A fair budding branch from the gardens above, She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love, The celestial exotic struck deep in the ground, The fame of its fruit drew the nations around, Unmindful of names or distinctions they came, With one spirit endued, they one friendship pursued, Beneath this fair tree, like the patriarchs of old, But hear, O ye swains (tis a tale most profane), 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, AFTER A LONG CONVERSATION ON WAR. THE rain pours down, the city looks forlorn, 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 fain would ease my heart on you, No thought is left untold, no passion new. From flight to flight the mental path appears, 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 own 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!" And nods with manly grief-" My son is dead!" Oh! could I paint the passion that I feel, Or point a horror that would wound like steel, To each unfeeling, unrelenting mind, Since then no hopes to civilize remain, LINES SENT TO SIR ROBERT SMITH, The morning after asking Mr. Paine over night the question WHAT IS LOVE? Paris, 1800. "TIs that delightful transport we can feel, So neither can we by description show When happy LOVE pours magic o'er the soul, And all our thoughts in sweet delirium roll; When CONTEMPLATION spreads her rainbow wings, O yes, there are, but of a different kind, When LovE's a tyrant, and the soul a slave, What are the iron chains that hands have wrought? |