.

No more that elm its noble branches spread,
The yew, the cypress, or the myrtle tree,
Rent from the roots the tempest tore them down,
And all the grove in wild confusion lay.

284

108.

Yet, mindful of his dread command, I part
Glad from the magic dome—nor found relief;
Damps from the dead hung heavier round my heart,
While sad remembrance rous'd her stores of grief.

109.

O'er a dark field I held my dubious way
Where Jack-a-lanthorn walk'd his lonely round,
Beneath my feet substantial darkness lay,
And screams were heard from the distemper'd ground.

110.

Nor look'd I back, till to a far off wood
Trembling with fear, my weary feet had sped—
Dark was the night, but at the inchanted dome
I saw the infernal windows flaming red.

111.

And from within the howls of Death I heard,
Cursing the dismal night that gave him birth,
Damning his ancient sire, and mother sin,
Who at the gates of hell, accursed, brought him forth.

112.

(For fancy gave to my enraptur'd soul
An eagle's eye, with keenest glance to see,
And bade those distant sounds distinctly roll,
Which, waking, never had affected me.)

113.

Oft his pale breast with cruel hand he smote,
And tearing from his limbs a winding sheet,
Roar'd to the black skies, while the woods around,
As wicked as himself, his words repeat.

114.

Thrice tow'rd the skies his meagre arms he rear'd,
Invok'd all hell, and thunders on his head,

285

Bid light'nings fly, earth yawn, and tempests roar,
And the sea wrap him in its oozy bed.

115.

“My life for one cool draught!—O, fetch your springs,
“Can one unfeeling to my woes be found!
“No friendly visage comes to my relief,
“But ghosts impend, and spectres hover round.

116.

“Though humbled now, dishearten'd and distrest,
“Yet, when admitted to the peaceful ground,
“With heroes, kings, and conquerors I shall rest,
“Shall sleep as safely, and perhaps as sound.”

117.

Dim burnt the lamp, and now the phantom Death
Gave his last groans in horror and despair—
“All hell demands me hence,”—he said, and threw
The red lamp hissing through the midnight air.

118.

Trembling, across the plain my course I held,
And found the grave-yard, loitering through the gloom,
And, in the midst, a hell-red, wandering light,
Walking in fiery circles round the tomb.

119.

Among the graves a spiry building stood,
Whose tolling bell, resounding through the wood,
Sung doleful ditties to the adjacent wood,
And many a dismal drowsy thing it said.

120.

This fabrick tall, with towers and chancels grac'd,
Was rais'd by sinners' hands, in ages fled;
The roof they painted, and the beams they brac'd,
And texts from scripture o'er the walls they spread:

286

121.

But wicked were their hearts, for they refus'd
To aid the helpless orphan, when distrest,
The shivering, naked stranger they mis-us'd,
And banish'd from their doors the starving guest.

122.

By laws protected, cruel and prophane,
The poor man's ox these monsters drove away;—
And left Distress to attend her infant train,
No friend to comfort, and no bread to stay.

123.

But heaven look'd on with keen, resentful eye,
And doom'd them to perdition and the grave,
That as they felt not for the wretch distrest,
So heaven no pity on their souls would have.

124.

In pride they rais'd this building tall and fair,
Their hearts were on perpetual mischief bent,
With pride they preach'd, and pride was in their prayer.
With pride they were deceiv'd, and so to hell they went.

125.

At distance far approaching to the tomb,
By lamps and lanthorns guided through the shade,
A coal-black chariot hurried through the gloom,
Spectres attending, in black weeds array'd,

126.

Whose woeful forms yet chill my soul with dread,
Each wore a vest in Stygian chambers wove,
Death's kindred all—Death's horses they bestrode,
And gallop'd fiercely, as the chariot drove.

127.

Each horrid face a grizly mask conceal'd,
Their busy eyes shot terror to my soul

287

As now and then, by the pale lanthorn's glare,
I saw them for their parted friend condole.

128.

Before the hearse Death's chaplain seem'd to go,
Who strove to comfort, what he could, the dead;
Talk'd much of Satan, and the land of woe,
And many a chapter from the scriptures read.

129.

At last he rais'd the swelling anthem high,
In dismal numbers seem'd he to complain;
The captive tribes that by Euphrates wept,
Their song was jovial to his dreary strain.

130.

That done, they plac'd the carcase in the tomb,
To dust and dull oblivion now resign'd,
Then turn'd the chariot tow'rd the House of Night,
Which soon flew off, and left no trace behind.

131.

But as I stoop'd to write the appointed verse,
Swifter than thought the airy scene decay'd;
Blushing the morn arose, and from the east
With her gay streams of light dispell'd the shade.

132.

What is this Death, ye deep read sophists, say?—
Death is no more than one unceasing change;
New forms arise, while other forms decay,
Yet all is LIFE throughout creation's range.

133.

The towering Alps, the haughty Appenine,
The Andes, wrapt in everlasting snow,
The Apalachian and the Ararat
Sooner or later must to ruin go.

288

134.

Hills sink to plains, and man returns to dust,
That dust supports a reptile or a flower;
Each changeful atom by some other nurs'd
Takes some new form, to perish in an hour.

135.

Too nearly join'd to sickness, toils, and pains,
(Perhaps for former crimes imprison'd here)
True to itself the immortal soul remains,
And seeks new mansions in the starry sphere.

136.

When Nature bids thee from the world retire,
With joy thy lodging leave, a fated guest;
In Paradise, the land of thy desire,
Existing always, always to be blest.

1779

A Bird peculiar to America, of a solitary nature, who never sings but in the night. Her note resembles the name given to her by the country people.

Anchylosis—a morbid contraction of the joints.

Os Femoris—part of the thigh bone.

Trochanters—two processes in the upper part of the thigh bone, otherwise called rotator major et minor, in which the tendons of many muscles terminate.

Calenture—an inflammatory fever, attended with a delirium, common in long voyages at sea, in which the diseased persons fancy the sea to be green fields and meadows, and, if they are not hindered, will leap overboard.

The JAMAICA FUNERAL.

1776

1

Alcander died—the rich, the great, the brave;
Even such must yield to heaven's severe decree,
Death, still at hand, conducts us to the grave,
And humbles monarchs as he humbled thee.

2

When, lingering, to his end Alcander drew,
Officious friends besieg'd his lofty door,
Impatient they the dying man to view
And touch that hand they soon must touch no more.

289

3

“Alas, he's gone!” the sad attendants cry,
Fled is the breath that never shall return—
“Alas! he's gone!” his tearful friends reply,
“Spread the dark crape, and round his pale corpse mourn.

4

“Ye that attend the pompous funeral, due,
“In sable vestments let your limbs be clad,
“For vulgar deaths a common sorrow shew,
“But costly griefs are for the wealthy dead.

5

“Prepare the blessings of the generous vine,
“Let bulls and oxen groan beneath the steel,
“Throughout the board let choicest dainties shine,
“To every guest a generous portion deal.”—

6

A mighty crowd approach'd the mourning dome,
Some came to hear the sermon and the prayer,
Some came to shun Xantippe's voice at home,
And some with Bacchus to relieve their care.

7

A Levite came, and sigh'd among the rest,
A rusty band and tatter'd gown he wore,
His leaves he tumbled, and the house he blest,
And conn'd his future sermon o'er and o'er.

8

And oft a glance he cast towards the wine
That briskly sparkled in the glassy vase,
And often drank, and often wish'd to dine,
And red as Phoebus glow'd his sultry face.

9

Much did he chatter, and on various themes,
He publish'd news that came from foreign climes,

290

He told his jests, and told his last year's dreams,
And quoted dull stuff from lord Wilmot's rhymes.

10

And dunn'd the mourners for his parish dues
With face of brass, and scrutinizing eye,
And threaten'd law-suits if they dar'd refuse
To pay his honest earnings punctually.

11

An honest sire, who came in luckless hour
To hear the sermon and to see the dead,
Presuming on this consecrated hour,
Ventur'd to check the parson on that head.

12

Quoth he, “My priest, such conduct is not fit,
“For other speech this solemn hour demands:
“What if your parish owes its annual debt,
“Your parish ready to discharge it stands.”

13

No more he said—for charg'd with wounds and pain,
The parson's staff like Jove's own lightning flew,
Which cleft his jaw-bone and his cheek in twain,
And from their sockets half his grinders drew.

14

Nor less deceas'd some moments lay the sire
Than if from heav'n the forked lightnings thrown
Had pierc'd him with their instantaneous fire,
And sent him smoking to the world unknown.

15

At last he mov'd, and, weltering in his gore,
Thus did the rueful, wounded victim say,
“Convey me hence—so bloody and so sore
“I cannot wait to hear the parson pray;

291

16

“And if I did, what pleasure could be mine—
“Can he allure me to the world of bliss—
“Can he present me at the heavenly shrine
“Who breaks my bones, and knocks me down in this?

17

“The scripture says—the text I well recall—
“A Priest or Bishop must no striker be,
“Then how can such a wicked priest but fall,
“Who at a funeral thus has murdered me?”—

18

Thus he—But now the sumptuous dinner came,
The Levite boldly seiz'd the nobler place,
Beside him sate the woe-struck widow'd dame,
Who help'd him drain the brimful china vase.

19

Which now renew'd, he drank that ocean too,
Like Polypheme, the boon Ulysses gave;
Another came, nor did another do,
For still another did the monster crave

20

With far-fetch'd dainties he regal'd his maw,
And prais'd the various meats that crown'd the board:
On tender capons did the glutton gnaw,
And well his platter with profusion stor'd.

21

But spoke no words of grace—I mark'd him well,
I fix'd my eye upon his brazen brow—
He look'd like Satan aiming to rebel,
Such pride and madness were his inmates now.

22

But not contented with this hectoring priest,
Sick of his nonsense, softly I withdrew,

292

And at a calmer table shar'd the feast
To sorrow sacred, and to friendship due,

23

Which now atchiev'd, the tolling bell remote
Summon'd the living and the dead to come,
And through the dying sea-breeze swell'd the note,
Dull on the ear, and lengthening through the gloom

24

The Bier was brought, the costly coffin laid,
And prayers were mutter'd in a doleful tone,
While the sad pall, above the body spread,
From many a tender breast drew many a groan.

25

The Levite, too, some tears of Bacchus shed—
Reeling before the long procession, he
Strode like a general at his army's head,
His gown in tatters, and his wig—ah me!

26

The words of faith in both hands he bore,
Prayers, cut and dry, by ancient prelates made,
Who, bigots while they liv'd, could do no more
Than leave them still by bigots to be said.

27

But he admir'd them all!—he read with joy
St. Athanasius in his thundering creed,
And curs'd the men whom Satan did employ
To make king Charles, that heav'n-born martyr, bleed.

28

At last they reach'd the spiry building high,
And soon they enter'd at the eastern gate—
The parson said his prayers most learnedly,
And mutter'd more than memory can relate.

293

29

Then through the temple's lengthy aisles they went,
Approaching still the pulpit's painted door,
From whence on Sundays, many a vow was sent,
And sermons plunder'd from some prelate's store.

30

Here, as of right, the priest prepar'd to rise,
And leave the corpse and gaping crowd below,
Like sultry Phoebus glar'd his flaming eyes,
Less fierce the stars of Greenland evenings glow.

31

Up to the pulpit strode he with an air,
And from the Preacher thus his text he read,
“More I esteem, and better is by far
“A dog existing than a lion dead.

32

“Go, eat thy dainties with a joyful heart,
“And quaff thy wine with undissembled glee,
“For he who did these heavenly gifts impart
“Accepts thy prayers, thy gifts, thy vows, and thee.”

The SERMON.

33

These truths, my friends, congenial to my soul,
Demand a faithful and attentive ear—
No longer for your 'parted friend condole,
No longer shed the tributary tear.

34

Curs'd be the sobs, these useless floods of woe
That vainly flow for the departed dead—

294

If doom'd to wander on the coasts below,
What are to him these seas of grief you shed?

35

If heaven in pleasure doth his hours employ—
If sighs and sorrows reach a place like this,
They blast his glories, and they damp his joy,
They make him wretched in the midst of bliss.

36

And can you yet—and here he smote his breast—
And can you yet bemoan that torpid mass
Which now for death, and desolation drest,
Prepares the deep gulph of the grave to pass.

37

You fondly mourn—I mourn Alcander too,
Alcander late the living, not the dead;
His casks I broach'd, his liquors once I drew,
And freely there on choicest dainties fed.

38

But vanish'd are they now!—no more he calls,
No more invites me to his plenteous board;
No more I caper at his splendid balls,
Or drain his cellars, with profusion stor'd.

39

Then why, my friends, for yonder senseless clay,
That ne'er again befriends me, should I mourn?
Yon' simple slaves that through the cane-lands stray
Are more to me than monarchs in the urn.

40

The joys of wine, immortal as my theme,
To days of bliss the aspiring soul invite;
Life, void of this, a punishment I deem,
A Greenland winter, without heat or light.

295

41

Count all the trees that crown Jamaica's hills,
Count all the stars that through the heavens you see,
Count every drop that the wide ocean fills;
Then count the pleasures Bacchus yields to me.

42

The aids of wine for toiling man were meant;
I prize the smiling Caribbëan bowl—
Enjoy those gifts that bounteous nature lent,
Death to thy cares, refreshing to the soul.

43

Here fixt to-day in plenty's smiling vales,
Just as the month revolves we laugh or groan,
September comes, seas swell with horrid gales,
And old Port Royal's fate may be our own.

44

A few short years, at best, will bound our span,
Wretched and few, the Hebrew exile said;
Live while you may, be jovial while you can,
Death as a debt to nature must be paid.

45

When nature fails, the man exists no more,
And death is nothing but an empty name,
Spleen's genuine offspring at the midnight hour,
The coward's tyrant, and the bad man's dream.

46

You ask me where these mighty hosts have fled,
That once existed on this changeful ball?—
If aught remains, when mortal man is dead,
Where, ere their birth they were, they now are all.

296

47

Like insects busy, in a summer's day,
We toil and squabble, to increase our pain,
Night comes at last, and, weary of the fray,
To dust and darkness all return again.

48

Then envy not, ye sages too precise,
The drop from life's gay tree, that damps our woe,
Noah himself, the wary and the wise,
A vineyard planted, and the vines did grow:

49

Of social soul was he—the grape he press'd,
And drank the juice oblivious to his care;
Sorrow he banish'd from his place of rest,
And sighs and sobbing had no entrance there.

50

Such bliss be ours through every changing scene;
The glowing face bespeaks the glowing heart;
If heaven be joy, wine is to heaven a-kin,
Since wine, on earth, can heavenly joys impart.

51

Mere glow-worms are we all, a moment shine;
I, like the rest, in giddy circles run,
And Grief shall say, when I this life resign,
“His glass is empty, and his frolics done!”

52

He said, and ceas'd—the funeral anthem then
From the deep choir and hoarse-ton'd organ came;
Such are the honours paid to wealthy men,
But who for Irus would attempt the same?

53

Now from the church returning, as they went,
Again they reach'd Alcander's painted hall,

297

Their sighs concluded, and their sorrows spent,
They to oblivion gave the Funeral.

54

The holy man, by bishops holy made,
Tun'd up to harmony his trembling strings,
To various songs in various notes he play'd,
And, as he plays, as gallantly he sings,

55

The widow'd dame, less pensive than before,
To sprightly tunes as sprightly did advance,
Her lost Alcander scarce remember'd more;
And thus the funeral ended in a dance.

[w. 1776]

1786

Quaeris, quo jaceas post obitum loco?—
Quo non nata jacent.”—
Senec. Troas.

The BEAUTIES OF SANTA CRUZ

1776

Sweet orange grove, the fairest of the isle,
In thy soft shade luxuriously reclined,
Where, round my fragrant bed, the flowrets smile,
In sweet delusions I deceive my mind.

But Melancholy's glooms assail my breast,
For potent nature reigns despotic there;—
A nation ruined, and a world oppressed,
Might rob the boldest Stoic of a tear.

Sick of thy northern glooms, come, shepherd, seek
More equal climes, and a serener sky:
Why shouldst thou toil amid thy frozen ground,
Where half years' snows, a barren prospect, lie,

298

When thou mayst go where never frost was seen,
Or north-west winds with cutting fury blow,
Where never ice congealed the limpid stream,
Where never mountain tipt its head with snow?

Twice ten days prosperous gales thy barque shall bear
To isles that flourish in perpetual green,
Where richest herbage glads each fertile vale,
And ever verdant plants on every hill are seen.

Nor dread the dangers of the billowy deep,
Autumnal winds shall safely waft thee o'er;
Put off the timid heart, or, man unblest,
Ne'er shalt thou reach this gay enchanting shore.

Thus Judah's tribes beheld the promised land,
While Jordan's angry waters swelled between;
Thus trembling on the brink I see them stand,
Heav'n's type in view, the Canaanitish green.

Thus, some mean souls, in spite of age and care,
Are held so firmly to this earth below,
They never wish to cross fate's dusky main,
That parting them and happiness, doth flow.

Though Reason's voice might whisper to the soul
That nobler climes for man the heavens design—
Come, shepherd, haste—the northern breezes blow,
No more the slumbering winds thy barque confine.

Sweet orange grove, the fairest of the isle,
In thy soft shade luxuriously reclined,
Where, round my fragrant bed, the flowrets smile,
In sweet delusions I deceive my mind.

But Melancholy's glooms assail my breast,
For potent nature reigns despotic there;—
A nation ruined, and a world oppressed,
Might rob the boldest Stoic of a tear.

299

From the vast caverns of old Ocean's bed,
Fair SANTA CRUZ arising, laves her waist,
The threatening waters roar on every side,
For every side by ocean is embraced.

Sharp, craggy rocks repel the surging brine,
Whose caverned sides by restless billows wore,
Resemblance claim to that remoter isle
Where once the winds' proud lord the sceptre bore.

Betwixt old Cancer and the mid-way line,
In happiest climate lies this envied isle:
Trees bloom throughout the year, soft breezes blow,
And fragrant Flora wears a lasting smile.

Cool, woodland streams from shaded clifts descend,
The dripping rock no want of moisture knows,
Supplyed by springs that on the skies depend,
That fountain feeding as the current flows.

Such were the isles which happy Flaccus sung,
Where one tree blossoms while another bears,
Where spring forever gay, and ever young,
Walks her gay round through her unceasing years.

Such were the climes which youthful Eden saw
Ere crossing fates destroyed her golden reign—
Reflect upon thy loss, unhappy man,
And seek the vales of Paradise again.

No lowering skies are here—the neighbouring sun
Clear and unveiled, his brilliant journey goes,
Each morn emerging from the ambient main,
And sinking there, each evening, to repose.

In June's fair month the spangled traveller gains
The utmost limits of his northern way,
And blesses with his beams cold lands remote,
Sad Greenland's coast, and Hudson's frozen bay.

300

The shivering swains of those unhappy climes
Behold the side-way monarch through the trees,
Here glows his fiercer heat, his vertic beams,
Tempered with cooling gales and trade-wind breeze.

The native here, in golden plenty blest,
Bids from the soil the verdant harvests spring;
Feasts in the abundant dome, the joyous guest;
Time short,—life easy,—pleasure on the wing.

Here, fixt today in plenty's smiling vales,
Just as the year revolves, they laugh or groan;
September comes, seas swell with horrid gales,
And old Port-Royal's fate is found their own!

And, though so near heaven's blazing lamp doth run,
They court the beam that sheds the golden day,
And hence are called the children of the sun,
Who, without fainting, bear his downward ray.

No threatening tides upon their island rise,
Gay Cynthia scarce disturbs the ocean here,
No waves approach her orb, and she, as kind,
Attracts no ocean to her silver sphere.

The happy waters boast, of various kinds,
Unnumbered myriads of the scaly race,
Sportive they glide above the deluged sand,
Gay as their clime, in ocean's ample vase.

Some streaked with burnished gold, resplendent glare,
Some cleave the limpid deep, all silvered o'er,
Some, clad in living green, delight the eye,
Some red, some blue; of mingled colours more.

Here glides the spangled Dolphin through the deep,
The giant carcased whales at distance stray,
The huge green turtles wallow through the wave,
Well pleas'd alike with land or water, they.

301

The Rainbow cuts the deep, of varied green,
The well-fed Grouper lurks remote, below,
The swift Bonetta coasts the watery scene,
The diamond-coated Angels kindle as they go.

Delicious to the taste, salubrious food,
Which might some temperate studious sage allure
To curse the fare of his abstemious cell
And turn, for once, a cheerful epicure.

Unhurt mayest thou this luscious food enjoy,
To fulness feast upon the scaly kind;
These, well selected from a thousand more,
Delight the taste, and leave no bane behind.

Nor think Hygeia is a stranger here—
To sensual souls the climate may fatal prove,
Anguish and death attend, and pain severe,
The midnight revel, and licentious love.

Full many a swain, in youth's serenest bloom,
Is borne untimely to this alien clay,
Constrained to slumber in a foreign tomb,
Far from his friends, his country far away.

Yet, if devoted to a sensual soul,
If fondly their own ruin they create,
These victims to the banquet and the bowl
Must blame their folly only, not their fate.

But thou, who first drew breath in northern air,
At early dawn ascend the sloping hills:
And oft, at noon, to lime tree shades repair,
Where some soft stream from neighbouring groves distills.

And with it mix the liquid of the lime.
The old-aged essence of the generous cane,

302

And sweetest syrups of this liquorish clime,
And drink, to cool thy thirst, and drink again.

This happy beverage, joy-inspiring bowl,
Dispelling far the shades of mental night,
Beams bright ideas on the awakened soul,
And sorrow turns to pleasure and delight.

Sweet verdant isle! through thy dark woods I rove,
And learn the nature of each native tree,
The fustick hard, the poisonous manchineel,
Which for its fragrant apple pleaseth thee;

Alluring to the smell, fair to the eye,
But deadliest poison in the taste is found—
O shun the dangerous tree, nor touch, like Eve,
This interdicted fruit in Eden's ground.

The lowly mangrove, fond of watery soil,
The white-barked gregory, rising high in air,
The mastic in the woods you may descry,
Tamarind, and lofty bay-trees flourish there.

Sweet orange groves in lonely vallies rise
And drop their fruits, unnoticed and unknown,
And cooling acid limes in hedges grow,
The juicy lemons swell in shades their own.

Sweet, spungy plums on trees wide spreading hang,
Bell-apples here, suspended, shade the ground,
Plump grenadilloes and güavas grey,
With melons in each plain and vale abound.

The conic-form'd cashew, of juicy kind,
Which bears at once an apple and a nut;
Whose poisonous coat, indignant to the lip,
Doth in its cell a wholesome kernel shut.

303

The prince of fruits, whom some jayama call,
Anana some, the happy flavoured pine;
In which unite the tastes and juices all
Of apple, quince, peach, grape, and nectarine,

Grows to perfection here, and spreads his crest,
His diadem toward the parent sun;
His diadem, in fiery blossoms drest,
Stands armed with swords, from potent Nature won.

Yon' cotton shrubs with bursting knobs behold,
Their snow white locks these humbler groves array;
On slender trees the blushing coffee hangs,
Like thy fair cherry, and would tempt thy stay.

Safe from the winds, in deep retreats, they rise;
Their utmost summit may thy arm attain;
Taste the moist fruit, and from thy closing eyes
Sleep shall retire, with all his drowsy train.

The spicy berry, they güava call,
Swells in the mountains on a stripling tree;
These some admire, and value more than all,
My humble verse, besides, unfolds to thee.

The smooth white cedar, here, delights the eye,
The bay-tree, with its aromatic green,
The sea-side grapes, sweet natives of the sand,
And pulse, of various kinds, on trees are seen.

Here mingled vines, their downward shadows cast,
Here, clustered grapes from loaded boughs depend,
Their leaves no frosts, their fruits no cold winds blast,
But, reared by suns, to time alone they bend.

The plantane and banana flourish here,
Of hasty growth, and love to fix their root
Where some soft stream of ambling water flows,
To yield full moisture to their clustered fruit.

304

No other trees so vast a leaf can boast,
So broad, so long—through these, refreshed, I stray,
And though the noon-sun all his radiance shed,
These friendly leaves shall shade me all the way.

And tempt the cooling breeze to hasten there,
With its sweet odorous breath to charm the grove;
High shades and verdant seats, while underneath
A little stream by mossy banks doth rove,

Where once the Indian dames slept with their swains,
Or fondly kiss'd the moon-light eves away;—
The lovers fled, the tearful stream remains,
And only I console it with my lay.

Among the shades of yonder whispering grove
The green palmittoes mingle, tall and fair,
That ever murmur, and forever move,
Fanning with wavy bough the ambient air.

Pomegranates grace the wild, and sweet-sops there
Ready to fall, require thy helping hand,
Nor yet neglect the papaw or mamee,
Whose slighted trees with fruits unheeded stand.

Those shaddocks juicy shall thy taste delight,
And yon' high fruits, the noblest of the wood,
That cling in clusters to the mother tree,
The cocoa-nut; rich, milky, healthful food.

O grant me, gods, if yet condemned to stray,
At least to spend life's sober evening here,
To plant a grove where winds yon' sheltered bay,
And pluck these fruits, that frost nor winter fear.

Cassada shrubs abound—transplanted here
From every clime, exotic blossoms blow;
Here Asia plants her flowers, here Europe trees,
And hyperborean herbs, un-wintered, grow.

305

Here, a new herbage glads the generous steed,
Mules, goats, and sheep, enjoy these pastures fair,
And for thy hedges, Nature has decreed,
Guards of thy toils, the date and prickly pear.

But chief the glory of these Indian isles
Springs from the sweet, uncloying sugar-cane:
Hence comes the planter's wealth, hence commerce sends
Such floating piles, to traverse half the main.

Whoe'er thou art that leavest thy native shore
And shalt to fair West-India climates come,
Taste not the enchanting plant—to taste forbear,
If ever thou wouldst reach thy much loved home.

Ne'er through the isle permit thy feet to rove,
Or, if thou dost, let prudence lead the way,
Forbear to taste the virtues of the cane,
Forbear to taste what will complete your stay.

Whoever sips of this enchanting juice,
Delicious nectar, fit for Jove's own hall,
Returns no more from his lov'd Santa Cruz,
But quits his friends, his country, and his all.

And thinks no more of home—Ulysses so
Dragged off by force his sailors from that shore
Where lotos grew, and, had not strength prevailed,
They never would have sought their country more.

No annual toil inters this thrifty plant,
The stalk lopt off, the freshening showers prolong
To future years, unfading and secure,
The root is vigorous, and the juice so strong.

Unnumbered plants, besides, these climates yield,
And grass peculiar to the soil that bears:
Ten thousand varied herbs array the field,
This glads thy palate, that thy health repairs.

306

Along the shore a wondrous flower is seen,
Where rocky ponds receive the surging wave,
Some drest in yellow, some attired in green,
Beneath the water their gay branches lave.

This mystic plant, with its bewitching charms,
Too surely springs from some enchanted bower,
Fearful it is, and dreads impending harms,
And ANIMAL the natives call the flower.

From the smooth rock its little branches rise,
The object of thy view, and that alone,
Feast on its beauties with thy ravished eyes,
But aim to touch it, and—the flower is gone.

Nay, if thy shade but intercept the beam
That gilds their boughs beneath the briny lake,
Swift they retire, like a deluding dream,
And even a shadow for destruction take.

Warned by experience, hope not thou to gain
The magic plant thy curious hand invades;
Returning to the light, it mocks thy pain,
Deceives all grasp, and seeks its native shades!

On yonder blue-browed hill, fresh harvests rise,
Where the dark tribe from Afric's sun burnt plain,
Oft o'er the ocean turn their wishful eyes
To isles remote high looming o'er the main.

And view soft seats of ease and fancied rest,
Their native groves new painted on the eye,
Where no proud misers their gay hours molest,
No lordly despots pass, unsocial, by.

See, yonder slave that slowly bends this way,
With years, and pain, and ceaseless toil opprest,
Though no complaining words his woes betray,
The eye dejected proves the heart distrest.

307

Perhaps in chains he left his native shore,
Perhaps he left a helpless offspring there,
Perhaps a wife, that he must see no more,
Perhaps a father, who his love did share.

Cursed be the ship that brought him o'er the main,
And curs'd the men who from his country tore;
May she be stranded, ne'er to float again,
May they be shipwrecked on some hostile shore—

O gold accurst, of every ill the spring,
For thee compassion flies the darkened mind,
Reason's plain dictates no conviction bring,
And madness only sways all human kind.

O gold accurst! for thee we madly run,
With murderous hearts across the briny flood,
Seek foreign climes beneath a foreign sun,
And, there, exult to shed a brother's blood.

But thou, who ownest this sugar-bearing soil,
To whom no good the great FIRST CAUSE denies,
Let free-born hands attend thy sultry toil,
And fairer harvests to thy view shall rise,

The teeming earth will mightier stores disclose
Than ever struck thy longing eyes before,
And late content shall shed a soft repose,
Repose, so long a stranger at thy door.

Give me some clime, the favorite of the sky,
Where cruel slavery never sought to reign—
But shun the theme, sad muse, and tell me why
These abject trees lie scattered o'er the plain?

These isles, lest Nature should have proved too kind,
Or man have sought his happiest heaven below,
Are torn with mighty winds, fierce hurricanes,
Nature convulsed in every shape of woe.

308

Nor scorn yon' lonely vale of trees so reft:
There plantane groves late grew of liveliest green,
The orange flourished, and the lemon bore,
The genius of the isle dwelt there, unseen.

Wild were the skies, affrighted Nature groaned
As though approached her last decisive day.
Skies blazed around and bellowing winds had nigh
Dislodg'd these cliffs, and tore yon' hills away.

O'er the wild main, dejected and afraid,
The trembling pilot lashed his helm a-lee
Or swiftly scudding, asked thy potent aid,
Dear Pilot of the Galilëan sea.

Low hung the clouds, distended with the gale
The clouds, dark brooding, winged their circling flight,
Tremendous thunders joined the hurricane,
Daughter of chaos, and eternal night!

And how, alas! could these fair trees withstand
The wasteful madness of so fierce a blast,
That stormed along the plain, seized every grove,
And deluged with a sea this mournful waste.

That plantane grove, where oft I fondly strayed,
Thy darts, dread Phoebus, in those glooms to shun,
Is now no more a refuge or a shade,
Is now with rocks and deep sands over-run.

Those late proud domes of splendour, pomp, and ease
No longer strike the view, in grand attire;
But, torn by winds, flew piece-meal to the seas,
Nor left one nook to lodge the astonished squire.

But other groves the hand of Time shall raise,
Again shall Nature smile, serenely gay,
So soon each scene revives, why haste I leave
These green retreats, o'er the dark seas to stray.

309

For I must go where the mad pirate roves,
A stranger on the inhospitable main,
Lost to the scenes of Hudson's sweetest groves,
Cesarea's forests, and my native plain.

There endless waves deject the wearied eye,
And hostile winds incessant toil prepare;
But should loud bellowing storms all art defy,
The manly heart alone must conquer there.—

There wakes my fears, the guileful Celenture
Tempting the wanderer on the deep-sea main,
That paints gay groves upon the ocean floor,
Beckoning her victim to the faithless scene.

On these blue hills, to cull bright Fancy's flowers,
Might yet awhile the unwelcome work delay,
Might yet beguile the few remaining hours—
Ere to those waves I take my destined way.

Thy vales, Bermuda, and thy sea-girt groves
Can never like these southern forests please;
And, lashed by stormy waves, you court in vain
The northern shepherd to your cedar trees.

Not o'er those isles such equal planets rule.
All, but the cedar, dread the wintry blast;
Too well thy charms the banished Waller sung;
Too near the pilot's star thy doom is cast.

Far o'er the waste of yonder surgy field
My native climes in fancied prospect lie,
Now hid in shades, and now by clouds concealed,
And now by tempests ravished from my eye.

There, triumphs to enjoy, are, Britain, thine,
There, thy proud navy awes the pillaged shore;
Nor sees the day when nations shall combine
That pride to humble, and our rights restore.

310

Yet o'er the globe shouldst thou extend thy reign,
Here may thy conquering arms one grotto spare;
Here—though thy conquests vex—in spite of pain,
I sip the enlivening glass, in spite of care.

What though we bend to a tyrannic crown;
Still Nature's charms in varied beauty shine—
What though we own the rude imperious Dane,
Gold is his sordid care, the Muses mine.

Winter, and winter's glooms are far removed,
Eternal spring with smiling summer joined:—
Absence, and death, and heart-corroding care,
Why should they cloud the sun-shine of the mind?

But, shepherd, haste, and leave behind thee far
Thy bloody plains, and iron glooms above;
Quit the cold northern star, and here enjoy,
Beneath the smiling skies, this land of love.

The drowsy pelican wings home his way,
The misty eve sits heavy on the sea,
And though yon' storm hangs brooding o'er the main,
Say, shall a moment's gloom discourage thee?

To-morrow's sun new paints the faded scene:
Though deep in ocean sink his western beams,
His spangled chariot shall ascend more clear,
More radiant from the drowsy land of dreams.

Of all the isles the neighbouring ocean bears,
None can with this their equal landscapes boast,
What could we do on Saba's cloudy height;
Or what could please on 'Statia's barren coast?

Couldst thou content on rough Tortola stray,
Confest the fairest of the Virgin train;
Or couldst thou on these rocky summits play
Where high St. John stands frowning o'er the main?

311

Haste, shepherd, haste—Hesperian fruits for thee
And clustered grapes from mingled boughs depend—
What pleasure in thy forests can there be
That, leafless now, to every tempest bend?

To milder stars, and skies of clearer blue,
Sworn foe to tyrants, for a time repair:
And, till to mightier force proud Britain bends—
Despise her triumphs, and forget your care.

Soon shall the genius of the fertile soil
A new creation to thy view unfold—
Admire the works of Nature's magic hand,
But scorn that vulgar bait—the thirst for gold.—

Yet, if persuaded by no verse of mine,
You still admire your climes of frost and snow,
And pleased, prefer above these southern groves,
The darksome forests, that around you grow:

Still there remain—your native air enjoy,
Repell the TYRANT who thy peace invades:
While charmed, we trace the vales of SANTA CRUZ,
And paint with rapture, her inspiring shades.

[w. 1776]

1779

Or St. Croix, a Danish island (in the American Archipelago), commonly, tho' erroneously, included in the cluster of the Virgin Islands; belonging to the crown of Denmark.

The goddess of health, in the Grecian mythology.

THE JEWISH LAMENTATION at Euphrates.

BY Babel's streams we sate and wept,
When Sion bade our sorrows flow;
Our harps on lofty willows slept
That near those distant waters grow:
The willows high, the waters clear,
Beheld our toils and sorrows there.

312

The cruel foe, that captive led
Our nation from their native soil,
The tyrant foe, by whom we bled,
Required a song, as well as toil:
“Come, with a song your sorrows cheer,
“A song, that Sion loved to hear.”

How shall we, cruel tyrant, raise
A song on such a distant shore?—
If I forget my Sion's praise,
May my right hand assume no more
To strike the silver sounding string,
And thence the slumbering music bring.

If I forget that happy home,
My perjured tongue, forbear to move!
My eyes, be closed in endless gloom—
My joy, my rapture, and my love!
No rival grief my mind can share,
For thou shalt reign unrivalled there.

Remember, Lord, that hated foe
(When conquered Sion drooped her head)
Who laughing at our deepest woe,
Thus to our tears and sorrows said,
“From its proud height degrade her wall,
“Destroy her towers—and ruin all.”

Thou, Babel's offspring, hated race,
May some avenging monster seize,
And dash your venom in your face
For crimes and cruelties like these:
And, deaf to pity's melting moan,
With infant blood stain every stone.

1779

313

ON AMANDA'S SINGING BIRD:

A native of the Canary Islands, confined in a small cage.

“Happy in my native grove,
I from spray to spray did rove,
Fond of music, full of love.

Dressed as fine as bird could be,
Every thing that I did see,
Every thing was mirth to me.

There had I been, happy still,
With my mate to coo and bill
In the vale, or on the hill.

But the cruel tyrant, man,
(Tyrant since the world began)
Soon abridged my little span.

How shall I the wrong forget!
Over me he threw a net;
And I am his prisoner yet.

To this rough Bermudian shore
Ocean I was hurried o'er,
Ne'er to see my country more!

To a narrow cage confined
I, who once so gaily shined,
Sing to please the human kind.

Dear Amanda!—leave me free,
And my notes will sweeter be;
On your breast, or in the tree!

On your arm I would repose—
One—oh make me—of your beaus—
There I would relate my woes.

314

Now, all love, and full of play,
I so innocently gay,
Pine my little life away.

Thus to grieve and flutter here,
Thus to pine from year to year;
This is usage too severe.

From the chiefs who rule this isle,
I will never court a smile;
All, with them, is prison style.

But from your superior mind
Let me but my freedom find,
And I will be all resigned.

Then your kiss will hold me fast—
If but once by you embraced,
In your 'kerchief I will rest.—

Gentle shepherds of the plain,
Who so fondly hear my strain;
Help me to be free again.

'Tis a blessing to be free:—
Fair Amanda!—pity me,
Pity him who sings for thee.

But if, cruel, you deny
That your captive bird should fly,
Here detained so wrongfully,

Full of anguish, faint with woe,
I must, with my music, go
To the cypress groves below.

1782

315

CAPTAIN J. P. JONES'S INVITATION.

Thou, who on some dark mountain's brow
Hast toiled thy life away, till now,
And often from that rugged steep
Beheld the vast extended deep,
Come from thy forest, and, with me
Learn what it is to go to sea.

There endless plains the eye surveys
As far from land the vessel strays;
No longer hill nor dale is seen,
The realms of death intrude between,
But fear no ill; resolve, with me,
To share the dangers of the sea.

But look not there for verdant fields—
Far different prospects Neptune yields;
Blue seas shall only greet the eye,
Those seas encircled by the sky,
Immense and deep—come then with me
And view the wonders of the sea.

Yet sometimes groves and meadows gay
Delight the seamen on their way;
From the deep seas that round us swell,
With rocks, the surges to repel,
Some verdant isle, by waves embraced,
Swells, to adorn the watery waste,

Though now this vast expanse appear
With glassy surface, calm and clear:
Be not deceived—'tis but a show,
For many a corpse is laid below—
Even Britain's lads—it cannot be—
They were the masters of the sea!

Now combating upon the brine,
Where ships in flaming squadrons join,

316

At every blast the brave expire
'Midst clouds of smoke, and streams of fire;
But scorn all fear; advance with me—
'Tis but the custom of the sea.

Now we the peaceful wave divide,
On broken surges now we ride,
Now every eye dissolves with woe
As on some lee-ward coast we go—
Half lost, half buried in the main
Hope scarcely beams on life again.

Above us storms distract the sky,
Beneath us depths unfathom'd lie,
Too near we see, disheartening sight,
The realms of everlasting night,
A watery tomb of ocean-green
And only one frail plank between!

But winds must cease, and storms decay,
Not always lasts the gloomy day,
Again the skies are warm and clear,
Again soft zephyrs fan the air,
Again we find the long-lost shore,
The winds oppose our wish no more.

If thou hast courage to despise
The various changes of the skies,
To disregard the ocean's rage,
Unmoved when hostile ships engage—
Come from thy forest, and with me
Learn what it is to go to sea.

1786.

THE SEA VOYAGE

From a gay island green and fair,
With gentle blasts of southern air,
Across the deep we held our way,
Around our barque smooth waters played,

317

No envious clouds obscur'd the day,
Serene came on the evening shade.

Still farther to the north we drew,
And Porto Rico's mountains blue,
Were just decaying on the eye,
When from the main arose the sun;
Before his ray the shadows fly,
As we before the breezes run.

Now northward of the tropic pass'd,
The fickle skies grew black at last;
The ruffian winds began to roar,
The sea obey'd their tyrant force,
And we, alas! too far from shore,
Must now forsake our destin'd course.

The studding sails at last to hand,
The vent'rous captain gave command;
But scarcely to the task went they
When a vast billow o'er us broke,
And tore the sheets and tacks away,
Nor could the booms sustain the stroke.

Still vaster rose the angry main,
The winds through every shroud complain;
The topsails we could spread no more,
Though doubly reef'd, the furious blast
Away the fluttering canvas bore,
And vow'd destruction to the mast.

When now the northern storm was quell'd,
A calm ensued—but ocean swell'd
Beyond the towering mountain's height,
Till from the south new winds arose;
Our sails we spread at dead of night,
And fair, though fierce, the tempest blows.

318

When morning rose, the skies were clear
The gentle breezes warm and fair,
Convey'd us o'er the wat'ry road;
A ship o'ertook us on the way,
Her thousand sails were spread abroad,
And flutter'd in the face of day.

At length, through many a climate pass'd,
Caesaria's hills we saw at last,
And reach'd the land of lovely dames;
My charming Caelia there I found,
'Tis she my warmest friendship claims,
The fairest maid that treads the ground.

1779.

The VANITY OF EXISTENCE.

To Thyrsis

IN youth, gay scenes attract our eyes,
And not suspecting their decay
Life's flowery fields before us rise,
Regardless of its winter day.

But vain pursuits, and joys as vain,
Convince us life is but a dream.
Death is to wake, to rise again
To that true life you best esteem.

So nightly on some shallow tide,
Oft have I seen a splendid show;
Reflected stars on either side,
And glittering moons were seen below.

But when the tide had ebbed away,
The scene fantastic with it fled,
A bank of mud around me lay,
And sea-weed on the river's bed.

1781

319

TO AN OLD MAN

Why, dotard, wouldst thou longer groan
Beneath a weight of years and woe,
Thy youth is lost, thy pleasures flown,
And age proclaims, “'Tis time to go.”

To willows sad and weeping yews
With us a while, old man, repair,
Nor to the vault thy steps refuse,
Thy constant home must soon be there.

To summer suns and winter moons
Prepare to bid a long adieu,
Autumnal seasons shall return
And spring shall bloom, but not for you.

Why so perplext with cares and toil
To rest upon this darksome road;
'Tis but a thin, a thirsty soil,
A barren and a bleak abode.

Constrained to dwell with pain and care,
These dregs of life are bought too dear,
'Tis better far to die than bear
The torments of life's closing year.

Subjected to perpetual ills
A thousand deaths around us grow:
The frost the tender blossom kills,
And roses wither as they blow.

Cold nipping winds thy fruits assail,
The blasted apple seeks the ground,
The peaches fall, the cherries fail,
The grape receives a mortal wound.

320

The breeze that gently ought to blow,
Swells to a storm, and rends the main,
The sun that charmed the grass to grow
Turns hostile, and consumes the plain;

The mountains waste, the shores decay,
Once purling streams are dead and dry—
'Twas Nature's work—'tis nature's play,
And Nature says, that all must die.

Yon' flaming lamp, the source of light,
In chaos dark shall shroud his beam
And leave the world to mother Night,
A farce, a phantom, or a dream.

What now is young must soon be old,
Whate'er we love, we soon must leave
'Tis now too hot, 'tis now too cold—
To live, is nothing but to grieve.

How bright the morn her course begun,
No mists bedimmed the solar sphere—
The clouds arise—they shade the sun,
For nothing can be constant here.

Now hope the longing soul employs,
In expectation we are blest;
But soon the airy phantom flies,
For, lo! the treasure is possest.

Those monarchs proud that havoc spread,
(While pensive reason dropt a tear)
Those monarchs have to darkness fled
And ruin bounds their mad career.

The grandeur of this earthly round,
Where folly would forever stay,
Is but a name, is but a sound—
Mere emptiness and vanity.

321

Give me the stars, give me the skies,
Give me the heaven's remotest sphere,
Above these gloomy scenes to rise
Of desolation and despair.

Those native fires that warmed the mind,
Now languid grown too dimly glow,
Joy has to grief the heart resigned
And love itself is changed to woe.

The joys of wine are all you boast,
These, for a moment, damp thy pain;
The gleam is o'er, the charm is lost—
And darkness clouds the soul again.

Then seek no more for bliss below,
Where real bliss can ne'er be found;
Aspire where sweeter blossoms blow
And fairer flowers bedeck the ground.

Where plants of life the plains invest;
And green eternal crowns the year,
The little god, that warms the breast,
Is weary of his mansion here.

Like Phosphor, sent before the day,
His height meridian to regain,
The dawn arrives—he must not stay
To shiver on a frozen plain.

Life's journey past, for fate prepare,—
'Tis but the freedom of the mind,
Jove made us mortal—his we are,
To Jove, be all our cares resigned.

1782

322

STANZAS

Occasioned by the Ruins of a Country INN, unroofed and blown down in a storm.

Where now these mingled ruins lie
A Temple once to Bacchus rose,
Beneath whose roof, aspiring high,
Full many a guest forgot his woes:

No more this dome, by tempests torn,
Affords a social safe retreat;
But ravens here, with eye forlorn,
And clustering bats henceforth shall meet.

The Priestess of this ruin'd shrine,
Unable to survive the stroke,
Presents no more the ruddy wine,
Her glasses gone, her china broke.

The friendly Host, whose social hand
Accosted strangers at the door,
Has left at length his wonted stand,
And greets the weary guest no more.

Old creeping time, that brings decay,
Might yet have spar'd these mouldering walls,
Alike beneath whose potent sway
A temple or a tavern falls.

Is this the place where mirth and joy,
Coy nymphs and sprightly lads were found?
Alas! no more the nymphs are coy,
No more the flowing bowls go round.

Is this the place where festive song
Deceiv'd the wintry hours away?
No more the swains the tune prolong,
No more the maidens join the lay:

323

Is this the place where Chloe slept
In downy beds of blue and green?
Dame Nature here no vigils kept,
No cold, unfeeling guards were seen.

'Tis gone!—and Chloe tempts no more,
Deep, unrelenting silence reigns;
Of all that pleas'd, that charm'd before,
The tottering chimney scarce remains!

Ye tyrant winds, whose ruffian blast
From locks and hinges rent the door.
And all the roof to ruin cast,
The roof that sheltered us before,

Your wrath appeased, I pray be kind
If Mopsus should the dome renew;
That we again may quaff his wine,
Again collect our jovial crew.

1782

THE ARGONAUT;

or, Lost Adventurer

True to his trade—the slave of fortune still—
In a sweet isle, where never winter reigns,
I found him at the foot of a tall hill,
Mending old sails, and chewing sugar canes:
Pale ivy round him grew, and mingled vines,
Plaintains, bananas ripe, and yellow pines.

And flowering night-shade, with its dismal green,
Ash-coloured iris, painted by the sun,
And fair-haired hyacinth was near him seen,
And China pinks by marygolds o'er-run:—
“But what (said he) have men that sail the seas,
“Ah, what have they to do with things like these!

324

“I did not wish to leave those shades, not I,
“Where Amoranda turns her spinning-wheel;
“Charmed with the shallow stream, that murmured by,
“I felt as blest as any swain could feel,
“Who, seeking nothing that the world admires,
“On one poor valley fixed his whole desires.

“With masts so trim, and sails as white as snow,
“The painted barque deceived me from the land,
“Pleased, on her sea-beat decks I wished to go,
“Mingling my labours with her hardy band;
“To reef the sail, to guide the foaming prow
“As far as winds can waft, or oceans flow.

“To combat with the waves who first essayed,
“Had these gay groves his lightsome heart beguiled,
“His heart, attracted by the charming shade,
“Had changed the deep sea for the woody wild;
“And slighted all the gain that Neptune yields
“For Damon's cottage, or Palemon's fields.

“His barque, the bearer of a feeble crew,
“How could he trust when none had been to prove her;
“Courage might sink when lands and shores withdrew,
“And feeble hearts a thousand deaths discover:
“But Fortitude, tho' woes and death await,
“Still views bright skies, and leaves the dark to fate.

“From monkey climes where limes and lemons grow,
“And the sweet orange swells her fruit so fair,
“To wintry worlds, with heavy heart, I go
“To face the cold glance of the northern bear,
“Where lonely waves, far distant from the sun,
“And gulphs, of mighty strength, their circuits run.

“But how disheartening is the wanderer's fate!
“When conquered by the loud tempestuous main,

325

“On him, no mourners in procession wait,
“Nor do the sisters of the harp complain.—
“On coral beds and deluged sands they sleep,
“Who sink in storms, and mingle with the deep.

“'Tis folly all—and who can truly tell
“What storms disturb the bosom of that main,
“What ravenous fish in those dark climates dwell
“That feast on men—then stay, my gentle swain!
“Bred in yon' happy shades, be happy there,
“And let these quiet groves claim all your care.”

So spoke poor RALPH, and with a smooth sea gale
Fled from the magic of the enchanting shore,
But whether winds or waters did prevail
I saw the black ship ne'er returning more,
Though long I walked the margin of the main,
And long have looked—and still must look in vain!

1788

SCANDINAVIAN WAR SONG.

BALDERI patris scamna
Parata scio in aula:
Bibemus Cerevisiam
Ex concavis crateribus craniorum.
Non gemit vir fortis contra mortem
Magnifici in ODINI domibus, &c:
Translation

Brave deeds atchieved, at death's approach I smile,
—In Balder's hall I see that table spread,
The enlivening ALE shall now reward my toil,
Quaffed from their sculls, that by my faulchion bled.

326

Heroes no more at death's approach shall groan:
In lofty ODIN'S dome all sighs forbear—
Conscious of bloody deeds, my fearless soul
Mounts to great ODIN'S hall, and revels there.

1782

Composed (with a great deal more) by one warrior chief of the Scandinavians, more that 800 years ago, a few hours before he expired.

Odin (or Woden) one of the ancient Saxon deities: Balder was son of Odin.

THE PROPHECY of King TAMMANY

The Indian chief who, fam'd of yore,
Saw Europe's sons adventuring here,
Look'd sorrowing to the crowded shore,
And sighing dropt a tear!
He saw them half his world explore,
He saw them draw the shining blade,
He saw their hostile ranks display'd,
And cannons blazing through that shade
Where only peace was known before.

“Ah, what unequal amrs!” he cri'd,
“How art thou fallen, my country's pride,
“The rural, sylvan reign!
“Far from our pleasing shores to go
“To western rivers, winding slow,
“Is this the boon the gods bestow!
“What have we done, great patrons, say,
“That strangers seize our woods away,
“And drive us, naked, from our native plain.

“Rage and revenge inspire my soul,
“And passion burns without controul;
“Hence, strangers, to your native shore!
“Far from our Indian shades retire,
“Remove these gods, that vomit fire,
“And stain with blood these ravag'd glades no more.

327

“Invain I weep, invain I sigh,
“These strangers all our arms defy,
“As they advance our chieftains die!—
“What can their hosts oppose!
“The bow has lost its wonted spring,
“The arrow faulters on the wing,
“Nor carries ruin from the string
“To end their being and our woes.

“Yes, yes,—I see our nation bends;
“The gods no longer are our friends,
“But why these weak complaints and sighs?
“Are there not gardens in the west,
“Where all our far fam'd Sachems rest?—
“I'll go, an unexpected guest,
“And the dark horrors of the way despise.

“Even now the thundering peals draw nigh,—
“'Tis theirs to triumph, ours to die!
“But mark me, Christian, ere I go—
“Thou, too, shalt have thy share of woe,
“The time rolls on, not moving slow,
“When hostile squadrons for your blood shall come,
“And ravage all your shore!
“Your warriors and your children slay,
“And some in dismal dungeons lay,
“Or lead them captive, far away,
“To climes unknown, thro' seas untry'd before.

“When struggling long, at last with pain
“You break a cruel tyrant's chain,
“That never shall be join'd again,—
“When half your foes are homeward fled,
“And hosts on hosts in triumph led,
“And hundreds maim'd and thousands dead,
“A timid race shall then succeed,
“Shall slight the virtues of the firmer race,
“That brought your tyrant to disgrace,

328

“Shall give your honours to an odious train,
“Who shun'd all conflicts on the main
“And dar'd no battles on the bloody plain;
“Whose little souls sunk in the gloomy day
“When VIRTUE ONLY could support the fray;
“And sunshine friends kept off—or ran away.”

So spoke the chief, and rais'd his funeral pyre—
Around him soon the crackling flames ascend;
He smil'd amid the fervours of the fire
To think his troubles were so near their end,
'Till the freed soul, her debt to Nature paid,
Rose from the ashes that her prison made,
And sought the world unknown, and dark oblivion's shade.

1782

THE DYING INDIAN:

Tomo-Chequi.

“ON yonder lake I spread the sail no more!
Vigour, and youth, and active days are past—
Relentless demons urge me to that shore
On whose black forests all the dead are cast:—
Ye solemn train, prepare the funeral song,
For I must go to shades below,
Where all is strange and all is new;
Companion to the airy throng!—
What solitary streams,
In dull and dreary dreams,
All melancholy, must I rove along!

To what strange lands must Chequi take his way!
Groves of the dead departed mortals trace:
No deer along those gloomy forests stray,
No huntsmen there take pleasure in the chace,
But all are empty unsubstantial shades,
That ramble through those visionary glades;
No spongy fruits from verdant trees depend,

329

But sickly orchards there
Do fruits as sickly bear,
And apples a consumptive visage shew,
And withered hangs the hurtle-berry blue.

Ah me! what mishiefs on the dead attend!
Wandering a stranger to the shores below,
Where shall I brook or real fountain find?
Lazy and sad deluding waters flow—
Such is the picture in my boding mind!
Fine tales, indeed, they tell
Of shades and purling rills,
Where our dead fathers dwell
Beyond the western hills,
But when did ghost return his state to shew;
Or who can promise half the tale is true?

I too must be a fleeting ghost!—no more—
None, none but shadows to those mansions go;
I leave my woods, I leave the Huron shore,
For emptier groves below!
Ye charming solitudes,
Ye tall ascending woods,
Ye glassy lakes and prattling streams,
Whose aspect still was sweet,
Whether the sun did greet,
Or the pale moon embraced you with her beams—
Adieu to all!
To all, that charmed me where I strayed,
The winding stream, the dark sequestered shade;
Adieu all triumphs here!
Adieu the mountain's lofty swell,
Adieu, thou little verdant hill,
And seas, and stars, and skies—farewell,
For some remoter sphere!

Perplexed with doubts, and tortured with despair,
Why so dejected at this hopeless sleep?
Nature at last these ruins may repair,

330

When fate's long dream is o'er, and she forgets to weep
Some real world once more may be assigned,
Some new born mansion for the immortal mind!
Farewell, sweet lake; farewell surrounding woods,
To other groves, through midnight glooms, I stray,
Beyond the mountains, and beyond the floods,
Beyond the Huron bay!
Prepare the hollow tomb, and place me low,
My trusty bow and arrows by my side,
The cheerful bottle and the venison store;
For long the journey is that I must go,
Without a partner, and without a guide.”
He spoke, and bid the attending mourners weep,
Then closed his eyes, and sunk to endless sleep!

1784

THE HURRICANE

Happy the man who, safe on shore,
Now trims, at home, his evening fire;
Unmoved, he hears the tempests roar,
That on the tufted groves expire:
Alas! on us they doubly fall,
Our feeble barque must bear them all.

Now to their haunts the birds retreat,
The squirrel seeks his hollow tree,
Wolves in their shaded caverns meet,
All, all are blest but wretched we—
Foredoomed a stranger to repose,
No rest the unsettled ocean knows.

While o'er the dark abyss we roam,
Perhaps, with last departing gleam,
We saw the sun descend in gloom,
No more to see his morning beam;
But buried low, by far too deep,
On coral beds, unpitied, sleep!

331

But what a strange, uncoasted strand
Is that, where fate permits no day—
No charts have we to mark that land,
No compass to direct that way—
What PILOT shall explore that realm,
What new COLUMBUS take the helm!

While death and darkness both surround,
And tempests rage with lawless power,
Of friendship's voice I hear no sound,
No comfort in this dreadful hour—
What friendship can in tempests be,
What comforts on this raging sea?

The barque, accustomed to obey,
No more the trembling pilots guide:
Alone she gropes her trackless way,
While mountains burst on either side—
Thus, skill and science both must fall;
And ruin is the lot of all.

1785

Near the east end of Jamaica, July 30, 1784.

Written AT PORT ROYAL

in the island of Jamaica—September, 1784.

Here, by the margin of the murmuring main,
Fond, her proud remnants I explore—in vain—
And lonely stray through these dejected lands,
Cheered by the noon-tide breeze on burning sands,
Where the dull Spaniard, owned these mangrove shades,
And ports defended by his Pallisades—

332

Though lost to HIM, Port Royal claims a sigh,
Nor will the muse the humble gift deny.

Of all the towns that graced Jamaica's isle
This was her glory, and her proudest pile,
Where toils on toils bade wealth's gay structures rise,
And commerce reared her glory to the skies:
ST. IAGO, seated on a distant plain,
Ne'er saw the tall ship entering from the main—
Unnoticed streams her Cobra's margin lave,
Where yond' tall plantains cool her flowing wave,
And barren sands, or rock-surrounded hill
Confess its founder's fears—or want of skill.

While o'er these wastes with wearied step we go
Past scenes of fate return, in all their woe,
Here for their crimes (perhaps) in ages fled,
Some vengeful fiend, familiar with the dead—
Through these sad shores, in angry triumph passed,
Stormed in the winds, and raged with every blast—
Here, opening gulphs confessed the Almighty hand,
Here, the dark ocean rolled across the land:
Here, house and boats a moment tore away,
Here, mangled man with deadly aspect lay,
Whom fate refused to end their rakeish feast,
And time to call the sexton, or the priest!

Where yond' tall barque, with all her ponderous load,
Commits her anchor to its dark abode,
Eight fathoms down,—where unseen waters flow
To stain the sulphur of the caves below;
There, midnight sounds torment the stranger's ear,
And drums and fifes play drowsy concerts there

333

Of ghosts all restless!—(cease they to complain—
More than a century should relieve their pain—).
Sad tunes of woe disturb the hours of sleep,
And Fancy aids the fiddlers of the deep;
Dull superstition hears the drowsy hum;
Smit with false terrors of THE WORLD TO COME.

What now, Port Royal! rests of all your pride?—
Lost are your glories which were spread so wide—
A spit of sand is thine,—by heaven's decree;
And wasting shores that scarce resist the sea:
Is this PORT ROYAL on Jamaica's coast,
The Spaniard's envy, and the Briton's boast?—
A shattered roof on every hut appears,
And mouldering brick-work wakes the stranger's fears!
—A church, with scarce a priest, we grieve to see,
Grass round its door, and rust upon its key!—
One only INN with tiresome search was found,
Where one sad negro dealt his beverage round:
His was the task to wait the impatient call;
He was our landlord, post-boy, pimp—and all—
His wary eyes on every side were cast,
He saw the present—and revolved the past)
They here, now there, in quick succession stole,
Glanced at the bar, or watched the—unsteady bowl.

No sprightly lads, or handsome Yankee maids,
Rove in these wastes or wander in these shades—
No charmers here, with lively step, are seen
To court the shade, or wander on the green—
To other lands past time beheld them go;
And some are slumbering in the deep—we know—
A negro tribe, but ill their place supply,
With bending back, short hair, and vengeful eye—
That gloomy race lead up the evening dance,
Skip on the sands, or dart the alluring glance:

Sincere are they?—no—on your gold they doat—
And in one hour—for that would cut your throat.
All is deceit—half hell is in their song
And from the silent thought?—You have done us wrong!

334

A feeble rampart guards this luckless town,
Where banished Tories come to seek renown,
Where hungry slaves their little stores retail,
And worn out veterans watch the approaching sail.

Here, scarce escaped the wild Tornado's rage
Why came I here to plan some future page?
To these dull scenes with curious view, who came
Should tell a story of some ancient fame—
Not worth the search!—What roofs are left to fall,
Guns, gales, and earthquakes will confound them all—
All will be lost!—though hosts their aid implore,
The Twelve Apostles shall protect no more,
Nor guardian heroes save the impoverished plain,
No priest, shall paw-paw—and no church remain—
Nor this Palmetto yield her evening shade
Where the dark negro his dull music played,
He casts his view beyond the adjacent strand,
And looks, still grieving, to his native land:
Turns and returns from yonder murmuring shore,
And points to Gambia—he must see no more!
Where shall we go?—what Lethé can we find,
To drive the devil's ideas from the mind?—
No buckram hero can relieve the eye;
And buckram dresses shine—most mournfully!

Ye mountains vast! whose base the heaven sustain:
Farewell, blue mountains, and fair Kingston's plain.
Though nature here almost herself transcends,
On this gay spot the dear attachment ends!—

Who would be sad, to leave a sultry clime,
Where true Columbian virtue is a crime:
Where parching sands are driven by every blast,
And pearl to swine are by the muses cast—
Where want, and death, and care, and grief reside;
And boisterous gales impell the imperious tide.

Ye stormy winds! awhile your wrath suspend—
Who leaves the land, a female and a friend;

335

Quits this bright isle for a dark sea, and sky—
Or even Port-Royal leaves—without a sigh!—

[w. 1784]

1788

Pallisades a narrow strip of land about seven miles in length, running nearly from north to south, and forming the harbours of Port Royal and Kingston.—

A small river falling into Kingston Bay, nearly opposite Port Royal—and which has its source in the hills beyond Spanish Town.

Old Port-Royal contained more than 1500 buildings, and these for the most part large and elegant. This unfortunate town was for a long time reckoned the most considerable mart of trade in the West Indies. It was destroyed on the 17th of June, 1692, by an earthquake which in two minutes sunk the greater part of the buildings; in which disaster near 3000 people lost their lives.

A strong commanding Battery in the hills opposite Port Royal.

THE SEASONS MORALIZED.

They, who to warmer regions run,
May bless the favour of the sun,
But seek in vain what charms us here,
Life's picture, varying with the year.

Spring, and her wanton train advance
Like Youth to lead the festive dance,
All, all her scenes are mirth and play,
And blushing blossoms own her sway.

The Summer next (those blossoms blown)
Brings on the fruits that spring had sown,
Thus men advance, impell'd by time,
And Nature triumphs in her prime.

Then Autumn crowns the beauteous year,
The groves a sicklier aspect wear;
And mournful she (the lot of all)
Matures her fruits, to make them fall.

Clad in the vestments of a tomb,
Old age is only Winter's gloom—
Winter, alas! shall spring restore,
But youth returns to man no more.

1785

On THE VICISSITUDES OF THINGS

“The constant lapse of rolling years
Awakes our hopes, provokes our fears
Of something yet unknown;
We saw the last year pass away,

336

But who, that lives can safely say,
The next shall be his own?”

So hundreds talk—and thousands more
Descant their moral doctrines o'er;
And when the preaching's done,
Each goes his various, wonted way,
To labour some, and some to play—
So goes the folly on.

How swift the vagrant seasons fly;
They're hardly born before they die,
Yet in their wild career,
Like atoms round the rapid wheel,
We seem the same, though changing still,
Mere reptiles of a year.

Some haste to seek a wealthy bride,
Some, rhymes to make on one that died;
And millions curse the day,
When first in Hymen's silken bands
The parson joined mistaken hands,
And bade the bride obey.

While sad Amelia vents her sighs,
In epitaphs and elegies,
For her departed dear,
Who would suppose the muffled bell,
And mourning gowns, were meant to tell,
Her grief will last—a year?

In folly's path how many meet—
What hosts will live to lie and cheat—
How many empty pates
May, in this wise, eventful year,
In native dignity appear
To manage RISING STATES!

337

How vain to sigh!—the wheel must on
And straws are to the whirlpool drawn,
With ships of gallant mien—
What has been once, may time restore;
What now exists, has been before—
Years only change the scene.

In endless circles all things move;
Below, about, far off, above,
This motion all attain—
If Folly's self should flit away,
She would return some New Year's day,
With millions in her train.

Sun, moon, and stars, are each a sphere,
The earth the same, (or very near,)
Sir Isaac has defined—
In circles each coin is cast,
And hence our cash departs so fast,
Cash—that no charm can bind.

From you to us—from us it rolls
To comfort other cloudy souls:—
If again we make it square,
Perhaps the uneasy guest will stay
To cheer us in some wint'ry day,
And smooth the brow of care.

1785

The old Continental.

TO SYLVIUS:

On the Folly of Writing Poetry.

OF all the fools that haunt our coast
The scribbling tribe I pity most:
Their's is a standing scene of woes,
And their's no prospect of repose.

338

Then, SYLVIUS, why this eager claim
To light your torch at Clio's flame?
To few she shews sincere regard,
And none, from her, should hope reward.

A garret high, dark dismal room,
Is still the pensive poet's doom:
Hopes raised to heaven must be their lot,
Yet bear the curse, to be forgot.

Hourly they deal with Grecian Jove,
And draw their bills on banks above:
Yet stand abashed, with all their fire,
When brought to face some country 'squire.

To mend the world, is still their aim:
The world, alas! remains the same,
And so must stand to every age,
Proof to the morals of the page!

The knave that keeps a tippling inn,
The red-nosed boy that deals out gin,
If aided by some paltry skill
May both be statesmen when they will.

The man that mends a beggar's shoes,
The quack that heals your negro's bruise,
The wretch that turns a cutler's stone,
Have wages they can call their own:

The head, that plods in trade's domains,
Gets something to reward its pains;
But Wit—that does the world beguile,
Takes for its pay—an empty smile!

Yet each presumes his works will rise,
And gain a name that never dies;
From earth, and cold oblivion freed,
Immortal, in the poet's creed!

339

Can Reason in that bosom reign
Which fondly feeds a hope so vain,
When every age that passes by
Beholds a crowd of poets die!

Poor Sappho's fate shall Milton know—
His scenes of grief and tales of woe
No honours, that all Europe gave,
No merit—shall from ruin save.—

To all that write and all that read
Fate shall, with hasty step, succeed!
Even SHAKESPEARE'S page, his mirth, his tears
May sink beneath this weight of years.

Old SPENSER'S doom shall, POPE, be thine
The music of each moving line
Scarce bribes an age or two to stay,
Admire your strain—then flit away.

The people of old Chaucer's times
Were once in raptures with his rhymes,
But Time—that over verse prevails,
To other ears tells other tales.

Why then so sad, dear rhyming friends—
One common fate on both attends,
The bards that sooth the statesman's ear,
And him—who finds no audience there.

Mere structures formed of common earth,
Not they from heaven derive their birth,
Or why through life, like vagrants, pass
To mingle with the mouldering mass?—

Of all the souls, from Jove that came
To animate this mortal frame,
Of all the myriads, on the wing,
How few can taste the Muse's spring!

340

Sejanus, of mercantile skill,
Without whose aid the world stands still,
And by whose wonder-working play
The sun goes round—(his flatterers say)

Sejanus has in house declared
“These States, as yet, can boast no bard,
And all the sing-song of our clime
Is merely nonsense, fringed with rhyme.”

With such a bold, conceited air
When such assume the critic's chair,
Low in the dust is genius laid,
The muses with the man in trade.

Then, Sylvius, come—let you and I
On Neptune's aid, once more rely:
Perhaps the muse may still impart
Her balm to ease the aching heart.

Though cold might chill and storms dismay,
Yet Zoilus will be far away:
With us at least, depart and share
No garret—but resentment there.

1788

THE WILD HONEY SUCKLE.

Fair flower, that dost so comely grow,
Hid in this silent, dull retreat,
Untouched thy honied blossoms blow,
Unseen thy little branches greet:
No roving foot shall crush thee here,
No busy hand provoke a tear.

By Nature's self in white arrayed,
She bade thee shun the vulgar eye,
And planted here the guardian shade,

341

And sent soft waters murmuring by;
Thus quietly thy summer goes,
Thy days declining to repose.

Smit with those charms, that must decay,
I grieve to see your future doom;
They died—nor were those flowers more gay,
The flowers that did in Eden bloom;
Unpitying frosts, and Autumn's power
Shall leave no vestige of this flower.

From morning suns and evening dews
At first thy little being came:
If nothing once, you nothing lose,
For when you die you are the same;
The space between, is but an hour,
The frail duration of a flower.

1786

On A BOOK CALLED UNITARIAN THEOLOGY

IN this choice work, with wisdom penned, we find
The noblest system to reform mankind,
Bold truths confirmed, that bigots have denied,
By most perverted, and which some deride.

Here, truths divine in easy language flow,
Truths long concealed, that now all climes shall know:
Here, like the blaze of our material sun,
Enlightened Reason proves, that GOD IS ONE—
As that, concentered in itself, a sphere,
Illumes all Nature with its radiance here,
Bids towards itself all trees and plants aspire,
Awakes the winds, impels the seeds of fire,

342

And still subservient to the Almighty plan,
Warms into life the changeful race of man;
So—like that sun—in heaven's bright realms we trace
One POWER OF LOVE, that fills unbounded space,
Existing always by no borrowed aid,
Before all worlds—eternal, and not made—
To THAT indebted, stars and comets burn,
Owe their swift movements, and to THAT return!
Prime source of wisdom, all-contriving mind,
First spring of Reason, that this globe designed;
Parent of order, whose unwearied hand
Upholds the fabric that his wisdom planned,
And, its due course assigned to every sphere,
Revolves the seasons, and sustains the year!—

Pure light of TRUTH! where'er thy splendours shine,
Thou art the image of the power divine;
Nought else, in life, that full resemblance bears,
No sun, that lights us through our circling years,
No stars, that through yon' charming azure stray,
No moon, that glads us with her evening ray,
No seas, that o'er their gloomy caverns flow,
No forms beyond us, and no shapes below!

Then slight—ah slight not, this instructive page,
For the mean follies of a dreaming age:
Here to the truth, by REASON'S aid aspire,
Nor some dull preacher of romance admire;
See ONE, SOLE GOD, in these convincing lines,
Beneath whose view perpetual day-light shines;
At whose command all worlds their circuits run,
And night, retiring, dies before the sun!

Here, MAN no more disgraced by Time appears,
Lost in dull slumbers through ten thousand years:
Plunged in that gulph, whose dark unfathomed waves
Men of all ages to perdition gave;
An empty dream, or still more empty shade,
The substance vanished, and the form decayed;—

Here Reason proves, that when this life decays,
Instant, new life in the warm bosom plays,

343

As that expiring, still its course repairs
Through endless ages, and unceasing years.

Where parted souls with kindred spirits meet,
Wrapt to the bloom of beauty all complete;
In that celestial, vast, unclouded sphere,
Nought there exists but has its image here!
All there is MIND!—That INTELLECTUAL FLAME,
From whose vast stores all human genius came,
In which all Nature forms on REASON'S plan—
FLOWS TO THIS ABJECT WORLD, AND BEAMS ON MAN!

1786

TO ZOILUS,

[A severe Critic.]

Six sheets compos'd, struck off, and dry,
The work may please the world (thought I)—
If some impell'd by spleen or spite,
Refuse to read, then let them write:
I too, with them, shall have my turn,
And give advice—to tear or burn.

Now from the binder's, hurried home,
In neat array my leaves are come:
Alas, alas! is this my all?
The volume is so light and small,
That, aim to save it as I can,
'Twill fly before Myrtilla's fan.

Why did I no precautions use?
To curb these frolics of the Muse?
Ah! why did I invoke the nine
To aid these humble toils of mine—
That now forebode through every page
The witling's sneer, the critic's rage.

344

Did I, for this, so often rise
Before the sun illum'd the skies,
And near by Hudson's mountain stream
Invoke the Muses' morning dream,
And scorn the winds that blew so cool!
I did—and I was more the fool.

Yet slender tho' the book, and small,
And harmless, take it all in all,
I see a monstrous wight appear,
A quill suspended from his ear;
Its fate depends on his decree,
And what he says, must sacred be!

A brute of such terrific mien
At wild Sanduski ne'er was seen,
And in the dark Kentuckey groves
No beast, like this, for plunder roves,
Nor dwells in Britain's lowering clime
A reptile, so severe on rhyme.

The monster comes, severe and slow,
His eyes with arrowy lightnings glow,
Takes up the book, surveys it o'er,
Exclaims, “damn'd stuff!”—but says no more:
The book is damn'd by his decree,
And what he says must gospel be!

But was there nothing to his taste?—
Was all my work a barren waste—
Was not one bright idea sown,
And not one image of my own?—
Its doom was just, if this be true:
But ZOILUS shall be sweated too.

Give me a cane of mighty length,
A staff proportion'd to my strength,
Like that, by whose destructive aid
The man of Gath his conquest made;

345

Like that, which once on Etna's shore
The shepherd of the mountain bore:

For wit traduc'd at such a rate
To other worlds I'll send him, straight,
Where all the past shall nothing seem,
Or just be imag'd like a dream;
Where new vexations are design'd,
No dull quietus for the mind!

Arm'd with a staff of such a size
Who would not smite this man of lies:
Here, scribbler, help me! seize that pen
With which he blasts all rhyming men:
His goose-quill must not with him go
To persecute the bards below.—

How vast a change an hour may bring!
How abject lies this snarling thing!
No longer wit to him shall bow,
To him the world is nothing now;
And all he writ, and all he read
Is, with himself, in silence laid!

Dead tho' he be—(not sent to rest)
No keen remorse torments my breast:
Yet, something in me seems to tell
I might have let him live, as well;—
'Twas his to snarl, and growl, and grin,
And life had, else, a burthen been.

1786

THE BERMUDA ISLANDS.

“Bermuda, walled with rocks, who does not know,
That happy island, where huge lemons grow,” &c.
Waller's Battle of the Summer Islands.

These islands fair with many a grove are crowned,
With cedars tall, gay hills, and verdant vales,

346

But dangerous rocks on every side is found,
Fatal to him who unsuspecting sails.

The gay Palmetto shades the adjacent wave:
Blue, ocean water near the lime-tree breaks!—
I leave the scene!—this stormy quarter leave,
And rove awhile by Harrington's sweet lake.

In every vale fair woodland nymphs are seen
In bloom of youth, to mourn some absent love,
Who, wandering far on Neptune's rude domain,
Heaves the fond sigh at every new remove.

From hill to hill I see Amanda stray,
Searching, with anxious view, the encircling main,
To espy the sail, so long, so far away,
Rise from the waves, and bless her sight again.

Now, on some rock, with loose, dishevelled hair,
Near dashing waves, the sorrowing beauty stands,
Hoping that each approaching barque may bear
Homeward the wandering youth from foreign lands.

Oh! may no gales such faithful loves destroy,
No hidden rock to Hymen fatal prove:
And thou, fond swain, thy nicest art employ
Once more on these sweet isles to meet your love.

When verging to the height of thirty-two,
And east or west you guide the dashy prow;
Then fear by night the dangers of this shore,
Nature's wild garden, placed in sixty-four.
Here many a merchant his lost freight bemoans,
And many a gallant ship has laid her bones.

1788

Lat. 32 deg. 20 min. N.—Long. 63.40 W.—and about 780 miles East of the coast of South Carolina.

347

FLORIO TO AMANDA.

Lamp of the pilot's hope! the wanderer's dream,
Far glimmering o'er the wave, we saw thy beam:
Forced from your aid by cold December's gale
As near your isle we reefed the wearied sail:
From bar to bar, from cape to cape I roam,
From you still absent, still too far from home.—
What shall repay me for these nights of pain,
And weeks of absence on this restless main,
Where every dream recalls that charming shade,
Where once, AMANDA, once with you I strayed,
And fondly talked, and counted every tree,
And minutes, ages, when removed from thee.

What sad mistake this wandering fancy drew
To quit my native shores, the woods, and YOU,
When safely anchored on that winding stream,
Where you were all my care, and all my theme:
There, pensive, loitering, still from day to day,
The pilot wondered at such strange delay,
Musing, beheld the northern winds prevail,
Nor once surmised that LOVE detained the sail.

Blest be the man, who, fear beneath him cast,
From his firm decks first reared the tapering mast;
And catching life and motion from the breeze,
Stretched his broad canvas o'er a waste of seas;
And taught some swain, whom absence doomed to mourn
His distant fair one—taught a quick return:
He, homeward borne by favouring gales, might find
Remembrance welcome to his anxious mind,
And grateful vows, and generous thanks might pay
To Him, who filled the sail, and smoothed the way.

To me, indeed! the heavens less favouring prove:
Each day, returning, finds a new remove—
Sorrowing, I spread the sail, while slowly creeps
The weary vessel o'er a length of deeps;
Her northern course no favouring breeze befriends,

348

Hail, storm, and lightning, on her path attends:
Here, wintry suns their shrouded light restrain,
Stars dimly glow, and boding birds complain;
Here, boisterous gales the rapid GULPH controul,
Tremendous breakers near our Argo roll;
Here cloudy, sullen HATTERAS, restless, raves
Scorns all repose, and swells his weight of waves:
Here, drowned so late, sad cause of many a tear,
AMYNTOR floats upon his watery bier;
By bursting seas to horrid distance tossed,
Thou, PALINURUS, in these depths wert lost,
When, torn by waves, and conquered by the blast,
Art strove in vain, and ruin seized each mast.

Now, while the winds their wonted aid deny,
For other ports, from day to day, we try;
Strive, all we can, to gain the unwilling shore,
Dream still of you—the faithful chart explore;
See other groves, in happier climates placed
Untouched their bloom, and not one flower defaced.

Did Nature, there, a heaven of pleasure shew,
Could they be welcome, if not shared with you?—
Lost are my toils—my longing hopes are vain:
Yet, 'midst these ills, permit me to complain,
And half regret, that, finding fortune fail,
I left your cottage—to direct the sail:
Unmoved, amidst this elemental fray,
Let me, once more, the muses' art essay,
Once more—amidst these scenes of Nature's strife,
Catch at her forms and mould them into life;
By Fancy's aid, to unseen coasts repair,
And fondly dwell on absent beauty there.

[w. 1789]

1795

THE FAIR SOLITARY.

NO more these groves a glad remembrance claim
Where grief consumes a half deluded dame,

349

Whom to these isles a modern Theseus bore,
And basely left, frail virtue to deplore;—

In foreign climes detained from all she loved,
By friends neglected, long by Fortune proved,
While sad and solemn passed the unwelcome day
What charms had life for her, to tempt her stay?

Deceived in all; for meanness could deceive,
Expecting still, and still condemned to grieve,
She scarcely saw—to different hearts allied
That her dear Florio ne'er pursued a bride!

Are griefs, like thine, to Florio's bosom known?—
Must these, alas! be ceaseless in your own?
Life is a dream!—its varying shades I see;
But this cold wanderer hardly dreams of thee—

The bloom of health, which bade all hearts adore,
To your pale cheek what physic shall restore?
Vain are those drugs that art and love prepares,
No art redeems the waste of sighs and tears!

1795

Alluding to Theseus, when he left Ariadne in a desert Island in the Mediterranean Archipelago. See Ovid's Epistolae Heroidum, or, Epistoles of the Heroines of Greece.

AMANDA IN A CONSUMPTION.

Smit by the glance of your bright eyes
When I, Amanda, fondly gaze,
Strange feelings in my bosom rise
And passion all my reason sways:
Worlds I would banish from my view,
And quit the gods—to talk with you.

The smile that decks your fading cheek,
To me a heavy heart declares;
When you are silent I would speak

350

But cowardice alarms my fears:
All must be sense that you do prize,
All that I say—be grave and wise.

When wandering in the evening shade
I shared her pain, and calmed her grief,
A thousand tender things I said,
But all I said gave no relief:
When from her hair I dried the dew,
She sighed, and said—I am not for you!

When drooping, dull, and almost dead
With fevers brought from sultry climes,
She would not wrap my fainting head;
But recommended me some rhymes
On patience and on fortitude,
And other things—less understood.

When, aiming to engage her heart
With verses from the muses' stock;
She sighed, regardless of the art,
And counted seconds by the clock;
“And thus, (she said) “will verse decay,
“And thus the muse will pass away!”

When languishing upon her bed
In willow shades, remote from towns,
We came; and while Priscilla read
Of chrystal skies and golden crowns:
She bade us at a distance stand,
And leaned her head upon her hand.

So, drooping hangs the fading rose,
When summer sends the beating shower:
So, to the grave Amanda goes,
Her whole duration—but an hour!
Who shall controul the sad decree,
Or what, fair girl, recover thee?

351

Such virtue in that spirit dwells—
Such fortitude amidst such pain!—
And, now, with pride my bosom swells,
To think I have not lived in vain.
For, slighting all the sages knew,
I learn philosophy from you.

1787

ELEGIAC LINES.

With life enamoured, but in death resigned,
To seats congenial flew the unspotted mind:
Attending spirits hailed her to that shore
Where this world's winter chills the soul no more.
Learn hence, to live resigned;—and when you die
No fears will seize you, when that hour is nigh.
Transferred to heaven, Amanda has no share
In the dull business of this world of care.
Her blaze of beauty, even in death admired,
A moment kindled, but as soon expired.
Sweet as the favourite offspring of the May
Serenely mild, not criminally gay:

Adorned with all that nature could impart
To please the fancy and to gain the heart;
Heaven ne'er above more innocence possessed,
Nor earth the form of a diviner guest:
A mind all virtue!—flames descended here
From some bright seraph of some nobler sphere;
Yet, not her virtues, opening into bloom,
Nor all her sweetness saved her from the tomb,
From prospects darkened, and the purpose crossed,
Misfortune's winter,—and a lover lost;
Nor such resemblance to the forms above,
The heart of goodness, and the soul of love!

Ye thoughtless fair!—her early death bemoan,
Sense, virtue, beauty, to oblivion gone.

1788

352

MAY TO APRIL.

Without your showers, I breed no flowers,
Each field a barren waste appears;
If you don't weep, my blossoms sleep,
They take such pleasures in your tears.

As your decay made room for May,
So I must part with all that's mine:
My balmy breeze, my blooming trees
To torrid suns their sweets resign!

O'er April dead, my shades I spread:
To her I owe my dress so gay—
Of daughters three, it falls on me
To close our triumphs on one day:

Thus, to repose, all Nature goes;
Month after month must find its doom:
Time on the wing, May ends the Spring,
And Summer dances on her tomb!

1787

TO AN AUTHOR.

Your leaves bound up compact and fair,
In neat array at length prepare,
To pass their hour on learning's stage,
To meet the surly critic's rage;
The statesman's slight, the smatterer's sneer—
Were these, indeed, your only fear,
You might be tranquil and resigned:
What most should touch your fluttering mind;
Is that, few critics will be found
To sift your works, and deal the wound.

Thus, when one fleeting year is past
On some bye-shelf your book is cast—

353

Another comes, with something new,
And drives you fairly out of view:
With some to praise, but more to blame,
The mind returns to—whence it came;
And some alive, who scarce could read
Will publish satires on the dead.

Thrice happy Dryden, who could meet
Some rival bard in every street!
When all were bent on writing well
It was some credit to excel:—

Thrice happy Dryden, who could find
A Milbourne for his sport designed—
And Pope, who saw the harmless rage
Of Dennis bursting o'er his page
Might justly spurn the critic's aim,
Who only helped to swell his fame.

On these bleak climes by Fortune thrown,
Where rigid Reason reigns alone,
Where lovely Fancy has no sway,
Nor magic forms about us play—
Nor nature takes her summer hue
Tell me, what has the muse to do?—

An age employed in edging steel
Can no poetic raptures feel;
No solitude's attracting power,
No leisure of the noon day hour,
No shaded stream, no quiet grove
Can this fantastic century move;

The muse of love in no request—
Go—try your fortune with the rest,
One of the nine you should engage,
To meet the follies of the age:—

354

On one, we fear, your choice must fall—
The least engaging of them all—
Her visage stern—an angry style—
A clouded brow—malicious smile—
A mind on murdered victims placed—
She, only she, can please the taste!

1788

See Johnson's lives of the English Poets.

TO MISFORTUNE.

Dire Goddess of the haggard brow,
Misfortune! at that shrine I bow
Where forms uncouth pourtray thee still,
A leaky ship, a doctor's bill:

A poem damn'd, a beggar's prayer,
The critic's growl, the pedant's sneer,
The urgent dun, the law severe,
A smoky house, rejected love,
And friends that all but friendly prove.

Foe to the pride of scheming man
Whose frown controuls the wisest plan,
To your decree we still submit
Our views of gain, our works of wit.

Untaught by you the feeble mind
A dull repose, indeed, might find:
But life, unvext by such controul,
Can breed no vigour in the soul.

The calm that smooths the summer seas
May suit the man of sloth and ease:
But skies that fret and storms that rave
Are the best schools to make us brave.

355

On Heckla's heights who hopes to see
The blooming grove, the orange tree
Awhile on hope may fondly lean
'Till sad experience blots the scene.

If Nature acts on Reason's plan,
And Reason be the guide of man;
Why should he paint fine prospects there,
Then sigh, to find them disappear?

For ruin'd states or trade perplext
'Tis almost folly to be vext:
The world at last will have its way
And we its torrent must obey.

On other shores a happier guest
The mind must fix her heaven of rest,
Where better men and better climes
Shall soothe the cares of future times.

1787

THE INDIAN BURYING GROUND.

IN spite of all the learned have said,
I still my old opinion keep;
The posture, that we give the dead,
Points out the soul's eternal sleep.

Not so the ancients of these lands—
The Indian, when from life released,
Again is seated with his friends,
And shares again the joyous feast.

His imaged birds, and painted bowl,
And venison, for a journey dressed,

356

Bespeak the nature of the soul,
ACTIVITY, that knows no rest.

His bow, for action ready bent,
And arrows, with a head of stone,
Can only mean that life is spent,
And not the old ideas gone.

Thou, stranger, that shalt come this way,
No fraud upon the dead commit—
Observe the swelling turf, and say
They do not lie, but here they sit.

Here still a lofty rock remains,
On which the curious eye may trace
(Now wasted, half, by wearing rains)
The fancies of a ruder race.

Here still an aged elm aspires,
Beneath whose far-projecting shade
(And which the shepherd still admires)
The children of the forest played!

There oft a restless Indian queen
(Pale Shebah, with her braided hair)
And many a barbarous form is seen
To chide the man that lingers there.

By midnight moons, o'er moistening dews,
In habit for the chase arrayed,
The hunter still the deer pursues,
The hunter and the deer, a shade!

And long shall timorous fancy see
The painted chief, and pointed spear,
And Reason's self shall bow the knee
To shadows and delusions here.

1788

The North American Indians bury their dead in a sitting posture; decorating the corpse with wampum, the images of birds, quadrupeds, &c: And (if that of a warrior) with bows, arrows, tomhawks and other military weapons.

357

THE INDIAN STUDENT:

or, FORCE OF NATURE.

From Susquehanna's farthest springs
Where savage tribes pursue their game,
(His blanket tied with yellow strings,)
A shepherd of the forest came.

Not long before, a wandering priest
Expressed his wish, with visage sad—
“Ah, why (he cried) in Satan's waste,
“Ah, why detain so fine a lad?

“In white-man's land there stands a town
“Where learning may be purchased low—
“Exchange his blanket for a gown,
“And let the lad to college go.”—

From long debate the council rose,
And viewing Shalum's tricks with joy
To Cambridge Hall, o'er wastes of snows,
They sent the copper-coloured boy.

One generous chief a bow supplied,
This gave a shaft, and that a skin;
The feathers, in vermillion dyed,
Himself did from a turkey win:

Thus dressed so gay, he took his way
O'er barren hills, alone, alone!
His guide a star, he wandered far,
His pillow every night a stone.

At last he came, with foot so lame,
Where learned men talk heathen Greek,
And Hebrew lore is gabbled o'er,
To please the Muses,—twice a week.

358

Awhile he writ, awhile he read,
Awhile he conned their grammar rules—
(An Indian savage so well bred
Great credit promised to the schools.)

Some thought he would in law excel,
Some said in physic he would shine;
And one that knew him, passing well,
Beheld, in him, a sound Divine.

But those of more discerning eye
Even then could other prospects show,
And saw him lay his Virgil by
To wander with his dearer bow.

The tedious hours of study spent,
The heavy-moulded lecture done,
He to the woods a hunting went,
Through lonely wastes he walked, he run.

No mystic wonders fired his mind;
He sought to gain no learned degree,
But only sense enough to find
The squirrel in the hollow tree.

The shady bank, the purling stream,
The woody wild his heart possessed,
The dewy lawn, his morning dream
In fancy's gayest colours dressed.

“And why (he cried) did I forsake
“My native wood for gloomy walls;
“The silver stream, the limpid lake
“For musty books and college halls.

“A little could my wants supply—
“Can wealth and honour give me more;
“Or, will the sylvan god deny
“The humble treat he gave before?

359

“Let seraphs gain the bright abode,
“And heaven's sublimest mansions see—
“I only bow to NATURE'S GOD—
“The land of shades will do for me.

“These dreadful secrets of the sky
“Alarm my soul with chilling fear—
“Do planets in their orbits fly,
“And is the earth, indeed, a sphere?

“Let planets still their course pursue,
“And comets to the CENTRE run—
“In HIM my faithful friend I view,
“The image of my God—the SUN.

“Where Nature's ancient forests grow,
“And mingled laurel never fades,
“My heart is fixed;—and I must go
“To die among my native shades.”

He spoke, and to the western springs,
(His gown discharged, his money spent,
His blanket tied with yellow strings,)
The shepherd of the forest went.

1788

MAN OF NINETY.

“TO yonder boughs that spread so wide,
Beneath whose shade soft waters glide,
Once more I take the well known way;
With feeble step and tottering knee
I sigh to reach my WHITE OAK tree,
Where rosy health was wont to play.

If to the shades, consuming slow,
The shadow of myself, I go,
When I am gone, wilt thou remain!—
From dust you rose, and grew like me;

360

I man became, and you a tree,
Both natives of one grassy plain.

How much alike; yet not the same!—
You could no kind protector claim;
Alone you stood, to chance resigned:
When winter came, with blustering sky,
You feared its blasts—and so did I,
And for warm suns in secret pined.

When vernal suns began to glow
You felt returning vigour flow;
Which once a year new leaves supplied;
Like you, fine days I wished to see,
And May was a sweet month to me,
But when November came—I sighed!

If through your bark some ruffian arm
A mark impressed, you took the alarm,
And tears awhile I saw descend;
Till Nature's kind maternal aid
A plaister on your bruises laid,
And bade your trickling sorrows end.

Like you, I feared the lightning's stroke,
Whose flame dissolves the strength of oak,
And ends at once this mortal dream;—
You saw, with grief, the soil decay
That from your roots was torn away;
You sighed—and cursed the stream.

With borrowed earth, and busy spade,
Around your roots new life I laid,
While joy revived in every vein;
(The care of man shall life impart)—
Though Nature owns the aid of art,
No art, immortal, makes their reign.

How much alike our fortune—say—
Yet, why must I so soon decay

361

When thou hast scarcely reached thy prime—
Erect and tall, you joyous stand;
The staff of age has found my hand,
That guides me to the grave of time.

Could I, fair tree, like you, resign,
And banish all those fears of mine,
Grey hairs would be no cause of grief;
Your blossoms die, but you remain,
Your fruit lies scattered o'er the plain—
Learn wisdom from the falling leaf.

As you survive, by heaven's decree,
Let withered flowers be thrown on me
Sad compensation for my doom,
While winter greens and withering pines,
And cedars dark, and barren vines,
Point out the lonely tomb.

The enlivening sun, that burns so bright,
Ne'er had a noon without a night,
So LIFE and DEATH agree;
The joys of man by years are broke”—
'Twas thus the man of ninety spoke,
Then rose, and left his tree.

1788

ALCINA'S ENCHANTED ISLAND.

IN these fair fields unfading flowers abound,
Here purple roses cloathe the enchanted ground;
Here, to the sun expand the lillies pale
Fann'd by the sweet breath of the western gale:

Here, fearless hares through dark recesses stray,
And troops of leverets take the woodland way,

362

Here stately stags, with branching horns, appear,
And rove unsought for, unassail'd by fear:

Unknown the snare, the huntsman's fatal dart
That wings the death of torture to the heart,
In social bands they trace the sylvan reign,
Chew the rich cud, or graze along the plain.

In these gay shades the nimble deer delight,
While herds of goats ascend the rocky height,
Browse on the shrubs that shade the vale below,
And crop the plants, that there profusely grow.

1788

HORACE, LIB. I. ODE 15.

Nereus prophesies the destruction of Troy.

AS 'cross the deep to Priam's shore
The Trojan prince bright Helen bore,
Old Nereus hushed each noisy breeze
And calmed the tumults of the seas.

Then, musing on the traitor's doom,
Thus he foretold the woes to come;
“Ah why remove, mistaken swain,
“The prize that Greece shall seize again!

“With omens sad, you sail along;
“And Europe shall resent the wrong,
“Conspire to seize your bride away,
“And Priam's town in ashes lay.

“Alas! what toils and deaths combined!
“What hosts of man and horses joined!—
“Bold Pallas now prepares her shield,
“And arms her chariot for the field.

“Can you with heavenly forms engage,
“A goddess kindling into rage;
“Who ne'er have dared a mortal foe
“And wars, alone, of Venus, know.

363

“In vain you dress your flowing hair,
“And songs, to aid the harp, prepare;
“The harp, that sung to female ears,
“Shall fail when Mars and Greece appears.

“In vain will you bewail your bride,
“And meanly in her chamber hide,
“In hopes to shun, when lingering there,
“The massy dart, and Cretan spear.

“In vain will you, with quickening pace,
“Avoid fierce Ajax in the chace;
“For late those locks, that please the eye,
“In dust and death must scattered lie.

“Do you not see Ulysses, too,
“The sage that brings your nation low:
“And Nestor from the land of Pyle—
“Chiefs skilled in arms and martial toil.

“Dost thou not see bold Teucer here,
“And him—no tardy charioteer;
“Who both pursue with eager force,
“And both controul the thundering horse.

“Thou, to thy grief, shalt Merion know,
“And Tydeus' son shall prove thy foe,
“Who wastes your realms with sword and fire;
“Tydides, greater than his sire.

“Like timorous deer, prepared to fly
“When hungry wolves are passing by,
“No more the herbs their steps detain,
“They quit their pastures, and the plain:

“So you from his triumphant arms
“Will fly, with all your female charms;
“Can deeds, like these, your valour prove,
“Was this your promise to your love?

364

“Achilles' wrath shall but delay
“Your ruin to a later day—
“The Trojan matrons then may mourn,
“And Troy by Grecian vengeance burn.”

1788

PALEMON TO LAVINIA.

(Written 1788)

“Torn from your arms by rude relentless hands,
No tears recall our lost Alcander home,
Who, far removed by fierce piratic bands,
Finds in a foreign soil an early tomb:

Well may you grieve!—his race so early done,
No years he reached, to urge some task sublime;—
No conquests made, no brilliant action won,
No verse to bear him through the gulph of time.

Amidst these shades and heart depressing glooms,
What comfort shall we give—what can we say;
In her distress shall we discourse on tombs,
Or tell Lavinia, 'tis a cloudy day?

The pensive priest accosts her with a sigh:
With movement slow, in sable robes he came—
But why so sad, philosopher, ah, why,
Since from the tomb alone all bliss we claim?

By pining care and wakeful sorrow worn,
While silent griefs her downcast heart engage,
She saw me go, and saw me thrice return
To pen my musings on some vacant page.

To learning's store, to Galen's science bred,
I saw Orestes rove through all the plain:
His pensive step no friendly genius led
To find one plant that might relieve your pain!

365

Say, do I wake?—or are your woes a dream!
Depart, dread vision!—waft me far away:
Seek me no more by this sky painted stream
That glides, unconscious, to the Indian bay.

Alcander!—ah!—what tears for thee must flow—
What doom awaits the wretch that tortured thee!
May never flower in his cursed garden blow,
May never fruit enrich his hated tree:

May that fine spark, which Nature lent to man,
Reason, be thou extinguished in his brain;
Sudden his doom, contracted be his span,
Ne'er to exist, or spring from dust again.

May no kind genius save his step from harms:
Where'er he sails, may tempests rend the sea;
May never maiden yield to him her charms,
Nor prattling infant hang upon his knee!

Retire, retire, forget the inhuman shore:
Dark is the sun, when woes like these dismay;
Resign your groves, and view with joy no more
The fragrant orange, and the floweret gay.”

[w. 1788]

1795

Algiers, the piratical city on the coast of Barbary.

TO LYDIA.

“Tu procul a patria, ah dura! inculta deserta,
Me sine, sola videbis ....
Virg. Eclog.

Thus, safe arrived, she greets the strand,
And leaves her pilot for the land;
But LYDIA, why to the deserts roam,
And thus forsake your floating home!

366

To what fond care shall I resign
The bosom, that must ne'er be mine:
With lips, that glow beyond all art,
Oh! how shall I consent to part!—

Long may you live, secure from woes,
Late dying, meet a calm repose,
And flowers, that in profusion grow,
Bloom round your steps, where'er you go.

On you all eyes delight to gaze,
All tongues are lavish in your praise;
With you no beauty can compare,
Nor GEORGIA boast one flower so fair.

Could I, fair girl, transmit this page,
A present, to some future age,
You should through every poem shine,
You, be adored in every line:

From JERSEY coasts too loath to sail,
Sighing, she left her native vale;
Borne on a stream that met the main,
Homeward she looked, and looked again.

The gales that blew from off the land
Most wantonly her bosom fanned,
And, while around that heaven they strove,
Each whispering zephyr owned his love.

As o'er the seas, with you I strayed,
The hostile winds our course delayed,
But, proud to waft a charge so fair,
To me were kind—and held you there.

I could not grieve, when you complained
That adverse gales our barque detained
Where foaming seas to mountains grow,
From gulphs of death, concealed below.

367

When travelling o'er that lonely wave
To me your feverish hand you gave,
And sighing, bade me tell you, true,
What lands again would rise to view!

When night came on, with blustering gale,
You feared the tempest would prevail,
And anxious asked, if I was sure
That on those depths we sailed secure?

Delighted with a face so fair,
I half forgot my weight of care,
The dangerous shoal, that seaward runs,
Encircled moons, and shrouded suns.

With timorous heart and tearful eyes,
You saw the deep Atlantic rise,
Saw wintry clouds their storms prepare,
And wept, to find no safety there.

Throughout the long December's night,
(While still your lamp was burning bright)
To dawn of day from evening's close
My pensive girl found no repose.

Then now, at length arrived from sea,
Consent, fair nymph, to stay with me—
The barque—still faithful to her freight,
Shall still on your direction wait.

Such charms as your's all hearts engage!
Sweet subject of my glowing page,
Consent, before my Argo roves
To sun-burnt isles and savage groves.

When sultry suns around us glare,
Your poet, still, with fondest care,
To cast a shade, some folds will spread
Of his coarse topsails o'er your head.

368

When round the barque the billowy wave
And howling winds, tempestuous, rave,
By caution ruled, the helm shall guide
Safely, that Argo o'er the tide.

Whene'er some female fears prevail,
At your request we'll reef the sail,
Disarm the gales that rudely blow,
And bring the loftiest canvas low.

When rising to harass the main
Old Boreas drives his blustering train,
Still shall they see, as they pursue,
Each tender care employed for you.

To all your questions—every sigh!
I still will make a kind reply;
Give all you ask, each whim allow,
And change my style to thee and thou.

If verse can life to beauty give,
For ages I can make you live;
Beyond the stars, triumphant, rise,
While Cynthia's tomb neglected lies:

Upon that face of mortal clay
I will such lively colours lay,
That years to come shall join to seek
All beauty from your modest cheek.

Then, Lydia, why our bark forsake;
The road to western deserts take?
That lip—on which hung half my bliss,
Some savage, now, will bend to kiss;

Some rustic soon, with fierce attack,
May force his arms about that neck;
And you, perhaps, will weeping come
To seek—in vain—your floating home!

1788

Miss Lydia Morriss, a young quaker lady, on her landing from the sloop Industry at Savannah, in Georgia, December 30th. 1806.

369

TO CYNTHIA.

Through Jersey groves, a wandering stream
That still its wonted music keeps,
Inspires no more my evening dream,
Where Cynthia, in retirement, sleeps.

Sweet murmuring stream! how blest art thou
To kiss the bank where she resides,
Where Nature decks the beechen bough
That trembles o'er your shallow tides.

The cypress-tree on Hermit's height,
Where Love his soft addresses paid
By Luna's pale reflected light—
No longer charms me to its shade!

To me, alas! so far removed,
What raptures, once, that scenery gave,
Ere wandering yet from all I loved,
I sought a deeper, drearier wave.

Your absent charms my thoughts employ:
I sigh to think how sweet you sung,
And half adore the painted toy
That near my careless heart you hung.

Now, fettered fast in icy fields,
In vain we loose the sleeping sail;
The frozen wave no longer yields,
And useless blows the favouring gale.

Yet, still in hopes of vernal showers,
And breezes, moist with morning dew,
I pass the lingering, lazy hours,
Reflecting on the spring—and you.

1789

370

AMANDA'S COMPLAINT.

“IN shades we live, in shades we die,
Cool zephyrs breathe for our repose;
In shallow streams we love to play,
But, cruel you, that praise deny
Which you might give, and nothing lose,
And then pursue your destined way.

Ungrateful man! when anchoring here,
On shore you came to beg relief;
I shewed you where the fig trees grow,
And wandering with you, free from fear,
To hear the story of your grief
I pointed where the cisterns are,
And would have shewn, if streams did flow!

The MEN that spurned your ragged crew,
So long exposed to Neptune's rage—
I told them what your sufferings were:
Told them that landsmen never knew
The trade that hastens frozen age,
The life that brings the brow of care.

A lamb, the loveliest of the flock,
To your disheartened crew I gave,
Life to sustain on yonder deep—
Sighing, I cast one sorrowing look
When on the margin of the main
You slew the loveliest of my sheep.

Along your native northern shores,
From cape to cape, where'er you stray,
Of all the nymphs that catch the eye,
They scarce can be excelled by our's—
Not in more fragrant shades they play;—
The summer suns come not so nigh.

371

Confess your fault, mistaken swain,
And own, at least, our equal charms—
Have you no flowers of ruddy hue,
That please your fancy on the plain?—
Would you not guard those flowers from harm,
If NATURE'S SELF each picture drew!

Vain are your sighs—in vain your tears,
Your barque must still at anchor lay,
And you remain a slave to care;
A thousand doubts, a thousand fears,
'Till what you said, you shall unsay,
Bermudian damsels are not fair!

1790

HATTERAS.

IN fathoms five the anchor gone;
While here we furl the sail,
No longer vainly labouring on
Against the western gale:
While here thy bare and barren cliffs,
O HATTERAS, I survey,
And shallow grounds and broken reefs—
What shall console my stay!

The dangerous shoal, that breaks the wave
In columns to the sky;
The tempests black, that hourly rave,
Portend all danger nigh:
Sad are my dreams on ocean's verge!
The Atlantic round me flows,
Upon whose ancient angry surge
No traveller finds repose!

The PILOT comes!—from yonder sands
He shoves his barque, so frail,
And hurrying on, with busy hands,
Employs both oar and sail.

372

Beneath this rude unsettled sky
Condemn'd to pass his years,
No other shores delight his eye,
No foe alarms his fears.

In depths of woods his hut he builds,
Devoted to repose,
And, blooming, in the barren wilds
His little garden grows:
His wedded nymph, of sallow hue,
No mingled colours grace—
For her he toils—to her is true,
The captive of her face.

Kind Nature here, to make him blest,
No quiet harbour plann'd;
And poverty—his constant guest,
Restrains the pirate band:
His hopes are all in yonder flock,
Or some few hives of bees,
Except, when bound for OCRACOCK,
Some gliding barque he sees:

His Catharine then he quits with grief,
And spreads his tottering sails,
While, waving high her handkerchief,
Her commodore she hails:
She grieves, and fears to see no more
The sail that now forsakes,
From HATTERAS' sands to banks of CORE
Such tedious journies takes!

Fond nymph! your sighs are heav'd in vain;
Restrain those idle fears:

373

Can you—that should relieve his pain—
Thus kill him with your tears!
Can absence, thus, beget regard,
Or does it only seem?
He comes to meet a wandering bard
That steers for ASHLEY'S stream.

Though disappointed in his views,
Not joyless will we part;
Nor shall the god of mirth refuse
The BALSAM OF THE HEART:
No niggard key shall lock up JOY—
I'll give him half my store
Will he but half his skill employ
To guard us from your shore.

Should eastern gales once more awake,
No safety will be here:—
Alack! I see the billows break,
Wild tempests hovering near:
Before the bellowing seas begin
Their conflict with the land,
Go, pilot, go—your Catharine join,
That waits on yonder sand.

1789

All vessels from the northward that pass within Hatteras Shoals, bound for Newbern and other places on Palmico Sound, commonly in favourable weather take a Hatteras pilot to conduct them over the dangerous bar of Ocracock, eleven leagues north southwest of the cape.

St. CATHARINE's.

HE that would wish to rove a while
In forests green and gay,
From Charleston bar to Catharine's isle
Might sigh to find the way!
What scenes on every side appear,
What pleasure strikes the mind,
From Folly's train, thus wandering far,
To leave the world behind.

374

The music of these savage groves
In simple accents swells,
And freely, here, their sylvan loves
The feather'd nation tells;
The panting deer through mingled shades
Of oaks forever green
The vegetable world invades,
That skirts the watery scene.

Thou sailor, now exploring far
The broad Atlantic wave,
Crowd all your canvas, gallant tar,
Since Neptune never gave
On barren seas so fine a view
As here allures the eye,
Gay, verdant scenes that Nature drew
In colours from the sky.

Ye western winds! awhile delay
To swell the expecting sail—
Who would not here, a hermit, stay
In yonder fragrant vale,
Could he engage what few can find,
That coy, unwilling guest
(All avarice banish'd from the mind)
CONTENTMENT, in the breast!

[w. 1789]

1792

NEVERSINK.

These Hills, the pride of all the coast,
To mighty distance seen,
With aspect bold and rugged brow,
That shade the neighbouring main:
These heights, for solitude design'd,
This rude, resounding shore—

375

These vales impervious to the wind,
Tall oaks, that to the tempest bend,
Half Druid, I adore.

From distant lands, a thousand sails
Your hazy summits greet—
You saw the angry Briton come,
You saw him, last, retreat!
With towering crest, you first appear
The news of land to tell;
To him that comes, fresh joys impart,
To him that goes, a heavy heart,
The lover's long farewell.

'Tis your's to see the sailor bold,
Of persevering mind,
To see him rove in search of care,
And leave true bliss behind;
To see him spread his flowing sails
To trace a tiresome road,
By wintry seas and tempests chac'd
To see him o'er the ocean haste,
A comfortless abode!

Your thousand springs of waters blue
What luxury to sip,
As from the mountain's breast they flow
To moisten Flora's lip!
In vast retirements herd the deer,
Where forests round them rise,
Dark groves, their tops in aether lost,
That, haunted still by Huddy's ghost,
The trembling rustic flies.

Proud heights! with pain so often seen,
(With joy beheld once more)
On your firm base I take my stand,
Tenacious of the shore:—

376

Let those who pant for wealth or fame
Pursue the watery road;—
Soft sleep and ease, blest days and nights,
And health, attend these favourite heights,
Retirement's blest abode!

1791

The WANDERER

AS Southward bound to Indian isles
O'er lonely seas he held his way,
A songster of the feather'd kind
Approach'd, with golden plumage gay:

By sympathetic feelings led
And grieving for her sad mischance,
Thus Thyrsis to the wanderer said,
As circling in her airy dance.

“Sad pilgrim on a watery waste,
What cruel tempest has compell'd
To leave so far your native grove,
To perish on this liquid field!

Not such a dismal swelling scene
(Dread Neptune's wild unsocial sea)
But crystal brooks and groves of green,
Dear rambling bird, were made for thee.

Ah, why amid some flowery mead
Did you not stay, where late you play'd:
Not thus forsake the cypress grove
That lent its kind protecting shade.

In vain you spread your weary wings
To shun the hideous gulph below;

377

Our barque can be your only hope—
But man you justly deem your foe.

Now hovering near, you stoop to lodge
Where yonder lofty canvas swells—
Again take wing—refuse our aid,
And rather trust the ruffian gales.

But Nature tires! your toils are vain—
Could you on stronger pinions rise
Than eagles have—for days to come
All you could see are seas and skies.

Again she comes, again she lights,
And casts a pensive look below—
Weak wanderer, trust the traitor, MAN,
And take the help that we bestow.”

Down to his side, with circling flight,
She flew, and perch'd, and linger'd there;
But, worn with wandering, droop'd her wing,
And life resign'd in empty air.

1790

ON THE SLEEP OF PLANTS.

When suns are set, and stars in view,
Not only man to slumber yields;
But Nature grants this blessing too,
To yonder plants, in yonder fields.

The Summer heats and lengthening days
(To them the same as toil and care)
Thrice welcome make the evening breeze,
That kindly does their strength repair.

At early dawn each plant survey,
And see, revived by Nature's hand,
With youthful vigour, fresh and gay,
Their blossoms blow, their leaves expand.

378

Yon' garden plant, with weeds o'er-run,
Not void of thought, perceives its hour,
And, watchful of the parting sun,
Throughout the night conceals her flower.

Like us, the slave of cold and heat,
She too enjoys her little span—
With Reason, only less complete
Than that which makes the boast of man.

Thus, moulded from one common clay,
A varied life adorns the plain;
By Nature subject to decay,
BY NATURE MEANT TO BLOOM AGAIN.

1790

STANZAS,

Occasioned by Lord Bellamont's, Lady Hay's, and Other Skeletons, being dug up in Fort George (N. Y.), 1790.

TO sleep in peace when life is fled,
Where shall our mouldering bones be laid—
What care can shun—(I ask with tears)
The shovels of succeeding years!

Some have maintained, when life is gone,
This frame no longer is our own:
Hence doctors to our tombs repair,
And seize death's slumbering victims there.

Alas! what griefs must MAN endure!
Not even in FORTS he rests secure:—
Time dims the splendours of a crown,
And brings the loftiest rampart down.

The breath, once gone, no art recalls!
Away we haste to vaulted walls:

379

Some future whim inverts the plain,
And stars behold our bones again.

Those teeth, dear girls—so much your care—
(With which no ivory can compare)
Like these (that once were lady Hay's)
May serve the belles of future days.

Then take advice from yonder scull;
And, when the flames of life grow dull,
Leave not a TOOTH in either jaw,
Since dentists steal—and fear no law.

He, that would court a sound repose,
To barren hills and deserts goes:
Where busy hands admit no sun,
Where he may doze, 'till all is done.

Yet there, even there tho' slyly laid,
'Tis folly to defy the spade:
Posterity invades the hill,
And plants our relics where she will.

But O! forbear the rising sigh!
All care is past with them that die:
Jove gave, when they to fate resigned,
An opiate of the strongest kind:

Death is a sleep, that has no dreams:
In which all time a moment seems—
And skeletons perceive no pain
Till Nature bids them wake again.

1790

The ORATOR OF THE WOODS.

Each traveller asks, with fond surprize,
Why Thyrsis wastes the fleeting year
Where gloomy forests round him rise,

380

And only rustics come to hear—
His taste is odd (they seem to say)
Such talents in so poor a way!

To those that courts and titles please
How dismal is his lot;
Beyond the hills, beneath some trees,
To live—and be forgot—
In dull retreats, where Nature binds
Her mass of clay to vulgar minds.

While you lament his barren trade,
Tell me—in yonder vale
Why grows that flower beneath the shade,
So feeble and so pale!—
Why was she not in sun-shine placed
To blush and please your men of taste?

In lonely wilds, those flowers so fair
No curious step allure;
And chance, not choice, has placed them there,
(Still charming, tho' obscure)
Where, heedless of such sweets so nigh,
The lazy hind goes loitering by.

1790

THE BERGEN PLANTER.

Attached to lands that ne'er deceived his hopes,
This rustic sees the seasons come and go,
His autumn's toils returned in summer's crops,
While limpid streams, to cool his herbage, flow;
And, if some cares intrude upon his mind,
They are such cares as heaven for man designed.

He to no pompous dome comes, cap in hand,
Where new-made 'squires affect the courtly smile:
Nor where Pomposo, 'midst his foreign band

381

Extols the sway of kings, in swelling style,
With tongue that babbled when it should have hushed,
A head that never thought—a face that never blushed.

He on no party hangs his hopes or fears,
Nor seeks the vote that baseness must procure;
No stall-fed Mammon, for his gold, reveres,
No splendid offers from his chests allure.
While showers descend, and suns their beams display,
The same to him, if Congress go or stay.

He at no levees watches for a glance,
(Slave to disgusting, distant forms and modes)
Heeds not the herd of Bufo's midnight dance,
Dullman's mean rhymes, or Sawny's birth-day odes:
Follies, like these, he deems beneath his care,
And TITLES leaves for simpletons to wear.

Where wandering brooks from mountain sources roll,
He seeks at noon the waters of the shade,
Drinks deep, and fears no poison in the bowl
That Nature for her happiest children made:
And from whose clear and gently-passing wave
All drink alike—the master and the slave.

The scheming statesman shuns his homely door,
Who, on the miseries of his country fed,
Ne'er glanced his eye from that base pilfered store,
To view the sword, suspended by a thread—
Nor that “hand-writing,” graved upon the wall,
That tells him—but in vain—“the sword must fall.”

He ne'er was made a holiday machine,
Wheeled here and there by 'squires in livery clad,
Nor dreads the sons of legislation keen,
Hard-hearted laws, and penalties most sad—
In humble hope his little fields were sown,
A trifle, in your eye—but all his own.

1790

382

TOBACCO.

(Supposed to be written by a Young Beginner.)

This Indian weed, that once did grow
On fair Virginia's fertile plain,
From whence it came—again may go,
To please some happier swain:
Of all the plants that Nature yields
This, least beloved, shall shun my fields.

In evil hour I first essayed
To chew this vile forbidden leaf,
When, half ashamed, and half afraid,
I touched, and tasted—to my grief:
Ah me! the more I was forbid,
The more I wished to take a quid.

But when I smoaked, in thought profound,
And raised the spiral circle high,
My heart grew sick, my head turned round—
And what can all this mean, (said I)—
Tobacco surely was designed
To poison, and destroy mankind.

Unhappy they, whom choice, or fate
Inclines to prize this bitter weed;
Perpetual source of female hate;
On which no beast—but man will feed;
That sinks my heart, and turns my head,
And sends me, reeling, home to bed!

1790

THE BANISHED MAN.

Since man may every region claim,
And Nature is, in most, the same,
And we a part of her wide plan,
Tell me, what makes THE BANISH'D MAN.

383

The favourite spot, that gave us birth,
We fondly call our mother earth;
And hence our vain distinctions grow,
And man to man becomes a foe.

That friendship to all nations due,
And taught by reason to pursue,
That love, which should the world combine,
To country, why do we confine!

The Grecian sage (old stories say)
When question'd where his country lay,
Inspired by heaven, made no reply,
But rais'd his finger to the sky.

No region has, on earth, been known
But some, of choice, have made their own:—
Your tears are not from Reason's source
If choice assumes the path of force.

“Alas! (you cry) that is not all:
“My former friendships I recall,
“My house, my farm, my days, my nights,
“Scenes vanish'd now, and past delights.”—

Distance for absence you mistake—
Here, days and nights their circuits make:
Here, Nature walks her beauteous round,
And friendship may—perhaps—be found.

If times grow dark, or wealth retires,
Let Reason check your proud desires:
Virtue the humblest garb can wear,
And loss of wealth is loss of care.

384

Thus half unwilling, half resign'd,
Desponding, why, the generous mind?—
Think right,—nor be the hour delayed
That flies the sun to seek the shade.

Though injured, exiled, or alone,
Nobly presume the world your own,
Convinced that, since the world began,
Time, only, makes The Banish'd Man.

1790

Anaxagoras.

LINES,

Occasioned by a Law passed by the Corporation of New-York, early in 1790, for cutting down the trees in the streets of that city, previous to June 10, following.

THE CITIZEN'S SOLILOQUY.

A Man that owned some trees in town,
(And much averse to cut them down)
Finding the Law was full and plain,
No trees should in the streets remain,
One evening seated at his door,
Thus gravely talked the matter o'er:

“The fatal DAY, dear trees, draws nigh,
When you must, like your betters, die,
Must die!—and every leaf will fade
That many a season lent its shade,
To drive from hence the summer heat,
And make my porch a favourite seat.

“Thrice happy age, when all was new,
And trees untouched, unenvied grew,
When yet regardless of the axe,
They feared no law, and paid no tax!

385

The shepherd then at ease was laid,
Or walked beneath their cooling shade;
From slender twigs a garland wove,
Or traced his god within the grove;
Alas! those times are now forgot,
An iron age is all our lot:
Men are not now what once they were,
To hoard up gold is all their care:
The busy tribe old Plutus calls
To pebbled streets and painted walls;
Trees now to grow, is held a crime,
And THESE must perish in their prime!

“The trees that once our fathers reared,
And even the plundering Briton spared,
When shivering here full oft he stood,
Or kept his bed for want of wood—
These trees, whose gently bending boughs
Have witnessed many a lover's vows,
When half afraid, and half in jest,
With Nature busy in his breast,
With many a sigh, he did not feign,
Beneath these boughs he told his pain,
Or coaxing here his nymph by night,
Forsook the parlour and the light,
In talking love, his greatest bliss
To squeeze her hand or steal a kiss—
These trees that thus have lent their shade,
And many a happy couple made,
These old companions, thus endeared,
Who never tattled what they heard,
Must these, indeed, be killed so soon—
Be murdered by the tenth of June!

“But if my harmless trees must fall,
A fortune that awaits us all,
(All, all must yield to Nature's stroke,
And now a man, and now an oak)

386

Are those that round the churches grow
In this decree included too?
Must these, like common trees, be bled?
Is it a crime to shade the dead?
Review the law, I pray, at least,
And have some mercy on the priest
Who every Sunday sweats in black
To make us steer the skyward track:
The church has lost enough, God knows,
Plundered alike by friends and foes—
I hate such mean attempts as these—
Come—let the parson keep his trees!

“Yet things, perhaps, are not so bad—
Perhaps, a respite may be had:
The vilest rogues that cut our throats,
Or knaves that counterfeit our notes,
When, by the judge their sentence passed,
The gallows proves their doom at last,
Swindlers and pests of every kind,
For weeks and months a respite find;
And shall such nuisances as they,
Who make all honest men their prey—
Shall they for months avoid their doom,
And you, my trees, in all your bloom,
Who never injured small or great,
Be murdered at so short a date!

“Ye men of law, the occasion seize,
And name a counsel for the trees—
Arrest of judgment, sirs, I pray;
Excuse them till some future day:
These trees that such a nuisance are,
Next NEW YEAR we can better spare,
To warm our shins, or boil the pot—
The LAW, by then will be forgot.”

[w. 1790]

1792

387

LINES,

By H. Salem, on his Return from Calcutta.

Your men of the land, from the king to JACK KETCH,
All join in supposing the sailor a wretch,
That his life is a round of vexation and woe,
With always too much or too little to do:
In the dead of the night, when other men sleep,
He, starboard and larboard, his watches must keep;
Imprisoned by Neptune, he lives like a dog,
And to know where he is, must depend on a LOG,
Must fret in a calm, and be sad in a storm;
In winter much trouble to keep himself warm:
Through the heat of the summer pursuing his trade,
No trees, but his topmasts, to yield him a shade:
Then, add to the list of the mariner's evils,
The water corrupted, the bread full of weevils,
Salt junk to be eat, be it better or worse,
And, often bull beef of an Irishman's horse:
Whosoever is free, he must still be a slave,
Despotic is always the rule on the wave;)
Not relished on water, your lords of the main
Abhor the republican doctrines of PAINE,
And each, like the despot of Prussia, may say
That his crew has no right, but the right to obey.

Such things say the lubbers, and sigh when they've said 'em,
But things are not so bad as their fancies persuade 'em:
There ne'er was a task but afforded some ease,
Nor a calling in life, but had something to please.
If the sea has its storms, it has also its calms,
A time to sing songs and a time to sing psalms.—
Yes—give me a vessel well timbered and sound,
Her bottom good plank, and in rigging well-found,
If her spars are but staunch, and her oakham swelled tight,
From tempests and storms I'll extract some delight—
At sea I would rather have Neptune my jailor,
Than a lubber on shore, that despises a sailor.
Do they ask me what pleasure I find on the sea?—

388

Why, absence from land is a pleasure to me:
A hamper of porter, and plenty of grog,
A friend, when too sleepy, to give me a jog,
A coop that will always some poultry afford,
Some bottles of gin, and no parson on board,
A crew that is brisk when it happens to blow,
One compass on deck and another below,
A girl, with more sense than the girl at the head,
To read me a novel, or make up my bed—
The man that has these, has a treasure in store
That millions possess not, who live upon shore:
But if it should happen that commerce grew dull,
Or Neptune, ill-humoured, should batter our hull,
Should damage my cargo, or heave me aground,
Or pay me with farthings instead of a pound:
Should I always be left in the rear of the race,
And this be forever—forever the case;
Why then, if the honest plain truth I may tell,
I would clew up my topsails, and bid him farewell.

1791

MODERN DEVOTION.

(By H. Salem.)

TO church I went, with good intent,
To hear Sangrado preach and pray;
But objects there, black, brown, and fair,
Turned eyes and heart a different way.

Miss Patty's fan, miss Molly's man,
With powdered hair and dimple cheek;
Miss Bridget's eyes, that once made prize
Of Fopling with his hair so sleek:

Embroidered gowns, and play-house tunes
Estranged all hearts from heaven too wide:
I felt most odd, this house of God
Should all be flutter, pomp, and pride.

389

Now, pray be wise, no prayers will rise
To heaven—where hearts are not sincere.
No church was made for Cupid's trade;
Then why these arts of ogling here?

Since time draws nigh, when you and I,
At church must claim the sexton's care!—
Leave pride at home, when'er you come
To pay to heaven your offerings, there!

1791

THE PARTING GLASS.

(Written at an Inn)

(By Hezekiah Salem.)

The man that joins in life's career
And hopes to find some comfort here;
To rise above this earthly mass,
The only way's to drink his GLASS.

But, still, on this uncertain stage,
Where hopes and fears the soul engage;
And while, amid the joyous band,
Unheeded flows the measured sand,
Forget not as the moments pass,
That TIME shall bring the parting glass!

In spite of all the mirth I've heard,
This is the glass I always feared;
The glass that would the rest destroy,
The farewell cup, the close of joy!

With YOU whom Reason taught to think,
I could, for ages, sit and drink:
But with the fool, the sot, the ass,
I haste to take the parting glass.

390

The luckless wight, that still delays
His draught of joys to future days,
Delays too long—for then, alas!
Old age steps up, and—breaks the glass!

The nymph, who boasts no borrowed charms,
Whose sprightly wit my fancy warms;
What tho' she tends this country inn,
And mixes wine, and deals out gin?
With such a kind, obliging lass
I sigh, to take the parting glass.

With him, who always talks of gain,
(Dull Momus, of the plodding train)—
The wretch, who thrives by others' woes,
And carries grief where'er he goes:—
With people of this knavish class
The first is still my parting glass.

With those that drink before they dine—
With him that apes the grunting swine,
Who fills his page with low abuse,
And strives to act the gabbling goose
Turned out by fate to feed on grass—
Boy, give me quick, the parting glass.

The man, whose friendship is sincere,
Who knows no guilt, and feels no fear:—
It would require a heart of brass
With him to take the parting glass!

With him, who quaffs his pot of ale;
Who holds to all an even scale;
Who hates a knave, in each disguise,
And fears him not—whate'er his size—
With him, well pleased my days to pass,
May heaven forbid the PARTING GLASS!

1790

391

THE DISH OF TEA.

Let some in beer place their delight,
O'er bottled porter waste the night,
Or sip the rosy wine:
A dish of TEA more pleases me,
Yields softer joys, provokes less noise,
And breeds no base design.

From China's groves, this present brought,
Enlivens every power of thought,
Riggs many a ship for sea:
Old maids it warms, young widows charms;
And ladies' men, not one in ten
But courts them for their TEA.

When throbbing pains assail my head,
And dullness o'er my brain is spread,
(The muse no longer kind)
A single sip dispels the hyp:
To chace the gloom, fresh spirits come,
The flood-tide of the mind.

When worn with toil, or vext with care,
Let Susan but this draught prepare,
And I forget my pain.
This magic bowl revives the soul;
With gentlest sway, bids care be gay;
Nor mounts, to cloud the brain.—

If learned men the truth would speak
They prize it far beyond their GREEK,
More fond attention pay;
No HEBREW root so well can suit;
More quickly taught, less dearly bought,
Yet studied twice a day.

392

This leaf, from distant regions sprung,
Puts life into the female tongue,
And aids the cause of love.
Such power has TEA o'er bond and free;
Which priests admire, delights the 'squire,
And Galen's sons approve.

1792

STANZAS

TO THE MEMORY OF TWO YOUNG PERSONS (TWIN BROTHERS), ROBERT SEVIER AND WILLIAM SEVIER, WHO WERE KILLED BY THE SAVAGES ON CUMBERLAND RIVER, IN NORTH-CAROLINA, IN ATTEMPTING TO ASSIST A NEW SETTLER, WHO WAS THEN PASSING THE RIVER WITH A NUMEROUS FAMILY.

IN the same hour two lovely youths were born,
Nature, with care, had moulded either clay:
In the same hour, from this world's limits torn,
The murderous Indian seized their lives away.

Distress to aid, impelled each generous breast;
With nervous arm they braved the adverse tide,
In friendship's cause encountered death's embrace,
Blameless they lived, in honour's path they died.

But ah! what art shall dry a father's tears!
Who shall relieve, or what beguile his pain!
Clouds shade his sun, and griefs advance with years—
Nature gave joys, to take those joys again.

Thou, that shall come to these sequestered streams,
When times to come their story shall relate;
Let the fond heart, that native worth esteems,
Revere their virtues, and bemoan their fate.

1792

393

ELEGY

On the Death of a Blacksmith.

With the nerves of a Samson, this son of the sledge,
By the anvil his livelihood got;
With the skill of old Vulcan could temper an edge;
And struck—while his iron was hot.

By forging he lived, yet never was tried,
Or condemned by the laws of the land;
But still it is certain, and can't be denied,
He often was burnt in the hand.

With the sons of St. Crispin no kindred he claimed,
With the last he had nothing to do;
He handled no awl, and yet in his time
Made many an excellent shoe.

He blew up no coals of sedition, but still
His bellows was always in blast;
And we will acknowledge (deny it who will)
That one Vice, and but one, he possessed.

No actor was he, or concerned with the stage,
No audience, to awe him, appeared;
Yet oft in his shop (like a crowd in a rage)
The voice of a hissing was heard.

Tho' steeling was certainly part of his cares,
In thieving he never was found;
And, tho' he was constantly beating on bars,
No vessel he e'er ran aground.

Alas and alack! and what more can I say
Of Vulcan's unfortunate son?—
The priest and the sexton have borne him away,
And the sound of his hammer is done.

1793

394

TO SYLVIUS,

On his Preparing to Leave the Town

Can love of fame the gentle muse inspire
Where he that hoards the most has all the praise;
Where avarice, and her tribe, each bosom fire,
All heap the enormous store for rainy days;
Proving by such perpetual round of toil
That man was born to grovel on the soil?

Expect not, in these times of rude renown
That verse, like your's, will have the chance to please:
No taste for plaintive elegy is known,
Nor lyric ode—none care for things like these—
Gold, only gold, this niggard age delights,
That honours none but money-catching wights.

Sink not beneath the mean abusive strain
Of puny wits, dull sycophants in song,
Who, post, or place, or one poor smile to gain,
Besiege Mambrino's door, and round him throng
Like insects creeping to the morning sun
To enjoy his heat—themselves possessing none.

All must applaud your choice, to quit a stage
Where knaves and fools in every scene abound;
Where modest worth no patron can engage—
But boisterous folly walks her noisy round;
Some narrow-hearted demi-god adores,
And Fortune's path with servile step explores.

1795

The DRUNKARD'S APOLOGY

“You blame the blushes on my nose,
“And yet admire the blushing rose;
“On CELIA'S cheek the bloom you prize,
“And yet, on mine, that bloom despise.

395

“The world of spirits you admire,
“To which all holy men aspire:
“Yet, me with curses you requite,
“Because in spirits I delight.

“Whene'er I fall, and crack my crown,
“You blame me much for falling down—
“Yet to some god, that you adore,
“You, too, fall prostrate on the floor.

“You call me fool, for drinking hard;
“And yet old HUDSON you regard,
“Who fills his jug from yonder bay,
“And drinks his guts-full, every day!”—

1795

To a DECEASED DOG.

IF all the world mourns for the loss of a friend,
And even in stanzas their virtues commend,
Why, SANCHO, shouldst thou by the green turf be prest,
And not have a stanza along with the rest?

The miser, that ne'er gave a farthing away,
Xantippe, that scolded throughout the long day,
The drunken young Quixote, that died in his prime,
In their graves never fail to be flatter'd with rhyme.

There is an old adage our poets have read,
That “nothing but good should be spoke of the dead:”
Hence, the prophet and the sexton alike we defy,
When we write of the DEAD—they allow us to lie.

But I, my dear DOG, will a poem compose
That shall break half the hearts of the belles and the beaus;

396

To the view of each reader your VIRTUES shall shine
In verses, that HANNAH will fancy divine.

The Stoics, of old, were forbid to complain
At losses and crosses, vexation and pain;
When the day I recall, that depriv'd me of you,
I find, my dear Sancho, I'm not of their crew.

How oft in the year shall I visit your grave
Amid the long forest, that darkens the wave!
How often lament, when the day's at the close,
That a mile from the church is your place of repose!

Ah here (I will say) is the path where he run;
And there stands the tree where a squirrel he won;
And here, in this spot where the willow trees grow,
He dragg'd out a rabbit that lurk'd in the snow.

If absent, awhile, on the ocean I stray'd,
I still had in view to revisit this shade—
But alas! you consider'd the prospect as vain,
Or how could you die, 'till I saw you again?

A country there is—'tis in vain to deny—
Where monkies and puppies are sent when they die,
But you—and old Minos shall grant you a pass,
Must rank with the dogs of the gentleman class.

The boatman of STYX shall a passage prepare,
And the Dog, at the portal, shall welcome you there;
With the cynics of hell you shall walk a grave pace,
Where “Doctors with dogs” is no more a disgrace.

On the bark of this beech-tree, that shadows your bones,
With tears, I inscribe these poetical groans:
If a tombstone of wood serves a soldier, 'tis clear
This tree may preserve all your fame—for a year.

397

For the squirrel you tree'd, and the duck from the lake,
These stanzas are all the return I can make:
But these, unaffected, my friendship will shew,
And the world will allow—that I give you your due.

1795

JACK STRAW:

or the FOREST BEAU.

When first to feel Love's fire JACK STRAW begins
He combs his hair, and cocks his hat with pins,
Views in some stream, his face, with fond regard,
Plucks from his upper lip the bristly beard,
With soap and sand his homely visage scowers
(Rough from the joint attack of sun and showers)
The sheepskin breeches stretch'd upon his thighs,—
Next on his back the homespun coat he tries;
Round his broad breast he wraps the jerkin blue,
And sews a spacious soal on either shoe.
Thus, all prepar'd, the fond adoring swain
Cuts from his groves of pine a ponderous cane;
In thought a beau, a savage to the eye,
Forth, from his mighty bosom, heaves the sigh;
Tobacco is the present for his fair,
This he admires, and this best pleases her—
The bargain struck—few cares his bosom move
How to maintain, or how to lodge his love;
Close at his hand the piny forest grows,
Thence for his hut a slender frame he hews,
With art, (not copied from Palladio's rules,)
A hammer and an axe, his only tools,
By Nature taught, a hasty hut he forms
Safe in the woods, to shelter from the storms;—
There sees the summer pass and winter come,
Nor envies Britain's king his loftier home.

1795

398

EPISTLE to a Student of Dead Languages.

I pity him, who, at no small expense,
Has studied sound instead of sense:
He, proud some antique gibberish to attain;
Of Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, vain,
Devours the husk, and leaves the grain.

In his own language HOMER writ and read,
Not spent his life in poring on the dead:
Why then your native language not pursue
In which all ancient sense (that's worth review)
Glows in translation, fresh and new?

He better plans, who things, not words, attends,
And turns his studious hours to active ends;
Who ART through every secret maze explores,
Invents, contrives—and Nature's hidden stores
From mirrours, to their object true,
Presents to man's obstructed view,
That dimly meets the light, and faintly soars:—

His strong capacious mind
By fetters unconfin'd
Of Latin lore and heathen Greek,
Takes Science in its way,
Pursues the kindling ray
'Till Reason's morn shall on him break!

1795

HERMIT'S VALLEY.

With eastern winds, and flowing sail
To these sequestered haunts we came,
Where verdant trees and chrystal streams

399

Adorn the sloping, winding vale;
Where, from the breezy grove we claim,
Our heaven on earth—poetic dreams.

These simple scenes have pleasures more
Than all the busy town can show—
More pleasure here Philanthus took,
And more he prized this lonely shore,
His pen, his pencil, and his book,
Than all the groves Madeira bore:

Here still is seen a hermit's cell,
Who, fond the haunts of men to fly,
Enjoyed his heaven beneath this shade:
In mouldering caves so blest to dwell,
He sought not from the flowers that die,
A verdure, that would never fade.

To crowded courts and would-be kings,
Where fawning knaves are most caressed,
Who would, though oft' invited, go—
When here so many charming things
By Nature to perfection dressed,
To please the man of fancy, grow?

The native of this happy spot
No cares of vain ambition haunt:
Pleased with the partner of his nest,
Life flows—and when the dream is out,
The earth, which once supplied each want,
Receives him—fainting—to her breast.

1795

TO A NIGHT-FLY,

Approaching a Candle.

Attracted by the taper's rays,
How carelessly you come to gaze
On what absorbs you in its blaze!

400

O Fly! I bid you have a care:
You do not heed the danger near;
This light, to you a blazing star.

Already you have scorch'd your wings:
What courage, or what folly brings
You, hovering near such blazing things?

Ah me! you touch this little sun—
One circuit more and all is done!—
Now to the furnace you are gone!—

Thus folly with ambition join'd,
Attracts the insects of mankind,
And sways the superficial mind:

Thus, power has charms which all admire,
But dangerous is that central fire—
If you are wise in time retire.—

1797

THE INDIAN CONVERT.

AN Indian, who lived at Muskingum, remote,
Was teazed by a parson to join his dear flock,
To throw off his blanket and put on a coat,
And of grace and religion to lay in a stock.

The Indian long slighted an offer so fair,
Preferring to preaching his fishing and fowling;
A sermon to him was a heart full of care,
And singing but little superior to howling.

At last by persuasion and constant harassing
Our Indian was brought to consent to be good;
He saw that the malice of Satan was pressing,
And the means to repel him not yet understood.

401

Of heaven, one day, when the parson was speaking,
And painting the beautiful things of the place,
The convert, who something substantial was seeking,
Rose up, and confessed he had doubts in the case.—

Said he, Master Minister, this place that you talk of,
Of things for the stomach, pray what has it got;
Has it liquors in plenty?—if so I'll soon walk off
And put myself down in the heavenly spot.

You fool (said the preacher) no liquors are there!
The place I'm describing is most like our meeting,
Good people, all singing, with preaching and prayer;
They live upon these without eating or drinking.

But the doors are all locked against folks that are wicked:
And you, I am fearful, will never get there:—
A life of REPENTANCE must purchase the ticket,
And few of you, Indians, can buy it, I fear.

Farewell (said the Indian) I'm none of your mess;
On victuals, so airy, I faintish should feel,
I cannot consent to be lodged in a place
Where's there's nothing to eat and but little to steal.

1797

On ARRIVING IN SOUTH CAROLINA, 1798.

A happy gale presents, once more,
The gay and ever verdant shore,
Which every pleasure will restore
To those who come again:
You, Carolina, from the seas
Emerging, claim all power to please,
Emerge with elegance and ease
From Neptune's briny main.

402

To find in you a happier home,
Retirement for the days to come,
From northern coasts you saw me roam,
By flattering fancy moved:
I came, and in your fragrant woods,
Your magic isles and gay abodes,
In rural haunts and passing floods
Review'd the scenes I loved,

When sailing oft, from year to year
And leaving all I counted dear,
I found the happy country here
Where manly hearts abound;
Where friendship's kind extended hand,
All social, leads a generous band;
Where heroes, who redeem'd the land
Still live to be renown'd:

Who live to fill the trump of fame,
Or, dying, left the honor'd name
Which Athens had been proud to claim
From her historian's page. ...
These with invading thousands strove,
These bade the foe their prowess prove,
And from their old dominions drove
The tyrants of the age.

Long, long may every good be thine,
Sweet country, named from Caroline,
Once seen in Britain's court to shine
The fairest of the fair:
Still may the wanderer find a home
Where'er thy varied forests bloom,
And peace and pleasure with him come
To take their station here.

Here Ashley, with his brother stream,
By Charleston gliding, all, may claim,

403

That ever graced a poet's dream
Or sooth'd a statesman's cares;
She, seated near her forests blue,
Which winter's rigor never knew,
With half an ocean in her view
Her shining turrets rears.

Here stately oaks of living green
Along the extended coast are seen,
That rise beneath a heaven serene,
Unfading through the year. ...
In groves the tall Palmetto grows,
In shades inviting to repose,
The fairest, loveliest, scenes disclose. ...
All nature charms us here.

Dark wilds are thine, the yellow field,
And rivers by no frost congeal'd,
And, Ceres, all that you can yield
To deck the festive board;
The snow white fleece, from pods that grows,
And every seed that Flora sows—
The orange and the fig-tree shows
A paradise restored.

There rural love to bless the swains
In the bright eye of beauty reigns,
And brings a heaven upon the plains
From some dear Emma's charms;
Some Laura fair who haunts the mead,
Some Helen, whom the graces lead,
Whose charms the charms of her exceed
That set the world in arms.

And distant from the sullen roar
Of ocean, bursting on the shore,
A region rises, valued more
Than all the shores possess:

404

There lofty hills their range display,
Placed in a climate ever gay,
From wars and commerce far away,
Sweet nature's wilderness.

There all that art has taught to bloom,
The streams that from the mountain foam,
And thine, Eutaw, that distant roam,
Impart supreme delight:
The prospect to the western glade,
The ancient forest, undecay'd—
All these the wildest scenes have made
That ever awed the sight.

There Congaree his torrent pours,
Saluda, through the forest roars,
And black Catawba laves his shores
With waters from afar,
Till mingled with the proud Santee,
Their strength, united, finds the sea,
Through many a plain, by many a tree,
Then rush across the bar.

But, where all nature's fancies join,
Were but a single acre mine,
Blest with the cypress and the pine,
I would request no more;
And leaving all that once could please,
The northern groves and stormy seas—
I would not change such scenes as these
For all that men adore.

1815

LINES WRITTEN AT SEA.

NO pleasure on earth can afford such delights,
As the heavenly view of these tropical nights:
The glow of the stars, and the breeze of the sea,
Are heaven—if heaven on ocean can be.—

405

The star of old Cancer is right overhead,
And the sun in the water has travelled to bed;
He is gone, as some say, to recline at his ease,
And not, like ourselves, to be pestered with fleas.

What pity that here is no insular spot,
Where quarrels, and murder, and malice are not:
Where a stranger might land, to recruit his worn crew,
Replenish the casks, and the water renew.

On this Empire of waves, this expanse of the main,
In the track we are sailing, no island is seen:
The glow of the stars, and the breath of the wind
Are lost!—for they bring not the scent of the land!

Huge porpoises swim, where there should be an isle,
Where an Eden might bloom, or a Cyprus might smile—
From PALMA, thus far, with a tedious delay,
Salt water and aether is all we survey!

Like an artist that's busy in melting his lead,
At random it falls, and is carelessly spread,
So Nature, though wisely this globe she has planned,
Left the surface to chance—to be sea, or be land.

1809

The most north-westerly of the Canary Islands.

THE NAUTICAL RENDEZVOUS.

Written at a house in Guadaloupe, in 1800, where they were Collecting recruits for a privateer

The ship preparing for the main
Enlists a wild, but gallant train,
Who in a moving jail would roam
Digusted with the world at home.

406

They quit the fields and quit the trees
To seek their bread on stormy seas;
Perhaps to see the land no more,
Or see, but not enjoy the shore.

There must be some as this world goes
Who every joy and pleasure lose,
And round the world at random stray
To gain their bread the shortest way.

They hate the ax, they hate the hoe
And execrate the rural plough,
The mossy bank, the sylvan shade
Where once they wrought, where once they play'd:

Prefer a boisterous, mad career,
A broken leg, and wounds severe,
To all the joys that can be found
On mountain top or furrow'd ground.

A hammock holds them when they sleep;
A tomb, when dying, in the deep,
A crowded deck, a cann of beer
These sons of Amphitrite prefer
To all the verdure of the fields
Or all a quiet pillow yields.

There must be such a nervous race,
Who venture all, and no disgrace;
Who will support through every blast,
The shatter'd ship, the falling mast—
Who will support through every sea
The sacred cause of liberty,
And every foe to ruin drag
Who aims to strike the gallic flag.

[w. 1800]

1815

407

A BACCHANALIAN DIALOGUE.

Written 1803.

Arrived at Madeira, the island of vines,
Where mountains and vallies abound,
Where the sun the wild juice of the cluster refines,
To gladden the magical ground:

As pensive I stray'd in her elegant shade,
Now halting and now on the move,
Old Bacchus I met, with a crown on his head,
In the darkest recess of a grove.

I met him with awe, but no symptom of fear
As I roved by his mountains and springs,
When he said with a sneer, “how dare you come here,
You hater of despots and kings?—

Do you know that a prince, and a regent renown'd
Presides in this island of wine?
Whose fame on the earth has encircled it round
And spreads from the pole to the line?

Haste away with your barque: on the foam of the main
To Charleston I bid you repair:
There drink your Jamaica, that maddens the brain;
You shall have no Madeira—I swear.”

“Dear Bacchus,” (I answered) for Bacchus it was
That spoke in this menacing tone:
I knew by the smirk and the flush on his face
It was Bacchus, and Bacchus alone—

“Dear Bacchus, (I answered) ah, why so severe?—
Since your nectar abundantly flows,
Allow me one cargo—without it I fear
Some people will soon come to blows:

408

I left them in wrangles, disorder, and strife,
Political feuds were so high,
I was sick of their quarrels, and sick of my life,
And almost requested to die.”

The deity smiling, replied, “I relent:—
For the sake of your coming so far,
Here, taste of my choicest—go, tell them repent,
And cease their political war.

With the cargo I send, you may say, I intend
To hush them to peace and repose;
With this present of mine, on the wings of the wind
You shall travel, and tell them, here goes

A health to old Bacchus! who sends them the best
Of the nectar his island affords,
The soul of the feast and the joy of the guest,
Too good for your monarchs and lords.

No rivals have I in this insular waste,
Alone will I govern the isle
With a king at my feet, and a court to my taste,
And all in the popular style.

But a spirit there is in the order of things,
To me it is perfectly plain,
That will strike at the scepters of despots and kings,
And only king Bacchus remain.”

[w. 1803]

1815

OCTOBER'S ADDRESS:

October came the thirtieth day:
And thus I heard October say;

“The lengthening nights and shortening days
Have brought the year towards a close,

409

The oak a leafless bough displays
And all is hastening to repose;
To make the most of what remains
Is now to take the greater pains.

“An orange hue the grove assumes,
The indian-summer-days appear;
When that deceitful summer comes
Be sure to hail the winter near:
If autumn wears a mourning coat
Be sure, to keep the mind afloat.

“The flowers have dropt, their blooms are gone,
The herbage is no longer green;
The birds are to their haunts withdrawn,
The leaves are scatter'd through the plain;
The sun approaches Capricorn,
And man and creature looks forlorn.

“Amidst a scene of such a cast,
The driving sleet, or falling snow,
The sullen cloud, the northern blast,
What have you left for comfort now,
When all is dead, or seems to die
That cheer'd the heart or charm'd the eye?

“To meet the scene, and it arrives,
(A scene that will in time retire)
Enjoy the pine—while that remains
You need not want the winter fire.
It rose unask'd for, from the plain,
And when consumed, will rise again.

“Enjoy the glass, enjoy the board,
Nor discontent will fate betray,
Enjoy what reason will afford,
Nor disregard what females say;
Their chat will pass away the time,
When out of cash or out of rhyme.

410

“The cottage warm and cheerful heart
Will cheat the stormy winter night,
Will bid the glooms of care depart
And to December give delight.”—
Thus spoke October—rather gay,
Then seized his staff, and walk'd away.

1815

To A CATY-DID.

In a branch of a willow hid
Sings the evening Caty-did:
From the lofty locust bough
Feeding on a drop of dew,
In her suit of green array'd
Hear her singing in the shade
Caty-did, Caty-did, Caty-did!

While upon a leaf you tread,
Or repose your little head,
On your sheet of shadows laid,
All the day you nothing said:
Half the night your cheery tongue
Revell'd out its little song,
Nothing else but Caty-did.

From your lodgings on the leaf
Did you utter joy or grief—?
Did you only mean to say,
I have had my summer's day,
And am passing, soon, away
To the grave of Caty-did;—
Poor, unhappy Caty-did!

411

But you would have utter'd more
Had you known of nature's power—
From the world when you retreat,
And a leaf's your winding sheet,
Long before your spirit fled,
Who can tell but nature said,
Live again, my Caty-did!
Live, and chatter Caty-did.

Tell me, what did Caty do?
Did she mean to trouble you?—
Why was Caty not forbid
To trouble little Caty-did?—
Wrong, indeed at you to fling,
Hurting no one while you sing
Caty-did! Caty-did! Caty-did!

Why continue to complain?
Caty tells me, she again
Will not give you plague or pain:—
Caty says you may be hid
Caty will not go to bed
While you sing us Caty-did.
Caty-did! Caty-did! Caty-did!

But, while singing, you forgot
To tell us what did Caty not:
Caty-did not think of cold,
Flocks retiring to the fold,
Winter, with his wrinkles old,
Winter, that yourself foretold
When you gave us Caty-did.

Stay securely in your nest;
Caty now, will do her best,
All she can, to make you blest;
But, you want no human aid—
Nature, when she form'd you, said,

412

“Independent you are made,
My dear little Caty-did:
Soon yourself must disappear
With the verdure of the year,”—
And to go, we know not where,
With your song of Caty-did.

1815

Text from the edition of 1815.

A well-known insect, when full grown, about two inches in length, and of the exact color of a green leaf. It is of the genius cicada, or grasshopper kind, inhabiting the green foliage of trees and singing such a song as Caty-did in the evening, towards autumn.

On Passing BY AN OLD CHURCHYARD.

Pensive, on this turf I cast my eye,
And almost feel inclined to muse and sigh:
Such tokens of mortality so nigh.

But hold,—who knows if these who soundly sleep,
Would not, alive, have made some orphan weep,
Or plunged some slumbering victim in the deep.

There may be here, who once were virtue's foes,
A curse through life, the cause of many woes,
Who wrong'd the widow, and disturb'd repose.

There may be here, who with malicious aim
Did all they could to wound another's fame,
Steal character, and filch away good name.

Perhaps yond' solitary turf invests
Some who, when living, were the social pests,
Patrons of ribands, titles, crowns and crests.

Can we on such a kindred tear bestow?
They, who, in life, were every just man's foe,
A plague to all about them!—oh, no, no.

What though sepultured with the funeral whine;
Why, sorrowing on such tombs should we recline,
Where truth, perhaps, has hardly penn'd a line.

413

—Yet, what if here some honest man is laid
Whom nature of her best materials made,
Who all respect to sacred honor paid.

Gentle, humane, benevolent and just,
(Though now forgot and mingled with the dust,
There may be such, and such there are we trust.)

Yes—for the sake of that one honest man
We would on knaves themselves bestow a tear,
Think nature form'd them on some crooked plan,
And say peace rest on all that slumber here.

1815

ON A HONEY BEE,

Drinking from a Glass of Wine, and Drowned Therein.

(By Hezekiah Salem.)

Thou, born to sip the lake or spring,
Or quaff the waters of the stream,
Why hither come on vagrant wing?—
Does Bacchus tempting seem—
Did he, for you, this glass prepare?—
Will I admit you to a share?

Did storms harass or foes perplex,
Did wasps or king-birds bring dismay—
Did wars distress, or labours vex,
Or did you miss your way?—
A better seat you could not take
Than on the margin of this lake.

Welcome!—I hail you to my glass:
All welcome, here, you find;
Here, let the cloud of trouble pass,
Here, be all care resigned.—
This fluid never fails to please,
And drown the griefs of men or bees.

414

What forced you here, we cannot know,
And you can scarcely tell—
But cheery we would have you go
And bid a fond farewell:
On lighter wings we bid you fly,
Your dart will now all foes defy.

Yet take not, oh! too deep a drink,
And in this ocean die;
Here bigger bees than you might sink,
Even bees full six feet high.
Like Pharaoh, then, you would be said
To perish in a sea of red.

Do as you please, your will is mine;
Enjoy it without fear—
And your grave will be this glass of wine,
Your epitaph—a tear—
Go, take your seat in Charon's boat,
We'll tell the hive, you died afloat.

1809

REFLECTIONS on the Constitution, or Frame of Nature.

From what high source of being came
This system, Nature's aweful frame;
This sun, that motion gives to all,
The planets, and this earthly ball:

This sun, who life and heat conveys,
And comforts with his cheering rays;
This image of the God, whose beam
Enlivens like the GREAT SUPREME,

We see, with most exact design,
The WORLD revolve, the planets shine,

415

The nicest order all things meet,
A structure in ITSELF complete.

Beyond our proper solar sphere
Unnumbered orbs again appear,
Which, sunk into the depths of space,
Unvarying keep their destined place.

Great Frame! what wonders we survey,
In part alone, from day to day!
And hence the reasoning, human soul
Infers an author of the whole:

A power, that every blessing gives,
Who through eternal ages lives,
All space inhabits, space his throne,
Spreads through all worlds, confin'd to none;

Infers, through skies, o'er seas, o'er lands
A power throughout the whole commands;
In all extent its dwelling place,
Whose mansion is unbounded space.

Where ends this world, or when began
This spheric point displayed to man?—
No limit has the work divine,
Nor owns a circumscribing line.

Beyond what mind or thought conceives,
Our efforts it in darkness leaves;
Existing in the eternal scheme,
Vast, undivided, and supreme.

Here beauty, order, power behold
Exact, all perfect, uncontrouled;
All in its proper place arranged,
Immortal, endless, and unchanged.

416

Its powers, still active, never rest,
From motions, by THAT GOD impressed,
Who life through all creation spread,
Nor left the meanest atom dead.

1809

SCIENCE,

Favourable to Virtue.

This mind, in this uncertain state,
Is anxious to investigate
All knowledge through creation sown,
And would no atom leave unknown.

So warm, so ardent in research,
To wisdom's source she fain would march;
And find by study, toil, and care
The secrets of all nature there.

Vain wish, to fathom all we see,
For nature is all mystery;
The mind, though perch'd on eagle's wings,
With pain surmounts the scum of things.

Her knowledge on the surface floats,
Of things supreme she dreams or dotes;
Fluttering awhile, she soon descends,
And all in disappointment ends.

And yet this proud, this strong desire,
Such ardent longings to aspire,
Prove that this weakness in the mind
For some wise purpose was designed.

From efforts and attempts, like these,
Virtue is gained by slow degrees;
And science, which from truth she draws,
Stands firm on Reason and her cause.

417

However small, its use we find
To tame and civilize mankind,
To throw the brutal instinct by,
To honour Reason, ere we die.

The lovely philanthropic scheme
(Great image of the power supreme,)
On growth of science must depend;
With this all human duties end.

1809

The BROOK OF THE VALLEY.

The world has wrangled half an age,
And we again in war engage,
While this sweet, sequester'd rill
Murmurs through the valley still.

All pacific as you seem:
Such a gay elysian stream;—
Were you always thus at rest
How the valley would be blest.

But, if always thus at rest;
This would not be for the best:
In one summer you would die
And leave the valley parch'd and dry.

Tell me, where your waters go,
Purling as they downward flow?
Stagnant, now, and now a fall?—
To the gulph that swallows all.

Flowing, peaceful, from your urn
Are your waters to return?—
Though the same you may appear,
You're not the same we saw last year.

418

Not a drop of that remains—
Gone to visit other plains,
Gone, to stray through other woods,
Gone, to join the ocean floods!

Yes—they may return once more
To visit scenes they knew before;—
Yonder sun, to cheer the vale
From the ocean can exhale

Vapors, that your waste supply,
Turn'd to rain from yonder sky;
Moisture, vapors, to revive
And keep your margin all alive.

But, with all your quiet flow,
Do you not some quarrels know!
Lately, angry, how you ran!
All at war—and much like man.

When the shower of waters fell,
How you raged, and what a swell!
All your banks you overflow'd,
Scarcely knew your own abode!

How you battled with the rock.
Gave my willow such a shock
As to menace, by its fall,
Underwood and bushes, all:

Now you are again at peace:
Time will come when that will cease;
Such the human passions are;
—You again will war declare.

Emblem, thou, of restless man;
What a sketch of nature's plan!
Now at peace, and now at war,
Now you murmur, now you roar;

419

Muddy now, and limpid next,
Now with icy shackles vext—
What a likeness here we find!
What a picture of mankind!

1815

Lines on the ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NEW THEATRE

and the management of the house being placed in the hands of Mr. Cooper.—

Quid Sophocles, et Thespis, et Aeschylus utile ferrent
Tentavit quoque, rem si digne vertere posset.—
Hor.

This noble pile, superbly great
In Athens, might have graced her state,
And rivals all that London claims
From brilliant scenes, and boasted names.

Whate'er the tragic muse affords
Will here be told in glowing words:
From magic scenes to charm the eyes
All nature's pictures will arise.

And she, who charms the sprightly throng,
The goddess of the comic song
The muse of laughter, and of jest
Will bring amusement with the rest.

And Cooper, here, who leads the train
Of sorrow, pleasure, pity, pain,
A Roscius, of superior powers,
The modern Garrick now is ours.

He will display on nature's stage
(Or nature copied from her page)

420

The force of all that Shakespeare writ,
All Otway's grief and Congreve's wit.

With him a chosen band agree
To make the stage what it should be,
The serious moral to impart,
To cheer the mind and mend the heart.

The manners of the age t'improve,
To enforce the power of virtuous love,
Chaste morals in the soul t'implant
Which most admire, and many want.

On such a plan, theatric shows
Do honor to the thespian muse,
Impart a polish to the mind;
Instruct and civilize mankind.

Ye sages who in morals deal,
But all the pleasing side conceal,
From hence confess that morals may
As surely take the brilliant way.

With such an object in our view
Let Thespis all her art pursue,
When autumn brings the lengthening nights
And reason to her feast invites.—

1815

BELIEF AND UNBELIEF:

Humbly recommended to the serious consideration of creed makers.

What some believe, and would enforce
Without reluctance or remorse,
Perhaps another may decry,
Or call a fraud, or deem a lie.

421

Must he for that be doom'd to bleed,
And fall a martyr to some creed,
By hypocrites or tyrants framed,
By reason damn'd, by truth disclaim'd?

On mere belief no merit rests,
As unbelief no guilt attests:
Belief, if not absurd and blind,
Is but conviction of the mind,

Nor can conviction bind the heart
Till evidence has done its part:
And, when that evidence is clear,
Belief is just, and truth is near.

In evidence, belief is found;
Without it, none are fairly bound
To yield assent, or homage pay
To what confederate worlds might say.

They who extort belief from man
Should, in the out-set of their plan,
Exhibit, like the mid-day sun
An evidence denied by none.

From this great point, o'erlook'd or miss'd,
Still unbelievers will exist;
And just their plea; for how absurd
For evidence, to take your word!

Not to believe, I therefore hold
The right of man, all uncontrol'd
By all the powers of human wit,
What kings have done, or sages writ;

Not criminal in any view,
Nor—man!—to be avenged by you,
Till evidence of strongest kind
Constrains assent, and clears the mind.

1815

422

On the UNIVERSALITY AND OTHER ATTRIBUTES of the GOD OF NATURE.

All that we see, about, abroad,
What is it all, but nature's God?
In meaner works discover'd here
No less than in the starry sphere.

In seas, on earth, this God is seen;
All that exist, upon him lean;
He lives in all, and never stray'd
A moment from the works he made:

His system fix'd on general laws
Bespeaks a wise creating cause;
Impartially he rules mankind
And all that on this globe we find.

Unchanged in all that seems to change,
Unbounded space is his great range;
To one vast purpose always true,
No time, with him, is old or new.

In all the attributes divine
Unlimited perfectings shine;
In these enwrapt, in these complete,
All virtues in that centre meet.

This power who doth all powers transcend,
To all intelligence a friend,
Exists, the greatest and the best
Throughout all worlds, to make them blest.

423

All that he did he first approved
He all things into being loved;
O'er all he made he still presides,
For them in life, or death provides.

1815

—Jupiter, optimus, maximus.—
Cicero.

On the UNIFORMITY AND PERFECTION of NATURE.

ON one fix'd point all nature moves,
Nor deviates from the track she loves;
Her system, drawn from reason's source,
She scorns to change her wonted course.

Could she descend from that great plan
To work unusual things for man,
To suit the insect of an hour—
This would betray a want of power,

Unsettled in its first design
And erring, when it did combine
The parts that form the vast machine,
The figures sketch'd on nature's scene.

Perfections of the great first cause
Submit to no contracted laws,
But all-sufficient, all-supreme,
Include no trivial views in them.

Who looks through nature with an eye
That would the scheme of heaven descry,
Observes her constant, still the same,
In all her laws, through all her frame.

424

No imperfection can be found
In all that is, above, around,—
All, nature made, in reason's sight
Is order all, and all is right.

1815

ON THE RELIGION OF NATURE.

The power, that gives with liberal hand
The blessings man enjoys, while here,
And scatters through a smiling land
Abundant products of the year;
That power of nature, ever bless'd,
Bestow'd religion with the rest.

Born with ourselves, her early sway
Inclines the tender mind to take
The path of right, fair virtue's way
Its own felicity to make.
This universally extends
And leads to no mysterious ends.

Religion, such as nature taught,
With all divine perfection suits;
Had all mankind this system sought
Sophists would cease their vain disputes,
And from this source would nations know
All that can make their heaven below.

This deals not curses on mankind,
Or dooms them to perpetual grief,
If from its aid no joys they find,
It damns them not for unbelief;
Upon a more exalted plan
Creatress nature dealt with man—

425

Joy to the day, when all agree
On such grand systems to proceed,
From fraud, design, and error free,
And which to truth and goodness lead:
Then persecution will retreat
And man's religion be complete.

1815

University of Virginia Library

2. PART TWO POEMS OF ROMANTIC FANCY

The HISTORY of the PROPHET JONAH

Versified (or rather paraphrased) from the sacred writings.

Canto I.

Canto II.

Canto III.

Canto IV.

The PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT

A Dialogue

Persons.

THE POWER of FANCY.

THE PRAYER OF ORPHEUS.

The AMERICAN VILLAGE, &c.

THE DESERTED FARM-HOUSE.

THE CITIZEN'S RESOLVE.

THE DYING ELM.

ON RETIREMENT:

The PICTURES OF COLUMBUS,

The Genoese

Picture I. Columbus making Maps.

Picture II. The Cell of an Inchantress.

Picture III. The Mirror.

Picture IV. Columbus addresses King Ferdinand.

Picture V. Ferdinand and his First Minister.

Picture VI. Columbus addresses Queen Isabella.

Picture VII. Queen Isabella's Page of Honour writing a reply to Columbus.

Picture VIII. Columbus at the Harbour of Palos, in Andalusia.

Picture IX. A Sailor's Hut, near the Shore Thomas and Susan

Picture X. Bernardo, a Spanish Friar, in his canonicals.

Picture XI. Orosio, a Mathematician, with his scales and compasses.

Picture XII. Columbus and a Pilot.

Picture XIII. Discontents at Sea.

Picture XIV. Columbus at Cat Island.

Picture XV. Columbus in a Tempest, on his return to Spain.

Picture XVI. Columbus visits the Court at Barcelona.

Picture XVII. Columbus in Chains.

Picture XVIII. Columbus at Valladolid.

1

2

3

4

THE SILENT ACADEMY.

THE VERNAL AGUE.

A SATIRE

In Answer to a Hostile Attack.

The HOUSE of NIGHT

A Vision

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

Picture I.
Columbus making Maps.

Picture II.
The Cell of an Inchantress.

Picture III.
The Mirror.

Picture IV.
Columbus addresses King Ferdinand.

Picture V.
Ferdinand and his First Minister.

Picture VI.
Columbus addresses Queen Isabella.

Picture VII.
Queen Isabella's Page of Honour writing a reply to Columbus.

Picture VIII.
Columbus at the Harbour of Palos, in Andalusia.

Picture IX.
A Sailor's Hut, near the Shore
Thomas and Susan

Picture X.
Bernardo, a Spanish Friar, in his canonicals.

Picture XI.
Orosio, a Mathematician, with his scales and compasses.

Picture XII.
Columbus and a Pilot.

Picture XIII.
Discontents at Sea.

Picture XIV.
Columbus at Cat Island.

Picture XV.
Columbus in a Tempest, on his return to Spain.

Picture XVI.
Columbus visits the Court at Barcelona.

Picture XVII.
Columbus in Chains.

Picture XVIII.
Columbus at Valladolid.