The strife now stands upon a fair award,

If Isr'el's Lord be God, then serve the Lord:
If he be silent faith is all a whim,

Then Baal is the God, and worship him.

We have run

Through ev'ry change that fancy at the loom,
Exhausted, has had genius to supply;

And, studious of mutation still, discard
A real elegance, a little us'd,

For monstrous novelty and strange disguise.

We sacrifice to dress, till household joys

And comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry, And keeps our larder lean; puts out our fires; And introduces hunger, frost, and wo,

Where peace and hospitality might reign.

What man that lives, and that knows how to live,`
Would fail t' exhibit at the public shows

A form as splendid as the proudest there,
Though appetite raise outcries at the cost?
A man o' th' town dines late, but soon enough,
With reasonable forecast and dispatch,
T' insure a side-box station at half price.
You think, perhaps, so delicate his dress,

His daily fair is delicate. Alas!

He picks clean teeth, and, busy as he seems
With an old tavern quill, is hungry yet!
The rout is folly's circle, which he draws
With magic wand. So potent is the spell,
That none, decoy'd into that fatal ring,
Unless by heaven's peculiar grace, escape.
There we grow early gray, but never wise;
There form connexions, but acquire no friend;
Solicit pleasure, hopeless of success;

Waste youth in occupations only fit

For second childhood, and devote old age
To sports which only childhood could excuse.
There they are happiest who dissemble best
Their weariness; and they the most polite
Who squander time and treasure with a smile,
Though at their own destruction. She, that asks
Her dear five hundred friends, contemns them all,
And hates their coming. They (what can they
less?)

Make just reprisals; and, with cringe and shrug,
And bow obsequious, hide their hate of her.
All catch the frenzy, downward from her grace,
Whose flambeaux flash against the morning skies,

And gild our chamber ceilings as they pass,
To her who, frugal only that her thrift
May feel excesses she can ill afford,

Is hackney'd home unlacquey'd; who, in haste
Alighting, turns the key in her own door,
And, at the watchman's lantern borrowing light,
Finds a cold bed her only comfort left.

Wives beggar husbands, husbands starve their wives,
On fortune's velvet altar off'ring up

Their last poor pittance-fortune, most severe
Of goddesses yet known, and costlier far

Than all that held their routs in Juno's heav'n.-
So fare we in this prison-house the world.
And 'tis a fearful spectacle to see

So many maniacs dancing in their chains.
They gaze upon the links that hold them fast
With eyes of anguish, execrate their lot,

Then shake them in despair, and dance again!

THE

CITIZEN'S RETREAT.

SUBURBAN villas, highway-side retreats,

That dread the encroachment of our growing streets,
Tight boxes, neatly sash'd, and in a blaze
With all a July sun's collected rays,

Delight the citizen, who, gasping there,

Breathes clouds of dust, and calls it country air.
Oh sweet retirement, who would balk the thought,
That could afford retirement, or could not?
"Tis such an easy walk, so smooth and straight,
The second milestone fronts the garden gate;
A step if fair, and, if a shower approach,
You find safe shelter in the next stage-coach.
There, prison'd in a parlour snug and small,
Like bottled wasps upon a southern wall,
The man of bus'ness and his friends compress'd,
Forget their labours, and yet find no rest;
But still 'tis rural-trees are to be seen
From ev'ry window, and the fields are green;
Ducks paddle in the pond before the door,
And what could a remoter scene show more?

THE

MODERN PATRIOT.

1.

REBELLION is my theme all day; I only wish 'twould come (As who knows but perhaps it may?)

A little nearer home.

2.

Yon roaring boys, who rave and fight
On t' other side th' Atlantic,

I always held them in the right,
But most so when most frantic.

3.

When lawless mobs insult the court,
That man shall be my toast,

If breaking windows be the sport,
Who bravely breaks the most.