BY THOMAS PAINE, JULY, 1803.

QUICK as the lightning’s vivid flash

The poet’s eye o’er Europe rolls;

Sees battles rage, hears tempests crash,

And dims at horror’s threatening scowls.

Mark ambition’s ruthless king,

With crimsoned banners scathe the globe;

While trailing after conquest’s wing,

Man’s festering wounds his demons probe.

Palled with streams of reeking gore

That stain the proud imperial day,

He turns to view the western shore,

Where freedom holds her boundless sway.

‘Tis here her sage triumphant sways

An empire in the people’s love;

‘Tis here the sovereign will obeys

No king but Him who rules above.

ON THE OCCASION OF A TOAST BEING GIVEN AT A FEDERAL DINNER AT

WASHINGTON, OF “MAY THEY NEVER KNOW PLEASURE WHO LOVE PAINE.”

I SEND you, Sir, a tale about some Feds,

Who, in their wisdom got to loggerheads.

The case was this, they felt so flat and sunk,

They took a glass together and got drunk.

Such things, you know, are neither new nor rare,

For some will harry themselves when in despair.

It was the natal day of Washington,

And they thought a famous day for fun;

For with the learned world it is agreed,

The better day the better deed.

They talked away, and as the glass went round

They grew, in point of wisdom, more profound

For at the bottom of the bottle lies

That kind of sense we overlook when wise.

Come here’s a toast, cried one, with roar immense,

May none know pleasure who love Common Sense.

Bravo! cried some,-no, no! some others cried,

But left it to the waiter to decide.

I think, said he, the case would be more plain,

To leave out Common Sense, and put in Paine.

On this a mighty noise arose among

This drunken, bawling, senseless throng.

Some said that Common Sense was all a curse,

That making people wiser made them worse;

It learned them to be careful of their purse,

And not be laid about like babes at nurse,

Nor yet believe in stories upon trust,

Which all mankind, to be well governed must;

And that the toast was better at the first,

And he that didn’t think so might be cursed.

So on they went, till such a fray arose

As all who know what Feds are may suppose.

Images above from Copy of letter from the American Philosophical Society show a copy of a letter from Thomas Paine to Sir Robert Smith where Paine writes the poem, “What is Love?”. The following is a transcript of the poem.

To Mrs. Robert Smyth

WHAT IS LOVE?

IT IS that delightsome transport we can feel

Which painters cannot paint, nor words reveal,

Nor any art we know of can conceal.

Canst thou describe the sunbeams to the blind,

Or make him feel a shadow with his mind?

So neither can we by description show

This first of all felicities below.

When happy Love pours magic o’er the soul,

And all our thoughts in sweet delirium roll;

When contemplation spreads her rainbow wings,

And every flutter some new rapture brings;

How sweetly then our moments glide away,

And dreams repeat the raptures of the day;

We live in ecstasy, to all things kind,

For love can teach a moral to the mind.

But are there not some other marks that prove,

What is this wonder of the soul, call’d love?

O yes there are, but of a different kind,

The dreadful horrors of a dismal mind:

Some jealous fury throws her poison’d dart,

And rends in pieces the distracted heart.

When love’s a tyrant, and the soul a slave,

No hope remains to thought, but in the grave;

In that dark den it sees an end to grief,

And what was once its dread becomes relief.

What are the iron chains that hands have wrought?

The hardest chain to break is made of thought.

Think well of this, ye lovers, and be kind,

Nor play with torture on a tortured min

This poem was addressed to Mrs. Joel Barlow, the wife of the liberal American poet, Joel Barlow, who was living in Paris in 1796 when these verses were written. Accompanying the poem, Paine sent the following note: “To Mrs. Barlow, on her pleasantly telling the author that, after writing against the superstition of the Scripture religion, he was setting up a religion capable of more bigotry and enthusiasms, and more dangerous to its votaries-that of making a religion of Love.”

OR, IF YOU PLEASE, CONFESSION

O COULD we always live and love,

And always be sincere,

I would not wish for heaven above,

My heaven would be here.

Though many countries I have seen,

And more may chance to see,

My Little Corner of the World

Is half the world to me;

The other half, as you may guess,

America contains;

And thus, between them, I possess

The whole world for my pains.

I’m then contented with my lot,

I can no happier be;

For neither world I’m sure has got

So rich a man as me.

Then send no fiery chariot down

To take me off from hence,

But leave me on my heavenly ground-

This prayer is common-sense.

Let others choose another plan,

I mean no fault to find;

The true theology of man

Is happiness of mind.