This grand discovery, you adore it,
But ne'er will be the better for it:
You still are subject to those fires,
For poets' houses have no spires.
Philosophers are famed for pride;
But, pray, be modest—when I died,
No "sighs disturbed old ocean's bed,"
No "Nature wept" for Franklin dead!
That day, on which I left the coast,
A beggar-man was also lost:
If "Nature wept," you must agree
She wept for him—as well as me.
There's reason even in telling lies—
In such profusion of her "sighs,"
She was too sparing of a tear—
In Carolina, all was clear:
And, if there fell some snow and sleet,
Why must it be my winding sheet?
Snows oft have cloathed the April plain,
Have melted, and will melt again.
Poets, I pray you, say no more,
Or say what Nature said before;
That reason should your pens direct,
Or else you pay me no respect.
Let reason be your constant rule,
And Nature, trust me, is no fool—
When to the dust great men she brings,
Make her do—some uncommon things."
[32] Published in the Daily Advertiser, May 24, 1790, with the title "Verses from the Other World, by Dr. Fr—k—n." Text from the 1809 edition.