LORD CORNWALLIS TO SIR HENRY CLINTON

From clouds of smoke, and flames that round me glow,

To you, dear Clinton, I disclose my woe:

Here cannons flash, bombs glance, and bullets fly;

Not Arnold'sself endures such misery.

Was I foredoomed in torturesto expire,

Hurled to perdition in a blaze of fire?

With these blue flames can mortal man contend —

What arms can aid me, or what walls defend?

Even to these gates last night a phantom strode,

And hailed me trembling to his dark abode:

Aghast I stood, struck motionless and dumb,

Seized with the horrors of the world to come.

Were but my power as mighty as my rage,

Far different battles would Cornwallis wage;

Beneath his sword yon’ threat'ning hosts should groan,

The earth would quake with thunders all his own.

O crocodile! had I thy flinty hide,

Swords to defy, and glance the balls aside,

By my own prowess would I rout the foe,

With my own javelin would I work their woe —

But fates averse, by heaven's supreme decree,

Nile's serpent formed more excellent than me.

Has heaven, in secret, for some crime decreed

That I should suffer, and my soldiers bleed?

Or is it by the jealous powers concealed,

That I must bend, and they ignobly yield?

Ah! no — the thought o'erwhelms my soul with grief:

Come, bold Sir Harry, come to my relief;

Come, thou brave man, whom rebels Tombstone call,

But Britons, Graves— come Digby, devil and all;

Come, princely William, with thy potent aid,

Can George's blood by Frenchmen be dismayed?

From a king's uncle once Scotch rebels run,

And shall not these be routed by a son?

Come with your ships to this disastrous shore,

Come — or I sink — and sink to rise no more;

By every motive that can sway the brave

Haste, and my feeble, fainting army save;

Come, and lost empire o'er the deep regain,

Chastise these upstarts that usurp the main;

I see their first rates to the charge advance,

I see lost Iris wear the flags of France;

There a strict rule the wakeful Frenchman keeps;

There, on no bed of down, Lord Rawdon sleeps!

Tired with long acting on this bloody stage,

Sick of the follies of a wrangling age,

Come with your fleet, and help me to retire

To Britain's coast, the land of my desire —

For, me the foe their certain captive deem,

And every triflertakes me for his theme —

Long, much too long in this hard service tried,

Bespattered still, be-deviled, and belied;

With the first chance that favouring fortune sends

I fly, converted, from this land of fiends;

Convinced, for me, she has no gems in store,

Nor leaves one triumph, even to hope for more.