verses

Thus has Britannia's glory beam'd,
Where'er bright Phœbus, from his car,
To earth his cheerful rays hath stream'd,
Adown the crystal vault of air.
Enough o'er Britain's shining arms,
Hath Victory display'd her charms
Amid the horrid pomp of war-
Descend then, Peace, angelic maid,

And smoothe BELLONA's haggard brow;
Haste to diffuse thy healing aid,

Where'er implored by scenes of wo.
Henceforth whoe'er disturbs thy reign
Or stains the world with human gore,
Be they from earth (a gloomy train!)

Banish'd to hell's profoundest shore;
Where Vengeance, on Avernus' lake,
Rages, with furious ATE bound;
And black Rebellion's fetters shake,

And Discord's hideous murmurs sound;
Where Envy's noxious snakes entwine
Her temples round, in gorgon mood,
And bellowing Faction rolls supine

Along the flame-becurled flood!-
Hence, then, to that accursed place,
Disturbers of the human race!

And with you bear Ambition wild, and selfish Pride,
With Persecution foul, and Terror by her side.

Thus driven from earth, War's horrid train-
O Peace, thou nymph divine, draw near!
Here let the muses fix their reign,

And crown with fame each rolling year.
Source of joy and genuine pleasure,
Queen of quiet, queen of leisure,

Haste thy votaries to cheer!
Cherish'd beneath thy hallow'd rule,
Shall Pennsylvania's glory rise;
Her sons, bred up in Virtue's school,
Shall lift her honours to the skies-
A state thrice blest with lenient sway,
Where Liberty exalts the mind;
Where Plenty basks the live-long day
And pours her treasures unconfined.
Hither, ye beauteous virgins tend,

With Art and Science by your side,
Whose skill the untutor'd morals mend,
And mankind to fair honour guide;
And with you bring the graces three,

To fill the soul with glory's blaze;
Whose charms give grace to poesy,

And consecrate the immortal lays-
Such as, when mighty PINDAR sung,
Through the Alphean village rung;

Or such as, Meles, by thy lucid fountains flow'd,
When bold MEONIDES with heavenly transports glow'd.

To such, may Delaware, majestic flood,

Lend, from his flowery banks, a ravish'd ear;
Such note as may delight the wise and good,
Or saints celestial may endure to hear!
For if the muse can aught of time descry,
Such notes shall sound thy crystal waves along,
Thy cities fair with glorious Athens vie,
Nor pure lissus boast a nobler song.
On thy fair banks, a fane to Virtue's name
Shall rise and Justice light her holy flame.
All hail, then, Peace! restore the golden days,
And round the ball diffuse Britannia's praise;
Stretch her wide empire to the world's last end,
Till kings remotest to her sceptre bend!

JOHN OSBORN of Sandwich, in Massachusetts, who died in 1753, wrote a "Whaling Song" which was well known in the Pacific

lege, in 1735, he addressed an elegiac epistle to one of his sisters, on the death of a member of the family, of which I quote the first part

Dear sister, see the smiling spring

In all its beauties here;

The groves a thousand pleasures bring,
A thousand grateful scenes appear.
With tender leaves the trees are crown'd,
And scatter'd blossoms all around,

Of various dyes

Salute your eyes,

And cover o'er the speckled ground. Now thickets shade the glassy fountains; Trees o'erhang the purling streams; Whisp'ring breezes brush the mountains, Grots are fill'd with balmy steams.

But, sister, all the sweets that grace
The spring and blooming nature's face;
The chirping birds,
Nor lowing herds;
The woody hills,

Nor murm'ring rills;
The sylvan shades,

Nor flowery meads,

To me their former joys dispense,
Though all their pleasures court my sense,
But melancholy damps my mind;

I lonely walk the field,
With inward sorrow fill'd,

And sigh to every breathing wind.

The facetious MATHER BYLES was in his time equally famous as a poet and a wit. A contemporary bard exclaims

Would but APOLLO's genial touch inspire

Such sounds as breathe from BYLES's warbling lyre,
Then might my notes in melting measures flow,
And make all nature wear the signs of wo.

And his humour is celebrated in a poetical
account of the clergy of Boston, quoted by
Mr. SAMUEL KETTELL, in his " Specimens of
American Poetry,”-

There's punning BYLES, provokes our smiles,

A man of stately parts.

He visits folks to crack his jokes,

Which never mend their hearts.

With strutting gait, and wig so great,

He walks along the streets;

And throws out wit, or what's like it,
To every one he meets.

BYLES was graduated at Cambridge in 1725, and was ordained the first minister of the church in Hollis street, in 1732. He soon became eminent as a preacher, and the King's College at Aberdeen conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. He was one of the authors of "A Collection of Poems by several Hands," which appeared in 1744, and of numerous essays and metrical compositions in "The New England Weekly Journal," the merit of which was such as to introduce him to the notice of POPE and other English scholars. One of his poems is entitled "The Conflagration;" and it is "applied to that grand catastrophe of our world when the face of nature is to be changed

by a deluge of fire." show its style

Yet shall ye, flames, the wasting globe refine, And bid the skies with purer splendour shine. The earth, which the prolific fires consume, To beauty burns, and withers into bloom; Improving in the fertile flame it lies, Fades into form, and into vigour dies: Fresh-dawning glories blush amidst the blaze, And nature all renews her flowery face. With endless charms the everlasting year Rolls round the seasons in a full career; Spring, ever-blooming, bids the fields rejoice, And warbling birds try their melodious voice; Where'er she treads, lilies unbidden blow, Quick tulips rise, and sudden roses glow : Her pencil paints a thousand beauteous scenes, Where blossoms bud amid immortal greens; Each stream, in mazes, murmurs as it flows, And floating forests gently bend their boughs. Thou, autumn, too, sitt'st in the fragrant shade, While the ripe fruits blush all around thy head: And lavish nature, with luxuriant hands, All the soft months, in gay confusion blends. BYLES was earnestly opposed to the Revolution, and in the spring of 1777 was denounced in the public assemblies as a Tory, and compelled to give bonds for his appearance before a court for trial. In the following June he was convicted of treasonable conversation, and hostility to the country, and sentenced to be imprisoned forty days on board a guard ship, and at the end of that period to be sent with his family to England. The board of war however took his case into consideration, and commuted the punishment to a short confinement under a guard in his own house; but, though he continued to reside in Boston during the remainder of his life, he never again entered a pulpit, nor regained his ante-revolutionary popularity. He died in 1788, in the eightysecond year of his age.

He was a favourite in every social or convivial circle, and no one was more fond of his society than the colonial governor, BELCHER, on the death of whose wife he wrote an elegy ending with

Meantime my name to thine allied shall stand, Still our warm friendship, mutual flames extend; The muse shall so survive from age to age, And BELCHER's name protect his BYLES's page. The doctor had declined an invitation to visit with the governor the province of Maine, and BELCHER resorted to a stratagem to secure his company. Having persuaded him to drink tea with him on board the Scarborough ship of war, one Sunday afternoon, as soon as they were seated at the table the anchor was weighed, the sails set, and before the punning parson had called for his last cup, the ship was too far at sea for him to think of returning to the shore. As every thing necessary for his comfort had been thoughtfully provided, he was easily reconciled to the voyage. While

Great GOD, thy works our wonder raise;
To thee our swelling notes belong;
While skies and winds, and rocks and seas,
Around shall echo to our song.

Thy power produced this mighty frame,
Aloud to thee the tempests roar,
Or softer breezes tune thy name
Gently along the shelly shore.
Round thee the scaly nation roves,

Thy opening hands their joys bestow,
Through all the blushing coral groves,
These silent gay retreats below.

See the broad sun forsake the skies,
Glow on the waves, and downward glide;
Anon heaven opens all its eyes,

And star-beams tremble o'er the tide.
Each various scene, or day or night,

LORD! points to thee our nourish'd soul;
Thy glories fix our whole delight;

So the touch'd needle courts the pole. JOSEPH GREEN, a merchant of Boston, who had been a classmate of BYLES at Cambridge, was little less celebrated than the doctor for humour; and some of his poetical compositions were as popular ninety years ago as in our own time have been those of "CROAKER & Co.," which they resemble in spirit and playful ease of versification. The abduction of the Hollis street minister was the cause of not a little merriment in Boston; and GREEN, between whom and BYLES there was some rivalry, as the leaders of opposing social factions, soon after wrote a burlesque account of it

In DAVID'S Psalms an oversight
BYLES found one morning at his tea,
Alas! that he should never write
A proper psalm to sing at sea.
Thus ruminating on his seat,
Ambitious thoughts at length prevail'd,
The bard determined to complete

The part wherein the prophet fail'd.
He sat awhile and stroked his muse,*
Then taking up his tuneful pen,
Wrote a few stanzas for the use
Of his seafaring bretheren.
The task perform'd, the bard content,
Well chosen was each flowing word;
On a short voyage himself he went,

To hear it read and sung on board.
Most serious Christians do aver,
(Their credit sure we may rely on,)
In former times that after prayer,
They used to sing a song of Zion.
Our modern parson having pray'd,

Unless loud fame our faith beguiles,
Sat down, took out his book and said,
"Let's sing a psalm of MATHER BYLES."
At first, when he began to read,

Their heads the assembly downward hung,
But he with boldness did proceed,

And thus he read, and thus they sung.
*BYLES's favourite cat, so named by his friends.

THE PSALM.

With vast amazement we survey

The wonders of the deep, Where mackerel swim, and porpoise play, And crabs and lobsters creep. Fish of all kinds inhabit here,

And throng the dark abode. Here haddock, hake, and flounders are, And eels, and perch, and cod. From raging winds and tempests free, So smoothly as we pass, The shining surface seems to be

A piece of Bristol glass.

But when the winds and tempests rise,
And foaming billows swell,

The vessel mounts above the skies
And lower sinks than hell.

Our heads the tottering motion feel,
And quickly we become

Giddy as new-dropp'd calves, and reel
Like Indians drunk with rum.

What praises then are due that we
Thus far have safely got,
Amarescoggin tribe to see,

And tribe of Penobscot.

In 1750 GREEN published "An Entertainment for a Winter Evening," in which he ridicules the freemasons; and afterward, "The Sand Bank," "A True Account of the Celebration of St. JOHN the Baptist," and several shorter pieces, all of which I believe were satirical. His epigrams are the best written in this country before the Revolution; and many anecdotes are told to show the readiness of his wit and his skill as an improvisator. On one occasion, a country gentleman, knowing his reputation as a poet, procured an introduction to him, and solicited a "first rate epi

taph" for a favourite servant who had lately

died. GREEN asked what were the man's chief qualities, and was told that "COLE excelled in all things, but was particularly good at raking hay, which he could do faster than anybody, the present company, of course, excepted." GREEN wrote immediately

Here lies the body of JOHN COLE,
His master loved him like his soul;
He could rake hay, none could rake faster
Except that raking dog, his master.

In his old age GREEN left Boston for England, rather from the infirmities of age, than from indifference to the cause of liberty.

Contemporary with BYLES and GREEN was the celebrated Doctor BENJAMIN CHURCH. He was born in Boston in 1739, and graduated at Cambridge when in the sixteenth year of his age. After finishing his professional education, he established himself as a physician in his native city, and soon became eminent by his literary and political writings. At the commencement of the revolutionary troubles, he was chosen a member of the Massachusetts legislature, and after the battle of Lexington

was appointed surgeon-general of the army. In the autumn of 1775 he was suspected of treasonable correspondence with the enemy, arrested by order of the commander-in-chief, tried by the general court, and found guilty. By direction of the Congress, to whom the subject of his punishment was referred, he was confined in a prison in Connecticut; but after a few months, on account of the condition of his health, was set at liberty; and in the summer of 1776 he embarked at Newport for the West Indies, in a ship which was never heard of after the day on which it sailed. CHURCH Wrote several of the best poems in Pietas et Gratulatio Collegii Cantabrigiensis apud Novanglos, published on the accession of George the Third to the throne; and "The Times," a satire, "The Choice," "Elegies on GEORGE WHITEFIELD and Doctor MAYHEW," and several other pieces, all of which were manly in their style, and smoothly versified. The following are the concluding lines of his address to the king:

May one clear calm attend thee to thy close,
One lengthen'd sunshine of complete repose:
Correct our crimes, and beam that Christian mind
O'er the wide wreck of desolate mankind;

To calm-brow'd Peace, the maddening world restore,
Or lash the demon thirsting still for gore;
Till nature's utmost bound thy arms restrain,
And prostrate tyrants bite the British chain.

JAMES ALLEN, the author of an "epic poem" entitled "Bunker Hill," of which but a few

fragments have been published, lived in the same period. The world lost nothing by "his neglect of fame."

WILLIAM LIVINGSTON, a member of the first Congress, and the first republican governor of New Jersey, was born in New York in 1723, and was graduated at Yale College in 1741. His poem entitled "Philosophic Solitude," which has been frequently reprinted, is a specimen of elegant mediocrity-superior to most of the compositions which I have already alluded to but contains nothing worthy of especial praise. The opening verses are not deficient in melody:

Let ardent heroes seek renown in arms, Pant after fame, and rush to war's alarms; To shining palaces let fools resort, And dunces cringe to be esteem'd at court: Mine be the pleasure of a rural life, From noise remote, and ignorant of strife; Far from the painted belle, and white-gloved beau, The lawless masquerade, and midnight show, From ladies, lap-dogs, courtiers, garters, stars, Fops, fiddlers, tyrants, emperors, and czars. Among the poets who wrote just before the Revolution, and whom I have not before mentioned, was Mrs. ELIZA BLEECKER, the author of several pieces relating to the domestic suf

ferings which followed in the train of frontier warfare. Some Lines on Reading Virgil," written in 1778, show her manner

Now cease those tears, lay gentle VIRGIL by,
Let recent sorrows dim thy pausing eye;
Shall ENEAS for lost CREUSA mourn,
And tears be wanting on ABELLA's urn?
Like him I lost my fair one in my flight,
From cruel foes, and in the dead of night.
Shall he lament the fall of Ilion's towers,
And we not mourn the sudden ruin of ours?

See York on fire-while, borne by winds, each flame
Projects its glowing sheet o'er half the main,
The affrighted savage, yelling with amaze,
From Alleghany sees the rolling blaze.

Far from these scenes of horror, in the shade

I saw my aged parent safe conveyed;
Then sadly followed to the friendly land
With my surviving infant by the hand:
No cumbrous household gods had I, indeed,
To load my shoulders, and my flight impede;
Protection from such impotence who'd claim?
My Gods took care of me-not I of them.
The Trojan saw ANCHISES breathe his last
When all domestic dangers he had passed;
So my lov'd parent, after she had fled,
Lamented, perish'd on a stranger's bed:
-He held his way o'er the Cerulian main,
But I returned to hostile fields again.

During the war several volumes of patriotic and miscellaneous verses were published in New England and New York. The poems of Doctor J. M. SEWELL, contain the wellknown epilogue to ADDISON'S "Cato," beginning

"We see mankind the same in every age:" and those of Doctor PRIME and GULIAN VERPLANCK are written with unusual taste and care. PRIME finished his professional education in Europe, and on his return applied for a commission in the army, but did not succeed in obtaining one. He alludes to his disappointment in an elegy on the death of his friend Doctor SCUDDER, who was slain in a skirmish at Shrewsbury in New Jersey

So bright, bless'd shade! thy deeds of virtue shine;
So rich, no doubt, thy recompence on high:
My lot's far more lamentable than thine,
Thou liv'st in death, while I in living die.
With great applause hast thou perform'd thy part,
Since thy first entrance on the stage of life;
Or in the labours of the healing art,
Or in fair Liberty's important strife.

In med'cine skilful, and in warfare brave,
In council steady, uncorrupt and wise;
To thee, the happy lot thy Maker gave,

To no small rank in each of these to rise.

Employ'd in constant usefulness thy time,

And thy fine talents in exertion strong;
Thou diedst advanc'd in life, though in thy prime,
For, living useful thou hast lived long.
But I, alas! like some unfruitful tree,

That useless stands, a cumberer of the plain,
My faculties unprofitable see,

And five long years have lived almost in vain.
While all around me, like the busy swarms,
That ply the fervent labours of the hive;
Or guide the state, with ardour rush to arms,
Or some less great but needful business drive,

I see my time inglorious glide away,
Obscure and useless like an idle drone;
And unconducive each revolving day,

Or to my country's int'rest or my own.

Great hast thou lived and glorious hast thou died; Though trait'rous villains have cut short thy days; Virtue must shine, whatever fate betide,

Be theirs the scandal, and be thine the praise. Then, to my soul thy memory shall be,

From glory bright, as from affection, dear; And while I live to pour my grief for thee, Glad joy shall sparkle in each trickling tear. Thy great example, too, shall fire my breast; If Heaven permit, with thee, again I'll vie; And all thy conduct well in mine express'd,

Like thee I'll live, though I like thee should die.

PRIME wrote a satire on the Welsh, in Latin and English, entitled "Muscipula sive Cambromyomachia ;" and on the passage of the stamp act composed "A Song for the Sons of Liberty in New York," which is superior to any patriotic lyric up to that time written in this country. VERPLANCK was a man of taste and erudition, and his "Vice, a Satire,” published soon after his return from his travels, in 1774, is an elegant and spirited poem. Among his shorter pieces is the following "Prophecy," written while he was in England, in 1773—

Hail, happy Britain, Freedom's blest retreat;
Great is thy power, thy wealth, thy glory great,
But wealth and power have no immortal day,
For all things ripen only to decay.

And when that time arrives, the lot of all,
When Britain's glory, power, and wealth shall fall;
Then shall thy sons by Fate's unchanged decree
In other worlds another Britain see,
And what thou art, America shall be.

From this account of the "poets and poetry" of our ante-revolutionary period, it will be seen that until the spirit of freedom began to influence the national character, very little verse worthy of preservation was produced in America. The POETRY OF THE COLONIES was without originality, energy, feeling, or correctness of diction.