An axe, an adze, a hammer, and a saw; These were the tools, that built your humble shed: A cock, a hen, a mastiff, and a cow: These were your subjects, to this desert led. Now times are changed--and labour's nervous hand Bids harvests rise where briars and bushes grew; The dismal bog, by lengthy sluices drained, Supports no more hoarse captain Bull Frog's crew.-- Prosper your toil!--but, friend, had you remained In lands, where starred and gartered nobles shine, When you had, thus, to sixty years attained, What different fate, 'Squire Crispin, had been thine! Nine pence a day, coarse fare, a bed of boards, The midnight loom, high rents, and excised beer; Slave to dull squires, kings' brats, and huffish lords, (Thanks be to Heaven) not yet in fashion here! [56] Published in the _National Gazette_, July 18, 1792, as Ode II in "Odes on Various Subjects." Text from the 1809 edition. CRISPIN'S ANSWER Much pleased am I, that you approve Freedom's blest cause that brought me here: Ireland I loved--but there they strove To make me bend to King and Peer. I could not bow to noble knaves, Who Equal Rights to men deny: Scornful, I left a land of slaves, And hither came, my axe to ply: The axe has well repaid my toil-- No king, no priest, I yet espy To tythe my hogs, to tax my soil, And suck my whiskey bottle dry. In foreign lands what snares are laid! There royal rights all right defeat; They taxed my sun, they taxed my shade, They taxed the offal that I eat. They taxed my hat, they taxed my shoes, Fresh taxes still on taxes grew; They would have taxed my very nose, Had I not fled, dear friends, to you. TO SHYLOCK AP-SHENKIN[57] Since the day I attempted to print a gazette, This Shylock Ap-Shenkin does nothing but fret: Now preaching and screeching, then nibbling and scribbling, Remarking and barking, and whining and pining, and still in a pet, From morning 'till night, with my humble gazette. Instead of whole columns our page to abuse, Your readers would rather be treated with News: While wars are a-brewing, and kingdoms undoing, While monarchs are falling, and princesses squalling, While France is reforming, and Irishmen storming-- In a glare of such splendour, what folly to fret At so humble a thing as a poet's Gazette! No favours I ask'd from your friends in the East: On your wretched soup-meagre I left them to feast; So many base lies you have sent them in print, That scarcely a man at our paper will squint:-- And now you begin (with a grunt and a grin, With the bray of an ass, and a visage of brass, With a quill in your hand and a Lie in your mouth) To play the same trick on the men of the South! One Printer for Congress (some think) is enough, To flatter, and lie, to palaver, and puff, To preach up in favour of monarchs and titles, And garters, and ribbands, to prey on our vitals: