'Tis great Montgomery demands the tear: Could prayers or tears avert the dreadful blow, Until we'd draw them from the arms of death. But, ah! they're gone! they now are past relief: Can ne'er awake them from their deadly sleep. Stretch'd on the hostile plain, they breathless layTheir mortal eyes are closed in endless night: But, then, their souls are fled to endless day,Methinks I see them near the world of light! Wrapp'd up in ecstasy, I now behold The glorious gates of heaven open wide: Chief of the band, illustrious Warren's seen, Piercing his eyes-though piercing, still serene— A wreath of laurel does his brow surround; Through which, from earth, his soul with honour Warren is sent to greet his much-loved friends: Safe to conduct them where joy never ends, 183 THE SWEETS OF LIBERTY. From the Pennsylvania Evening Post, February 27th, 1777. How blest is he who, unconstrain❜d, Fortune's attacks, secure, he braves, With thee, who treads the eternal snows His roving steps, uncurb'd by dread, From clime to clime can freely roam: In freedom's cause prepared to bleed; But such as bounteous Heaven hath long decreed. Conscious of worth, his generous soul To stoop to lawless power disdains; No threats his principles control; He e'en enjoys his liberty in chains. 'Tis not ambition's giddy strife, But justice, feeds the hero's fire: Whose smiles confer a deathless name: 184 THE HEADS; OR, THE YEAR 1776. From the Pennsylvania Evening Post, April 17, 1777. YE wrong heads and strong heads, attend to my strains; Ye clear heads, and queer heads, and heads without brains: Ye thick skulls, and quick skulls, and heads great and small, And ye heads that aspire to be heads over all. Derry down, &c. Ye ladies, (I would not offend for the world,) curl'd, The mighty dimensions Dame Nature surprise, And ye petit maitres, your heads I might spare, Who vainly disgrace the true monkey race, Enough might be said, durst I venture my rhymes, This slippery path let me cautiously tread; The neck else will answer, perhaps, for the head. The heads of the church, and the heads of the state, repeat: On the neck of corruption, uplifted, 'tis said, Ye schemers and dreamers of politic things, Expounders, confounders, and heads of the law, On Britannia's bosom sweet Liberty smiled: Which contracted her limbs and distracted her head. Ye learned state doctors, your labours are vain- Pale goddess of whim! when, with cheeks lean or full, Thy influence seizes an Englishman's skull, 185 TO THE MEMORY OF MAJOR FLEMING AND LIEUTENANT YATES, Of the First Virginia Battalion, who fell at Princeton, January 3, 1777. ADDRESSED TO VIRGINIAN YOUTH. PERMIT an artless muse, in votive lays, How well they fought, how well they fell. When Freedom's cause, by base, tyrannic hands, Was seeming hurt, yet shined in distant landsWhen fair Virginia nigh a spoil was made, And thought bereft of liberty and trade, We saw these youths* with honest rage pursue The daring foet who would their land subdue: *Major Fleming was in his twenty-first year, and Mr. Yeates about the same age. † Lord Dunmore and the English troops. |