If I were owned the boldest of mankind, And hell with all her flames inspired my mind,

Could I at once with Spain and France contend,

And fight the rebels on the world's green end?

The pangs of parting I can ne'er endure, Yet part we must, and part to meet no more!

Oh, blast this Congress, blast each upstart State,

On whose commands ten thousand captains wait;

From various climes that dire Assembly came,

True to their trust, as hostile to my fame, 'Tis these, ah these, have ruined half my sway,

Disgraced my arms, and led my slaves astray

Cursed be the day when first I saw the

And hang them up to infamy, in song. That Britain's rage should dye our plains with gore,

And desolation spread through every shore,

None e'er could doubt, that her ambition knew,

This was to rage and disappointment due; But that those monsters whom our soil maintain'd,

Who first drew breath in this devoted land,

Like famish'd wolves, should on their country prey,

Assist its foes, and wrest our lives away, This shocks belief-and bids our soil dis

There, the black Scorpion at her mooring rides,

There, Strombolo swings, yielding to the tides;

Here, bulky Jersey fills a larger space, And Hunter, to all hospitals disgrace- 60 Thou, Scorpion, fatal to thy crowded throng,

Dire theme of horror and Plutonian song, Requir'st my lay-thy sultry decks I know,

And all the torments that exist below! The briny waves that Hudson's bosom fills

Drain'd through her bottom in a thousand rills,

Rotten and old, replete with sighs and groans,

Scarce on the waters she sustain'd her bones;

Here, doom'd to toil, or founder in the

there,

Meagre and wan, and scorch'd with heat below,

We loom'd like ghosts, ere death had made us so

How could we else, where heat and hunger join'd

Thus to debase the body and the mind, Where cruel thirst the parching throat invades,

Dries up the man, and fits him for the shades.

No waters laded from the bubbling spring

To these dire ships the British monsters bring

By planks and ponderous beams completely wall'd

In vain for water, and in vain, I call'dNo drop was granted to the midnight prayer,

121

To Dives in these regions of despair!The loathsome cask a deadly dose contains,

Its poison circling through the languid veins;

That charm, whose virtue warms the world beside,

Was by these tyrants to our use denied, While yet they deign'd that healthy juice to lade

The putrid water felt its powerful aid; But when refus'd-to aggravate our pains

Then fevers rag'd and revel'd through our veins;

Throughout my frame I felt its deadly heat,

I felt my pulse with quicker motions beat:

A pallid hue o'er every face was spread,
Unusual pains attack'd the fainting head,
No physic here, no doctor to assist,
My name was enter'd on the sick man's

list;

191