The Poems of Philip Freneau Volume III Part 36

Where social strength resides, there rests, 'tis plain, The power, mankind to govern and restrain: This strength is not but in the social plan Controling all, the common good of man, That power concentred by the general voice, In honest men, an honest people's choice, With frequent change, to keep the patriot pure, And from vain views of power the heart secure: Here lies the secret, hid from Rome or Greece, That holds a state in awe, yet holds in peace.

See through the world, in ages now retired, Man foe to man, as policy required: At some proud tyrant's nod what millions rose, To extend their sway, and make a world their foes.

View Asia ravaged, Europe drench'd with blood, In feuds whose cause no nation understood.

The cause we fear, of so much misery sown, Known at the helm of state, and there alone.

Left to himself, wherever man is found, In peace he aims to walk life's little round; In peace to sail, in peace to till the soil, Nor force false grandeur from a brother's toil.

All but the base, designing, scheming, few, Who seize on nations with a robber's view, With crowns and sceptres awe his dazzled eye, And priests that hold the artillery of the sky; These, these, with armies, navies, potent grown, Impoverish man and bid the nations groan.

These with pretended balances of states Keep worlds at variance, breed eternal hates, Make man the poor base slave of low design, Degrade his nature to its last decline, Shed h.e.l.l's worse blots on his exalted race, And make them poor and mean, to make them base.

Shall views like these a.s.sail our happy land, Where embryo monarchs thirst for wide command, Shall a whole nation's strength and fair renown Be sacrificed, to prop a tottering throne, That, ages past, the world's great curse has stood, Has throve on plunder, and been fed on blood.-- Americans! will you control such views?

Speak--for you must--you have no hour to lose.

[161] From the 1815 edition.

COMMERCE[162]

That internal commerce only, promotes the morals of a country situated like America, and prevents its growth of luxury, and its consequent vices

To every clime, through every sea The bold adventurer steers; In bounding barque, through each degree His country's produce bears.-- How far more blest to stay at home Than thus on Neptune's wastes to roam, Where fervors melt, or frosts congeal-- Ah ye! with toils and hardships worn, Condemn'd to face the briny foam; Ah! from such fatal projects turn The wave-dividing keel.

The product of the furrow'd plain-- Transferr'd to foreign sh.o.r.es, To pamper pride and please the vain The reign of kings restores: Hence, every vice the sail imports, The glare of crowns, the pomp of courts, And War, with all his crimson train!

Thus man design'd to till the ground, A stranger to himself is found-- Is sent to toil on yonder wave, Is made the dreary ocean's sport, Since commerce first to avarice gave To sail the ocean round.

How far more wise the grave Chinese, Who ne'er remotely stray, But bid the world surmount the seas And hard-earn'd tribute pay.

Hence, treasure to their country flows Freed from the danger, and the woes Of distant seas and dreary sh.o.r.es.

There commerce breeds no foreign war; At home they find their wants supplied, And ask, why nations come so far To seek superfluous stores?

Americans! why half neglect The culture of your soil?

From distant traffic why expect The harvest of your toil?

At home a surer harvest springs From mutual interchange of things, Domestic duties to fulfil.-- Vast lakes within your realm abound Where commerce now expands her sail, Where hostile navies are not found To bend you to their will.

[162] From the edition of 1815.

ON FALSE SYSTEMS[163]

Of Government, and the Generally Debased Condition of Mankind

Does there exist, or will there come An age with wisdom to a.s.sume, The Rights by heaven designed; The Rights which man was born to claim, From Nature's G.o.d which freely came, To aid and bless mankind.--

No monarch lives, nor do I deem There will exist one crown supreme The world in peace to sway; Whose first great view will be to place On their true scale the human race, And discord's rage allay.

Republics! must the task be your's To frame the code which life secures, And Right from man to man-- Are you, in Time's declining age, Found only fit to tread the stage Where tyranny began?

How can we call those systems just Which bid the few, the proud, the first Possess all earthly good; While millions robbed of all that's dear In silence shed the ceaseless tear, And leeches suck their blood.

Great orb, that on our planet shines, Whose power both light and heat combines, You should the model be; To man, the pattern how to reign With equal sway, and how maintain True human dignity.

Impartially to all below The solar beams unstinted flow, On all is poured the Ray, Which cheers, which warms, which clothes the ground In robes of green, or breathes around Life;--to enjoy the day.

But crowns not so;--with selfish views They partially their bliss diffuse Their minions feel them kind;-- And, still opposed to human right, Their plans, their views in this unite, To embroil and curse mankind.

Ye tyrants, false to Him, who gave Life, and the virtues of the brave, All worth we own, or know:-- Who made you great, the lords of man, To waste with wars, with blood to stain The Maker's works below?

You have no iron race to sway-- Illume them well with Reason's ray; Inform our active race; True honour, to the mind impart, With virtue's precepts tame the heart, Not urge it to be base;

Let laws revive, by heaven designed, To tame the tiger in the mind And drive from human hearts That love of wealth, that love of sway Which leads the world too much astray, Which points envenomed darts:

And men will rise from what they are; Sublimer, and superior, far, Than Solon guessed, or Plato saw; All will be just, all will be good-- That harmony, "not understood,"

Will reign the general law.

For, in our race, deranged, bereft, The parting G.o.d some vestige left Of worth before possessed; Which full, which fair, which perfect shone When love and peace, in concord sown, Ruled, and inspired each breast.

Hence, the small Good which yet we find, Is shades of that prevailing mind Which sways the worlds around:-- Let these depart, once disappear, And earth would all the horrors wear In h.e.l.l's dominions found.

Just, as yon' tree, which, bending, grows To chance, not fate, its fortune owes; So man from some rude shock, Some slighted power, some hostile hand, Has missed the state by Nature planned, Has split on pa.s.sion's rock.

Yet shall that tree, when hewed away (As human woes have had their day) A new creation find: The infant shoot in time will swell, (Sublime and great from that which fell,) To all that heaven designed.

What is this earth, that sun, these skies; If all we see, on man must rise, Forsaken and oppressed-- Why blazes round the eternal beam, Why, Reason, art thou called supreme, Where nations find no rest.--

What are the splendours of this ball-- When life is closed, what are they all?

When dust to dust returns Does power, or wealth, attend the dead; Are captives from the contest led-- Is homage paid to urns?

What are the ends of Nature's laws; What folly prompts, what madness draws Mankind in chains, too strong:-- Nature, to us, confused appears, On little things she wastes her cares, The great seem sometimes wrong.

[163] Unique, as far as I can find, in the edition of 1809.

ON THE PROPOSED SYSTEM[164]

Of State Consolidation, &c., about 1799

In thoughtless hour some much misguided men, And more, who held a prost.i.tuted pen, From monstrous creeds a monstrous system drew, That every State into one kettle threw, And boil'd them up until the goodly ma.s.s Might for a kingdom, or a something, pa.s.s.

In the gay circle of saint James's placed, From thence, no doubt, this modest plan they traced, Suit with the splendor that surrounds a king, Too many sigh'd, and wish'd to be that thing.