William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.
Return of PeaceG
Good George has changed his note at last:
Conquest and death have lost their charms—
He and his nation stand aghast
To see what horrid lengths they’ve gone,
And what a brink they stand upon.
If you’d advised him to retreat
Before our humbled thousands fell,
And lay, submissive, at his feet—
Awake, once more, his latent fire,
And feed with hope his heart’s desire.
Monster!—no peace shall greet thy breast!
Our murder’d friends shall never cease
To hover round and break thy rest.
The furies shall thy bosom tear—
Remorse, distraction, and despair,
And hell, with all its fiends, be there.
To other kings impart
The finer feelings of the mind,
The virtues of the heart:
Whene’er the honours of a throne
Fall to the bloody and the base,
Like Britain’s monster, pull them down—
Like his be their disgrace!
Neptune, exclude him from the main:
Like her, that sunk with all her freight,
The Royal George, take all his fleet,
And never let them rise again:
Confine him to his gloomy isle,
Let Scotland rule her half,
Spare him to curse his fate a while,
And, Whitehead, thou to write his epitaph.