| |
| BEHOLD the Merchant! once with plenty bless’d, | |
| Whom fortune favor’d, and whom friends caress’d; | |
| Who with rich dainties his loved offspring fed, | |
| And quaff’d enjoyments from the fountain head; | |
| Whose stores were full, whose flagons running o’er, | 5 |
| And every smiling year was adding more; | |
| Yet nobly all for liberty resign’d, | |
| For equal liberty with all mankind. | |
| Behold him now! from his possessions hurl’d, | |
| Stripp’d by a faithless and ungrateful world; | 10 |
| Reluctant forced from clime to clime to roam, | |
| To earn a pittance for his starving home; | |
| Or—if at home—to want and misery driven, | |
| Looks round—and wonders at the ways of Heaven. | |
| By foes, by country robb’d—by treaty sold— | 15 |
| A poor, dependent slave when he is old— | |
| Of credit, prospects, friends, and hope bereft, | |
| And nought but family, and feelings left; | |
| Beggar’d, forgotten, and despondent grown, | |
| He lives a stranger, and he dies unknown. | 20 |
| See the poor soldier! maim’d and seam’d with scars, | |
| His hard-earn’d wages in his country’s wars, | |
| His crazy carcase tott’ring to a fall, | |
| Propt by a crutch, or by some friendly wall, | |
| Or hobbling on to some sequester’d spot, | 25 |
| Muses in vain on man’s unequal lot; | |
| Arrived—he rests him on the humble ground, | |
| To soothe the anguish of a smarting wound: | |
| When lo! a witness of his toils appears, | |
| Who on his breast the pendent eagle 1 bears; | 30 |
| The houseless vet’ran lifts his misty eyes, | |
| Descries the badge—then mutters in the skies— | |
| “Scars are the badges which poor soldiers wear, | |
| Who for their thankless country bravely dare.” * * * * | |
| Ape not the fashions of the foreign great | 35 |
| Nor make your betters at your levees wait, | |
| Resign your awkward pomp, parade and pride, | |
| And lay that useless etiquette aside; | |
| The unthinking laugh, but all the thinking hate | |
| Such vile, abortive mimicry of state; | 40 |
| Those idle lackeys, sauntering at your door, | |
| But ill become poor servants of the poor; | |
| Retrench your board, for e’en the guests who dine, | |
| Have cause to murmur at your floods of wine; | |
| Think not to bribe the wise with their own gold, | 45 |
| Though fools by flimsy lures should be cajoled; | |
| Places on places multiply to view, | |
| Creation on creation, ever new; | |
| Therefore in decent competence to live, | |
| Is all that you can ask, or justice give: | 50 |
| An humbler roof—could Madam condescend— | |
| But heaven forbid I should the sex offend! | |
| The chariot, too—pray who can live without, | |
| And keep distinguished from the rabble rout? | |
| All genteel people deem it a reproach | 55 |
| To go to plays, balls, routs, in hackney coach; | |
| And as to walking—’t is so vulgar now— | |
| Ladies have left it off, and scarce know how. | |
| Women, I grant, are frequent in the street, | |
| But real ladies, Sir, you ’ll rarely meet. | 60 |
| But who art thou, who durst advice intrude, | |
| So very prudent, and so very rude? | |
| Take back thy niggard counsel, nor presume | |
| O’er our bright sunshine to diffuse thy gloom; | |
| Heads of Departments should be amply paid: | 65 |
| Places for this sole purpose have been made: | |
| All are not like old Cincinnatus now, | |
| To take up their old trades, or dirty plough. * * * * | |
| Ye would-be titled! whom, in evil hour— | |
| The rash, unthinking people clothed with power, | 70 |
| Who, drunk with pride, of foreign baubles dream, | |
| And rave of a COLUMBIAN DIADEM— | |
| Be prudent, modest, moderate, grateful, wise, | |
| Nor on your country’s ruin strive to rise, | |
| Lest great Columbia’s awful god should frown, | 75 |
| And to your native dunghills hurl you down. | |
| Ye faithful guardians of your country’s weal, | |
| Whose honest breasts still glow with patriot zeal! | |
| The lawless lust of power in embryo quell, | |
| The germe of mischief and first spawn of hell. | 80 |
| Within your sacred walls let virtue reign, | |
| And greedy Mammon spread his snares in vain. | |
| With unlick’d lordlings sully not your fame, | |
| Nor daub our patriot with a lacker’d name. | |
| O Washington! thy country’s hope and trust! | 85 |
| Alas! perhaps her last, as thou wert first; | |
| Successors we can find—but tell us where | |
| Of all thy virtues we shall find the heir? | |
| But if—which heaven avert!—we must have kings, | |
| With all the curses the tiara brings, | 90 |
| Let us not frame the idol we adore, | |
| But own the monster of some distant shore, | |
| Bow to some foreign god, already grown, | |
| Nor make a mongrel tyrant of our own, | |
| To mimic monarchs, on his mimic throne: | 95 |
| Whom to equip with every gewgaw thing | |
| Due to the proud regalia of a king, | |
| Would beggar all his slaves of all their store, | |
| And still the insatiate ape would gape for more. * * * * | |
| Speak boldly then—ye wise!—and act in season, | 100 |
| What but to think, tomorrow may be treason. | |
| From small beginnings mighty mischief springs, | |
| And soon the eaglet soars on eagle’s wings. | |
| Stifle the tyrant in his infant birth, | |
| Or soon he ’ll stalk a giant on the earth, | 105 |
| Tread on your necks, break all your barriers down, | |
| Smile into life—and murder with a frown; | |
| Disdain the balance, late the favorite theme, | |
| And with his ponderous fiat kick the beam. | |
| Dream not that homespun tyrants are the best, | 110 |
| Home-made or foreign, every king ’s a pest, | |
| Sent in God’s wrath—O scatter not the seed, | |
| Nor damn Columbia with a royal breed. | |
| Great Washington! Columbia’s prop and pride, | |
| Her friend, her father, guardian god and guide; | 115 |
| If kings like thee could love, like thee could feel, | |
| And know no wish but for their country’s weal, | |
| Or ’mongst the human race, if we could find, | |
| Like thee to govern and to bless mankind; | |
| Then might Americans unblushing own | 120 |
| Such worth would almost sanctify a throne. * * * * | |
| Ye chosen people of the King of kings, | |
| From whose behest your present being springs; | |
| Who stamp’d this title on your federal birth, | |
| Subjects in heaven—but citizens on earth; | 125 |
| Who gave you to possess these happy plains | |
| Where peace and plenty dwell, and freedom reigns; | |
| Freedom! the glorious prize—should ye resign, | |
| Vengeance awaits you from the power divine; | |
| Freedom! which heroes earn’d with their best blood, | 130 |
| And patriots bought with every other good; | |
| Freedom! which roused the Roman’s honest zeal | |
| Against his friend to lift the fatal steel, | |
| Freedom! which those firm patriots deified, | |
| Who in Rome’s senate stabb’d the parricide. | 135 |
| Freedom! for fair Columbia bravely won | |
| By the long toils of virtuous Washington, | |
| Ne’er basely barter for a paltry crown, | |
| “But piously transmit the blessing down.” | |
