These had no charms to please the sense, To win the Muse's throng: Thy foes, a frontless band, invade; And yield up half the right. Ev'n Locke beams forth a mingled ray, Hence are the motley systems fram'd, Wise nature mocks the wrangling herd; While law the royal agent moves, But change, or cease th' inspiring choice, Shall then the wretch, whose dastard heart Shrinks at a tyrant's nobler part, And only dares betray; With reptile wiles, alas! prevail, Where force, and rage, and priest-craft fail, To pilfer pow'r away? O! shall the bought, and buying tribe,- So Indian murd'rers hope to gain The pow'rs, and virtues of the slain, "Avert it, Heav'n! you love the brave, "You hate the treach'rous, willing slave, "The self-devoted head. "Nor shall an hireling's voice convey "That sacred prize to lawless sway, "For which a nation bled." Vain pray'r, the coward's weak resource! Propitious Heaven bestows. But ne'er shall flame the thund'ring sky, Before their weaker foes. In names there dwell no magic charms, Unloos'd our fathers' band: Say, Greece and Rome! if these should fail, What names, what ancestors avail, To save a sinking land ? Far, far from us such ills shall be, Whose title speaks a People's choice, ODE II. ON TRUE GREATNESS. BY THE REV. MR. HUDSON. LET who will climb the towery steep Below, the pitchy pinnace rides: Dash'd down the pointed rocks, the rash unfortunate. Mine be the low and level way, Amid the quiet vale to stray. Safe in some sylvan lodge to dwell, And lull'd by the clear stream that speeds By shallow fords to rustling reeds, And small lakes, fring'd with homely asphodel. There sits the calm, the rural sage, With nature's volume fair in view; And meditates the shining page Replete with wonders ever new: While Wisdom points on either hand, Where plants, and herbs, and flow'rets stand In emerald groves, and shadowy glades, To him explains each moral scene: Or glow-worm, with fallacious blaze, Just emblem of court greatness, frail and vain. Oft in his woodland walk he stops to mark Warn'd by the dawning in the dappled east, Now sings unrivall❜d in his radiant sphere. First of the families of fame, That Rome's imperial city grace, The Fabian and Fabrician race; To Sabine fields she owes the vine, Whose tendrils yet round Virtue's column twine; Which braves Oppression's wintry breath, And stand the icy touch of Death. |