Gave to seraphic harps their sounding lays,
Their joys to angels, and to men their praise.

From scenes of blood, these beauteous shores that stain,
From gasping friends that press the sanguine plain,
From fields, long taught in vain thy flight to mourn,
I rise, delightful Power, and greet thy glad return.
Too long the groans of death, and battle's bray,
Have rung discordant through the unpleasing lay:
Let pity's tear its balmy fragrance shed,
O'er heroes' wounds and patriot warriors dead;
Accept, departed shades, these grateful sighs,
Your fond attendants to the approving skies.

And thou, my earliest friend, my Brother dear,
Thy fall untimely wakes the tender tear.
In youthful sports, in toils, in blood allied,
My kind companion and my hopeful guide,
When Heaven's sad summons, from our infant eyes
Had call'd our last, loved parent to the skies.
Tho' young in arms, and still obscure thy name,
Thy bosom panted for the deeds of fame,
Beneath Montgomery's eye, when, by thy steel,
In northern wilds, the lurking savage fell.
Yet, hapless Youth! when thy great Leader bled,
Thro' the same wound thy parting spirit fled.

But now the untuneful trump shall grate no more,
Ye silver streams no longer swell with gore;
Bear from your beauteous banks the crimson stain,
With yon retiring navies, to the main.
While other views unfolding on my eyes,

And happier themes bid bolder numbers rise:
Bring, bounteous Peace, in thy celestial throng,
Life to my soul, and rapture to my song;
Give me to trace, with pure unclouded ray,
The arts and virtues that attend thy sway;
To see thy blissful charms, that here descend,
Through distant realms and endless years extend.

A FAVORITE DISH

[From "The Hasty Pudding"]

Dear Hasty Pudding, what unpromised joy
Expands my heart, to meet thee in Savoy!

Doom'd o'er the world through devious paths to roam,
Each clime my country, and each house my home,
My soul is soothed, my cares have found an end,
I greet my long lost, unforgotten friend.

For thee through Paris, that corrupted town,
How long in vain I wandered up and down,
Where shameless Bacchus, with his drenching hoard,
Cold from his cave usurps the morning board.
London is lost in smoke and steep'd in tea;
No Yankee there can lisp the name of thee;
The uncouth word, a libel on the town,
Would call a proclamation from the crown.
From climes oblique, that fear the sun's full rays,
Chill'd in their fogs, exclude the generous maize:
A grain, whose rich, luxuriant growth requires
Short gentle showers, and bright etherial fires.

But here, though distant from our native shore, With mutual glee, we meet and laugh once more, The same! I know thee by that yellow face, That strong complexion of true Indian race, Which time can never change, nor soil impair, Nor Alpine snows, nor Turkey's morbid air; For endless years, through every mild domain, Where grows the maize, there thou art sure to reign. But man, more fickle, the bold license claims, In different realms to give thee different names. Thee the soft nations round the warm Levant Polenta call, the French of course Polente. E'en in thy native regions, how I blush To hear the Pennsylvanians call thee Mush! On Hudson's banks, while men of Belgic spaw Insult and eat thee by the name Suppawn.

All spurious appellations, void of truth;
I've better known thee from my earliest youth,
Thy name is Hasty-Pudding! thus my sire
Was wont to greet thee fuming from his fire;
And while he argued in thy just defence
With logic clear, he thus explain'd the sense:
"In haste the boiling cauldron, o'er the blaze,
Receives and cooks the ready powder'd maize;
In haste 'tis served, and then in equal haste,
With cooling milk, we make the sweet repast.
No carving to be done, no knife to grate
The tender ear, and wound the stony plate;
But the smooth spoon, just fitted to the lip,
And taught with art the yielding mass to dip,
By frequent journeys to the bowl well stored,
Performs the hasty honors of the board."
Such is thy name, significant and clear,
A name, a sound to every Yankee dear,
But most to me, whose heart and palate chaste
Preserve my pure hereditary taste.

There are who strive to stamp with disrepute
The luscious food, because it feeds the brute;
In tropes of high-strain'd wit, while gaudy prigs
Compare thy nursling, man, to pamper'd pigs;
With sovereign scorn I treat the vulgar jest,
Nor fear to share thy bounties with the beast.
What though the generous cow gives me to quaff
The milk nutritious: am I then a calf?
Or can the genius of the noisy swine,
Though nursed on pudding, claim a kin to mine?
Sure the sweet song, I fashion to thy praise,
Runs more melodious than the notes they raise.
My song resounding in its grateful glee,
No merit claims: I praise myself in thee.
My father loved thee through his length of days!
For thee his fields were shaded o'er with maize;
From thee what health, what vigor he possess'd,
Ten sturdy freemen from his loins attest;

Thy constellation ruled my natal morn,
And all my bones were made of Indian corn.
Delicious grain! whatever form it take,
To roast or boil, to smother or to bake,
In every dish 'tis welcome still to me,
But most, my Hasty Pudding, most in thee.

PHILIP FRENEAU

[While the names of most eighteenth-century American verse-writers have passed into obscurity, if not into oblivion, the fame of Philip Freneau has increased, until he now takes almost unquestioned rank as the most notable American poet before Bryant. He was born in 1752, in New York City. In 1771 he was graduated from Princeton in the same class as James Madison and H. H. Brackenridge. As an undergraduate he made satiric and other rhymes, and collaborated with Brackenridge on a novel; and he was part author of a poem, "The Rising Glory of America," spoken by Brackenridge at commencement. After his graduation he taught school for a time. Early in 1775 he wrote a number of bitter satires on political topics. From the latter part of 1775 to 1778 he was in the West Indies, and it was apparently on his outward voyage that he first felt the charm of the sailor's life. During much of the time from 1778 to 1790 he was on the ocean. In 1780 he was on board a vessel that was captured by the British, and he was imprisoned for some time in the notorious British prison ships in New York harbor. His experiences here form the basis of one of his most vindictive poems. After his release he was for some time master of a vessel engaged in the coasting trade. During all this time he was writing, and contributing to various journals. In 1790 he married, and left the sea to become editor of a paper in New York. The next year he removed to Philadelphia to accept from Jefferson the clerkship for foreign languages in the department of state, and to begin the issue of The National Gazette. This paper was violently republican and pro-French, and the Federalists accused Jefferson of retaining Freneau in a government position and inciting him to make unwarranted attacks on other members of the government. It does not appear that these charges were true, but Freneau was foolishly indiscreet, and he was forced to abandon the Gazette in 1793. After this he edited other papers for short periods of time, went to sea again, and reprinted some of his writings. He died in 1832.

Freneau was a voluminous writer. The latest collection of his poetical works fills three large volumes, and the editor gives more than a hundred titles of omitted poems. His political satires were popular at a time when feeling was intense, and for many years they were the portion of his writings most readily accessible to students. For this reason he gained the designation, unfortunately perpetuated by his latest editor, of "Poet of the American Revolution." It is really not, however, the political poems that have led to the recent recognition of Freneau's worth. He combined, somewhat strangely, a capacity for the most bitter, violent, and unreasoning hatred,