The pensive beam on ANDRE’S captive head.
At length the sun rose jocund, to adorn
With all his splendour the enfranchis’d morn.
Again the hero joins the ardent train
That pours its thousands on the tented plain;
And shines distinguish’d in the long array,
Bright as the silver star that leads the day!
His modest temperance, his wakeful heed,
His silent diligence, his ardent speed,
Each warrior-duty to the veteran taught,
Shaming the vain experience time had brought.
Dependence scarcely feels his gentle sway,
He shares each want, and smiles each grief away;
And to the virtues of a noble heart,
Unites the talents of inventive art;
Since from his swift and faithful pencil flow
The lines, the camp, the fortress of the foe;
Serene to counteract each deep design,
Points the dark ambush, and the springing mine;
Till, as a breathing incense, ANDRE’S name
Pervades the host, and swells the loud acclaim.
The Chief no virtue views with cold regard,
Skill’d to discern, and generous to reward;
Each tow’ring hope his honor’d smiles impart,
As near his person, and more near his heart
The graceful youth he draws,--and round his brow
Bids rank and pow’r their mingled brilliance throw.
Oh! hast thou seen a blooming morn of May
In crystal beauty shed the modest ray,
And with its balmy dew’s refreshing show’r
Swell the young grain, and ope the purple flow’r,
With brightning lustre melt in radiant noon,
Rob’d in the gayest mantle of the sun?
Then ’mid the splendours of its azure skies,
Oh! hast thou seen the cruel storm arise,
In sable horror shroud each dazzling charm,
And dash their glories back with icy arm?
Thus lour’d the deathful cloud amid the blaze
Of ANDRE’S rising hopes, and quench’d their rays!
Ah fatal embassy!--thy hazards dire
His kindling soul with ev’ry ardour fire.
As fair Euryalus, to meet his fate,
With Nysus rushes from the Dardan gate,
Relentless fate! whose fury scorns to spare
The snowy breast, red lip, and shining hair,
So graceful ANDRE launches on the waves,
Where Hudson’s tide its dreary confine laves.
With firm intrepid foot the youth explores
Each dangerous pathway of the hostile shores;
But on no veteran-chief his step attends,
As silent round the gloomy wood he wends;
Alone he meets the brave repentant foe,
Sustains his late resolve, receives his vow,
With ardent skill directs the doubtful course,
Seals the firm bond, and ratifies its force.
’Tis thus, AMERICA, thy generals fly,
And raise new banners in their native sky!
Sick of the mischiefs artful Gallia pours,
In friendly semblance on thy ravag’d shores.
Unnatural compact!--shall a race of slaves
Sustain the ponderous standard Freedom waves?
No! while their feign’d protection spreads the toils,
The vultures hover o’er the destin’d spoils.
How fade provincial glories, while ye run
To court far deeper bondage than ye shun!
Is this the generous active rising flame,
That boasted liberty’s immortal name,
Blaz’d for its rights infring’d, its trophies torn,
And taught the wise the dire mistake to mourn,
When haughty Britain, in a luckless hour,
With rage inebriate, and the lust of pow’r,
To fruitless conquest, and to countless graves
Led her gay legions o’er the western waves?
The Fiend of Discord, cow’ring at the prow,
Sat darkly smiling at th’ impending woe!
Long did my soul the wretched strife survey,
And wept the horrors of the deathful day;
Through rolling years saw undecisive War
Drag bleeding Wisdom at his iron car;
Exhaust my country’s treasure, pour her gore
In fruitless conflict on the distant shore;
Saw the firm Congress all her might oppose,
And while I mourn’d her fate, rever’d her foes.
But when, repentant of her prouder aim,
She gently waves the long disputed claim;
Extends the charter with your rights restor’d,
And hides in olive wreaths the blood-stain’d sword;
Then to reject her peaceful wreaths, and throw
Your Country’s freedom to our mutual foe!--
Infatuate land!--from that detested day
Distracted councils, and the thirst of sway,
Rapacious avarice, superstition vile,
And all the Frenchman dictates in his guile
Disgrace your Congress!--Justice drops her scale!
And radiant Liberty averts her sail!
They fly indignant the polluted plain,
Where truth is scorn’d, and mercy pleads in vain.
That she does plead in vain, thy witness bear,
Accursed hour!--thou darkest of the year!
That with misfortune’s deadliest venom fraught,
To Tappan’s plain the gallant ANDRE brought.
Oh WASHINGTON! I thought thee great and good,
Nor knew thy Nero-thirst of guiltless blood!
Severe to use the pow’r that fortune gave,
Thou cool determin’d murderer of the brave!
Lost to each fairer virtue, that inspires
The genuine fervour of the patriot fires!
And you, the base abettors of the doom,
That sunk his blooming honours in the tomb,
Th’ opprobrious tomb your harden’d hearts decreed,
While all he ask’d was as the brave to bleed!
No other boon the glorious youth implor’d
Save the cold mercy of the warrior-sword!
O dark, and pitiless! your impious hate
O’er-whelm’d the hero in the ruffian’s fate!
Stopt with the felon-cord the rosy breath!
And venom’d with disgrace the darts of death!
Remorseless WASHINGTON! the day shall come
Of deep repentance for this barb’rous doom!
When injur’d ANDRE’S memory shall inspire
A kindling army with resistless fire;
Each falchion sharpen that the Britons wield,
And lead their fiercest lion to the field!
Then, when each hope of thine shall set in night,
When dubious dread, and unavailing flight
Impel your host, thy guilt-upbraided soul
Shall wish untouch’d the sacred life you stole![50]
And when thy heart appall’d, and vanquish’d pride
Shall vainly ask the mercy they deny’d,
With horror shalt thou meet the fate thou gave,
Nor pity gild the darkness of thy grave!
For infamy, with livid hand, shall shed
Eternal mildew on the ruthless head!
Less cruel far than thou, on Ilium’s plain
Achilles, raging for Patroclus slain!
When hapless Priam bends the aged knee,
To deprecate the victor’s dire decree,
The generous Greek, in melting pity spares
The lifeless Hector to his father’s pray’rs,
Fierce as he was;--’tis cowards only know
Persisting vengeance o’er a fallen foe.
But no intreaty wakes the soft remorse,
Oh murder’d ANDRE! for thy sacred corse;
Vain were an army’s, vain its leader’s sighs!--
Damp in the earth on Hudson’s shore it lies!
Unshrouded welters in the wint’ry storm,
And gluts the riot of the Tappan-worm![51]
But Oh! its dust, like Abel’s blood, shall rise,
And call for justice from the angry skies!
What though the tyrants, with malignant pride,
To thy pale corse each decent rite denied!
Thy graceful limbs in no kind covert laid,
Nor with the christian requiem sooth’d thy shade!
Yet on thy grass-green bier soft April-show’rs
Shall earliest wake the sweet spontaneous flow’rs!
Bid the blue hare-bell, and the snow-drop there
Hang their cold cup, and drop the pearly tear!
And oft, at pensive eve’s ambiguous gloom,
Imperial Honour, bending o’er thy tomb,
With solemn strains shall lull thy deep repose,
And with his deathless laurels shade thy brows!
Lamented youth! while with inverted spear
The British legions pour th’ indignant tear!
Round the dropt arm the funeral-scarf entwine,[52]
And in their hearts’ deep core thy worth enshrine;
While my weak muse, in fond attempt and vain,
But feebly pours a perishable strain,
Oh! ye distinguish’d few! whose glowing lays
Bright Phœbus kindles with his purest rays,
Snatch from its radiant source the living fire,
And light with vestal flame your ANDRE’S HALLOW’D PYRE!
LETTERS
_Addressed to the Author of the foregoing Poem_,
BY MAJOR ANDRE.
RIGHT
CLAPTON, OCT. 3, 1769.
From their agreeable excursion to Shrewsbury, my dearest friends are by
this time returned to their thrice beloved Lichfield.--Once again have
they beheld those fortunate spires, the constant witnesses of all their
pains and pleasures. I can well conceive the emotions of joy which their
first appearance, from the neighbouring hills, excites after absence;
they seem to welcome you home, and invite you to reiterate those hours
of happiness, of which they are a species of monument. I shall have an
eternal love and reverence for them. Never shall I forget the joy that
danced in Honora’s eyes, when she first shewed them to me from Needwood
Forest on our return with you from Buxton to Lichfield. I remember she
called them the ladies of the valley--their lightness and elegance
deserve the title. Oh! how I loved them from that instant! My enthusiasm
concerning them is carried farther even than yours and Honora’s, for
every object that has a pyramidal form, recalls them to my recollection,
with a sensation, that brings the tear of pleasure into my eyes.
How happy must you have been at Shrewsbury! only that you tell me, alas!
that dear Honora was not so well as you wished during your stay
there.--I always hope the best. My impatient spirit rejects every
obtruding idea, which I have not fortitude to support--Dr Darwin’s
skill, and your tender care will remove that sad pain in her side, which
makes writing troublesome and injurious to her; which robs her poor
_Cher Jean_[53] of those precious pages, with which, he flatters
himself, she would otherwise have indulged him.
So your happiness at Shrewsbury scorned to be indebted to public
amusements--five virgins--united in the soft bonds of friendship!--How I
should have liked to have made the sixth!--But you surprise me by such
an absolute exclusion of the beaux--I certainly thought that when five
wise virgins were watching at midnight, it must have been in expectation
of the bridegroom’s coming. We are at this instant five virgins, writing
round the same table--My three sisters, Mr Ewer, and myself. I beg no
reflections injurious to the honour of poor Cher Jean. My mother is
gone to pay a visit, and has left us in possession of the old coach; but
as for nags, we can boast of only two long-tails, and my sisters say
they are sorry cattle, being no other than my friend Ewer and myself,
who, to say truth, have enormous pig-tails. My dear Boissier is come to
town; he has brought a little of the soldier with him, but he is the
same honest, warm, intelligent friend I always found him. He sacrifices
the town diversions, since I will not partake of them. We are jealous of
your correspondents, who are so numerous--Yet, write to the Andres
often, my dear Julia, for who are they that will value your letters
quite so much as we value them?--The least scrap of a letter will be
received with the greatest joy--write therefore, though it were only to
give us the comfort of having a piece of paper which has recently passed
through your hands;--Honora will put in a little postscript, were it
only to tell me that she is my very sincere friend, who will neither
give me love nor comfort--very short indeed, Honora, was thy last
postscript!--But I am too presumptuous;--I will not scratch out, but I
unsay--From the little there was I received more joy than I deserve.
This Cher Jean is an impertinent fellow, but he will grow discreet in
time--You must consider him as a poor novice of eighteen, who, for all
the sins he may commit, is sufficiently punished in the single evil of
being 120 miles from Lichfield. My mother and sisters will go to Putney
in a few days to stay some time--we none of us like Clapton--I need not
care, for I am all day long in town; but it is avoiding Scylla to fall
into Charybdis.--You paint to me the pleasant vale of Stow in the
richest autumnal colouring:--In return I must tell you that my zephyrs,
are wafted through cracks in the wainscot; for murmuring streams I have
dirty kennels; for bleating flocks, grunting pigs; and squalling cats
for birds that incessantly warble--I have said something of this sort in
my letter to Miss Spearman, and am twinged with the idea of these
epistles being confronted, and that I shall recal to your memory the fat
knight’s love letters to Mrs Ford and Mrs Page.
Julia, perhaps thou fanciest I am merry--Alas!--But I do not wish to
make you as doleful as myself; and besides, when I would express the
tender feelings of my soul, I have no language which does them any
justice; if I had, I should regret that you could not have it fresher,
and that whatever one communicates by letter must go such a round-about
way, before it reaches one’s correspondent; from the writer’s heart,
through his head, arm, hand, pen, ink, paper, over many a weary hill and
dale, to the eye, head, and heart of the reader. I have often regretted
our not possessing a sort of faculty which should enable our sensations,
remarks, &c. to arise from their source in a sort of exhalation, and
fall upon our paper in words and phrases properly adapted to express
them, without passing through an imagination whose operations so often
fail to second those of the heart. Then what a metamorphose should we
see in people’s stile! How eloquent those who are truly attached! how
stupid they who falsely profess affection! Perhaps the former had never
been able to express half their regard; while the latter, by their
flowers of rhetoric, had made us believe a thousand times more than they
ever felt--but this is whimsical moralizing.
My sister’s penserosos were dispersed on their arrival in town, by the
joy of seeing Louisa and their dear little brother Billy again, our kind
and excellent uncle Giradat, and uncle Lewis Andre. I was glad to see
them, but they complained, not without reason, of the gloom upon my
countenance--Billy wept for joy that we were returned, while poor Cher
Jean was ready to weep for sorrow. Louisa is grown still handsomer since
we left her. Our sisters Mary and Anne, knowing your partiality to
beauty, are afraid that when they shall introduce her to you, she will
put their noses out of joint. Billy is not old enough for me to be
afraid of in the rival-way, else I should keep him aloof, for his heart
is formed of those affectionate materials, so dear to the ingenuous
taste of Julia and her Honora.
I sympathize in your resentment against the canonical dons, who stumpify
the heads of those good green people, beneath whose friendly shade[54]
so many of your happiest hours have glided away--but they defy them;
let them stumpify as much as they please, time will repair the
mischief--their verdant arms will again extend, and invite you to their
shelter.
The evenings grow long--I hope your conversation round the fire will
sometimes fall on the Andres; it will be a great comfort that they are
remembered. We chink our glasses to your healths at every meal. Here’s
to our Lichfieldian friends, says Nanny;--Oh--h, says Mary;--with all my
soul, say I;--Allons, cries my mother;--and the draught seems nectar.
The libation made, we begin our uncloying theme, and so beguile the
gloomy evening.
Mr and Mrs Seward will accept my most affectionate respects--My male
friend at Lichfield will join in your conversation on the Andres. Among
the numerous good qualities he is possessed of, he certainly has
gratitude, and then he cannot forget those who so sincerely love and
esteem him.--I, in particular, shall always recall with pleasure the
happy hours I have passed in his company--My friendship for him, and for
your family, has diffused itself, like the precious ointment from
Aaron’s beard, on every thing which surrounds you, therefore I beg you
would give my amities to the whole town.--Persuade Honora to forgive the
length and ardour of the inclosed, and believe me truly your
affectionate and faithful friend,
RIGHT
J. ANDRE.
LETTER II.
RIGHT
LONDON, OCT. 19, 1769.
From the midst of books, papers, bills, and other implements of gain,
let me lift up my drowsy head a while to converse with dear Julia.--And
first, as I know she has a fervent wish to see me a quill-driver, I must
tell her, that I begin, as people are wont to do, to look upon my future
profession with great partiality. I no longer see it in so
disadvantageous a light. Instead of figuring a merchant as a middle-aged
man, with a bob wig, a rough beard, in snuff coloured cloaths, grasping
a guinea in his red hand; I conceive a comely young man, with a
tolerable pig-tail, wielding a pen with all the noble fierceness of the
duke of Marlborough brandishing a truncheon upon a sign-post, surrounded
with types and emblems, and canopied with cornucopiæs that disembogue
their stores upon his head; Mercuries reclined upon bales of goods;
Genii playing with pens, ink, and paper; while in perspective, his
gorgeous vessels “launched on the bosom of the silver Thames,” are
wafting to distant lands the produce of this commercial nation. Thus
all the mercantile glories croud on my fancy, emblazoned in the most
refulgent colouring of an ardent imagination--Borne on her soaring
pinions I wing my flight to the time when Heaven shall have crowned my
labours with success and opulence. I see sumptuous palaces rising to
receive me--I see orphans, and widows, and painters, and fidlers, and
poets, and builders, protected and encouraged; and when the fabric is
pretty nearly finished by my shattered pericranium, I cast my eyes
around, and find John Andre, by a small coal fire, in a gloomy
compting-house in Warnford court, nothing so little as what he has been
making himself, and in all probability never to be much more than he is
at present. But oh! my dear Honora!--it is for thy sake only I wish for
wealth.--You say she was somewhat better at the time you wrote last. I
must flatter myself that she will soon be without any remains of this
threatening disease.
It is seven o’clock--You and Honora, with two or three more select
friends, are probably encircling your dressing-room fire-place.--What
would I not give to enlarge that circle! The idea of a clean hearth, and
a snug circle round it, formed by a few sincere friends, transports me.
You seem combined together against the inclemency of the weather, the
hurry, bustle, ceremony, censoriousness, and envy of the world. The
purity, the warmth, the kindly influence of fire, to all for whom it is
kindled, is a good emblem of the friendship of such amiable minds as
Julia’s and her Honora’s--Since I cannot be there in reality, pray
imagine me with you; admit me to your _conversationes_;--Think how I
wish for the blessing of enjoying them!--and be persuaded that I take
part in all your pleasures, in the dear hope, that ere it be very long,
your blazing hearth will burn again for me. Pray keep me a place;--let
the poker, tongs, or shovel represent me;--But you have Dutch-tiles,
which are infinitely better;--So let Moses, or Aaron, or Balaam’s ass be
my representative.
But time calls me to Clapton.--I quit you abruptly till to-morrow: when,
if I do not tear the nonsense I have been writing, I may perhaps
increase its quantity. Signora Cynthia is in clouded majesty.--Silvered
with her beams I am about to jog to Clapton upon my own stumps;--Musing
as I homeward plod my way--Ah! need I name the subject of my
contemplations!
* * * * *
RIGHT
THURSDAY.
I had a sweet walk home last night, and found the Claptonians, with
their fair guest, a Miss Mourgue, very well--My sisters send their
amities, and will write in a few days.
This morning I returned to town--It has been the finest day
imaginable--A solemn mildness was diffused throughout the blue
horizon;--Its light was clear and distinct rather than dazzling; the
serene beams of the autumnal sun!--Gilded hills, variegated woods,
glittering spires, ruminating herds, bounding flocks, all combined to
enchant the eyes, expand the heart, and “chace all sorrow but
despair.”--In the midst of such a scene, no lesser grief can prevent our
sympathy with nature--A calmness, a benevolent disposition seizes us
with sweet insinuating power--The very brute creation seem sensible of
these beauties;--There is a species of mild chearfulness in the face of
a lamb, which I have but indifferently expressed in a corner of my
paper, and a demure contented look in an ox, which, in the fear of
expressing still worse, I leave unattempted.
Business calls me away--I must dispatch my letter,--Yet what does it
contain?--No matter--You like any thing better than news.--Indeed you
never told me so, but I have an intuitive knowledge upon the subject,
from the sympathy which I have constantly perceived in the taste of
Julia and Cher Jean.--What is it to you or me,
If here in the city we have nothing but riot,
If the Spital-field weavers can’t be kept quiet,
If the weather is fine, or the streets should be dirty,
Or if Mr Dick Wilson died aged of thirty?
--But if I was to hearken to the versifying grumbling I feel within me,
I should fill my paper, and not have room left to intreat that you would
plead my cause to Honora more eloquently than the enclosed letter has
the power of doing.--Apropos of verses, you desire me to recollect my
random description of the engaging appearance of the charming Mrs----.
Here it is at your service--
Then rustling and bustling the lady comes down,}
With a flaming red face, and a broad yellow gown,}
And a hobbling out-of-breath gait, and a frown.}
This little French cousin of ours, Delarise, was my sister Mary’s
play-fellow at Paris. His sprightliness engages my sisters extremely.
Doubtless they talk much of him to you in their letters.
How sorry I am to bid you adieu! Oh let me not be forgot by the friends
most dear to you at Lichfield!--Lichfield! Ah! of what magic letters is
that little word composed!--How graceful it looks when it is
written!--Let nobody talk to me of its original meaning “The field of
blood!”[55] Oh! no such thing!--It is the field of joy! “The beautiful
city, that lifts her fair head in the valley, and says, I am, and there
is none beside me!”--Who says she is vain?--Julia will not say so--nor
yet Honora--and least of all their devoted
RIGHT
JOHN ANDRE.
LETTER III.
RIGHT
CLAPTON, NOV. 1, 1769.
My ears still ring with the sounds of Oh Jack! Oh Jack! How do the dear
Lichfieldians?--What do they say?--What are they about?--What did you do
while you were with them?--Have patience, said I, good people!--and
began my story, which they devoured with as much joyful avidity as Adam
did Gabriel’s tidings of heaven--My mother and sisters are all very
well, and delighted with their little Frenchman, who is a very agreeable
lad.
Surely you applaud the fortitude with which I left you!--Did I not come
off with flying colours?--It was a great effort, for, alas! this
recreant heart did not second the smiling courage of the countenance;
nor is it yet as it ought to be, from the hopes it may reasonably
entertain of seeing you all again ere the winter’s dreary hours are
past.--Julia, my dear Julia, gild them with tidings of our beloved
Honora!--Oh that you may be enabled to tell me that she regains her
health, and her charming vivacity!--Your sympathizing heart partakes all
the joys and pains of your friends.--Never can I forget its kind
offices, which were of such moment to my peace!--Mine is formed for
friendship, and I am blest in being able to place so well the purest
passion of an ingenuous mind!--How am I honoured in Mr and Mrs Seward’s
attachment to me!--Charming were the anticipations which beguiled the
long tracts of hill, and dale, and plain, that divide London from
Lichfield!--With what delight my eager eyes drank their first view of
the dear spires!--What rapture did I not feel on entering your
gates!--in flying up the hall steps!--in rushing into the
dining-room!--in meeting the gladdened eyes of dear Julia and her
enchanting friend!--That instant convinced me of the truth of Rousseau’s
observation, “that there are moments worth ages.”--Shall not those
moments return? Ah Julia! the cold hand of absence is heavy upon the
heart of your poor Cher Jean--He is forced to hammer into it perpetually
every consoling argument that the magic wand of Hope can conjure up;
viz. that every moment of industrious absence advances his journey, you
know whither.--I may sometimes make excursions to Lichfield, and bask in
the light of my Honora’s eyes!--Sustain me, Hope!--nothing on my part
shall be wanting which may induce thee to fulfil thy blossoming
promises.
The happy social circle, Julia, Honora, Miss S--n, Miss B--n, her
brother, Mr S--e, Mr R--n, &c. are now, perhaps, enlivening your
dressing-room, the dear blue region, as Honora calls it, with the
sensible observation, the tasteful criticism, or the elegant
song;--dreading the iron-tongue of the nine o’clock bell, which
disperses the beings, whom friendship and kindred virtues had drawn
together.--My imagination attaches itself to all, even the inanimate
objects which surround Honora and her Julia;--that have beheld their
graces and virtues expand and ripen;--my dear Honora’s, from their
infant bud.
The sleepy Claptonian train are gone to bed, somewhat wearied with their
excursion to Enfield, whither they have this day carried their favourite
little Frenchman;--so great a favourite, the parting was quite tragical.
I walked hither from town, as usual, to-night--no hour of the
twenty-four is so precious to me as that devoted to this solitary
walk.--Oh, my friend! I am far from possessing the patient frame of mind
which I so continually invoke!--Why is Lichfield an hundred and twenty
miles from me?--There is no moderation in the distance! Fifty or sixty
miles had been a great deal too much, but then, there would have been
less opposition from authority to my frequent visits--I conjure you,
supply the want of these blessings by frequent letters--I must not, will
not ask them of Honora, since the use of the pen is forbid to her
declining health;--I will content myself, as usual, with a postscript
from her in your epistles.--My sisters are charmed with the packet which
arrived yesterday, and which they will answer soon.