"_Written to a Theatrical Entertainment in Philadelphia, December, 1781._ "Wars, bloody wars and hostile Britain's rage Have banished long the pleasures of the stage; From the gay painted scene compell'd to part, (Forget the melting of the heart) Constrained to shun the bold theatric show, To act long tragedies of real woe, Heroes once more attend the comic muse; Forget our failings, and our faults excuse. In that fine language is our fable drest Which still unrivall'd reigns o'er all the rest; Of foreign courts the study and the pride, Who to know _this_ abandon all beside; Bold though polite, and ever sure to please; Correct with grace, and elegant with ease; Soft from the lips its easy accents roll, Form'd to delight and captivate the soul; In this Eugenia tells her easy lay The brilliant work of courtly Beaumarchais; In this Racine, Voltaire, and Boileau sung, The noblest parts in the noblest tongue. If the soft story in our play expressed Can give a moment's pleasure to your breast, To you, Great Sir! we must be proud to say That moment's pleasure shall our pains repay. Returned from conquest and from glorious toils, From armies captured and unnumbered spoils; Ere yet again, with generous France ally'd, You rush to battle, humbling British pride; While arts of peace thy kind protection share, O let the Muses claim an equal care. You bade us first our future greatness see, Inspired by you, we languish'd to be free; Even here where freedom lately sat distrest, See a new Athens rising in the West! Fair science blooms where tyrants reign'd before, Red war reluctant leaves our ravag'd shore-- Illustrious hero, may you live to see These new republics powerful, great, and free; Peace, heaven-born peace, o'er spacious regions spread, While discord, sinking, veils her ghastly head." In the soft autumn twilights of the days that followed, when the yellow Morris turnpike grew vague and shadowy and the stars dotted the sky like little candles lighting up a hundred pieces of rose- and dusk-tinted velvet, Freneau would mount his faithful Cato and ride through the avenue of locust-trees into the lane leading to Forman Place. Dear to their hearts were these trysts of the lovers. There were walks in the Forman garden, made a place of enchantment by the breath of Indian summer. Later came songs in Madam Forman's chintz parlor. All through their lives Nelly sang to her Philip the love-ditties of sighing Darbys and unhappy Joans; and even after his death, when very aged, it is said that she sometimes crooned to his spirit in a queer cracked voice the songs he once loved to hear.