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MERCY WARREN.

MRS. WARREN was the daughter of James Otis, of Barnstable, and the wife of General James Warren of Plymouth, both of who were celebrated in the political history of Massachusetts.  She was a skilful and industrious writer both of prose and verse; attempting and achieving great subjects, with a boldness and ease that prove her mind to have been of no ordinary stamp.  The station and character of her father and husband, procured her a wide acquaintance with the greatest men of her time; not only those distinguished for their practical patriotism in the revolutionary war, but those who were famous for their learning and talent.  She well knew how to appreciate the honour, and improve the advantage, of such a noble acquaintance; a proof of which, is her History of the American Revolution.  Before this, however, her talents as an author were made extensively known by two political works from her bold pen,— The Adulator, and The Group.  In 1790, she published a volume of Poems, containing two tragedies, The Sack of Rome, and The Ladies of Castile, with several Miscellaneous Pieces.  She died in 1814. 

EXTRACT FROM A POLITICAL REVERIE.

(JANUARY 1774.)

LET Grecian bards, and Roman poets tell, 
How Hector fought, and how Priam fell; 
Paint armies ravaging the Ilian coast,
Show fields of blood, and mighty battles lost;
Let mad Cassandra with dishevelled hair, 
With streaming eyes, and frantic bosom bare,
Tell dark presages, and ill-boding dreams,
Of murder, rapine, and the solemn themes
Of slaughter'd cities, and their sinking spires,
By Grecian rage wrapp'd in avenging fires;

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MERCY WARREN.  43

To bolder pens I leave the tragic tale,
While some kind muse from Tempe's gentle vale,
With softer symphony shall touch the string,
And happier tidings from Parnassus bring.

Not Cæsar's name, nor Philip's bolder son, 
Who sigh'd and wept, when he'd one world undone;
Who dropp'd a tear, though not from pity's source,
But grief, to find some bound to brutal force,
Shall tune my harp, or touch the warbling string;
No bold destroyer or mankind I sing;
These plunderers of men I greatly scorn,
And dream of nations, empires yet unborn.

I look with rapture at the distant dawn,
And view the glories of the opening morn;
When justice holds his sceptre o'er the land,
And rescues freedom from a tyrant's hand;
When patriot states in laurel crowns may rise,
And ancient kingdoms court them as allies;
Glory and valour shall be here display'd, 
And virtue rear her long dejected head;
Her standard plant beneath these gladden'd skies,
Her fame extend, and arts and science rise;
While Empire's lofty spreading sails unfurl'd,
Roll swiftly on towards the western world!
Long she's forsook her Asiatic throne,
And leaving Afric's barb'rous burning zone,
On the broad ruins of Rome's haughty power,
Erected ramparts round fair Europe's shore:
But in those blasted climes no more presides,
She o'er the vast Atlantic surges rides,
Visits Columbia's distant fertile plains,
Where Liberty, a happy goddess, reigns.

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