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[397] Cheered by the applauses of the friends who show
Their heads above the offal of the gutter,
And, like the trees which Orpheus moved at will,
Reel, as in token of your matchless skill!
Thou son of Scotia!1 nursed beside the grave
Of the proud peasant-minstrel, and to whom
The wild muse of thy mountain-dwelling gave
A portion of its spirit,—if the tomb
Could burst its silence, o'er the Atlantic's wave
To thee his voice of stern rebuke would come,
Who dared to waken with a master's hand
The lyre of freedom in a fettered land.
And thou!—once treading firmly the proud deck
O'er which thy country's honored flag was sleeping,
Calmly in peace, or to the hostile beck
Of coming foes in starry splendor sweeping,—
Thy graphic tales of battle or of wreck,
Or lone night-watch in middle ocean keeping,
Have made thy ‘Leisure Hours’more prized by far
Than those now spent in Party's wordy war.2
And last, not least, thou!— now nurtured in the land
Where thy bold-hearted fathers long ago
Rocked Freedorn's cradle, till its infant hand
Strangled the serpent fierceness of its foe,—
Thou, whose clear brow in early time was fanned
By the soft airs which from Castalia flow!3—
Where art thou now? feeding with hickory ladle
The curs of Faction with thy daily twaddle!
Men have looked up to thee, as one to be
A portion of our glory; and the light
And fairy hands of woman beckoned thee
On to thy laurel guerdon; and those bright
And gifted spirits, whom the broad blue sea
Hath shut from thy communion, bid thee, ‘Write,’
Like John of Patmos. Is all this forgotten,
For Yankee brawls and Carolina cotton?
1 James Lawson, Esq., of the Mercantile. A fine, warm-hearted Scotchi man, who, having unfortunately blundered into Jacksonism, is wondering ‘how ia the Deil's name’ he got there. He is the author of a volume entitled Tales and Sketches, and of the tragedy of Giordano.
2 William Leggett, Esq., of the Post, a gentleman of good talents, favorably known as the editor of the Newl York Critic, etc.
3 William C. Bryant, Esq., well known to the public at large as a poet of acknowledged excellence; and as a very dull editor to the people of New York.
Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and company, 1888-89.
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