" WE three will make our New Year call
Upon Van Buren after night,
When lonesome in his palace hall
Turned out the people and the light!
Seward is master in New York,
The banks are broke, the wealthy beg;
We'll find the President a stork
Dozing upon a single leg. "
Webster and Clay picked up Calhoun
To comfort Van in his despair,
The White House bathing in the moon
Ducked in its brand new porte cochere .
The well-known trio passed the door,
Their echoes chased them in the gloom,
And on the Turkey carpet floor
They tip-toed to the great East Room.
" He's lost in space, a bumble bee, "
Growled Webster, " rising less and less! "
" His Independent Treasury "
Quoth Clay, " is holloWemptiness. "
" He lies in my usurped bed
Beside my bride in damned doom, "
Calhoun, the blue-lit Hamlet, said
And rapped like death upon a tomb.
Light, laugh and shout burst through the door:
Along the parlor's grand extent
Playing at leap-frog on the floor
They saw the ruined President;
His grown-up sons along the row
Made him, another playmate, stoop,
And o'er his bald head winged with snow
They jumped their father with a whoop.
Son Abram's Carolina bride,
Angelica, just out of school,
Was laughing " fit to split her side "
To see the great man play the fool.
Martin and John, like heralds stern,
Kept parent Martin on the run,
And made him leap-frog in his turn
And saw that he leaped every one.
" Good friends, " the President exclaimed,
" These boys their mother left to me;
I promised not to be ashamed
Ever to keep their company;
To keep them and myself so young
And of each other ever fond,
That when our worldly pride was stung
Our fireside would not have despond.
" My wife my schoolmate cousin was;
These youngsters are my cousins, too.
You will not find them frivolous
When there are harder things to do.
Good-natured Dutch, within our roost
We keep up holidays with rout,
I play with them as mother used, —
They will not leave their father out. "
" This is the secret of his court, "
Said Webster. " Let us learn his joys!
We were too solemn for the sport:
He practiced leaping with the boys.
Take off your coats, Calhoun and Clay!
And take a lesson how to leap!
We'll jump Saint Martin yet some day
Who plays the boy when we're asleep. "
Upon Van Buren after night,
When lonesome in his palace hall
Turned out the people and the light!
Seward is master in New York,
The banks are broke, the wealthy beg;
We'll find the President a stork
Dozing upon a single leg. "
Webster and Clay picked up Calhoun
To comfort Van in his despair,
The White House bathing in the moon
Ducked in its brand new porte cochere .
The well-known trio passed the door,
Their echoes chased them in the gloom,
And on the Turkey carpet floor
They tip-toed to the great East Room.
" He's lost in space, a bumble bee, "
Growled Webster, " rising less and less! "
" His Independent Treasury "
Quoth Clay, " is holloWemptiness. "
" He lies in my usurped bed
Beside my bride in damned doom, "
Calhoun, the blue-lit Hamlet, said
And rapped like death upon a tomb.
Light, laugh and shout burst through the door:
Along the parlor's grand extent
Playing at leap-frog on the floor
They saw the ruined President;
His grown-up sons along the row
Made him, another playmate, stoop,
And o'er his bald head winged with snow
They jumped their father with a whoop.
Son Abram's Carolina bride,
Angelica, just out of school,
Was laughing " fit to split her side "
To see the great man play the fool.
Martin and John, like heralds stern,
Kept parent Martin on the run,
And made him leap-frog in his turn
And saw that he leaped every one.
" Good friends, " the President exclaimed,
" These boys their mother left to me;
I promised not to be ashamed
Ever to keep their company;
To keep them and myself so young
And of each other ever fond,
That when our worldly pride was stung
Our fireside would not have despond.
" My wife my schoolmate cousin was;
These youngsters are my cousins, too.
You will not find them frivolous
When there are harder things to do.
Good-natured Dutch, within our roost
We keep up holidays with rout,
I play with them as mother used, —
They will not leave their father out. "
" This is the secret of his court, "
Said Webster. " Let us learn his joys!
We were too solemn for the sport:
He practiced leaping with the boys.
Take off your coats, Calhoun and Clay!
And take a lesson how to leap!
We'll jump Saint Martin yet some day
Who plays the boy when we're asleep. "