A fair budding branch from the gardens above,

Where millions with millions agree,
She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love,

And the plant she named Liberty Tree.

The celestial exotic struck deep in the ground,

Like a native it flourish'd and bore:
The fame of its fruit drew the nations around,

To seek out this peaceable shore.
Unmindful of names or distinctions they came,

For freemen like brothers agree;
With one spirit endued, they one friendship pursued,

And their temple was Liberty Tree.

Beneath this fair tree, like the patriarchs of old,

Their bread in contentment they ate,
Unvexed with the troubles of silver or gold,

The cares of the grand and the great.
With timber and tar they Old England supplied,

And supported her power on the sea:
Her battles they fought, without getting a groat,

For the honour of Liberty Tree.

But hear, O ye swains (tis a tale most profane),

How all the tyrannical powers,
King, commons, and lords, are uniting amain,

To cut down this guardian of ours.
From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms,

Thro the land let the sound of it flee:
Let the far and the near all unite with a cheer,

In defence of our Liberty Tree.

VERSES TO A FRIEND, A ITER A LONG CONVERSATION ON WAR.

Th* r*lu pours dowu, the city loots forlorn,
And gloomy subjects suit the howling morn;
Close by my tire, with door and window fast,
And safely shelter \i from the driving blast,
To gayer thoughts 1 bid a day's adieu,
To spend a scene of solitude with you.

So oft has black revenge engross'd the care
Of all the leisure hours man finds to spare;
So oft has guilt in all her thousand dens,
Call'd for the vengeance of chastising pens;
That while I faiu would ease my heart on you,
No thought is left untold, no passion new.

From flight to flight the mental path appears,
Worn with the steps of near six thousand years,
And fill'd throughout with every scene of pain,
From modern murderers down to murderous Cain.
Alike in cruelty, alike in hate,
In guilt alike, but more alike in fate,
Cursed supremely for the blood they drew,
Each from the rising world, while each was new.

Go, men of blood! true likeness of the first, And strew your blasted heads with homely dust: In ashes sit—in wretched sackcloth weep, And with unpitied sorrows cease to sleep. Go haunt the tombs, and single out the place Where earth itself shall suffer a disgrace. Go spell the letters on some mouldering urn, And ask if he who sleeps there can return. Go count the numbers that in silence lie, And learn by study what it is to die; For sure your heart, if any heart you ownfc Conceits that man expires without a groan; That he who lives receives from you a grace, Or death is nothing but a change of place: That peace is dull, that joy from sorrow springs, And war the most desirable of things. Else why these scenes that wound the feeling mind, This sport of death—this cockpit of mankind! Why sobs the widow in perpetual pain? Why cries the orphan,—" Oh! my father's slain!" Why hangs the sire his paralytic head, And nods with manly grief—" My son is dead!" Why drops the tear from off the sister's cheek, And sweetly tells the misery she would speak i Or why, in sorrow sunk, does pensive John To all the neighbours tell, " Poor master's gone?"

Oh ! could I paint the passion that I feel, Or point a horror that would wound like steel,

To each unfeeling, unrelenting mind,
I'd seud destruction and relieve mankind.
You that are husbands, fathers, brothers, all
The tender names which kindred learn to call;
Yet like an image carved in massy stone,
You bear the shape, but sentiment have none;
Allied by dust and figure, not with mind,
You only herd, but live not with mankind.

Since then no hopes to civilize remain,
And mild philosophy has preach'd in vain,
One prayer is left which dreads no proud reply,
That he who made you breathe will make you die.

LINES
SENT TO SIR ROBERT SMITH,

Tie morning after asking Mr. Paine over nigit tie question

WHAT IS LOVE?

Paris, 1800.

Tis that delightful transport we can feel,
Which painters cannot paint, nor words reveal,
Nor any art we know of,—can conceal.
Canst thou describe the sun-beams to the blind,
Or make him feel a shadow with his mind:

L

So neither can we by description show
This first of all felicities below.

When happy Love pours magic o'er the soul,

And all our thoughts in sweet delirium roll;

When Contemplation spreads her rainbow wings,

And every flutter some new rapture brings:

How sweetly then our moments glide away,

And dreams repeat the raptures of the day;

We live in ecstacy to all things kind,

For Love can teach a moral to the mind.

But are there not some other marks that prove,

What is this wonder of the soul, call'd Love?

O yes, there are, but of a different kind,
The dreadful horrors of a dismal mind.
Some jealous fury throws her poison'd dart
And rends in pieces the distracted heart.

When Love's a tyrant, and the soul a slave,
No hopes remain to thought, but in the grave;
In that dark den, it sees an end to grief,
And what was once its dread, becomes relief.

What are the iron chains that hands have wrought?
The hardest chains to break, are those of thought.
Think well of this, ye lovers, and be kind,
Nor play with torture—or a tortured mind.