But what a stange, 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 troubled sea?
The bark, accustom❜d 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.
THE reign of old Saturn is highly renown'd
For many fine things that no longer are found,
Trees always in blossom, men free from all pains,
And shepherds as mild as the sheep on their plains.
In the midland equator, dispensing his sway,
The sun, they pretended, pursued his bright way,
Not rambled, unsteady, to regions remote,
To talk, once a year, with the crab and the goat.
From a motion like this, have the sages explain'd,
How summer for ever her empire maintain'd;
While the turf of the fields by the plough was unbroke,
And a house for the shepherd, the boughs of an oak.
Yet some say there never was seen on this stage
What poets affirm of that innocent age,
When the brutal creation from bondage was free,
And men were exactly what mankind should be.
But why should they labor to prove it a dream?—
The poets of old were in love with the theme,
And, leaving to others mere truth to repeat,
In the regions of fancy they found it complete.
Three ages have been on this globe, they pretend;
And the fourth, some have thought, is to be without end;
The first was of gold-but a fifth, we will say,
Has already begun, and is now on its way.
Since the days of Arcadia, if ever there shined
A ray of the first on the heads of mankind,
Let the learned dispute-but with us it is clear,
That the era of paper was realized here.
Four ages, however, at least have been told,
The first is compared to the purest of gold-
But, as bad luck would have it, its circles were few,
And the next was of silver-if Ovid says true.
But this, like the former, did rapidly pass—
While that which came after was nothing but brass—
An age of mere tinkers-and when it was lost,
Hard iron succeeded-we know to our cost.
And hence you may fairly infer, if you please,
That we're nothing but blacksmiths of various degrees,
Since each has a weapon, of one kind or other,
To stir up the coals, and to shake at his brother.
Should the Author of nature reverse his decree,
And bring back the age we 're so anxious to see,
Agreement alas!-you would look for in vain,
The stuff might be changed, but the staff would remain.
The lawyer would still find a client to fleece,
The doctor, a patient to pack off in peace,
The parson, some hundreds of hearers prepared,
To measure his gifts by the length of his beard.
Old Momus would still have some cattle to lead,
Who would hug his opinions, and swallow his creed---
So it's best, I presume, that things are as they are-
If iron's the meanest-we 've nothing to fear.
EPISTLE TO A GAY YOUNG LADY WHO WAS MARRIED TO
A DOATING OLD DEACON.
THUS winter joins to April's bloom,
Thus daisies blush beside a tomb,
Thus, fields of ice o'er rivers grow,
While melting streams are found below.
How strange a taste is here display'd-
Yourself all light, and he all shade!
Each hour you live you look more gay,
While he grows uglier every day!
Intent upon celestial things,
He only Watts or Sternhold sings ;-
You tune your chord to different strains,
And merrier notes attract the swains.
Ah Harriot! why in beauty's prime
Thus look for flowers in Greenland's clime;
When twenty years are scarcely run
Thus hope for spring without a sun!
THE INDIAN BURYING GROUND.
In spite of all the learn'd have said,
I still my old opinion keep;
The posture that we give the dead,
Points out the soul's eternal sleep.
Not so the ancients of these lands-
The Indian, when from life released,
Again is seated with his friends,
And shares again the joyous feast.
His imaged birds, and painted bowl,
And ven❜son, for a journey dress'd,
Bespeak the nature of the soul,
Activity, that knows no rest.
His bow, for action ready bent,
And arrows, with a head of stone,
Can only mean that life is spent,
And not the finer essence gone.
Thou, stranger, that shalt come this way,
No fraud npon the dead commit—
Observe the swelling turf, and say,
They do not lie, but here they sit.
Here still a lofty rock remains,
On which the curious eye may trace
(Now wasted, half, by wearing rains)
The fancies of a ruder race.
Here still an aged elm aspires,
Beneath whose far projecting shade
(And which the shepherd still admires)
The children of the forest play'd!
There oft a restless Indian queen
(Pale Shebah, with her braided hair)
And many a barbarous form is seen
To chide the man that lingers there.
By midnight moons, o'er moistening dews,
In vestments for the chase array'd,
The hunter still the deer pursues,
The hunter and the deer, a shade!
And long shall timorous fancy see
The painted chief, and pointed spear,
And Reason's self shall bow the knee
To shadows and delusions here.
TO THE MEMORY OF THE BRAVE AMERICANS
GENERAL GREENE, IN SOUTH CAROLINA, WHO FELL
IN THE ACTION OF SEPTEMBER 8, 1781.
AT Eutaw springs the valiant died:
Their limbs with dust are covered o'er-
Weep on, ye springs, your tearful tide;
How many heroes are no more!
If in this wreck of ruin, they
Can yet be thought to claim a tear,
O smite thy gentle breast, and say
The friends of freedom slumber here!
Thou, who shalt trace this bloody plain,
If goodness rules thy generous breast,
Sigh for the wasted rural reign;
Sigh for the shepherds, sunk to rest!
Stranger, their humble graves adorn;
You too may fall, and ask a tear:
"T is not the beauty of the morn
That proves the evening shall be clear.
They saw their injured country's wo;
The flaming town, the wasted field;
Then rush'd to meet the insulting foe;
They took the spear-but left the shield.
Led by thy conquering genius, Greene,
The Britons they compell'd to fly:
None distant view'd the fatal plain,
None grieved, in such a cause to die.
But, like the Parthian, famed of old,
Who, flying, still their arrows threw;
These routed Britons, full as bold,
Retreated, and retreating slew.
Now rest in peace our patriot band;
Though far from nature's limits thrown,
We trust, they find a happier land,
A brighter sunshine of their own.
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 palisades-
Though lost to us, Port Royal claims a sigh,
Nor shall the muse the unenvied verse deny.
Of all the towns that graced 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,
|