To Miss Catharine Ten Eyck

Come and see our habitation,

condescend to be our guest;

Tho' the veins of warring nations

Bleed, yet here secure we rest.

By the light of Cynthia's crescent,

Playing thro' the waving trees;

When we walk, we wish you present

To participate our bliss.

Late indeed, the cruel savage

Here with looks ferocious stood;

Here the rustic's cot did ravage,

Stain'd the grass with human blood.

Late their hands sent conflagration

Rolling thro' the blooming wild,

Siez'd with death, the brute creation

Mourn'd, while desolation smil'd.

Spiral flames from tallest cedar

Struck to heav'n a heat intense;

They cancell'd thus with impious labour,

Wonders of Omnipotence.

But when Conquest rear'd her standard,

And th' Aborigines were fled,

Peace, who long an exile wander'd,

Now return'd to bless the shade.

Now Æolus blows the ashes

From sad Terra's black'ned brow,

While the whist'ling swain with rushes

Roofs his cot, late levell'd low.

From the teeming womb of Nature

Bursting flow'rs exhale perfume;

Shady oaks, of ample stature,

Cast again a cooling gloom.

Waves from each reflecting fountain,

Roll again unmix'd with gore,

And verging from the lofty mountain,

Fall beneath with solemn roar.

Here, embosom'd in this Eden,

Cheerful all our hours are spent;

Here no pleasures are forbidden,

Sylvan joys are innocent.