The Virginia Gazette

Verses in Reply to O. Z.
Or the Regions of Poetry oppressed by a cold unwholesome Mist.

ARNA SSUS having seen what Osad wrote,
After a groan, delivers thus his thought:
"Would you outblow the blustering fame of Ben,
Drown foes in ink, and swagger with the pen,
Maxims I'm now enabled to impart,
Shall teach you all the writing bully's art.
Satyr is but a bawling shameless scold,
Who calls you names, as impotent as bold;
Regardless while her foaming streams invades,
Whether 'tis sense or nonsense she cascades.
Rhymers, who pains avoid, are sure to please;
For idleness, with men of taste, is ease.
Of nature's sluggish wing if care aright
No feather fettles; you are fit for flight:
Then Rind for verse is able to impose
E'en lines too tame for animated prose;
And all Etonians, bred to weave the lay
In wit's alluding loom, are sons of Gray.
My flash of mirth is o'er; in heart-felt pain,
What being long can irony sustain?
While fogs around my brow their twilight shed,
How owls with screeches rive my drooping head!
O Burke emit again thy piercing ray,
And bid those owls revere the God of Day.
Bid thou retire this nature-clogging gloom,
Bid thou my flowers expand, my bushes bloom;
And birds of rapid wing and warbling throat
Lift up my mounting soul on every note."