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| COOPER, whose name is with his country’s woven, | |
| First in her files, her PIONEER of mind— | |
| A wanderer now in other climes, has proven | |
| His love for the young land he left behind; | |
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| And throned her in the senate-hall of nations, | 5 |
| Robed like the deluge rainbow, heaven-wrought; | |
| Magnificent as his own mind’s creations, | |
| And beautiful as its green world of thought: | |
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| And, faithful to the Act of Congress, quoted | |
| As law authority, it passed nem. con., | 10 |
| He writes that we are, as ourselves have voted, | |
| The most enlightened people ever known; | |
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| That all our week is happy as a Sunday | |
| In Paris, full of song, and dance, and laugh; | |
| And that, from Orleans to the Bay of Fundy, | 15 |
| There ’s not a bailiff or an epitaph; | |
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| And furthermore—in fifty years, or sooner, | |
| We shall export our poetry and wine; | |
| And our brave fleet, eight frigates and a schooner, | |
| Will sweep the seas from Zembla to the Line. | 20 |
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| If he were with me, King of Tuscarora! | |
| Gazing, as I, upon thy portrait now, | |
| In all its medalled, fringed, and beaded glory, | |
| Its eye’s dark beauty, and its thoughtful brow— | |
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| Its brow, half martial and half diplomatic, | 25 |
| Its eye upsoaring like an eagle’s wings— | |
| Well might he boast that we, the Democratic, | |
| Outrival Europe, even in our kings! | |
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| For thou wast monarch born. Tradition’s pages | |
| Tell not the planting of thy parent tree, | 30 |
| But that the forest tribes have bent for ages | |
| To thee, and to thy sires, the subject knee. | |
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| Thy name is princely—if no poet’s magic | |
| Could make RED JACKET grace an English rhyme, | |
| Though some one with a genius for the tragic | 35 |
| Hath introduced it in a pantomime— | |
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| Yet it is music in the language spoken | |
| Of thine ownland, and on her herald-roll; | |
| As bravely fought for, and as proud a token | |
| As Cœur de Lion’s of a warrior’s soul. | 40 |
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| Thy garb—though Austria’s bosom-star would frighten | |
| That medal pale, as diamonds the dark mine, | |
| And George the Fourth wore, at his court at Brighton, | |
| A more becoming evening dress than thine; | |
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| Yet ’t is a brave one, scorning wind and weather | 45 |
| And fitted for thy couch, on field and flood, | |
| As Rob Roy’s tartan for the Highland heather, | |
| Or forest green for England’s Robin Hood. | |
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| Is strength a monarch’s merit, like a whaler’s? | |
| Thou art as tall, as sinewy, and as strong | 50 |
| As earth’s first kings—the Argo’s gallant sailors, | |
| Heroes in history and gods in song. | |
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| Is beauty?—Thine has with thy youth departed; | |
| But the love-legends of thy manhood’s years, | |
| And she who perished, young and broken-hearted, | 55 |
| Are—but I rhyme for smiles and not for tears. | |
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| Is eloquence?—Her spell is thine that reaches | |
| The heart, and makes the wisest head its sport; | |
| And there ’s one rare, strange virtue in thy speeches, | |
| The secret of their mastery—they are short. | 60 |
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| The monarch mind, the mystery of commanding, | |
| The birth-hour gift, the art Napoleon, | |
| Of winning, fettering, moulding, wielding, banding | |
| The hearts of millions till they move as one: | |
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| Thou hast it. At thy bidding men have crowded | 65 |
| The road to death as to a festival; | |
| And minstrels, at their sepulchres, have shrouded | |
| With banner-folds of glory the dark pall. | |
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| Who will believe? Not I—for in deceiving | |
| Lies the dear charm of life’s delightful dream; | 70 |
| I cannot spare the luxury of believing | |
| That all things beautiful are what they seem; | |
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| Who will believe that, with a smile whose blessing | |
| Would, like the Patriarch’s, soothe a dying hour, | |
| With voice as low, as gentle, and caressing, | 75 |
| As e’er won maiden’s lip in moonlit bower; | |
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| With look like patient Job’s eschewing evil; | |
| With motions graceful as a bird’s in air; | |
| Thou art, in sober truth, the veriest devil | |
| That e’er clinched fingers in a captive’s hair! | 80 |
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| That in thy breast there springs a poison fountain | |
| Deadlier than that where bathes the Upas-tree; | |
| And in thy wrath a nursing cat-o’-mountain | |
| Is calm as her babe’s sleep compared with thee! | |
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| And underneath that face, like summer ocean’s, | 85 |
| Its lip as moveless, and its cheek as clear, | |
| Slumbers a whirlwind of the heart’s emotions, | |
| Love, hatred, pride, hope, sorrow—all save fear. | |
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| Love—for thy land, as if she were thy daughter, | |
| Her pipe in peace, her tomahawk in wars; | 90 |
| Hatred—of missionaries and cold water; | |
| Pride—in thy rifle-trophies and thy scars; | |
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| Hope—that thy wrongs may be by the Great Spirit | |
| Remembered and revenged when thou art gone; | |
| Sorrow—that none are left thee to inherit | 95 |
| Thy name, thy fame, thy passions, and thy throne! | |
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