JT-58-ON MY OLD PEN.

ON MY OLD PEN.

Go, you scrub, and rant no more,
Rest awhile, and sleep, and snore;
End your labors and your motion,
Lest you sink in your black ocean.

Toil has made you rough and plain,
Neighbors say you give them pain,
Some declare you touch and rub them.
Ruffian-like would wound and drub them.

Once your bill wits tough and long,
Dabbled much in prose and song,
Harsh has been your broken measure,
Worth few thanks and less in treasure.

Raging like the storm that blows,
Murmuring at the faults of foes,
Making loud and dreadful clatter,
About a small and trifling matter.

Need you care how others sill,
How they end or how begin?
Priests, you say, the church oppresses,
Need you feel for her distresses?

No, my sir, were you to try
Till you’d famish, starve and die--
Could you roar like Vulcan’s thunders,
Still they’d hold their creeds and blunders.

Weeping, as you do in verse,
Makes your case with them the worse;
Tears provoke them up to madness,
Scorning at your gloom and sadness.

Tear the mountains all away,
Plant them in the roaring sea
Then you may create the creature,
Form anew his every feature.

But, alas! you never can
Turn the wayward course of man,
Give yourself no further trouble,
Lest you make your sorrows double.

Let creed makers take their way,
Like the gnats that swarm and play,
Let them push their Anti courses,
Death will end their feuds and forces.

This addressed, the feather said:
Thousands wish me dumb and dead;
But their threats and constant clamors
Still increase my toils and stammers.

Now I will lay down awhile,
Cease my travel and my toil,
If I sleep I will be dreaming,
Crazy brains will still be teeming.

Rest is not designed for me,
Sleep or waked, I yet must be
Thinking, when my slumber ended,
Some will say the pen’s amended.