Stay, and enjoy the pleasures that she yields; But come not, stranger, to our wasted fields, For warlike hosts on every plain appear, War damps the beauties of the rising year: In vain the groves their bloomy sweets display; War's clouded winter chills the charms of May: Here human blood the trampled harvest stains; Here bones of men yet whiten all the plains; Seas teem with dead; and our unhappy shore Forever blushes with its children's gore. But turn your eyes--behold the tyrant fall, And think[81]--Cornwallis has atchiev'd it all.-- All mean revenge Americans disdain, Oft have they prov'd it, and now prove again; With nobler fires their generous bosoms glow; Still in the captive they forget the foe:-- But when a nation takes a wrongful cause, And hostile turns to heaven's and nature's laws; When, sacrificing at ambition's shrine, Kings slight the mandates of the power divine, And devastation spread on every side, To gratify their malice or their pride, And send their slaves their projects to fulfil, To wrest our freedom, or our blood to spill:-- Such to forgive, is virtue too sublime; For even compassion has been found a crime. A prophet once, for miracles renown'd, Bade Joash smite the arrows on the ground-- Taking the mystic shafts, the prince obey'd, Thrice smote them on the earth--and then he stay'd-- Griev'd when he saw full victory deny'd, "Six times you should have smote," the prophet cry'd, "Then had proud Syria sunk beneath thy power, "Now thrice you smite her--but shall smite no more." Cornwallis! thou art rank'd among the great; Such was the will of all-controuling fate. As mighty men, who liv'd in days of yore, Were figur'd out some centuries before; So you with them in equal honour join, Your great precursor's name was Jack Burgoyne! Like you was he, a man in arms renown'd, Who, hot for conquest, sail'd the ocean round; This, this was he, who scour'd the woods for praise, And burnt down cities[A] to describe the blaze! So, while on fire, his harp Rome's tyrant strung, And as the buildings flam'd, old Nero sung. Who would have guess'd the purpose of the fates, When that proud boaster bow'd to conquering Gates!-- Then sung the sisters[B] as the wheel went round, (Could we have heard the invigorating sound) Thus surely did the fatal sisters sing-- "When just four years do this same season bring, "And in his annual journey, when the sun "Four times completely shall his circuit run, "An angel then shall rid you of your fears, "By binding Satan for a thousand years, "Shall lash the serpent[82] to the infernal shore, "To waste the nations and deceive no more, "Make wars and blood, and tyranny to cease, "And hush the fiends of Britain[83] into peace." Joy to your lordship, and your high descent, You are the Satan that the sisters meant. Too soon you found your race of ruin run,