The Poems of Philip Freneau, Poet of the American Revolution. Volume 3 (of 3)

by Philip Morin Freneau

POEMS OF PHILIP FRENEAU

In February, 1790, Freneau left the sea and settled down in the employ of the New York Daily Advertiser. During the next seven years he was successively editor of the National Gazette, The Jersey Chronicle, and The Time Piece and Literary Companion. The period ends late in 1797 when he left New York and went for a time to Charleston, South Carolina.

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NEVERSINK[1]

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—
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,[2]
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 æther lost,
That, haunted still by Huddy's[3] 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:—
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!

[1] The first trace I can find of this poem is in the Freeman's Journal, February 2, 1791, where it is entitled "Stanzas written on the Hills of Neversink near Sandy Hook, 1790." In the republication of the poem in the National Gazette, November 28, 1791, the month "July" was added to the title. It was the poet's valedictory to the ocean after his wanderings. He was married in May, 1790, and he now evidently looked forward to a settled career. The poem has been placed slightly out of order as will be seen. It was republished only in the 1795 edition which the text follows. The first five lines of the original version were as follows:

"In early days and vanished years
To rougher toils resigned,
You saw me rove in search of care
And leave true bliss behind;
You saw me rig the barque so trim," etc.

[2] "I quit your view no more."—Freeman's Journal, 1791.

[3] See Volume II, page 193.

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THE RISING EMPIRE[4]

On American Antiquity.[5]

America, to every climate known,
Spreads her broad bosom to the burning zone,
To either pole extends her vast domain
Where varying suns o'er different summers reign.
Wide wandering streams, vast plains, and pathless woods,
Bold shores, confined by circumscribing floods,
Denote this land, whose fertile, flowery breast
Teems with all life—and man, its nobler guest.
In days of old, from ocean's deepest bed,
Gulphs unexplored, and countries of the dead,
Rous'd by some voice, that shook all nature's frame,
From the vast depths this new creation came:
Perpetual change its varying nature feels,
The wave once flow'd that now with frost congeals,
Suns on its breast have shed a feebler fire,
Oceans have roll'd where mountains now aspire.
The soil's proud lord a changeful temper knows,
From differing earths his various nature grows:
Long, long before the time that sophists plan
Existed in these woods the race of man,
Warm'd into life by some creating flame,
All worlds pervading, and through all, the same!
Not from the west their swarthy tribes they brought,
As Europe's pride and Asia's folly taught;—
With the same ease the great disposing power
Produced a man, a reptile, or a flower:—
See the swift deer, in lonely wilds that strays,
See the tall elk, that in the valley plays,
See the fierce tiger's raging, ravenous band,
And wolves (their race as ancient as the land)
Did these of old from bleak Kamschatka come,
And traverse seas, to find a happier home?—
No?—from the dust, this common dust, they drew
Their different forms, proud man, that moulded you.
At first, half beasts, untaught to till the land,
Careless, you fed from Nature's fostering hand;
In depths of deserts dream'd your lives away,
Sought no new worlds, nor look'd beyond to-day:
The Almighty power, that lives and breathes through all,
Bade some faint rays on these dark nations fall;
Early, to them did reasoning souls impart,
Inventive genius, and some dawn of art;
Then left them here, with sense enough to win,
Or cheat the bear, or panther of his skin;
Mean huts to build, regardless of their form,
Completely blest, if shelter'd from the storm;
To see the seasons change, day turn to night:
Bow to the lamps of heaven that gave them light,
Beam'd on the spring, or bade the summer glow,
Their harvests ripen, and their gardens grow—

A View of Rhode Island[6]

Wash'd by surrounding seas, and bold her coasts,
A grateful soil the fair Rhode Island boasts.
The admiring eye no happier fields can trace,
Here seas are crowned with the scaly race,
Nature has strove to make her native blest
And owns no fairer Eden in the west:
Here lovliest dames in frequent circles seen,
Catch the fine tint of health from beauty's queen,
No aid they want to seize the enraptur'd view
Nor art's false colours to improve the true;
Here, love the traveller holds—loth to depart
Some charming creature slays his wandering heart,
Bids him forget from clime to clime to rove,
And even dull prudence—here—submits to love.
On grassy farms, their souls enslav'd to gain,
Reside the masters of the rural reign;
Vast herds they feed, that glut the abundant pail,
Break the stiff sod, or freight the adventurous sail;
The nervous steed, the stanchest of the kind
Here walks his rounds in pastures unconfin'd:—
Half that the lands produce or seas contain
To other shores transported o'er the main
Returns in coin, to cheer the miser's eye,
In foreign sweets, that fancied wants supply,
Or tawdry stuffs, to deck the limbs of pride,
That thus expends what avarice strove to hide.
But, hostile to themselves, this jarring race
In desperate interests, different plans embrace—
One, bold in wrong, his paper fabric rears
And steels his bosom to the orphan's tears
To those he ruin'd grants no late relief!
But leaves the wretched to subsist on grief!
In lost advice his days the gownsman spends,
He gives his prayers and teachings to the winds,—
In vain he tells of virtue's sure reward;
No words but this attract a swain's regard—
Talk not of Laws!—where innocence must fall,
One spark of honour more than damns them all;
And vainly Science her assistance lends
Where knavery shapes it to the basest ends,
Fraud walks at large,—each selfish passion reigns,
And cheats enforce what honesty disdains.
Hurt at the view, I leave the ungrateful shore
And thy rough soil, Connecticut, explore:

Terra Vulpina, or, the Land of Foxes[7]

Here fond remembrance stampt her much loved names,
Here boasts the soil its London and its Thames;
Through all her shores commodious ports abound,
Clear flow the waters of the unequal ground;
Cold nipping winds a lengthened winter bring,
Late rise the products of the unwilling spring,
The impoverished fields the labourer's pains disgrace,
And hawks and vultures scream through all the place;
The broken soil a nervous breed requires,
Where the rough glebe no generous crops admires—
Dame Nature meanly did her gifts impart,
But smiles to see how much is forced by art.
As Boreas keen, who guides their wintry reign,
All bow to lucre, all are bent on gain.
In contact close their neat abodes are thrown,
Its house, each acre; every mile, its town;
With glittering spire the frequent church is seen,[8]
Where yews and myrtles wave their gloomy green,
Where fast-day sermons tell the hungry guest
That a cameleon's dinner is the best:
There mobs of deacons awe the ungodly wight,
And hell's black master meets the unequal fight—
Eternal squabblings grease the lawyer's paw,
All have their suits, and all have studied Law:
With tongue, that Art and Nature taught to speak,
Some rave in Latin, some dispute in Greek:
Proud of their parts, in ancient lore they shine,
And one month's study makes a learned Divine;[9]
Bards of huge fame in every hamlet rise,
Each (in idea) of Virgilian size:
Even beardless lads a rhyming knack display—
Iliads begun, and finished in a day!
Rhymes, that of old on Blackmore's wheel were spun,
Come rattling down on Zion's reverend son;[10]
Madly presumed time's vortex to defy!
Things born to live an hour—then squeak and die.
Some, to grow rich, through Indian forests roam,
Some deem it best to stay and thrive at home:
In spite of all the priest and squire can say,
This world—this wicked world—will have its way;
Honest through fear, religious by constraint,
How hard to tell the sharper from the saint!—
Fond of discourse, with deep designing views
They pump the unwary traveller of his news;
Fond of that news, but fonder to be paid,
Each house a tavern, claims a tavern's trade,
While he that comes as surely hears them praise
The hospitality of modern days.
Yet, brave in arms, of enterprizing soul,
They tempt old Neptune to the farthest pole,
In learning's walks explore the mazy way,
(For genius there has shed his golden ray)
In war's bold art through many a contest tried
True to themselves, they took the nobler side,
And party feuds forgot, joined to agree
That power alone supreme—that left them free.

Massachusetts[11]

Here, in vast flocks, the fleecy nation strays,
Here, endless herds the upland meadow graze,
Here smiling plenty crowns the labourer's pain
And blooming beauty weds the industrious swain:
Were this thy all, what happier state could be!—
But avarice drives the native to the sea,
Fictitious wants all thoughts of ease controul,
Proud Independence sways the aspiring soul,
'Midst foreign waves, a stranger to repose,
Through the moist world the keen adventurer goes;
Not India's seas restrain his daring sail,
Far to the south he seeks the polar whale:
From those vast banks where frequent tempests rave,
And fogs eternal brood upon the wave,
There (furled his sail) his daring hold he keeps,
Drags from their depths the natives of those deeps;
Then to some distant clime explores his way,
Bold avarice spurs him on—he must obey.
Yet from such aims one great effect we trace
That holds in happier bonds this restless race;
Like some deep lake, by circling shores comprest,
Man's nature tends to universal rest:
Unfed by springs, that find some secret pass
To mix their current with the mightier mass,
Unmoved by moons, that some strange impulse guides
To lift its waters, and propel its tides,
Unvext by winds, that scowl across its waste,
Tear up the wave, and discompose its breast,
Soon would that lake (a putrid nuisance grown,)
Lose all its virtue, praised or prized by none:
Thus, avarice lends new vigour to mankind,
Not vainly planted in the unsteady mind;
With her, Ambition linked, they proudly drive,
Rule all our race, and keep the world alive.
Here, first, to quench her once loved Freedom's flame,
With their proud fleets, Britannia's warriors came;
Here, sure to conquer, she began her fires,
Here, sent her lords, her admirals, and her squires:
All, all too weak to effect the vast design[12]
For which we saw half Europe's arms combine,
Uncounted navies rove from main to main,
Threats, bribery, treachery—tried and tried again;
Mandate on mandate, edict, and decree,
To rivet fetters, and enslave the free!
Long, long from Boston's hills shall strangers gaze
On those vast mounds that magic seemed to raise;
Stupendous piles that hastened Britain's flight,
Extended hills, the offspring of a night!—
In that devoted town they hoped to stay
And, fed by rapine, sleep soft years away:
Vain hopes, vain schemes—the unconquered spirit rose
That still survived through all succeeding woes;
Imprisoned crowds, in cruel durance held,
Disarmed, restrained from honour's earliest field;
Imprisoned thousands, worn with poignant grief,
Now, half adoring, met their guardian chief,[A]
Whose thundering cannon bade the foe retreat,
Disgrace their portion, and their rout complete.

[A] Washington.—Freneau's note.

A Batavian Picture[13]

Sons of the earth, for plodding genius fam'd,
Batavia long her earth-born natives claim'd:
Begot from industry, and not from love,
Swarming at length, to these fair climes they move.—
Still in these climes their numerous race survive,[14]
And, born to labour, still are found to thrive;
Thro' rain and sunshine toiling for their heirs
They hold no nation on this earth like theirs.
Fond of themselves, no generous motives bind,
To those that speak their gibberish, only kind:—
Yet still some virtues, candour must confess,
And truth shall own, some virtues they possess:
Where'er they fix, all nature smiles around
Groves bend with fruit and plenty clothes the ground;
No barren trees to shade their domes are seen,
Trees must be fertile, and their dwellings clean,
No idle fancy dares its whims apply,
Or hope attention from the master's eye,
All tends to something that must pelf produce,
All for some end, and every thing its use:—
Eternal scowerings keep their floors afloat,
Neat as the outside of the Sunday coat;
The hoe, the loom, the female band employ,
These all their pleasure, these their darling joy;—
The strong-ribb'd lass no idle passions move,
No frail ideas of romantic love;
He to her heart the readiest path can find
Who comes with gold, and courts her to be kind,
She heeds not valour, learning, wit, or birth,
Minds not the swain—but asks him what he's worth.
No female fears in her firm breast prevail,
The helm she handles and she trims the sail,
In some small barque the way to market finds,
Hauls aft the sheet, or veers it to the winds,
While placed a-head, subservient to her will,
Hans smokes his pipe, and wonders at her skill.
Health to their toils—thus may they still go on—
Curse on my pen! What pictures have I drawn!
Is this the general taste? No (Truth replies)—
If fond of beauty, guiltless of disguise,
See—(where, the social circle meant to grace)
The fair Cesarean shades her lovely face,—
She, earlier held to happier tasks at home,
Prefers the labours that her sex become,
Remote from view, directs some favourite art,
And leaves to hardier man the ruder part.

Pennsylvania

[A Fragment]

Spread with stupendous hills, far from the main,
Fair Pennsylvania holds her golden rein,
In fertile fields her wheaten harvest grows,
Charged with its freights her favorite Delaware flows;
From Erie's Lake her soil with plenty teems
To where the Schuylkill rolls his limpid streams—
Sweet stream! what pencil can thy beauties tell—
Where, wandering downward through the woody vale,
Thy varying scenes to rural bliss invite,
To health and pleasure add a new delight:
Here Juniata, too, allures the swain,
And gay Cadorus roves along the plain;
Sweetara, tumbling from the distant hill,
Steals through the waste, to turn the industrious mill—
Where'er those floods through groves or mountains stray,
That God of Nature still directs the way,
With fondest care has traced each river's bed
And mighty streams thro' mighty forests led,
Bade agriculture thus export her freight,
The strength and glory of this favoured State.
She, famed for science, arts, and polished men,
Admires her Franklin, but adores her Penn,
Who, wandering here, made barren forests bloom,
And the new soil a happier robe assume:
He planned no schemes that virtue disapproves,
He robbed no Indian of his native groves,
But, just to all, beheld his tribes increase,
Did what he could to bind the world in peace,
And, far retreating from a selfish band,
Bade Freedom flourish in this foreign land.
Gay towns unnumbered shine through all her plains,
Here every art its happiest height attains:
The graceful ship, on nice proportions planned,
Here finds perfection from the builder's hand,
To distant worlds commercial visits pays,
Or war's bold thunder o'er the deep conveys.[15]

Maryland

Laved by vast depths that swell on either side
Where Chesapeake intrudes his midway tide,
Gay Maryland attracts the admiring eye,
A fertile region with a temperate sky.
In years elapsed, her heroes of renown
From British Anna named one favourite town:[B]
But, lost her commerce, though she guards their laws,
Proud Baltimore that envied commerce draws.
Few are the years since there, at random placed,
Some wretched huts her quiet-port disgraced;
Safe from all winds, and covered from the bay,
There, at his ease, the thoughtless native lay.
Now, rich and great, no more a slave to sloth,
She claims importance from her towering growth—
High in renown, her streets and domes arranged,
A groupe of cabins to a city changed.
Though rich at home, to foreign lands they stray,
For foreign trappings trade the wealth away.
Politest manners through their towns prevail,
And pleasure revels, though their funds should fail;
In each gay dome, soft music charms its lord,
Where female beauty strikes the trembling chord;
On the fine air with nicest touches dwells,
While from the tongue the according ditty swells:
Proud to be seen, 'tis their's to place delight
In dances measured by the winter's night,
The evening feast, that wine and mirth prolong,
The lamp of splendor, and the midnight song.
Religion here no gloomy garb assumes,
Exchanged her tears for patches and for plumes:
The blooming belle (untaught heaven's beaus to win)
Talks not of seraphs, but the world she's in:
Attached to earth, here born, and to decay,
She leaves to better worlds all finer clay.
In those, whom choice or different fortunes place
On rural scenes, a different mind we trace;
There solitude, that still to dullness tends,
To rustic forms no sprightly action lends;
Heeds not the garb, mopes o'er the evening fire;
And bids the maiden from the man retire.
On winding floods the lofty mansion stands,
That casts a mournful view o'er neighbouring lands;
There the sad master strays amidst his grounds,
Directs his negroes, or reviews his hounds;
Then home returning, plies his pasteboard play,
Or dreams o'er wine, that hardly makes him gay:
If some chance guest arrive in weary plight,
He more than bids him welcome for the night;
Kind to profusion, spares no pains to please,
Gives him the product of his fields and trees;
On his rich board shines plenty from her source,
—The meanest dish of all his own discourse.

[B] Annapolis.—Freneau's note.

Old Virginia[16]

Vast in extent, Virginia meets our view,
With streams immense, dark groves, and mountains blue;
First in provincial rank she long was seen,
Built the first town, and first subdued the plain:
This was her praise—but what can years avail,
When times succeeding see her efforts fail!
On northern fields more vigorous arts display,
Where pleasure holds no universal sway;
No herds of slaves parade their sooty band
From the rough plough to save the fopling's hand,
Where urgent wants the daily pittance ask,
Compel to labour, and complete the task.[17]
A race of slaves, throughout their country spread,
From different soils extort the owner's bread;[18]
Averse to toil, the natives still rely
On the sad negro for the year's supply;[19]
He, patient, early quits his poor abode,
Toils at the hoe, or totes some ponderous load,[20]
Sweats at the axe, or, pensive and forlorn,
Sighs for the eve, to parch his stinted corn!
With watchful eye maintains his much-loved fire,
Nor even in summer lets its sparks expire—
At night returns, his evening toils to share,
Lament his rags, or sleep away his care,
Bind up the recent wound, with many a groan;
Or thank his gods that Sunday is his own.
To these far climes the scheming Scotchman flies,
Quits his bleak hills to court Virginian skies;
Removed from oat-meal, sour-crout, debts, and duns,
Prudent, he hastes to bask in kinder suns;
Marks well the native—views his weaker side,
And heaps up wealth from luxury and pride,
Exports the produce of a thousand plains,
Nor fears a rival, to divide his gains.
Deep in their beds, as distant to their source
Here many a river winds its wandering course:
Proud of her bulky freight, through plains and woods
Moves the tall ship, majestic, o'er the floods,
Where James's strength the ocean brine repels,
Or, like a sea, the deep Potowmack swells:
Yet here the sailor views with wondering eye
Impoverished fields that near their margins lie,
Mercantile towns, where languor holds her reign,
And boors inactive, on the exhausted plain.[21]

[4] In the Charleston City Gazette or Daily Advertiser of February 2, 1790, appeared "A Characteristic Sketch of the Long Island Dutch. From The Rising Empire: a Poem." Two days later the New York Daily Advertiser published "A View of Rhode Island. [Extracted from a new Poem, entitled The Rising Empire, not yet published.]" That Freneau for a time was actively engaged upon this projected volume is evident from the poems on the states which appeared in the Daily Advertiser, chiefly during the month of March, 1790. The last of these poems, "A Descriptive Sketch of Virginia," appeared June 11, 1790. On June 25 Freneau issued proposals for a new volume of poems, presumably to bear the title "The Rising Empire," but the volume was never published. Many of the pieces that undoubtedly would have gone to make up the book appeared in the Daily Advertiser. Of those that came directly under the title (and they are doubtless but a fragment of what the poet intended to write) all but "A View of Rhode Island" appeared in a greatly changed form in the poet's later volumes. I have followed in each case the edition of 1809.

[5] In the Daily Advertiser of March 13, 1790, this poem bore the title "Philosophical Sketch of America."

[6] Text from the New York Daily Advertiser of February 4, 1790.

[7] In the original version published in the Daily Advertiser, May 10, 1790, this bore the title "Description of Connecticut."

[8] Followed in the original version by the line:

"Sacred to him, that taught them to be keen;"

[9] The fourteen lines following this are not in the original version.

[10] In the edition of 1795 this reads "Greenfield's reverend son," alluding to Dr. Dwight.

[11] In the index to the 1809 edition the title was "Lines on the old patriotic state, Massachusetts."

[12]

"All, all too weak to effect the vast design
That swell'd, poor Gage, that puny heart of thine,
That urg'd Burgoyne to slight his Celia's charms,
The brother Howes to furbish up their arms
And modern Percies lose their wonted sleep
To conquer countries, that they could—not keep."

—Original version in the Daily Advertiser, March 29, 1790.

[13] The original title of this poem was "A Characteristic Sketch of the Long Island Dutch."

[14] The original version in the Daily Advertiser began at this point.

[15] The earliest version, as it appeared in the Daily Advertiser, March 17, 1790, had the following in place of the last six lines:

"Thy followers, Fox, pacific in each aim,
In this far climate still revere your name;
To them long practice prudent foresight gave,
Proof to the projects of the keenest knave.
On things to come they fix an anxious eye
Fond to be thought the favourites of the sky,
Paths of their own they clear to future bliss,
Praise other worlds but keep their hold on this.
Nor mean I, hence, to censure or condemn,
Perhaps 'twere best the world should think like them;—
What tho' on visions they may place their trust,
I hold their general principles are just,
Good will to all, themselves their first great care,
Precise in dealing, foes to blood and war;
Let kings invade, or potentates assault,
No aid they lend, for passive to a fault,
They still are found, all complaisant to power
To bow to ruffians in the trying hour."

[16] In the edition of 1795 this bore the title "Virginia. [A Fragment]"

[17] The original version in the Daily Advertiser, June 11, 1790, added here these lines:

"Yet shall not malice rob them of their due,
Not all their worth is center'd in a few:
On Fame's bright lists their sages they enroll,
Theirs is the brave, and high aspiring soul,
Heroes and chiefs, the firm unconquer'd mind
That rul'd in councils, or in battles shin'd,
Sent traitorous bands new regions to explore
And drove their titled miscreant^[a] from the shore."

[a] Lord Dunmore.—Freneau's note.

[18] The original version added here the following:

"Rais'd by their care, tobacco spreads its leaf,
The master's pleasure, and the labourer's grief;
Hence comes the lofty port, the haughty air,
The proud demeanour, and the brow severe."

[19] The original version added here the couplet:

"While the keen lash some little tyrant wields,
Foe to the free-born genius of the fields."

[20] The original version added here:

"Silent beholds (proud object of reproach)
His whole year's labour lost on Mammon's coach!"

[21] As originally printed in the Daily Advertiser the poem ended as follows:

"Mercantile towns where dullness holds her reign
And boors, too lazy to manure the plain:—
There, where two creeks divide the sickly lands,
Mis-shapen pile, the gloomy college stands,
With mingled chess the sophs their vigils keep
And William nods to Mary—half asleep;
The mopish muse no lively theme essays
But toils in law, that best her toil repays,
With modern Latin, ancient trash explains,
Or deals in Logic—for the want of brains.
"Attach'd to other times, I cast my view
To former days, when all was fresh & new,
When Pocahunta, in her bearskin clad,
Sigh'd to be happy with her English lad:
Queen of those woods, embarking on the main,
(With Tomocomo following in her train)
First of her race, she reach'd the British shore
But doom'd to perish, saw her own no more!
Chang'd is the scene—where once her gardens smil'd
A negro race now wander through the wild
And with base gabbling, vex that injur'd shade
Where Freedom flourish'd and Powhatan stray'd."

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LOG-TOWN TAVERN[22]

[By Hezekiah Salem][23]

Through sandy wastes and floods of rain
To this dejected place I came,
Where swarthy nymphs, in tattered gowns,
From pine-knots catch their evening flame:

Where barren oaks, in close array,
With mournful melody condole;
Where no gay fabrics meet the eye,
Nor painted board, nor barber's pole.

Thou town of logs! so justly called,
In thee who halts at evening's close,
Not dreams from Jove, but hosts of fleas
Shall join to sweeten his repose.

A curse on this dejected place
Where cold, and hot, and wet, and dry,
And stagnant ponds of ample space
The putrid steams of death supply.

Since here I paced on weary steed
Ah, blame me not, should I repine
That sprightly girl, nor social bed,
Nor jovial glass this night is mine.

The landlord, gouged in either eye,
Here drains his bottle to the dregs,
Or borrows Susan's pipe, while she
Prepares the bacon and the eggs.

Jamaica, that inspires the soul,
In these abodes no time has seen
To dart its generous influence round,
To kindle wit and kill the spleen.

The squire of this disheartening inn
Affords to none the generous bowl,
Displays no Bacchus on the sign
To warm the heart and cheer the soul.

To cyder, drawn from tilted cask,
While each a fond attention paid
All grieved to see the empty flask,
Its substance gone, its strength decayed.

A rambling hag, in dismal notes
Screeched out a song, to cheer my grief;
Two lads their dull adventures told,
A shepherd each—and each a thief.

Dame justice here in rigour reigns—
Each has on each the griping paw:
Whoe'er with them a bargain makes,
Scheme as he will, it ends in law.

With scraps of songs and smutty words
Each lodger here adorns the walls:
The wanton muse no pencil gives,
A coal her mean idea scrawls.

No merry thought, no flash of wit
Was scrawled by this unseemly crew,
With pain I read the words they writ
Immodest and immoral too.

The god of verse, the poet's friend,
Whom Nature all indulgent finds—
That god of verse will never lend
His powers to such degraded minds.

In murmuring streams no chrystal wave
To cheer the wretched hamlet flows;
But frowning to the distant bog
Rosanna with the pitcher goes.

At dusk of eve the tardy treat
Was placed on board of knotty pine;
Each gaping gazed, to see me eat
While round me lay the slumbering swine.

Unblessed be she, whose aukward hand
Before me laid the mouldy pone;[A]
May she still miss the joyous kiss,
Condemned to fret and sleep alone.

[A] A composition of Indian meal and water, baked hastily before the fire on a board or hoe.—Freneau's note.

The horse that bore me on my way
Around me cast a wishful eye,
He looked, and saw no manger near,
And hung his head, and seemed to sigh.

At stump of pine, for want of stall,
All night, beneath a dripping tree,
Not fed with oats, but filled with wind,
And buckwheat straw, alone stood he.

Discouraged at so vile a treat,
Yet pleased to see the approaching dawn,
In haste, we left this dreary place,
Nor staid to drink their dear Yoppon.[B]

[B] A shrub leaf very commonly used in the Carolinas, as a substitute for tea.—Freneau's note.

May travellers dread to wander here,
Unless on penance they be bound—
O may they never venture near,
Such fleas and filthiness abound.

But should ye come—be short your stay,
For Lent is here forever kept—
Depart, ye wretches, haste away,
Nor stop to sleep—where I have slept.

[22] Daily Advertiser, February 19, 1790, entitled "Lines Descriptive of a Tavern at Log-Town, a small Place in the Pine Barrens of North-Carolina." The poem appeared originally in the North Carolina Gazette.

[23] The signature "By Hezekiah Salem" or "By H. Salem" is peculiar to the 1809 edition. Freneau added it to many poems which in previous editions had been unsigned.

---

THE WANDERER[24]

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;
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.

[24] Printed in the Daily Advertiser, February 22, 1790, under the title "The Bird at Sea," and republished only in the edition of 1795, from which the text is taken.

---

ON THE
DEMOLITION OF FORT-GEORGE

In New-York—1790[25]

As giants once, in hopes to rise,
Heaped up their mountains to the skies;
With Pelion piled on Ossa, strove
To reach the eternal throne of Jove;

So here the hands of ancient days
Their fortress from the earth did raise,
On whose proud heights, proud men to please,
They mounted guns and planted trees.

Those trees to lofty stature grown—
All is not right!—they must come down,
Nor longer waste their wonted shade
Where Colden slept, or Tryon strayed.

Let him be sad that placed them there,—
We shall a youthful race prepare;
Another grove shall bloom, we trust,
When this lies prostrate in the dust.

Where Dutchmen once, in ages past,
Huge walls and ramparts round them cast,
New fabrics raised, on new design,
Gay streets and palaces shall shine.

To foreign kings no more a slave
(Disgrace to Freedom's passing wave)
No flags we rear, we feign no mirth,
Nor prize the day that gave them birth.

While time degrades Palmyra low,
Augusta lifts her lofty brow—
While Europe falls to wars a prey,
Her monarchs here, should have no sway.

Another George shall here reside,
While Hudson's bold, unfettered tide
Well pleased to see this chief so nigh,
With livelier aspect passes by.

Along his margin, fresh and clean,
Ere long shall belles and beaux be seen,
Through moon-light shades, delighted, stray,
To view the islands and the bay.

Of evening dews no more afraid,
Reclining in some favourite shade,
Each nymph, in rapture with her trees,
Shall sigh to quit the western breeze.

To barren hills far southward shoved,
These noisy guns shall be removed,
No longer here a vain expense,
Where time has proved them no defence.—

Advance, bright days! make haste to crown
With such fair scenes this honoured town.—
Freedom shall find her charter clear,
And plant her seat of commerce here.

[25] In the Daily Advertiser of June 12, 1790, there appeared from the pen of Freneau a long article entitled "Description of New-York one Hundred years hence, By a Citizen of those Times:" The following is an extract:

"At the South western part of this city formerly stood a strong fort, with stone walls, near thirty feet in height, upon which were mounted a considerable number of large pieces of cannon. This fortress was originally constructed by the Dutch possessors of the place to defend the town, then in its infancy, from the insults of pirates on the one side, and the aborigines of the country on the other. After this territory fell into the hands of the English nation, the fort was at different times enlarged, strengthened and repaired, and was the usual place of residence for the British Governors, who, in the true spirit of European royalty and despotism chose to live separate from their fellow-citizens, and in several instances treated them with a degree of contempt and disrespect proportionate to the confidence they had in the number of their cannon, and in the strength of the walls and ramparts that surrounded them.

"History mentions that in the year 1790, fourteen years after this republic had shaken off its yoke of foreign bondage, this fort was totally demolished by an edict of the Senate, and the space it occupied employed to better purpose in making room for those elegant streets and buildings which now adorn this quarter of the city."

The poem appeared in the issue of March 9, 1790, and was entitled "On the proposed demolition of Fort George, in this City." The text of the 1809 edition has been followed.

---

CONGRESS HALL, N. Y.[26]

With eager step and wrinkled brow,
The busy sons of care
(Disgusted with less splendid scenes)
To Congress Hall repair.

In order placed, they patient wait
To seize each word that flies,
From what they hear, they sigh or smile,
Look cheerful, grave, or wise.

Within these walls the doctrines taught
Are of such vast concern,
That all the world, with one consent,
Here strives to live—and learn.

The timorous heart, that cautious shuns
All churches, but its own,
No more observes its wonted rules;
But ventures here, alone.

Four hours a day each rank alike,
(They that can walk or crawl)
Leave children, business, shop, and wife,
And steer for Congress Hall.

From morning tasks of mending soals
The cobler hastes away;
At three returns, and tells to Kate
The business of the day.

The debtor, vext with early duns,
Avoids his hated home;
And here and there dejected roves
'Till hours of Congress come.

The barber, at the well-known time,
Forsakes his bearded man,
And leaves him with his lathered jaws,
To trim them as he can.

The tailor, plagued with suits on suits,
Neglects Sir Fopling's call,
Throws by his goose—slips from his board,
And trots to Congress Hall.

[26] Daily Advertiser, March 12, 1790. The title of the poem as given in the index of the 1809 edition, the text of which I have followed, is "On the Immense Concourse at Federal Hall, in 1790, while the Funding System was in agitation." The title in the 1795 edition was "Federal Hall." The seat of the national government was at this time in New York City.

---

EPISTLE TO PETER PINDAR, ESQ.[27]

Peter, methinks you are the happiest wight
That ever dealt in ink, or sharpen'd quill.
'Tis yours on every rank of fools to write—
Some prompt with pity, some with laughter kill;
On scullions or on dukes you run your rigs,
And value George no more than Whitbread's pigs.

From morn to night, thro' London's busy streets,
New subjects for your pen in crowds are seen,
At church, in taverns, balls, or birth-day treats,
Sir Joseph Banks, or England's breeding queen;
How happy you, whom fortune has decreed
Each character to hit—where all will read.

We, too, have had your monarch by the nose,
And pull'd the richest jewel from his crown—
Half Europe's kings are fools, the story goes,
Mere simpletons, and ideots of renown,
Proud, in their frantic fits, man's blood to spill—
'Tis time they all were travelling down the hill.

But, Peter, quit your dukes and little lords,
Young princes full of blood and scant of brains—
Our rebel coast some similes affords,
And many a subject for your pen contains
Preserv'd as fuel for your comic rhymes,
(Like Egypt's gods) to give to future times.

[27] Text from the Daily Advertiser, March 15, 1790. "Peter Pindar" was the pen name of the voluminous and well-known English satirist and humorist, Dr. John Walcott. The first collection of his poems was published in 1789. From this point his influence upon the poetry of Freneau was considerable. An American edition of Peter Pindar was published in Philadelphia in 1792.

---

THE NEW ENGLAND SABBATH-DAY CHACE[28]

[Written Under the Character of Hezekiah Salem]

On a fine Sunday morning I mounted my steed
And southward from Hartford had meant to proceed;
My baggage was stow'd in a cart very snug,
Which Ranger, the gelding, was destined to lug;
With his harness and buckles, he loom'd very grand,
And was drove by young Darby, a lad of the land—
On land, or on water, most handy was he,
A jockey on shore, and a sailor at sea,
He knew all the roads, he was so very keen
And the Bible by heart, at the age of fifteen.
As thus I jogg'd on, to my saddle confined,
With Ranger and Darby a distance behind;
At last in full view of a steeple we came
With a cock on the spire (I suppose he was game;
A dove in the pulpit may suit your grave people,
But always remember—a cock on the steeple)
Cries Darby—"Dear master, I beg you to stay;
Believe me, there's danger in driving this way;
Our deacons on Sundays have power to arrest
And lead us to church—if your honour thinks best—
Though still I must do them the justice to tell,
They would choose you should pay them the fine—full as well."
The fine (said I) Darby, how much may it be—
A shilling or sixpence?—why, now let me see,
Three shillings are all the small pence that remain,
And to change a half joe would be rather profane.
Is it more than three shillings, the fine that you speak on;
What say you good Darby—will that serve the deacon.
"Three shillings (cried Darby) why, master, you're jesting!—
Let us luff while we can and make sure of our westing—
Forty shillings, excuse me, is too much to pay
It would take my month's wages—that's all I've to say.
By taking this road that inclines to the right
The squire and the sexton may bid us good night,
If once to old Ranger I give up the rein
The parson himself may pursue us in vain."
"Not I, my good Darby (I answer'd the lad)
Leave the church on the left! they would think we were mad;
I would sooner rely on the heels of my steed,
And pass by them all like a Jehu indeed:—
As long as I'm able to lead in the race
Old Ranger, the gelding, will go a good pace,
As the deacon pursues, he will fly like a swallow,
And you in the cart must, undoubtedly, follow."
Then approaching the church, as we pass'd by the door
The sexton peep'd out, with a saint or two more,
A deacon came forward and waved us his hat,
A signal to drop him some money—mind that!—
"Now, Darby (I halloo'd) be ready to skip,
Ease off the curb bridle—give Ranger the whip:
While you have the rear, and myself lead the way,
No doctor or deacon shall catch us this day."
By this time the deacon had mounted his poney
And chaced for the sake of our souls and—our money:
The saint, as he followed, cried—"Stop them, halloo!"
As swift as he followed, as swiftly we flew—
"Ah master! (said Darby) I very much fear
We must drop him some money to check his career,
He is gaining upon us and waves with his hat
There's nothing, dear master, will stop him but that.
Remember the Beaver (you well know the fable)
Who flying the hunters as long as he's able,
When he finds that his efforts can nothing avail
But death and the puppies are close at his tail,
Instead of desponding at such a dead lift
He bites off their object, and makes a free gift—
Since fortune all hope of escaping denies
Better give them a little, than lose the whole prize."
But scarce had he spoke, when we came to a place
Whose muddy condition concluded the chace,
Down settled the cart—and old Ranger stuck fast
Aha! (said the Saint) have I catch'd ye at last?

* * * *

Cætera desunt.

[28] First published, as far as I can find, in the Daily Advertiser, March 16, 1790. It was there introduced as follows (italics): "In several parts of New England it is customary not to suffer travellers to proceed on a journey on the Sabbath day. If a person is obstinate on these occasions, he is either forcibly (and commonly to the ridicule of the whole Congregation) conducted to the Church door, led through the principal ile (sic), and placed in a conspicuous seat by the wardens, or must be detained till next day under guard, and submit to pay a fine, or be committed. The following lines commemorate an event of this sort, which some years ago really befel Mr. P. the noted performer in feats of horsemanship. The author, however, seems to have left his poem incomplete." Text from the 1809 edition.

---

ON THE SLEEP OF PLANTS[29]

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.

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!

[29] Published in the Daily Advertiser, March 20, 1790. Text from the edition of 1809.

---

ON THE DEMOLITION OF AN OLD
COLLEGE[30]

On New-Year's eve, the year was eighty-nine,
All clad in black, a back-woods' college crew
With crow-bar, sledge, and broad axe did combine
To level with the dust their antique hall,
In hopes the President would build a new:
Yes, yes, (said they), this ancient pile shall fall,
And laugh no longer at yon' cobbler's stall.

The clock struck seven—in social compact joined,
They pledged their sacred honors to proceed:
The number seventy-five this feat designed:
And first some oaths they swore by candle light
On Euclid' Elements—no bible did they need:
One must be true, they said, the other might—
Besides, no bible could be found that night.

Now darkness o'er the plain her pinions spread,
Then rung the bell an unaccustomed peal:
Out rushed the brave, the cowards went to bed,
And left the attempt to those who felt full bold
To pull down halls, where years had seen them kneel:
Where Wheelock oft at rakes was wont to scold,
Or sung them many a psalm, in days of old.

Advancing then towards the tottering hall,
(That now at least one hundred years had stood)
They gave due notice that it soon should fall—
Lest there some godly wight might gaping stand;
(For well they knew the world wants all its good
To fright the sturdy sinners of the land,
And shame old Satan, with his sooty band.)

The reverend man that college gentry awes,
Hearing the bell at this unusual hour,
Vext at the infringement of the college laws,
With Indian stride out-sallied from his den,
And made a speech (as being a man in power)—
Alas! it was not heard by one in ten—
No time to heed his speeches, or his pen.

"Ah, rogues, said he, ah, whither do ye run,
"Bent on the ruin of this antique pile—
"That, all the war, has braved both sword and gun?
"Reflect, dear boys, some reverend rats are there,
"That now will have to scamper many a mile,
"For whom past time old Latin books did spare,
"And Attic Greek, and manuscripts most rare.

"Relent, relent! to accomplish such designs
"Folks bred on college fare are much too weak;
"For such attempts men drink your high-proof wines,
"Not spiritless switchel[A] and vile hogo drams,
"Scarcely sufficient to digest your Greek—
"Come, let the college stand, my dear black lambs—
"Besides—I see you have no battering rams."

[A] A mixture of molasses and water.—Freneau's note.

Thus he—but sighs, and tears, and prayers were lost—
So, to it they went with broad-axe, spade, and hammer—
One smote a wall, and one dislodged a post,
Tugged at a beam, or pulled down pigeon-holes
Where Indian lads were wont to study grammar—
Indeed, they took vast pains and dug like moles,
And worked as if they worked to save their souls.

Now to its deep foundation shook the dome:
Farewell to all its learning, fame and honor!
So fell the capitol of heathen Rome,
By Goths and Vandals levelled with the dust—
And so shall die the works of Neal O'Connor,
(Which he himself will even outlive, we trust:)
But now our story's coming to the worst—

Down fell the Pile!—aghast these rebels stood,
And wondered at the mischiefs they had done
To such a pile, composed of white-oak wood;
To such a pile, so antique and renowned,
Which many a prayer had heard and many a pun—
So, three huzzas they gave, and fired a round,
Then homeward trudged—half drunk—but safe and sound.

[30] Published in the Daily Advertiser, March 22, 1790, under the title "On the Demolition of Dartmouth College." This earliest version was introduced thus (italics): "On December the 31st last, the old College at Dartmouth in New-Hampshire, was entirely demolished by the Students, notwithstanding every endeavour of the Rev. President to persuade them to desist from their unwarrantable undertaking. It stood the shock of their united efforts about 20 minutes, and then fell to the ground." The facts as given by Freneau are in the main true. During the absence of the second Wheelock in Europe to secure funds for the college "Professor Woodward," according to Chase's History of Dartmouth College, "acted as chief executive and Professor Ripley resided with the family in the presidential mansion. The students, it seems, took advantage of the opportunity to rid themselves and the faculty of the little log hut, 'the first sprout of the college,' that stood near the mansion house. Being remitted to the occupancy of servants, it was by this time in a deplorable state of neglect and decay, and obnoxious to everybody. On a December evening in 1782 or 1783 Professor Ripley in the President's house happened to be entertaining a friend from Connecticut, and dilating with much satisfaction upon the orderly behaviour of the students and the freedom from noise and disturbance. In the midst of it they became aware of an unusual commotion without, and on going to see about it, discovered a body of students assailing the log house in such a manner that in a very short time little was left of it. The professor made an effort to stay the work but the noise overpowered his voice." In the edition of 1795 the title was "On the Demolition of a Log-College," and in the index of the edition of 1809, the text of which I have used, the title was given "On the Demolition of an ancient New-England College."

---

ON THE DEATH OF DR. BENJAMIN
FRANKLIN[31]

Thus, some tall tree that long hath stood
The glory of its native wood,
By storms destroyed, or length of years,
Demands the tribute of our tears.

The pile, that took long time to raise,
To dust returns by slow decays:
But, when its destined years are o'er,
We must regret the loss the more.

So long accustomed to your aid,
The world laments your exit made;
So long befriended by your art,
Philosopher, 'tis hard to part!—

When monarchs tumble to the ground,
Successors easily are found:
But, matchless Franklin! what a few
Can hope to rival such as you,
Who seized from kings their sceptred pride,
And turned the lightning's darts aside![A]

[A] Eripuit cœlo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis!—Freneau's note.

[31] First published in the Daily Advertiser, April 28, 1790. Text from the 1809 edition. Franklin died April 17.

---

EPISTLE[32]

From Dr. Franklin [deceased] to his Poetical Panegyrists, on some of their Absurd Compliments

"Good Poets, why so full of pain,
Are you sincere—or do you feign?
Love for your tribe I never had,
Nor penned three stanzas, good or bad.

At funerals, sometimes, grief appears,
Where legacies have purchased tears:
'Tis folly to be sad for nought,
From me you never gained a groat.

To better trades I turned my views,
And never meddled with the muse;
Great things I did for rising States,
And kept the lightning from some pates.

This grand discovery, you adore it,
But ne'er will be the better for it:
You still are subject to those fires,
For poets' houses have no spires.

Philosophers are famed for pride;
But, pray, be modest—when I died,
No "sighs disturbed old ocean's bed,"
No "Nature wept" for Franklin dead!

That day, on which I left the coast,
A beggar-man was also lost:
If "Nature wept," you must agree
She wept for him—as well as me.

There's reason even in telling lies—
In such profusion of her "sighs,"
She was too sparing of a tear—
In Carolina, all was clear:

And, if there fell some snow and sleet,
Why must it be my winding sheet?
Snows oft have cloathed the April plain,
Have melted, and will melt again.

Poets, I pray you, say no more,
Or say what Nature said before;
That reason should your pens direct,
Or else you pay me no respect.

Let reason be your constant rule,
And Nature, trust me, is no fool—
When to the dust great men she brings,
Make her do—some uncommon things."

[32] Published in the Daily Advertiser, May 24, 1790, with the title "Verses from the Other World, by Dr. Fr—k—n." Text from the 1809 edition.

---

CONSTANTIA[33]

[On a Project of Retiring to Bethlehem]

Sick of the world, in prime of days
Constantia took a serious fit—
Resolved to shun all balls and plays
And only read what saints had writ—
To Convent Hall she would repair
And be a pensive sister there.

"What are they all—this glare of things,
These insects that around me shine;
These beaux and belles on silken wings—
Indeed their pleasures make not mine—
My happiness is all delayed—
I'll go, and find it in the shade."

A sailor, loitering from his crew,
As chance would have it, passed along—
She told him what she had in view,
And he replied—"Fair maid you're wrong,
"Let faded nymphs to cloisters go,
"Where kisses freeze and love is snow.

"The druids' oak and hermits' pine
"Afford a gloomy, sad delight;
"But why that blush of health resign,
"The mingled tint of red and white?
"In moistening cells the flowers expire
"That, on the plain, all eyes admire.

"With such a pensive, pious train
"Who, but a hermit, could agree—
"Ah, rather stay to grace the plain,
"Or wander on the wave with me:
"For you the painted barque shall wait
"And I would die for such a freight."

"No wandering stranger (she replied)
"Can tempt me to forego my plan;
"No barque that wafts him o'er the tide,
"Nor many a better looking man:
"Go, wanderer, plough your gloomy sea,
"Constantia must a sister be.

"To gain so fair a flower as you,
"(The Tar returned) who would not plead?
"Nor shall you, nymph, to convents go
"While love can write what you must read:
"Come, to yon' meadow let us stray,
"I have some handsome things to say."

"Love has its wish when reason fails—
"In vain he sighed, in vain he strove:
"Forsake (said she) those swelling sails
"If you would have me—think of love:
"Great merit has your sailing art,
"But absence would distract my heart."

What else was said, we secret keep;—
The Tar, grown fonder of the shore,
Neglects his prospects on the deep,
And she of convents talks no more:—
He slyly quits the coasting trade
She pities her—who seeks the shade.

[33] Printed in the Daily Advertiser, May 1, 1790. It was republished both in the Freeman's Journal and in the National Gazette. Text from the 1809 edition.

---

STANZAS

Occasioned by Lord Bellamont's, Lady Hay's, and Other Skeletons,
being dug up in Fort George (N. Y.), 1790.[34]

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:
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.

[34] Published in the Daily Advertiser, June 17, 1790. The bodies were removed at the time the demolition of Fort George was in progress. Text from the 1809 edition.

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THE ORATOR OF THE WOODS[35]

Each traveller asks, with fond surprize,
Why Thyrsis wastes the fleeting year
Where gloomy forests round him rise,
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.

[35] Published in the Daily Advertiser, June 29, 1790, with the explanation: "Occasioned by hearing a very elegant Discourse preached in a mean Building, by the Parson of an obscure Parrish." Text from the 1809 edition.

---

NANNY[A]

The Philadelphia Housekeeper, to Nabby, her Friend in New-York[36]

[A] Occasioned by the intended removal of the Supreme Legislature of the United States from New-York to Philadelphia—a measure much agitated at the time the above was written—1790.—Freneau's note.

Six weeks my dear mistress has been in a fret
And nothing but Congress will do for her yet:
She says they must come, or her senses she'll lose,
From morning till night she is reading the news,
And loves the dear fellows that vote for our town
(Since no one can relish New-York but a clown,
Where your beef is as lean, as if fattened on chaff,
And folks are too haughty to worship—a calf)
She tells us as how she has read in her books
That God gives them meat, but the devil sends cooks;
And Grumbleton told us (who often shoots flying)
That fish you have plenty—but spoil them in frying;
That your streets are as crooked, as crooked can be,
Right forward three perches he never could see
But his view was cut short with a house or a shop,
That stood in his way—and obliged him to stop.
Those speakers that wish for New-York to decide,—
'Tis a pity that talents are so misapplied!
My mistress declares she is vext to the heart
That genius should take such a pitiful part;
For the question, indeed, she is daily distrest,
And Gerry, I think, she will ever detest,
Who did all he could, with his tongue and his pen
To keep the dear Congress shut up in your Den.
She insists, the expense of removing is small,
And that two or three thousands will answer it all,
If that is too much, and we're so very poor—
The passage by water is cheaper, be sure;
If people object the expence of a team,
Here's Fitch with his wherry, will bring them by steam;
And, Nabby!—if once he should take them on board,
The Honour will be a sufficient reward.
But, as to myself, I vow and declare
I wish it would suit them to stay where they are;
I plainly foresee, that if once they remove
Throughout the long day, we shall drive, and be drove,
My madam's red rag will ring like a bell,
And the hall and the parlour will never look well;
Such scouring will be as has never been seen,
We shall always be cleaning, and never be clean,
And threats in abundance will work on my fears,
Of blows on the back, and of cuffs on the ears—
Two trifles, at present, discourage her paw,
The fear of the Lord, and the fear of the law—
But if Congress arrive, she will have such a sway,
That gospel and law will be both done away;—
For the sake of a place I must bear all her din,
And if ever so angry, do nothing but grin;
So Congress, I hope in your town will remain,
And Nanny will thank them again and again.

[36] Published in the Daily Advertiser, July 1, 1790. Text from the 1809 edition.

---

NABBY

The New-York Housekeeper, to Nanny, her Friend in Philadelphia[37]

Well, Nanny, I am sorry to find, since you writ us,
The Congress at last has determined to quit us;
You now may begin with your dish-clouts and brooms,
To be scouring your knockers and scrubbing your rooms;
As for us, my dear Nanny, we're much in a pet,
And hundreds of houses will be to be let;
Our streets, that were just in a way to look clever,
Will now be neglected and nasty as ever;
Again we must fret at the Dutchified gutters
And pebble-stone pavements, that wear out our trotters.—
My master looks dull, and his spirits are sinking,
From morning till night he is smoking and thinking,
Laments the expence of destroying the fort,
And says, your great people are all of a sort—
He hopes and he prays they may die in a stall,
If they leave us in debt—for Federal Hall—
And Strap has declared, he has such regards,
He will go, if they go, for the sake of their beards.
Miss Letty, poor lady, is so in the pouts,
She values no longer our dances and routs,
And sits in a corner, dejected and pale,
As dull as a cat, and as lean as a rail!—
Poor thing, I'm certain she's in a decay,
And all—because Congress Resolve—not to stay!—
This Congress unsettled is, sure, a sad thing,
Seven years, my dear Nanny, they've been on the wing;
My master would rather saw timber, or dig,
Than see them removing to Conegocheague,
Where the houses and kitchens are yet to be framed,
The trees to be felled, and the streets to be named;
Of the two, we had rather your town should receive 'em—
So here, my dear Nanny, in haste I must leave 'em,
I'm a dunce at inditing—and as I'm a sinner,
The beef is half raw—and the bell rings for dinner!

[37] Published in the Daily Advertiser, July 15, 1790. Text from the edition of 1809.

---

THE BERGEN PLANTER[38]

Attach'd to lands that ne'er deceiv'd his hopes,
This rustic sees the seasons come and go,
His autumn's toils return'd 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 design'd.

He to no pompous dome comes, cap in hand,
Where new-made 'squires affect the courtly smile:
Nor where Pomposo, 'midst his foreign band
Extols the sway of kings, in swelling style,
With tongue that babbled when it should have hush'd,
A head that never thought—a face that never blush'd.

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 at Bufo's midnight dance,
Dullman's mean rhymes, or Shylock'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 glanc'd his eye from that base pilfer'd store
To view the sword, suspended by a thread—
Nor that "hand-writing," grav'd upon the wall,
That tells him—but in vain—"the sword must fall."

He ne'er was made a holiday machine,
Wheel'd 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.

[38] Published in the Daily Advertiser, July 12, 1790. Reprinted in the National Gazette under the title "The Pennsylvania Planter." Text from the 1795 edition.

---

TOBACCO

[Supposed to be written by a Young Beginner[39]]

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!

[39] Published in the Daily Advertiser, July 31, 1790. Text from the edition of 1809.

---

THE BANISHED MAN[40]

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.

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[A] (old stories say)
When question'd where his country lay,
Inspired by heaven, made no reply,
But rais'd his finger to the sky.

[A] Anaxagoras.—Freneau's note.

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.

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.

[40] Published in the Daily Advertiser, September 1, 1790, with the introduction: "A little before Lord Bolingbroke was banished into France, he wrote an essay upon Exile.—Some of his thoughts on that occasion are expressed in the following Stanzas." Text from the 1809 edition.

---

THE DEPARTURE[41]

Occasioned by the Removal of Congress from New-York to Philadelphia.—[1790.]

From Hudson's banks, in proud array,
(Too mean to claim a longer stay)
Their new ideas to improve,
Behold the generous Congress move!

Such thankless conduct much we feared,
When Timon's coach stood ready geered,
And He—the foremost on the floor,
Stood pointing to the Delaware shore.

So long confined to little things,
They sigh to be where Bavius sings,
Where Sporus builds his splendid pile,
And Bufo's tawdry Seasons smile.

New chaplains, now, shall ope their jaws,
New salaries grease unworthy paws:
Some reverend man, that turtle carves,
Will fatten, while the solder starves.

The Yorker asks—but asks in vain—
"What demon bids them 'move again?
"Whoever 'moves must suffer loss,
"And rolling stones collect no moss.

"Have we not paid for chaplains' prayers,
"That heaven might smile on state affairs?—
"Put some things up, pulled others down,
"And raised our streets through half the town?

"Have we not, to our utmost, strove
"That Congress might not hence remove—
"At dull debates no silence broke,
"And walked on tip-toe while they spoke?

"Have we not toiled through cold and heat,
"To make the Federal Pile complete—
"Thrown down our Fort, to give them air,
"And sent our guns, the devil knows where?

"Times change! but Memory still recalls
"The Day, when ruffians scaled their walls—
"Sovereigns besieged by angry men,
"Mere prisoners in the town of Penn?

"Can they forget when, half afraid,
"The timorous Council[A] lent no aid;
"But left them to the rogues that rob,
"The tender mercies of the mob?

[A] See the history of those times.—Freneau's note.

"Oh! if they can, their lot is cast;
"One hundred miles will soon be passed—
"This Day the Federal Dome is cleared,
"To Paulus'-Hook the barge is steered,
"Where Timon's coach stands ready geered!"
[1790.]

[41] In the edition of 1795 this bore the title "On the Departure of the Grand Sanhedrim." Text from the 1809 edition.

---

THE AMERICAN SOLDIER[42]

[A Picture from the Life]

"To serve with love,
And shed your blood,
Approved may be above,
And here below
(Examples shew)
'Tis dangerous to be good."
—Lord Oxford.

Deep in a vale, a stranger now to arms,
Too poor to shine in courts, too proud to beg,
He, who once warred on Saratoga's plains,
Sits musing o'er his scars, and wooden leg.

Remembering still the toil of former days,
To other hands he sees his earnings paid;—
They share the due reward—he feeds on praise,
Lost in the abyss of want, misfortune's shade.

Far, far from domes where splendid tapers glare,
'Tis his from dear bought peace no wealth to win,
Removed alike from courtly cringing 'squires,
The great-man's Levee, and the proud man's grin.

Sold are those arms which once on Britons blazed,
When, flushed with conquest, to the charge they came;
That power repelled, and Freedom's fabrick raised,
She leaves her soldier—famine and a name! [1790]

[42] The first trace I can find of this poem is in the edition of 1795. Text from the 1809 edition.

---

OCCASIONED[43]

By a Legislation Bill proposing a Taxation upon Newspapers

"'Tis time to tax the News, (Sangrado cries)
"Subjects were never good that were too wise:
"In every hamlet, every trifling town,
"Some sly, designing fellow sits him down,
"On spacious folio prints his weekly mess,
"And spreads around the poison of his Press.
"Hence, to the World the streams of scandal flow,
"Disclosing secrets, that it should not know,
"Hence courtiers strut with libels on their backs;—
"And shall not news be humbled by a tax!

"Once ('tis most true) such papers did some good,
"When British chiefs arrived in angry mood:
"By them enkindled, every heart grew warm,
"By them excited, all were taught to arm,
"When some, retiring to Britannia's clime,
"Sat brooding o'er the vast events of time;
"Doubtful which side to take, or what to say,
"Or who would win, or who would lose the day.

"Those times are past; (and past experience shews)
"The well-born sort alone, should read the news,
"No common herds should get behind the scene
"To view the movements of the state machine:
"One paper only, filled with courtly stuff,
"One paper, for one country is enough,
"Where incense offered at Pomposo's shrine
"Shall prove his house-dog and himself divine."

[43] Published in the Daily Advertiser early in 1791. Text from the 1809 edition.

---

LINES[44]

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's 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!
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)
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."

[44] This was published in the National Gazette of March 8, 1792, with this introduction: "Legislatures and city corporations have ever been inimical to trees in cities.—About nine years ago the attempt was made in Philadelphia to cut down all the trees—The public, however, demurred to the decree, which, together with Mr. Hopkinson's Columnal Orator, saved the lives of these useful and amusing companions.

"In a neighboring city, a similar attempt was made about a year ago by its corporation. A universal extirpation was ordered, without respect to age or quality, by the 10th of June, 1791.—The public interfered in this, as in the other case, and the trees were saved,^[a] except a few, which having been injudiciously placed, above a century ago, had nearly grown into the inhabitants' houses; and consequently suffered the sentence of the law....

[a] A copy of verses, on this occasion, were as follow: THE LANDLORD'S SOLILOQUY, etc."

---

TO THE PUBLIC[45]

This age is so fertile of mighty events,
That people complain, with some reason, no doubt,
Besides the time lost, and besides the expence,
With reading the papers they're fairly worn out;
The past is no longer an object of care,
The present consumes all the time they can spare.

Thus grumbles the reader, but still he reads on
With his pence and his paper unwilling to part:
He sees the world passing, men going and gone,
Some riding in coaches, and some in a cart:
For a peep at the farce a subscription he'll give,—
Revolutions must happen, and printers must live:

For a share of your favour we aim with the rest:
To enliven the scene we'll exert all our skill,
What we have to impart shall be some of the best,
And Multum in Parvo our text, if you will;
Since we never admitted a clause in our creed,
That the greatest employment of life is—to read.

The king of the French and the queen of the North
At the head of the play, for the season, we find:
From the spark that we kindled, a flame has gone forth
To astonish the world and enlighten mankind:
With a code of new doctrines the universe rings,
And Paine is addressing strange sermons to kings.

Thus launch'd, as we are, on the ocean of news,
In hopes that your pleasure our pains will repay,
All honest endeavours the author will use
To furnish a feast for the grave and the gay:
At least he'll essay such a track to pursue
That the world shall approve—and his news shall be true.

[45] First published in number one of the National Gazette, October 31, 1791, under the title "Poetical Address to the Public of the United States." It was Freneau's salutatory at the beginning of his new career in Philadelphia. Text from the edition of 1795. The poem was omitted from the edition of 1809.

---

LINES[46]

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?—
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.

[46] Published in the National Gazette, November 14, 1791, under the title "A Mistake Rectified." Included in the 1795 edition with the title, "Epistle to a Desponding Sea-man." Text from the edition of 1809. It is very doubtful if Freneau ever sailed to Calcutta.

---

MODERN DEVOTION[47]

[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.

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!

[47] Published in the National Gazette, December 5, 1791. Text from the edition of 1809.

---

THE COUNTRY PRINTER[48]

I.
DESCRIPTION OF HIS VILLAGE

Beside a stream, that never yet ran dry,
There stands a Town, not high advanced in fame;
Tho' few its buildings raised to please the eye,
Still this proud title it may fairly claim;
A Tavern (its first requisite) is there,
A mill, a black-smith's shop, a place of prayer.

Nay, more—a little market-house is seen
And iron hooks, where beef was never hung,
Nor pork, nor bacon, poultry fat or lean,
Pig's head, or sausage link, or bullock's tongue:
Look when you will, you see the vacant bench
No butcher seated there, no country wench.

Great aims were his, who first contriv'd this town;
A market he would have—but, humbled now,
Sighing, we see its fabric mouldering down,
That only serves, at night, to pen the cow:
And hence, by way of jest, it may be said
That beef is there, tho' never beef that's dead.

Abreast the inn—a tree before the door,
A Printing-Office lifts its humble head
Where busy Type old journals doth explore
For news that is thro' all the village read;
Who, year from year, (so cruel is his lot)
Is author, pressman, devil—and what not?

Fame says he is an odd and curious wight,
Fond to distraction of this native place;
In sense, not very dull nor very bright,
Yet shews some marks of humour in his face,
One who can pen an anecdote, complete,
Or plague the parson with the mackled sheet.

Three times a week, by nimble geldings drawn
A stage arrives; but scarcely deigns to stop,
Unless the driver, far in liquor gone,
Has made some business for the black-smith-shop;
Then comes this printer's harvest-time of news,
Welcome alike from Christians, Turks, or Jews.

Each passenger he eyes with curious glance,
And, if his phiz be mark'd of courteous kind,
To conversation, straight, he makes advance,
Hoping, from thence, some paragraph to find,
Some odd adventure, something new and rare,
To set the town a-gape, and make it stare.

II.

All is not Truth ('tis said) that travellers tell—
So much the better for this man of news;
For hence the country round, that know him well,
Will, if he prints some lies, his lies excuse.
Earthquakes, and battles, shipwrecks, myriads slain—
If false or true—alike to him are gain.

But if this motley tribe say nothing new,
Then many a lazy, longing look is cast
To watch the weary post-boy travelling through,
On horse's rump his budget buckled fast;
With letters, safe in leathern prison pent,
And, wet from press, full many a packet sent.

Not Argus with his fifty pair of eyes
Look'd sharper for his prey than honest Type
Explores each package, of alluring size,
Prepar'd to seize them with a nimble gripe,
Did not the post-boy watch his goods, and swear
That village Type shall only have his share.

Ask you what matter fills his various page?
A mere farrago 'tis, of mingled things;
Whate'er is done on Madam Terra's stage
He to the knowledge of his townsmen brings:
One while, he tells of monarchs run away;
And now, of witches drown'd in Buzzard's bay.

Some miracles he makes, and some he steals;
Half Nature's works are giants in his eyes:
Much, very much, in wonderment he deals,—
New-Hampshire apples grown to pumpkin size,
Pumpkins almost as large as country inns,
And ladies bearing, each,—three lovely twins.

He, births and deaths with cold indifference views;
A paragraph from him is all they claim:
And here the rural squire, amongst the news
Sees the fair record of some lordling's fame;
All that was good, minutely brought to light,
All that was ill,—conceal'd from vulgar sight!

III.
THE OFFICE

Source of the wisdom of the country round!
Again I turn to that poor lonely shed
Where many an author all his fame has found,
And wretched proofs by candle-light are read,
Inverted letters, left the page to grace,
Colons derang'd, and commas out of place.

Beneath this roof the Muses chose their home;—
Sad was their choice, less bookish ladies say.
Since from the blessed hour they deign'd to come
One single cob-web was not brush'd away:—
Fate early had pronounc'd this building's doom,
Ne'er to be vex'd with boonder, brush, or broom.

Here, full in view, the ink-bespangled press
Gives to the world its children, with a groan,
Some born to live a month—a day—some less;
Some, why they live at all, not clearly known,
All that are born must die—Type well knows that—
The Almanack's his longest-living brat.

Here lie the types, in curious order rang'd
Ready alike to imprint your prose or verse;
Ready to speak (their order only chang'd)
Creek-Indian lingo, Dutch, or Highland Erse;
These types have printed Erskine's Gospel Treat,
Tom Durfey's songs, and Bunyan's works, complete.

But faded are their charms—their beauty fled!
No more their work your nicer eyes admire;
Hence, from this press no courtly stuff is read;
But almanacks, and ballads for the Squire,
Dull paragraphs, in homely language dress'd,
The pedlar's bill, and sermons by request.

Here, doom'd the fortune of the press to try,
From year to year poor Type his trade pursues—
With anxious care and circumspective eye
He dresses out his little sheet of news;
Now laughing at the world, now looking grave,
At once the Muse's midwife—and her slave.

In by-past years, perplext with vast designs,
In cities fair he strove to gain a seat;
But, wandering to a wood of many pines,
In solitude he found his best retreat,
When sick of towns, and sorrowful at heart,
He to those deserts brought his favorite art.

IV.

Thou, who art plac'd in some more favour'd spot,
Where spires ascend, and ships from every clime
Discharge their freights—despise not thou the lot
Of humble Type, who here has pass'd his prime;
At case and press has labour'd many a day,
But now, in years, is verging to decay.

He, in his time, the patriot of his town,
With press and pen attack'd the royal side,
Did what he could to pull their Lion down,
Clipp'd at his beard, and twitch'd his sacred hide,
Mimick'd his roarings, trod upon his toes,
Pelted young whelps, and tweak'd the old one's nose.

Rous'd by his page, at church or court-house read,
From depths of woods the willing rustics ran,
Now by a priest, and now some deacon led
With clubs and spits to guard the rights of man;
Lads from the spade, the pick-ax, or the plough,
Marching afar, to fight Burgoyne or Howe.

Where are they now?—the Village asks with grief,
What were their toils, their conquests, or their gains?—
Perhaps, they near some State-House beg relief,
Perhaps, they sleep on Saratoga's plains;
Doom'd not to live, their country to reproach
For seven-years' pay transferr'd to Mammon's coach.

Ye Guardians of your country and her laws!
Since to the pen and press so much we owe
Still bid them favour freedom's sacred cause,
From this pure source, let streams unsullied flow;
Hence, a new order grows on reason's plan,
And turns the fierce barbarian into—man.

Child of the earth, of rude materials fram'd,
Man, always found a tyrant or a slave,
Fond to be honour'd, valued, rich, or fam'd
Roves o'er the earth, and subjugates the wave:
Despots and kings this restless race may share,—
But knowledge only makes them worth your care!

[48] Published in four installments in the National Gazette, beginning December 19, 1791. Issued in pamphlet form, together with "The Village Merchant," in 1794. Republished only in the edition of 1795, the text of which I have followed.

---

SEVENTEEN HUNDRED AND NINETY-ONE[49]

Great things have pass'd the last revolving year;
France on a curious jaunt has seen her king go,—
Hush'd are the growlings of the Russian bear,
Rebellion has broke loose in St. Domingo—
Sorry we are that Pompeys, Cæsars, Catos
Are mostly found with Negroes and Mulattoes.

Discord, we think, must always be the lot
Of this poor world—nor is that discord vain,
Since, if these feuds and fisty-cuffs were not,
Full many an honest Type would starve—that's plain;
Wars are their gain, whatever cause is found—
Empires—or Cats-skins brought from Nootka-sound.

The Turks, poor fellows! have been sadly baisted—
And many a Christian despot stands, contriving
Who next shall bleed—what country next be wasted—
This is the trade by which they get their living:
From Prussian Frederick, this the general plan
To Empress Kate—that burns the Rights of Man,

The Pope (at Rome) is in a sweat, they tell us;
Of freedom's pipe he cannot bear the music,
And worst of all when Frenchmen blow the bellows,
Enough almost (he thinks) to make a Jew sick:
His Priesthood too, black, yellow, white, and grey,
All think it best to keep—the good old way.

Britain, (fame whispers) has unrigg'd her fleet—
Now tell us what the world will do for thunder?—
Battles, fire, murder, maiming, and defeat
Are at an end when Englishmen knock under:
Sulphur will now in harmless squibs be spent,
Lightning will fall—full twenty five per cent.

[49] I have found this only in the edition of 1795.

---

LINES[50]

Written on a Puncheon of Jamaica Spirits

Within these wooden walls, confined,
The ruin lurks of human kind;
More mischiefs here, united, dwell,
And more diseases haunt this cell
Than ever plagued the Egyptian flocks,
Or ever cursed Pandora's box.
Within these prison-walls repose
The seeds of many a bloody nose;
The chattering tongue, the horrid oath;
The fist for fighting, nothing loth;
The passion quick, no words can tame,
That bursts like sulphur into flame;
The nose with diamonds glowing red,
The bloated eye, the broken head!
Forever fastened be this door—
Confined within, a thousand more
Destructive fiends of hateful shape,
Even now are plotting an escape,
Here, only by a cork restrained,
In slender walls of wood contained,
In all their dirt of death reside
Revenge, that ne'er was satisfied;
The tree that bears the deadly fruit
Of murder, maiming, and dispute;
Assault, that innocence assails,
The Images of gloomy jails
The Giddy Thought, on mischief bent,
The midnight hour, in folly spent,
All These within this cask appear,
And Jack, the hangman, in the rear!
Thrice happy he, who early taught
By Nature, ne'er this poison sought;
Who, friendly to his own repose,
Treads under foot this worst of foes,—
He, with the purling stream content,
The beverage quaffs that Nature meant;
In Reason's scale his actions weighed,
His spirits want no foreign aid—
Not swell'd too high, or sunk too low,
Placid, his easy minutes flow;
Long life is his, in vigour pass'd,
Existence, welcome to the last,
A spring, that never yet grew stale—
Such virtue lies in—Adam's Ale!

[50] Published in the National Gazette for January 23, 1792, introduced by a short essay upon country taverns. The following is an extract:

"Happy would it be for every community if ardent spirits could be banished from amongst them.... I shall conclude these observations with some lines written last winter at a country tavern, where from the introduction of a single jug of rum, conviviality and good humour were changed into madness and brutality, and numbers of the guests, who came, perhaps, only to pass a social hour, went away maimed, muttering, and lastingly embittered against each other." The poem appeared in the edition of 1795 with the title "The Jug of Rum." Text from the edition of 1809.

---

THE PARTING GLASS[51]

[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.

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!

[51] Published in the National Gazette, May 10, 1790. Text from the 1809 edition.

---

A WARNING TO AMERICA[52]

Removed from Europe's feuds, a hateful scene
(Thank heaven, such wastes of ocean roll between)
Where tyrant kings in bloody schemes combine,
And each forbodes in tears, Man is no longer mine!
Glad we recall the Day that bade us first
Spurn at their power, and shun their wars accurst;
Pitted and gaffed no more for England's glory
Nor made the tag-rag-bobtail of their story.

Something still wrong in every system lurks,
Something imperfect haunts all human works—
Wars must be hatched, unthinking men to fleece,
Or we, this day, had been in perfect peace,
With double bolts our Janus' temple shut,
Nor terror reigned through each back-woods-man's hut,
No rattling drums assailed the peasant's ear
Nor Indian yells disturbed our sad frontier,
Nor gallant chiefs, 'gainst Indian hosts combined
Scaped from the trap—to leave their tails behind.

Peace to all feuds!—and come the happier day
When Reason's sun shall light us on our way;
When erring man shall all his Rights retrieve,
No despots rule him, and no priests deceive,
Till then, Columbia!—watch each stretch of power,
Nor sleep too soundly at the midnight hour,
By flattery won, and lulled by soothing strains,
Silenus took his nap—and waked in chains—
In a soft dream of smooth delusion led
Unthinking Gallia bowed her drooping head
To tyrants' yokes—and met such bruises there,
As now must take three ages to repair.
Then keep the paths of dear bought freedom clear,
Nor slavish systems grant admittance here.
[1792]

[52] Written for July 4th, 1792, and published in the National Gazette under the title "Independence." Text from the edition of 1809.

---

THE DISH OF TEA[53]

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.

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.

[53] Published in the National Gazette, July 7, 1792. Text from the 1809 edition.

---

ON THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY[54]

A Day ever Memorable to Regenerated France

Bright Day,[55] that did to France restore
What priests and kings had seiz'd away,
That bade her generous sons disdain
The fetters that their fathers wore,
The titled slave, a tyrant's sway,
That ne'er shall curse her soil again!

Bright day! a partner in thy joy,
Columbia hails the rising sun,
She feels her toils, her blood repaid,
When fiercely frantic to destroy,
(Proud of the laurels he had won)
The Briton, here, unsheath'd his blade.

By traitors driven to ruin's brink
Fair Freedom dreads united knaves,
The world must fall if she must bleed;—
And yet, by heaven! I'm proud to think
The world was ne'er subdued by slaves—
Nor shall the hireling herd succeed.

Boy! fill the generous goblet high;
Success to France, shall be the toast:
The fall of kings the fates foredoom,
The crown decays, its' splendours die;
And they, who were a nation's boast,
Sink, and expire in endless gloom.

Thou, stranger, from a distant shore,[A]
Where fetter'd men their rights avow,
Why on this joyous day so sad?
Louis insults with chains no more,—
Then why thus wear a clouded brow,
When every manly heart is glad?

[A] Addressed to the Aristocrats from Hispaniola.—Freneau's note.

Some passing days and rolling years
May see the wrath of kings display'd,
Their wars to prop the tarnish'd crown;
But orphans' groans, and widows' tears,
And justice lifts her shining blade
To bring the tottering bauble down.
[1792]

[54] This was published in the National Gazette, July 14, 1792, introduced as follows:

"Odes on Various Subjects.

"HE who does not read in the book of the Odes, is like a man standing with his face flat against a wall: he can neither move forward, nor stir an inch backward.—

Hau Kiou Choaan."

This was Ode I of the series. It was republished only in the edition of 1795, the text of which I have followed.

[55] On July 14, 1789, the French people made their first armed stand against monarchial institutions, attacking and destroying the Bastile.

---

TO CRISPIN O'CONNER

A Back-Woodsman[56]

[Supposed to be written by Hezekiah Salem]

Wise was your plan when twenty years ago
From Patrick's isle you first resolved to stray,
Where lords and knights, as thick as rushes grow,
And vulgar folks are in each other's way;

Where mother-country acts the step-dame's part,
Cuts off, by aid of hemp, each petty sinner,
And twice or thrice in every score of years
Hatches sad wars to make her brood the thinner.

How few aspire to quit the ungrateful soil
That starves the plant it had the strength to bear:
How many stay, to grieve, and fret, and toil,
And view the plenty that they must not share.

This you beheld, and westward set your nose,
Like some bold prow, that ploughs the Atlantic foam,
And left less venturous weights, like famished crows,—
To feed on hog-peas, hips, and haws, at home.

Safe landed here, not long the coast detained
Your wary steps:—but wandering on, you found
Far in the west, a paltry spot of land,
That no man envied, and that no man owned.

A woody hill, beside a dismal bog—
This was your choice; nor were you much to blame:
And here, responsive to the croaking frog,
You grubbed, and stubbed, and feared no landlord's claim.

An axe, an adze, a hammer, and a saw;
These were the tools, that built your humble shed:
A cock, a hen, a mastiff, and a cow:
These were your subjects, to this desert led.

Now times are changed—and labour's nervous hand
Bids harvests rise where briars and bushes grew;
The dismal bog, by lengthy sluices drained,
Supports no more hoarse captain Bull Frog's crew.—

Prosper your toil!—but, friend, had you remained
In lands, where starred and gartered nobles shine,
When you had, thus, to sixty years attained,
What different fate, 'Squire Crispin, had been thine!

Nine pence a day, coarse fare, a bed of boards,
The midnight loom, high rents, and excised beer;
Slave to dull squires, kings' brats, and huffish lords,
(Thanks be to Heaven) not yet in fashion here!

[56] Published in the National Gazette, July 18, 1792, as Ode II in "Odes on Various Subjects." Text from the 1809 edition.

---

CRISPIN'S ANSWER

Much pleased am I, that you approve
Freedom's blest cause that brought me here:
Ireland I loved—but there they strove
To make me bend to King and Peer.

I could not bow to noble knaves,
Who Equal Rights to men deny:
Scornful, I left a land of slaves,
And hither came, my axe to ply:

The axe has well repaid my toil—
No king, no priest, I yet espy
To tythe my hogs, to tax my soil,
And suck my whiskey bottle dry.

In foreign lands what snares are laid!
There royal rights all right defeat;
They taxed my sun, they taxed my shade,
They taxed the offal that I eat.

They taxed my hat, they taxed my shoes,
Fresh taxes still on taxes grew;
They would have taxed my very nose,
Had I not fled, dear friends, to you.

---

TO SHYLOCK AP-SHENKIN[57]

Since the day I attempted to print a gazette,
This Shylock Ap-Shenkin does nothing but fret:
Now preaching and screeching, then nibbling and scribbling,
Remarking and barking, and whining and pining, and still in a pet,
From morning 'till night, with my humble gazette.

Instead of whole columns our page to abuse,
Your readers would rather be treated with News:
While wars are a-brewing, and kingdoms undoing,
While monarchs are falling, and princesses squalling,
While France is reforming, and Irishmen storming—
In a glare of such splendour, what folly to fret
At so humble a thing as a poet's Gazette!

No favours I ask'd from your friends in the East:
On your wretched soup-meagre I left them to feast;
So many base lies you have sent them in print,
That scarcely a man at our paper will squint:—
And now you begin (with a grunt and a grin,
With the bray of an ass, and a visage of brass,
With a quill in your hand and a Lie in your mouth)
To play the same trick on the men of the South!

One Printer for Congress (some think) is enough,
To flatter, and lie, to palaver, and puff,
To preach up in favour of monarchs and titles,
And garters, and ribbands, to prey on our vitals:

Who knows but Pomposo will give it in fee,
Or make mister Shenkin the Grand Patentee!!!
Then take to your scrapers, ye Republican Papers,
No rogue shall go snacks—and the News-Paper Tax
Shall be puff'd to the skies, as a measure most wise—
So, a spaniel, when master is angry, and kicks it,
Sneaks up to his shoe, and submissively licks it.

[57] Text from the edition of 1795. First published in the National Gazette, July 28, 1792, as number three of the Odes. In this, its earliest version, the opening line was "Since the day we attempted the Nation's Gazette." Before the title was the following: "Note well—the following is to be sung or said as occasion may require." Not reprinted in 1809.

---

TO MY BOOK[58]

Seven years are now elaps'd, dear rambling volume,
Since, to all knavish wights a foe,
I sent you forth to vex and gall 'em,
Or drive them to the shades below:
With spirit, still, of Democratic proof,
And still despising Shylock's canker'd hoof:
What doom the fates intend, is hard to say,
Whether to live to some far-distant day,
Or sickening in your prime,
In this bard-baiting clime,
Take pet, make wings, say prayers, and flit away.

"Virtue, order, and religion,
"Haste, and seek some other region;
"Your plan is laid, to hunt them down,
"Destroy the mitre, rend the gown,
"And that vile hag, Philosophy, restore"—
Did ever volume plan so much before?

For seven years past, a host of busy foes
Have buzz'd about your nose,
White, black, and grey, by night and day;
Garbling, lying, singing, sighing:
These eastern gales a cloud of insects bring
That fluttering, snivelling, whimpering—on the wing—
And, wafted still as discord's demon guides,
Flock round the flame, that yet shall singe their hides.

Well!—let the fates decree whate'er they please:
Whether you're doom'd to drink oblivion's cup,
Or Praise-God Barebones eats you up,
This I can say, you've spread your wings afar,
Hostile to garter, ribbon, crown, and star;
Still on the people's, still on Freedom's side,
With full determin'd aim, to baffle every claim
Of well-born wights, that aim to mount and ride.

[58] First published in the National Gazette, August 4, 1792, as Ode IV in the series, "Odes on Various Subjects." It bore the title "To the National Gazette." The opening stanza was as follows:

"Nine months are now elaps'd, dear rambling paper,
Since first on this world's stage you cut your caper
With spirit still of democratic proof,
And still despising Whaacum's canker'd hoof—
What doom the fates decree, is hard to say,
Whether to live to some far distant day,
Or sickening in your prime
In this news-taxing clime,
Take pet, make wings, say prayers, and flit away.

AIR.
Virtue, Order, and Religion,^*
Haste and seek some other region," etc.

The poem was revised for the edition of 1795, so as to refer to the edition of 1788, issued seven years before the edition of 1795. It was not published in 1809.

"* 'The National Gazette is—the vehicle of party spleen and opposition to the great principles of order, virtue, and religion.' Gaz. U. States."

---

STANZAS[59]

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 seiz'd their lives away.

Distress to aid, impell'd each generous breast;
With nervous arm they brav'd the adverse tide,
In friendship's cause encounter'd death's embrace,
Blameless they liv'd, 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 sequester'd streams,
When times to come their story shall relate;
Let the fond heart, that native worth esteems,
Revere their virtues, and bemoan their fate.

[59] Published in the National Gazette, July 28, 1792, with a note explaining that the brothers were killed "on the 15th day of January last."

---

TO A PERSECUTED PHILOSOPHER[60]

As Aristippus once, with weary feet,
Pursued his way through polish'd Athens' street,
Minding no business but his own;
Out rush'd a set of whelps
With sun-burnt scalps,
(Black, red, and brown,)
That nipt his heels, and nibbled at his gown.

While, with his staff, he kept them all at bay
Some yelp'd aloud, some howl'd in dismal strain,
Some wish'd the sage to bark again:—
Even little Shylock seem'd to say,
"Answer us, sir, in your best way:—
"We are, 'tis true, a snarling crew,
"But with our jaws have gain'd applause,
"And—sir—can worry such as you."

The sage beheld their spite with steady eye,
And only stopp'd to make this short reply:
"Hark ye, my dogs, I have not learn'd to yelp,
"Nor waste my breath on every lousy whelp;
"Much less, to write, or stain my wholesome page
"In answering puppies—bursting with their rage:
"Hence to your straw!—such contest I disdain:
"Learn this, ('tis not amiss)
"For Men I keep a pen,
"For dogs, a cane!"

[60] First printed in the National Gazette, August 29, 1792, under the title, "An Old Heathen Story. Adapted to Modern Times." Republished only in the 1795 edition.

---

TO AN ANGRY ZEALOT[61]

[In Answer to Sundry Virulent Charges]

If of Religion I have made a sport,
Then why not cite me to the Bishop's Court?
Fair to the world let every page be set,
And prove your charge from all I've said and writ:—
What if this heart no narrow notions bind,
Its pure good-will extends to all mankind:
Suppose I ask no portion from your feast,
Nor heaven-ward ride behind your parish priest,
Because I wear not Shylock's Sunday face
Must I, for that, be loaded with disgrace?
The time has been,—the time, I fear, is now,
When holy phrenzy would erect her brow,
Round some poor wight with painted devils meet,
And worse than Smithfield blaze through every street;
But wholesome laws prevent such horrid scenes,
No more afraid of deacons and of deans,
In this new world our joyful Psalm we sing
That Even a Bishop is a Harmless Thing!

[61] Text from the edition of 1795. First published in the National Gazette, Sept. 26, 1792, with the following introduction: "It is asserted in Mr. Russel's (Boston) Columbian Centinel of Sept. 12 (and copied into Mr. Fenno's Gazette of the United States of last Saturday) that 'the Clergy of this country are constantly vilified, and religion ridiculed through the medium of the National Gazette.' The author of the assertion is requested to produce one or more passages from the National Gazette to support his charge, otherwise, we shall conclude it only a dirty attempt to prevent the circulation of the National Gazette in the Eastern States:—But further," here follows the poem. Not printed in edition of 1809.

---

THE
P Y R A M I D
OF THE
FIFTEEN AMERICAN STATES[62]

*
* *
* * *
* * * *
* * * * *

Barbara Pyramidum sileat miracula Memphis;^*
Heu, male servili marmora structa manu!
Libera jam, ruptis, Atlantias ora, catenis,
Jactat opus Phario marmore nobilius:
Namque Columbiadæ, facti monumenta parantes,
Vulgarem spernunt sumere materiam;
Magnanimi cœlum scandunt, perituraque saxa
Quod vincat, celsa de Jovis arce petunt
Audax inde cohors stellis E Pluribus Unum
Ardua Pyramidos tollit ad astra caput.
Ergo, Tempus edax, quamvis durissima sævo
Saxa domas morsu, nil ibi juris habes:
Dumque polo solitis cognata nitoribus ardent
Sidera fulgebit Pyramis illa suis!

* The Latin verses were written by Mr. John Carey, formerly of Philadelphia.—Freneau's note.

[In Imitation of the Preceding Lines]

No more let barbarous Memphis boast
Huge structures reared by servile hands—
A nation on the Atlantic coast
Fettered no more in foreign bands,
A nobler Pyramid displays
Than Egypt's tyranny could raise.

Columbia's sons, to extend the fame
Of their exploits to future years,
No marble from the quarry claim,
But, soaring to the starry spheres,
Materials seek in Jove's blue sky
To endure when brass and marble die!

Arrived among the shining host,
Fearless, the proud invaders spoil
From countless gems, in æther lost,
These Stars, to crown their mighty toil:
To heaven a Pyramid they rear
And point the summit with a star.

Old wasteful Time! though still you gain
Dominion o'er the brazen tower,
On This your teeth will gnaw in vain,
Finding its strength beyond their power:
While kindred stars in æther glow,
This Pyramid will shine below!
[1792]

[62] Published in the National Gazette, Dec. 15, 1792. The Latin verses had been contributed several weeks before with the request that some reader of the paper furnish a translation. Text from the 1809 edition.

---

ON THE DEMOLITION OF THE
FRENCH MONARCHY[63]

From Bourbon's brow the crown remov'd,
Low in the dust is laid;
And, parted now from all she lov'd,
Maria's[A] beauties fade:

[A] Maria Antoinette, late queen of France.—Freneau's note.

What shall relieve her sad distress,
What power recall that former state
When drinking deep her seas of bliss,
She smil'd and look'd so sweet!—
With aching heart and haggard eye
She views the palace,[B] towering high,
Where, once, were pass'd her brightest days,
And nations stood, in wild amaze,
Louis! to see you eat.

[B] Thuilleries—within view of which the royal family of France were at this time imprisoned.—1792.—Ib.

This gaudy vision to restore
Shall fate its laws repeal,
And cruel despots rise once more
To plan a new Bastille!
Shall, from their sheathes, ten thousand blades[C]
In glittering vengeance start
To mow down slaves, and slice off heads,
Taking a monarch's part?—
Ah no!—the heavens this hope refuse;
Despots! they send you no such news—
Nor Conde, fierce, nor Frederick, stout,
Nor Catharine brings this work about,
Nor Brunswick's warlike art:

[C] Alluding to Mr. Edmund Burke's rant upon this subject.—Ib. The poet here refers to the well-known passage in Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, published October, 1790, in which after describing the queen of France as he had seen her in 1774 and the "prostrate homage" which her nation had paid to her at that time, he dwells upon the contrast of 1789: "Oh, what a revolution! and what a heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, œconomists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever."

Nor He,[D] that once, with fire and sword,
This western world alarm'd:
Throughout our clime whose thunders roar'd,
Whose legions round us swarm'd—
Once more his tyrant arm invades
A race[E] that dare be free:
His Myrmidons, with murdering blades,
In one base cause agree!—
Ill fate attend on every scheme
That tends to darken Reason's beam:
And, rising with gigantic might
In Virtue's cause, I see unite
Worlds, under Freedom's Tree!

[D] George III.—Freneau's note.

[E] The French Republicans.—Ib.

Valour, at length, by Fortune led,
The Rights of Man restores;
And Gallia, now from bondage freed,
Her rising sun adores:
On Equal Rights, her fabric plann'd,
Storms idly round it rave,
No longer breathes in Gallic land
A monarch, or a slave!
At distance far, and self-remov'd
From all he own'd and all he lov'd,
See!—turn'd his back on Freedom's blaze,
In foreign lands the Emigrant strays,
Or finds an early grave!

Enroll'd with these—and close immur'd,
The gallant chief[F] is found,
That, once, admiring crowds ador'd,
Through either world renown'd,
Here, bold in arms, and firm in heart,
He help'd to gain our cause,
Yet could not from a tyrant part,
But, turn'd to embrace his laws!—
Ah! hadst thou stay'd in fair Auvergne,[G]
And Truth from Paine vouchsaf'd to learn;
There, happy, honour'd, and retir'd,
Both hemispheres had still admir'd,
Still crown'd you with applause.

[F] La Fayette; at this time in the Prussian prison of Spandau.—Freneau's note.

[G] The province of France, where the Marquis's family estate lay.—Ib.

See!—doom'd to fare on famish'd steeds,
The rude Hungarians fly;
Brunswick, with drooping courage leads
Death's meagre family:
In dismal groups, o'er hosts of dead,
Their madness they bemoan,
No friendly hand to give them bread,
No Thionville their own!
The Gaul, enrag'd as they retire,
Hurls at their heads his blaze of fire—
What hosts of Frederick's reeking crew

Dying, have bid the world adieu,
To dogs their flesh been thrown!
Escap'd from death, a mangled train
In scatter'd bands retreat:
Where, bounding on Silesia's plain,
The Despot[H] holds his seat;
With feeble step, I see them go
The heavy news to tell
Where Oder's lazy waters flow,
Or glides the swift Moselle;
Where Rhine his various journey moves
Through marshy lands and ruin'd groves,
Or, where the vast Danubian flood
(So often stain'd by Austrian blood)
Foams with the autumnal swell.

[H] The Monarch of Prussia.—Freneau's note.

But shall they not some tidings bear
Of Freedom's sacred flame,
And shall not groaning millions hear
The long abandon'd name?—
Through ages past, their spirits broke,
I see them spurn old laws,
Indignant, burst the Austrian yoke,
And clip the Eagle's[I] claws:
From shore to shore, from sea to sea
They join, to set the wretched free,
And, driving from the servile court
Each titled slave—they help support
The Democratic Cause!

[I] The imperial standard of Germany.—Ib.

O France! the world to thee must owe
A debt they ne'er can pay:
The Rights of Man you bid them know,
And kindle Reason's Day!
Columbia, in your friendship blest,
Your gallant deeds shall hail—
On the same ground our fortunes rest,
Must flourish, or must fail:
But—should all Europe's slaves combine
Against a cause so fair as thine,
And Asia aid a league so base—
Defeat would all their aims disgrace,
And Liberty Prevail!
Philadelphia, December 19, 1792.

[63] First published in the National Gazette, December 19, 1792, under the title "Present View of France and Her combined Enemies," and reproduced in the editions of 1795 and 1809. Text from the former edition.

---

ON THE FRENCH REPUBLICANS[64]

These gallant men that some so much despise
Did not, like mushrooms, spring up in a night:
By them instructed, France again shall rise,
And every Frenchman learn his native right.
American! when in your country's cause
You march'd, and dar'd the English lion's jaws,
Crush'd Hessian slaves, and made their hosts retreat,
Say, were you not Republican—complete?

Forever banish'd, now, be prince and king,
To Nations and to Laws our reverence due:
And let not language to my memory bring,
A word that might recall the infernal crew,
Monarch!—henceforth I blot it from my page,
Monarchs and slaves too long disgrace this age;
But thou, Republican, that some disclaim,
Shalt save a world, and damn a tyrant's fame.

Friends to Republics, cross the Atlantic brine,
Low in the dust see regal splendour laid:
Hopeless forever, sleeps the Bourbon line
Long practis'd adepts in the murdering trade!
With patriot care the nation's will expressing
Republicans shall prove all Europe's blessing,
Pull from his height each blustering Noble down
And chace all modern Tarquins from the throne.

[64] I have found this only in the 1795 version.

---

ON THE PORTRAITS

Of Louis and Antoinette, in the Senate Chamber[65]

Discharg'd by France, no more the royal pair
Claim from a nation's love a nation's care:
Their splendid race no more a palace holds,—
While Louis frets, Antonietta scolds;
Folly's sad victims, fortune's bitter sport,
They take their stand among the "common sort,"
Doom'd through the world, in sad reverse, to roam,
Perhaps—without a shelter or a home!

To shew our pity for their short-liv'd reign
What shall we do, or how express our pain?
Since for their persons no relief is found
But cruel mobs degrade them to the ground,
To shew how deeply we regret their fall
We hang their portraits in our Senate Hall!

[65] Published Dec. 22, 1792, in the National Gazette and republished only in the 1795 edition. "These large and elegantly framed pictures [of the King and Queen of France] arrived at Philadelphia in the ship Queen of France, being presents from the king. They were set up in the large committee-room of the senate, at the south-east corner of Sixth and Chestnut streets—thence went to Washington city, and were burned, I believe, by the British under General Ross."—Watson's Annals of Philadelphia.

---

TO A REPUBLICAN

With Mr. Paine's Rights of Man[66]

Thus briefly sketch'd the sacred Rights of Man,
How inconsistent with the Royal Plan!
Which for itself exclusive honour craves,
Where some are masters born, and millions slaves.
With what contempt must every eye look down
On that base, childish bauble call'd a crown,
The gilded bait, that lures the crowd, to come,
Bow down their necks, and meet a slavish doom;
The source of half the miseries men endure,
The quack that kills them, while it seems to cure.
Rous'd by the Reason of his manly page,
Once more shall Paine a listening world engage:
From Reason's source, a bold reform he brings,
In raising up mankind, he pulls down kings,
Who, source of discord, patrons of all wrong,
On blood and murder have been fed too long:
Hid from the world, and tutor'd to be base,
The curse, the scourge, the ruin of our race,
Theirs was the task, a dull designing few,
To shackle beings that they scarcely knew,
Who made this globe the residence of slaves,
And built their thrones on systems form'd by knaves—
Advance, bright years, to work their final fall,
And haste the period that shall crush them all.
Who, that has read and scann'd the historic page
But glows, at every line, with kindling rage,
To see by them the rights of men aspers'd,
Freedom restrain'd, and Nature's law revers'd,
Men, rank'd with beasts, by monarchs will'd away,
And bound young fools, or madmen to obey:
Now driven to wars, and now oppress'd at home,
Compell'd in crowds o'er distant seas to roam,
From India's climes the plundered prize to bring
To glad the strumpet, or to glut the king.
Columbia, hail! immortal be thy reign:
Without a king, we till the smiling plain;
Without a king, we trace the unbounded sea,
And traffic round the globe, through each degree;
Each foreign clime our honour'd flag reveres,
Which asks no monarch, to support the Stars:
Without a king, the Laws maintain their sway,
While honour bids each generous heart obey.
Be ours the task the ambitious to restrain,
And this great lesson teach—that kings are vain;
That warring realms to certain ruin haste,
That kings subsist by war, and wars are waste:
So shall our nation, form'd on Virtue's plan,
Remain the guardian of the Rights of Man,
A vast Republic, fam'd through every clime,
Without a king, to see the end of time.

[66] Text from the 1795 edition.

---

ODE TO LIBERTY[67]

Thou Liberty! celestial light
So long conceal'd from Gallic lands,
Goddess, in ancient days ador'd
By Gallia's conquering bands:
Thou Liberty! whom savage kings
Have plac'd among forbidden things,
Tho' still averse that man be free,
Secret, they bow to Liberty—
O, to my accents lend an ear,
Blest object of each tyrant's fear,
While I to modern days recall
The Lyric muse of ancient Gaul.

Ere yet my willing voice obeys
The transports of the heart,
The goddess to my view displays
A temple rear'd in ancient days,
Fit subject for the muse's art.
Now, round the world I cast my eye,
With pain, its ruins I descry:
This temple once to Freedom rais'd
Thermopylae! in thy fam'd strait—
I see it to the dust debas'd,
And servile chains, its fate!

In those fair climes, where freedom reign'd,
Two thousand years degrade the Grecian name,
I see them still enslav'd, enchain'd;
But France from Rome and Athens caught the flame—
A temple now to heaven they raise
Where nations bound in ties of peace
With olive-boughs shall throng to praise
The gallant Gaul, that bade all discord cease.

Before this Pantheon, fair and tall,
The piles of darker ages fall,
And freemen here no longer trace
The monuments of man's disgrace:
Before its porch, at Freedom's tree
Exalt the Cap of Liberty,
The cap[A] that once Helvetia knew
(The terror of the tyrant crew)
And on our country's altar trace
The features of each honour'd face—
The men that strove for equal laws,
Or perish'd, martyrs in their cause.

[A] Which owes its origin to William Tell, the famous deliverer of Switzerland.—Freneau's note.

Ye gallant chiefs, above all praise,
Ye Brutuses of ancient days!
Tho' fortune long has strove to blast,
Your virtues are repaid at last.
Your heavenly feasts awhile forbear
And deign to make my song your care;
My lyre a bolder note attains,
And rivals old Tyrtœus' strains;
The ambient air returns the sound,
And kindles rapture all around.

With thee begins the lofty theme,
Eternal Nature—power supreme,
Who planted Freedom in the mind,
The first great right of all mankind:
Too long presumptuous folly dar'd
To veil our race from thy regard;
Tyrants on ignorance form'd their plan,
And made their crimes, the crimes of man,
Let victory but befriend our cause
And reason deign to dictate laws;
And once mankind their rights reclaim
And honour pay to thy great name.—

But O! what cries our joys molest,
What discord drowns sweet music's feast!
What demon, from perdition, leads
Night, fire and thunder o'er our heads!
In northern realms, prepar'd for fight,
A thousand savage clans unite.—
To avenge a faithless Helen's doom
All Europe's slaves, determin'd, come
Freedom's fair fabric to destroy
And wrap in flames our modern Troy!

These these are they—the murdering bands,
Whose blood, of old, distain'd our lands,
By our forefathers chac'd and slain,
The monuments of death remain:
Hungarians, wet with human blood,
Ye Saxons fierce, so oft subdued
By ancient Gauls on Gallic plains,
Dread, dread the race that still remains:
Return, and seek your dark abodes,
Your dens and caves in northern woods,
Nor stay to tell each kindred ghost
What thousands from your tribes are lost.

A friend[B] from hell, of murderous brood,
Stain'd with a hapless husband's blood,
Unites with Danube[C] and the Spree,[C]
Who arm to make the French their prey:
To check their hosts and chill with fear,
Frenchmen, advance to your frontier.
There dig the Eternal Tomb of kings,
Or Poland's fate each monster brings,
Mows millions down, your cause defeats,
And Ismael's horrid scene[D] repeats.

[B] Catharine the 2d, present Empress of Russia, who deposed her husband, Peter the 3d, and deprived him of life in July, 1762, while in prison.—Freneau's note.

[C] Two great rivers of Germany; here metaphorically designating the Austrian and Prussian powers.—Ib.

[D] The Turkish fortress of Ismael, in 1786, stormed by the Russian army. After carrying it by assault, upwards of 30,000 persons, men, women, and children were slaughtered by the Russian barbarians, in less than three hours.—Ib.

Ye nations brave, so long rever'd,
Whom Rome, in all her glory, fear'd;
Whose stubborn souls no tyrant broke
To bow the neck to Cæsar's yoke—
Scythians! whom Romans never chain'd;
Germans! that unsubdued remain'd,
Ah! see your sons, a sordid race,
With despots leagu'd, to their disgrace
Aid the base cause that you abhor,
And hurl on France the storm of war.

Our bold attempts shake modern Rome,
She bids her kindred despots come;
From Italy her forces draws
To waste their blood in Tarquin's cause:
A hundred hords of foes advance,
Embodying on the verge of France;
'Mongst these, to guide the flame of war,
I see Porsenna's[E] just a score,
While from the soil, by thousands, spring
Scevola's[F] to destroy each king.

[E] An ancient king of Etruria who took Tarquin's part against the Romans.—Freneau's note.

[F] Scevola, who attempted the life of Porsenna in his own camp, but failed.—Ib.

O Rome! what glory you consign
To those who court your ancient fame!
Frenchmen, like Romans, now shall shine,
And copying them, their ancient honours claim.
O France, my native clime, my country dear,
While youth remains, may I behold you free,
Each tyrant crush'd, no threatening despot near
To endanger Liberty!
By you unfetter'd be all human kind,
No slaves on earth be known
And man be blest, in friendship join'd,
From Tyber to the Amazon!

[67] The Philadelphia General Advertiser of May 21, 1793, reports in full the "Republican dinner" given Genet, May 18, at which about one hundred citizens were present, chiefly "French, French-Americans, officers of the Frigate l'Embuscade, etc." The following is from this report:

"After the third toast [The United States], an elegant ode, suited to the occasion, and composed by Citizen Pichon, a young Frenchman of promising abilities, was read by Citizen Duponceau, and universally applauded. The society, on motion, ordered that Citizen Freneau should be requested to translate it into English verse, and that the original and translation should be published. The society also unanimously voted that Citizen Pichon should be recommended to the notice of the Minister."

The French version of the Ode appeared in the Advertiser on May 27; the translation was printed May 31. Both ode and translation were published in the edition of 1795, the text of which I have followed. It was not republished in 1809. Following is the French text as it appeared in the Advertiser:

Ode a la Liberte.

By Citizen Pichon, read at the late dinner given to Citizen
Genet, by the French of this City.

O toi, dont l'auguste lumiere
Si long tems avait fui nos yeux!
Toi, jadis l'idole premiere
De mes invincibles ayeux,
Liberte, qu'un tyran sauvage,
A l'instant meme qu'il t'outrage
Honore par des vœux secrets;
A mes accens prete l'oreille,
Aujourdhui ma muse reveille
L'antique lutte des vieux Français.

Avant que ma voix obeisse
Au transport que saisit mes sens,
Montre moi deesse propice
Un temple digne de mes chants!
Mon oeil a parcouru la terre
J'y trouve a peine la pouissiere
D'un dome a ton nom consacré,
Un tyran siege aux Thermopyles
Et sous les chaines les plus viles
Le capitole est encombré.

Vingt siecles de honte et de chaines
Ont pese sur ces lieux divins;
C'est nous qui de Rome et de l'Athenes
Resusciterons les destins.
Francais, soyons seuls notre exemple
Qu'a ma voix on eleve un temple
Ou tous les peuples a jamais
Depouillant des haines sauvages
Viennent de palmes et d'homages
Couronner les heros Français.

Devant ce Pantheon sublime
Brisez ces palais infamans
De nos opprobres et du crime
Honteux et cruels monumens.
Au pied de ses nobles portiques
Plantez ces bonnets Helvetiques
Devenus la terreur des rois;
Et sur l'autel de la patrie
Gravez l'honorable effigie
Des martirs sacrés de nos droits.

Vous m'entendez, manes augustes
De Thrasibule et de Brutus!
Les Destins trop long tems injustes
Couronnent enfin vos vertus—
Paraissez, ombres adorées
Venez de vos fetes sacrées
Remplir les sublimes concerts
Deja ma lyre transportée
Rivale des chants de Tyrtée
De ses sons etonne les airs.

C'est par toi que l'hymne commence
Maitre supreme, etre eternal!
Toi qui sis de l'independance
Le premier besoin du mortel.
Long tems l'ignorance et l'audace
Couvrirent ton auguste face,
Du masque impur de leurs forfaits
Un seul combat, une victoire
Venge nos droits et rend ta gloire
Plus eclatante que jamais.

Mais quels cris viennent de nos fetes
Troubler les chants majestueux?
Quel demon porte sur nos tetes
La nuit, le tonnerre, et les feux?
Verrons nous des hordes sauvages
Inonder encore nos rivages,
Des terrens du Septentrion;
Et pour venger une autre Helene
Tout la force Europeene
Investit une autre Ilion.

C'etoient ces bandes homicides
Dont le sang versé tant de fois
De mes ancetres intrepides
Atteste encore les exploits—
Fiers Saxons, Hongres Sanguinaires
Esclaves jadis de mes peres
Craignez leurs braves descendans
Rentrez en vos cavernes sombres
Ou craignez d'avertir leurs ombres
Des revoltes de vos enfans:

Une Tisiphone egarée
Teinte encore du sang d'un epoux
Avec le Danube et la Sprée
S'unit et s'arme contre nous
A ces despotes sanguinaires:
Francais, volez sur vos frontieres
Creuser un eternel tombeau;
Ou craignez pour votre patrie,
Et l'opprobe de Warsovie
Et les horreurs d'Ismailow!

Et vous qu'au sort de ses conquetes
Rome craignit pour ses remparts
Peuples dont les augustes tetes
S'indignant du joug des Cesars,
Scythes aux fers inaccessibles,
Fiers Germains, Teutons invincibles,
Voyez vos laches descendans
D'une main vile et sanguinaire
Sur les bienfaiteurs de la terre
Lancer la foudre des tyrans.

Ainsi, par des faits heroiques
Rome allarmant tous ses voisins
Vit tous les peuples Italiques
Vendre leurs bras a ses Tarquins.
Sur ses frontieres investies
Avec cent hordes ennemies
La France voit vingt Porsennas
Contre tant de liberticides
Nos phalanges tyrannicides
Vomiront mille Scevolas.

O Rome! tu leguas ta gloire
Aux peuples faits pour l'imiter!
C'est nous Français que la victoire
Au meme faite veut porter.
O France, O ma chere patrie!
Puisse-je au printems de ma vie
Te voir les despotes soumis
Et que par toi l'univers libre
De l'Amazone jusqu'au Tibre
N'offre que des peuples amis!

---

ODE[68]

God save the Rights of Man!
Give us a heart to scan
Blessings so dear:
Let them be spread around
Wherever man is found,
And with the welcome sound
Ravish his ear.

Let us with France agree,
And bid the world be free,
While tyrants fall!
Let the rude savage host
Of their vast numbers boast—
Freedom's almighty trust
Laughs at them all!

Though hosts of slaves conspire
To quench fair Gallia's fire,
Still shall they fail:
Though traitors round her rise,
Leagu'd with her enemies,
To war each patriot flies,
And will prevail.

No more is valour's flame
Devoted to a name,
Taught to adore—
Soldiers of Liberty
Disdain to bow the knee,
But teach Equality
To every shore.

The world at last will join
To aid thy grand design,
Dear Liberty!
To Russia's frozen lands
The generous flame expands:
On Afric's burning sands
Shall man be free!

In this our western world
Be Freedom's flag unfurl'd
Through all its shores!
May no destructive blast
Our heaven of joy o'ercast,
May Freedom's fabric last
While time endures.

If e'er her cause require!—
Should tyrants e'er aspire
To aim their stroke,
May no proud despot daunt—
Should he his standard plant,
Freedom will never want
Her hearts of oak!

[68] This ode was sung at the Civic Feast given to Genet in Philadelphia by the French and Citizens, June 1, 1793. The affair is described in detail in Bache's Aurora of June 4th. After three of the toasts the artillery fired salutes with two twelve pounders, fifteen rounds each. Freneau's ode was sung after the seventh toast, "with great effect." As to the date of composition of the ode I can find no reliable evidence. Conway, in his life of Paine, mentions that it was sung in 1791 at the November Festival of the London Revolution Society. It was published in the edition of 1795, but was not reproduced in 1809.

---

ON THE DEATH[69]

Of a Republican Printer

[By his Partner and Successor]

Like Sybil's leaves, abroad he spread
His sheets, to awe the aspiring crew:
Stock-jobbers fainted while they read;
Each hidden scheme display'd to view—
Who could such doctrines spread abroad
So long, and not be clapper-claw'd!

Content with slow uncertain gains,
With heart and hand prepar'd he stood
To send his works to distant plains,
And hills beyond the Ohio-flood—
And, since he had no time to lose,
Preach'd whiggish lectures with his news.

Now death, with cold unsparing hand,
(At whose decree even Capets fall)
From life's poor glass has shook his sand,
And sent him, fainting, to the wall—
Because he gave you some sad wipes,
O Mammon! seize not thou his types.

What shall be done, in such a case?—
Shall I, because my partner fails,
Call in his bull-dogs from the chace
To loll their tongues and drop their tails—
No, faith—the title-hunting crew
No longer fly than we pursue.

[69] Published in the National Gazette, July 6, 1793, under the title "Reflections on the Death of a Country Printer." Republished in the edition of 1795, which the text follows, and not inserted in the 1809 edition.

---

ON THE ANNIVERSARY[70]

Of the Storming of the Bastille, at Paris, July 14th, 1789

The chiefs that bow to Capet's reign,
In mourning, now, their weeds display;
But we, that scorn a monarch's chain,
Combine to celebrate the Day
To Freedom's birth that put the seal,
And laid in dust the proud Bastille.

To Gallia's rich and splendid crown,
This mighty Day gave such a blow
As Time's recording hand shall own
No former age had power to do:
No single gem some Brutus stole,
But instant ruin seiz'd the whole.

Now tyrants rise, once more to bind
In royal chains a nation freed—
Vain hope! for they, to death consign'd,
Shall soon, like perjur'd Louis, bleed:
O'er every king, o'er every queen
Fate hangs the sword, and guillotine.

"Plung'd in a gulf of deep distress
France turns her back—(so traitors say)
Kings, priests, and nobles, round her press,
Resolv'd to seize their destin'd prey:
Thus Europe swears (in arms combin'd)
To Poland's doom is France consign'd."

Yet those, who now are thought so low
From conquests that were basely gain'd,
Shall rise tremendous from the blow
And free Two Worlds, that still are chain'd,
Restrict the Briton to his isle,
And Freedom plant in every soil.

Ye sons of this degenerate clime,
Haste, arm the barque, expand the sail;
Assist to speed that golden time
When Freedom rules, and monarchs fail;
All left to France—new powers may join,
And help to crush the cause divine.

Ah! while I write, dear France Allied,
My ardent wish I scarce restrain,
To throw these Sybil leaves aside,
And fly to join you on the main:
Unfurl the topsail for the chace
And help to crush the tyrant race!

[70] Printed in the National Gazette, July 17, 1793, and republished in the edition of 1795. Omitted from the edition of 1809.

---

THOUGHTS ON THE EUROPEAN WAR SYSTEM[71]

By H. Salem

The People in Europe are much to be praised,
That in fighting they choose to be passing their days;
If their wars were abolished, there's room to suppose
Our Printers would growl, for the want of New-News.

May our tidings of warfare be ever from thence,
Nor that page be supplied at Columbia's expence!
No kings shall rise here, at the nod of a court,
Ambition, or Pride, with men's lives for to sport.

In such a display of the taste of the times—
The murder of millions—their quarrels and crimes,
A horrible system of ruin we scan,
A history, truly descriptive of man:

A Being, that Nature designed to be blest—
With abundance around him—yet rarely at rest,
A Being, that lives but a moment in years,
Yet wasting his life in contention and wars;
A Being, sent hither all good to bestow,
Yet filling the world with oppression and woe!

But, consider, ye sages, (and pray be resigned)
What ills would attend a reform of mankind—
Were wars at an end, and no nation made thinner,
My neighbour, the gun-smith, would go without dinner;
The Printers, themselves, for employment would fail,
And soldiers, by thousands, be starving in jail.

[71] Published in the 1795 and 1809 editions, the latter of which I have followed.

---

A MATRIMONIAL DIALOGUE[72]

Humbly Inscribed to My Lord Snake

One Sabbath-day morning said Sampson to Sue
"I have thought and have thought that a Title will do;
Believe me, my dear, it is sweeter that syrup
To taste of a title, as cooked up in Europe;
"Your ladyship" here and "your ladyship" there,
"Sir knight," and "your grace," and "his worship the mayor!"
But here, we are nothing but vulgar all over,
And the wife of a cobbler scarce thinks you above her:
What a country is this, where Madam and Miss
Is the highest address from each vulgar-born cur,
And I—even I—am but Mister and Sir!

Your Equal-Right gentry I ne'er could abide
That all are born equal, by Me is denied:
And Barlow and Paine shall preach it in vain;
Look even at brutes, and you'll see it confest
That some are intended to manage the rest;
Yon' dog of the manger, how stately he struts!
You may swear him well-born, from the size of his guts;
Not a better-born whelp ever snapped at his foes,
All he wants is a Glass to be stuck on his Nose:
And then, my dear Sue, between me and you,
He would look like the gemman whose name I forget,
Who lives in a castle and never pays debt."

"My dear (answered Susan) 'tis said, in reproach,
That you climb like a bear when you get in a coach:
Now, your nobles that spring from the nobles of old,
Your earls, and your knights, and your barons, so bold,
From Nature inherit so handsome an air
They are noblemen born, at first glance we may swear:
But you, that have cobbled, and I, that have spun,
'Tis wrong for our noddles on Titles to run:
Moreover, you know, that to make a fine show,
Your people of note, of arms get a coat;
A boot or a shoe would but sneakingly do,
And would certainly prove our nobility New."

"No matter (said Sampson) a coach shall be bought:
Though the low-born may chatter, I care not a groat;
Around it a group of devices shall shine,
And mottoes, and emblems—to prove it is mine;
Fair liberty's Cap, and a Star, and a Strap;
A Dagger, that somewhat resembles an Awl,
A pumpkin-faced Goddess supporting a Stall:
All these shall be there—how people will stare!
And Envy herself, that our Title would blast
May smile at the motto,—the First shall be Last."[A]

[A] Qui primus fuit nunc ultimus.—Motto on a certain coach.—Freneau's note.

[72] First published in the National Gazette, August 11, 1792, under the title "A Curious Dialogue." In this earliest version it is noted that the piece was "occasioned by emblematic devices on a certain travelling coach." Text from the 1809 edition.

---

ON THE MEMORABLE[73]

Naval Engagement between the Republican Frigate L'Ambuscade
Captain Bompard, and the British Royal Frigate Boston, Captain
Courtney, off the coast of New-Jersey.—1792

Resolved for a chace,
All Frenchmen to face,
Bold Boston from Halifax sailed,
With a full flowing sheet,
The pride of the fleet,
Not a vessel she saw, but she hailed;
With Courtney, commander, who never did fear,
Nor returned from a fight with a "flea in his ear."

As they stered for the Hook,
Each swore by his book,
"No prayers should their vengeance retard;
"They would plunder and burn,
"They would never return
"Unattended by Captain Bompard!
"No Gaul can resist us, when once we arouse,
"We'll drown the monsieurs in the wash of our bows."

A sail now appeared,
When toward her they steered,
Each crown'd with his Liberty-Cap;
Under colours of France did they boldly advance,
And a small privateer did entrap—
The time may have been when their nation was brave,
But now, their best play is to cheat and deceive.

Arrived at the spot
Where they meant to dispute,
Thus Courtney sent word, in a heat:
"Since fighting's our trade,
"Their bold Ambuscade
"Must be sunk, or compelled to retreat:
"Tell Captain Bompard, if his stomach's for war,
"To advance from his port, and engage a bold tar."

Brave Captain Bompard
When this challenge he heard,
Though his sails were unbent from the yards,
His topmasts struck down,
And his men half in town;
Yet sent back his humble regards—
The challenge accepted; all hands warned on board,
Bent, their sails, swore revenge, and the frigate unmoored.

The Boston, at sea,
Being under their lee,
For windward manœuvred in vain;
'Till night coming on,
Both laid by 'till dawn,
Then met on the watery plain,
The wind at north-east, and a beautiful day,
And the hearts of the Frenchmen in trim for the fray.

So, to it they went,
With determined intent
The fate of the day to decide
By the virtues of powder;
(No argument louder
Was e'er to a subject applied)
A Gaul with a Briton in battle contends,
Let them stand to their guns, and we'll see how it ends.

As the Frenchman sailed past,
Boston gave him a blast,
Glass bottles, case knives, and old nails,
A score of round shot,
And the devil knows what,
To cripple his masts and his sails.
The Boston supposed it the best of her play
To prevent him from chacing—if she ran away.

The Frenchman most cool,
(No hot-headed fool,)
Returned the broadside in a trice;
So hot was the blast,
He disabled one mast,
And gave them some rigging to splice,
Some holes for to plug, where the bullets had gone,
Some yards to replace, and some heads to put on.

Three glasses, and more,
Their cannons did roar,
Shot flying in horrible squads;
'Midst torrents of smoke,
The Republican spoke,
And frightened the Anglican gods!
Their frigate so mauled, they no longer defend her,
And, Courtney shot down—they bawled out to surrender!

"O la! what a blunder
"To provoke this French thunder!
"We think with the devil he deals—
"But since we dislike
"To surrender and strike,
"Let us try the success of our heels:
"We may save the king's frigate by running away,
"The Frenchman will have us—all hands—if we stay!"

So squaring their yards,
On all Captain Bompard's,
A volley of curses they shed—
Having got their Discharge,
They bore away large,
While the Frenchman pursued, as they fled.
But vain was his haste—while his sails he repaired,
He ended the fray in a chace—
The Gaul got the best of the fight, 'tis declared;
The Briton—the best of the race!

[73] Published in the National Gazette, Aug. 17, 1793. The frigate L'Ambuscade, which had borne Citizen Genet from France to Charleston, where he arrived April 8, 1792, and which was soon after stationed at Philadelphia, caused much trouble to the federal government by making American ports her basis for operations upon English shipping. She captured several British ships, among them the Grange and the Little Sarah. Text from the 1809 edition.

---

TO SHYLOCK AP-SHENKIN[74]

[In Reply to Big Looks and Menaces]

Because some pumpkin-shells and lobster claws,
Thrown o'er his garden walls by Crab-tree's duke,
Have chanc'd to light within your meagre jaws,
(A dose, at which all honest men would puke:)

Because some treasury-luncheons you have gnaw'd,
Like rats, that prey upon the public store:
Must you, for that, your crude stuff belch abroad,
And vomit lies on all that pass your door!

To knavery's tribe my verse still fatal found,
Alike to kings and coblers gives their due:
Spruce tho' you be, your heels may drum the ground,
And make rare pass-time for the sportive crew.

Why all these hints of menace, dark and sad,
What is my crime, that thus Ap-Shenkin raves?
No secret-service-money have I had
For waging two years' war with fools and knaves.

Abus'd at court, unwelcome to the Great—
This page of mine no well-born aspect wears:
On honest yeomen I repose its fate,
Clodhopper's dollar is as good as theirs.

Why wouldst thou then with ruffian hand destroy
A wight, that wastes his ink in Freedom's cause:
Who, to the last, his arrows will employ
To publish Freedom's rights, and guard her laws!

O thou! that hast a heart so flinty hard
Thus oft, too oft, a poet to rebuke,
From those that rhyme you ne'er shall meet regard;
Of Crab-tree's dutchy—you shall be no Duke.

[74] Called forth by Hamilton's letters in Fenno's Gazette, charging Freneau with being a mere hired tool of Jefferson. Published in the 1795 edition, but omitted from the 1809 collection.

---

PESTILENCE[75]

Hot, dry winds forever blowing,
Dead men to the grave-yards going:
Constant hearses,
Funeral verses;
Oh! what plagues—there is no knowing!

Priests retreating from their pulpits!—
Some in hot, and some in cold fits
In bad temper,
Off they scamper,
Leaving us—unhappy culprits!

Doctors raving and disputing,
Death's pale army still recruiting—
What a pother
One with t'other!
Some a-writing, some a-shooting.

Nature's poisons here collected,
Water, earth, and air infected—
O, what pity,
Such a City,
Was in such a place erected!

[75] Published in the 1795 edition. In the index of the 1809 edition, the text of which I have used, it bears the title "Pestilence: written during the Prevalence of a yellow fever." It refers to the well-known epidemic in Philadelphia during the late summer and early autumn of 1793.

---

ON DR. SANGRADO'S FLIGHT[76]

From Philadelphia, in the Time of the Yellow Fever—1793

On prancing steed, with spunge at nose,
From town behold Sangrado fly;
Camphor and Tar where'er he goes
Th' infected shafts of death defy—
Safe in an atmosphere of scents,
He leaves us to our own defence.

'Twas right to fly! for well, I ween,
In Stygian worlds, all scribes agree,
No blushing blossom e'er was seen,
Or running brook, or budding tree:
No splendid meats, no flowing bowls,
Smile on the meagre feast of souls:

No sprightly songs, to banish grief,
No balls, the Elysian beaus prepare,
And he that throve on rounds of beef,
On onion shells shall famish there—
Monarchs are there of little note,
And Cæsar wears a shabby coat.

Chloes on earth, of air and shape,
Whose eyes destroy'd poor love-lorn wights,
There lower their topsails to the cap,
Rig in their booms and furl their kites:—
Where Cupid's bow was never bent,
What lover asks a maid's consent?

All this, and more, Sangrado knew,
(In Lucian is the story told)
Took horse—clapped spurs—and off he flew,
Leaving his Sick to fret and scold;
Some soldiers, thus, to honour lost,
In day of battle quit their post.

[76] First published in the National Gazette, September 4, 1793, under the title "Orlando's Flight." Text from the 1809 edition.

---

ELEGY[77]

On the Death of a Blacksmith

With the nerves of a Sampson, 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' steelling[78] 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.

[77] Published in the National Gazette, September 18, 1793. Text from the 1809 edition.

---

TO SYLVIUS[79]

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.

[78] "Tho' steelling of axes was part of his cares."—1795 Ed.

[79] Text from the 1809 edition. This was Freneau's valedictory on leaving Philadelphia after the failure of the National Gazette.

---

THE BLESSINGS OF THE POPPY[80]

—Opifer per Orbem dicor.
"In this the God, benevolent to man,
Lulls every woe, and deadens every pain."

When the first men to this world's climates came
Smit by the winter's rude inclement blast,
Unskilled to raise the wall, or wake the fire,
Badly, in narrow huts, their lives they passed.

Conscious of pains they knew not how to cure,
In vain they sighed, and sighing begged relief,
No druggist came, by art or reason taught
With strength of potent herbs, to calm their grief.

Fierce tortures to allay, some reverend sage
Preach'd Patience to the pangs, that could not hear;
For restless anguish doomed her victim still
To groan thro' life, and sigh from year to year,

At length from Jove, and heaven's etherial dome
Sky-walking Hermes came to view these plains:
He looked—and saw what fate or gods had done,
And gave the Poppy, to relieve all pains.

Then to the sons of grief his speech addressed,
"Through this dull flower is shed such potent dew,
"When pain distracts—drink this—and drown in sleep
"All ills, that Nature sent to torture you.

"From other worlds, by other beings trod,
"To these bleak climes this plundered plant I bore;
"Receive a gift, all worthy of a god,
"Since pain, when hushed to sleep,—is pain no more."

[80] Text from the 1809 edition.

---

QUINTILIAN TO LYCIDAS[81]

"While other lads their books forsake,
Or sigh to meet the hours of play:
You, Lycidas, no leisure take,
But still through learned volumes stray:—
With years so few, ah why so grave;
Why every hour to books a slave?

Hence, Lycidas, I pray, retire:
Go with your mates, and take your play—
Not him I prize, or much admire,
Who, curious, hangs on all I say:
The lad that's wise before his time,
Will be a coxcomb in his prime.

Stay not too close in learning's shop;—
'Till time a riper mind prepares,
The ball, the marble, and the top
Are books, that should divide your cares—
The lads that life's gay morn enjoy,
I'm pleased to see them act the boy.

I hate the pert, I hate the bold,
Who, proud of years but half a score,
With none but men would converse hold,
And things beyond their reach explore:
Like the famed Cretan, soaring high,
To melt their waxen wings and die."

[81] First published, as far as I can find, in the 1795 edition. Text from the 1809 edition.

---

THE BAY ISLET[82]

In shallow streams, a league from town,
(Its baby Light-House tumbled down)
Extends a country, full in view,
Beheld by all, but known to few.

Surrounded by the briny waste
No haven here has Nature placed;
But those who wish to pace it o'er
Must land upon the open shore.

There as I sailed, to view the ground;
No blooming goddesses I found—
But yellow hags, ordained to prove
The death, and antidote of love.

Ten stately trees adorn the isle,
The house, a crazy, tottering pile,
Where once the doctor plied his trade
On feverish tars and rakes decayed.

Six hogs about the pastures feed
(Sweet mud-larks of the Georgia breed)
Who, while the hostess deals out drams,
Can oysters catch, and open clams.

Upon its surface, smooth and clean,
A world, in miniature, is seen;
Though scarce a journey for a snail
We meet with mountain, hill, and vale.

To those that guard this stormy place,
Two cities stare them in the face:
There, York its spiry summits rears,
And here Cummunipaw appears.

The tenant, now but ill at ease,
Derives no fuel from his trees:
And Jersey boats, though begged to land,
All leave him on the larboard hand.

Some monied man, grown sick of care,
To this neglected spot repair:
What Nature sketched, let art complete,
And own the loveliest Country Seat.

[82] First published, as far as I have been able to find, in the 1795 edition. Text from the 1809 edition.

---

JEFFERY, OR, THE SOLDIER'S PROGRESS[83]

Lured by some corporal's smooth address,
His scarlet coat and roguish face,
One Half A Joe on drum head laid,
A tavern treat—and reckoning paid;
See yonder simple lad consigned
To slavery of the meanest kind.

With only skill to drive a plough
A musquet he must handle now;
Must twirl it here and twirl it there,
Now on the ground, now in the air:
Its every motion by some rule
Of practice, taught in Frederick's school,[A]
Must be directed—nicely true—
Or he be beaten black—and blue.

[A] The Prussian manual exercise.—Freneau's note.

A sergeant, raised from cleaning shoes,
May now this country lad abuse:—
On meagre fare grown poor and lean,
He treats him like a mere machine,
Directs his look, directs his step,
And kicks him into decent shape,
From aukward habits frees the clown,
Erects his head—or knocks him down.

Last Friday week to Battery-green
The sergeant came with this Machine—
One motion of the firelock missed—
The Tutor thumped him with his fist:
I saw him lift his hickory cane,
I heard poor Jeffery's head complain!—
Yet this—and more—he's forced to bear;
And thus goes on from year to year,
'Till desperate grown at such a lot,
He drinks—deserts—and so is shot!

[83] First published in the 1795 edition. Text from the 1809 edition.

---

TO SHYLOCK AP-SHENKIN[84]

In shallow caves, with shrill voic'd conchs hung round,
And pumpkin-shells, responding all they hear,
A bard, call'd Shylock, catches every sound,
Governs their tone, pricks up his lengthy ear:
In putrid ink then dips his pen of lead
And scribbles down what learn'd Pomposo said.

Bard of the lengthy ode! whose knavish paw
Ne'er touch'd the helm, besprent with odious pitch!
'Twas better far, you knew, to practice Law,
Whine at the church, or in the court-house screech:
No soul had you to face the wintry blast,
Combat the storm, or climb the tottering mast.

Then why so wroth, thou bard of narrow soul,
If wavering Fortune bade me seek the brine:
I drank no nectar from your leaden bowl,
Nor from your poems filch'd a single line:
When I do that—then publish from your caves,
Who robs a beggar—is the worst of knaves!

[84] This poem is unique, as far as I can discover, in the 1795 edition.

---

TO A WRITER OF PANEGYRIC[85]

Occasioned by certain fulsome Congratulatory Verses on the election of a High Constable

Be advised by a friend, who advises but rarely,
Be cautious of praising 'till praise is earned fairly:
There was a sage Ancient this truth did bequeath,
"That merit is only determined by death."

Panegyric I'm sorry to see you engage in—
Old Nero, at first, was a Titus, or Trajan:
The Indians of Siam bow down to a Log,
And Egypt is said to have worshipped a Dog.[A]

[A] Anubis.—One of the tutelar deities of ancient Egypt.—Freneau's note.

If you will be throwing your jewels to swine,
No wonder they rend you—whenever they dine—
Pray, leave it to puppies to cry up their worth,
And to dunces, to honour the day of their birth.

Whoever the road to preferment would find,
With the eyes of a Dutchman must look at mankind;
From the basest of motives, cry cowards are brave,
And laugh in his sleeve—when he flatters a knave.

[85] I can find no earlier trace of this poem than the 1795 edition. Text from the 1809 edition.

---

THE FOREST BEAU[86]

[A Picture from Reality]

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 scours
(Rough from the joint attacks of sun and showers)
The sheepskin breeches decorate 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 prepared, 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.

[86] From the edition of 1809. First published, as far as I can discover, in 1795.

---

EPISTLE[87]

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,
Nor 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!

[87] Unique, as far as I can find, in the 1795 edition.

---

TO A NOISY POLITICIAN[88]

Since Shylock's Book has walk'd the circles here,
What numerous blessings to our country flow!
Whales on our shores have run aground,
Sturgeons are in our rivers found;
Nay, ships have on the Delaware sail'd,
A sight most new!
Wheat has been sown, harvests have grown,
And Shylock held strange dialogues with Sue.

On coaches, now, gay coats of arms are wore
By some, who hardly had a coat before:
Silk gowns instead of homespun, now, are seen,
And, sir, 'tis true ('twixt me and you)
That some have grown prodigious fat,
That were prodigious lean!

---

THE SEXTON'S SERMON[89]

At the Burial of a Deist

A few short years, at most, will bound our span;
("Wretched and few," the Hebrew patriarch said)
Live while you may, be jovial while you can;
Too soon our debt to Nature, must be paid.

When Nature fails, the man exists no more,
And death is nothing but an empty name,
Spleen's odious offspring, in some gloomy hour;—
The coward's tyrant, and the bad man's dream.

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

[A]

Queris quo loco jaceant omnes mortui?
————— Ubi non nata jacent.
Seneca Trag.—Freneau's note.

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

What is this Death, ye thoughtless mourners, say?
Death is no more than never-ceasing change:
New forms arise, while other forms decay,
Yet, all is life throughout creation's range.

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

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

When Nature bids thee from the world retire,
With joy thy lodging leave, a sated guest,
In sleep's blest state (our Dullman's fond desire)
Existing always—always to be blest.

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 silence all are sent again!

Beneath my hand what numerous crowds retire—
By the cold turf for ages, now, oppressed!
Millions have fallen—and millions must expire,
Doomed by the impartial Power to endless rest.

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

What is there here, that man should wish to bear
A weight of years?—such rage to madness vext;
Wan, wasting, grief, and ever musing care,
Distressful pain, and poverty perplext?—

What is there here, but tombs and monuments—
Tyrants—who misery spread through every shore;
Wide wasting wars, the scourge of innocence;
Fevers and plagues, with all their noxious store?

Before we called this wrangling world our home,
In undisturbed abodes we sweetly slept:
But when dame Nature made that world our doom,
'Twas then our troubles came—and then we wept!

Though humbled now, disheartened, or distressed,
Yet, when returning to the peaceful ground,
With heroes, kings, and conquerors we shall rest;
Shall sleep as sweetly, and no doubt, as sound.

Ne'er shall we hope to see the day-light spring
Or from the up-lifted window lean to hear
(Fore-runner of the scarlet-mantled morn)
The early note of wakeful Chanticleer!

Oblivion there, expands her raven wing:—
We soon must go where all the dead are gone,
Trace the dull path, explore the gloomy road
To that dark country, where I see no dawn.

Then why these sobs, these useless floods of woe,
That vainly flow for the departed dead?
If doomed to wander on the coasts below,
What are to them these floods of grief you shed?

Since heaven in rapture doth their hours employ—
If empty sighs, or groans, could reach them there,
These funeral howls would damp their heaven of joy,
Would make them wretched, and renew their care.

The joys of wine, immortal as my theme,
To days of mirth the aspiring soul invite:
Life, void of this, a punishment I deem,
A Greenland winter, robbed of heat and light.

Ah! envy not, ye sages too precise,
The drop from life's gay tree, that kills our woe—
Noah himself, the wary and the wise,
A vineyard planted—and the vines did grow.

(Of social soul was he)—the grape he pressed,
And drank the juice, oblivious to his care:
Sorrow he banished from his place of rest,
And sighs, and sextons, had no business there.

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

Mere glow-worms are we all—a moment shine!—
I, like the rest, in giddy circles run,
And grief shall say, when I this breath resign,
His glass is empty, and his sermon done!

[88] Unique, as far as I can discover, in the edition of 1795.

[89] Freneau seems deliberately to have manufactured this poem for his edition of 1795 from fragments of his discarded poems, the House of Night and the Jamaica Funeral. It is made up as follows: Jamaica Funeral, stanzas 44-46; House of Night 73, 132-134, 139; Jamaica Funeral 47; House of Night 76, 77; an original stanza; House of Night 48, 34, 116, 30, 43; Jamaica Funeral 34, 35, 40, 48-51. Many of these stanzas are much changed. Text from the 1809 edition.

---

ON A LEGISLATIVE ACT[90]

Prohibiting the use of Spirituous Liquors to Prisoners in certain Jails of the United States

Give to the wretched, drink that's strong,
(Said David's Son) but we, more wise,
With Cyder, from the hogshead, rough,
Molasses-Beer, and such dull stuff,
The miseries of the imprison'd host prolong.

"Shut up in jail from day to day
(Methinks I hear a Debtor say)
"Victims to public rage and private spite,
"All that we had to keep our spirits up
"Was glowing wine that fill'd the cheering cup,
"This banish'd care, and check'd the rising sigh
"Chac'd grief from every heart, gave joy to every eye.

"And will ye not this only comfort leave,
"Ye men that frame the public laws?—
"Parted from children, friends, and wives,
"How heavily the moments roll:
"What comfort have we of our lives
"If you deny this cordial of the soul?
"'Tis this that kills the tedious hour,
"Puts misery out of fortune's power.
"'Tis this that to the dial's hand lends wings,
"Gives to the beggar all the pride of kings,
"Sheds joy throughout our gloomy cage
"And bids us scorn the little tyrant's rage,

"They that are unconfin'd drink what they will—
"Who gave the right to limit men in jail?
"Because misfortune sent us here
"Must we for that be drench'd with 'table beer,'
"Or, in its stead, with Adam's ale?—
"Relent—relent! contrive some other plan;
"Wine is the dearest, choicest friend of man—
"They that are out of jail, of all degrees,
"Can spend their leisure as they please,
"We, that are in, must pass it as we can."

[90] Unique in the 1795 edition.

---

ADDRESSED[91]

To a Political Shrimp, or, Fly upon the Wheel

The man that doth an Elephant pursue
Whose capture gains a mighty price,
Amidst the chace, heeds not the barking crew,
Or lesser game of rats and mice.

On ocean's waste who chace the royal flag
Stop not to take the privateer;
Who mean to seize the steed, neglect the nag;
No squirrel-hunter kills a deer.

Reptile! your venom ever spits in vain—
To honour's coat no drop adheres:—
To court!—return to Britain's tyrant reign,
White-wash her king, and scowr her peers.

Some scheming knaves, that strut in courtly guise,
May vile abuse, through you, impart—
But they that on no Treasury lean, despise
Your venal pen—your canker'd heart.

[91] The only trace I can find of this poem is in the 1795 edition. From the last stanza it is evident that it was aimed at Hamilton.

---

HERMIT'S VALLEY[92]

With eastern[93] winds and flowing sail
To these sequestered haunts we came,
Where verdant trees and chrystal streams
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.

[92] The earliest trace I can find of this is in the 1795 edition. Text from the 1809 edition. In the table of contents of the latter edition the title is given, "Hermit's Valley, a rural scene on the Schuylkill."

[93] "Western."—Ed. 1795.

---

TO MY BOOK[94]

Unhappy Volume!—doom'd by fate
To meet with unrelenting hate
From those who can their venom spit,
Yet condescend to steal your wit:
While Shylock with malicious spirit,
Allows you not a grain of merit,
While he an idle pomp assumes,
Let him return his borrowed plumes,
And you will find the insect creeping,
With not a feather worth the keeping.

[94] This appeared originally as a part of the "New Year's Verses" for 1783. See Volume II, page 199, supra. Text from the 1795 edition, which is the "unhappy volume" alluded to.

---

THE REPUBLICAN GENIUS OF EUROPE[95]

Emperors and kings! in vain you strive
Your torments to conceal—
The age is come that shakes your thrones,
Tramples in dust despotic crowns,
And bids the sceptre fail.

In western worlds the flame began:
From thence to France it flew—
Through Europe, now, it takes its way,
Beams an insufferable day,
And lays all tyrants low.

Genius of France! pursue the chace
Till Reason's laws restore
Man to be Man, in every clime;—
That Being, active, great, sublime
Debas'd in dust no more.

In dreadful pomp he takes his way
O'er ruin'd crowns, demolish'd thrones—
Pale tyrants shrink before his blaze—
Round him terrific lightnings play—
With eyes of fire, he looks them through,
Crushes the vile despotic crew,
And Pride in ruin lays.

[95] Published in the Jersey Chronicle, May 23, 1795, from which the text is taken. It forms the basis of the poem "On the Royal Coalition Against Republican Liberty," in the 1815 edition, but the later form is so greatly inferior that I have not hesitated to reproduce the earlier version.

---

THE RIVAL SUITORS FOR AMERICA[96]

Like some fair girl in beauty's bloom,
To court her, see what suitors come!
An heiress, she, to large estate,
What rivals for her favours wait!

All haste to clasp her in their arms,
Each sees in her a thousand charms—
The Gems that on her bosom glow
Attract where love was cold—'till now.

Freed from a cruel parent's care,
This maid so wealthy and so fair
Of each that for possession sues
Can hardly tell which beau to choose.

Proud of his vast extended reign,
(His fancied empire o'er the main)
The Briton came, with haughty stride,
Preferr'd his suit—but was denied.

She thought his style, by much, too rude,
By ruffians she would not be woo'd;
From Man she wish'd to choose a mate,
But not in such a savage state.

A Dane, a Dutchman, and a Swede
All hop'd to enjoy the charming maid:
The Russian, bred in frost and snow,
Made love to her that said—no, no.

The Spaniard grave, with cloak and sword,
Some favour from the nymph implor'd—
Vain were his tears and coaxing art—
She could not bear a jealous heart.

The Turk himself, to engage her love,
From Asia's coasts began to move;
While faded lay his Tartar crown
He sigh'd to make this girl his own.

In vain they paid the fond address—
No Pope, no Sultan would she bless—
No monarch, tho' allur'd with art,
Could gain her wealth, or touch her heart.

The Frenchman comes—salutes the fair—
She likes his gallant, marshal air!—
With eager eye, around her waist
He clasp'd his arms, and her embrac'd:

Smit with his lofty, generous mien,
She admires the Gaul, as soon as seen,
Grants him her Commerce—yields her charms,
And takes a hero to her arms!

[96] Published in the Jersey Chronicle, May 30, 1795, with the above text. The poem was greatly expanded and changed for the 1815 edition, where it bore the title, "The Political Rival Suitors."

---

MR. JAY'S TREATY[97]

Disclosed by Stephens Thomson Mason

When the Senate assembled had shut up their door,
And had left us no clew their designs to explore,
The people were anxious, and whispered their care,
But their voice was too weak for the dignified ear.
Ye are down, down, down, keep ye down.

At length the Sanhedrim were ready to rise,
And the crowd were distending their ears and their eyes;
But the rabble had nothing to hear or to view,
Says the twenty, the secret's too sacred for you,
Ye are down, down, down, keep ye down.

But Stephens T. Mason, a man we revere,
With his name bid the infamous treaty appear,
'Twas the act of a freeman, who join'd with the Ten,
To save us from tyranny, rank us with men,
Altho' down, down, and like to be down.

He gave his assistance, enlighten'd our eyes,
And a cloud from all quarters begins to arise,
Vox Dei, Vox Populi, truly but one,
Shall tell dark designers—our will shall be done
Till you're down, down, twenty times down.

[97] Published in the Jersey Chronicle, September 12, 1795, from which the text is taken. As far as I can find the poet never republished it.

Jay's treaty with England was laid before the Senate in June, 1795, and after two weeks of fierce discussion was ratified by a very small majority. The Senate, fearing popular criticism, forbade the publication of the treaty, a course which caused such widespread indignation that Mason on his own responsibility gave a perfect copy of the text to the Philadelphia Aurora for publication. The act was as much praised by one party as it was condemned by the other.

---

PARODY[98]

On the attempt to force the British Treaty on the People
of the United States

Americans! behold the fruits,
The end of all your vain pursuits,
Whole years in blood and warfare spent
To save this injur'd continent.—
How must it mortify your pride
To take once more the British side;
How will your eyes contain their tears
When all the sad effect appears!

This Treaty in one page confines
The sad result of base designs;
The wretched purchase here behold
Of traitors—who their country sold.
Here, in their proper shape and mien
Fraud, perjury, and guilt are seen.
And few, a chosen few, must know
The Mysteries that lurk below.

Go home, ye merchants, poor and lean,
And kiss the—hand—of Britain's queen.
I see you of your cargoes stript
Your vessels stolen, your seamen whipt,
I see them from their decks compell'd
To wander o'er the wat'ry field;—
In British ships, by force detain'd
I see the gallant sailor band
Engage the power that lent us aid
When Britain here her entry made—
I see them mix'd with George's sons,
I see them torn by gallic guns,
Disfigur'd, in the ocean cast
To find a resting place at last.

Philosophy! thou friend of man,
Teach me these strange events to scan;
Aid me to learn the secret cause
That alien seems from Nature's laws,
Why on this stage of human things
Man bows his neck to tyrant kings?
Say did the God, when life he gave,
Design his Image for a slave?—
Necessity, the tyrant's law,
All human race doth this way draw,
All prompted by the same desire
The vigorous youth, and aged sire—
Observe, the coward and the bold
Agree to have their freedom sold;
Physician, lawyer, and divine
All make oblation at this shrine.

Yet from this dismal state of things
In time a new creation springs;
From vile materials, fresh, shall rise
And fill the earth, and air, and skies;
In various forms appear again,
Popes, Presidents, and gentlemen:
So Jove pronounc'd among the Gods,
Olympus trembling as he nods!

[98] The poet never reprinted this poem from the Jersey Chronicle, where it first appeared, April 23, 1796. Great dissatisfaction with Jay's treaty with England is evident in almost every number of the Chronicle. Freneau himself was the author of the series of papers entitled "Features of Mr. Jay's Treaty."

---

ON THE INVASION OF ROME[99]

In 1796

Lo! to the gates of long forgotten Rome
Active as flame, the gallic legions come,
While pale with fear to their despotic wastes
On shorten'd wing the Austrian army hastes.

Where, consecrated to the pagan god
The silent vestal graced his dark abode,
Where Cæsars, once, in awful grandeur reign'd,
Or, Vandals ruin'd what of Rome remain'd,
Or where, excresence of a later age,
The mitred pontiff trod religion's stage,
There march the heroic bands that bring defeat,
Or bring reform on superstition's seat.

And may their march to honor's purpose tend,
May each new conquest all the past transcend,
Still may those hosts their first great plan pursue,
And honor, freedom, virtue keep in view.
Thus taught; and still propitious heaven their trust,
All past mis-rule shall crumble to the dust,
Nor will saint Peter, more, their cause regard,
Lost are his keys and every gate unbarr'd,

No sacred reliques from some saintly grave,
No saint Sebastian shall from ruin save:
All, all must yield; submissive to the dart
Of Gaul's firm legions led by Bonaparte,
Who, sent by heaven, to Rome's disastrous walls
Loud and more loud for his last victim calls;
While superstition's dark inveterate train
Turns pale, and sickens at their blasted reign,
And hosts reviving, round the standard throng,
Exult, and wonder how they slept so long.

[99] From the edition of 1815.

---

ON THE DEATH OF CATHARINE II[100]

Empress of all the Russias

Confusion to that iron sway
Which bids the brute, not man, obey,
And dooms him to Siberian soil,
Chains, whips, and vassalage, and toil.

This female wolf, whom wolves did nurse,
So long of polar worlds the curse,
This Catharine, skill'd in royal arts,
To the dark world at last departs.

In style, the second of her name,
She to the crown by treason came;
To Peter, drowsy, royal drone,
She gave a prison for a throne.

She would have sent her Tartar bands
To waste and ravage gallic lands,
She would have sent her legions o'er,
Columbia! to invade your shore!—

But, even in conquest, she foresaw
Destruction to despotic law;
She fear'd, in hordes returning home,
That liberty would with them come.

She fear'd the savage from the den
Would see and learn the rights of men;
And hence, in time, destruction bring
To hell's vicegerents—queen and king.

No thanks to her! she fear'd her beasts,
Enslaved by kings, enslaved by priests,
Even if all freedom they o'er ran,
Would learn the dignity of man;

And kept them home, and held them there,
Oppression's iron reign to bear;
And never meet a beam of light,
Involved in worse than Zembla's night.

Now she is dead, and Paul will rise
As fierce as she, but not as wise;
He may his barbarous millions send,
He may the fall of France intend;

But they who see with keener eye
Will see them faint, will see them fly;
With hostile step will see them come
To turn their backs, or meet their doom.

[100] From the edition of 1815. Catharine II died November 6, 1796.

---

PREFATORY LINES[101]

To a Periodical Publication

Wherever this volume[102] may chance to be read
For the feast of good humor a table I spread;
Here are dishes by dozens; whoever will eat
Will have no just cause to complain of the treat.

If the best of the market is not to be had
I'll help you to nothing that's seriously bad;[103]
To sense and to candor no place I refuse,
Pick here and pick there, and wherever you choose.[104]

If I give you a frolic I hope for no fray;
My style I adapt to the taste of the day,
The feast of amusement we draw from all climes,
The best we can give in a run of hard times.[105]

The guest, whom the pepper of satire may bite
Is wrong, very wrong, if he shows us his spite;[106]
Should a fit of resentment be-ruffle his mind,
Sit still, I would tell him, be calm and resign'd.[107]

In the service of freedom forever prepared,
We have done[108] our endeavor the goddess to guard;
This idol, whom reason should only adore,
And banish'd from Europe,[109] to dwell on our shore.

In a country like this, exalted by fame,
The trade of an author[110] importance may claim
Which monarchs would never permit them to find,
Whose views are to chain and be-darken the mind.

Ye sons of Columbia! our efforts befriend;
To you all the tyrants of Europe shall bend
Till reason at length shall illumine the ball[111]
And man from his state of debasement recall.

Republics of old, that are sunk in the dust,
Could once like our own, of their liberty boast;
Both virtue and wisdom in Athens appear'd,
Each eye saw their charms, and all bosoms revered.

But as virtue and morals fell into disgrace
Pride, splendor, and folly stept into their place;
Where virtues domestic no longer were known,
Simplicity lost, and frugality flown.

Where the virtues, that always a republic adorn,
Were held in contempt, or were laugh'd into scorn,
There, tyrants and slaves were the speedy effect
Of virtue dishonor'd or fall'n to neglect:[112]

Then tyrants and slaves, the worst plagues of this earth,
From the lapse of good manners[113] were hatch'd into birth;
And soon the base maxim all popular grew,
And allowed, that the many were made for the few.

From the fate of republics, or Athens, or Rome,
Tis time we should learn a sad lesson at home—
From their faults and their errors a warning receive,
And steer from the shoals where they both found a grave.

Columbians! forever may freedom remain,
And virtue forever that freedom maintain;
To these, all attracting, all views should submit
All labors of learning, all essays of wit.

Tis time a new system of things was embraced
To prevail on a planet so often debased;[114]
As here, with our freedom, that system began,
Here, at least keep it pure—for the honor of man.

[101] From the edition of 1815. This was Freneau's salutatory in the first number of the Time-Piece, March 13, 1797. Here it bore the title "Poetical Address" and differed in many respects from the final version. I have indicated in the following notes only the most significant revisions.

[102] "Our pages."—Time-Piece.

[103] "We'll mend what is middling, and better the bad."—Ib.

[104] "And give the due substance and sum of the News."—Ib.

[105]

"Embark'd on this ocean, and wishing no fray,
We'll strive for a chance with the prints of the day;
The news of all nations import from all climes,
And carefully copy the cast of The Times."—Time-Piece.

[106] "In political squib or poetical wit."—Ib.

[107] "He's equally free to return it in kind."—Ib.

[108] "We'll join."—Ib.

[109] "Britain."—Ib.

[110] "Of the Press."—Ib.

[111] "'Tis this that will throw a new light on the ball."—Ib.

[112] This stanza not in the Time-Piece version.

[113] "The change of old manners."—Ib.

[114] "To encircle a world that has long been debas'd."—Ib.

---

ON THE WAR[115]

Projected with the Republic of France

The cause that rests on reason's ground,
Shall potent through the world be found,
Mankind must yield to that decree
Which humbles pride and tyranny.

O'er this wide globe what darkness broods,
What misery, murder, wars and feuds!—
Does man deserve the solar light
While he performs the deeds of night?

When to the gates of modern Rome
We see the gallic legions come,
Their triumphs should, in honor, be
To make them men, and make them free.

In these new wars new views we trace,
Not fetters for the human race,
And, France, where'er you dart your rays
Old superstition's reign decays.

But look again!—what myriads join
The vast reform to undermine!
What labor, bribes, and deep-laid schemes
To quench the sun, and reason's beams!

Shall these succeed? and will that sun
Continue, still, his race to run
O'er scenes that he must blush to see
Disorder, chains, and tyranny?

Must systems, still, of monstrous birth,
Enslave mankind, deform this earth?
No!—to the question answers fate,
These efforts come an age too late.

In such a system to combine,
Columbia, can the wish be thine!
Could such a thought assail your heart,
To take that base, ungrateful part.

From Britain's yoke so lately freed
Would she her hosts, her legions lead
To crush that power, which jointly gain'd
And once her sinking cause sustain'd?

From all true hearts be banish'd far
The thought of so profane a war—
A curse would on her arms attend
And all her well-earn'd honors end.

Fortune no more your toils would crown,
Your flag would fall before her frown;
No gallant men the foe would dare,
No Greenes no Washingtons appear;

No chiefs, that check'd the pride of kings
On Monmouth's plains—at Eutaw springs;
But blundering hordes, not brave or warm,
With broken heart, and nerveless arm,

Would sail, to attack your gallic foe,
Would strive in vain a cause t'o'erthrow
Which, sink or not, will live in fame,
While Europe can one patriot claim.

[115] From the edition of 1815. It appeared first in the Time-Piece, March 29, 1797, under the title "To the Americans."

---

TO MYRTALIS[116]

On her Lightning Wires, or Conductors[A]

[A] See Brydone's Letters from Sicily to Becksford, alderman of London. In one of these he seems, rather seriously, to argue, that any one, by being armed with a conductor, in a thunder squall, may probably be secure from danger of lightning.—It is said the plan has been carried into practice in Scotland.—Freneau's Note.

How bold this project, to defy
The artillery of a summer sky:
Round you, unmoved, the lightning plays,
While others perish in the blaze.

The fluid fire, in deafening peals,
Along the warm conductor steals;
And thence directed to the ground,
It glances off without a wound!

Thus guarded, while the heavens are bowed,
You, fearless, see the passing cloud;
And Jove's red bolts unheeded fall,
Near You, who slight, or scorn them all.

The beaver on your sacred scull,
(Secure as Salamander's wool)
Assists to keep from your rigg'd head
The flash that strikes us, wretches, dead.

But while the sulphur of the skies,
Disarmed, from this fair lady flies;
Or while the warm electric fire
In flashes darts along her spire,

She, not so merciful or kind,
(Or we, not guarded to her mind)
By Cupid's darts, procures our fall,
By Cupid's arrows kills us all.

[116] Published in the Time-Piece, April 7, 1797. Text from the 1809 edition.

---

TO MR. BLANCHARD[117]

The celebrated Æronaut, on his ascent in a Balloon, from the
jail-yard in Philadelphia, 1793

By Science taught, on silken wings
Beyond our grovelling race you rise,
And, soaring from terrestial things,
Explore a passage to the skies—
O, could I thus exalted sail,
And rise, with you, beyond the Jail!

Ah! when you rose, impell'd by fear
Each bosom heav'd a thousand sighs;
To you each female lent a tear,
And held the 'kerchief to her eyes:
All hearts still follow'd, as you flew,
All eyes admir'd a sight so new.

Whoe'er shall thus presume to fly,
While downward with disdain they look
Shall own this journey, through the sky,
The dearest jaunt they ever took;
And choose, next time, without reproach,
A humbler seat in Inskeep's coach.

The birds, that cleave the expanse of air,
Admiring, view your globe full-blown,
And, chattering round the painted car,
Complain your flight out-does their own:
Beyond their track you proudly swim,
Nor fear the loss of life or limb.

How vast the height, how grand the scene
That your enraptured eye surveys,
When, towering in your gay machine,
You leave the astonish'd world to gaze,
And, wandering in the ætherial blue,
Our eyes, in vain, your course pursue.

The Orb of Day, how dazzling bright!
In paler radiance gleams the Moon,
And Terra, whence you took your flight,
Appears to you—a meer balloon:
Its noisy crew no longer heard,
Towns, cities, forests, disappear'd.

Yet, travelling through the azure road,
Soar not too high for human ken;
Reflect, our humble safe abode
Is all that Nature meant for men:
Take in your sails before you freeze,
And sink again among the trees.

[117] Published in the Time-Piece and Literary Companion, May 15, 1797, under the title "Stanzas Written Some Years Since on Mr. Blanchard's Forty-fifth Ascension from the Jail-Yard in Philadelphia, January 9, 1793." Text from the 1795 edition.

---

ON HEARING[118]

A Political Oration, Superficially Composed on an Important Subject

Sound without sense, and words devoid of force,
Through which no art could find a clue,
And mean and shackling was the whole discourse
That kept me, Tully, long from you.

Heads of harangues, to heads less general, split,
Seem'd like small laths, cleft from some heavy log;
I heard the inference, that no object hit—
All congelation, vapor, smoke, or fog.

And what avail'd the argument unsound
That nothing proved, or on the expecting mind
Forced no conviction—just as well might sound
To the deaf ear with sentiments abound.

Long did we wait for application time
To find what sense or reason might apply:—
It came—attended with the false sublime,
And thread-bare truths, no mortal could deny.

Repeated thoughts, and periods of a mile,
Remarks devoid of dignity or power,
Exploded notions, dress'd in brilliant style,
Exhausted patience, and consumed the hour.

Thus when of old some town some folks besieged,
Before the walls the invader sat him down,
While those who mann'd them, at their foes enraged,
Threw many a load of ancient lumber down;

And wore them out, with tumbling on their heads
Bricks, tiles, and paving-stones, huge logs of timber,
Pump-water, cold or boiling, shovels, spades,—
And more, by far, than you or I remember.

Ah, speaker! with artillery like your own
Hard will it be one Federal to awake,
Trust me, although you scold, and chafe, and frown,
You may besiege, but are not like to take
Their three wall'd town.

[118] From the 1815 edition. In the edition of 1809 it bore the title: "The American Demosthenes. Occasioned by a very weak and insipid discourse on a Fourth of July, indirectly reprobating the Democratic Representative System." This version consisted of the first, second, and last stanzas above, with the following after the second stanza:

"Grunts, and long groans, and periods of a mile,
Were on the sleepy audience tumbled down;—
'Twas thus from forts, contrived in antique style,
From Troy's high walls
(Where flew no balls)
The men who fought
With reason thought,
They had a right
From that safe height,
(By way of lessening their besiegers' number)
To tumble on their heads
Rocks, beams, or roofs of sheds,
Cows' horns, bricks, rubbish, chamber pots, or lumber."

---

MEGARA AND ALTAVOLA[119]

To a Female Satirist (an English Actress) on receiving from her No. 1.
of a very Satirical and Biting Attack[A]

"In the rag, in the rag—whewgh!—
"O well-flown dart."—
Shakespeare's King Lear.

[A] Six copies only, of this little Poem were printed and sent to the satirist—here the correspondence ended, 1797.—Freneau's note.

A Satire is arrived this day,
And it must be repelled this night:
Ye Powers! assist us what to say,
For, from ourselves, we nothing write.

We could have laughed at all you said,
But when you writ—it struck us dead!—
Megara!—do forbear to write,
Or rage with less malignant spite.

Leave it to men to snap and snarl—
Be you the sweet engaging girl—
Great in your smiles—weak in your arm—
All vengeance, with no power to harm.

I'll borrow from a scribbling set
A Raven's feather, black as jet,
And with the vengeance of the pen
Create confusion in your Den.

This, from an impulse all unknown,
Shall temper down your heart of stone,
Turn storms of hail to showers of rain,
And bring your happy smiles again.

But still, unwilling to resent
What folly for a Satire meant,
Peruse a fable that may blast,
And your number one—make number last.

In ancient times, no matter when,
A lady, in some ancient reign
(Perhaps in Greece, perhaps in Rome,
Perhaps in countries nearer home.)

This lady, rather fond of Fun,
Had put a suit of armour on:
With bow and arrows, and her fan
She conquered many an honest man.

One day she met, in a desart waste
A wight unseemely to her taste;
His brow, she thought, had too much frown;
Thought she, "I'll fetch the fellow down."

And strait she bends her twanging bow,
And to his breast the arrows go!
They tore a passage through his vest,
But bounded from his solid chest.

Another dart she aimed, and missed,
Then boarded him, and bit his fist—
Her grinders left a trifling mark—
They were not grinders of a shark.

She scampered then, and, as she flew,
Another feeble arrow threw,
Which though intended for one spot,
It glanced aside, and touched him not.

Enraged, he threw his mantle off,
And said, She shall be plagued enough!
Then, swift as fate, her pace defied,
Out went her trot, and joined her side.—

Megara was in such a glow!—
When thus the ruffian hailed her, "Hoa!—
What, Madam, are your spirits low?—
Heave to!—you are my prisoner now!"—

Megara saw that all was gone!—
She saw, her teeth would now be drawn:
She saw her weapons were his prize,
She saw it, and with flowing eyes,
And with a feeble squeak or two,
She faintly bawled out, Who are you?

Altavola

"From whence I came, or what I am,
"Perhaps I may inform you, Ma'am:
"I come from lands of Pure Delight,
"Where female warriors do not Bite.

"You view me with an eye of scorn!—
"When I was old you were unborn:
"When I aspired on eagle's wings
"You were among unthought of things.

"And did you hope to escape my rage,
"You toy-shop on a strolling stage!
"You insect of a puny race,
"You baggage formed of gauze and lace!
"The proudest strength you can assume,
"Shakes not one feather from my plume.

"My lot is in the æther cast,
"I sail upon the northern blast;
"Am mostly seen when whirlwinds rise,
"And love the storm that rends the skies.

"When thunders roar and lightnings flash,
"Then is my time to cut a dash:
"The clouds of hell alarm me less
"Than you, some sad old fashioned dress.

"And, if to answer some great end,
"I to this wrangling world descend,
"With force unknown, and pinions strong,
"I travel quick and stay not long.

"My spear is like a weaver's beam,
"And pointed well at each extreme;
"It flies with a tremendous force,
"And rivals lightning in its course.

"Of all things that are seen or known,
"I hate a Calm—and say, Begone
"Stagnation from this rolling ball,
"Or slumbers in this Dreadful All!

"I rise upon the drift of snow—
"In polar frosts my spirits glow—
"In the torrid zone, I temperate keep,
"And wake!—when you, Megara, sleep.

"I come from ghosts, that dreary brood,
"Whose aspect would congeal your blood!
"A people on the infernal coast,
"Who know me well, and love me most.

"I courted there, and found her kind,
"A ghostess, suited to my mind;
"Her wedding gown was flounced with soot,
"And near her nose hung snuff and smut:

"She pointed to her father's gate,
"(A graveyard was his whole estate)
"The bars were weak, the boards were thin,
"She sung a psalm—and took me in.

"Of shadowy stuff my parents were,
"Composed of fogs, or framed of air:
"He sold his brimstone to the skies,
"While nitre kindled in Her eyes.

"They feasted on the vapours blue,
"Their glass of wine was evening dew;
"On Etna's top they made their bed,
"And there was I, their devil, bred.

"My prowess is almost adored,
"I blunt the edge of Orion's sword;
"I seize Aquarius by the throat,
"Nor care for Libra, or the Goat.

"My word is, when I meet my foes,
"Here's to the Lucky Wind that blows!
"And, instant, all is sighs and groans,
"And battered heads, and broken bones.

"I now reward you for your spite—
"I draw my weapon—see, how bright!
"My last exploit in war I crown,
"And thus—and thus—I throw you down!

"Ah, miscreant! why that scream of death?
"I only meant to—draw your teeth!—
"Oh no!—I scorn to take your life—
"Go, Madam,—be a prudent wife.
"But, lady, I would have you know
"You lose your arrows and your bow:

"They are indeed of slender make,
"And, in your hands might kill a rake:
"So, to prevent such fatal harms,
"I leave you destitute of arms—
"I now must go!"—he, laughing, said,
And vanished to the Stygian shade.

This contest with Megara done,
Thou dear, defeated Amazon!—
As happy, now, as man can be,
I hang my pen on yonder tree:

It only asks one day of rest,
It yields to every changing blast—
Yes—let it stay suspended there,
And strike My Colours—if you dare!

[119] I have found no trace of this outside of the 1809 edition.

---

THE REPUBLICAN FESTIVAL[120]

In Compliment to Colonel Munroe, on his return to America, 1797

As late at a feast that she gave to Munroe,
Her mark of attention to show,
Young liberty gave her libations to flow,
To honor where honor is due.

Return'd from the country that trampled on crowns
Where high in opinion he stood,
Dark malace attack'd him, with sneers, and with frowns,
But he met the applause of the good.

To the Knight of the Sceptre unwelcome he came
But freedom his merit confess'd—
He look'd at their malice, and saw it was fame,
And pity forgave them the rest.

Good humor, and pleasure, and friendship did join,
And reason the pleasure increased;
And the hero, who captured the British Burgoyne,
Presided and honor'd the feast.

On a broomstick from hell, with a quill in his hand,
Baal-Zephou came riding the air;
He look'd, and he saw that among the whole band
Not a single apostate was there.

Disappointed, he sigh'd, but still hover'd about
Till the toasts, with a vengeance, began—
He met the first four; when the next they gave out[A]
To his cavern he fled back again.

[A] Public censure, arm'd with the spear of Ithurial: may it discover the demons of tyranny, wherever they lurk, and pursue them to their native obscurity.—Freneau's note.

In liberty's temple, the petulant cur
Could see not a man but he hates;
With a curse on her cause, and a sneer, and a spur
He fled from the frown of a Gates.

[120] From the edition of 1815. Monroe was United States Minister to France from May, 1794, until August, 1796, when he was recalled for lack of sympathy with the administration. He did not arrive in America until the following year. He was loudly hailed by the Republican forces, and a dinner was arranged for him in Philadelphia over which General Gates presided and at which Jefferson, the Vice President, Dayton, the Speaker, McKean, the Chief Justice, and many others conspicuous in the government were present.

---

ODE[121]

For July the Fourth, 1799

Once more, our annual debt to pay,
We meet on this auspicious day
That will, through every coming age,
Columbia's patriot sons engage.

From this fair day we date the birth,
Of freedom's reign, restored to earth,
And millions learn, too long depraved,
How to be govern'd, not enslaved.[122]

Thou source of every true delight
Fair peace, extend thy sway,
While to thy temple we invite
All nations on this day.[123]

O dire effects of tyrant power!
How have ye darken'd every hour,
And made those hours embitter'd flow
That nature meant for joys below.

With sceptred pride, and brow of awe
Oppression gave the world her law,
And man, who should such law disdain,
Resign'd to her malignant reign.

Here on our quiet native coast
No more we dread the warring host
That once alarm'd, when Britain rose,
And made Columbia's sons her foes.

Parent of every cruel art
That stains the soul, that steels the heart,
Fierce war, with all thy bleeding band,
Molest no more this rising land.

May thy loud din be changed for peace,
All human woe and warfare cease,
And nations sheath the sword again
To find a long, pacific reign.[124]

Soon may all tyrants disappear
And man to man be less severe;
The ties of love more firmly bind,
Not fetters, that enchain mankind.

But virtue must her strength maintain,
Or short, too short, is freedom's reign,
And, if her precepts we despise,
Tyrants and kings again will rise.[125]

No more an angry, plundering race,
May man in every clime embrace,
And we on this remoter shore,
Exult in bloody wars no more.

On this returning annual day
May we to heaven our homage pay,
Happy, that here the time's began
That made mankind the friend of man!—

[121] From the edition of 1815. The title is manifestly wrong. The poem was first printed in a small pamphlet with the following title page:

"Means | for the | Preservation | of | Public Liberty. | An | Oration | delivered in the New Dutch Church, | on the | Fourth of July, 1797. | Being the twenty-first | Anniversary of our Independence. | By G. J. Warner. | [Ten lines from Freneau] | New York: | Printed at the Argus Office, | for | Thomas Greenleaf and Naphtali Judah. | 1797."

At the end of the pamphlet is the poem with the title: "Ode | (Composed for the Occasion, by P. Freneau.) | The Musick Performed | by the | Uranian Musical Society."

[122] This stanza in 1797 was:

"Red war will soon be chang'd for peace,
All human woe for human bliss,
And nations that embrace again
Enjoy a long pacific reign."

[123] This stanza was the chorus to be repeated after every eight lines.

[124] This stanza is not in the original version.

---

ADDRESS[126]

To the Republicans of America

Say—shall we pause, and here conclude our page,
Or waft it onward to the coming age?—
Just as You say, whose efforts shook his throne,
And plucked the brightest gem from George's crown—
Who, armed in Freedom's cause with hearts of steel,
Have through these stormy times toiled for the common weal;
Nor quit that standard thousands have deserted,
By foreign arts, or gold, or titles re-converted.

If You, propitious to the press and pen,
Gave vigour to the cause that roused up men
When slavery's sons approached with Britain's fleet,
Still we demand your aid—for Britain hates you yet:
Not with the sword and gun she now contends
But wages silent war, and by corruption bends,
Foe to the system that enlightens man,
Here, thrones she would erect, and frustrate Freedom's plan.

Here, on this virgin earth, the soil unstained,
Where yet no tyrant has his purpose gained,
Keep bright that flame which every bosom fired
When Hessian hirelings from these lands retired,
When, worn and wasted, all that murdering crew
And British squadrons from the Hudson flew;
When, leagued with France, you darts of vengeance hurled,
And bade defiance to the despot world.

Ye heirs and owners of the future age
Who soon will shove old actors from the stage,
To you the care of liberty they trust
When Washington and Gates are laid in dust—
When Jefferson, with Greene, in long repose
Shall sleep, unconscious of your bliss or woes,
Seeming to say, Be wise, be free, my sons,
Nor let one tyrant trample on our bones.

[125] The chorus at this point was changed in the original edition to:

"O Virtue! source of pure delight,
Extend thy happy sway, etc."

[126] First published in the Time-Piece, September 13, 1797. Freneau used this poem to end Volume I of his edition of 1809. I have followed the latter version.

---

TO PETER PORCUPINE.[127]

From Penn's famous city what hosts have departed,
The streets and the houses are nearly deserted,
But still there remain
Two Vipers, that's plain,
Who soon, it is thought, yellow flag will display;
Old Porcupine preaching,
And Fenno beseeching
Some dung-cart to wheel him away.

Philadelphians, we're sorry you suffer by fevers,
Or suffer such scullions to be your deceivers;
Will. Pitt's noisy whelp
With his red foxy scalp
Whom the kennels of London spew'd out in a fright,
Has skulk'd over here
To snuffle and sneer,
Like a puppy to snap, or a bull dog to bite.

If cut from the gallows, or kick'd from the post,
Such fellows as these are of England the boast
But Columbia's disgrace!
Begone from that place
That was dignified once by a Franklin and Penn,
But infested by you
And your damnable crew
Will soon be deserted by all honest men.

[127] Published in the Time-Piece, September 13, 1797, and never again reprinted by Freneau. The poem bore the following introduction:

"Among a despicable mess of scurrility in one of Porcupine's Gazettes of last week, he mentions that 'he was plagued with the Time-Piece for several months.'—It has also been a plague to some others of his brethren, and will go on to be so, till they are hustled into their native dog kennels.—At the commencement of the Time-Piece, by way of soliciting an exchange of papers, the Editor transmitted one copy to each printer of a newspaper in Philadelphia. The compliment was immediately returned by them all except Porcupine. The Editor of the Time-Piece was in no want of his dirty vehicle of ribaldry, for the purposes of compilation. The paper, however, continued to be sent for a few weeks, till finding the hoggishness of the fellow, in not consenting to an exchange, the transmission was discontinued."

---

ON THE ATTEMPTED LAUNCH[128]

Of a Frigate, designed for war against a Sister Republic.—1798

Unless it be for mere defence
May shipwrights fail to launch you hence,
At best, the comrade of old Nick—
Some folks will smile to see you stick.

But now, suppose the matter done,
And her the element upon;
What cause have we mad wars to wage
Or join the quarrels of the age?

Remote from Europe's wrangling race,
Who show us no pacific face
Let's tread negociation's track
Before we venture to attack.

But to the seas if we must go,
'Tis clearly seen who is the foe,
Who hastens, at no distant date,
To repossess his lost estate.

I see them raise the storm of war,
To cloud the gay columbian star,
I see them, bloody, brave and base
Make us the object of their chase.

Their ships of such superior might
All we possess will put to flight,
Or bear them off, with all on board,
To make a meal for George the third.

One frigate, only, will not do—
She must retreat while they pursue,
To make her drink affliction's cup,
And, heaven preserve us, eat her up.

A navy of stupendous strength
'Tis plain, must be our lot at length,
To sweep the seas, to guard the shore,
And crush their haughtiest seventy four.

Those puny ships that now we frame,
(The way that England plays her game)
Will to their bull-dogs fall a prey
The hour we get them under weigh.—

[128] Text from the 1815 edition.

---

ON THE LAUNCHING OF THE FRIGATE CONSTITUTION[129]

The builders had the ship prepared,
And near her stood a triple guard,
For fear of secret foes.
Some, tiptoe stood to see her start,
And would have said, with all their heart,
In raptures, there she goes!

The stubborn ship, do what they could,
Convinced them, she was made of wood
Though plann'd with art supreme;
All art, all force the ship defy'd—
Nor brilliant day, nor top of tide
Could urge her to the stream.

Some, with their airs aristocratic,
And some with honors diplomatic,
Advanced to see the show:
In vain the builder to her call'd—
In vain the shipwrights pull'd and haul'd—
She could not—would not go.

Each anti-federal, with a smile
Observed the yet unfloating pile
As if he meant to say,
Builder, no doubt, you know your trade,
A constitution you have made
But should her ways have better laid.

Well now to heave the ship afloat,
To move from this unlucky spot,
Take our advice, and give them soon,
What should have long ago been done,
Amendments—You Know What.

[129] Text from 1815 edition.

---

ON THE FREE USE OF THE LANCET[130]

In Yellow Fevers[A]

[A] A practice very prevalent at the time the above was written.—Freneau's note.

In former days your starch'd divines
From notes of twenty thousand lines
Held many a long dispute;
One argued this, one argued that,
And reverend wigs, as umpires sat,
All sophists to confute.

They dwelt on things beyond their ken
And teazed and puzzled simple men
To hold them in the dark;
But their long season now is past,
The churchman's horn has blown its blast,
Things take a different mark.

Physicians now to quiet pain
Stick lancet in the patient's vein
That burns with feverish heat:
The next contend, they're wholly wrong,
That life will leak away ere long
If thus the case they treat.

Meantime a practice gets about,
Perhaps to make some doctors pout:
Old Shelah, with her herbs and teas,
And scarce a shilling for her fees,
In many instances, at least,
When deaths and funerals increased,
Did more to dispossess the fever,
Did more from dying beds deliver
Than all the hippocratian host
Could by the lancet's virtue boast;
To which, I trow, full many a ghost
Will have a grudge forever.

[130] From the edition of 1815. The yellow fever epidemic of 1797 created more than usual consternation. It was supposed to be of a more deadly type than that of 1793. The medical profession was divided as to the treatment of the disease. "Two hostile schools sprang up. At the head of one was William Currie. Benjamin Rush led the other. The Currie men declared the fever was imported and contagious. The Rush school maintained that it was not. Filthy streets, they held, and loathsome alleys had much to do with the sickness, and they urged the use of mercurial purges and the copious letting of blood."—McMaster.

---

THE BOOK OF ODES[131]

[131] These odes first appeared in the Time-Piece, where they were published in rapid succession between October 16 and November 13, 1797. Three of them—the fourth, sixth, and eleventh—were republished, greatly revised, in the edition of 1809. The eighth, tenth, and thirteenth were used in revised form in the 1815 edition. The others are here republished for the first time.

The first ode, which is manifestly an adaptation of Dr. Watts' well-known hymn, seems to have been objected to in some quarters, for in the Time-Piece for December 22 appeared the following:

"Some serious animadversions appear in the Connecticut Courant on the first number of the Book of Odes, published in the Time-Piece of the 14th ult. being a profane parody, as the writer insinuates, on the first Psalm of David—where the aristocrat corresponds with the saint in the psalm, and the democrat with the impenitent sinner. These gentlemen writers ought to consider that the parody in question (as they choose to call it) was not meant to be sung through a deacon's nose, to the sound of the organ: nor yet to the timbrel of seven strings: it was merely intended to be harped upon out of doors, for the benefit of all good democrats, and the utter astoundment and confusion of the contrary character. In the name of common sense how did the printers of the Connecticut Courant dare to act so irreverantly as to place the parody before the psalm? Are they trampling on all sanctity; or what do they mean? Let them beware—serious times are coming on, gentlemen:

'Your life is but a vapour, sure,
A mere old woman's qualm—
And good king David's lyric harp,
May close it—with a psalm.'"

---

ODE I

---

"He that readeth not in the Book of Odes is like a man standing with his face against a wall; he can neither move a step forward, nor survey any object."—Hau Kiou Choaan.

---

Blest is the man who shuns the place
Where Demo's love to meet,
Who scorns to gnaw their bread and cheese,
And hates their small beer treat:

But in the glare of splendid halls
Doth place his whole delight,
And there by day eats force-meat balls,
And roasted hogs by night.

He, like some thrifty pumpkin vine,
Near Hartford that doth grow,
Shall creep, and spread, and twist, and twine,
And shade the weeds below.

Puff'd by all dunces far and near
He'll swell to station high,
While Democrats confus'd appear
As he rides rattling by.

Not so the man of vulgar birth,
And Democratic phiz;
Want, toil, and every plague on earth,
Shall certainly be his.

Poor as a snake, and ever vile
Shall his condition be,
Who to the men of royal style
Neglects to bend the knee.

He, with the herd of little note,
May starve on bread and cheese,
And soon shall be without a coat
Or sent to pay jail-fees.

---

ODE II[132]
To the Frigate Constitution

---

"A ship carpenter being once asked, what sort of ships are the safest, he answered, those which are hauled up on dry land."

---

Madam!—Stay where you are,
'Tis better, sure, by far
Than venturing on an element of danger,
Where heavy seas and stormy gales
May wreck your hulk and rend your sails,
Or Europe's black-guards treat you like a stranger,

When first you stuck upon your ways
(Where half New England came to gaze)
We antifederals thought it something odd
That where all art had been display'd,
And even the builder deem'd a little god,
He had your ways not better laid.

Omens, indeed, are now exploded,
But you have something dismal boded:
Say—must the navy-system go to rack,
And things advance at such a rate
That every wisely govern'd state
Will hold the author of the scheme a quack.

O frigate Constitution! stay on shore:
Why would you meet old Ocean's roar?
Was man design'd
To be confin'd
In those fire-spitting hells a navy nam'd,
Where Vice herself, abash'd, asham'd,
Turns from the horrid scene of blood and bones,
And mangled carcases of men; and grunts and groans.

Remaining on the stocks, in gloomy pride,
Without an anchor thou shalt safely ride;
No pumping there,
To make men swear,
Waves you'll despise,
Tho' fierce they rise
To heaven when storms and tempests blow:
Steady as fate, unmov'd will you appear
When other ships the foaming surges tear—
No fear of broaching to.

Nor useless need you be, if right we deem,
For harmless purposes you proper seem—
Scorn to be made a bloody, murdering den;
Let folks of sense
At less expense
Convert you into stores—to bring in rents;
Stow pumpkins there—or anything but Men.

[132] Time-Piece, October 18, 1797.

---

ODE III[133]
To Duncan Doolittle

A "half-starved" Democrat

---

"Lodge where you must, drink small-beer where you can,
"But eat no roast pig, if no Federal man."

---

Duncan, with truth it may be said,
Your mouth was made for rye or barley bread;
What claim have you to halls of state,
Whose business is to stand and wait,
Subserviant to command?
What right have you to white-bread, superfine,
Who were by nature destin'd for "a swine"—
As said good Edmund Burke,
The drudge of Britain's dirty work,
Whose mighty pamphlets rous'd the royal band!

When passing by a splendid dome of pride
By speculation built (and built so vast
That there a standing army might reside)
Say, Duncan, stood you not aghast,
When gazing up (like fox that look'd for grapes)
You saw so many things in curious shapes,
Trees rang'd along the table,
And sugar-columns, far above the rabble,
With roses blooming in October,
And wisdom's figure—dull and sober.
Ah! how you smack'd your lips, and look'd so wishful
When pigs and poultry—many a lovely dish-full,
Imparted to your nose the savoury scent
For royal noses—not for Duncan's—meant.

For things like these you, caitiff, were not born—
A pewter spoon was for your chops intended;
Some shins of beef, and garlands made of thorn—
On things like these has Freedom's feast depended.
Though in the days of fight you musquet carried,
Or wandered up and down, a cannon-hauling,
Better you might in Jericho have tarried
And rebel-starving made your loyal calling.
Among our far-fam'd chieftains that are dead
(Like beer set by in mug without a lid,
And sure, a half-gill glass I'll put it all in)
I'll toast your health—yes, to the very brim
And to the little gaping world proclaim
You are a Hero fallen:
One of the wights who dar'd all death, or wound,
And warr'd for two and sixpence in the pound.

Of public virtue you're a rare example—
Go, mind your hoe, your pick-ax, or your spade;
A hut of six foot square shall be your "temple,"
And all your honour—strutting on parade.
But pray, beware of public good;
It will not always find you food,
And if your son should anything inherit,
Bequeath him not your public spirit,
But sixpence, to be train'd to sawing wood.

[133] The Time-Piece, October 20, 1797.

---

ODE IV[134]
To Pest-Eli-Hali

---

A Democratic Printer on the Western Banks of the Hudson

---

No easy task that press assumes
Which takes the lead in Freedom's band,
And scatters in nocturnal glooms
The blaze of Reason through our land:
Each empty bellows would, no doubt,
Rise, and aspire to put it out.

Blamed though you are, pursue your way;
Night evermore precedes the sun;
Whate'er some angry king's-men say,
You play a game that must be won:
The bliss of man—is the great prize
That yet at stake with tyrants lies.

When first a mean, designing few
Their poisonous dregs by Herald spread;
An antidote, by such as you,
Was at the root of mischief laid;
With a simple herb from Reason's plains
You kept all right in Freedom's veins.

Now hostile views, and low design
Are busy to annoy your page,
Controul its strength, its fires confine,
And war with sense and reason wage:
They hope, with fogs to quench the sun,
They hope your useful race is run.

But though some narrow hearts contrive
To shove you from your mounted car;
Right pleasantly we see you drive,
And hardly heed their little war:
Like insects, creeping in the dirt,
They merely serve to make you sport.

Who looks at Kings, a court, a queen,
With childish pomp, and borrowed fame,
But wonders from what genius mean
Their chaos of confusion came—
Yet those on little things depend,
And every reptile is their friend.

[134] From the edition of 1809, the text of which I have followed in all but the title which is "To a Democratic Editor." This poem first appeared in the Time-Piece, October 23, 1797, with the following introduction: "'He that first put a real mark upon the forehead of the Beast was the inventor of Printing. This mark was impressed deeply, and becomes deeper from day to day.'—Erasmus."

---

ODE V[135]
To Peter Porcupine

---

"That one may write—and write—and be a villain,
"At least, I'm sure it may be so in—Denmark."—Hamlet.

---

"While with the loss of blood and spirits some faint,
"Others are seen to rise, triumphant,
"O'er slaughter'd thousands sent to Pluto's shores,
"Where Stygian water in dull torrent roars—
"What hosts, what myriads fell,
"By lancet and by calomell,
"All gone, in Philadelphia's epidemic,
"And sent the substance of mankind to mimic."

So said that Man divine
Bold Peter Porcupine,
Who through these climes his vast subscription spread,
And rais'd four thousand ghosts; and struck with dread,
All Democratic knaves,
Disorganizing slaves—
He with bold wit,
And spirit and spit,
From Nova Scotia to the woods of Maine,
True federalism did maintain;
And through those mighty thriving states,
Distributed his dainty, blackguard bits.

Ah—Peter!—Thou, poor lousy numps
Who loadest little horses' rumps,
And mak'st them trot and sweat,
On sandy road
Beneath the load
Of trash call'd Peter Porcupine's Gazette.
What have you done to claim Columbia's love
That she—like some base—
Should court a scoundrel from a foreign shore
And make him tool to—some apostate Jove,

Ah! now I see poor Carolina's horses,
With pedlar's pack,
Pil'd high on back,
Pursuing their mean, blackguard courses,
Through solitary groves and woods of pine
Transporting Goods, like thine,
————Damned stuff!
Of which Columbia, sure, has had—enough—
There Pickens, Sumpter, Greene, for freedom fought,
And Liberty her wonders wrought.

What do I hear? And have we lent thee wings
To waft thy poison into Eutaw Springs?
Those, clearer than Castalia's waters, found,
For many a hero, dead, who might have claim'd
Life—but for brutish George,
Who, having robb'd and plunder'd half the east,
Came here to close his Vulture's feast.

Now, Peter! take advice from Doctor Rush;
And—convert to the system you would crush;
Pray, let him draw your blackguard blood;
(And calomell might, also, do some good.)
Four thousand drops exhausted from your veins
Will save the future exercise of canes:
And, tell him to be speedy with his lancet,
For 'tis a truth; and many dare advance it,
That howe'er in life well fed,
No Doctor bleeds a man—when dead.

[135] The Time-Piece, October 25, 1797. William Cobbett, an English adventurer, settled in Philadelphia in 1792. Under the signature "Peter Porcupine" he wrote many political pamphlets, and edited a paper called Porcupine's Gazette. He left America in 1800 after having been convicted of libel. His works in twelve volumes, including many selections from the Gazette, were published in 1801, in London. He was an avowed enemy to the Democrats of America; he opposed the French interests, and abused roundly Dr. Priestly, Benjamin Franklin, and Dr. Rush.

---

ODE VI[136]
Address to a Learned Pig

---

Of Particular Eminence, who, in a certain Great City, was visited by
Persons of the First Taste and Distinction

O thou, marked out by Fate from vulgar swine,
Among the learned of our age to shine,
On whom 'squires, ladies, parsons, come to gaze,
Bold, science-loving pig,
Who, without gown or wig
Can force your way through learning's thorny maze
—How many high learned wights in days of old
(Whom Fame has with the great enrolled)
Starved by their wits—were banished, hanged, or sold;
—While you, on better ages fallen, O lucky swine!
Can by your wit on pyes and sweetmeats dine—

When house and lands are gone and spent,
Then learning is most excellent—
(So says a proverb through the world well known)—
You, that were pigged to grovel in a stye,
Have left your swill for science high:—
Without a rival of your race,
You hold a most distinguished place—
All that the heart can wish flows in to you,
Who real happiness pursue,
And are well fed, on whate'er hog stye thrown.

Now, if one had the chance to choose one's state
On this world's stage, and not controuled by Fate,
Who would not wish to have his little brains
Lodged in the head of Learned Pig,
Rather than be a man, and toil, and sweat, and dig
With all the sense the human scull contains.

With Us, we all are wise, we all things know,
But every pig—inferior is to you—
The rest are fools and simpletons—and so—
What, next, will be the science You attain?
Science!—to You, that opens all her store?—
Already have you in your sapient brain
More than most aldermen—and gumption more
Than some, who capers cut on Congress floor.

May we not hope, in this improving age
Of human things—to see on Terra's stage
Hogs take the lead of men, and from their styes
To honours, riches, office, rise!
Adepts in Latin, Commerce, Physick, Law?—
From what is seen, such inference we draw—

[136] Text from the edition of 1809. Originally in the Time-Piece, October 27, 1797, with the following introduction:

"Let but a dancing bear arrive,
A pig that counts you four or five,
And Cato, with his moral strain,
Shall strive to mend the town—in vain."

---

ODE VII[137]
On the Federal City

---

"Thus Cain of old, poor Abel slain,
"Departing from his native plain,
"In land of Nod, beneath the heaven's frowns,
"Built sky-topt towers and federal towns."

---

Enough of learned pigs,
Pigg'd for immense designs,
And shame our men of mighty wigs—
Enough of Peter Porcupines,
Whose quills, like pop-guns shooting at a fort,
Be sure have done the Demos mighty hurt,
A subject now of real weight inspires,
That soon will kindle every muse's fires,
No less than federal town,
Immortal in renown,
Which in her district—ten miles square
The center fills, like spider in her web
Catching all silly flies that venture near,
And fattening on the folly of the tribe.

When fates decreed,
Or nature said
"This spot is destin'd for a future town,"
Between them both they so contriv'd the matter
(Altho' perhaps not wholly wrong the latter)
That this should be a town of silent halls
And like Palmyra famous in the east,
Erect her columns huge and lofty walls—
Yet there in vain for men do travellers seek,
And hardly meet a townsman once a week!

Virginia's sons, as through this town they pass
Each cries, "Alas,
No sound of fiddle here,
All dull and drear,
No merry bells that jingle on the ear,
No glittering females, balls, or billiards dear—
No fighting cocks, no gallant steeds for racing:
Well-stap my vitals—is it not distressing?
No gallant ship with canvas swelling high
Engag'd in war or commerce passes by;
But corn-boats mean from Alleghany hills,
Or buck-wheat laden hulks from country mills!"

Amidst these huge hotels and regal domes
Frequent some townsman walks, as midst the tombs,
And cries, "The founders of this city blundered
In rearing up such piles for eighteen hundred:
Waiting for that must Congress absent stay?—
Ah! curse the Law's delay!
Rather than hold them there,
(Though, doubtless, it may sadly grieve her)
May Philadelphia twelve months every year
Be plagu'd and blooded for the yellow fever!"

[137] From the Time-Piece, October 31, 1797.

---

ODE VIII[138]
On the City Encroachments on the River Hudson

---

Where Hudson, once, in all his pride
In surges burst upon the shore
They plant amidst his flowing tide
Moles, to defy his loudest roar;
And lofty mansions grow where late
Half Europe might discharge her freight.

From northern lakes and wastes of snow
The river takes a distant rise,
Now marches swift, now marches slow,
And now adown some rapid flies
Till join'd the Mohawk, in their course
They travel with united force.

But cease, nor with too daring aim
Encroach upon this giant flood;
No rights reserved by nature, claim,
Nor on his ancient bed intrude:—
The river may in rage awake
And time restore him all you take.

The eastern stream, his sister, raves
To see such moles her peace molest
A London built upon her waves,
The weight of mountains on her breast:
With quicken'd flow she seeks the main
As on her bed new fabrics gain.

Bold streams! and may our verse demand
Is there not coast for many a mile,
And soils, as form'd by nature's hand
That border all Manhattan's isle:
Then why these mounds does avarice raise
And build the haunts of pale disease.

Yet in your aim to clip their wing
(It asks no wizard to descry,)
That time the woful day will bring
When Hudson's passion, swelling high,
May in a foam his wrongs repay
And sweep both house and wharf away.

[138] From the 1815 edition. The Time-Piece version, November 1, 1797, bore the title "To Thos. Swawgum, a Wharf Builder," with the following introduction:

"'And Alexander built a solid mole from the coast, even unto the isle of Tyre, through the deep waters of the channel between: and people said it would be everlasting; and yet at this day it is overwhelmed, and few vestiges left thereof.'—Modern Travels."

---

ODE IX[139]
On the Frigate Constitution

---

"And in those days men settled themselves on the waters, and lived there, not because land was wanting, but that they wished to be slaves to such as were great and mighty on the land."—Modern History.

---

Thus launch'd at length upon the main
And soon prepar'd the seas to roam,
In your capacious breast ere long
Will many an idler find a home
That sells his freedom for a song,
Quits fields and trees
For boisterous seas,
To tread his native soil no more,
And see—but not possess the shore.

Well! let them go—can there be loss
In those who Nature's bounty slight,
From rural vales and freedom's shades
To this dull cage who take their flight,
The axe, the hoe,
The plough forego,
The buxom milk-maid's simple treat,
The bliss of country life forget,
For tumult here
And toil severe,
A gun their pillow when they sleep,
And when they wake, are wak'd to weep.

Dick Brothers said, "The time will come,
"When war no more shall prowl the sea,
"Nor men for pride or plunder roam,
"And my millenium brings them home,
"How'eer dispers'd through each degree."
If Richard proves a prophet true,
Why may not we be quiet too,
And turn our bull-dogs into lambs,
Saw off the horns of battering rams
As well as Europe's sons?
Ye Quakers! see with pure delight,
The times approach when men of might,
And squadrons roving round the ball,
Shall fight each other not at all,
Or fight with wooden guns.

And yet that Being you address
Who shaped old Chaos into form,
May speak—and with a word suppress
The tryant and the storm.

[139] From the Time-Piece, October 31, 1797. The following account of the launch is given in the same issue:

"Boston, October 23, The Launch! On Saturday last at fifteen minutes P. M. the frigate Constitution was launched into the adjacent element, on which she now rides an elegant and superb specimen of American naval architecture, combining the unity of wisdom, strength, and beauty. On a signal being given from on board, her ordnance, on shore, announced to the neighboring Country, that the Constitution was secure."

---

ODE X[140]
To Santone Samuel

---

The Millennial Prophet, on his System of Universal Pacification

With aspect wild, in ranting strain
You bring the brilliant period near,
When monarchy will close her reign
And wars and warriors disappear;
The lion and the lamb will stray,
And, social, walk the woodland way.

I fear, with superficial view
You contemplate dame nature's plan:—
She various forms of being drew,
And made the common tryant—man:
She form'd them all with wise design,
Distinguish'd each, and drew the line.

Observe the lion's visage bold
His iron tooth, his murderous claw,
His aspect cast in anger's mould;
The strength of steel is in his paw:
Could he be meant with lambs to stray
Or feed along the woodland way?

Since first his race on earth began
War was his trade and war will be:
And when he quits that ancient plan
With milder natures to agree,
He will be changed to something new
And have some other part to do.

One system see through all this frame,
Apparent discord still prevails;
The forest yields to active flame,
The ocean swells with stormy gales;
No season did the God decree
When leagued in friendship these should be.

And do you think that human kind
Can shun the all-pervading law—
That passion's slave we ever find—
Who discord from their nature draw:—
Ere discord can from man depart
He must assume a different heart.

Yet in the slow advance of things
A time may come our race may rise,
By reason's aid to stretch their wings,
And see the light with other eyes;
And when the ancient mist is pass'd;
To find their nature changed at last,

The sun himself, the powers ordain,
Should in no perfect circle stray;
He shuns the equatorial plane,
Prefers an odd serpentine way,
And lessens yearly, sophists prove,
His angle in the voids above.

When moving in his ancient line,
And no oblique ecliptic near,
With some new influence he may shine
But you and I will not be here
To see the lion shed his teeth
Or kings forget the trade of death.

[140] From the edition of 1815, with the exception of the title, which is, "The Millennium—To a Ranting Field Orator."

---

ODE XI[141]
To the Philadelphia Doctors

---

"And the Angel Michael disputed with the Devil about the body of Moses."—Ancient History.

"To bleed or not to bleed—that is the question!
Whether 'tis better in our beds to suffer
The slights and snufflings of outrageous doctors,
Or by the Lancet—quit them."

---

In ancient days divines, in dismal humour,
With disputation kept the presses going;
Wrangled about some wonderous mighty things
The difference "'twixt a shadow and a shade,"
And scribbled much of "way of man with maid."
At length, as fades the crown
Their bludgeons they lay down;
And you, wise doctors, take the wrangle up,
Each cursing all who will not drink his cup.

Ah, Philadelphians! still to knaves a prey,
Take your old philosophic way;
When from the native spring you seiz'd your draught,
Health bloom'd on every face, and all was gay—
Dejection was remote—and Nature laugh'd.
A question now, of mighty weight is put,
Whether, to bleed a man is best, or not,
When scarce three drops (or not one drop) remains
In the poor devil's veins!—

Well! you decide, who are in Galen read—
Take Boorhaave's, if you please—whatever system—
(Why are men such that doctors can enlist 'em?)
Whether your methods be the right or wrong,
And man's existence shorten or prolong,
We feverish fellows, must be—put to bed.

The secret has leak'd out—be cautious doctors
(The whole shall be disclos'd in room with lock'd doors)
Old women, with their simple herbs and teas
(And asking hardly two-pence for their fees)
Disarm this dreadful epidemic fever;
Make it as tame and innocent,
(Whether home-bred or from West Indies sent)
As Continental soldier, turn'd to Weaver.

[141] From the Time-Piece, November 13, 1797.

---

ODE XII[142]
The Crows and the Carrion

---

A Medical Story

If Ephraim on his bed complains
Of feverish pulse and boiling veins,
And throbs and pulses in his brains,

Then round him flock a ghastly crew
Of doctors old and doctors new,
And doctors, some—the Lord knows who.

Hoping the men had learned their trade,
Poor Ephraim begs them for their aid,
And promises they shall be paid.

Each quotes some book, by way of sham,
Or reads some text from Sydenham,
Which some approve, and some condemn.

At once he hears a barbarous noise,
Like that from herds of butchers' boys,
That ever hope of life destroys.

He promises all bills to pay,
But they proceed in angry fray—
Poor Ephraim frets—and well he may.

Each looks at each with vengeful eyes,
As if contending for a prize
He wants his share—when Ephraim dies.

One talks of cure by Calomel;
But his wise brother, Sydrophel,
Swears, 'tis the readiest way to hell.

While one the lancet recommends,
Another for a blister sends,
And each his every cure defends.

Weary of all they have to say,
At last the patient faints away:
Poor Ephraim swoons—and well he may.

In Fancy's dreams, he thinks he roams
In realms where doctor Satan foams,
With Sydrophels and Curry-combs.

Revived at length, he begs release,
And whines, "Do let your quarrels cease,
Do, doctors, let me die in peace.

"Oh! had I sent for doctress Nan,
Or anything but cruel man,
To put me on my legs again:

"She, with her cooling tamarind tea,
At least would not have murdered me—
Come! if you love me, do agree.

"She would have held my dizzy head—
She would have something to me read—
Or would have somewhat cheering said.

"Good heavens! you cannot all be right—
O do not scratch!—O do not bite!—
Good doctors, do not, do not fight!"—

Here they began a louder fray—
Oh! Ephraim's dead!—to them all play—
Poor Ephraim dies!—and well he may.

[142] Text from the edition of 1809. The title of the newspaper version was "To the Philadelphia Doctors," with the following motto: "And he said unto him, Physician Heal Thyself."

---

ODE XIII[143]

A Soldier should be made of Sterner Stuff

On Deborah Gannet

---

The American heroine, who on Tuesday last presented a petition to Congress for a pension, in consideration of services rendered during the whole of the late war, in the character of a common follower in the regular armies of America

---

Ye congress men and men of weight,
Who fill the public chairs,
And many a favor have conferr'd
On some, unknown to Mars;
And ye, who hold the post of fame,
The helmsmen of our great affairs,
Afford a calm, attentive ear
To her who handled sword and spear,
A heroine in a bold career,
Assist a war-worn dame.

With the same vigorous soul inspired
As Joan of Arc, of old,
With zeal against the Briton fired,
Her spirit warm and bold,
She march'd to face her country's foes
Disguised in male attire:
Where'er they prowl'd through field or town
With steady step she follow'd on;
Resolved the conflict to sustain,
She met them on the hill, the plain,
And hostile to the English reign,
She hurl'd the blasting fire.

Now for such generous toils endured,
Her day of warfare done,
In life's decline at length reward
This faithful amazon:
She asks no thousands at your hands,
Though mark'd with many a scar;
She asks no share of indian lands,
Though lands you have to spare:

But something in the wane of days
To make her snug, and keep her warm,
A cottage, and the cheery blaze,
To shield her from the storm;
And something to the pocket too,
Your bounty might afford,
Of her, who did our foes pursue
With bayonet, gun, and sword.

Reflect how many tender ties
A female must forego
Ere to the martial camp she flies
To meet the invading foe:
How many bars has nature placed,
And custom many more,
Lest slighted woman should be graced
With trophies gain'd in war.
All these she nobly overcame,
And scorn'd a censuring age,
Join'd in the ranks, her road to fame,
Despis'd the Briton's rage;
And men, who, with contracted mind,
All arrogant, condemn
And make disgrace in womankind
What honor is in them.

[143] Published in the Time-Piece, December 4, 1797, and reprinted in the edition of 1815, the text of which I have used, though I have retained the title of the newspaper version. In the 1815 edition the title is "The Heroine of the Revolution. To the men in power," with the note "On December 23, 1797, Deborah Gannet presented a petition to congress for a pension, in consideration of services rendered during the whole of the American Revolutionary war, in the rank of a common soldier in the regular armies of the United States. The above lines were written on this occasion, at the request of the heroine. It is needless to say, she had a competency bestowed on her during her natural life." Freneau's daughter has thus recounted the circumstances under which the affair became known to the poet:

"While editor of the Time-Piece his office was thronged with visitors mostly wanting favors of one kind or another. One day he came into dinner and told Mrs. Freneau that there had been rather an eccentric character in the office that morning, telling him that she had served through the Revolutionary War in man's attire and had received several wounds and showed the scars. All he could do for her was to send her to Washington with a petition, which he did. Her name was Deborah Gannet. She went to Congress, presented her petition, and received her pension. Though he put not his name to it, it was immediately known, as many of the members were his correspondents, also Thomas Jefferson, the President."

---

ON THE FEDERAL CITY[144]

1797

All human things must have their rise,
And Rome advanced from little size
Till future ages saw her grown
The mistress of the world, then known.

So, bounding on Potowmac's flood,
Where ancient oaks so lately stood
An infant city grows apace
Intended for a ruling race.

Here capitols of awful height—
Already burst upon the sight,
And buildings, meant for embryo kings
Display their fronts and spread their wings.

This city bodes no common fate—
All other towns, as books relate,
With huts at first were thinly spread,
With hovels mean, or humble shed.

But matters here are quite reversed,
Here, palaces are built the first,
And late will common rustics come
In such abodes to find a home.

Meantime, it will be fair and just
(Nor will our congress fret, we trust)
If while the poor at distance lurk—
Themselves do their own dirty work.

Rome's earliest citizens were thieves,
So history tells, and man believes,
May matters be again reversed,
May they who here inhabit first
Instruct the late historians pen
To write—that they were honest men.

[144] From the 1815 edition. A young Englishman, Thomas Twining, who visited Washington in 1796, describes it as follows: "Having crossed an extensive tract of level country somewhat resembling an English heath, I entered a large wood through which a very imperfect road had been made, principally by removing the trees or the upper parts of them in the usual manner. After some time this indistinct way assumed more the appearance of a regular avenue, the trees having been cut down in a straight line although no habitation of any kind was visible. I had no doubt but I was now riding along one of the streets of the metropolitan city. I continued in this spacious avenue for half a mile and then came out upon a large spot cleared of wood, in the center of which I saw two unfinished buildings and men at work on one of them. Advancing and speaking to these workmen, they informed me that I was in the center of the city and that the building was the Capitol. Looking from where I stood I saw on every side a thick wood pierced with avenues in a more or less perfect state."

---

THE ROYAL COCKNEYS IN AMERICA[145]

1797

Why travel so far from your insular home,
Ye cockneys of London, and all in a foam,
To talk, and to talk, with coxcombical phiz,
And tell what a nuisance democracy is:
Twas a lesson we learn'd
When you were concern'd
In wishing success to the vast preparations
To conquer and pillage the royal-plantations.

We Americans far from your king-ridden isle
Do humbly beseech you, all democrat haters,
For fear that your bodies or souls you defile,
Would fairly go off, with your lies and your satires:
The monarch you worship requests your assistance,
And how can you help him at such a long distance?
Tis an Englishman's creed,
And they all have agreed
That, out of old England, there's nothing, they swear,
That can with old England—dear England—compare;
So, away to old England, or we'll send you there.

A swarm is arrived from the hives of the east,
Determined to sap the republic's foundation;
And who is their leader, their scribe, and their priest?
Why, Porcupine Peter,
The democrat-eater,
Transported by Pitt, at the charge of the nation,
To preach to the demos a new revelation.

His patrons in England, and some who are here,
Consented to join in his sink of scurrility,
And gave him, tis certain, four thousand a year
To print a damn'd libel, to please our nobility:
Where I—is the hero of all that is said
I—Corporal Cobbett[A]-a man of the blade!
If his countrymen thought
That for nothing we fought
And they mean to regain, by the aid of his press,
A country they lost, to their shame and disgrace,
Let them fairly engage
In some liberal page:
We can give them an answer, not relish'd by some,
Who will see their friend Peter go, whimpering, home.

[A] Alluding to the egotistical style of his writings.—Freneau's note.

[145] From the edition of 1815.

---

TO THE SCRIBE OF SCRIBES[146]

By the gods of the poets, Apollo and Jove,
By the muse who directs me, the spirits that move,
I council you, Peter, once more, to retire
Or satire shall pierce, with her arrows of fire.

Be careful to stop in your noisy career,
Or homeward retreat, for your danger is near:
The clouds are collecting to burst on your head,
Their sulphur to dart, or their torrents to shed.

Along with the tears, I foresee you will weep,
In the cave of oblivion I put you to sleep;—
This dealer in scandal, this bladder of gall,
This sprig of Parnassus must go to the wall.

From a star of renown in the reign of night
He has dwindled away to a little rush-light:
Then snuff it, and snuff it, while yet it remains
And Peter will leave you the snuff for your pains.—

[146] From the edition of 1815.

---

TO THE
AMERICANS OF THE UNITED STATES[147]

First published November, 1797

Men of this passing age!—whose noble deeds
Honour will bear above the scum of Time:
Ere this eventful century expire,
Once more we greet you with our humble rhyme:
Pleased, if we meet your smiles, but—if denied,
Yet, with Your sentence, we are satisfied.

Catching our subjects from the varying scene
Of human things; a mingled work we draw,
Chequered with fancies odd, and figures strange,
Such, as no courtly poet ever saw;
Who writ, beneath some Great Man's ceiling placed;
Travelled no lands, nor roved the watery waste.

To seize some features from the faithless past;
Be this our care—before the century close:
The colours strong!—for, if we deem aright,
The coming age will be an age of prose:
When sordid cares will break the muses' dream,
And Common Sense be ranked in seat supreme.

Go, now, dear book; once more expand your wings:
Still in the cause of Man severely true:
Untaught to flatter pride, or fawn on kings;—
Trojan, or Tyrian,[A]—give them both their due.—
When they are right, the cause of both we plead,
And both will please us well,—if both will read.

[A] Tros, Tyriusque mihi nullo discrimine agetur.—Virg.—Freneau's note.

[147] This was used as the introductory poem to Volume II of the 1809 edition.

---

TO A NIGHT-FLY[148]

Approaching a Candle

Attracted by the taper's rays,
How carelessly you come to gaze
On what absorbs you in its blaze!

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.—

[148] First published in the Time-Piece, December 8, 1797. Text from the edition of 1815.

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THE INDIAN CONVERT[149]

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.

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.

[149] First published in the Time-Piece, December 11, 1797, under the title, "Thomas Swagum, an Oneida Indian and a Missionary Parson." Text from the 1809 edition.

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THE PETTIFOGGER,[150]

or Fee Simple, Esquire

In a town I could mention, a lawyer resided
As cunning as Satan, and fond of disputes;
In wrangles and quarrels he ever confided,
To keep on his docquet a long string of suits.

Of little importance, nay, paltry and mean,
The matter contested, a pig or a hen;
But one thing he stuck to, he ever was seen
To have for his pleading just one pound ten.

With pleasure he saw that the quarrels increased,
Each day he had business from wranglesome men,
But all to the 'squire was a holiday feast
While he got his dear Fee, the one pound ten.

A parchment, Caveto, hung up in his hall
Which cautioned the reader to read and attend,
That for one pound ten he would quibble and brawl,
Twist, lie, and do all things a cause to defend.

Sometimes when the limits of lots were disputed
He would put all to rights in the turn of a straw;
From the tenth of an inch he his pocket recruited
Till he made the two parties curse lawyer and law.

Thus matters went on, and the lawyer grown rich
Fed high, and swilled wine 'till the dropsy began
To bloat up his guts to so monstrous a pitch,
You would hardly have known him to be the same man.
At last he departed, and when he had died,
His worship arriving at Beelzebub's den;
How much is the entrance (demanded the guide?—)
Old Devil made answer, 'Tis One Pound Ten.

[150] First published in the Time-Piece, December 13, 1797. Text from the 1809 edition.

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ON A CELEBRATED PERFORMER ON THE VIOLIN[151]

Who, as it was said, went out, in the year 1797, to excite discontents and insurrections in the western country, particularly, in Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee

Musician of the west! whose vast design
Schemes our new states with England to combine;
How vain the hope, with violin and bow,
Such feeble arms, to work internal wo!
How weak the attempt our union to divide
With not a sword or pistol at your side!
Not even a drum your engineer employs:—
He's right—a drum would blast the plot, by noise:
All must be done in midnight silence, all
Your plans must ripen or your projects fall.
Unknown, unseen, till in the destined hour
Descends the stroke of trans-atlantic power!

By music's note to sway the western wild
Indeed is new;—we heard it and we smiled.
In cold December's iron-hearted reign
Would you with blushing blossoms deck the plain;
Would you with sound immure the Thirteen Stars,
Or plant a garland on the front of Mars?
To sound, not sense, once brutes, they say, advanced,
When Orpheus whistled, fauns and satyrs danced—
You are no Orpheus—and it may be true
He play'd some tunes that are unknown to you.
Hopes, such as yours, on cat-gut who would place;
On tenor, treble, counter, or the bass:

Who arm'd with horse-hair, hopes a world to win
Who gains dominion from a violin?
Such if there was, in times, the lord knows when,
He must have been at least the first of men—
But now—the world would have not much to prize
In such a warfare where no soldier dies:
Thus would it say—by sad experience taught,
'Oh! may we never fight as these have fought!
'These to the charge with Thespian arms advanced,
'And when they should have fought, the soldiers danced;
'They had no drums, they felt no martial flame,
'But, cold as Christmas, to the conflict came!'

My dreams present you thrumming on your string
Playing at proper stands, God save the king!
I see you march, a pedlar with his pack,
And that poor fiddle swung athwart your back,
(Like Reynard from some hen-roost hurrying home
With plunder'd poultry for the feast to come)
Trudging the wilds, on bold adventures bent,
The woods at once your coverlet and tent,
To fierce rebellions our back-woods to call—
The attempt how mighty! and the means how small.

Amphion once, the classic stories say,
When on his organ he began to play,
So soft, so sweet, so melting were his tunes
That even the savage rocks danced rigadoons,
The trees, themselves, with frantic passions fired
Leap'd from their roots and every note admired:
Quitting the spot, where many a year they grew
Quick to the music sprung the enchanted crew,
Form'd o'er his head a sun-repelling power
And bow'd their shadowy heads to music's power.
If what, this moment, some relate be true
Still greater wonders are reserved for you.

Your music, far, all Amphion's art exceeds,
Not trees and rocks, but provinces it leads.
All Alleghany capers to the sound,
And southward moves to meet the iberian bound;
Kentucky hears the soul-enlivening notes
And on the artist and his music doats;
Remote Sanduskie spreads her eager wings,
And wild Miami with the concert rings;
Tiptoe, for flight, stands every hill and tree
From Huron's shores to savage Tennessee;
Arthur St. Clair might soon its influence feel;
But Arthur knows no music—but of steel:
Arthur St. Clair attends, with listening ears,
And when the purpose of your march appears,
Such music only will excite his rage,
He'll come, and drive you from your dancing stage;
Cut every string, the bridge, and sound-board seize,
By your own cat-gut hang you to the trees,
And bid you know, too late, It is no jest
To play rebellion's music to the west.

[151] From the edition of 1815.

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NEW YEAR'S VERSES[152]

The Carrier of the Time-Piece, presents the following Address to His
Patrons, with the Compliments of the Season

Fellow Citizens:

The glass has run—see ninety-seven has fled,
And ninety-eight comes on with equal speed;
While safe from harm, beneath their spreading vine,
Columbia's sons in virtuous actions shine:
Their generous contributions feed the poor,
And sends them smiling from their patron's door;

Sweet Peace and Plenty crowns the festive board,
Where man reveres no domineering lord;
But free from scenes of desolating war,
Where kingdoms clash and mighty empires jar,
He lives secure from all the dread alarms
Of fell invaders and the din of arms:—
Such scenes now past have once defil'd our shore
And drench'd Columbia in her children's gore,
Let man exult, the raging storm is o'er.

To you, my customers, I bring the news
Of feuds domestic and of foreign woes;
Of Liberty extending her domain,
And Truth triumphant in her glorious reign.

Consider, patrons through the storm and snow
With constant care I am oblig'd to go;
Shivering and cold, I want the lively cup
To cheer my heart and keep my spirits up:
To stern winter's gloom can joy inspire;
Now social circles grace the Hickory fire;
And on your board, for friends and neighbors spread,
The turkey smokes the industrious peasant fed:
But not to me these blessings are dispos'd,
Fortune's capricious hand to me is clos'd;
I am condemn'd to labour long and hard,
Unknown my troubles, scanty my reward.

Such is the humble German's life of toil,
Who now solicits your approving smile;
My grateful heart still let your bounty share,
And Peace and Freedom reign from year to year.
New-York, January 1, 1798.

[152] This was published as a broadside, and distributed with the paper. As far as I can discover Freneau never reprinted it.

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PART V

THE FINAL PERIOD OF WANDERING