[A] Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis!--_Freneau's note._ [31] First published in the _Daily Advertiser_, April 28, 1790. Text from the 1809 edition. Franklin died April 17. EPISTLE[32] From Dr. Franklin [deceased] to his Poetical Panegyrists, on some of their Absurd Compliments "Good Poets, why so full of pain, Are you sincere--or do you feign? Love for your tribe I never had, Nor penned three stanzas, good or bad. At funerals, sometimes, grief appears, Where legacies have purchased tears: 'Tis folly to be sad for nought, From me you never gained a groat. To better trades I turned my views, And never meddled with the muse; Great things I did for rising States, And kept the lightning from some pates. This grand discovery, you adore it, But ne'er will be the better for it: You still are subject to those fires, For poets' houses have no spires. Philosophers are famed for pride; But, pray, be modest--when I died, No "sighs disturbed old ocean's bed," No "Nature wept" for Franklin dead! That day, on which I left the coast, A beggar-man was also lost: If "Nature wept," you must agree She wept for him--as well as me. There's reason even in telling lies-- In such profusion of her "sighs," She was too sparing of a tear-- In Carolina, all was clear: And, if there fell some snow and sleet, Why must it be my winding sheet? Snows oft have cloathed the April plain, Have melted, and will melt again. Poets, I pray you, say no more, Or say what Nature said before; That reason should your pens direct, Or else you pay me no respect. Let reason be your constant rule, And Nature, trust me, is no fool-- When to the dust great men she brings, Make her do--some uncommon things." [32] Published in the _Daily Advertiser_, May 24, 1790, with the title "Verses from the Other World, by Dr. Fr--k--n." Text from the 1809 edition. CONSTANTIA[33] [On a Project of Retiring to Bethlehem] Sick of the world, in prime of days Constantia took a serious fit-- Resolved to shun all balls and plays And only read what saints had writ-- To Convent Hall she would repair And be a pensive sister there. "What are they all--this glare of things, These insects that around me shine; These beaux and belles on silken wings-- Indeed their pleasures make not mine-- My happiness is all delayed-- I'll go, and find it in the shade." A sailor, loitering from his crew, As chance would have it, passed along-- She told him what she had in view, And he replied--"Fair maid you're wrong, "Let faded nymphs to cloisters go, "Where kisses freeze and love is snow. "The druids' oak and hermits' pine "Afford a gloomy, sad delight; "But why that blush of health resign, "The mingled tint of red and white? "In moistening cells the flowers expire "That, on the plain, all eyes admire.