The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Poems of Philip Freneau (Volume III).

On prancing steed, with spunge at nose,
From town behold Sangrado fly;
Camphor and Tar where'er he goes
Th' infected shafts of death defy—
Safe in an atmosphere of scents,
He leaves us to our own defence.

'Twas right to fly! for well, I ween,
In Stygian worlds, all scribes agree,
No blushing blossom e'er was seen,
Or running brook, or budding tree:
No splendid meats, no flowing bowls,
Smile on the meagre feast of souls:

No sprightly songs, to banish grief,
No balls, the Elysian beaus prepare,
And he that throve on rounds of beef,
On onion shells shall famish there—
Monarchs are there of little note,
And Cæsar wears a shabby coat.

Chloes on earth, of air and shape,
Whose eyes destroy'd poor love-lorn wights,
There lower their topsails to the cap,
Rig in their booms and furl their kites:—
Where Cupid's bow was never bent,
What lover asks a maid's consent?

All this, and more, Sangrado knew,
(In Lucian is the story told)
Took horse—clapped spurs—and off he flew,
Leaving his Sick to fret and scold;
Some soldiers, thus, to honour lost,
In day of battle quit their post.

ELEGY [77]

With the nerves of a Sampson, this son of the sledge,
By the anvil his livelihood got;
With the skill of old Vulcan could temper an edge;
And struck—while his iron was hot.

By forging he lived, yet never was tried,
Or condemned by the laws of the land;
But still it is certain, and can't be denied,
He often was burnt in the hand.

With the sons of St. Crispin no kindred he claimed,
With the last he had nothing to do;
He handled no awl, and yet in his time
Made many an excellent shoe.

He blew up no coals of sedition, but still
His bellows was always in blast;
And we will acknowledge (deny it who will)
That one Vice, and but one, he possessed.

No actor was he, or concerned with the stage,
No audience, to awe him, appeared;
Yet oft in his shop (like a crowd in a rage)
The voice of a hissing was heard.

Tho' steelling [78] was certainly part of his cares,
In thieving he never was found;
And, tho' he was constantly beating on bars,
No vessel he e'er ran aground.

Alas and alack! and what more can I say
Of Vulcan's unfortunate son?—
The priest and the sexton have borne him away,
And the sound of his hammer is done.

TO SYLVIUS [79]

Can love of fame the gentle muse inspire
Where he that hoards the most has all the praise;
Where avarice, and her tribe, each bosom fire,
All heap the enormous store for rainy days;
Proving by such perpetual round of toil
That man was born to grovel on the soil?

Expect not, in these times of rude renown
That verse, like your's, will have the chance to please:
No taste for plaintive elegy is known,
Nor lyric ode—none care for things like these—
Gold, only gold, this niggard age delights,
That honours none but money-catching wights.

Sink not beneath the mean abusive strain
Of puny wits, dull sycophants in song,
Who, post, or place, or one poor smile to gain,
Besiege Mambrino's door, and round him throng
Like insects creeping to the morning sun
To enjoy his heat—themselves possessing none.

All must applaud your choice, to quit a stage
Where knaves and fools in every scene abound;
Where modest worth no patron can engage—
But boisterous folly walks her noisy round;
Some narrow-hearted demi-god adores,
And Fortune's path with servile step explores.

THE BLESSINGS OF THE POPPY [80]

When the first men to this world's climates came
Smit by the winter's rude inclement blast,
Unskilled to raise the wall, or wake the fire,
Badly, in narrow huts, their lives they passed.

Conscious of pains they knew not how to cure,
In vain they sighed, and sighing begged relief,
No druggist came, by art or reason taught
With strength of potent herbs, to calm their grief.

Fierce tortures to allay, some reverend sage
Preach'd Patience to the pangs, that could not hear;
For restless anguish doomed her victim still
To groan thro' life, and sigh from year to year,

At length from Jove, and heaven's etherial dome
Sky-walking Hermes came to view these plains:
He looked—and saw what fate or gods had done,
And gave the Poppy, to relieve all pains.

Then to the sons of grief his speech addressed,
"Through this dull flower is shed such potent dew,
"When pain distracts—drink this—and drown in sleep
"All ills, that Nature sent to torture you.

"From other worlds, by other beings trod,
"To these bleak climes this plundered plant I bore;
"Receive a gift, all worthy of a god,
"Since pain, when hushed to sleep,—is pain no more."

QUINTILIAN TO LYCIDAS [81]

"While other lads their books forsake,
Or sigh to meet the hours of play:
You, Lycidas, no leisure take,
But still through learned volumes stray:—
With years so few, ah why so grave;
Why every hour to books a slave?

Hence, Lycidas, I pray, retire:
Go with your mates, and take your play—
Not him I prize, or much admire,
Who, curious, hangs on all I say:
The lad that's wise before his time,
Will be a coxcomb in his prime.

Stay not too close in learning's shop;—
'Till time a riper mind prepares,
The ball, the marble, and the top
Are books, that should divide your cares—
The lads that life's gay morn enjoy,
I'm pleased to see them act the boy.

I hate the pert, I hate the bold,
Who, proud of years but half a score,
With none but men would converse hold,
And things beyond their reach explore:
Like the famed Cretan, soaring high,
To melt their waxen wings and die."

THE BAY ISLET [82]

In shallow streams, a league from town,
(Its baby Light-House tumbled down)
Extends a country, full in view,
Beheld by all, but known to few.

Surrounded by the briny waste
No haven here has Nature placed;
But those who wish to pace it o'er
Must land upon the open shore.

There as I sailed, to view the ground;
No blooming goddesses I found—
But yellow hags, ordained to prove
The death, and antidote of love.

Ten stately trees adorn the isle,
The house, a crazy, tottering pile,
Where once the doctor plied his trade
On feverish tars and rakes decayed.

Six hogs about the pastures feed
(Sweet mud-larks of the Georgia breed)
Who, while the hostess deals out drams,
Can oysters catch, and open clams.

Upon its surface, smooth and clean,
A world, in miniature, is seen;
Though scarce a journey for a snail
We meet with mountain, hill, and vale.

To those that guard this stormy place,
Two cities stare them in the face:
There, York its spiry summits rears,
And here Cummunipaw appears.

The tenant, now but ill at ease,
Derives no fuel from his trees:
And Jersey boats, though begged to land,
All leave him on the larboard hand.

Some monied man, grown sick of care,
To this neglected spot repair:
What Nature sketched, let art complete,
And own the loveliest Country Seat.

JEFFERY, OR, THE SOLDIER'S PROGRESS [83]

Lured by some corporal's smooth address,
His scarlet coat and roguish face,
One Half A Joe on drum head laid,
A tavern treat—and reckoning paid;
See yonder simple lad consigned
To slavery of the meanest kind.

With only skill to drive a plough
A musquet he must handle now;
Must twirl it here and twirl it there,
Now on the ground, now in the air:
Its every motion by some rule
Of practice, taught in Frederick's school,[A]
Must be directed—nicely true—
Or he be beaten black—and blue.

A sergeant, raised from cleaning shoes,
May now this country lad abuse:—
On meagre fare grown poor and lean,
He treats him like a mere machine,
Directs his look, directs his step,
And kicks him into decent shape,
From aukward habits frees the clown,
Erects his head—or knocks him down.

Last Friday week to Battery-green
The sergeant came with this Machine—
One motion of the firelock missed—
The Tutor thumped him with his fist:
I saw him lift his hickory cane,
I heard poor Jeffery's head complain!—
Yet this—and more—he's forced to bear;
And thus goes on from year to year,
'Till desperate grown at such a lot,
He drinks—deserts—and so is shot!

TO SHYLOCK AP-SHENKIN [84]

In shallow caves, with shrill voic'd conchs hung round,
And pumpkin-shells, responding all they hear,
A bard, call'd Shylock, catches every sound,
Governs their tone, pricks up his lengthy ear:
In putrid ink then dips his pen of lead
And scribbles down what learn'd Pomposo said.

Bard of the lengthy ode! whose knavish paw
Ne'er touch'd the helm, besprent with odious pitch!
'Twas better far, you knew, to practice Law,
Whine at the church, or in the court-house screech:
No soul had you to face the wintry blast,
Combat the storm, or climb the tottering mast.

Then why so wroth, thou bard of narrow soul,
If wavering Fortune bade me seek the brine:
I drank no nectar from your leaden bowl,
Nor from your poems filch'd a single line:
When I do that—then publish from your caves,
Who robs a beggar—is the worst of knaves!

TO A WRITER OF PANEGYRIC [85]

Occasioned by certain fulsome Congratulatory Verses on the election of a High Constable

Be advised by a friend, who advises but rarely,
Be cautious of praising 'till praise is earned fairly:
There was a sage Ancient this truth did bequeath,
"That merit is only determined by death."

Panegyric I'm sorry to see you engage in—
Old Nero, at first, was a Titus, or Trajan:
The Indians of Siam bow down to a Log,
And Egypt is said to have worshipped a Dog.[A]

If you will be throwing your jewels to swine,
No wonder they rend you—whenever they dine—
Pray, leave it to puppies to cry up their worth,
And to dunces, to honour the day of their birth.

Whoever the road to preferment would find,
With the eyes of a Dutchman must look at mankind;
From the basest of motives, cry cowards are brave,
And laugh in his sleeve—when he flatters a knave.

THE FOREST BEAU [86]

When first to feel Love's fire Jack Straw begins,
He combs his hair, and cocks his hat with pins,
Views in some stream, his face, with fond regard,
Plucks from his upper lip the bristly beard,
With soap and sand his homely visage scours
(Rough from the joint attacks of sun and showers)
The sheepskin breeches decorate his thighs—
Next on his back the homespun coat he tries;
Round his broad breast he wraps the jerkin blue,
And sews a spacious soal on either shoe.
Thus, all prepared, the fond adoring swain
Cuts from his groves of pine a ponderous cane;
In thought a beau, a savage to the eye,
Forth, from his mighty bosom, heaves the sigh;
Tobacco is the present for his fair,
This he admires, and this best pleases her—
The bargain struck,—few cares his bosom move
How to maintain, or how to lodge his love;
Close at his hand the piny forest grows,
Thence for his hut a slender frame he hews,
With art, (not copied from Palladio's rules,)
A hammer and an axe, his only tools,
By Nature taught, a hasty hut he forms
Safe in the woods, to shelter from the storms;—
There sees the summer pass and winter come,
Nor envies Britain's king his loftier home.

EPISTLE [87]

I pity him, who, at no small expense,
Has studied sound instead of sense:
He, proud some antique gibberish to attain;
Of Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, vain,
Devours the husk, and leaves the grain.

In his own language Homer writ and read,
Nor spent his life in poring on the dead:
Why then your native language not pursue
In which all ancient sense (that's worth review)
Glows in translation, fresh and new?

He better plans, who things, not words, attends,
And turns his studious hours to active ends;
Who Art through every secret maze explores,
Invents, contrives—and Nature's hidden stores
From mirrours, to their object true,
Presents to man's obstructed view,
That dimly meets the light, and faintly soars:—

His strong capacious mind
By fetters unconfin'd
Of Latin lore and heathen Greek,
Takes Science in its way,
Pursues the kindling ray
'Till Reason's morn shall on him break!

TO A NOISY POLITICIAN [88]

Since Shylock's Book has walk'd the circles here,
What numerous blessings to our country flow!
Whales on our shores have run aground,
Sturgeons are in our rivers found;
Nay, ships have on the Delaware sail'd,
A sight most new!
Wheat has been sown, harvests have grown,
And Shylock held strange dialogues with Sue.

On coaches, now, gay coats of arms are wore
By some, who hardly had a coat before:
Silk gowns instead of homespun, now, are seen,
And, sir, 'tis true ('twixt me and you)
That some have grown prodigious fat,
That were prodigious lean!

THE SEXTON'S SERMON [89]

A few short years, at most, will bound our span;
("Wretched and few," the Hebrew patriarch said)
Live while you may, be jovial while you can;
Too soon our debt to Nature, must be paid.

When Nature fails, the man exists no more,
And death is nothing but an empty name,
Spleen's odious offspring, in some gloomy hour;—
The coward's tyrant, and the bad man's dream.

You ask me, where those numerous hosts have fled
That once existed on this changeful ball?
If aught remains, when mortal man is dead,[A]
Where ere their birth they were, they now are all.

Seek not for Paradise!—'tis not for you
Where, high in heaven, its sweetest blossoms blow;
Nor even, where gliding to the Persian main,
Your waves, Euphrates, through the garden flow,

What is this Death, ye thoughtless mourners, say?
Death is no more than never-ceasing change:
New forms arise, while other forms decay,
Yet, all is life throughout creation's range.

The towering Alps, the haughty Appenine,
The Andes, wrapt in everlasting snow,
The Apalachian, and the Ararat,
Sooner or later, must to ruin go.

Hills sink to plains, and man returns to dust;
That dust supports a reptile or a flower;
Each changeful atom, by some other nursed,
Takes some new form, to perish in an hour.

When Nature bids thee from the world retire,
With joy thy lodging leave, a sated guest,
In sleep's blest state (our Dullman's fond desire)
Existing always—always to be blest.

Like insects busy in a summer's day,
We toil and squabble, to increase our pain:
Night comes at last, and weary of the fray,
To dust and silence all are sent again!

Beneath my hand what numerous crowds retire—
By the cold turf for ages, now, oppressed!
Millions have fallen—and millions must expire,
Doomed by the impartial Power to endless rest.

In vain with stars He decked yon' spangled skies,
And bade the mind to heaven's bright regions soar,
And brought so far to your admiring eyes
A glimpse of glories, that shall blaze no more!

What is there here, that man should wish to bear
A weight of years?—such rage to madness vext;
Wan, wasting, grief, and ever musing care,
Distressful pain, and poverty perplext?—

What is there here, but tombs and monuments—
Tyrants—who misery spread through every shore;
Wide wasting wars, the scourge of innocence;
Fevers and plagues, with all their noxious store?

Before we called this wrangling world our home,
In undisturbed abodes we sweetly slept:
But when dame Nature made that world our doom,
'Twas then our troubles came—and then we wept!

Though humbled now, disheartened, or distressed,
Yet, when returning to the peaceful ground,
With heroes, kings, and conquerors we shall rest;
Shall sleep as sweetly, and no doubt, as sound.

Ne'er shall we hope to see the day-light spring
Or from the up-lifted window lean to hear
(Fore-runner of the scarlet-mantled morn)
The early note of wakeful Chanticleer!

Oblivion there, expands her raven wing:—
We soon must go where all the dead are gone,
Trace the dull path, explore the gloomy road
To that dark country, where I see no dawn.

Then why these sobs, these useless floods of woe,
That vainly flow for the departed dead?
If doomed to wander on the coasts below,
What are to them these floods of grief you shed?

Since heaven in rapture doth their hours employ—
If empty sighs, or groans, could reach them there,
These funeral howls would damp their heaven of joy,
Would make them wretched, and renew their care.

The joys of wine, immortal as my theme,
To days of mirth the aspiring soul invite:
Life, void of this, a punishment I deem,
A Greenland winter, robbed of heat and light.

Ah! envy not, ye sages too precise,
The drop from life's gay tree, that kills our woe—
Noah himself, the wary and the wise,
A vineyard planted—and the vines did grow.

(Of social soul was he)—the grape he pressed,
And drank the juice, oblivious to his care:
Sorrow he banished from his place of rest,
And sighs, and sextons, had no business there.

Such bliss be our's through every changing scene:
The jovial face bespeaks the glowing heart;
If heaven be joy, wine is to heaven a-kin,
Since wine, on earth, can heavenly joys impart.

Mere glow-worms are we all—a moment shine!—
I, like the rest, in giddy circles run,
And grief shall say, when I this breath resign,
His glass is empty, and his sermon done!

ON A LEGISLATIVE ACT [90]

Prohibiting the use of Spirituous Liquors to Prisoners in certain Jails of the United States

Give to the wretched, drink that's strong,
(Said David's Son) but we, more wise,
With Cyder, from the hogshead, rough,
Molasses-Beer, and such dull stuff,
The miseries of the imprison'd host prolong.

"Shut up in jail from day to day
(Methinks I hear a Debtor say)
"Victims to public rage and private spite,
"All that we had to keep our spirits up
"Was glowing wine that fill'd the cheering cup,
"This banish'd care, and check'd the rising sigh
"Chac'd grief from every heart, gave joy to every eye.

"And will ye not this only comfort leave,
"Ye men that frame the public laws?—
"Parted from children, friends, and wives,
"How heavily the moments roll:
"What comfort have we of our lives
"If you deny this cordial of the soul?
"'Tis this that kills the tedious hour,
"Puts misery out of fortune's power.
"'Tis this that to the dial's hand lends wings,
"Gives to the beggar all the pride of kings,
"Sheds joy throughout our gloomy cage
"And bids us scorn the little tyrant's rage,

"They that are unconfin'd drink what they will—
"Who gave the right to limit men in jail?
"Because misfortune sent us here
"Must we for that be drench'd with 'table beer,'
"Or, in its stead, with Adam's ale?—
"Relent—relent! contrive some other plan;
"Wine is the dearest, choicest friend of man—
"They that are out of jail, of all degrees,
"Can spend their leisure as they please,
"We, that are in, must pass it as we can."

PESTILENCE [75]

ON DR. SANGRADO'S FLIGHT [76]