From your sage counsels what effects arise!
The vengeful briton from our waters flies;
His thundering ships no more our coasts assail,
But seize the advantage of the western gale.
Though bold and bloody, warlike, proud, and fierce,
They shun your vengeance for a Murdered Pearce,
And starved, dejected, on some meagre shore,
Sigh for the country they shall rule no more.
Long in the councils of your native land,
We saw you cool, unchanged, intrepid, stand:
When the firm Congress, still too firm to yield,
Stay'd masters of the long contested field,
Your wisdom aided, what their counsels framed—
By you the murdering savages were tamed—
That Independence we had sworn to gain,
By you asserted (nor Declared in vain)
We seized, triumphant, from a tyrant's throne,
And Britain totter'd when the work was done.
You, when an angry faction vex'd the age,
Rose to your place at once, and check'd their rage;
The envenom'd shafts of malice you defied,
And turn'd all projects of revolt aside:—
We saw you libell'd by the worst of men,
While hell's red lamp hung quivering o'er his pen,
And fiends congenial every effort try
To blast that merit which shall never die—
These had their hour, and traitors wing'd their flight,
To aid the screechings of distracted night.
Vain were their hopes—the poison'd darts of hell,
Glanced from your flinty shield, and harmless fell.
All this you bore—beyond it all you rose,
Nor ask'd despotic laws to crush your foes.
Mild was your language, temperate though severe;
And not less potent than Ithuriel's spear
To touch the infernals in their loathsome guise,
Confound their slanders and detect their lies.
All this you braved—and, now, what task remains,
But silent walks on solitary plains:
To bid the vast luxuriant harvest grow,
The slave be happy and secured from wo—
To illume the statesmen of the times to come
With the bold spirit of primeval Rome;
To taste the joys your long tried service brings,
And look, with pity, on the cares of kings:—
Whether, with Newton, you the heavens explore,
And trace through nature the creating power,
Or, if with mortals you reform the age,
(Alike, in all, the patriot and the sage)
May peace and soft repose, attend you, still,
In the lone vale, or on the cloud-capp'd hill,
While smiling plenty decks the abundant plain,
And hails Astrea to the world again.