Nor will you deem my conduct strange
If what I long have thought be true—
That life itself is constant change,
And death, the want of something new.
[273] Text from the 1786 edition. The poem appears in the 1795 edition under the title "A News-Carrier's Petition."
THE HAPPY PROSPECT[274]
Though clad in winter's gloomy dress all Nature's works appear,
Yet other prospects rise to bless the new returning year:
The active sail again is seen to greet our western shore,
Gay plenty smiles with brow serene, and wars distract no more.
No more the vales, no more the plains an iron harvest yield;
Peace guards our doors, impells our swains to till the grateful field:
From distant climes, no longer foes (their years of misery past)
Nations arrive, to find repose in these domains at last.
And, if a more delightful scene attracts the mortal eye,
Where clouds nor darkness intervene, behold, aspiring high,
On Freedom's soil those Fabrics plann'd, on virtue's basis laid,
That make secure our native land, and prove our toils repaid.
Ambitious aims and pride severe, would you at distance keep,
What wanderer would not tarry here, here charm his cares to sleep!
O, still may health her balmy wings o'er these fair fields expand,
While commerce from all climates brings the products of each land.
Through toiling care and lengthen'd views, that share alike our span,
Gay, smiling hope her heaven pursues, the eternal friend of man:
The darkness of the days to come she brightens with her ray,
And smiles o'er Nature's gaping tomb, when sickening to decay!