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.