Epistle[32]

From Dr. Franklin [deceased] to his Poetical Panegyrists, on some of their Absurd Compliments

"Good Poets, why so full of pain, Are you sincere--or do you feign? Love for your tribe I never had, Nor penned three stanzas, good or bad.

At funerals, sometimes, grief appears, Where legacies have purchased tears: 'Tis folly to be sad for nought, From me you never gained a groat.

To better trades I turned my views, And never meddled with the muse; Great things I did for rising States, And kept the lightning from some pates.

This grand discovery, you adore it, But ne'er will be the better for it: You still are subject to those fires, For poets' houses have no spires.

Philosophers are famed for pride; But, pray, be modest--when I died, No "sighs disturbed old ocean's bed," No "Nature wept" for Franklin dead!

That day, on which I left the coast, A beggar-man was also lost: If "Nature wept," you must agree She wept for him--as well as me.

There's reason even in telling lies-- In such profusion of her "sighs," She was too sparing of a tear-- In Carolina, all was clear:

And, if there fell some snow and sleet, Why must it be my winding sheet? Snows oft have cloathed the April plain, Have melted, and will melt again.

Poets, I pray you, say no more, Or say what Nature said before; That reason should your pens direct, Or else you pay me no respect.

Let reason be your constant rule, And Nature, trust me, is no fool-- When to the dust great men she brings, Make her do--some uncommon things."

"Verses from the Other World, by Dr. Fr--k--n." Text from the 1809 edition.