Maumee express. [volume] (Maumee City, Ohio) 1837-1838, 1837-05-06

IMAM any one else, even OF that numerous class
who suspect him of every imaginable vilany,
except rhyming. There is no mistake, how
ever, as to its authenticity New Yorker.
AN APOLOGY.
BY NICHOLAS BIDDLE.
Time was, when to see thee, fair lady, alone,
Would wake into verse this cold bosom of
stone
But now thy command, all unchanged as thou
art,
Cannot kindle the fancy nor soften the heart.
So unequal our fates, since that scythe-bear-
ing Time,
Appeased by thy beauty, provoked by my
rhyme,
Tho he folded his wings, and muffied his tread,
And passed without touching hair of thy
head
AS he came by my farm, cut me down to cit,
And dispersed my small stock of merinos and
wit.
Ifyou deem this pretext made up formy wife,
Pray look at my dwelling, and think of my life.
Not mummy wrapt up in his pyramid hall,
Nor the toads that live on for whole years in a
wall,
Nor the famed iron Mask, breathe more dull
ness and gloom,
Than when enclosed in my vast marble
tomb,
Midst vaults of damp stone, and huge chests
of cold iron,
That would quel all the fancy of Shakespeare
or Byron. a
Alas had the ancents, who SO much surpass
us,
In their pure golden age, fixed bank on Par
nassus,
What model of wisdom and pleasure to follow!
Only think now-to sign ones bank notes like
Apollo!
But that rake of Olympus-too happy to rove--
Would have scorn'd to make money, and
ceased to make love-
And the MUSES. whose sex condescends to
protectors,
Have true female scorn for all sorts of Di-
rectors.
It is fiercely avenged though, for banks, where
they knowit,
Have horror that warns them to shun every
poet.
And since the first rhymer, the Muses. fond
votary,
fever he's trusted, soon goes to the Notary
Even ], sainted ladies', who, fixed on my farm
Though you never would visit me, wished yot
no harm,
Even would exchange, shall dare to con-
fess to ye all,
For one sheet of bank notes, the whole quire
celestial.
Iprefer my last schedule of number one debt.
OrS tarf
To the writings of all the republic ofletters
My much esteemed favors' from Paris,to those
Which brought on poor Helen an Hid of woes
Nay, two lines Of bad prose, with good name
upon it,
To the tenderest fourteen e'er squeezed in a
sonnet.
Why would not accept, not for Hebe's ac-
count,
The very best draft upon Helicon's fount;
Nor give-this it grieves me to say to their
faces
More than three days of grace to all three Of
the Graces.
Then their music of spheres, can it thrill thro'
the soul
Like kegs of new dollars as onward they roll
And Cecilia herself, tho her Tyre was divine,
Never gave to the world notes half equal to
mine. A-.--
: put we've parted in peace now, never shall
o'4arrel
II my Branches, like Daphne's, won't sprout
into laurel;
Andrenouncing illusions, find peace & content
In that simplest, sublimest of truths--six per
cent. n
While the Bank is my goddess, its desks are
my altars, ~
And all my fine frenzy is spent on defaulters
So unless, like the sculptor of old, in this stone
You can breathe inspiration as pure as your
own, qR
Be it mine, while no ,scribbling your tablets
defaces,
To keep out of your book, but keep in your
good graces. eSre