Terra Vulpina

Philip Freneau

Here fond remembrance stampt her much loved names,
Here boasts the soil its London and its Thames;
Through all her shores commodious ports abound,
Clear flow the waters of the unequal ground;
Cold nipping winds a lengthened winter bring,
Late rise the products of the unwilling spring,
The impoverished fields the labourer's pains disgrace,
And hawks and vultures scream through all the place;
The broken soil a nervous breed requires,
Where the rough glebe no generous crops admires—
Dame Nature meanly did her gifts impart,
But smiles to see how much is forced by art.
As Boreas keen, who guides their wintry reign,
All bow to lucre, all are bent on gain.
In contact close their neat abodes are thrown,
Its house, each acre; every mile, its town;
With glittering spire the frequent church is seen,
Where yews and myrtles wave their gloomy green,
Where fast-day sermons tell the hungry guest
That a cameleon's dinner is the best:
There mobs of deacons awe the ungodly wight,
And hell's black master meets the unequal fight—
Eternal squabblings grease the lawyer's paw,
All have their suits, and all have studied Law:
With tongue, that Art and Nature taught to speak,
Some rave in Latin, some dispute in Greek:
Proud of their parts, in ancient lore they shine,
And one month's study makes a learned Divine;
Bards of huge fame in every hamlet rise,
Each (in idea) of Virgilian size:
Even beardless lads a rhyming knack display—
Iliads begun, and finished in a day!
Rhymes, that of old on Blackmore's wheel were spun,
Come rattling down on Zion's reverend son;
Madly presumed time's vortex to defy!
Things born to live an hour—then squeak and die.
Some, to grow rich, through Indian forests roam,
Some deem it best to stay and thrive at home:
In spite of all the priest and squire can say,
This world—this wicked world—will have its way;
Honest through fear, religious by constraint,
How hard to tell the sharper from the saint!—
Fond of discourse, with deep designing views
They pump the unwary traveller of his news;
Fond of that news, but fonder to be paid,
Each house a tavern, claims a tavern's trade,
While he that comes as surely hears them praise
The hospitality of modern days.
Yet, brave in arms, of enterprizing soul,
They tempt old Neptune to the farthest pole,
In learning's walks explore the mazy way,
(For genius there has shed his golden ray)
In war's bold art through many a contest tried
True to themselves, they took the nobler side,
And party feuds forgot, joined to agree
That power alone supreme—that left them free.


Main Location:

Connecticut, USA