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And basely murder unoffending women! -
Will stab their prisoners when they cry for quarter,
Will burn our towns, and from his lodging turn
The poor inhabitant to sleep in tempests ! -
These will be wrongs, indeed, and all sufficient
To kindle up our souls to deeds of horror,
And give to every arm the nerves of Samson
These are the men that fill the world with ruin,
And every region mourns their greedy sway
Nor only for ambition.

But what are this world's goods, that they for them
Should exercise perpetual butchery?

What are these mighty riches we possess,

That they should send so far to plunder them? —

Already have we felt their potent arm

And ever since that inauspicious day,

When first Sir Francis Bernard

His cannons planted at the council door,

And made the assembly room a home for strumpets,

And soldiers rank and file — e'er since that day

This wretched land, that drinks its children's gore,

Has been a scene of tumult and confusion !
Are there not evils in the world enough?

Are we so happy that they envy us?
Have we not toil'd to satisfy their harpies,
King's deputies, that are insatiable;
Whose practice is to incense the royal mind
And make us despicable in his view?
Have we not all the evils to contend with
That, in this life, mankind are subject to,
Pain, sickness, poverty and natural death
But into every wound that nature gave
They will a dagger plunge, and make them mortal!

Leander

Enough, enough—such dismal scenes you paint, I almost shudder at the recollection

What, are they dogs that they would mangle us? —
Are these the men that come with base design
To rob the hive, and kill the industrious bee!

To brighter skies I turn my ravish'd view,
And fairer prospects from the future draw
Here independent power shall hold her sway,
And public virtue warm the patriot breast:
No traces shall remain of tyranny,

And laws, a pattern to the world beside,
Be here enacted first.

Acasto

And when a train of rolling years are past,
(So sung the exil'd seer in Patmos isle)
A new Jerusalem, sent down from heaven,
Shall grace our happy earth — perhaps this land,
Whose ample breast shall then receive, tho' late,
Myriads of saints, with their immortal king,
To live and reign on earth a thousand years,
Thence called Millennium. Paradise anew
Shall flourish, by no second Adam lost.

No dangerous tree with deadly fruit shall grow,
No tempting serpent to allure the soul

From native innocence. A Canaan here,
Another Canaan shall excel the old,

And from a fairer Pisgah's top be seen.

No thistle here, nor thorn nor briar shall spring,
Earth's curse before the lion and the lamb,
In mutual friendship link'd, shall browse the shrub,
And timorous deer with softened tygers stray
O'er mead, or lofty hill, or grassy plain :
Another Jordan's stream shall glide along,
And Siloah's brook in circling eddies flow:
Groves shall adorn their verdant banks, on which
The happy people, free from toils and death,
Shall find secure repose. No fierce disease,
No fevers, slow consumption, ghastly plague,
(Fate's ancient ministers) again proclaim
Perpetual war with man fair fruits shall bloom,
Fair to the eye, and grateful to the taste;
Nature's loud storms be hush'd, and seas no more
Rage hostile to mankind— and, worse than all,
The fiercer passions of the human breast

Shall kindle up to deeds of death no more,
But all subside in universal peace

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Such days the world,

And such, America, thou first shalt have,

When ages, yet to come, have run their round, And future years of bliss alone remain.

1771.

Appendix

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