Upon its surface, smooth and clean,
A world, in miniature, is seen;
Though scarce a journey for a snail
We meet with mountain, hill, and vale.
To those that guard this stormy place,
Two cities stare them in the face:
There, York its spiry summits rears,
And here Cummunipaw appears.
The tenant, now but ill at ease,
Derives no fuel from his trees:
And Jersey boats, though begged to land,
All leave him on the larboard hand.
Some monied man, grown sick of care,
To this neglected spot repair:
What Nature sketched, let art complete,
And own the loveliest Country Seat.
[82] First published, as far as I have been able to find, in the 1795 edition. Text from the 1809 edition.
JEFFERY, OR, THE SOLDIER'S PROGRESS[83]
Lured by some corporal's smooth address,
His scarlet coat and roguish face,
One Half A Joe on drum head laid,
A tavern treat—and reckoning paid;
See yonder simple lad consigned
To slavery of the meanest kind.
With only skill to drive a plough
A musquet he must handle now;
Must twirl it here and twirl it there,
Now on the ground, now in the air:
Its every motion by some rule
Of practice, taught in Frederick's school,[A]
Must be directed—nicely true—
Or he be beaten black—and blue.
[A] The Prussian manual exercise.—Freneau's note.