This wretch, who, dying, would not take one pill,
  If, living, he must pay a doctor’s bill,
  Still clings to life, of every joy bereft;
  His God is gold, and his religion theft! 
  And, as of yore, when modern vice was strange,
  Could leathern money current pass on ’change,
  His reptile soul, whose reasoning powers are pent
  Within the logic bounds of cent per cent,
  Would sooner coin his ears than stocks should fall,
  And cheat the pillory, than not cheat at all!

* * * * *

=_John Blair Linn,[78] 1777-1804._=

From “The Powers of Genius.”

=_323._= WRETCHEDNESS OF SAVAGE LIFE.

  The human fabric early from its birth,
  Feels some fond influence from its parent earth;
  In different regions different forms we trace,
  Here dwells a feeble, there an iron race;
  Here genius lives, and wakeful fancies play,
  Here noiseless stupor sleeps its life away.
       * * * * *
  Chill through his trackless pines the hunter passed,
  His yell arose upon the howling blast;
  Before him fled, with all the speed of fear,
  His wealth—­and victim, yonder helpless deer. 
  Saw you the savage man, how fell and wild,
  With what grim pleasure, as he passed, he smiled? 
  Unhappy man! a wretched wigwam’s shed
  Is his poor shelter, some dry skins his bed;
  Sometimes alone upon the woodless height
  He strikes his fire, and spends his watchful night;
  His dog with howling bays the moon’s red beam,
  And starts the wild deer in his nightly dream. 
  Poor savage man! for him no yellow grain
  Waves its bright billows o’er the fruitful plain;
  For him no harvest yields its full supply,
  When winter hurls his tempest through the sky. 
  No joys he knows but those which spring from strife,
  Unknown to him the charms of social life. 
  Rage, malice, envy, all his thoughts control,
  And every dreadful passion burns his soul. 
  Should culture meliorate his darksome home,
  And cheer those wilds where he is wont to roam;
       * * * * *
  Should fields of tillage yield their rich increase,
  And through his wastes walk forth the arts of peace,
  His sullen soul would feel a genial glow,
  Joy would break in upon the night of woe;
  Knowledge would spread her mild, reviving ray,
  And on his wigwam rise the dawn of day.

[Footnote 78:  A Presbyterian clergyman, who died prematurely; an associate and connection of Charles Brockden Brown.  Has left several poems of merit.  A native of Pennsylvania.]

* * * * *

=_Francis S. Key, 1779-1843._= (Manual, p. 523.)

=_324._= THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER.

  O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
    What so proudly we hailed, at the twilight’s last gleaming? 
  Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
    O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming;
  And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
  Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there: