Before the brazen age began, And things were yet on Saturn's plan, None knew what sovereign bliss there lay In ruling, were it but a day. Each with spontaneous food content, His life in Nature's affluence spent; The sun was mild, serene and clear, And walked in Libra all the year; No tempests did the heaven deform, 'Twas not too cold nor yet too warm; People were then at small expence, They dug no ditch, and made no fence, No patentees by sleight or chance For Indian lands got double grants, Not for their wants, but just to say, "If you come here, expect to pay." Base grasping souls, your pride repress; Beyond your wants must you possess? If ten poor acres will supply A rustic and his family, Why, Jobbers, would you have ten score, Ten thousand and ten thousand more? It is a truth well understood, "All would be tyrants if they could." The love of sway has been confessed The ruling passion of the breast: Those who aspire to govern states, If baulked by disapproving fates, Resolve their purpose to fulfil, And scheme for tenants at their will. Ten thousand acres, fit for toil, In Indiana's fertile soil-- Ten thousand acres! come, agree-- Timon is named[166] the patentee, And, as the longing stomach craves, He'll honour fools and flatter knaves. If Rome, of old, to greatness rose Triumphant over all her foes, None need believe that people then Were more in strength than modern men; If o'er the world their eagles waved, 'Twas property their freedom saved;[167] From lands, not shared amongst the few, An independent spirit grew: Each on a small and scanty spot, With much ado his living got, Inured to labour from his birth,[168] Each Roman soldier tilled the earth, Great as a monarch on the throne By having something of his own. [165] First published in the _Freeman's Journal_, July 3, 1782, under the signature "Cassibilan." I have followed the 1809 text. [166] "Let me become."--_Ed. 1786._ [167] "'Twas policy the world enslav'd."--_Ib._ [168] This line and the following not in the 1786 version. ON GENERAL ROBERTSON'S PROCLAMATION[169] Old Judas the traitor (nor need we much wonder) Falling down from the gallows, his paunch split asunder, Affording, 'tis likely, a horrible scent Rather worse than the sulphur of hell, where he went. So now this bra' chieftain, who long has suspended And kept out of view what his master intended, Bursts out all at once, and an inside discloses, Disgusting the Tories, who stop up their noses. The short of the matter is this, as I take it-- New-York of true Britons is plainly left naked, And their conduct amounts to an honest confession, That they cannot depend on the run-a-way Hessian. In such a dilemma pray what should they do? Hearts loyal, to whom should they look but to You?-- You know pretty well how to handle the spade, To dig their canals and to make a parade;