| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900. |
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| 11. The Scurrilous Scribe |
| | | By Philip Freneau |
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| HIS soul extracted from the public sink, | |
| For discord born he splasht around his ink; | |
| In scandal foremost, as by scandal fed, | |
| He hourly rakes the ashes of the dead. | |
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| Secure from him no traveller walks the streets, | 5 |
| His malice sees a foe in all he meets; | |
| With dark design he treads his daily rounds, | |
| Kills where he can, and, where he cannot, wounds. | |
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| Nature to him her stings of rancor gave | |
| To shed, unseen, the venom of a knave; | 10 |
| She gave him cunning, every treacherous art, | |
| She gave him all things but an upright heart; | |
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| And one thing more—she gave him but the pen, | |
| No power to hurt, not even the brass of men, | |
| Whose breasts though furies with their passions rule | 15 |
| Yet laugh at satire, pointed by a fool. | |
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| Was there no world but ours to give you room? | |
| No Patagonia, for your savage home, | |
| No region, where antarctic oceans roll, | |
| No icy island, neighboring to the pole? | 20 |
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| By dark suspicion led, you aim at all | |
| Who will not to your sceptred idol fall; | |
| To work their ruin, every baseness try, | |
| First envy, next abuse us, then belie. | |
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| Such is your stretch! and thus awhile go on! | 25 |
| Your shafts rebound, and yet have injured none. | |
| Hurt whom they will, let who will injured be, | |
| The sons of smut and scandal hurt not me. | |
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