Flatterers

The flatterers meet with smiles

The cunning find their friends

Without I made my pilgrimage         

& so met small amends

I looked on fame as merits plea

Twas spring but winter frowned on me

To cringe to menial slaves

To worship titled power

To bend the knee to knaves

The price of earthly dower

Is what I neer was taught to pay

So empty [that] Ive turned away

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Tyrants?

The whigs & torys may be better classified

perhaps by the terms of outs & ins for

be they whigs or torys in those situations the

outs are always vociverators of “liberty”

“cruelty of taxation” & “good of the people”

while the ins are inflexible tyrants

& determined supporters of all that is

oppressing & annoying to the people &

benefitting to themselves & their connections

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The Norman Yoke

            “Men make a boast of pedigree     as well might the descendants of Richard Turpin boast of theirs for both honours spring from robbery & spoilation – what was William the Conqueror but a robber by wholesale & what were his followers but high way men     by his authority receiving tithes by their expertness at plunder    for which Turpin (a more noble plunderer if absence from fear or dareing achievements make one) received a halter because he dared to rob & could show only his courage for the liscence – the ancestors of a Newton have some thing to boast of    but pedigree belongs to a race horse & confers nothing to the mind or the man”

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Thy ruddy pride

Sweet bottle shaped flower of lushy red
Born when the summer wakes her warmest breeze
Among the meadows waving grasses spread
Or neath the shade of hedge or clumping trees
Bowing on slender stem thy heavy head
In sweet delight I view thy summer bed
& hark the drone of heavy humble bees
Along thy honeed garden gailey led
Down corn field striped balks & pasture leas
Fond warmings of the soul that long has fled
Revives my bosom wi their sweetness still
As I bend musing oer thy ruddy pride
Recalling days I dropt upon a hill
& cut my oaten trumpets by thy side

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Among the flowers

Do wild flowers love I think they do

& often stooping down

I hear them talk to shower and dew

On many a lovely mound

I often see thy fairy form

In springs bee singing hours

Light stepping on in fancy warm

As love among the flowers

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Lesser weeds

The bulrush bows in graceful art 

To kiss the rivers lesser weeds

& flags in many a merry start 

Rustling whisper to the reeds

Shall  things inanimate agree 

To love unmoving thee & me

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Weeds along the fen

O for the pasture fields & fen

When shall I see such rest agen

I love the weeds along the fen

More sweet then garden flowers

Freedom haunts the humble glen

That blest my happiest hours

Here prisons injure health & me

I love sweet freedom & the free

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