Writing is all a lottery -- I have been a loser by the works of the greatest men of the age. - Tobias Smollett

To-day, in snow array'd, stern winter rules
The ravag'd plain—Anon the teeming earth
Unlocks her stores, and spring adorns the year:
And shall not we—while fate, like winter, frowns,
Expect revolving bliss?

Thy spirit, Independence, let me share,
Lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye.
Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.

Thy fatal shafts unerring move,
I bow before thine altar, Love!