[254] John Holt, printer, born in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1721, died

in New York City, January 30, 1784. Holt founded in 1776 the _New York

Journal_, which during the Revolution bore the famous device of a snake

cut into parts, with the motto "Unite or Die."

[255] After the war Rivington removed from the head-line of his paper

the arms of Great Britain and changed the title to _Rivington's New York

Gazette and Universal Advertiser_.

[256] "His prudence and caution."--_Ed. 1795._

[257] The edition of 1809 added at this point the following six lines

not in the earlier editions:

"The gods for that hero did trouble prepare,

But gave him a mind that could feed upon care,

They gave him a spirit, serene but severe,

Above all disorder, confusion, and fear;

In him it was fortune where others would fail:

He was born for the tempest, and weathered the gale."

[258] "A cloud, or a stream."--_Ed. 1795._

[259] "CARLETON."--_Ed. 1795._

[260] In the later editions this stanza was inserted after stanza 1,

Part II, and made to refer to the Tories.

[261] "That I acted."--_Ed. 1795._

[262] "Rul'd me."--_Ib._

[263] "My PENSION is lost!"--_Ed. 1795._

[264] See page 120.

[265] See page 190.

[266]

"When all the town knew (and a number confess'd)

That papers, like these, were no cause of arrest."--_Ed. 1795._

[267] "My struggles and strife."--_Ib._

[268] "To worry."--_Ib._

[269] In place of these lines, the edition of 1795 has the following:

"Old Argo the ship,--in a peep at her star,

I found they were scraping her bottom for TAR."

[270] "A boy with a feather-bed troubled my rest."--_Ed. 1795._

[271] Royal Governor of New York. He arrived in the city March 21, 1780.

He was considered harsh and arbitrary by the patriots.

A NEWS-MAN'S ADDRESS[272]

What tempests gloom'd the by-past year--

What dismal prospects then arose!

Scarce at your doors I dar'd appear,

So many were our griefs and woes:

But time at length has chang'd the scene,

Our prospects, now, are more serene.

Bad news we brought you every day,

Your seamen slain, your ships on shore,

The army fretting for their pay--

('Twas well they had not fretted more!)

'Twas wrong indeed to wear out shoes,

To bring you nothing but bad news.

Now let's be joyful for the change--

The folks that guard the English throne

Have given us ample room to range,

And more, perhaps, than was their own;

To western lakes they stretch our bounds,

And yield the Indian hunting grounds.

But pray read on another year,

Remain the humble newsman's friend;

And he'll engage to let you hear

What Europe's princes next intend.--

Even now their brains are all at work

To rouse the Russian on the Turk.

Well--if they fight, then fight they must,

They are a strange contentious breed;

One good effect will be, I trust,

The more are kill'd, the more you'll read;

For past experience clearly shews,

That Wrangling is the Life of News.

[272] From the edition of 1795. The poem was first published as a

broadside in 1784, with the title, "New-Year Verses, For those who carry

the Pennsylvania Gazette To the Customers. January 1, 1784," and was

reproduced almost verbatim in the 1786 edition.

NEW YEAR'S VERSES[273]

Addressed to the customers of the _Freeman's Journal_, by the Lad

who carries it

January 7, 1784

Blest be the man who early prov'd

And first contriv'd to make it clear

That Time upon a dial mov'd,

And trac'd that circle call'd a year;

Ere he arose, the savage, man,

No bounds to years or seasons knew,

On Nature's book his reckoning ran,

And social festivals were few.

In after days, when folks grew wise

New wonderments were daily found,

Systems they built on pumpkin pies,

And prov'd that every thing went round.

Experience shows they reason'd right,

(With laurels we their tombs should crown)

For half the world is in such plight

That one would swear it upside down.

Now I am one, (and pray attend)

Who, marching in a smaller sphere,

To set you right, my service lend,

By bringing Papers through the year,

Which to your Honours may impart

A thousand new invented schemes,

The works of wit, and toils of art,

News, commerce, politics, and dreams:

Though in a sheet, at random cast,

Our motley knowledge we dispose,

From such a mass, in ages past,

Have less substantial fabrics rose;

The Sybil wise, as Virgil says,

Her writings to the leaves consign'd,

Which soon were borne a thousand ways,

Derang'd and scatter'd by the wind.

Not such neglect in me is seen--

Soon as my leaves have left the press

I haste to bring them, neat and clean,

At all times in a New Year's dress.

Though winds their ancient spite retain,

And strive to tear them from my hold,

I bear them safe through wind and rain,

Despising heat, despising cold.

While thus employ'd, from week to week,

You surely will not think it hard

If, with the rest, I come to seek

Some humble token of regard.

Nor will you deem my conduct strange

If what I long have thought be true--

That life itself is constant change,

And death, the want of something new.

[273] Text from the 1786 edition. The poem appears in the 1795 edition

under the title "A News-Carrier's Petition."

THE HAPPY PROSPECT[274]

Though clad in winter's gloomy dress all Nature's works appear,

Yet other prospects rise to bless the new returning year:

The active sail again is seen to greet our western shore,

Gay plenty smiles with brow serene, and wars distract no more.

No more the vales, no more the plains an iron harvest yield;

Peace guards our doors, impells our swains to till the grateful field:

From distant climes, no longer foes (their years of misery past)

Nations arrive, to find repose in these domains at last.

And, if a more delightful scene attracts the mortal eye,

Where clouds nor darkness intervene, behold, aspiring high,

On Freedom's soil those Fabrics plann'd, on virtue's basis laid,

That make secure our native land, and prove our toils repaid.

Ambitious aims and pride severe, would you at distance keep,

What wanderer would not tarry here, here charm his cares to sleep!

O, still may health her balmy wings o'er these fair fields expand,

While commerce from all climates brings the products of each land.

Through toiling care and lengthen'd views, that share alike our span,

Gay, smiling hope her heaven pursues, the eternal friend of man:

The darkness of the days to come she brightens with her ray,

And smiles o'er Nature's gaping tomb, when sickening to decay!

[274] This is Freneau's hymn of thanksgiving at the close of the war.

Text from the 1795 edition, where, as far as I can discover, it was

first published.

THE DYING INDIAN[275]

TOMO-CHEQUI

"On yonder lake I spread the sail no more!

Vigour, and youth, and active days are past--

Relentless demons urge me to that shore

On whose black forests all the dead are cast:--

Ye solemn train, prepare the funeral song,

For I must go to shades below,

Where all is strange and all is new;

Companion to the airy throng!--

What solitary streams,

In dull and dreary dreams,

All melancholy, must I rove along!

To what strange lands must Chequi take his way!

Groves of the dead departed mortals trace:

No deer along those gloomy forests stray,

No huntsmen there take pleasure in the chace,

But all are empty unsubstantial shades,

That ramble through those visionary glades;

No spongy fruits from verdant trees depend,

But sickly orchards there

Do fruits as sickly bear,

And apples a consumptive visage shew,

And withered hangs the hurtle-berry blue.

Ah me! what mischiefs on the dead attend!

Wandering a stranger to the shores below,

Where shall I brook or real fountain find?

Lazy and sad deluding waters flow--

Such is the picture in my boding mind!

Fine tales, indeed, they tell

Of shades and purling rills,

Where our dead fathers dwell

Beyond the western hills,

But when did ghost return his state to shew;

Or who can promise half the tale is true?

I too must be a fleeting ghost!--no more--

None, none but shadows to those mansions go;

I leave my woods, I leave the Huron shore,

For emptier groves below!

Ye charming solitudes,

Ye tall ascending woods,

Ye glassy lakes and prattling streams,

Whose aspect still was sweet,

Whether the sun did greet,

Or the pale moon embraced you with her beams--

Adieu to all!

To all, that charmed me where I strayed,

The winding stream, the dark sequestered shade;

Adieu all triumphs here!

Adieu the mountain's lofty swell,

Adieu, thou little verdant hill,

And seas, and stars, and skies--farewell,

For some remoter sphere!

Perplexed with doubts, and tortured with despair,

Why so dejected at this hopeless sleep?

Nature at last these ruins may repair,

When fate's long dream is o'er, and she forgets to weep

Some real world once more may be assigned,

Some new born mansion for the immortal mind!

Farewell, sweet lake; farewell surrounding woods,

To other groves, through midnight glooms, I stray,

Beyond the mountains, and beyond the floods,

Beyond the Huron bay!

Prepare the hollow tomb, and place me low,

My trusty bow and arrows by my side,

The cheerful bottle and the venison store;

For long the journey is that I must go,

Without a partner, and without a guide."

He spoke, and bid the attending mourners weep,

Then closed his eyes, and sunk to endless sleep!

[275] Text from the edition of 1809. First published in the _Freeman's

Journal_, March 17, 1784. It was inserted without change into the

edition of 1786, where it bore the title: "The Dying Indian, or Last

Words of Shalum. _March, 1784._ Debemur morti nos, nostraque." The two

later editions were unchanged save in title.

LINES[276]

Intended for Mr. Peale's Exhibition

May 10, 1784

1

Toward the skies

What columns rise

In Roman style, profusely great!

What lamps ascend,

What arches bend,

And swell with more than Roman state!

2

High o'er the central arch display'd

Old Janus shuts his temple door,

And shackles war in darkest shade;

Saturnian times in view once more.

3

Pride of the human race, behold

In Gallia's king the virtues glow,

Whose conduct prov'd, whose goodness told,

That kings can feel for human woe.

Thrice happy France in Louis blest,

Thy genius droops her head no more;

In the calm virtues of the mind

Equal to him no Titus shin'd--

No Trajan--whom mankind adore.

4

Another scene too soon displays!

Griefs have their share, and claim their part,

They monuments to ruin raise,

And shed keen anguish o'er the heart:

Those heroes that in battle fell

Demand a sympathetic tear,

Who fought, our tyrants to repell--

Memory preserves their laurels here.

In vernal skies

Thus tempests rise,

And clouds obscure the brightest sun--

Few wreathes are gain'd

With blood unstain'd,

No honours without ruin won.

5

The arms of France three lillies mark--

In honour's dome with these enroll'd

The plough, the sheaf, the gliding barque

The riches of our State unfold.

6

Ally'd in Heaven, a sun and stars

Friendship and peace with France declare--

The branch succeeds the spear of Mars,

Commerce repairs the wastes of war:

In ties of concord ancient foes engage

Proving the day-spring of a brighter age.

7

These States defended by the brave,

Their military trophies, see!

The virtue that of old did save

Shall still maintain them great and free:

Arts shall pervade the western wild,

And savage hearts become more mild.

8

Of science proud, the source of sway,

Lo! emblematic figures shine;

The arts their kindred forms display,

Manners to soften and refine:

A stately tree to heaven its summit sends

And cluster'd fruit from thirteen boughs depends.

9

With laurel crown'd

A chief renown'd

(His country sav'd) his faulchion sheaths;

Neglects his spoils

For rural toils

And crowns his plough with laurel wreaths:

While we this Roman chief survey,

What apt resemblance strikes the eye!

Those features to the soul convey

A Washington in fame as high,

Whose prudent, persevering mind

Patience with manly courage join'd,

And when disgrace and death were near,

Look'd through the black distressing shade,

Struck hostile Britons with unwonted fear

And blasted their best hopes, and pride in ruin laid.

10

Victorious virtue! aid me to pursue

The tributary verse to triumphs due--

Behold the peasant leave his lowly shed,

Where tufted forests round him grow;--

Tho' clouds the dark sky overspread,

War's dreadful art his arm essays,

He meets the hostile cannon's blaze,

And pours redoubled vengeance on the foe.

11

Born to protect and guard our native land,

Victorious virtue! still preserve us free;

Plenty--gay child of peace, thy horn expand,

And, Concord, teach us to agree!

May every virtue that adorns the soul

Be here advanc'd to heights unknown before;

Pacific ages in succession roll,

'Till Nature blots the scene,

Chaos resumes her reign

And heaven with pleasure views its works no more.

[276] Published in the _Freeman's Journal_, May 19, 1784, which the text

follows. Practically unchanged for the later editions. The following

description of this arch appeared in the _Journal_, May 12th:

"Monday at noon, the sheriff, attended by the proper officers, made

proclamation of the Definitive Treaty of Peace concluded between America

and Great-Britain. At the same time the state flag was hoisted on Market

street wharf, and in the evening the transparent paintings which were

designed in celebration of the general peace, and were to have been

shewn on the 22d January last, but prevented by an unfortunate accident;

being revived by subscription, and executed by the ingenious Mr. Peale,

were exhibited, and afforded great satisfaction to many thousands of

spectators.

The following is a Description of the Triumphal Arch and its ornaments:

THE Arch is fifty Feet and six Inches wide, and thirty-five Feet and six

Inches high, exclusive of the Ballustrade, which is three Feet and nine

Inches in height. The Arch is fourteen Feet wide in the clear, and each

of the smaller Arches nine feet. The Pillars are of the _Ionic_ Order.

The Entablature, all the other Parts, and the Proportions correspond

with that Order; and the whole Edifice is finished in the Style of

Architecture proper for such a Building, and used by the _Romans_. The

Pillars are adorned with spiral Festoons of Flowers in their natural

Colours.... [Then follows a half-column description of the various

ornaments and devices.]

The whole Building illuminated by about twelve hundred Lamps."

THE HURRICANE[277]

Happy the man who, safe on shore,

Now trims, at home, his evening fire;

Unmov'd, he hears the tempests roar,

That on the tufted groves expire:

Alas! on us they doubly fall,

Our feeble barque must bear them all.

Now to their haunts the birds retreat,

The squirrel seeks his hollow tree,

Wolves in their shaded caverns meet,

All, all are blest but wretched we--

Foredoomed a stranger to repose,

No rest the unsettled ocean knows.

While o'er the dark abyss[A] we roam,

Perhaps, with last departing gleam,

We saw the sun descend in gloom,

No more to see his morning beam;

But buried low, by far too deep,

On coral beds, unpitied, sleep!

[A] Near the east end of Jamaica, July 30, 1784.--_Freneau's

note._

But what a strange, uncoasted strand

Is that, where fate permits no day--

No charts have we to mark that land,

No compass to direct that way--

What Pilot shall explore that realm,

What new Columbus take the helm!

While death and darkness both surround,

And tempests rage with lawless power,

Of friendship's voice I hear no sound,

No comfort in this dreadful hour--

What friendship can in tempests be,

What comfort on this raging sea?

The barque, accustomed to obey,

No more the trembling pilots guide:

Alone she gropes her trackless way,

While mountains burst on either side--

Thus, skill and science both must fall;

And ruin is the lot of all.

[277] First published in the April 13, 1785, issue of the _Freeman's

Journal_, under the title, "Verses, made at Sea, in a Heavy Gale," and

reprinted verbatim in the 1786 edition. In the August 20, 1788, issue of

the _Journal_ the poem was republished in connection with the following

note (in italics): "In that violent hurricane at Jamaica, on the night

of the 30th of July, 1784, in which, no more than eight, out of 150 sail

of vessels, in the ports of Kingston and Port-Royal, were saved, capt.

Freneau was at sea, and arrived at Kingston next morning, a mere wreck.

On that occasion, the following beautiful lines, extracted from the

first volume of his writings, were penned." Text from the edition of

1809.

TO THE KEEPER OF THE KING'S WATER WORKS[278]

Near Kingston,[279] in the island of Jamaica, on being refused a

puncheon of water

Written August, 1784

"_The celestial Deities protect and relieve strangers in every

country, as long as those strangers respect and submit to the

laws of the country._"

--KIEN-LHI, _alias_ JOHN TUCK, _Viceroy of Canton_.

Can he, who o'er two Indies holds the sway,

Where'er the ocean flows, whose fleets patrole,

Who bids Hibernia's rugged sons obey,

And at whose nod (you say) shakes either pole:--

Can he, whose crown a thousand jewels grace

Of worth untold--can he, so rich, deny

One wretched puncheon from this ample waste,

Begg'd by his quondam subject--very dry?

Vast are the springs in yonder cloud-capt hill:

Why, then, refuse the abundant flowing wave?

Where hogs, and dogs, and keepers drink their fill,

May we not something from such plenty crave?

Keeper!--must we with empty cask return!

Just view the limpid stream that runs to waste!--

Denied the stream that flows from Nature's urn,

By locks and bolts secur'd from rebel taste?

Well!--if we must, inform the royal ear,

Poor are some kings that now in Britain live:

Tell him, that Nature is no miser here;

Tell him--that he withholds--what beggars give.

[278] From the edition of 1809. The poem seems first to have appeared in

the _National Gazette_ of January 12, 1792, with the following note:

"The following lines were written some years ago (Sept. 1784) on board

the brig _Dromilly_, in Kingston harbour, Jamaica; and sent to the

keeper of the King's waterworks, near Rock fort; who had refused the

writer a puncheon of water from a reservoir that was, by royal order,

appropriated to the use of the royal navy." The present text is somewhat

varied from that in the edition of 1795.

[279] "Rock-Fort."--_Ed. 1795._

LINES[280]

Written at Port-Royal, in the Island of Jamaica

Here, by the margin of the murmuring main,

While her proud remnants I explore in vain,

And lonely stray through these dejected lands

Fann'd by the noon-tide breeze on burning sands,

Where the dull Spaniard once possess'd these shades,

And ports defended by his Pallisades[A]--

Tho' lost to us, Port Royal claims a sigh,

Nor shall the Muse the unenvied gift deny.

Of all the towns that grac'd Jamaica's isle

This was her glory, and the proudest pile,

Where toils on toils bade wealth's gay structures rise,

And commerce swell'd her glory to the skies:

St. Jago, seated on a distant plain,

Ne'er saw the tall ship entering from the main,

Unnotic'd streams her Cobra's[B] margin lave

Where yond' tall plantains shade her glowing wave,

And burning sands or rock surrounded hill

Confess its founder's fears--or want of skill.

While o'er these wastes with wearied step I go,

Past scenes of death return, in all their woe,[281]

O'er these sad shores in angry pomp he pass'd,

Mov'd in the winds, and rag'd with every blast--

Here,[C] opening gulphs confess'd the almighty hand,

Here, the dark ocean roll'd across the land,

Here, piles on piles an instant tore away,

Here, crowds on crowds in mingled ruin lay,

Whom fate scarce gave to end their noon-day feast,

Or time to call the sexton, or the priest.

Where yond' tall barque, with all her ponderous load,

Commits her anchor to its dark abode,

Eight fathoms down, where unseen waters flow

To quench the sulphur of the caves below,

Here midnight sounds torment the sailor's ear,

And drums and fifes play drowsy concerts here,[282]

Sad songs of woe prevent the hours of sleep,

And Fancy aids the fiddlers of the deep;

Dull Superstition hears the ghostly hum,

Smit with the terrors of the world to come.

What now is left of all thy boasted pride!

Lost are thy glories that were spread so wide,

A spit of sand is thine, by heaven's decree,

And wasting shores that scarce resist the sea:

Is this Port-Royal on Jamaica's coast,

The Spaniard's envy, and the Briton's boast!

A shatter'd roof o'er every hut appears,

And mouldering brick-work prompts the traveller's fears;

A church, with half a priest, I grieve to see,

Grass round its door, and rust upon its key!--

One only inn with tiresome search I found

Where one sad negro dealt his beverage round;--

His was the part to wait the impatient call,

He was our landlord, post-boy, pimp, and all;

His wary eyes on every side were cast,

Beheld the present, and revolv'd the past,

Now here, now there, in swift succession stole,

Glanc'd at the bar, or watch'd the unsteady bowl.

No sprightly lads or gay bewitching maids[283]

Walk on these wastes or wander in these shades;

To other shores past times beheld them go,

And some are slumbering in the caves below;

A negro tribe but ill their place supply,

With bending back, short hair, and downcast eye;[284]

A feeble rampart guards the unlucky town,

Where banish'd Tories come to seek renown,

Where worn-out slaves their bowls of beer retail,

And sun-burnt strumpets watch the approaching sail.

Here (scarce escap'd the wild tornado's rage)

Why sail'd I here to swell my future page!

To these dull scenes with eager haste I came

To trace the reliques of their ancient fame,

Not worth the search!--what domes are left to fall,

Guns, gales, and earthquakes shall destroy them all--

All shall be lost!--tho' hosts their aid implore,

The Twelve Apostles[D] shall protect no more,

Nor guardian heroes awe the impoverish'd plain;

No priest shall mutter, and no saint remain,

Nor this palmetto yield her evening shade,

Where the dark negro his dull music play'd,

Or casts his view beyond the adjacent strand

And points, still grieving, to his native land,

Turns and returns from yonder murmuring shore,

And pants for countries he must see no more--

Where shall I go, what Lethe shall I find

To drive these dark ideas from my mind!

No buckram heroes can relieve the eye,

And George's honours only raise a sigh--

Not even these walls a glad remembrance claim,[285]

Where grief still wastes a half deluded dame,

Whom to these coasts a British Paris bore,

And basely left, lost virtue to deplore.--

In foreign climes detain'd from all she lov'd,

By friends neglected, long by fortune prov'd,

While sad and solemn pass'd the unwelcome day,

What charms had life for her, to tempt her stay!

Deceiv'd in all--for meanness could deceive--

Expecting still, and still condemn'd to grieve,

She scarcely saw, to different hearts allied,

That her dear Florio ne'er pursued a bride.--

Are griefs like thine to Florio's bosom known?

Must these, alas, be ceaseless in your own?--

Life is a dream--its varying shades I see,

But this base wanderer hardly dreams of thee.

Ye mountains vast, whose heights the heaven sustain,

Adieu, ye mountains, and fair Kingston's plain;

Where Nature still the toils of art transcends--

In this dull spot the fine delusion ends,

Where burning sands are borne by every blast

And these mean fabrics still bewail the past;

Where want, and death, and care, and grief reside,

And threatening moons advance the imperious tide:--

Ye stormy winds, awhile your wrath suspend,

Who leaves the land, a bottle, and a friend,

Quits this bright isle for yon' blue seas and sky,

Or even Port-Royal quits--without a sigh!

_Sept. 1784._

[A] Pallisades a narrow strip of land about seven miles in

length, running nearly from north to south, and forming

the harbours of Port Royal and Kingston.--_Freneau's

note, 1809 edition._

[B] A small river falling into Kingston Bay, nearly opposite

Port Royal--and which has its source in the hills beyond

Spanish Town.--_Freneau's note, 1809 edition._

[C] Old Port-Royal contained more than 1500 buildings, and these

for the most part large and elegant. This unfortunate town

was for a long time reckoned the most considerable mart of

trade in the West Indies. It was destroyed on the 17th of

June, 1692, by an earthquake which in two minutes sunk the

far greater part of the buildings; in which disaster near

3000 people lost their lives.--_Freneau's note._

[D] A Battery so called, on the side of the harbour opposite

to Port-Royal.--_Freneau's note._

[280] First published in the 1788 edition, the text of which I have

followed. For the 1809 edition Freneau made numerous verbal changes. On

an average, he changed a word in every line. No poem of Freneau's shows

more clearly his peculiar mania for revision. In the 1795 edition the

title is "Port Royal," in the 1809 edition it is "Written at Port Royal,

in the Island of Jamaica--September, 1784."

[281] The edition of 1809 adds:

"Here _for their crimes_ (_perhaps_) in ages fled,

Some vengeful fiend, familiar with the dead--"

[282] The edition of 1809 adds:

"Of ghosts all restless!--(cease they to complain--

More than a century should relieve their pain--)."

A footnote adds the comment: "A superstition, at present, existing only

among the ignorant."

[283] "Handsome _Yankee_ maids."--_Ed. 1809._

[284] The edition of 1809 adds:

"That gloomy race lead up the evening dance,

Skip on the sands, or dart the alluring glance:

Sincere are they?--no--on your gold they doat--

And in one hour--for that would cut your throat.

All is deceit--half hell is in their song

And from the silent thought?--_You have done us wrong!_"

[285] This line and the fifteen following omitted from the later

editions.

TO SIR TOBY[286]

A Sugar Planter in the interior parts of Jamaica, near the City of San

Jago de la Vega, (Spanish Town) 1784

"_The motions of his spirit are black as night,

And his affections dark as Erebus._"

--SHAKESPEARE.

If there exists a hell--the case is clear--

Sir Toby's slaves enjoy that portion here:

Here are no blazing brimstone lakes--'tis true;

But kindled Rum too often burns as blue;

In which some fiend, whom nature must detest,

Steeps Toby's brand, and marks poor Cudjoe's breast.[A]

Here whips on whips excite perpetual fears,

And mingled howlings vibrate on my ears:

Here nature's plagues abound, to fret and teaze,

Snakes, scorpions, despots, lizards, centipees--

No art, no care escapes the busy lash;

All have their dues--and all are paid in cash--

The eternal driver keeps a steady eye

On a black herd, who would his vengeance fly,

But chained, imprisoned, on a burning soil,

For the mean avarice of a tyrant, toil!

The lengthy cart-whip guards this monster's reign--

And cracks, like pistols, from the fields of cane.

Ye powers! who formed these wretched tribes, relate,

What had they done, to merit such a fate!

Why were they brought from Eboe's[B] sultry waste,

To see that plenty which they must not taste--

Food, which they cannot buy, and dare not steal;

Yams and potatoes--many a scanty meal!--

One, with a gibbet wakes his negro's fears,

One to the windmill nails him by the ears;

One keeps his slave in darkened dens, unfed,

One puts the wretch in pickle ere he's dead:

This, from a tree suspends him by the thumbs,

That, from his table grudges even the crumbs!

O'er yond' rough hills a tribe of females go,

Each with her gourd, her infant, and her hoe;

Scorched by a sun that has no mercy here,

Driven by a devil, whom men call overseer--

In chains, twelve wretches to their labours haste;

Twice twelve I saw, with iron collars graced!--

Are such the fruits that spring from vast domains?

Is wealth, thus got, Sir Toby, worth your pains!--

Who would your wealth on terms, like these, possess,

Where all we see is pregnant with distress--

Angola's natives scourged by ruffian hands,

And toil's hard product shipp'd to foreign lands.

Talk not of blossoms, and your endless spring;

What joy, what smile, can scenes of misery bring?--

Though Nature, here, has every blessing spread,

Poor is the labourer--and how meanly fed!--

Here Stygian paintings light and shade renew,

Pictures of hell, that Virgil's[C] pencil drew:

Here, surly Charons make their annual trip,

And ghosts arrive in every Guinea ship,

To find what beasts these western isles afford,

Plutonian scourges, and despotic lords:--

Here, they, of stuff determined to be free,

Must climb the rude cliffs of the Liguanee;[D]

Beyond the clouds, in sculking haste repair,

And hardly safe from brother traitors there.--[E]

[A] This passage has a reference to the West India custom

(sanctioned by law) of branding a newly imported slave on

the breast, with a red hot iron, as an evidence of the

purchaser's property.--_Freneau's note._

[B] A small negro kingdom near the river Senegal.--_Freneau's

note._

[C] See Eneid, Book 6th.--and Fenelon's Telemachus, Book

18.--_Ib._

[D] The mountains northward of Kingston.--_Freneau's note._

[E] Alluding to the _Independent_ negroes in the blue mountains,

who for a stipulated reward, deliver up every fugitive that

falls into their hands, to the English Government.--_Ib._

[286] Text from the edition of 1809. The poem seems first to have been

published in the _National Gazette_ of July 21, 1792, under the title,

"The Island Field Hand," with the note: "Written some years ago at a

sugar plantation in Jamaica." The present text contains numerous minor

variations from the edition of 1795. The four lines beginning "The

eternal driver" are original in the 1809 edition.

ELEGY ON MR. ROBERT BELL[287]

The celebrated humourist, and truly philanthropic Book-seller formerly

of Philadelphia, written, 1786

By schools untaught, from Nature's source he drew

That flow of wit which wits with toil pursue,

Above dependence, bent to virtue's side;

Beyond the folly of the folio's pride;

Born to no power, he took no splendid part,

Yet warm for freedom glowed his honest heart

Foe to all baseness, not afraid to shame

The little tyrant that usurped his claim:

Bound to no sect, no systems to defend,

He loved his jest, a female, and his friend:--

The tale well told, to each occasion fit,

In him was nature--and that nature wit:

Alike to pride and wild ambition dumb,

He saw no terrors in the world to come.

But, slighting sophists and their flimsy aid,

To God and Reason left the works they made.

In chace of fortune, half his life was whim,

Yet fortune saw no sycophant in him;

Bold, open, free, the world he called his own,

But wished no wealth that cost a wretch a groan--

Too social Bell! in others so refined,

One sneaking virtue ne'er possessed your mind--

Had Prudence only held her share of sway,

Still had your cup been full, yourself been gay!

But while we laughed, and while the glass went round,

The lamp was darkened--and no help was found;

On distant shores you died, where none shall tell,

"Here rest the virtues and the wit of Bell."

[287] First published in the _Freeman's Journal_, February 28, 1787,

with the explanation, "Written more than two years ago." The date in the

title above, taken from the 1809 edition, is doubtless wrong.

"It is believed that Robert Bell, an Englishman or a Scotchman, who came

to Philadelphia about 1772 or 1773, was the first person who kept a

circulating library in this city. He had his place of business in Third

street below Walnut. He was also one of the first to establish book

auctions here, in which effort he met very serious opposition from the

booksellers. He published several works prior to the Revolutionary War,

but during that struggle he seems to have left the city. He died in

Richmond, Va., Sept. 26, 1784."--_Watson's Annals._

He published Freneau's _American Independence_ in Philadelphia in 1778.

ON THE FIRST AMERICAN SHIP[288]

_Empress of China_, Capt. Greene

That explored the rout to China, and the East-Indies, after the

Revolution, 1784

With clearance from Bellona won

She spreads her wings to meet the Sun,

Those golden regions to explore

Where George forbade to sail before.

Thus, grown to strength, the bird of Jove,

Impatient, quits his native grove,

With eyes of fire, and lightning's force

Through the blue aether holds his course.

No foreign tars are here allowed

To mingle with her chosen crowd,

Who, when returned, might, boasting, say

They shewed our native oak the way.

To that old track no more confined,

By Britain's jealous court assigned,

She round the Stormy Cape[A] shall sail,

And, eastward, catch the odorous gale.

[A] _Cabo Tormentosa_ (The Cape of Storms) so called by _Vasco

da Gama_, and by the earliest Portuguese adventurers to

India--now called the cape of Good Hope.--_Freneau's note._

To countries placed in burning climes

And islands of remotest times

She now her eager course explores,

And soon shall greet Chinesian shores.

From thence their fragrant teas to bring

Without the leave of Britain's king;

And Porcelain ware, enchased in gold,

The product of that finer mould.

Thus commerce to our world conveys

All that the varying taste can please;

For us, the Indian looms are free,

And Java strips her spicy tree.

Great pile proceed!--and o'er the brine

May every prosperous gale be thine,

'Till freighted deep with Asia's stores,

You reach again your native shores.

[288] Text from the edition of 1809.

THE NEWSMONGER[289]

A Character

An insect lives among mankind

For what wise ends by fate designed

'Tis hard, 'tis very hard, to find.

In pain for all, but thanked by few

Not twice a year he gets his due--

Yet, patiently he struggles through.

Beneath some garret roof restrained

To one dull place forever chained

His word is, "little money gained."

The flowers that deck the summer field,

The bloom of spring, too long concealed,

To him no hour of pleasure yield.

His life is everlasting whim;

The seasons change--but scarce for him--

On sheets of news his eyes grow dim.

He life maintains on self-esteem,

He plans, contrives, and lives by--scheme--

And blots good paper--many a ream.

Distrest for those he never saw--

Of kings and nobles not in awe,

He scorns their mandates, and their law.

Relief he finds for others' woes--

The wants of all the world he knows--

His boots are only out at toes.

Now, Europe's feuds distract his brains:

Now, Asia's news his head contains--

But still his labour for his pains.

The river Scheldt he opens wide,

And Joseph's ships in triumph ride,--

The Dutchmen are not on his side.

On great affairs condemned to fret,--

The interest on our foreign debt,

He hopes good Louis may forget.

He fears the banks will hurt our trade;

And fall they must--without his aid--

Meanwhile his taylor goes unpaid.

Our western posts, which Britons keep

In spite of treaties, break his sleep--

He plans their capture--at one sweep.

He grumbles at the price of flour,

And mourns and mutters, many an hour,

That congress have so little power,

Although he has no ships to lose,

The Algerines he loves to abuse--

And hopes to hear--some bloody news.

The French (he thinks) will soon prepare

To undertake some grand affair--

So 'tis but war "we need not care."

Where Mississippi laves the plain

He hopes the bold Kentucky swain,

Will seize the forts, and plague Old Spain:

Such morning whims, such evening dreams!

Through wakeful nights he plans odd schemes,

To dispossess her of those streams.

He prophesies, the time must come

When few will drink West India rum--

Our spirits will be proof at home.

The Tories on New Scotland's coast,

He thinks may of full bellies boast

In half a century--at most.

Then shakes his head, and shifts the scene--

Talks much about the "Empress Queen"--

And wonders what the Austrians mean?

He raves, and scolds and seems afraid

The States will break by China trade,

"Since specie for their tea is paid."

Then tells, that, "just about next June,

Lunardi in his new balloon

Will make a journey--to the moon."

Thus, all the business of mankind,

And all the follies we might find

Are huddled in his shattered mind.

'Till taught to think of new affairs,

At last, with death, he walks down stairs,

And leaves--the wide world to his heirs.

[289] Published in the _Freeman's Journal_, February 21, 1787. In the

1809 edition, which the text follows, 1784 is given as the date of

composition.

SKETCHES OF AMERICAN HISTORY[290]

This American world, all our histories say,

Secluded from Europe, long centuries lay,

And peopled by beings whom white-men detest,

The sons of the Tartars, that came from the west.

These Indians, 'tis certain, were here long before ye all,

And dwelt in their wigwams from time immemorial;

In a mere state of nature, untutored, untaught,

They did as they pleased, and they spoke as they thought--

No priests they had then for the cure of their souls,

No lawyers, recorders, or keepers of rolls;

No learned physicians vile nostrums concealed--

Their druggist was Nature--her shop was the field.

In the midst of their forests how happy and blest,

In the skin of a bear or buffalo drest!

No care to perplex, and no luxury seen

But the feast, and the song, and the dance on the green.

Some bowed to the moon, and some worshipped the sun,

And the king and the captain were centered in one;

In a cabin they met, in their councils of state,

Where age and experience alone might debate.

With quibbles they never essayed to beguile,

And Nature had taught them the orator's style;

No pomp they affected, not quaintly refined

The nervous idea that glanced on the mind.

When hunting or battle invited to arms,

The women they left to take care of their farms--

The toils of the summer did winter repay,

While snug in their cabins they snored it away.

If death came among them his dues to demand,

They still had some prospects of comfort at hand--

The dead man they sent to the regions of bliss,

With his bottle and dog, and his fair maids to kiss.

* * * * *

Thus happy they dwelt in a rural domain,

Uninstructed in commerce, unpractised in gain,

'Till, taught by the loadstone to traverse the seas,

Columbus came over, that bold Genoese.

From records authentic, the date we can shew,

One thousand four hundred and ninety and two

Years, borne by the seasons, had vanished away,

Since the babe in the manger at Bethlehem lay.

What an aera was this, above all that had passed,

To yield such a treasure, discovered at last--

A new world, in value exceeding the old,

Such mountains of silver, such torrents of gold!

Yet the schemes of Columbus, however well planned

Were scarcely sufficient to find the main land;

On the islands alone with the natives he spoke,

Except when he entered the great Oronoque:

In this he resembled old Moses, the Jew,

Who, roving about with his wrong-headed crew,

When at length the reward was no longer denied,

From the top of Mount Pisgah he saw it, and died.

These islands and worlds in the watery expanse,

Like most mighty things, were the offspring of chance,

Since steering for Asia, Columbus they say,

Was astonished to find such a world in his way!

No wonder, indeed, he was smit with surprize--

This empire of Nature was new to their eyes--

Cut short in their course by so splendid a scene,

Such a region of wonders intruding between!

Yet great as he was, and deserving no doubt,

We have only to thank him for finding the rout;

These climes to the northward, more stormy and cold,

Were reserved for the efforts of Cabot the bold.

* * * * *

Where the sun in December appears to decline

Far off to the southward, and south of the line,

A merchant[A] of Florence, more fortunate still,

Explored a new track, and discovered Brazil:

[A] Americus Vespucius.--_Freneau's note._

Good Fortune, Vespucius, pronounced thee her own,

Or else to mankind thou hadst scarcely been known--

By giving thy name, thou art ever renowned--

Thy name to a world that another had found!

Columbia, the name was, that merit decreed,

But Fortune and Merit have never agreed--

Yet the poets, alone, with commendable care

Are vainly attempting the wrong to repair.

The bounds I prescribe to my verse are too narrow

To tell of the conquests of Francis Pizarro;

And Cortez 'tis needless to bring into view,

One Mexico conquered, the other Peru.

Montezuma with credit in verse might be read,

But Dryden has told you the monarch[B] is dead!

And the woes of his subjects--what torments they bore,

Las Casas, good bishop, has mentioned before:

[B] Indian Emperor, a tragedy.--_Freneau's note._

Let others be fond of their stanzas of grief--

I hate to descant on the fall of the leaf--

Two scenes are so gloomy, I view them with pain,

The annals of death, and the triumphs of Spain.

Poor Atahualpa we cannot forget--

He gave them his utmost--yet died in their debt,

His wealth was a crime that they could not forgive,

And when they possessed it, forbade him to live.

Foredoomed to misfortunes (that come not alone)

He was the twelfth Inca that sat on the throne,

Who fleecing his brother[C] of half his domains,

At the palace of Cusco confined him in chains.

[C] Huascar, who was legal heir to the throne.--_Ib._

* * * * *

But what am I talking--or where do I roam?

'Tis time that our story was brought nearer home--

From Florida's cape did Cabot explore

To the fast frozen region of cold Labradore.

In the year fourteen hundred and ninety and eight

He came, as the annals of England relate,

But finding no gold in the lengthy domain,

And coasting the country, he left it again.

Next Davis--then Hudson adventured, they say,

One found out a streight, and the other a bay,

Whose desolate region, or turbulent wave

One present bestowed him--and that was a grave.

* * * * *

In the reign of a virgin (as authors discover)

Drake, Hawkins, and Raleigh in squadrons came over

While Barlow and Grenville succeeded to these,

Who all brought their colonies over the seas.

These, left in a wilderness teeming with woes,

The natives, suspicious, concluded them foes,

And murdered them all without notice or warning,

Ralph Lane, with his vagabonds, scarcely returning.

In the reign of king James (and the first of the name,)

George Summers, with Hacluit, to Chesapeake came,

Where far in the forests, not doomed to renown,

On the river Powhatan[D] they built the first town.[E]

[D] James River, Virginia.--_Freneau's note._

[E] James Town.--_Ib._

Twelve years after this, some scores of dissenters

To the northernmost district came seeking adventures;

Outdone by the bishops, those great faggot fighters;

They left them to rule with their cassocks and mitres.

Thus banished forever, and leaving the sod,

The first land they saw was the pitch of Cape Cod,

Where famished with hunger and quaking with cold

They planned their New-Plymouth--so called from the old.

They were, without doubt, a delightful collection;--

Some came to be rid of a Stuart's direction,

Some sailed with a view to dominion and riches,

Some to pray without book, and a few to hang witches.

Some, came on the Indians to shed a new light,

Convinced long before that their own must be right,

And that all who had died in the centuries past

On the devil's lee shore were eternally cast.

These exiles were formed in a whimsical mould,

And were awed by their priests, like the Hebrews of old;

Disclaimed all pretences to jesting and laughter,

And sighed their lives through, to be happy hereafter.

On a crown immaterial their hearts were intent,

They looked towards Zion, wherever they went,

Did all things in hopes of a future reward,

And worried mankind--for the sake of the Lord.

With rigour excessive they strengthened their reign,

Their laws were conceived in the ill-natured strain,

With mystical meanings the saint was perplext,

And the flesh and the devil were slain by a text.

The body was scourged, for the good of the soul,

All folly discouraged by peevish controul,

A knot on the head was the sign of no grace,

And the Pope and his comrade were pictured in lace.

A stove in their churches, or pews lined with green,

Were horrid to think of, much more to be seen,

Their bodies were warmed with the linings of love,

And the fire was sufficient that flashed from above.

'Twas a crime to assert that the moon was opaque,

To say the earth moved, was to merit the stake;

And he that could tell an eclipse was to be,

In the college of Satan had took his degree.

On Sundays their faces were dark as a cloud--

The road to the meeting was only allowed,

And those they caught rambling, on business or pleasure,

Were sent to the stocks, to repent at their leisure.

This day was the mournfullest day in the week--

Except on religion, none ventured to speak--

This day was the day to examine their lives,

To clear off old scores, and to preach to their wives.

Their houses were forts, that seemed proof against light;

Their parlours, all day, were the blackness of night:

And, as if at their thresholds a cannon did roar,

The animals hardly dared open their door

'Till the sun disappeared--then, like a mole's snout

In the dusk of the evening, their noses popped out.

In the school of oppression though woefully taught,

'Twas only to be the oppressors they sought;

All, all but themselves were be-deviled and blind,

And their narrow-souled creed was to serve all mankind.

This beautiful system of nature below

They neither considered, nor wanted to know,

And called it a dog-house wherein they were pent,

Unworthy themselves, and their mighty descent.

They never perceived that in Nature's wide plan

There must be that whimsical creature called Man,

Far short of the rank he affects to attain,

Yet a link in its place, in creation's vast chain.

* * * * *

Whatever is foreign to us and our kind

Can never be lasting, though seemingly joined--

The hive swarmed at length, and a tribe that was teazed

Set out for Rhode-Island to think as they pleased.

Some hundreds to Britain ran murmuring home--

While others went off in the forests to roam,

When they found they had missed what they looked for at first,

The downfall of sin, and the reign of the just.

Hence, dry controversial reflections were thrown,

And the old dons were vexed in the way they had shown;

So those that are held in the work-house all night

Throw dirt the next day at the doors, out of spite.

Ah pity the wretches that lived in those days,

(Ye modern admirers of novels and plays)

When nothing was suffered but musty, dull rules,

And nonsense from Mather and stuff from the schools!

No story, like Rachel's, could tempt them to sigh,

Susanna and Judith employed the bright eye--

No fine spun adventures tormented the breast,

Like our modern Clarissa, Tom Jones, and the rest.

Those tyrants had chosen the books for your shelves,

(And, trust me, no other than writ by themselves,

For always by this may a bigot be known,

He speaks well of nothing but what is his own.)

From indwelling evil these souls to release,

The Quakers arrived with their kingdom of peace--

But some were transported and some bore the lash,

And four they hanged fairly, for preaching up trash.

The lands of New-England (of which we now treat)

Were famous, ere that, for producing of wheat;

But the soil (or tradition says strangely amiss)

Has been pestered with pumpkins from that day to this.

* * * * *

Thus, feuds and vexations distracted their reign,

(And perhaps a few vestiges still may remain)

But time has presented an offspring as bold,

Less free to believe, and more wise than the old.

Their phantoms, their wizzards, their witches are fled,

Matthew Paris's[F] story with horror is read--

His daughters, and all the enchantments they bore--

And the demon, that pinched them, is heard of no more.

[F] See Neale's History of New England.--_Freneau's note._

Their taste for the fine arts is strangely increased,

And Latin's no longer a mark of the beast:

Mathematics, at present, a farmer may know,

Without being hanged for connections below.

Proud, rough, Independent, undaunted and free,

And patient of hardships, their task is the sea,

Their country too barren their wish to attain,

They make up the loss by exploring the main.

Wherever bright Phoebus awakens the gales

I see the bold Yankees expanding their sails,

Throughout the wide ocean pursuing their schemes,

And chacing the whales on its uttermost streams.

No climate, for them, is too cold or too warm,

They reef the broad canvass, and fight with the storm;

In war with the foremost their standards display,

Or glut the loud cannon with death, for the fray.

No valour in fable their valour exceeds,

Their spirits are fitted for desperate deeds;

No rivals have they in our annals of fame,

Or if they are rivalled, 'tis York has the claim.

Inspired at the sound, while the name she repeats,

Bold Fancy conveys me to Hudson's retreats--

Ah, sweet recollection of juvenile dreams

In the groves, and the forests that skirted his streams!

How often, with rapture, those streams were surveyed,

When, sick of the city, I flew to the shade--

How often the bard, and the peasant shall mourn

Ere those groves shall revive, or those shades shall return!

Not a hill, but some fortress disfigures it round!

And ramparts are raised where the cottage was found!

The plains and the vallies with ruin are spread,

With graves in abundance, and bones of the dead.

The first that attempted to enter the streight

(In anno one thousand six hundred and eight)

Was Hudson (the same that we mentioned before,

Who was lost in the gulph that he went to explore.)

For a sum that they paid him (we know not how much)

This captain transferred all his right to the Dutch;

For the time has been here, (to the world be it known,)

When all a man sailed by, or saw, was his own.

The Dutch on their purchase sat quietly down,

And fixed on an island to lay out a town;

They modelled their streets from the horns of a ram,

And the name that best pleased them was, New Amsterdam.

They purchased large tracts from the Indians for beads,

And sadly tormented some runaway Swedes,

Who (none knows for what) from their country had flown,

To live here in peace, undisturbed and alone.

New Belgia, the Dutch called their province, be sure,

But names never yet made possession secure,

For Charley (the second that honoured the name)

Sent over a squadron, asserting his claim:

(Had his sword and his title been equally slender,

In vain had they summoned Mynheer to surrender)

The soil they demanded, or threatened their worst,

Insisting that Cabot had looked at it first.

The want of a squadron to fall on their rear

Made the argument perfectly plain to Mynheer--

Force ended the contest--the right was a sham,

And the Dutch were sent packing to hot Surinam.

'Twas hard to be thus of their labours deprived,

But the age of Republics had not yet arrived--

Fate saw--though no wizzard could tell them as much--

That the crown, in due time, was to fare like the Dutch.

[290] Published in the _Freeman's Journal_, December 15, 1784, under the

pseudonym "K." Republished in the editions of 1795 and 1809. Text from

the latter edition.

THE PROGRESS OF BALLOONS[291]

"_Perdomita tellus, tumida cesserunt freta,_

"_Inferna nostros regna sensere impetus;_

"_Immune coelum est, degnus Alcidae labor,_

"_In alta mundi spatia sublimes feremur._"

--_Senec. Herc. Furens._

Assist me, ye muses, (whose harps are in tune)

To tell of the flight of the gallant balloon!

As high as my subject permit me to soar

To heights unattempted, unthought of before,

Ye grave learned Doctors, whose trade is to sigh,

Who labour to chalk out a road to the sky,

Improve on your plans--or I'll venture to say,

A chymist, of Paris, will show us the way.

The earth on its surface has all been survey'd,

The sea has been travell'd--and deep in the shade

The kingdom of Pluto has heard us at work,

When we dig for his metals wherever they lurk.

But who would have thought that invention could rise

To find out a method to soar to the skies,

And pierce the bright regions, which ages assign'd

To spirits unbodied, and flights of the mind.

Let the gods of Olympus their revels prepare--

By the aid of some pounds of inflammable air

We'll visit them soon--and forsake this dull ball

With coat, shoes and stockings, fat carcase and all!

How France is distinguish'd in Louis's reign!

What cannot her genius and courage attain?

Thro'out the wide world have her arms found the way,

And art to the stars is extending her sway.

At sea let the British their neighbours defy--

The French shall have frigates to traverse the sky,

In this navigation more fortunate prove,

And cruise at their ease in the climates above.

If the English should venture to sea with their fleet,

A host of balloons in a trice they shall meet.

The French from the zenith their wings shall display,

And souse on these sea-dogs and bear them away.

Ye sages, who travel on mighty designs,

To measure meridians and parallel lines--

The task being tedious--take heed, if you please--

Construct a balloon--and you'll do it with ease.

And ye who the heav'n's broad concave survey,

And, aided by glasses, its secrets betray,

Who gaze, the night through, at the wonderful scene,

Yet still are complaining of vapours between,

Ah, seize the conveyance and fearlesly rise

To peep at the lanthorns that light up the skies,

And floating above, on our ocean of air,

Inform us, by letter, what people are there.

In Saturn, advise us if snow ever melts,

And what are the uses of Jupiter's belts;

(Mars being willing) pray send us word, greeting,

If his people are fonder of fighting than eating.

That Venus has horns we've no reason to doubt,

(I forget what they call him who first found it out)

And you'll find, I'm afraid, if you venture too near,

That the spirits of cuckolds inhabit her sphere.

Our folks of good morals it wofully grieves,

That Mercury's people are villains and thieves,

You'll see how it is--but I'll venture to shew

For a dozen among them, twelve dozens below.

From long observation one proof may be had

That the men in the moon are incurably mad;

However, compare us, and if they exceed

They must be surprizingly crazy indeed.

But now, to have done with our planets and moons--

Come, grant me a patent for making balloons--

For I find that the time is approaching--the day

When horses shall fail, and the horsemen decay.

Post riders, at present (call'd Centaurs of old)

Who brave all the seasons, hot weather and cold,

In future shall leave their dull poneys behind

And travel, like ghosts, on the wings of the wind.

The stagemen, whose gallopers scarce have the power

Through the dirt to convey you ten miles in an hour,

When advanc'd to balloons shall so furiously drive

You'll hardly know whether you're dead or alive.

The man who at Boston sets out with the sun,

If the wind should be fair, may be with us at one,

At Gunpowder Ferry drink whiskey at three

And at six be at Edentown, ready for tea.

(The machine shall be order'd, we hardly need say,

To travel in darkness as well as by day)

At Charleston by ten he for sleep shall prepare,

And by twelve the next day be the devil knows where[292].

When the ladies grow sick of the city in June,

What a jaunt they shall have in the flying balloon!

Whole mornings shall see them at toilets preparing,

And forty miles high be their afternoon's airing.

Yet more with its fitness for commerce I'm struck;

What loads of tobacco shall fly from Kentuck,

What packs of best beaver--bar-iron and pig,

What budgets of leather from Conocoheague!

If Britain should ever disturb us again,

(As they threaten to do in the next George's reign)

No doubt they will play us a set of new tunes,

And pepper us well from their fighting balloons.

To market the farmers shall shortly repair

With their hogs and potatoes, wholesale, thro' the air,

Skim over the water as light as a feather,

Themselves and their turkies conversing together.

Such wonders as these from balloons shall arise--

And the giants of old, that assaulted the skies

With their Ossa on Pelion, shall freely confess

That all they attempted was nothing to this.

[291] _Freeman's Journal_, December 22, 1784. The year 1782, in which

Cavallo made his memorable experiments, may be taken as the initial date

in the history of aerial navigation. In October, 1753, Rozier ventured

upon the first balloon ascension, though he ventured only fifty feet

from the ground. On November 21st of the same year, with the Marquis

d'Arlandes, he made the first aerial expedition, ascending from the

castle la Muette in the presence of a vast multitude and remaining in

the air twenty-five minutes. Text follows the edition of 1786 which

bears the date "1785."

[292] Freneau's wild dream has been realized, but not in the way which

he indicated.

ON THE EMIGRATION TO AMERICA[293]

And Peopling the Western Country

To western woods, and lonely plains,

Palemon from the crowd departs,

Where Nature's wildest genius reigns,

To tame the soil, and plant the arts--

What wonders there shall freedom show,

What mighty states successive grow!

From Europe's proud, despotic shores

Hither the stranger takes his way,

And in our new found world explores

A happier soil, a milder sway,

Where no proud despot holds him down,

No slaves insult him with a crown.

What charming scenes attract the eye,

On wild Ohio's savage stream!

There Nature reigns, whose works outvie

The boldest pattern art can frame;

There ages past have rolled away,

And forests bloomed but to decay.

From these fair plains, these rural seats,

So long concealed, so lately known,

The unsocial Indian far retreats,

To make some other clime his own,

When other streams, less pleasing, flow,

And darker forests round him grow.

Great Sire[A] of floods! whose varied wave

Through climes and countries takes its way,

To whom creating Nature gave

Ten thousand streams to swell thy sway!

No longer shall they useless prove,

Nor idly through the forests rove;

[A] Mississippi.--_Freneau's note._

Nor longer shall your princely flood

From distant lakes be swelled in vain,

Nor longer through a darksome wood

Advance, unnoticed, to the main,

Far other ends, the heavens decree--

And commerce plans new freights for thee.

While virtue warms the generous breast,

There heaven-born freedom shall reside,

Nor shall the voice of war molest,

Nor Europe's all-aspiring pride--

There Reason shall new laws devise,

And order from confusion rise.

Forsaking kings and regal state,

With all their pomp and fancied bliss,[294]

The traveller owns, convinced though late,

No realm so free, so blest as this--

The east is half to slaves consigned,

Where kings and priests enchain the mind.[295]

O come the time, and haste the day,

When man shall man no longer crush,

When Reason shall enforce her sway,

Nor these fair regions raise our blush,

Where still the African complains,

And mourns his yet unbroken chains.

Far brighter scenes a future age,

The muse predicts, these States will hail,

Whose genius may the world engage,

Whose deeds may over death prevail,

And happier systems bring to view,

Than all the eastern sages knew. [1784.]

[293] First published in Bailey's _Pocket Almanac_ for 1785, and

reprinted almost without change in the later editions of Freneau. Text

from the edition of 1809.

[294] (A debt that reason deems amiss).--_Ed. 1786._

[295] And half to slavery more refin'd.--_Ib._

THE SEASONS MORALIZED[296]

They who to warmer regions run,

May bless the favour of the sun,

But seek in vain what charms us here,

Life's picture, varying with the year.

Spring, and her wanton train advance

Like Youth to lead the festive dance,

All, all her scenes are mirth and play,

And blushing blossoms own her sway.

The Summer next (those blossoms blown)

Brings on the fruits that spring had sown,

Thus men advance, impelled by time,

And Nature triumphs in her prime.

Then Autumn crowns the beauteous year,

The groves a sicklier aspect wear;

And mournful she (the lot of all)

Matures her fruits, to make them fall.

Clad in the vestments of a tomb,

Old age is only Winter's gloom--

Winter, alas! shall spring restore,

But youth returns to man no more.

[296] First published in Bailey's _Pocket Almanac_ for 1785. The edition

of 1809 is used.

ON THE DEATH OF COLONEL LAURENS[297]

Since on her plains this generous chief expired,

Whom sages honoured, and whom France admired;[298]

Does Fame no statues to his memory raise,

Nor swells one column to record his praise

Where her palmetto shades the adjacent deeps,

Affection sighs, and Carolina weeps!

Thou, who shalt stray where death this chief confines,

Revere the patriot, subject of these lines:

Not from the dust the muse transcribes his name,

And more than marble shall declare his fame

Where scenes more glorious his great soul engage,

Confest thrice worthy in that closing page

When conquering Time to dark oblivion calls,

The marble totters, and the column falls.

LAURENS! thy tomb while kindred hands adorn,

Let northern muses, too, inscribe your urn.--

Of all, whose names on death's black list appear,

No chief, that perished, claimed more grief sincere,

Not one, Columbia, that thy bosom bore,

More tears commanded, or deserved them more!

Grief at his tomb shall heave the unwearied sigh,

And honour lift the mantle to her eye:

Fame through the world his patriot name shall spread,

By heroes envied and by monarchs read:

Just, generous, brave--to each true heart allied:

The Briton's terror, and his country's pride;

For him the tears of war-worn soldiers ran,

The friend of freedom, and the friend of man.

Then what is death, compared with such a tomb,

Where honour fades not, and fair virtues bloom;

When silent grief on every face appears,

The tender tribute of a nation's tears;

Ah! what is death, when deeds like his, thus claim

The brave man's homage, and immortal fame!

[297] Published in the _Freeman's Journal_, October 17, 1787, introduced

as follows:

"Mr. BAILEY,

The subsequent lines were written two or three years after the

event that occasioned them, but have never been printed. If you

think them in any degree worthy of the memory of the patriotic

young officer they attempt to celebrate (and whose death has been

so deeply regretted throughout America) I must request you to

insert them in your Journal.

A. B."

The 1788 edition prints the poem with this title: "To the Memory of the

brave, accomplished and patriotic Col. JOHN LAURENS, Who in the 27th

year of his age, was killed in an engagement with a detachment of the

British from Charleston, near the river Cambahee, in South Carolina,

_August 1782_." The text follows the edition of 1809.

[298] In 1780 Laurens was sent by Congress on a mission to France for a

loan and supplies, in which he was successful.

ON THE VICISSITUDES OF THINGS[299]

"The constant lapse of rolling years

Awakes our hopes, provokes our fears

Of something yet unknown;

We saw the last year pass away,

But who, that lives can safely say,

The next shall be his own?"

So hundreds talk--and thousands more

Descant their moral doctrines o'er;

And when the preaching's done,

Each goes his various, wonted way,

To labour some, and some to play--

So goes the folly on.

How swift the vagrant seasons fly;

They're hardly born before they die,

Yet in their wild career,

Like atoms round the rapid wheel,

We seem the same, though changing still,

Mere reptiles of a year.

Some haste to seek a wealthy bride,

Some, rhymes to make on one that died;

And millions curse the day,

When first in Hymen's silken bands

The parson joined mistaken hands,

And bade the bride obey.

While sad Amelia vents her sighs,

In epitaphs and elegies,

For her departed dear,

Who would suppose the muffled bell,

And mourning gowns, were meant to tell,

Her grief will last--a year?

In folly's path how many meet--

What hosts will live to lie and cheat--

How many empty pates

May, in this wise, eventful year,

In native dignity appear

To manage Rising States!

How vain to sigh!--the wheel must on

And straws are to the whirlpool drawn,

With ships of gallant mien--

What has been once, may time restore;

What now exists, has been before--

Years only change the scene.

In endless circles all things move;

Below, about, far off, above,

This motion all attain--

If Folly's self should flit away,

She would return some New year's day,

With millions in her train.

Sun, moon, and stars, are each a sphere,

The earth the same, (or very near),

Sir Isaac has defined--

In circles each coin is cast,

And hence our cash departs so fast,

Cash--that no charm can bind.

From you to us--from us it rolls

To comfort other cloudy souls:--

If again we make it square,[A]

Perhaps the uneasy guest will stay

To cheer us in some wintry day,

And smooth the brow of care.

[A] The old Continental.--_Freneau's note._

[299] This appeared first as the regular New Year's sheet of the

_Freeman's Journal_, January 1, 1785. Its original title was, "New

Year's Verses, addressed to the Customers of the Freeman's Journal by

the Lad who carries it." Text from the edition of 1809.

PEWTER-PLATTER ALLEY[300]

In Philadelphia

(As it appeared in January, 1784)

From Christ-Church graves, across the way,

A dismal, horrid place is found,

Where rushing winds exert their sway,

And Greenland winter chills the ground:

No blossoms there are seen to bloom,

No sun pervades the dreary gloom!

The people of that gloomy place

In penance for some ancient crime

Are held in a too narrow space,

Like those beyond the bounds of time,

Who darkened still, perceive no day,

While seasons waste, and moons decay.

Cold as the shade that wraps them round,

This icy region prompts our fear;

And he who treads this frozen ground

Shall curse the chance that brought him here--

The slippery mass predicts his fate,

A broken arm, a wounded pate.

When August sheds his sultry beam,

May Celia never find this place,

Nor see, upon the clouded stream,

The fading summer in her face;

And may she ne'er discover there

The grey that mingles with her hair.

The watchman sad, whose drowsy call

Proclaims the hour forever fled,

Avoids this path to Pluto's hall;

For who would wish to wake the dead!--

Still let them sleep--it is no crime--

They pay no tax to know the time.

No coaches here, in glittering pride,

Convey their freight to take the air,

No gods nor heroes here reside,

Nor powdered beau, nor lady fair--

All, all to warmer regions flee,

And leave the glooms to Towne[A] and me.

[A] BENJAMIN TOWNE, then Printer of the EVENING

POST.--_Freneau's note._

[300] _Freeman's Journal_, February 23, 1795.

ON THE DEATH OF THE REPUBLICAN PATRIOT AND STATESMAN, GENERAL JOSEPH

REED[A]

[A] First published in the _Freeman's Journal_, March 9, 1785,

with the following introduction:

"On Saturday morning last [March 5] departed this life in

the forty-third year of his age, GENERAL JOSEPH REED, Esq.,

formerly President of this State; and on Sunday his remains

were interred in the Presbyterian burying ground in Arch

Street. His funeral was attended by his excellency the

President and the Superior Executive Council, the Honourable

the Speaker and the General Assembly, the Militia Officers

and a greater number of citizens than we've ever seen here

on any similar occasion." Text follows the edition of 1809.

Reed was one of the leading figures of the Revolutionary era.

As delegate to the Continental Congress, aide and secretary

to Washington, Adjutant General, volunteer soldier, and

Governor of Pennsylvania, he was an active and able man,

and his early death was much regretted.

Soon to the grave[301] descends each honoured name

That raised their country to this blaze[302] of fame:

Sages, that planned, and chiefs that led the way

To Freedom's temple, all too soon decay,

Alike submit to one impartial[303] doom,

Their glories closing in perpetual gloom,

Like the pale[304] splendours of the evening, fade,

While night advances, to complete the shade.

REED, 'tis for thee we shed the unpurchased tear,

Bend o'er thy tomb, and plant our laurels there:

Your acts, your life,[305] the noblest pile transcend,

And Virtue, patriot Virtue, mourns her friend,

Gone to those realms, where worth may claim regard,

And gone where virtue meets her best reward.

No single art engaged his vigorous[306] mind,

In every scene his active genius shined:

Nature in him, in honour to our age,

At once composed the soldier and the sage--

Firm to his purpose, vigilant, and bold,

Detesting traitors, and despising gold,

He scorned all bribes from Britain's hostile throne

For all his country's wrongs he held[307] his own.

REED, rest in peace: for time's impartial page

Shall raise the blush on[308] this ungrateful age:

Long in these climes thy name shall flourish fair,

The statesman's pattern, and the poet's care;

Long in these climes[309] thy memory shall remain,

And still new tributes from new ages gain,

Fair to the eye that injured honour rise--

Nor traitors triumph while the patriot dies.

The following are the variations in the 1786 edition:

[301] Swift to the dust.

[302] These heights.

[303] Unalter'd.

[304] Dim.

[305] Thy own brave deeds.

[306] Manly.

[307] Were _thrice_.

[308] Blast the wrongs of.

[309] On these plains.

A RENEGADO EPISTLE[310]

To the Independent Americans

We Tories, who lately were frightened away,

When you marched into York all in battle array,

Dear Whigs, in our exile have somewhat to say.

From the clime of New Scotland we wish you to know

We still are in being--mere spectres of woe,

Our dignity high, but our spirits are low.

Great people we are, and are called the king's friends;

But on friendships like these what advantage attends?

We may stay and be starved[311] when we've answered his ends!

The Indians themselves, whom no treaties can bind,

We have reason to think are perversely inclined--

And where we have friends is not easy to find.

From the day we arrived on this desolate shore

We still have been wishing to see you once more,

And your freedom enjoy, now the danger is o'er.

Although we be-rebelled you up hill and down,

It was all for your good--and to honour a crown

Whose splendours have spoiled better eyes than our own.

That traitors we were, is no more than our due,

And so may remain for a century through,

Unless we return, and be tutored by you.

Although with the dregs of the world we are classed,

We hope your resentment will soften at last,

Now your toils are repaid, and our triumphs are past.

When a matter is done, 'tis a folly to fret--

But your market-day mornings we cannot forget,

With your coaches to lend, and your horses to let.

Your dinners of beef, and your breakfasts of toast!

But we have no longer such blessings to boast,

No cattle to steal, and no turkies to roast.

Such enjoyments as these, we must tell you with pain,

'Tis odds we shall only be wishing in vain

Unless we return, and be brothers again.

We burnt up your mills and your meetings, 'tis true,

And many bold fellows we crippled and slew--

(Aye! we were the boys that had something to do!)

Old Huddy[312] we hung on the Neversink shore--

But, Sirs, had we hung up a thousand men more,

They had all been avenged in the torments we bore,

When Asgill to Jersey you foolishly fetched,

And each of us feared that his neck would be stretched,

When you were be-rebelled, and we were be-wretched.

In the book of destruction it seems to be written

The Tories must still be dependent on Britain--

The worst of dependence that ever was hit on.

Now their work is concluded--that pitiful jobb--

They send over convicts to strengthen our mob--

And so we do nothing but snivel and sob.

The worst of all countries has fallen to our share,

Where winter and famine provoke our despair,

And fogs are for ever obscuring the air.

Although there be nothing but sea dogs to feed on,

Our friend Jemmy Rivington made it an Eden--

But, alas! he had nothing but lies to proceed on.

Deceived we were all by his damnable schemes--

When he coloured it over with gardens and streams,

And grottoes and groves, and the rest of his dreams.

Our heads were so turned by that conjuror's spell,

We swallowed the lies he was ordered to tell--

But his "happy retreats" were the visions of hell.

We feel so enraged we could rip up his weazon,

When we think of the soil he described with its trees on,

And the plenty that reigned, and the charms of each season.

Like a parson that tells of the joys of the blest

To a man to be hanged--he himself thought it best

To remain where he was, in his haven of rest.

Since he helped us away by the means of his types,

His precepts should only have lighted our pipes,

His example was rather to honour your stripes.

Now, if we return, as we're bone of your bone,

We'll renounce all allegiance to George and his throne

And be the best subjects that ever were known.

In a ship, you have seen (where the duty is hard)

The cook and the scullion may claim some regard,

Though it takes a good fellow to brace the main yard.

Howe'er you despise us, because you are free,

The world's at a loss for such people as we,

Who can pillage on land, and can plunder at sea.

So long for our rations they keep us in waiting--

The Lords and the Commons, perhaps, are debating

If Tories can live without drinking or eating.

So we think it is better to see you, by far--

And have hinted our meaning to governor Parr[A]--

The worst that can happen is--feathers and tar.

[A] Then Governor of Nova-Scotia.--_Freneau's note._

_Nova-Scotia, Feb. 1784._

[310] Text from the edition of 1809. First published in the _Freeman's

Journal_, March 30, 1785, under the title, "A New York Tory's Epistle."

[311] "We may starve and be damn'd."--_Ed. 1786._

[312] See note to poem "On Gen. Robertson's Proclamation," Vol. II,

p. 162.

THE AMERICAN SIBERIA[313]

When Jove from darkness smote the sun,

And Nature earth from chaos won,

One part she left a barren waste

By stormy seas and fogs embraced.

Jove saw her vile neglect, and cried,

"What madness did your fancy guide--

Why have you left so large a space

With winter brooding o'er its face?

No trees of stately growth ascend,

Eternal fogs their wings expand--

My favorite--man--I placed not there,

But spirits of a darker sphere.

If Nature's self neglects her trade

What strange confusion will be made:

Such climes as these I doomed to fall

On Saturn's cold unsocial ball:

But such a blemish, here, to see--

How can it else but anger me?

Where chilling winds forever freeze,

What fool will fix on lands like these?"

Nature, abashed, thus made reply:

"When earth I formed, I don't deny,

Some parts I portioned out for pain,

Hard storms, dull skies, and--little gain.

Mankind are formed with different souls:

Some will be suited near the poles,

Some pleased beneath the scorching line,

And some, New Scotland, will be thine.

Yet, in due time, my plastic hand

Shall mould it o'er, if you command;

By you I act--if you stand still

The world comes tumbling down the hill!"

Untouched--(said Jove)--remain the place!

In days to come I'll form a race,

Born to betray their country's cause,

And aid an alien monarch's laws.

When traitors to their country die,

To lands, like this, their phantoms fly;

But when the brave by death decay

The mind explores a different way.

Then, Nature, hold your aiding hand--

Let fogs and tempests chill the land;

While this degenerate work of thine

To knaves and knapsacks I resign.

[313] Text follows the edition of 1809.

EPISTLE TO SYLVIUS[314]

On the Folly of Writing Poetry

Of all the fools that haunt our coast

The scribbling tribe I pity most:

Their's is a standing scene of woes,

And their's no prospect of repose.

Then, Sylvius, why this eager claim

To light your torch at Clio's flame?

To few she shews sincere regard,

And none, from her, should hope reward.

A garret high, dark dismal room,

Is still the pensive poet's doom:

Hopes raised to heaven must be their lot,

Yet bear the curse, to be forgot.

Hourly they deal with Grecian Jove,

And draw their bills on banks above:

Yet stand abashed, with all their fire,

When brought to face some country 'squire.

To mend the world, is still their aim:

The world, alas! remains the same,

And so must stand to every age,

Proof to the morals of the page!

The knave that keeps a tippling inn,

The red-nosed boy that deals out gin,

If aided by some paltry skill

May both be statesmen when they will.

The man that mends a beggar's shoes,

The quack that heals your negro's bruise,

The wretch that turns a cutler's stone,

Have wages they can call their own:

The head, that plods in trade's domains,

Gets something to reward its pains;

But Wit--that does the world beguile,

Takes for its pay--an empty smile!

Yet each presumes his works will rise,

And gain a name that never dies;

From earth, and cold oblivion freed,

Immortal, in the poets' creed!

Can Reason in that bosom reign

Which fondly feeds a hope so vain,

When every age that passes by

Beholds a crowd of poets die!

Poor Sappho's fate shall Milton know--

His scenes of grief and tales of woe

No honours, that all Europe gave,

No merit--shall from ruin save.

To all that write and all that read

Fate shall, with hasty step, succeed!

Even Shakespeare's page, his mirth, his tears

May sink beneath this weight of years.

Old Spenser's doom shall, Pope, be thine

The music of each moving line

Scarce bribes an age or two to stay,

Admire your strain--then flit away.

The people of old Chaucer's times

Were once in raptures with his rhymes,

But Time--that over verse prevails,

To other ears tells other tales.

Why then so sad, dear rhyming friends--

One common fate on both attends,

The bards that sooth the statesman's ear,

And him--who finds no audience there.

Mere structures formed of common earth,

Not they from heaven derive their birth,

Or why through life, like vagrants, pass

To mingle with the mouldering mass?--

Of all the souls, from Jove that came

To animate this mortal frame,

Of all the myriads, on the wing,

How few can taste the Muse's spring!

Sejanus, of mercantile skill,

Without whose aid the world stands still,

And by whose wonder-working play

The sun goes round--(his flatterers say)

Sejanus has in house declared

"These States, as yet, can boast no bard,

And all the sing-song of our clime

Is merely nonsense, fringed with rhyme."

With such a bold, conceited air

When such assume the critic's chair,

Low in the dust is genius laid,

The muses with the man in trade.

Then, Sylvius, come--let you and I

On Neptune's aid, once more rely:

Perhaps the muse may still impart

Her balm to ease the aching heart.

Though cold might chill and storms dismay,

Yet Zoilus will be far away:

With us at least, depart and share

No garret--but resentment there.

[314] On Nov. 24, 1785, Freneau sailed from Middletown Point as Master

of the sloop _Monmouth_ bound for southern ports. This lyric, first

published in the edition of 1788, seems to have been his valedictory to

the muse for a season. His conflict with Oswald and other critics had

much embittered him. The text is from the edition of 1809.

THE DEPARTURE[315]

1785

From Hudson's cold, congealing streams

As winter comes, I take my way

Where other suns prompt other dreams,

And shades, less willing to decay,

Beget new raptures in the heart,

Bid spleen's dejective crew depart,

And wake the sprightly lay.

Good-natur'd Neptune, now so mild,

Like rage asleep, or madness chain'd,

By dreams amus'd or love beguil'd,

Sleep on 'till we our port have gain'd.

The gentle breeze that curls the deep,

Shall paint a finer dream on sleep!--

Ye nymphs, that haunt his grottoes low,

Where sea green trees on coral grow,

No tumults make

Lest he should wake,

And thus the passing shade betray

The sails that o'er his waters stray.

Sunk is the sun from yonder hill,

The noisy day is past;

The breeze decays, and all is still,

As all shall be at last;

The murmuring on the distant shore,

The dying wave is all I hear,

The yellow fields now disappear,

No painted butterflies are near,

And laughing folly plagues no more.

The woods that deck yon' fading waste,

That every wanton gale embrac'd,

Ere summer yet made haste to fly;

How smit with frost the pride of June!

How lost to me! how very soon

The fairy prospects die!

Condemn'd to bend to winter's stroke,

Low in the dust the embowering oak

Has bid the fading leaf descend,

Their short liv'd verdure at an end;

How desolate the forests seem,

Beneath whose shade

The enamour'd maid

Was once so fond to dream.

What now is left of all that won

The eye of mirth while summer stay'd--

The birds that sported in the sun,

The sport is past, the song is done;

And nature's naked forms declare,

The rifled groves, the vallies bare,

Persuasively, tho' silent, tell,

That at the best they were but drest

Sad mourners for the funeral bell!

Now while I spread the venturous sail

To catch the breeze from yonder hill,

Say, what does all this folly mean?

Why grieve to pass the wat'ry scene?

Is fortitude to heaven confin'd?--

No--planted also in the mind,

She smooths the ocean when she will.

But life is pain--what ills must try,

What malice dark and calumny,

Indifference, with her careless eye,

And slander, with her tale begun;

Bold ignorance, with forward air,

And cowardice, that has no share

In honours gain'd, or trophies won.

To these succeed, (and these are few

Of nature's dark, unseemly crew)

Unsocial pride, and cold disgust,

Servility, that licks the dust;

Those harpies that disgrace the mind;

Unknown to haunt the human breast

When pleasure her first garden dress'd--

But vanish'd is the shade so gay,

And lost in gloom the summer day

That charm'd the soul to rest.

What season shall restore that scene

When all was calm and all serene,

And happiness no empty sound,

The golden age, that pleas'd so well?--

The Mind that made it shall not tell

To those on life's uncertain road;

Where lost in folly's idle round,

And seeking what shall ne'er be found

We press to one abode.

[315] This poem was first published in the _Freeman's Journal_, April

18, 1787, with a note "Written at leaving Sandy Hook on a voyage to the

West Indies." It is dated Nov. 26, 1785; it was, therefore, written at

sea. It was published in the 1788 edition, which the text follows, and

omitted from the 1809 edition.

A NEWSMAN'S ADDRESS[316]

Old Eighty-Five discharg'd and gone,

Another year comes hastening on

To quit us in its turn:

With outspread wings and running glass

Thus Time's deluding seasons pass,

And leave mankind to mourn.

But strains like this add grief to grief;--

We are the lads that give relief

With sprightly wit and merry lay:

Our various page to all imparts

Amusement fit for social hearts,

And drives the monster, spleen, away.

Abroad our leaves of knowledge fly,

And twice a week they live and die;

Short seasons of repose!

Fair to your view our toils display

The monarch's aim, what patriots say,

Or sons of art disclose:

Whate'er the barque of commerce brings

From sister States, or foreign kings,

No atom we conceal:

All Europe's prints we hourly drain,

All Asia's news our leaves contain,

And round our world we deal.

If falsehoods sometimes prompt your fears,

And horrid news from proud Algiers,

That gives our tars such pain;

Remember all must have their share,

And all the world was made for care,

The monarch and the swain.

If British isles (that once were free,

In Indian seas, to you and me)

All entrance still restrain,

Why let them starve with all their host

When British pride gives up the ghost,

And courts our aid in vain.

We fondly hope some future year

Will all our clouded prospects clear,

And commerce stretch her wings;

New tracks of trade new wealth disclose,

While round the globe our standard goes

In spite of growling kings.

Materials thus together drawn

To tell you how the world goes on

May surely claim regard;

One simple word we mean to say,

This is our jovial New Year's day,

And now, our toils reward.

[316] Freneau arrived in Charleston Dec. 8, and remained there until

Jan. 23, when he cleared for Sunbury. On Jan. 1st, he wrote the above

verses for the carriers of the Charleston _Columbian Herald_. They were

republished in the editions of 1788 and 1795, which later edition the

text follows.

LITERARY IMPORTATION[317]

However we wrangled with Britain awhile

We think of her now in a different stile,

And many fine things we receive from her isle;

Among all the rest,

Some demon possessed

Our dealers in knowledge and sellers of sense

To have a good bishop imported from thence.

The words of Sam Chandler[A] were thought to be vain,

When he argued so often and proved it so plain

"That Satan must flourish till bishops should reign:"

Though he went to the wall

With his project and all,

Another bold Sammy[B], in bishop's array,

Has got something more than his pains for his pay.

[A] "Who laboured for the establishment of an American Episcopacy,

previously to the revolutionary war."--_Freneau's note._

[B] Bishop Samuel Seabury, of Connecticut.--_Ib._

It seems we had spirit to humble a throne,

Have genius for science inferior to none,

But hardly encourage a plant of our own:

If a college be planned,

'Tis all at a stand

'Till to Europe we send at a shameful expense,

To send us a book-worm to teach us some sense.

Can we never be thought to have learning or grace

Unless it be brought from that horrible[318] place

Where tyranny reigns with her impudent face;

And popes and pretenders,

And sly faith-defenders

Have ever been hostile to reason and wit,

Enslaving a world that shall conquer them yet.

'Tis a folly to fret at the picture I draw:

And I say what was said by a Doctor Magraw;[C]

"If they give us their Bishops, they'll give us their law."

How that will agree

With such people as we,

Let us leave to the learned to reflect on awhile,

And say what they think in a handsomer stile.

[C] A noted practitioner in physic, formerly of

N. York.--_Freneau's note, Ed. 1788._

[317] First published, as far as can be learned, in the 1788 edition,

and dated Charleston, S. C., 1786. The text is taken from the edition

of 1809.

[318] "Damnable."--_Ed. 1788._

THE ENGLISHMAN'S COMPLAINT[319]

In Carolina

Arriving from Britain with cargo so nice

Once more have I touched at these regions of rice!

Dear Ashley, with pleasure thy stream I review:

But how changed are these plains that we wished to subdue.

If through the wild woods he extended his reign,

And death and the hangman were both in his train,

Cornwallis no longer disturbs your repose,

His lordship is dead or at least in a doze.

By Sullivan's island how quiet we pass;

Fort Johnson no longer salutes us, alas!--

The season has been you did nothing but mourn,

But now you will laugh at a Briton's return!

Instead of gay soldiers that walked the parade,

Here is nothing but draymen and people in trade;

Instead of our navy that thundered around,

Here is nothing but ships without guns to be found.

Instead of Lord Rawdon and Nesbit Balfour,

Whose names and whose notions you cannot endure,

But whom in their glory you could not forget

When puffed by the froth of the Royal Gazette:

Instead of those tyrants, who homewards have flown,

This country is ruled by a race of its own,

Whom once we could laugh at--but now we must say

Seem rising to be in a handsomer way.

To us and our island eternally foes,

How tedious you are in forgetting your woes,

Your plundered plantations you still will remember,

Although we have left you--three years last December!

[319] This first appeared in the 1788 edition. The date of composition

is indicated by the last line. The British evacuated the city in 1782.

The edition of 1809 has been followed.

THE WILD HONEY SUCKLE[320]

Fair flower, that dost so comely grow,

Hid in this silent, dull retreat,

Untouched thy honied blossoms blow,

Unseen thy little branches greet:

No roving foot shall crush thee here,

No busy hand provoke a tear.

By Nature's self in white arrayed,

She bade thee shun the vulgar eye,

And planted here the guardian shade,

And sent soft waters murmuring by;

Thus quietly thy summer goes,

Thy days declining to repose.

Smit with those charms, that must decay,

I grieve to see your future doom;

They died--nor were those flowers more gay,

The flowers that did in Eden bloom;

Unpitying frosts, and Autumn's power

Shall leave no vestige of this flower.

From morning suns and evening dews

At first thy little being came:

If nothing once, you nothing lose,

For when you die you are the same;

The space between, is but an hour,

The frail duration of a flower.

[320] Freneau doubtless wrote this poem in Charleston, S. C., in July,

1786. It appeared first in the _Freeman's Journal_, August 2, 1786, and

was republished in the edition of 1788, and in the later editions,

almost without change. The poet probably refers to the _Rhododendron

Viscosum_, or as some call it the _Asalia viscosun_ since it is the only

flower popularly known as the wild honeysuckle that is both white and

fragrant. According to Chapman's _Southern Flora_, it flowers in the

latitude of Charleston in July and August. The text is from the edition

of 1809.

ON A BOOK CALLED UNITARIAN THEOLOGY[321]

In this choice work, with wisdom penned, we find

The noblest system to reform mankind,

Bold truths confirmed, that bigots have denied,

By most perverted, and which some deride.

Here, truths divine in easy language flow,

Truths long concealed, that now all climes shall know

Here, like the blaze of our material sun,

Enlightened Reason proves, that God is One--

As that, concentered in itself, a sphere,

Illumes all Nature with its radiance here,

Bids towards itself all trees and plants aspire,

Awakes the winds, impels the seeds of fire,

And still subservient to the Almighty plan,

Warms into life the changeful race of man;

So--like that sun--in heaven's bright realms we trace

One Power of Love, that fills unbounded space,

Existing always by no borrowed aid,

Before all worlds--eternal, and not made--

To That indebted, stars and comets burn,

Owe their swift movements, and to That return!

Prime source of wisdom, all-contriving mind,

First spring of Reason, that this globe designed;

Parent of order, whose unwearied hand

Upholds the fabric that his wisdom planned,

And, its due course assigned to every sphere,

Revolves the seasons, and sustains the year!--

Pure light of Truth! where'er thy splendours shine,

Thou art the image of the power divine;

Nought else, in life, that full resemblance bears,

No sun, that lights us through our circling years,

No stars, that through yon' charming azure stray,

No moon, that glads us with her evening ray,

No seas, that o'er their gloomy caverns flow,

No forms beyond us, and no shapes below!

Then slight--ah slight not, this instructive page,

For the mean follies of a dreaming age:

Here to the truth, by Reason's aid aspire,

Nor some dull preacher of romance admire;

See One, Sole God, in these convincing lines,

Beneath whose view perpetual day-light shines;

At whose command all worlds their circuits run,

And night, retiring, dies before the sun!

Here, Man no more disgraced by Time appears,

Lost in dull slumbers through ten thousand years;

Plunged in that gulph, whose dark unfathomed wave

Men of all ages to perdition gave;

An empty dream, or still more empty shade,

The substance vanished, and the form decayed:--

Here Reason proves, that when this life decays,

Instant, new life in the warm bosom plays,

As that expiring, still its course repairs

Through endless ages, and unceasing years.

Where parted souls with kindred spirits meet,

Wrapt to the bloom of beauty all complete;

In that celestial, vast, unclouded sphere,

Nought there exists but has its image here!

All there is Mind!--That Intellectual Flame,

From whose vast stores all human genius came,

In which all Nature forms on Reason's plan--

Flows to this abject world, and beams on Man!

[321] This was published in the _Freeman's Journal_, Oct 4, 1786, under

the title "On the Honourable Emanuel Swedenborg's Universal Theology." A

column advertisement of the book appeared in the _Journal_ Oct. 25. The

poem was reprinted in the 1788 collection and in the later edition of

1809, which the text follows.

TO ZOILUS[322]

[A Severe Critic]

Six sheets compos'd, struck off, and dry

The work may please the world (thought I)--

If some impell'd by spleen or spite,

Refuse to read, then let them write:

I too, with them, shall have my turn,

And give advice--to tear or burn.

Now from the binder's, hurried home,

In neat array my leaves are come:

Alas, alas! is this my all?

The volume is so light and small,

That, aim to save it as I can,

'Twill fly before Myrtilla's fan.

Why did I no precautions use?

To curb these frolics of the Muse?

Ah! why did I invoke the nine

To aid these humble toils of mine--

That now forebode through every page

The witling's sneer, the critic's rage.

Did I, for this, so often rise

Before the sun illum'd the skies,

And near my Hudson's mountain stream

Invoke the Muses' morning dream,

And scorn the winds that blew so cool!

I did--and I was more the fool.

Yet slender tho' the book, and small,

And harmless, take it all in all,

I see a monstrous wight appear,

A quill suspended from his ear;

Its fate depends on his decree,

And what he says must sacred be!

A brute of such terrific mien

At wild Sanduski ne'er was seen,

And in the dark Kentuckey groves

No beast, like this, for plunder roves,

Nor dwells in Britain's lowering clime

A reptile, so severe on rhyme.

The monster comes, severe and slow,

His eyes with arrowy lightnings glow,

Takes up the book, surveys it o'er,

Exclaims, "damn'd stuff!"--but says no more:

The book is damn'd by his decree,

And what he says must gospel be!

But was there nothing to his taste?--

Was all my work a barren waste--

Was not one bright idea sown,

And not one image of my own?--

Its doom was just, if this be true:

But Zoilus shall be sweated too.

Give me a cane of mighty length,

A staff proportion'd to my strength,

Like that, by whose destructive aid

The man of Gath his conquests made;

Like that, which once on Etna's shore

The shepherd of the mountain bore:

For wit traduc'd at such a rate

To other worlds I'll send him, straight,

Where all the past shall nothing seem,

Or just be imag'd, like a dream;

Where new vexations are design'd,

No dull quietus for the mind!

Arm'd with a staff of such a size

Who would not smite this man of lies:

Here, scribbler, help me! seize that pen

With which he blasts all rhyming men:

His goose-quill must not with him go

To persecute the bards below.--

How vast a change an hour may bring!

How abject lies this snarling thing!

No longer wit to him shall bow,

To him the world is nothing now;

And all he writ, and all he read

Is, with himself, in silence laid!

Dead tho' he be--(not sent to rest)

No keen remorse torments my breast:

Yet, something in me seems to tell

I might have let him live, as well;--

'Twas his to snarl, and growl, and grin,

And life had, else, a burthen been.

[322] This was first published in the _Freeman's Journal_, Oct 11, 1786,

though it undoubtedly was written before the poet left Philadelphia. It

was republished in the 1788 edition under the title "The Pamphleteer and

the Critic." The text follows the 1795 edition.

ON THE LEGISLATURE OF GREAT-BRITAIN PROHIBITING THE SALE, IN LONDON, OF

Doctor David Ramsay's History of the Revolutionary war in South

Carolina[323]

Some bold bully Dawson, expert in abusing,

Having passed all his life in the practice of bruising;

At last, when he thinks to reform and repent,

And wishes his days had been soberly spent,

Though a course of contrition in earnest begins,

He scarcely can bear to be told of his sins.

So the British, worn out with their wars in the west

(Where burning and murder their prowess confessed)

When, at last, they agreed 'twas in vain to contend

(For the days of their thieving were come to an end)

They hired some historians to scribble and flatter,

And foolishly thought they could hush up the matter.

But Ramsay[324] arose, and with Truth on his side,

Has told to the world what they laboured to hide;

With his pen of dissection, and pointed with steel,

If they ne'er before felt he has taught them to feel,

Themselves and their projects has truly defined,

And dragged them to blush at the bar of mankind.

As the author, his friends, and the world might expect,

They find that the work has a damning effect--

In reply to his Facts they abuse him and rail,

And prompted by malice, prohibit the sale.

But, we trust, their chastisement is only begun;

Thirteen are the States--and he writes but of one;

Ere the twelve that are silent their story have told,

The king will run mad, and the book will be sold.

[323] _Freeman's Journal_, Oct. 11, dated Philadelphia, Oct. 9. The text

follows the edition of 1809.

[324] David Ramsay's "History of the Revolution in South Carolina," was

published at Trenton, New Jersey, in 1785.

THE DEATH SONG OF A CHEROKEE INDIAN[325]

The sun sets in night, and the stars shun the day,

But glory remains when their lights fade away.

Begin, ye tormentors: your threats are in vain

For the son of Alknomock can never complain.

Remember the woods, where in ambush he lay,

And the scalps which he bore from your nation away!

Why do ye delay?--'till I shrink from my pain?

Know the son of Alknomock can never complain.

Remember the arrows he shot from his bow

Remember your chiefs by his hatchet laid low

The flame rises high, you exult in my pain?

Know the son of Alknomock will never complain.

I go to the land where my father is gone:

His ghost shall rejoice in the fame of his son

Death comes like a friend, he relieves me from pain

And thy son, O Alknomock, has scorned to complain.

[325] The first trace I can find of this poem is in the initial number

of Matthew Carey's _American Museum_, Jan. 1, 1787, where it is placed

among the selected poetry and assigned to P. Freneau. This testimony of

Carey's as to its genuineness carries with it considerable weight.

Knapp, who in 1829 reviewed the poem as Freneau's, doubtless had before

him a copy of the _Museum_. The poem, however, is not included in any of

the poet's collections and I can find no earlier newspaper appearance,

although my search has not been exhaustive. The authenticity of a poem

suspected to be Freneau's may always be gravely doubted if it is not

found to be included in his collected works, for he hoarded his poetic

product, especially in his earlier period, with miserly care.

The poem appeared in 1806 among the poems of Mrs. John Hunter with the

title "The Death Song, written for and adapted to, an original Indian

air." Several of Mrs. Hunter's best poems had been long in circulation

before she was induced to collect them. In 1822 Maria Edgeworth

introduced the poem into her book "Rosamond," ascribing it to her. She

added the following note: "The idea of this ballad was suggested several

years ago by hearing a gentleman who resided many years among the tribe

called the Cherokees, sing a wild air, which he assured me was customary

for these people to chant with a barbarous jargon implying contempt for

their enemies in the moments of torture and death. I have endeavored to

give something of the characteristic spirit and sentiment of those brave

savages."

STANZAS

Written at the foot of Monte Souffriere, near the Town of

Basseterre, Guadaloupe[326]

These Indian isles, so green and gay

In summer seas by nature placed--

Art hardly told us where they lay,

'Till tyranny their charms defaced:

Ambition here her efforts made,

And avarice rifled every shade.

Their genius wept, his sons to see

By foreign arms untimely fall,

And some to distant climates flee,

Where later ruin met them all:

He saw his sylvan offspring bleed,

That envious natures might succeed.

The Chief, who first o'er untried waves

To these fair islands found his way,

Departing, left a race of slaves,

Cortez, your mandate to obey,

And these again, if fame says true,

To extirpate the vulgar crew.

No more to Indian coasts confined,

The Patron, thus, indulged his grief;

And to regret his heart resigned,

To see some proud European chief,

Pursue the harmless Indian race,

Torn by his dogs in every chace.[327]

Ah, what a change! the ambient deep

No longer hears the lover's sigh;

But wretches meet, to wail and weep

The loss of their dear liberty:

Unfeeling hearts possess these isles,

Man frowns--and only nature smiles.

Proud of the vast extended shores

The haughty Spaniard calls his own,

His selfish heart restrains his stores,

To other climes but scarcely known:[328]

His Cuba lies a wilderness,

Where slavery digs what slaves possess.

Jamaica's sweet, romantic vales

In vain with golden harvests teem;

Her endless spring, her fragrant gales

More than Elysian magic seem:[329]

Yet what the soil profusely gave

Is there denied the toiling slave.

Fantastic joy and fond belief

Through life support the galling chain;

Hope's airy prospects banish griefs,

And bring his native lands again:

His native groves a heaven display,

The funeral is the jocund day.

For man oppressed and made so base,

In vain from Jove fair virtue fell;

Distress be-glooms the toiling race,

They have no motive to excel:

In death alone their miseries end,

The tyrant's dread--is their best friend.

How great their praise let truth declare,

Who touched with honour's sacred flame,

Bade freedom to some coasts repair

To urge the slave's neglected claim;

And scorning interest's swinish plan,

Gave to mankind the rights of man.

Ascending there, may freedom's sun

In all his force serenely clear,

A long, unclouded circuit run,

Till little tyrants disappear;

And a new race, not bought or sold,

Rise from the ashes of the old.

[326] Published in the _Freeman's Journal_ of Jan. 31, 1787, with the

introduction "The following verses, wrote by Mr. Freneau are subjoined

to a short and accurate account of the West Indies in the printer's

_Pocket Almanac_ for the present year." The title of the poem suffered

many variations in later editions. In the 1788 edition, where it was

reprinted from the _Journal_, it was entitled "Stanzas written In a

blank leaf of Burke's History of the West India Islands," and it was

signed "Pennsylvania, 1786." In the 1795 edition it was entitled

"Caribbeana," and in the edition of 1809, the text of which I have

followed, it received the title above given. The poem was carefully

revised for the edition of 1795.

[327]

"While he to tears his heart resign'd

With pain he saw the falling leaf;

'And thus (he cry'd) our reign must end,

We, like the leaves, must now descend.'"

_Ed. 1788._

[328]

"No other world may share those stores

To other worlds so little known." _Ed. 1788._

[329]

"Did more to me than magic seem." _Ib._

ON THE CREW OF A CERTAIN VESSEL[330]

Several of whom happened to be of similar names to Celebrated

Foreign Clergymen

In life's unsettled, odd career

What changes every day appear

To please or plague the eye:

A goodly brotherhood of priests

Are here transformed to swearing beasts

Who heaven and hell defy.

Here Bonner, bruised with many a knock,

Has changed his surplice for a frock;

Old Erskine swabs the decks,

And Watts, who once such pleasure took

In writing Hymns--here, turned a cook,

Sinners no longer vex.

Here Burnet, Tillotson, and Blair,

With Jemmy Hervey, curse and swear,

Here Cudworth mixes grog;

Pearson the crew to dinner hails,

A graceless Sherlock trims the sails,

And Bunyan heaves the log.

[330] The index to the edition of 1795 instead of "vessel" gives "ship

of war." The text follows the edition of 1809.

THE BERMUDA ISLANDS[331]

"Bermuda, walled with rocks, who does not know,

That happy island, where huge lemons grow," &c.

_Waller's Battle of the Summer Islands._

These islands fair with many a grove are crowned,

With cedars tall, gay hills, and verdant vales,

But dangerous rocks on every side is found,

Fatal to him who unsuspecting sails.

The gay Palmetto shades the adjacent wave:

Blue, ocean water near the lime-tree breaks!--

I leave the scene!--this stormy quarter leave,

And rove awhile by Harrington's sweet lake.

In every vale fair woodland nymphs are seen

In bloom of youth, to mourn some absent love,

Who, wandering far on Neptune's rude domain,

Heaves the fond sigh at every new remove.

From hill to hill I see Amanda stray,

Searching, with anxious view, the encircling main,

To espy the sail, so long, so far away,

Rise from the waves, and bless her sight again.

Now, on some rock, with loose, dishevelled hair,

Near dashing waves, the sorrowing beauty stands,

Hoping that each approaching barque may bear

Homeward the wandering youth from foreign lands.

Oh! may no gales such faithful loves destroy,

No hidden rock to Hymen fatal prove:

And thou, fond swain, thy nicest art employ

Once more on these sweet isles to meet your love.

When verging to the height of thirty-two,

And east or west you guide the dashy prow;

Then fear by night the dangers of this shore,

Nature's wild garden, placed in sixty-four.[A]

Here many a merchant his lost freight bemoans,

And many a gallant ship has laid her bones.

[A] Lat. 32 deg. 20 min. N.--Long. 63.40 W.--and about 780 miles

East of the coast of South Carolina.--_Freneau's note._

[331] During several weeks in 1778 Freneau resided in Bermuda. While

there he seems to have been greatly impressed by an instance of

inconstancy. He has in several prose sketches, notably in "Light Summer

Reading," 1788, and in the following series of poems, composed at

different times, described the incident. There is a tradition that

Freneau spent several weeks in the family of the Governor of Bermuda and

that it was the daughter of this official who was the unfortunate

Amanda. Some traditions have mentioned Freneau himself as the lover. The

text is from the edition of 1809.

FLORIO TO AMANDA[332]

Lamp of the pilot's hope! the wanderer's dream,

Far glimmering o'er the wave, we saw thy beam:

Forced from your aid by cold December's gale

As near your isle we reefed the wearied sail:

From bar to bar, from cape to cape I roam,

From you still absent, still too far from home.--

What shall repay me for these nights of pain,

And weeks of absence on this restless main,

Where every dream recalls that charming shade,

Where once, Amanda, once with you I strayed,

And fondly talked, and counted every tree,

And minutes, ages, when removed from thee.

What sad mistake this wandering fancy drew

To quit my natives shores, the woods, and You,

When safely anchored on that winding stream,

Where you were all my care, and all my theme:

There, pensive, loitering, still from day to day,

The pilot wondered at such strange delay,

Musing, beheld the northern winds prevail,

Nor once surmised that Love detained the sail.

Blest be the man, who, fear beneath him cast,

From his firm decks first reared the tapering mast;

And catching life and motion from the breeze,

Stretched his broad canvas o'er a waste of seas;

And taught some swain, whom absence doomed to mourn

His distant fair one--taught a quick return:

He, homeward borne by favouring gales, might find

Remembrance welcome to his anxious mind,

And grateful vows, and generous thanks might pay

To Him, who filled the sail, and smoothed the way.

To me, indeed! the heavens less favouring prove:

Each day, returning, finds a new remove--

Sorrowing, I spread the sail, while slowly creeps

The weary vessel o'er a length of deeps;

Her northern course no favouring breeze befriends,

Hail, storm, and lightning, on her path attends:

Here, wintry suns their shrouded light restrain,

Stars dimly glow, and boding birds complain;

Here, boisterous gales the rapid Gulph controul,

Tremendous breakers near our Argo roll;

Here cloudy, sullen Hatteras, restless, raves

Scorns all repose, and swells his weight of waves:

Here, drowned so late, sad cause of many a tear,

Amyntor floats upon his watery bier;

By bursting seas to horrid distance tossed,

Thou, Palinurus, in these depths wert lost,

When, torn by waves, and conquered by the blast,

Art strove in vain, and ruin seized each mast.

Now, while the winds their wonted aid deny,

For other ports, from day to day, we try

Strive, all we can, to gain the unwilling shore,

Dream still of you--the faithful chart explore;

See other groves, in happier climates placed

Untouched their bloom, and not one flower defaced.

Did Nature, there, a heaven of pleasure shew,

Could they be welcome, if not shared with you?--

Lost are my toils--my longing hopes are vain:

Yet, 'midst these ills, permit me to complain,

And half regret, that, finding fortune fail,

I left your cottage--to direct the sail:

Unmoved, amidst this elemental fray,

Let me, once more, the muses' art essay,

Once more--amidst these scenes of Nature's strife,

Catch at her forms and mould them into life;

By Fancy's aid, to unseen coasts repair,

And fondly dwell on absent beauty there.