Fowle's New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

Parnassian Spring
MOUNT VERNON,
An Ode
Inscribed to GENERAL WASHINGTON
Written at Mount Vernon,
By COLONEL HUMPHREYS

By broad Potowmack's azure side,
Where Vernon's Mount, in native pride
Displays its beauties...
Great WASHINGTON erect.
Where now hallow'd with his...
Retir'd from fields of war.
Angels might see it with joy,
Who taught the battle where to rave
Or quench'd its spreading flame
On works of peace employ that hand.
Which wav'd the blade of high command,
And hew'd the path to fame,
Let others sing his deeds in arms.
A nation sav'd, and conquest's charms :
Posterity shall hear,
Twas mine, return'd from Europe's courts.
To share his thoughts, partake his sports,
And soothe his partial ear.
To thee, my friend, these lays belong
Thy happy seat inspires my song,
With gay, perennial blooms ;
With fruitage fair, and cool retreats
Whose bow'ry wilderness of sweets,
The ambient air perfumes.
Here spring its earliest buds displays;
Here latest on the leafless sprays,
The plumy people sing :
The vernal shower, the ripening year
Th' autumnal store, the winter drear,
For thee new pleasures bring.
Here lapp'd in philosophic ease,
Within thy walks, beneath thy trees
Amidst thine ample farms:.
No vulgar converse heroes bold,
But past or future scenes unfold.
Or dwell on nature's charms. :
What wondrous era have we seen.
Plac'd on this isthmus half between,
A rude and polish'd State;
We saw the war tempestuous rise.
In arms a world: in blood the skies.
In doubt an empire's fate, :
The storm is calm'd seren'd the heaven,
And mildly o'er these climes of even,
Expands th' imperial day : .
Oh God, the source of light supreme,
Shed on our dusky morn a gleam,
To guide our doubtful way.!
Restrain, dread Pow'r, our land from crimes
What seeks, tho' blest beyond all times,
So querulous an age
What means to freedom such disgust :
Of change, of anarchy the lust
The sickness and rage?
So spake his country's friend; with sighs,
To find that country still despise,
The Legacy he gave~
And half he fear'd his toils were vain.
And much that man would court a chain
And live thro' vice a slave..
A transient gloom o'ercast his mind :
Yet still on Providence reclin'd;.
That Pow'r benign, too much had done,
To leave an empire's task begun,
Imperfectly achiev'd.
Thus buoy'd with hope, with virtue blest,
Of ev'ry human bliss possess't,
He meets the happier hours :
His skies assume a lovelier blue.
His prospects brighter rise to view
And fairer bloom his flow'rs.