Would sail, to attack your gallic foe,
Would strive in vain a cause t'o'erthrow
Which, sink or not, will live in fame,
While Europe can one patriot claim.
[115] From the edition of 1815. It appeared first in the Time-Piece, March 29, 1797, under the title "To the Americans."
TO MYRTALIS[116]
On her Lightning Wires, or Conductors[A]
[A] See Brydone's Letters from Sicily to Becksford, alderman of London. In one of these he seems, rather seriously, to argue, that any one, by being armed with a conductor, in a thunder squall, may probably be secure from danger of lightning.—It is said the plan has been carried into practice in Scotland.—Freneau's Note.
How bold this project, to defy
The artillery of a summer sky:
Round you, unmoved, the lightning plays,
While others perish in the blaze.
The fluid fire, in deafening peals,
Along the warm conductor steals;
And thence directed to the ground,
It glances off without a wound!
Thus guarded, while the heavens are bowed,
You, fearless, see the passing cloud;
And Jove's red bolts unheeded fall,
Near You, who slight, or scorn them all.
The beaver on your sacred scull,
(Secure as Salamander's wool)
Assists to keep from your rigg'd head
The flash that strikes us, wretches, dead.