Three weeks--ye gods!--nay, three long years it seems Since roast-beef I have touched except in dreams. 230 In sleep, choice dishes to my view repair, Waking, I gape and champ the empty air.-- Say, is it just that I, who rule these bands, Should live on husks, like rakes in foreign lands?--[95] Come, let us plan some project ere we sleep, 235 And drink destruction to the rebel sheep. "On neighbouring isles uncounted cattle stray, Fat beeves and swine, an ill-defended prey-- These are fit visions for my noon day dish, These, if my soldiers act as I would wish, 240 In one short week should glad your maws and mine; On mutton we will sup--on roast beef dine." Shouts of applause re-echoed through the hall, And what pleased one as surely pleased them all; Wallace was named to execute the plan, 245 And thus sheep-stealing pleased them to a man. Now slumbers stole upon the great man's eye, His powdered foretop nodded from on high, His lids just opened to find how matters were, Dissolve, he said, and so dissolved ye are, 250 Then downward sunk to slumbers dark and deep,-- Each nerve relaxed--and even his guts asleep.[96] [A] An inhuman, butchering English judge in the time of Charles the first.--_Freneau's note._ [B] Capt. Wallace.--_Freneau's note._ Sir James Wallace was a prominent naval officer during the Revolution. In 1774-5 he commanded the _Rose,_ a 20-gun frigate, and greatly annoyed the people of Rhode Island by his detention of shipping and his seizure of private property. His severity and activity made him greatly detested by the colonists during the entire Revolution. EPILOGUE