Classic Poem

A MONG the portraits of thy Federalists,
In thy old Bedford manse upon the Highlands,
Where, bathed beneath thee in the snow or mists,
Manhattan's Greece tints its Ægean islands,
I see thee life's full third pass in thy grot
But in no monkish mummeries enshrined! —
The soul undaunted of the Huguenot
Built his God's temple in his classic mind.
Washington was thy Henry of Navarre;
For him thou held thy state in loyal fief,
His mystic presence to the knightly bar,
His dove-winged envoy to our kinsman chief.
Thou, Sully! with thy eagle quill at work,
Wert Zeus at the birth-throes of New York!