The Poems of Philip Freneau, Poet of the American Revolution. Volume 2 (of 3)

[238] Freeman's Journal, May 7, 1783. In the later editions it was entitled "Renegado Epistle." Text from the edition of 1786.

[239] Two added lines in the later editions:

"Amused with conquests, honours, riches, fame,
Posts, titles, earldoms—and a deathless name."

[240]

"From nature constant still
Kings hold not worlds or empires at their will."—Ed. 1795.

MANHATTAN CITY [241]

A Picture

Fair mistress of a warlike State,
What crime of thine deserves this fate?
While other ports to Freedom rise,
In thee that flame of honour dies.

With wars and horrors overspread,
Seven years, and more, we fought and bled:
Seized British hosts and Hessian bands,
And all—to leave you in their hands.

While British tribes forsake our plains,
In you, a ghastly herd [242] remains:
Must vipers to your halls [243] repair;
Must poison taint that purest air?

Ah! what a scene torments the eye:
In thee, what putrid monsters lie!
What dirt, and mud, and mouldering walls,
Burnt domes, dead dogs, and funerals!

Those grassy banks, where oft we stood,[244]
And fondly viewed the passing flood;
There, owls obscene, that daylight shun,
Pollute the waters, as they run.

Thus in the east—once Asia's queen—
Palmyra's tottering towers are seen;
While through her streets the serpent feeds,
Thus she puts on her mourning weeds!

Lo! Skinner there for Scotia hails
The sweepings of Cesarean jails:[245]
While, to receive the odious [246] freight,
A thousand sable transports wait.

Had he been born in days of old
When men with gods their 'squires [247] enrolled,
Hermes had claimed his aid above,
Arch-quibbler in the courts of Jove.[248]

O chief, that wrangled at the bar—
Grown old in less successful war;
What crowds of miscreants round you stand,
What vagrants bow to your command!

[241] In the edition of 1786 entitled "New-York, September, 1783."

[242] "A motley crew."—Ed. 1786.

[243] "Through thy streets."—Ib.

[244] "I stood."—Ed. 1786.

[245]

"Lo! Skinner there collects a crew,
(Their temples brushed with Stygian dew)"—Ib.

[246] "Ghastly."—Ib.

[247] "Beasts."—Ib.

[248]

"Like Nero's horse, he had been made
A consul for some Nero's aid."—Ib.

VERSES [249]

Occasioned by General Washington's arrival in Philadelphia, on his way to his seat in Virginia

December, 1783

The great, unequal conflict past,
The Briton banish'd from our shore,
Peace, heav'n-descended, comes at last,
And hostile nations rage no more;
From fields of death the weary swain
Returning, seeks his native plain.

In every vale she smiles serene,
Freedom's bright stars more radiant rise,
New charms she adds to every scene,
Her brighter sun illumes our skies;
Remotest realms admiring stand,
And hail the Hero of our land:

He comes!—the Genius of these lands—
Fame's thousand tongues his worth confess,
Who conquer'd with his suffering bands,
And grew immortal by distress:
Thus calms succeed the stormy blast,
And valour is repaid at last.

O Washington!—thrice glorious name,
What due rewards can man decree—
Empires are far below thy aim,
And sceptres have no charms for thee;
Virtue alone has thy regard,
And she must be thy great reward.

Encircled by extorted power,
Monarchs must envy thy Retreat,
Who cast, in some ill fated hour,
Their country's freedom at their feet;
'Twas thine to act a nobler part
For injur'd Freedom had thy heart.

For ravag'd realms and conquer'd seas
Rome gave the great imperial prize,
And, swell'd with pride, for feats like these,
Transferr'd her heroes to the skies:—
A brighter scene your deeds display,
You gain those heights a different way.

When Faction rear'd her snaky head,[250]
And join'd with tyrants to destroy,
Where'er you march'd the monster fled,
Tim'rous her arrows to employ;
Hosts catch'd from you a bolder flame,
And despots trembled at your name.

Ere war's dread horrors ceas'd to reign,
What leader could your place supply?—
Chiefs crowded to the embattled plain,
Prepar'd to conquer or to die—
Heroes arose—but none like you
Could save our lives and freedom too.

In swelling verse let kings be read,
And princes shine in polish'd prose;
Without such aid your triumphs spread
Where'er the convex ocean flows,
To Indian worlds by seas embrac'd,
And Tartar, tyrant of the waste.

Throughout the east you gain applause,
And soon the Old World, taught by you,
Shall blush to own her barbarous laws,
Shall learn instruction from the New:
Monarchs shall hear the humble plea,
Nor urge too far the proud decree.

Despising pomp and vain parade,
At home you stay, while France and Spain
The secret, ardent wish convey'd,
And hail'd you to their shores in vain:
In Vernon's groves you shun the throne,
Admir'd by kings, but seen by none.

Your fame, thus spread to distant lands,
May envy's fiercest blasts endure,
Like Egypt's pyramids it stands,
Built on a basis more secure;
Time's latest age shall own in you
The patriot and the statesman too.

Now hurrying from the busy scene,
Where thy Potowmack's waters flow,
May'st thou enjoy thy rural reign,
And every earthly blessing know;
Thus He [A] whom Rome's proud legions sway'd,
Return'd, and sought his sylvan shade.

[A] Cincinnatus.—Freneau's note.

Not less in wisdom than in war
Freedom shall still employ your mind,
Slavery shall vanish, wide and far,
'Till not a trace is left behind;
Your counsels not bestow'd in vain
Shall still protect this infant reign.

So when the bright, all-cheering sun
From our contracted view retires,
Though fools may think his race is run,
On other worlds he lights his fires:
Cold climes beneath his influence glow,
And frozen rivers learn to flow.

O say, thou great, exalted name!
What Muse can boast of equal lays,
Thy worth disdains all vulgar fame,
Transcends the noblest poet's praise,
Art soars, unequal to the flight,
And genius sickens at the height.

For states redeem'd—our western reign
Restor'd by thee to milder sway,
Thy conscious glory shall remain
When this great globe is swept away,
And all is lost that pride admires,
And all the pageant scene expires.

[249] Published in the Freeman's Journal, December 10, 1783. Washington arrived in Philadelphia from New York, December 8th. The earliest version of this poem remained practically unchanged in the later editions. The text follows the edition of 1786.

[250] "Bristly head."—Ed. 1809.

RIVINGTON'S CONFESSIONS [251]

Addressed to the Whigs of New-York

December 31, 1783

PART I

Long life and low spirits were never my choice,
As long as I live I intend to rejoice;
When life is worn out, and no wine's to be had
'Tis time enough then to be serious and sad.

'Tis time enough then to reflect and repent
When our liquor is gone, and our money is spent,
But I cannot endure what is practis'd by some
This anticipating of evils to come:

A debt must be paid, I am sorry to say,
Alike, in their turns, by the grave and the gay,
And due to a despot that none can deceive
Who grants us no respite and signs no reprieve.

Thrice happy is he that from care can retreat,
And its plagues and vexations put under his feet;
Blow the storm as it may, he is always in trim,
And the sun's in the zenith forever to him.

Since the world then in earnest is nothing but care,
(And the world will allow I have also my share)
Yet, toss'd as I am in the stormy expanse,
The best way, I find, is to leave it to chance.

Look round, if you please, and survey the wide ball
And chance, you will find, has direction of all:
'Twas owing to chance that I first saw the light,
And chance may destroy me before it is night!

'Twas a chance, a mere chance, that your arms gain'd the day,
'Twas a chance that the Britons so soon went away,
To chance by their leaders the nation is cast
And chance to perdition will send them at last.

Now because I remain when the puppies are gone
You would willingly see me hang'd, quarter'd and drawn,
Though I think I have logic sufficient to prove
That the chance of my stay—is a proof of my love.

For deeds of destruction some hundreds are ripe,
But the worst of my foes are your lads of the type:
Because they have nothing to put on their shelves
They are striving to make me as poor as themselves.

There's Loudon [252] and Kollock,[253] these strong bulls of Bashan,
Are striving to hook me away from my station,
And Holt,[254] all at once, is as wonderful great
As if none but himself was to print for the State.

Ye all are convinc'd I'd a right to expect
That a sinner returning you would not reject—
Quite sick of the scarlet and slaves of the throne,
'Tis now at your option to make me your own.

Suppose I had gone with the Tories and rabble
To starve, or be drown'd on the shoals of cape Sable,
I had suffer'd, 'tis true—but I'll have you to know,
You nothing had gain'd by the voice of my woe.

You say that with grief and dejection of heart
I pack'd up my awls with a view to depart,
That my shelves were dismantled, my cellars unstor'd,
My boxes afloat, and my hampers on board:

And hence you infer (I am sure without reason)
That a right you possess to entangle my weazon—
Yet your barns I ne'er burnt, nor your blood have I spilt,
And my terror alone was no proof of my guilt.

The charge may be true—for I found it in vain
To lean on a staff that was broken in twain,
And ere I had gone at Port Roseway to fix,
I had chose to sell drams on the margin of Styx.

I confess, that, with shame and contrition opprest,
I sign'd an agreement to go with the rest,
But ere they weigh'd anchor to sail their last trip,
I saw they were vermin, and gave them the slip.

Now, why you should call me the worst man alive,
On the word of a convert, I cannot contrive,
Though turn'd a plain honest republican, still
You own me no proslelyte, do what I will.

My paper is alter'd—good people, don't fret;
I call it no longer the Royal Gazette:[255]
To me a great monarch has lost all his charms,
I have pull'd down his Lion, and trampled his Arms.

While fate was propitious, I thought they might stand,
You know I was zealous for George's command,
But since he disgrac'd it, and left us behind,
If I thought him an angel—I've alter'd my mind.

On the very same day that his army went hence
I ceas'd to tell lies for the sake of his pence;
And what was the reason—the true one is best—
I worship no suns when they move to the west:

In this I resemble a Turk or a Moor,
Bright Phœbus ascending, I prostrate adore;
And, therefore, excuse me for printing some lays,
An ode or a sonnet in Washington's praise.

His prudence alone [256] has preserv'd your dominions,
This bravest and boldest of all the Virginians!
And when he is gone—I pronounce it with pain—
We scarcely shall meet with his equal again.[257]

Old Plato asserted that life is a dream
And man but a shadow (whate'er he may seem)[258]
By which it is plain he intended to say
That man, like a shadow, must vanish away:

If this be the fact, in relation to man,
And if each one is striving to get what he can,
I hope, while I live, you will all think it best,
To allow me to bustle along with the rest.

A view of my life, though some parts might be solemn,
Would make, on the whole, a ridiculous volume:
In the life that's hereafter (to speak with submission)
I hope I shall publish a better edition:

Even swine you permit to subsist in the street;—
You pity a dog that lies down to be beat—
Then forget what is past—for the year's at a close—
And men of my age have some need of repose.

PART II

But as to the Tories that yet may remain,
They scarcely need give you a moment of pain:
What dare they attempt when their masters are fled;—
When the soul is departed who wars with the dead?

Poor souls! for the love of the king and his nation
They have had their full quota of mortification;
Wherever they fought, or whatever they won
The dream's at an end—the delusion is done.

The Temple you rais'd was so wonderful large
Not one of them thought you could answer the charge,
It seem'd a mere castle constructed of vapour,
Surrounded with gibbets and founded on Paper.

On the basis of freedom you built it too strong!
And Clinton [259] confess'd, when you held it so long,
That if any thing human the fabric could shatter
The Royal Gazette must accomplish the matter.[A]

An engine like that, in such hands as my own
Had shaken king Codjoe [B] himself from his throne,
In another rebellion had ruin'd the Scot,
While the Pope and Pretender had both gone to pot.

If you stood my attacks, I have nothing to say—
I fought, like the Swiss, for the sake of my pay;
But while I was proving your fabric unsound
Our vessel miss'd stay, and we all went aground.

Thus ended in ruin what madness begun,
And thus was our nation disgrac'd and undone,
Renown'd as we were, and the lords of the deep,
If our outset was folly, our exit was sleep.

A dominion like this, that some millions had cost!—
The king might have wept when he saw it was lost;—
This jewel—whose value I cannot describe;
This pearl—that was richer than all his Dutch tribe.

When the war came upon us, you very well knew
My income was small and my riches were few—
If your money was scarce, and your prospects were bad,
Why hinder me printing for people that had?

'Twould have pleas'd you, no doubt, had I gone with a few setts
Of books, to exist in your cold Massachusetts;
Or to wander at Newark, like ill fated Hugh,
Not a shirt to my back, nor a soal to my shoe.

Now, if we mistook (as we did, it is plain)
Our error was owing to wicked Hugh Gaine,
For he gave us such scenes of your starving and strife
As prov'd that his pictures were drawn from the life.

On the waves of the Styx had he rode quarantine,
He could not have look'd more infernally lean
Than the day, when returning dismay'd and distrest,
Like the doves to their windows, he flew to his nest.[260]

The part that he [261] acted, by some men of sense
Was wrongfully held to be malice propense,
When to all the world it was perfectly plain,
One principle rul'd him [262]—a passion for gain.

You pretend I have suffer'd no loss in the cause,
And have, therefore, no right to partake of your laws:
Some people love talking—I find to my cost,
I too am a loser—my character's lost![263]

Nay, did not your printers repeatedly stoop
To descant and reflect on my Portable Soup?
At me have your porcupines darted the quill,
You have plunder'd my Office,[C] and publish'd my Will.[264]

Resolv'd upon mischief, you held it no crime
To steal my Reflections,[265] and print them in rhyme,
When all the world knew, or at least they might guess,
That the time to reflect was no time to confess;[266]

You never consider'd my children and wife,[267]
That my lot was to toil and to struggle [268] through life;
My windows you broke—they are all on a jar,
And my house you have made a mere old man of war.

And still you insist I've no right to complain!—
Indeed if I do, I'm afraid it's in vain—
Yet am willing to hope you're too learnedly read
To hang up a printer for being misled.

If this be your aim, I must think of a flight—
In less than a month I must bid you good-night,
And hurry away to that whelp ridden shore
Where Clinton and Carleton retreated before.

From signs in the sky, and from tokens on land
I'm inclin'd to suspect my departure's at hand:
The man in the moon is unusually big,
And Inglis, they tell me, has grown a good Whig.[269]

For many days past, as the town can attest,
The tail of the weather-cock hung to the west—[270]
My shop, the last evening, seem'd all in a blaze,
And a hen crow'd at midnight, my waiting man says;

Even then, as I lay with strange whims in my head,
A ghost hove in sight, not a yard from my bed,
It seem'd Gen'ral Robertson,[271] brawly array'd,
But I grasp'd at the substance, and found him a shade!

He appear'd as of old, when, head of the throng,
And loaded with laurels, he waddled along—
He seem'd at the foot of my bedstead to stand
And cry'd—"Jemmy Rivington, reach me your hand;

"And Jemmy, (said he) I am sorry to find
"Some demon advis'd you to loiter behind;
"The country is hostile—you had better get off it,
"Here's nothing but squabbles, all plague and no profit!

"Since the day that Sir William came here with his throng
"He manag'd things so that they always went wrong,
"And tho' for his knighthood, he kept Meschianza,
"I think he was nothing but mere Sancho Pança.

"That famous conductor of moon-light retreats,
"Sir Harry, came next with his armies and fleets,
"But, finding the rebels were dying and dead,
"He grounded his arms and retreated to bed.

"Other luck we had once at the battle of Boyne!
"But here they have ruin'd Earl Charles and Burgoyne,
"Here brave col'nel Monckton was thrown on his back,
"And here lies poor André! the best of the pack."

So saying, he flitted away in a trice,
Just adding, "he hop'd I would take his advice"—
Which I surely shall do if you push me too hard—
And so I remain, with eternal regard,

James Rivington, printer, of late, to the king,
But now a republican—under your wing—
Let him stand where he is—don't push him down hill,
And he'll turn a true Blue-Skin, or just what you will.

[A]

"Si Pergama dextra
Defendi possent, etiam hac defensa fuissent."—Virg.
—Freneau's note.

[B] The Negro king in Jamaica, whom the English declared independent in 1739. See our Freeman's Journal, No. 37, for the treaty.—Freneau's note in 1783.

[C] November, 1775.—Freneau's note. On November 27, 1775, a band of armed men, under Sears of Connecticut, entered the city on horseback, destroyed his press and scattered his types.

[251] First published in the Freeman's Journal, December 31, 1783. The text follows the 1786 version.

[252] A New York printer, publisher of The New York Packet during the Revolutionary period. From 1776 until 1783 he published the paper at Fishkill.

[253] Shepard Kollock, soldier-editor of the Revolution. Established the New Jersey Journal at Chatham, N. J., in 1779. Removed in 1783 to New York, where he undertook the New York Gazetteer. Later, in 1787, he moved to Elizabeth-Town, N. J., and revived his first journal, which he successfully edited for thirty-one years. Kollock died in Philadelphia, July 28, 1839.

[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.

The Poems of Philip Freneau, Poet of the American Revolution. Volume 2 (of 3)

About This Book

MANHATTAN CITY[241]

VERSES[249]

RIVINGTON'S CONFESSIONS[251]

PART I

PART II

MANHATTAN CITY [241]

VERSES [249]

RIVINGTON'S CONFESSIONS [251]