Note 21 — POEMS OF PHILIP FRENEAU
Reading edition
As originally printed in the Daily Advertiser the poem ended as follows:
"Mercantile towns where dullness holds her reign And boors, too lazy to manure the plain:— There, where two creeks divide the sickly lands, Mis-shapen pile, the gloomy college stands, With mingled chess the sophs their vigils keep And William nods to Mary—half asleep; The mopish muse no lively theme essays But toils in law, that best her toil repays, With modern Latin, ancient trash explains, Or deals in Logic—for the want of brains. "Attach'd to other times, I cast my view To former days, when all was fresh & new, When Pocahunta, in her bearskin clad, Sigh'd to be happy with her English lad: Queen of those woods, embarking on the main, (With Tomocomo following in her train) First of her race, she reach'd the British shore But doom'd to perish, saw her own no more! Chang'd is the scene—where once her gardens smil'd A negro race now wander through the wild And with base gabbling, vex that injur'd shade Where Freedom flourish'd and Powhatan stray'd."