The crazy clouds, by shifting zephyrs driven,

Wafted their courses through the high-arch'd heaven,
Till pil'd aloft in one stupendous heap,

The seen and unseen worlds grew dark, and nature
'gan to weep.

Attendant lightnings stream'd their tails afar,
And social thunders wak'd ethereal war,

From dark deep pockets brought their treasur'd store,
Embattled elements increas'd the roar-

Red crinkling fires expended all their force,

And tumbling rumblings steer'd their headlong course.
Those guarded frames by thunder poles* secur'd,
Tho' wrapp'd in sheets of flame, those sheets endur'd,
O'er their broad roofs the fiery torrents roll'd,
And every shingle seem'd of burning gold.
Majestic thunders, with disploding roar,
And sudden crashing, bounc'd along the shore,
Till, lost in other lands, the whispering sound
Fled from our ears and fainted on the ground.
Rain's houset on high its window sashes op'd,
And out the cataract impetuous hopp'd,

While the grand scene by far more grand appear'd
With lightnings never seen and thunders never heard.
More salutary showers have not been known,
To wash dame Nature's dirty homespun gown-
For several weeks the good old Joan's been seen,
With filth bespatter'd like a lazy quean.
The husbandman fast travelling to despair,
Laid down his hoe and took his rocking chair,

• Vulgarly lightning rods.

†The old gentleman from whose cellar the junk bottles and demi-johns

were taken.

While his fat wife the well and cistern dried,
Her mop grown useless hung it up and cry'd.

Two rain-bows fair that Iris brought along,
Pick'd from the choicest of her colour'd throng;
The first-born deck'd in pristine hues of light,
In all its native glories glowing bright,
The next adorn'd with less refulgent rays,
But borrowing lustre from its brother's blaze;
Shone a bright reflex of those colours gay
That deck'd with light creation's primal day,
When infant Nature lisp'd her earliest notes,
And younker Adam crept in petticoats :
And to the people to reflection given,

"The sons of Boston, the elect of heaven."
Presented Mercy's Angel smiling fair,

Irradiate splendors frizzled in his hair,
Uncorking demi-johns, and pouring down
Heaven's liquid blessings on the gaping town.

N. B. At Cambridge town, the self-same day,
A barn was burnt well-fill'd with hay.
Some say the light'ning turn'd it red,
Some say the thunder struck it dead,
Some say it made the cattle stare,
And some it kill'd an aged mare;
But we expect the truth to learn,
From Mr. Wythe, who own'd the barn.

N. B. The design of these verses is to respond to the public ear, from time to time, as they occur, those news-paper performances which may justly claim superior merit, that the fugitive efforts of American genius may be preserved, "Till moons shall wax, and wane no more."

* Otherwise called demi-jars; but the above is preferred as the most elegant, being a species of the prosopopeia.

ECHO.....NO. IV.*

66

From the Boston Argus of August 5th, 1791.

LIBERT

TRUTH, No. I.

IBERTY, that goddess, which is destined to render happy our world, was born yesterday; she now lies smiling in her cradle. The angels of benignity attend her infancy, and the face of nature is changed into joy and festivity. The people of the ancient world expected her; they worshipped her in many forms, but all were deceptive, and led them astray.

"She dwells on the principle of NATURAL EQUALITY-The voice of NATURE, which is the voice of GOD, says, that "He made of our blood all the nations who dwell on the face of the earth." They were all spoke into being by divine omnipotence; they are all instamped with his image, and all bear the distinguishing mark of reflection, and rationality. To them he gave, without right of exclusion, the surface of the ponderous globe, and the riches of the mighty deep. As he gave them being, so, at his sovereign pleasure, they are recalled to their primeval dust, and laid equally among the forgotten dead. But LIBERTY cheers the vale of life; creates in the rational mind the temper of angels; and attunes the soul for the joys of heaven!

"The people of ATHENS long since worshipped a deity, which they believed to be LIBERTY. Each one when he approached the shrine, advanced with four thousand of his fellow men in

The subject of the second and third Numbers of the Echo being of a local kind, or allusive to circumstances not generally known, the authors have thought it expedient to omit them altogether in the present collection.

chains; with the toils of these wretched beings, he purchased the incense he burned at her altar; with their labours he was enabled to present her with the richest gifts! but she was not there, the demon of vassalage had assumed her divine form, and under the guise of freedom had enslaved the world.

66

"The world has been for ever in the expectation of the day which we enjoy: and that divine system of revelation, which was intended to give, ❝ peace on earth, and good will to men,' would have long ago made the human race happy; but, the tyrant ATHANASIUS, wedded; unnaturally wedded, the church to the state. He believed, and what he believed, he decreedthat all men should believe with him.

"The moment the arm of civil authority is extended between the man and his god, that moment he loses the light of the divinity, within him, and in that moment he becomes a slave. How dare the worms of the dust thus trample upon the sacred rights of each other?"

HARTFORD, OCTOBER 3, 1791.

“With strange astonishment our eyes behold,
"Those wondrous scenes which wondrous men unfold;
“And still to merit and to genius true,

"In broken echoes we the theme pursue."

THE other day there chanc'd a dreadful rout,
For lo! old mother SPUNKY had "sent out."
The gossips and the granny had a frolic,
And eat and drank themselves into the cholic;
When, to our joy supreme, on yester morn,
A full twelve-pounder-LIBERTY was born.