University of Virginia Library

Hapless and turgid is that wight I trow,
Whom rude and weak antipathies annoy.
'Twas in that city, chief of haughty Gaul,
To Saints, to Sin, and Cloacina dear.
Yclep'd by noisy fame, the gallant Paris,
Where Ludovico Magno stands and rides,
On many a splendid and well-sculptur'd base,
To tell mankind he triumphs over Death,
And menaces the world, tho' turn'd to stone.

Where sportive dames forego the smiles of Health,
Wasting their bright and enviable charms,
Which Nature gave them, to enslave mankind
By midnight vigils, and the mazy dance,
And gather substitutes from wily Art,
That cheat the sight, and undermine their bloom;
Such toil is piteous; for the hand of Beauty
Fashion'd with care each member of their frame,
And deck'd them round with all those soft attractions,
Which lead the valiant and the wise astray.
Ah me! that Habit should impel a sex
To use the sick'ning semblance of a charm,
To fascinate our warm and willing hearts,
Whom Truth portrays on her unerring tablets,
Most lovely, most puissant, when least fraudful.

Where an immense sophisticated band,
Composed of the great vulgar and the small,
Dance in the liveries of antic Vanity.

Where many a caitiff basely leagues to rob
The wanton god of Cytherea's grove,
Of all his antient undisputed dues;
Sip from the streams that poison genial manhood,
And scorn the genuine draught of liberal love.

'Twas in that motley blythe metropolis,
A poor, forlorn, indignant, tattered Shirt,
Of Irish birth, and British education,
In all the plaintive strains of deep-felt grief,
Accosted, thus, its flinty, faithless master:—
And shall I now be maul'd by Gallic slaves,
Fritter'd, and manacl'd, by base-born hands?
If heaven-born sympathy can touch thy heart,
Behold my woes, and dedicate a tear!
Shorn of my honors by their savage toils,
Behold your servant more than half destroy'd.
Shall cell-bred wenches lift their pond'rous limbs,
All darkly tinted with Ægyptian hue,
Arm'd with a deadly murdering battoir,
To flagellate my tortur'd body thus,
And tear my mangled corse at every stroke?
Shall I, whose texture, doubtless, has been wove,
By some descendant of those sinewy bands,
Who stain'd the fields of Agincourt with blood,
Or taught the trembling foe what Britons dare,
On Cressy's sanguine and immortal plain?
Shall I, thus circumstanc'd, be made the sport
Of every mean and dirty blanchesseusee,
Defil'd, bemaul'd, and torn by recreant slaves,
And you, a Briton, thus look tamely on?
Forbid it, Pity, and, forbid it, Love!
Is meek compassion stifled in your breast?
Are all your patriot ideas flown?
Oh, I remember, (but that time is past,)
When angry Eolus untied his bags,
Wherein he chains the desolating winds,
To nip and castigate the human race,
Coercing all the seeds of vegetation.
Oft have you turn'd me with a parent's care,
And held my body 'fore the blazing fuel,
To warm and recreate my snow-white breast.
But now, alas! that tenderness is o'er,
Dragg'd by the zigzag motions of thy will,
To ramble thro' the russet Boullonnois,
And more deeply russeted Picardy;
To suffer vile indignities like these,
From every execrable ugly wench,
Whose sires were wont to tremble when they saw,
The slightest vestige from old Albion's Isle.
Knowing what once I was, and what I am,
Disturbs my sense, and mads me into rage.
Ye deities, who guard the free-born soul,
And value Britons for their hardy worth;
Tell me, and satisfy my boiling mind,
Why was I born, ye gods, to take a blow!
A blow; ah me, I might say, many blows!
Not all the waters of the silver Thames,
The flood of Avon, on whose verdant banks
Our matchless bard was wont to muse and roam;
Or Isis' glassy sweet reflective stream,
Where Science oft retreats to ponder deep;
Or Caracallas' vast capacious baths,
Can purify my sullied, wounded honour,
Or cleanse my base, contaminated frame.
My hatred, scorn, contempt, aversion dire,
To all the children of presuming Gaul,
Is deeply rooted as the forest oak,
And my proud soul dilates as big with hate,
Towards the mirthful authors of my woe,
As Israelite to swine, or zealous Turk,
To the rich virtues of the gushing grape;
Or Poet to the voice of bailiff dire;
Or Puritanic chiefs to Liberality;
Or Scotia's relatives to Indiscretion;
Or antient Virgins to a tale of woe;
Or Harlot vile, to the drear chambers
Of the midnight prison, where, oft enchain'd
By the fell magic of Justitia's bands,
The fragile daughters of gay Venus weep.
But, why should I thus exercise my lungs?
I see you frown at my antipathy;
Perhaps it is an error of the mind,
But if it is, that error is so fixt
And interwoven with my heart's warm core,
To die, or crush its impulse were the same.
But if my master wills that I shall be
The but and sacrifice of mortal foes,
To plunge my weeping body in the flood,
While the meand'ring and tumultuous Seine
Rolls with his muddy and polluted waves,
To dash the filth from every Norman shore.
If being agonized can feed his joy,
Let the slaves tear me like Saint Martin's cloak;
With gladness I'll substantiate his bliss,
Smile with delight, and glory in my ruin;
But if a disposition too unkind,
Leads him to scoff at all the ills I bear,
Without addition to his inward good;
Like Alex. Mag. I must submit to Fate,
Shrink, pray, writhe, suffer, and obey the gods.