Classic Poem

Now arm'd with ministerial ire,
Fierce sallied forth our loyal 'Squire,
And on his striding steps attends,
His desp'rate clan of Tory friends;
When sudden met his angry eye,
A pole, ascending thro' the sky,
Which num'rous throngs of Whiggish race
Were raising in the market-place;
Not higher school-boys kites aspire,
Or royal mast or country spire,
Like spears at Brobdignagian tilting,
Or Satan's walking-staff in Milton;
And on its top the flag unfurl'd,
Waved triumph o'er the prostrate world,
Inscribed with inconsistent types
Of liberty and thirteen stripes.
Beneath, the croud without delay,
The dedication-rites essay,
And gladly pay in antient fashion,
The ceremonies of libation;
While briskly to each patriot lip
Walks eager round th' inspiring flip:
Delicious draught, whose pow'rs inherit
The quintessence of public spirit!
Which whoso tastes, perceives his mind
To nobler politics refined,
Or rouz'd for martial controversy,
As from transforming cups of Circe;
Or warm'd with Homer's nectar'd liquor,
That fill'd the veins of gods with ichor.
At hand for new supplies in store,
The tavern opes its friendly door,
Whence to and fro the waiters run,
Like bucket-men at fires in town.
Then with three shouts that tore the sky,
'Tis consecrate to Liberty;
To guard it from th' attacks of Tories,
A grand committee cull'd of four is,
Who foremost on the patriot spot,
Had brought the flip and paid the shot.
 By this, M'Fingal with his train,
Advanc'd upon th' adjacent plain,
And fierce with loyal rage possess'd,
Pour'd forth the zeal, that fired his breast.
“What madbrain'd rebel gave commission,
To raise this Maypole of sedition!
Like Babel rear'd by bawling throngs,
With like confusion too of tongues,
To point at heav'n and summon down,
The thunders of the British crown?
Say will this paltry pole secure
Your forfeit heads from Gage's pow'r?
Attack'd by heroes brave and crafty,
Is this to stand your ark of safety?
Or driv'n by Scottish laird and laddie,
Think ye to rest beneath its shadow?
When bombs, like fiery serpents, fly
And balls move hissing thro' the sky,
With this vile pole, devote to freedom,
Save like the Jewish pole in Edom,
Or like the brazen snake of Moses,
Cure your crackt skulls and batter'd noses?
Ye dupes to ev'ry factious rogue,
Or tavernprating demagogue,
Whose tongue but rings, with sound more full,
On th' empty drumhead of his skull,
Behold you know not what noisy fools
Use you, worse simpletons, for tools?
For Liberty in your own by-sense
Is but for crimes a patent licence;
To break of law th' Egyptian yoke,
And throw the world in common stock,
Reduce all grievances and ills
To Magna Charta of your wills,
Establish cheats and frauds and nonsense,
Fram'd by the model of your conscience,
Cry justice down, as out of fashion
And fix its scale of depreciation,
Defy all creditors to trouble ye,
And pass new years of Jewish jubilee;
Drive judges out, like Aaron's calves,
By jurisdictions of white staves,
And make the bar and bench and steeple,
Submit t' our sov'reign Lord, the People;
Assure each knave his whole assets,
By gen'ral amnesty of debts;
By plunder rise to pow'r and glory,
And brand all property as tory;
Expose all wares to lawful seizures
Of mobbers and monopolizers;
Break heads and windows and the peace,
For your own int'rest and increase;
Dispute and pray and fight and groan,
For public good, and mean your own;
Prevent the laws, by fierce attacks,
From quitting scores upon your backs,
Lay your old dread, the gallows, low,
And seize the stocks your antient foe;
And turn them, as convenient engines
To wreak your patriotic vengeance;
While all, your claims who understand,
Confess they're in the owner's hand:
And when by clamours and confusions,
Your freedom's grown a public nuisance,
Cry, Liberty, with pow'rful yearning,
As he does, fire, whose house is burning,
Tho' he already has much more,
Than he can find occasion for.
While ev'ry dunce, that turns the plains
Tho' bankrupt in estate and brains,
By this new light transform'd to traitor,
Forsakes his plow to turn dictator,
Starts an haranguing chief of Whigs,
And drags you by the ears, like pigs.
All bluster arm'd with factious licence,
Transform'd at once to politicians;
Each leather-apron'd clown grown wise,
Presents his forward face t' advise,
And tatter'd legislators meet
From ev'ry workshop thro' the street;
His goose the tailor finds new use in,
To patch and turn the constitution;
The blacksmith comes with sledge and grate,
To ironbind the wheels of state;
The quack forbears his patient's souse,
To purge the Council and the House,
The tinker quits his molds and doxies,
To cast assembly-men at proxies.
From dunghills deep of sable hue,
Your dirtbred patriots spring to view,
To wealth and pow'r and pension rise,
Like new-wing'd maggots chang'd to flies;
And fluttring round in proud parade,
Strut in the robe, or gay cocade.
See Arnold quits for ways more certain,
His bankrupt perj'ries for his fortune,
Brews rum no longer in his store,
Jockey and skipper now no more;
Forsakes his warehouses and docks,
And writs of slander for the pox,
And purg'd by patriotism from shame,
Grows Gen'ral of the foremost name.

Hiatus

For in this ferment of the stream,
The dregs have work'd up to the brim,
And by the rule of topsyturvys,
The skum stands swelling on the surface.
You've caus'd your pyramid t'ascend
And set it on the little end;
Like Hudibras, your empire's made,
Whose crupper had o'ertop'd his head;
You've push'd and turn'd the whole world up-
Side down and got yourselves a-top:
While all the great ones of your state,
Are crush'd beneath the pop'lar weight,
Nor can you boast this present hour,
The shadow of the form of pow'r.
For what's your Congress, or its end?
A power t' advise and recommend;
To call for troops, adjust your quotas,
And yet no soul is bound to notice;
To pawn your faith to th' utmost limit,
But cannot bind you to redeem it,
And when in want no more in them lies,
Than begging of your State-Assemblies;
Can utter oracles of dread,
Like friar Bacon's brazen head,
But should a faction e'er dispute 'em,
Has ne'er an arm to execute 'em.
As tho' you chose supreme dictators,
And put them under conservators;
You've but pursued the selfsame way,
With Shakespeare's Trinclo in the play,
“You shall be viceroys here, 'tis true,
But we'll be viceroys over you.”
What wild confusion hence must ensue,
Tho' common danger yet cements you;
So some wreck'd vessel, all in shatters,
Is held up by surrounding waters,
But stranded, when the pressure ceases,
Falls by its rottenness to pieces.
And fall it must—if wars were ended,
You'll ne'er have sense enough to mend it;
But creeping on with low intrigues
Like vermin of an hundred legs,
Will find as short a life assign'd,
As all things else of reptile kind.
Your Commonwealth's a common harlot,
The property of ev'ry varlet,
Which now in taste and full employ,
All sorts admire, as all enjoy;
But soon a batter'd strumpet grown,
You'll curse and drum her out of town.
Such is the government you chose,
For this you bade the world be foes,
For this so mark'd for dissolution,
You scorn the British constitution,
That constitution, form'd by sages,
The wonder of all modern ages:
Which owns no failure in reality,
Except corruption and venality;
And only proves the adage just,
That best things spoil'd corrupt to worst.
So man supreme in mortal station,
And mighty lord of this creation,
When once his corse is dead as herring,
Becomes the most offensive carrion,
And sooner breeds the plague, 'tis found,
Than all beasts rotting 'bove the ground.
Yet for this gov'rnment, to dismay us,
You've call'd up anarchy from chaos,
With all the followers of her school,
Uproar and rage and wild misrule;
For whom this rout of Whigs distracted
And ravings dire of ev'ry crack'd head;
These new-cast legislative engines
Of county-musters and conventions,
Committees vile of correspondence,
And mobs, whose tricks have almost undone's;
While reason fails to check your course,
And loyalty's kick'd out of doors,
And folly, like inviting landlord,
Hoists on your poles her royal standard.
While the king's friends in doleful dumps,
Have worn their courage to the stumps,
And leaving George in sad disaster,
Most sinfully deny their master.
What furies raged when you in sea,
In shape of Indians drown'd the tea,
When your gay sparks, fatigued to watch it,
Assumed the moggison and hatchet,
With wampom'd blankets hid their laces,
And like their sweethearts, primed their faces:
While not a redcoat dar'd oppose,
And scarce a Tory show'd his nose,
While Hutchinson for sure retreat,
Manouvred to his country seat,
And thence affrighted in the suds,
Stole off bareheaded thro' the woods!
Have you not rous'd your mobs to join,
And make Mandamus-men resign,
Call'd forth each duffil-dress'd curmudgeon,
With dirty trowsers and white bludgeon,
Forc'd all our Councils thro' the land,
To yield their necks to your command;
While paleness marks their late disgraces
Thro' all their rueful length of faces?
Have you not caused as woful work,
In loyal city of New-York,
When all the rabble well cockaded,
In triumph thro' the streets paraded;
And mobb'd the Tories, scared their spouses,
And ransack'd all the custom-houses,
Made such a tumult, bluster, jarring,
That mid the clash of tempests warring,
Smith's weathercock with veers forlorn,
Could hardly tell which way to turn;
Burnt effigies of th' higher powers,
Contriv'd in planetary hours,
As witches with clay-images,
Destroy or torture whom they please;
Till fired with rage, th' ungrateful club
Spared not your best friend, Belzebub,
O'erlook'd his favours and forgot
The rev'rence due his cloven foot,
And in the selfsame furnace frying,
Burn'd him and North and Bute and Tryon?
Did you not in as vile and shallow way,
Fright our poor Philadelphian, Galloway,
Your Congress when the daring ribald
Belied, berated and bescribbled?
What ropes and halters did you send,
Terrific emblems of his end,
Till least he'd hang in more than effigy,
Fled in a fog the trembling refugee?
Now rising in progression fatal,
Have you not ventur'd to give battle?
When treason chaced our heroes troubled,
With rusty gun and leathern doublet,
Turn'd all stonewalls and groves and bushes,
To batt'ries arm'd with blunderbusses,
And with deep wounds that fate portend,
Gaul'd many a reg'lar's latter end,
Drove them to Boston, as in jail,
Confined without mainprize or bail.
Were not these deeds enough betimes,
To heap the measure of your crimes,
But in this loyal town and dwelling,
You raise these ensigns of rebellion?
'Tis done; fair Mercy shuts her door;
And Vengeance now shall sleep no more;
Rise then, my friends, in terror rise,
And wipe this scandal from the skies!
You'll see their Dagon, tho' well jointed,
Will sink before the Lord's anointed,
And like old Jericho's proud wall,
Before our ram's horns prostrate fall.”
 This said, our 'Squire, yet undismay'd,
Call'd forth the Constable to aid,
And bade him read in nearer station,
The riot-act and proclamation;
Who now advancing tow'rd the ring,
Began, “Our sov'reign Lord the King”—
When thousand clam'rous tongues he hears,
And clubs and stones assail his ears;
To fly was vain, to fight was idle,
By foes encompass'd in the middle;
In stratagem his aid he found,
And fell right craftily to ground;
Then crept to seek an hiding place,
'Twas all he could, beneath a brace;
Where soon the conq'ring crew espied him,
And where he lurk'd, they caught and tied him.
 At once with resolution fatal,
Both Whigs and Tories rush'd to battle;
Instead of weapons, either band
Seiz'd on such arms, as came to hand.
And as fam'd Ovid paints th' adventures
Of wrangling Lapithæ and Centaurs,
Who at their feast, by Bacchus led,
Threw bottles at each other's head,
And these arms failing in their scuffles,
Attack'd with handirons, tongs and shovels:
So clubs and billets, staves and stones
Met fierce, encount'ring ev'ry sconce,
And cover'd o'er with knobs and pains
Each void receptacle for brains;
Their clamours rend the hills around,
And earth rebellows with the sound;
And many a groan increas'd the din
From broken nose and batter'd shin.
M'Fingal rising at the word,
Drew forth his old militia sword;
Thrice cried, “King George,” as erst in distress
Romancing heroes did their mistress,
And brandishing the blade in air,
Struck terror thro' th' opposing war.
The Whigs, unsafe within the wind
Of such commotion shrunk behind.
With whirling steel around address'd,
Fierce thro' their thickest throng he press'd,
(Who roll'd on either side in arch,
Like Red-sea waves in Israel's march)
And like a meteor rushing through,
Struck on their pole a vengeful blow.
Around, the Whigs, of clubs and stones
Discharg'd whole vollies in platoons,
That o'er in whistling terror fly,
But not a foe dares venture nigh.
And now perhaps with conquest crown'd,
Our 'Squire had fell'd their pole to ground;
Had not some Pow'r, a Whig at heart,
Descended down and took their part;
(Whether 'twere Pallas, Mars or Iris,
'Tis scarce worth while to make enquiries)
Who at the nick of time alarming,
Assumed the graver form of Chairman;
Address'd a Whig, in ev'ry scene
The stoutest wrestler on the green,
And pointed where the spade was found,
Late used to fix their pole in ground,
And urg'd with equal arms and might
To dare our 'Squire to single fight.
The Whig thus arm'd, untaught to yield,
Advanc'd tremendous to the field;
Nor did M'Fingal shun the foe,
But stood to brave the desp'rate blow;
While all the party gaz'd suspended,
To see the deadly combat ended.
And Jove in equal balance weigh'd
The sword against the brandish'd spade,
He weigh'd; but lighter than a dream,
The sword flew up and kick'd the beam.
Our 'Squire on tiptoe rising fair,
Lifts high a noble stroke in air,
Which hung not, but like dreadful engines
Descended on the foe in vengeance.
But ah, in danger with dishonor
The sword perfidious fails its owner;
That sword, which oft had stood its ground
By huge trainbands encompass'd round,
Or on the bench, with blade right loyal,
Had won the day at many a trial,
Of stones and clubs had brav'd th' alarms,
Shrunk from these new Vulcanian arms.
The spade so temper'd from the sledge,
Nor keen nor solid harm'd its edge,
Now met it from his arm of might
Descending with steep force to smite;
The blade snapp'd short—and from his hand
With rust embrown'd the glitt'ring sand.
Swift turn'd M'Fingal at the view,
And call'd for aid th' attendant crew,
In vain; the Tories all had run,
When scarce the fight was well begun;
Their setting wigs he saw decreas'd
Far in th' horizon tow'rd the west.
Amaz'd he view'd the shameful sight,
And saw no refuge but in flight:
But age unweildy check'd his pace,
Tho' fear had wing'd his flying race;
For not a trifling prize at stake;
No less than great M'Fingal's back.
With legs and arms he work'd his course,
Like rider that outgoes his horse,
And labour'd hard to get away, as
Old Satan struggling on thro' chaos:
Till looking back he spied in rear
The spade-arm'd chief advanc'd too near.
Then stopp'd and seiz'd a stone that lay,
An antient land-mark near the way;
Nor shall we, as old Bards have done,
Affirm it weigh'd an hundred ton:
But such a stone as at a shift
A modern might suffice to lift,
Since men, to credit their enigmas,
Are dwindled down to dwarfs and pigmies,
And giants exiled with their cronies,
To Brobdingnags and Patagonias.
But while our hero turn'd him round,
And stoop'd to raise it from the ground,
The deadly spade discharg'd a blow
Tremendous on his rear below:
His bent knee fail'd, and void of strength,
Stretch'd on the ground his manly length;
Like antient oak o'erturn'd he lay,
Or tow'rs to tempests fall'n a prey,
And more things else—but all men know 'em,
If slightly vers'd in Epic Poem.
At once the crew, at this sad crisis,
Fall on and bind him ere he rises,
And with loud shouts and joyful soul
Conduct him pris'ner to the pole.