Mock Panegyric On A Young Friend

In measured verse I'll now rehearse

The charms of lovely Anna:

And, first, her mind is unconfined

Like any vast savannah.

Ontario's lake may fitly speak

Her fancy's ample bound:

Its circuit may, on strict survey

Five hundred miles be found.

Her wit descends on foes and friends

Like famed Niagara's fall;

And travellers gaze in wild amaze,

And listen, one and all.

Her judgment sound, thick, black, profound,

Like transatlantic groves,

Dispenses aid, and friendly shade

To all that in it roves.

If thus her mind to be defined

America exhausts,

And all that's grand in that great land

In similes it costs —

Oh how can I her person try

To image and portray?

How paint the face, the form how trace,

In which those virtues lay?

Another world must be unfurled,

Another language known,

Ere tongue or sound can publish round

Her charms of flesh and bone.