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ODE TO PEACE.

I.

COME, peace of mind, delightful guest!
Return, and make thy downy nest
Once more in this sad heart:
Nor riches I nor pow'r pursue,
Nor hold forbidden joys in view;
We therefore need not part.
II.

Where wilt thou dwell, if not with me,
From av'rice and ambition free,

And pleasure's fatal wiles?

For whom, alas! dost thou prepare
The sweets that I was wont to share,
The banquet of thy smiles?

III.

The great, the gay, shall they partake
The heav'n, that thou alone canst make?
And wilt thou quit the stream,

That murmurs through the dewy mead,
The grove and the sequester'd shed,
To be a guest with them?
IV.

For thee I panted, thee I priz❜d,
For thee I gladly sacrific'd

Whate'er I lov'd before;

And shall I see thee start away,

And helpless, hopeless, hear thee say→→→→ Farewell! we meet no more?

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The bow well bent, and smart the spring, Vice seems already slain ;

But Passion rudely snaps the string,

And it revives again.

III.

Some foe to his upright intent
Finds out his weaker part;

Virtue engages his assent,

But Pleasure wins his heart.

IV.

"Tis here the folly of the wise

Through all his art we view;

And, while his tongue the charge denies, His conscience owns it true.

V.

Bound on a voyage of awful length

And dangers little known,

A stranger to superiour strength,

Man vainly trusts his own.

VI.

But oars alone can ne'er prevail,

To reach the distant coast;

The breath of heav'n must swell the sail, Or all the toil is lost.

THE MODERN PATRIOT.

REBELLION is my theme all day;
I only wish 'twould come

(As who knows but perhaps it may?)
A little nearer home.

II.

Yon roaring boys, who rave and fight
On t'other side th' Atlantick,

I always held them in the right,

But most so when most frantick.
III.

When lawless mobs insult the court,
That man shall be my toast,
If breaking windows be the sport,
Who bravely breaks the most.
IV.

But O! for him my fancy culls
The choicest flow'rs she bears,

Who constitutionally pulls
Your house about your ears.

V.

Such civil broils are my delight,

Though some folks can't endure them,

Who say the mob are mad outright,
And that a rope must cure them.
VI.

A rope! I wish we patriots had

Such strings for all who need 'emWhat! hang a man for going mad! Then farewell British freedom.

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ON OBSERVING SOME

NAMES OF LITTLE NOTE

RECORDED IN

THE BIOGRAPHIA BRITANNICA.

OH, fond attempt to give a deathless lot
To names ignoble, born to be forgot!
In vain, recorded in historick page,
They court the notice of a future age:
Those twinkling tiny lustres of the land
Drop one by one from Fame's neglecting hand;
Lethæan gulfs receive them as they fall,
And dark oblivion soon absorbs them all.

So when a child, as playful children use,
Has burnt to tinder a stale last year's news,
The flame extinct, he views the roving fire-
There goes my lady, and there goes the squire,
There goes the parson, oh illustrious spark!
And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk!

REPORT

OF AN ADJUDGED CASE, NOT TO BE FOUND IN ANY OF THE BOOKS.

I.

BETWEEN Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose,
The spectacles set them unhappily wrong;
The point in dispute was, as all the world knows,
To which the said spectacles ought to belong.

II.

So Tongue was the lawyer, and argu'd the cause With a great deal of skill, and a wig full of learn

ing;

While chief baron Ear sat to balance the laws,
So fam'd for his talent in nicely discerning.

III.

In behalf of the Nose it will quickly appear,

And your lordship, he said, will undoubtedly find, That the Nose has had spectacles always in wear, Which amounts to possession time out of mind. IV.

Then holding the spectacles up to the courtYour lordship observes they are made with a straddle,

As wide as the ridge of the Nose is; in short,
Design'd to sit close to it, just like a saddle.

V.

Again, would your lordship a moment suppose

('Tis a case that has happen'd, and may be again)

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