THE ENGLISHMAN'S COMPLAINT[319] In Carolina Arriving from Britain with cargo so nice Once more have I touched at these regions of rice! Dear Ashley, with pleasure thy stream I review: But how changed are these plains that we wished to subdue. If through the wild woods he extended his reign, And death and the hangman were both in his train, Cornwallis no longer disturbs your repose, His lordship is dead or at least in a doze. By Sullivan's island how quiet we pass; Fort Johnson no longer salutes us, alas!-- The season has been you did nothing but mourn, But now you will laugh at a Briton's return! Instead of gay soldiers that walked the parade, Here is nothing but draymen and people in trade; Instead of our navy that thundered around, Here is nothing but ships without guns to be found. Instead of Lord Rawdon and Nesbit Balfour, Whose names and whose notions you cannot endure, But whom in their glory you could not forget When puffed by the froth of the Royal Gazette: Instead of those tyrants, who homewards have flown, This country is ruled by a race of its own, Whom once we could laugh at--but now we must say Seem rising to be in a handsomer way. To us and our island eternally foes, How tedious you are in forgetting your woes, Your plundered plantations you still will remember, Although we have left you--three years last December! [319] This first appeared in the 1788 edition. The date of composition is indicated by the last line. The British evacuated the city in 1782. The edition of 1809 has been followed. THE WILD HONEY SUCKLE[320] Fair flower, that dost so comely grow, Hid in this silent, dull retreat, Untouched thy honied blossoms blow, Unseen thy little branches greet: No roving foot shall crush thee here, No busy hand provoke a tear. By Nature's self in white arrayed, She bade thee shun the vulgar eye, And planted here the guardian shade, And sent soft waters murmuring by; Thus quietly thy summer goes, Thy days declining to repose. Smit with those charms, that must decay, I grieve to see your future doom; They died--nor were those flowers more gay, The flowers that did in Eden bloom; Unpitying frosts, and Autumn's power Shall leave no vestige of this flower. From morning suns and evening dews At first thy little being came: If nothing once, you nothing lose, For when you die you are the same; The space between, is but an hour, The frail duration of a flower.