Lord Cornwallis to Sir Henry Clinton

From clouds of smoke, and flames that round me glow,
To you, dear Clinton, I disclose my woe:
Here cannons flash, bombs glance, and bullets fly;
Not Arnold's self endures such misery.
Was I foredoomed in tortures to expire,
Hurled to perdition in a blaze of fire?
With these blue flames can mortal man contend--
What arms can aid me, or what walls defend?
Even to these gates last night a phantom strode,
And hailed me trembling to his dark abode:
Aghast I stood, struck motionless and dumb,
Seized with the horrors of the world to come.
Were but my power as mighty as my rage,
Far different battles would Cornwallis wage;
Beneath his sword yon' threat'ning hosts should groan,
The earth would quake with thunders all his own.
O crocodile! had I thy flinty hide,
Swords to defy, and glance the balls aside,
By my own prowess would I rout the foe,
With my own javelin would I work their woe--
But fates averse, by heaven's supreme decree,
Nile's serpent formed more excellent than me.
Has heaven, in secret, for some crime decreed
That I should suffer, and my soldiers bleed?
Or is it by the jealous powers concealed,
That I must bend, and they ignobly yield?
Ah! no--the thought o'erwhelms my soul with grief:
Come, bold Sir Harry, come to my relief;
Come, thou brave man, whom rebels Tombstone call,
But Britons, Graves--come Digby, devil and all;
Come, princely William, with thy potent aid,
Can George's blood by Frenchmen be dismayed?
From a king's uncle once Scotch rebels run,
And shall not these be routed by a son?
Come with your ships to this disastrous shore,
Come--or I sink--and sink to rise no more;
By every motive that can sway the brave
Haste, and my feeble, fainting army save;
Come, and lost empire o'er the deep regain,
Chastise these upstarts that usurp the main;
I see their first rates to the charge advance,
I see lost Iris wear the flags of France;
There a strict rule the wakeful Frenchman keeps;
There, on no bed of down, Lord Rawdon sleeps!
Tired with long acting on this bloody stage,
Sick of the follies of a wrangling age,
Come with your fleet, and help me to retire
To Britain's coast, the land of my desire--
For, me the foe their certain captive deem,
And every trifler takes me for his theme--
Long, much too long in this hard service tried,
Bespattered still, be-deviled, and belied;
With the first chance that favouring fortune sends
I fly, converted, from this land of fiends;
Convinced, for me, she has no gems in store,
Nor leaves one triumph, even to hope for more.