Years roll along; and, as they glide away
In silent lapse, on every New-Year’s day
‘T is claimed by custom that we carriers sing;
And thus the tribute of the Muse we bring.
Not that the strain with classic smoothness flows,
Nor that the same might not be said in prose;
But while there’s nought the fancy to amuse,
Or waken wonder in the form of news,
You’ll pause with pleasure, in this gloomy season,
If song be sense, and if our rhyme be reason,—
While all around us clouds and tempests lower,
The frosts of winter, and the frown of power,—
To listen where a rippling rill of rhyme
Steals through the wild and dreary waste of Time.
No pomp of battle shall our numbers swell;
No deathless wreaths for those who fought and fell
Shall we entwine; nor pour a mournful dirge
O’er those, who, sinking in the swallowing surge,
Saw, e’er they sunk into their billowy grave,
The sword of Blakeley, gleaming o’er the wave,
Pluck the green laurel from the azure plain,
And from the mighty mistress of the main;—
Nor yet o’er those who fell with equal fame,
On sweeter waters, though of humbler name;
Who by Macdonough to the combat led,
By valor conquered, and with glory bled.
Here check the Muse, e’er yet in full career,
And pay the passing tribute of a tear
To the brave tars who triumphed on the wave,
But e’en in victory found a watery grave;—
Who sunk in silence, and now sweetly sleep
Within the coral caverns of the deep.
Still shall their spirits hover o’er the flood,
Now stained and rendered sacred by their blood,
From where St. Lawrence spreads his bosom wide
And meets the main with his gigantic tide,
To where Champlain his emerald basin fills
With crystal waters from surrounding hills.
Still shall their ghosts on the dark tempest ride,
Still o’er the fury of the fight preside;
Still of their country claim a generous tear,
Pledged by their comrades each returning year;
And, as their memory consecrates the bowl,
Swell the rich tide in each congenial soul,
As kindred streams to kindred oceans roll.
Peace to their shades!—nor let the Muse presume
O’er Europe’s fields to wave the historic plume;
For me to sing, or you to hear the song,
Of e’en her mighty deeds were far too long.
One moment still, as o’er her fields I run,
I pause to hail the splendor of the sun,
That rises cloudless from her vales of blood,
Gilds the blue mountain, glances on the flood,
Darts his glad beams to even the Atlantic shore,
And lights the waves that whiten as they roar.
But stop;—while gazing upon eastern glory,
The time runs on, and I delay my story.
Surrounded by his parasites and tools,—
Those arrant knaves, and these as arrant fools;
Those raised to seats of power for what they ‘d said,
And these kept in them by congenial lead,
But all pure patriots,—sat in full divan
A mighty statesman, but a little man.
Though short his person, ‘t was genteelly slim,
His step was stately, and his dress was prim;
Proud of his station, of himself still prouder,
His shirt no plaiting lacked, his hair no powder.—
‘T was silence all, when thus the sage expressed
The calm complacency that filled his breast:
“Oh happy state, where foes each other claw,
Where power is liberty, and license law;
All then are fools, if not of all possessed,
Which, wanted, leaves a void within the breast,
And thus are we, my friends, supremely blest.
But, if we all are blest in stations high,
Then how superlatively so am I!
Ask for what end yourselves around me shine?
Each for whose use?—I answer, whose but mine!
Me the kind nation clothes with boundless power,
And feeds with sweetest herbs and finest flour;
Annual for me does either house renew
The tax on whisky,—never paid when due;
To me the mine a thousand treasures brings;
For me wealth gushes from a thousand springs;
Blacks count, to choose me, mobs to help me rise;
Be earth my throne, and never mind the skies.
“How doubly blest in this propitious hour,
Are those who gave, or we who stole, the power,
To banish commerce from each busy mart,
To check the warm tide bounding through the heart,
Lest, should the current too profusely spread,
Dance through the limbs, and riot in the head,
It might gush out through some unguarded chink,
And the poor patient through exhaustion sink.
True, we deny the multitude their wishes;—
But what of that?—we take their loaves and fishes;
For, faithful to the wise Egyptian law,
We claim their bricks, though we refuse them straw;
While they are ‘prompt,’ the dear, enlightened elves,
To feed their rulers, though they starve themselves.
O happy rulers, who can taxes lay!
O happy people, who must taxes pay!—
But ha!—what awful vision meets my sight,
That moves majestic, though involved in night!
Pale sheets of lightning quiver on the cloud,
That robes some demon in a sulphurous shroud,
And hark! the swelling thunder rolls aloud.
‘T is he, ‘t is War!—I snuff his blasting breath!
Save me, my friends, then save yourselves, from death!”
Pale as the plaster, sunk the great beholder,
Cold as the marble of the floor, or colder.
Meantime, ‘mid lurid smoke and withering flame,
In gloomy pomp, the Fiend of darkness came.
Two dragons fierce, by spells infernal bound,
Roll on his iron car, that shakes the ground!
Their breath around a hellish horror flings,
That darkens as they flap their leathern wings;
While viscid drops exude between the scales,
That rustle as they writhe their coiling tails;—
Heaven frowns above them, earth, with hollow groan,
Shudders beneath the steeds of Phlegethon.
The Fiend, who goaded on the panting pair,
Had wreathed his temples, and his clotted hair,
With shrivelled hemlock and with cypress round;—
So should the gory God of War be crowned.
His stiffening locks on his broad shoulders curled;—
O’er him his bloody banner was unfurled;—
He breathes, and dun smoke rolls in volumes dire;—
Beneath his black brow, flash his eyes of fire;—
In either hand he waves a weapon fell,
In this a glowing shot, in that a shell,
Both snatched still hissing from the forge of hell.
And round the Demon, as in wrath he comes,
Bright bayonets bristle, burst the bellowing bombs,
Red rockets dart, and rattling roll the drums.
The affrighted chief, who on the floor had sunk,
With “brief authority,” not brandy, drunk,
Burst the cold bands of syncop
(John Pierpont)
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Based on Topics: Man Poems, Night Poems, Time Poems, Death & Dying Poems, Soul Poems, War & Peace Poems, Heaven Poems, Sense & Perception Poems, Friendship Poems, Name Poems, Fire PoemsBased on Keywords: plaiting, champlain, carriers, exude, viscid, reason-, phlegethon, genteelly, superlatively, macdonough, blakeley