Oak Hill
Where through the Hog Back Mountain knots the Goose creek's two arms wind
Stands on a knoll a portico with its plain house behind,
A portico that faces South in Doric columns lined.
On segment arches this tall porch wide as the house expands
And holds a Grecian order up in its columnar hands,
With one eye in its pediment winked on the templar's lands.
The stiff, square house with chimneys four to lowly wings descends
And in the rear it has its door as if for humble friends;
In front o'er double drawing-rooms that portico portends.
A hall that clips the little wings the two square parlors airs
And adds a state solemnity for balls and feasts and stairs
But to that rostrum portico the whole house gives its cares.
Here, one would think, some rustic man lived in his home, snug, slow,
Until he had a public call to come in front and show
And then he showed another man in that great portico.
Monroe, the last Virginia chief, here spent his funds and age,
His Northern wife died in the jowl of this sad hermitage,
The portico his former hut took into patronage.
He was a politician's flower, raised from a common weed,
Fit for no enterprise in life but following to lead:
To watch the great and imitate, to listen and succeed.
Mount Vernon, Monticello and Montpelier temples show —
Wide land and Cincinnatian rest, sageness and portico,
So all he had into Oak Hill put President Monroe.
Some few weak apprehensive years from public pay's release,
He took the only office left, a justice of the peace,
And then the sheriff took his peace and he took his surcease.
As in this lofty portico his form plebeian bent
He wound beneath the porticoes of every high event
As the Virginia creeper scales the Doric shaft's ascent.
With timid men he passed for brash, with bold men for a worm,
He was a soldier on the staff proved by his uniform;
He set the lines at Bladensburg and braved a thunderstorm.
Confederate Congressman, he bored that system to its doom;
Opposed the Constitution since some other State might bloom;
But when his Senator was dead stepped in his shoes and room.
There bully for his State's cabal he set domestic slur
On Hamilton, above the State the golden minister,
But bared the soldier's pervious place to single combat Burr.
To France he went in room of Burr whom he had undermined
And with the bloody Jacobin's our tender streamers twined,
Then hurled a book at Washington, for voters interlined.
The dying chief Virginia stung with " Governor Monroe, "
His weakling face inspired the slaves such tool to overthrow,
Virginia sent him back to France annoyances to sow.
He saw upon the river Seine his country's steamer ride,
With Livingston's and Fulton's fames he wrote his name beside,
Abortive treaties ever made and nowhere did abide.
But as the Brahmins may revere the sacerdotal cow
Virginians ever kept him place beneath their feeding mow
And with the heifers of his chief he drave a subsoil plough;
Measured Virginia's mites beside the giants of his view, —
The Nelsons, Pitts and Bonapartes the world of physics grew, —
And empire-hearted men at home by later knowledge knew.
The faction feared their sharpened tool, his hardier address,
He knew their differential arts and shaken selfishishness,
And practiced on a wider range an easier success.
He ruled the land by men of stuff in all his cabinet,
Enlarged the state and in array its weak defenses set,
But plagued himself with cavilling, infirmity and fret.
High policies he fought against and called them by his name,
Looked ever on where he might lean or, failing, next might blame;
When every opposition ceased, no veneration came.
Lamenting powers he did not have when all but he so willed,
He saw not slavery's blighting spread while freedom throve and tilled
And Marshall's genius shone abroad to strengthen and to build.
Here to Oak Hill old Lafayette with Quinoy Adams came
On wretched roads in bankrupt times to company but tame,
The host was trouble-borrowing and lobbying his claim.
Unto John Adams' frosty child Kentucky passed the key,
Virginia's nation-hearted son locked out her dynasty,
And force with lictors came behind, — the sheik of Tennessee.
Perfect the classic portico takes in its hollow ken
The sheeplands where, in warlike times, by night rode Mosby's men,
The Bull Run mountains' sapphire blue and Little River's glen.
Toward Potomac, Goose creek falls through locks of old canals,
Telling of public spirit spent for counties and cabals;
The grim old mills at Oatlands grind their drowsy madrigals.
Fertile and noble rolls the land and watered like to France,
With kine and horses plentiful and sparse inhabitants;
The white pike road beneath the ridge shines like a flashing lance.
But naught is here of that old man who reared his portico;
Richmond that made him has his bones where James's rapids flow;
The spirit of his Northern wife the Fortress of Monroe.
His western States he never loved, marched o'er his mountain's bar,
On roads he vetoed, to his forts made for defensive war;
Free millions flout o'er Africa the faint Monrovian star.
New York, Virginia's conqueror, received him, debtor-spent;
Fourth of July, his dying day, scarce felt the slight event;
No man has read his manuscript on balanced government.
His jockey son-in-law awhile Oak Hill inhabited,
Defaulter in official life to sanctuary fled;
No ghosts are in the portico; the tedious are the dead.
Contractors city horses breed in Monroe's stables, where
He demonstrated country hearts of cities must beware;
Over his mutton modern men his waste of land unswear.
The sacrifice he did not try; the means he did not prove;
The shiftless motive principle that only seems to move;
The office-getting for itself: these bankrupt power and love.
He saw the people as they were by mean self-measurement,
Rivals his mediocrity preferring for descent,
And wore the nation's patience out to furious discontent.
Few pilgrims come to see his shrine, the few who come less know;
The whip-poor-will's inquiring cry is answered by Echo,
Within the hollow stories of the pillared portico.
Pale order! to neglected lands your Greek expression give
Of Academic genius and freedom formative!
So perfect stands the portico its spirit still must live.
Stands on a knoll a portico with its plain house behind,
A portico that faces South in Doric columns lined.
On segment arches this tall porch wide as the house expands
And holds a Grecian order up in its columnar hands,
With one eye in its pediment winked on the templar's lands.
The stiff, square house with chimneys four to lowly wings descends
And in the rear it has its door as if for humble friends;
In front o'er double drawing-rooms that portico portends.
A hall that clips the little wings the two square parlors airs
And adds a state solemnity for balls and feasts and stairs
But to that rostrum portico the whole house gives its cares.
Here, one would think, some rustic man lived in his home, snug, slow,
Until he had a public call to come in front and show
And then he showed another man in that great portico.
Monroe, the last Virginia chief, here spent his funds and age,
His Northern wife died in the jowl of this sad hermitage,
The portico his former hut took into patronage.
He was a politician's flower, raised from a common weed,
Fit for no enterprise in life but following to lead:
To watch the great and imitate, to listen and succeed.
Mount Vernon, Monticello and Montpelier temples show —
Wide land and Cincinnatian rest, sageness and portico,
So all he had into Oak Hill put President Monroe.
Some few weak apprehensive years from public pay's release,
He took the only office left, a justice of the peace,
And then the sheriff took his peace and he took his surcease.
As in this lofty portico his form plebeian bent
He wound beneath the porticoes of every high event
As the Virginia creeper scales the Doric shaft's ascent.
With timid men he passed for brash, with bold men for a worm,
He was a soldier on the staff proved by his uniform;
He set the lines at Bladensburg and braved a thunderstorm.
Confederate Congressman, he bored that system to its doom;
Opposed the Constitution since some other State might bloom;
But when his Senator was dead stepped in his shoes and room.
There bully for his State's cabal he set domestic slur
On Hamilton, above the State the golden minister,
But bared the soldier's pervious place to single combat Burr.
To France he went in room of Burr whom he had undermined
And with the bloody Jacobin's our tender streamers twined,
Then hurled a book at Washington, for voters interlined.
The dying chief Virginia stung with " Governor Monroe, "
His weakling face inspired the slaves such tool to overthrow,
Virginia sent him back to France annoyances to sow.
He saw upon the river Seine his country's steamer ride,
With Livingston's and Fulton's fames he wrote his name beside,
Abortive treaties ever made and nowhere did abide.
But as the Brahmins may revere the sacerdotal cow
Virginians ever kept him place beneath their feeding mow
And with the heifers of his chief he drave a subsoil plough;
Measured Virginia's mites beside the giants of his view, —
The Nelsons, Pitts and Bonapartes the world of physics grew, —
And empire-hearted men at home by later knowledge knew.
The faction feared their sharpened tool, his hardier address,
He knew their differential arts and shaken selfishishness,
And practiced on a wider range an easier success.
He ruled the land by men of stuff in all his cabinet,
Enlarged the state and in array its weak defenses set,
But plagued himself with cavilling, infirmity and fret.
High policies he fought against and called them by his name,
Looked ever on where he might lean or, failing, next might blame;
When every opposition ceased, no veneration came.
Lamenting powers he did not have when all but he so willed,
He saw not slavery's blighting spread while freedom throve and tilled
And Marshall's genius shone abroad to strengthen and to build.
Here to Oak Hill old Lafayette with Quinoy Adams came
On wretched roads in bankrupt times to company but tame,
The host was trouble-borrowing and lobbying his claim.
Unto John Adams' frosty child Kentucky passed the key,
Virginia's nation-hearted son locked out her dynasty,
And force with lictors came behind, — the sheik of Tennessee.
Perfect the classic portico takes in its hollow ken
The sheeplands where, in warlike times, by night rode Mosby's men,
The Bull Run mountains' sapphire blue and Little River's glen.
Toward Potomac, Goose creek falls through locks of old canals,
Telling of public spirit spent for counties and cabals;
The grim old mills at Oatlands grind their drowsy madrigals.
Fertile and noble rolls the land and watered like to France,
With kine and horses plentiful and sparse inhabitants;
The white pike road beneath the ridge shines like a flashing lance.
But naught is here of that old man who reared his portico;
Richmond that made him has his bones where James's rapids flow;
The spirit of his Northern wife the Fortress of Monroe.
His western States he never loved, marched o'er his mountain's bar,
On roads he vetoed, to his forts made for defensive war;
Free millions flout o'er Africa the faint Monrovian star.
New York, Virginia's conqueror, received him, debtor-spent;
Fourth of July, his dying day, scarce felt the slight event;
No man has read his manuscript on balanced government.
His jockey son-in-law awhile Oak Hill inhabited,
Defaulter in official life to sanctuary fled;
No ghosts are in the portico; the tedious are the dead.
Contractors city horses breed in Monroe's stables, where
He demonstrated country hearts of cities must beware;
Over his mutton modern men his waste of land unswear.
The sacrifice he did not try; the means he did not prove;
The shiftless motive principle that only seems to move;
The office-getting for itself: these bankrupt power and love.
He saw the people as they were by mean self-measurement,
Rivals his mediocrity preferring for descent,
And wore the nation's patience out to furious discontent.
Few pilgrims come to see his shrine, the few who come less know;
The whip-poor-will's inquiring cry is answered by Echo,
Within the hollow stories of the pillared portico.
Pale order! to neglected lands your Greek expression give
Of Academic genius and freedom formative!
So perfect stands the portico its spirit still must live.
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