Classic Poem

HIS VISIT TO NEW YORK .

H E comes on the wings of the warm south-west,
In the saffron hues of the sunbeam dress'd,
And lingers awhile on the placid bay,
As the ice-cakes languidly steal away,
To drink those gems which the wave turns up,
Like Egyptian pearls in the Roman's cup.

Then hies to the wharves where the hawser binds
The impatient ship from the wistful winds,
And slackens each rope till it hangs from on high,
Less firmly pencil'd against the sky:
And sports in the stiffen'd canvas there
Till its folds float out in the wooing air:
Then leaves these quellers of Ocean's pride
To swing from the pier on the lazy tide.

He reaches the Battery's grassy bed,
And the earth smokes out from beneath his tread;
And he turns him about to look wistfully back
On each charm that he leaves on his beautiful track;
Each islet of green which the bright waters fold,
Like emeralds, fresh from their bosom roll'd,
The sea just peering the headlands through
Where the sky is lost in its deeper blue,
And the thousand barks which securely sweep
With silvery wing round the land-lock'd deep.

He loiters awhile on the springy ground,
To watch the children gambol around,
And thinks it hard that a touch from him
Cannot make the aged as lithe of limb;
That he hath no power to melt the rime,
The stubborn frost, that is made by Time:
And sighing, he leaves the urchins to play,
And launches at last on the world of Broadway.

There were faces and figures of heavenly mould,
Of charms not yet by the poet told;
There were dancing plumes, there were mantles gay,
Flowers and ribbons flaunting there,
Such as of old on a festival day
The Idalian nymphs were wont to wear,
And the Thaw-king felt his cheek flush high,
And his pulses flutter in every limb,
As he gazed on many a beaming eye,
And many a form that flitted by,
With twinkling foot and ankle trim.

And he practiced many an idle freak,
As he lounged the morning through;
He sprung the frozen gutters aleak,
For want of aught else to do;
And left them, black as a libeller's ink,
To gurgle away to the sewer-sink.

He sees a beggar, gaunt and grim,
Arouse a miser's choler,
And he laughs while he melts the soul of him
To fling the wretch a dollar;
And he thinks how small a heaven 'twould take
For a world of souls like his to make.

He read, placarded upon the wall,
" That the country now on its friends did call,
For liberty was in danger; "
And he went to a room ten feet by four,
Where a chairman and sec., and couple more
(Making five with our friendly stranger),

By the aid of four slings and two tallow tapers,
Were preparing to tell in the morning papers
Of the Union unbroken,
By this very token,
" That the people in mass last night had woken
And their will at the primal meetings spoken! "
And he trembled himself to the tip of his wing
At the juggling might of the Caucus king.

He saw an Oneida baskets peddling
Around the place where the polls were held;
And a Fed, the Red-skin kicked, for meddling,
As the Indian a Democrat's ballot spell'd.
That son of the soil
Who had no vote,
How dared he to spoil
A trick so neat,
Meant only to cheat
The voters who hither from Europe float!

And now as the night falls chill and gray,
Like a drizzling rain on a new-made tomb,
And his father, the Sun, has slunk away,
And left him alone to gas and gloom,
The Thaw-king steals in a vapor thin
Through the lighted porch of a house, wherein
Music and mirth were gayly mingled;
And groups like hues in one bright flower
Dazzled the Thaw-king while he singled
Some one on whom to try his power.

He enters first in a lady's eyes,
And thrusts at a dandy's heart;
But the vest that is made by Frost defies
The point of the Thaw-king's dart;
And the baffled spirit pettishly flies
On a pedant to try his art;
But his aim is equally foil'd by the dust-
Y lore that envelops the man of must.

And next he tries with a fiddler's sighs
To melt the heart of a belle;
But around her waist there's a stout arm placed,
Which shields that lady well.
And that waist! oh! that waist — it is one that you would
Like to clasp in a waltz, or — wherever you could.

Her figure was fashion'd tall and slim,
But with rounded bust and shapely limb;
And her queen-like step as she trod the floor,
And her look as she bridled in beauty's pride,
Was such as the Tyrian heroine wore
When she blush'd alone on the conscious shore,
The wandering Dardan's unwedded bride.

And the Thaw-king gazed on that lady bright,
With her form of love and her looks of light,
Till his spirits began to wane,
And his wits were put to rout;
And entering into a poet's brain,
He thaw'd these verses out:

" River, O river, thou rovest free
From the mountain height to the fresh blue sea,
Free thyself, while in silver chain
Linking each charm of land and main.
Calling at first thy banded waves
From hill-side thickets and fern-hid caves,
From the splinter'd crag thou leap'st below
Through leafy glades at will to flow —
Idling now with the dallying sedge,
Slumbering now by the steep's moss'd edge,
With statelier march once more to break
From wooded valley to breezy lake;
Yet all of these scenes, though fair they be,
River, O river, are bann'd to me!

" River, O river! upon thy tide
Gayly the freighted vessels glide;
Would that thou thus couldst bear away
The thoughts that burthen my weary day,
Or that I, from all, save thou, set free,
Though laden still, might rove with thee.
True that thy waves brief lifetime find,
And live at the will of the wanton wind —
True that thou seekest the ocean's flow
To be lost therein for evermoe!
Yet the slave who worships at glory's shrine,
But toils for a bubble as frail as thine,
But loses his freedom here, to be
Forgotten as soon as in death set free. "