To the Earl of Dartmouth

To the Right Honourable WILLIAM, Earl

HAIL, happy day, when, smiling like the morn,
Fair Freedom rose New-England to adorn:
The northern clime beneath her genial ray,
Dartmouth, congratulates thy blissful sway:
Elate with hope her race no longer mourns,
Each soul expands, each grateful bosom burns,
While in thine hand with pleasure we behold
Long lost to realms beneath the northern skies
She shines supreme, while hated faction dies:

Thus from the splendors of the morning light
The owl in sadness seeks the caves of night.
No more, America, in mournful strain
No longer shalt thou dread the iron chain,
Which wanton Tyranny with lawless hand
Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song,
Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung,
Whence flow these wishes for the common good,
By feeling hearts alone best understood,
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate
What pangs excruciating must molest,

Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway?
For favours past, great Sir, our thanks are due,
And thee we ask thy favours to renew,

To all thy works, and thou for ever live
Not only on the wings of fleeting Fame,

And bear thee upwards to that blest abode,
Where, like the prophet, thou shalt find thy God.