THE AMERICAN SOLDIER.
A PICTURE FROM THE LIFE.
Deep in a vail, a stranger now to arms,
Too poor to shine in courts, too proud to beg;
He, who once warr’d on Saratoga’s plains
Sits musing o’er his scars, and wooden leg.
Remembering still the toils 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;
Remov’d alike from courtly cringing squires,
The great man’s levee, and the proud man’s grin.
Sold are those arms that once on Britons blar’d,
When flush’d with conquest to the charge they came;
That power repell’d, and Freedom’s fabric rais’d,
She leaves her soldier—Famine and a Name.