Fortune no more your toils would crown, Your flag would fall before her frown; No gallant men the foe would dare, No Greenes no Washingtons appear; No chiefs, that check'd the pride of kings On Monmouth's plains--at Eutaw springs; But blundering hordes, not brave or warm, With broken heart, and nerveless arm, Would sail, to attack your gallic foe, Would strive in vain a cause t'o'erthrow Which, sink or not, will live in fame, While Europe can one patriot claim. [115] From the edition of 1815. It appeared first in the _Time-Piece_, March 29, 1797, under the title "To the Americans." TO MYRTALIS[116] On her Lightning Wires, or Conductors[A] [A] See Brydone's Letters from Sicily to Becksford, alderman of London. In one of these he seems, rather seriously, to argue, that any one, by being armed with a conductor, in a thunder squall, may probably be secure from danger of lightning.--It is said the plan has been carried into practice in Scotland.--_Freneau's Note._ How bold this project, to defy The artillery of a summer sky: Round you, unmoved, the lightning plays, While others perish in the blaze. The fluid fire, in deafening peals, Along the warm conductor steals; And thence directed to the ground, It glances off without a wound! Thus guarded, while the heavens are bowed, You, fearless, see the passing cloud; And Jove's red bolts unheeded fall, Near You, who slight, or scorn them all. The beaver on your sacred scull, (Secure as Salamander's wool) Assists to keep from your rigg'd head The flash that strikes us, wretches, dead. But while the sulphur of the skies, Disarmed, from this fair lady flies; Or while the warm electric fire In flashes darts along her spire, She, not so merciful or kind, (Or we, not guarded to her mind) By Cupid's darts, procures our fall, By Cupid's arrows kills us all. [116] Published in the _Time-Piece_, April 7, 1797. Text from the 1809 edition. TO MR. BLANCHARD[117] The celebrated Æronaut, on his ascent in a Balloon, from the jail-yard in Philadelphia, 1793 By Science taught, on silken wings Beyond our grovelling race you rise, And, soaring from terrestial things, Explore a passage to the skies-- O, could I thus exalted sail, And rise, with you, beyond the Jail! Ah! when you rose, impell'd by fear Each bosom heav'd a thousand sighs; To you each female lent a tear, And held the 'kerchief to her eyes: All hearts still follow'd, as you flew, All eyes admir'd a sight so new. Whoe'er shall thus presume to fly, While downward with disdain they look Shall own this journey, through the sky, The dearest jaunt they ever took; And choose, next time, without reproach, A humbler seat in Inskeep's coach.