Sage Franklin next arose with cheerful mien,
And smiled unruffled o'er the solemn scene;
His locks of age a various wreath embraced,
Palm of all arts that e'er a mortal graced;
Beneath him lay the sceptre kings had borne,
And the tame thunder from the tempest torn.
Wythe, Mason, Pendleton with Henry join'd,
Rush, Rodney, Langdon, friends of humankind,
Persuasive Dickinson, the former's boast,
Recording Thomson, pride of all the host,
Nash, Jay, the Livingstons, in council great,
Rutledge and Laurens held the rolls of fate,
O'er wide creation turn'd their ardent eyes,
And bade the opprest to selfexistence rise;
All powers of state, in their extended plan,
Spring from consent, to shield the rights of man.
Undaunted Wolcott urged the holy cause,
With steady hand the solemn scene he draws;
Stern thoughtful temperance with his ardorjoin'd,
Nor kings nor worlds could warp his steadfast mind.
With graceful ease but energetic tones;
And eloquence that shook a thousand thrones,
Majestic Hosmer stood; the expanding soul
Darts from his eyebeams while his accents roll.
But lo! the shaft of death untimely flew,
And fell'd the patriot from the Hero's view;
Wrapt in the funeral shroud he sees descend
The guide of nations and the Muse's friend.
Columbus dropt a tear; while Hesper's eye
Traced the freed spirit mounting thro the sky.
Each generous Adams, freedom's favorite pair,
And Hancock rose the tyrant's rage to dare,
Groupt with firm Jefferson, her steadiest hope,
Of modest mien but vast unclouded scope.
Like four strong pillars of her state they stand,
They clear from doubt her brave but wavering band;
Colonial charters in their hands they bore,
And lawless acts of ministerial power.
Some injured right in every page appears,
A king in terrors and a land in tears;
From all his guileful plots the veil they drew,
With eye retortive look'd creation thro,
Traced moral nature thro her total plan,
Markt all the steps of liberty and man;
Crowds rose to reason while their accents rung.
And INDEPENDENCE thunder'd from their tongue.
Columbus turn'd; when rolling to the shore
Swells o'er the seas an undulating roar;
Slow, dark, portentous, as the meteors sweep.
And curtain black the illimitable deep,
High stalks, from surge to surge, a demon Form,
That howls thro heaven and breathes a billowing storm.
His head is hung with clouds; his giant hand
Flings a blue flame far flickering to the land;
His blood-stain'd limbs drip carnage as he strides,
And taint with gory grume the staggering tides;
Like two red suns his quivering eyeballs glare,
His mouth disgorges all the stores of war,
Pikes, muskets, mortars, guns and globes of fire.
And lighted bombs that fusing trails exspire.
Percht on his helmet, two twin sisters rode,
The favorite offspring of the murderous god,
Famine and Pestilence; whom whilom bore
His wife, grim Discord, on Trinacria's shore;
When first their Cyclop sons, from Etna's forge,
Fill'd his foul magazine, his gaping gorge:
Then earth convulsive groan'd, high shriek'd the air.
And hell in gratulation call'd him War.
Behind the fiend, swift hovering for the coast,
Hangs o'er the wave Britannia's sail-wing'd host;
They crowd the main, they spread their sheets abroad,
From the wide Laurence to the Georgian flood,
Point their black batteries to the peopled shore,
And spouting flames commence the hideous roar.
Where fortless Falmouth, looking o'er her bay,
In terror saw the approaching thunders play,
The fire begins; the shells o'er arching fly,
And shoot a thousand rainbows thro the sky;
On Charlestown spires, on Bedford roofs they light,
Groton and Fairfield kindle from the flight,
Norwalk expands the blaze; o'er Reading hills
High flaming Danbury the welkin fills;
Esopus burns, Newyork's delightful fanes
And sea-nursed Norfolk light the neighboring plains.
From realm to realm the smoky volumes bend,
Reach round the bays and up the streams extend;
Deep o'er the concave heavy wreaths are roll'd,
And midland towns and distant groves infold.
Thro solid curls of smoke, the bursting fires
Climb in tall pyramids above the spires,
Concentring all the winds; whose forces, driven
With equal rage from every point of heaven,
Whirl into conflict, round the scantling pour
The twisting flames and thro the rafters roar,
Suck up the cinders, send them sailing far,
To warn the nations of the raging war,
Bend high the blazing vortex, swell'd and curl'd,
Careering, brightening o'er the lustred world,
Absorb the reddening clouds that round them run,
Lick the pale stars, and mock their absent sun:
Seas catch the splendor, kindling skies resound,
And falling structures shake the smouldering ground.
Crowds of wild fugitives, with frantic tread,
Flit thro the flames that pierce the midnight shade,
Back on the burning domes revert their eyes,
Where some lost friend, some perisht infant lies.
Their maim'd, their sick, their age-enfeebled sires
Have sunk sad victims to the sateless fires;
They greet with one last look their tottering walls,
See the blaze thicken, as the ruin falls,
Then o'er the country train their dumb despair,
And far behind them leave the dancing glare;
Their own crusht roofs still lend a trembling light,
Point their long shadows and direct their flight.
Till wandering wide they seek some cottage door,
Ask the vile pittance due the vagrant poor;
Or faint and faltering on the devious road,
They sink at last and yield their mortal load.
But where the sheeted flames thro Charlestown roar,
And lashing waves hiss round the burning shore,
Thro the deep folding fires dread Bunker's height
Thunders o'er all and shows a field of fight.
Like nightly shadows thro a flaming grove,
To the dark fray the closing squadrons move;
They join, they break, they thicken thro the glare,
And blazing batteries burst along the war;
Now wrapt in reddening smoke, now dim in sight,
They rake the hill, or wing the downward flight;
Here, wheel'd and wedged, Britannia's veterans turn,
And the long lightnings from their muskets burn;
There scattering strive the thin colonial train,
Whose broken platoons still the field maintain;
Till Britain's fresh battalions rise the height,
And with increasing vollies give the fight.
When, choked with dust, discolor'd deep in gore,
And gall'd on all sides from the ships and shore,
Hesperia's host moves off the field afar,
And saves, by slow retreat, the sad remains of war.