Among Sterling's other poetic contributions is to be noted "A Pastoral--To his Excellency George Thomas, Esq., formerly Governor of Pennsylvania, and now General of the Leeward Islands." This poem was written in 1744, on the occasion of the death of Alexander Pope, by "one of the first encouragers of this magazine." The Governor saw the manuscript and gave permission for its publication. It is an invitation to the muses to visit these lands:
"Haste lovely nymphs, and quickly come away, Our sylvan gods lament your long delay; The stately oaks that dwell on Delaware Rear their tall heads to view you from afar. The Naiads summon all their sealy crew And at _Henlopen_ anxious wait for you.
But hark, they come! The _Dryads_ crowd the shore, The waters rise, I hear the billows roar! Hoarse Delaware the joyful tidings brings, And all his swans, transported, clap their wings."
The author's apologetic introduction of these enthusiastic verses to the editor is worth preserving:
"As this _poetical brat_ was conceived in _North America_, you may, if you please, suffer it to give its first squeak in the world through the channel of the _American Magazine_. But if it should appear of a _monstrous_ nature, stifle the wretch by all means in the birth, and throw it into the river _Delaware_, from whence, you will observe, it originally sprung. The parent, I can assure you, will shed no tears at the funeral. If _Saturn_ presided at its formation instead of _Apollo_, it will want no _lead_ to make it sink, but fall quickly to the bottom by its own natural heaviness, as I doubt not many other modern productions, both in prose and verse,
('Sinking from thought to thought--a vast profound')
would have done, had they been put to the trial."
The last of Sterling's contributions to the _American Magazine_ was an "Epitaph on the late Lord Howe:"
Patriots and chiefs! Britannia's mighty dead, Whose wisdom counsel'd, and whose valor bled, With gratulations, 'midst your radiant host, Receive to _glory_ Howe's heroic ghost; Who self severe, in Honor's cause expir'd, By native worth and your example fir'd, In foreign fields, like Sidney, young and brave, Doom'd to an early not untimely grave. Death flew commission'd by celestial love, And, scourging earth, improv'd the joys above.