THE RECORDER.
A PETITION.
BY THOMAS CASTALY.
Dec. 20, 1828.
"On they move
In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood
Of flutes and soft Recorders."
Milton.
"Live in Settles numbers one day more!"
Pope.
My dear Recorder, you and I
Have floated down life's stream together,
And kept unharm'd our friendship's tie
Through every change of Fortune's sky,
Her pleasant and her rainy weather.
Full sixty times since first we met,
Our birthday suns have risen and set,
And time has worn the baldness now
Of Julius Cæsar on your brow;
Your brow, like his, a field of thought,
With broad deep furrows, spirit-wrought,
Whose laurel harvests long have shown
As green and glorious as his own;
And proudly would the Cæsar claim
Companionship with R*k*r's name,
His peer in forehead and in fame.
Both eloquent and learn'd and brave,
Born to command and skill'd to rule,
One made the citizen a slave,
The other makes him more—a fool.
The Cæsar an imperial crown,
His slaves' mad gift, refused to wear,
The R*k*r put his fool's cap on,
And found it fitted to a hair;
The Cæsar, though by birth and breeding,
Travel, the ladies, and light reading,
A gentleman in mien and mind,
And fond of Romans and their mothers,
Was heartless as the Arab's wind,
And slew some millions of mankind,
Including enemies and others.
The R*k*r, like Bob Acres, stood
Edgeways upon a field of blood,
The where and wherefore Swartwout knows,
Pull'd trigger, as a brave man should,
And shot, God bless them—his own toes.
The Cæsar pass'd the Rubicon
With helm, and shield, and breastplate on,
Dashing his war-horse through the waters;
The R*k*r would have built a barge
Or steamboat at the city's charge,
And pass'd it with his wife and daughters.
But let that pass. As I have said,
There's naught, save laurels, on your head,
And time has changed my clustering hair,
And shower'd the snow-flakes thickly there;
And though our lives have ever been,
As different as their different scene;
Mine more renown'd for rhymes than riches
Yours less for scholarship than speeches;
Mine pass'd in low-roof'd leafy bower,
Yours in high halls of pomp and power,
Yet are we, be the moral told,
Alike in one thing—growing old,
Ripen'd like summer's cradled sheaf,
Faded like autumn's falling leaf—
And nearing, sail and signal spread,
The quiet anchorage of the dead.
For such is human life, wherever
The voyage of its bark may be,
On home's green-bank'd and gentle river
Or the world's shoreless, sleepless sea.
Yes, you have floated down the tide
Of time, a swan in grace and pride
And majesty and beauty, till
The law, the Ariel of your will,
Power's best beloved, the law of libel
(A bright link in the legal chain)
Expounded, settled, and made plain,
By your own charge, the jurors' Bible,
Has clipp'd the venom'd tongue of slander,
That dared to call you "Party's gander,
The leader of the geese who make
Our cities' parks and ponds their home,
And keep her liberties awake
By cackling, as their sires saved Rome.
Grander of Party's pond, wherein
Lizard, and toad, and terrapin,
Your alehouse patriots, are seen,
In Faction's feverish sunshine basking;"
And now, to rend this veil of lies,
Word-woven by your enemies,
And keep your sainted memory free
From tarnish with posterity,
I take the liberty of asking
Permission, sir, to write your life,
With all its scenes of calm and strife,
And all its turnings and its windings,
A poem, in a quarto volume—
Verse, like the subject, blank and solemn,
With elegant appropriate bindings,
Of rat and mole skin the one half,
The other a part fox, part calf.
Your portrait, graven line for line,
From that immortal bust in plaster,
The master piece of Art's great master,
Mr. Praxiteles Browere,
Whose trowel is a thing divine,
Shall smile and bow, and promise there,
And twenty-nine fine forms and faces
(The Corporation and the Mayor),
Linked hand in hand, like loves and graces,
Shall hover o'er it, group'd in air,
With wild pictorial dance and song;
The song of happy bees in bowers,
The dance of Guido's graceful hours,
All scattering Flushing's garden flowers
Round the dear head they've loved so long.
I know that you are modest, know
That when you hear your merit's praise,
Your cheeks quick blushes come and go,
Lily and rose-leaf, sun and snow,
Like maidens' on their bridal days.
I know that you would fain decline
To aid me and the sacred nine,
In giving to the asking earth
The story of your wit and worth;
For if there be a fault to cloud
The brightness of your clear good sense,
It is, and be the fact allow'd,
Your only failing—Diffidence!
An amiable weakness—given
To justify the sad reflection,
That in this vale of tears not even
A R*k*r is complete perfection,
A most romantic detestation
Of power and place, of pay and ration;
A strange unwillingness to carry
The weight of honour on your shoulders,
For which you have been named, the very
Sensitive Plant of office-holders,
A shrinking bashfulness, whose grace
Gives beauty to your manly face.
Thus shades the green and growing vine
The rough bark of the mountain pine,
Thus round her freedom's waking steel
Harmodius wreathed his country's myrtle;
And thus the golden lemon's peel
Gives fragrance to a bowl of turtle.
True, "many a flower," the poet sings,
"Is born to blush unseen;"
But you, although you blush, are not
The flower the poets mean.
In vain you wooed a lowlier lot:
In vain you clipp'd your eagle-wings—
Talents like yours are not forgot
And buried with earth's common things.
No! my dear R*k*r, I would give
My laurels, living and to live,
Or as much cash as you could raise on
Their value, by hypothecation,
To be, for one enchanted hour,
In beauty, majesty, and power,
What you for forty years have been,
The Oberon of life's fairy scene.
An anxious city sought and found you
In a blessed day of joy and pride,
Scepter'd your jewell'd hand, and crown'd you
Her chief, her guardian, and her guide.
Honours which weaker minds had wrought
In vain for years, and knelt and pray'd for,
Are all your own, unpriced, unbought,
Or (which is the same thing) unpaid for.
Painfully great! against your will
Her hundred offices to hold,
Each chair with dignity to fill,
And your own pockets with her gold.
A sort of double duty, making
Your task a serious undertaking.
With what delight the eyes of all
Gaze on you, seated in your Hall,
Like Sancho in his island, reigning,
Loved leader of its motley hosts
Of lawyers and their bills of costs,
And all things thereto appertaining,
Such as crimes, constables, and juries,
Male pilferers and female furies,
The police and the polissons,
Illegal right and legal wrong.
Bribes, perjuries, law-craft, and cunning,
Judicial drollery and punning;
And all the et ceteras that grace
That genteel, gentlemanly place!
Or in the Council Chamber standing
With eloquence of eye and brow,
Your voice the music of commanding,
And fascination in your bow,
Arranging for the civic shows
Your "men in buckram," as per list,
Your John Does and your Richard Roes,
Those Dummys of your games of whist.
The Council Chamber—where authority
Consists in two words—a majority.
For whose contractors' jobs we pay
Our last dear sixpences for taxes,
As freely as in Sylla's day,
Rome bled beneath his lictors' axes.
Where—on each magisterial nose
In colours of the rainbow linger,
Like sunset hues on Alpine snows,
The printmarks of your thumb and finger.
Where he, the wisest of wild fowl,
Bird of Jove's blue-eyed maid—the owl,
That feather'd alderman, is heard
Nightly, by poet's ear alone,
To other eyes and ears unknown,
Cheering your every look and word,
And making, room and gallery through,
The loud, applauding echoes peal,
Of his "où peut on etre mieux
Qu'au sein de sa famille?"[A]
Oh for a herald's skill to rank
Your titles in their due degrees!
At Singsing—at the Tradesmen's Bank,
In Courts, Committees, Caucuses:
At Albany, where those who knew
The last year's secrets of the great,
Call you the golden handle to
The earthen Pitcher of the State.
(Poor Pitcher! that Van Buren ceases
To want its service gives me pain,
'Twill break into as many pieces
As Kitty's of Coleraine.)
At Bellevue, on her banquet night,
Where Burgundy and business meet,
On others, at the heart's delight,
The Pewter Mug in Frankfort-street;
From Harlæm bridge to Whitehall dock,
From Bloomingdale to Blackwell's Isles,
Forming, including road and rock,
A city of some twelve square miles,
O'er street and alley, square and block,
Towers, temples, telegraphs, and tiles,
O'er wharves whose stone and timbers mock
The ocean's and its navies' shock,
O'er all the fleets that float before her
O'er all their banners waving o'er her,
Her sky and waters, earth and air—
You are lord, for who is her lord mayor?
Where is he? Echo answers, where
And voices, like the sound of seas,
Breathe in sad chorus, on the breeze,
The Highland mourner's melody—
Oh Hone a rie! Oh Hone a rie!
The hymn o'er happy days departed,
The hope that such again may be,
When power was large and liberal-hearted,
And wealth was hospitality.
One more request, and I am lost,
If you its earnest prayer deny;
It is, that you preserve the most
Inviolable secrecy
As to my plan. Our fourteen wards
Contain some thirty-seven bards,
Who, if my glorious theme were known,
Would make it, thought and word, their own,
My hopes and happiness destroy,
And trample with a rival's joy
Upon the grave of my renown.
My younger brothers in the art,
Whose study is the human heart—
Minstrels, before whose spells have bow'd
The learn'd, the lovely, and the proud,
Ere their life's morning hours are gone—
Light hearts be theirs, the muse's boon,
And may their suns blaze bright at noon,
And set without a cloud.
Hillhouse, whose music, like his themes,
Lifts earth to heaven—whose poet dreams
Are pure and holy as the hymn
Echoed from harps of seraphim,
By bards that drank at Zion's fountains
When glory, peace, and hope were hers,
And beautiful upon her mountains
The feet of angel messengers.
Bryant, whose songs are thoughts that bless
The heart, its teachers, and its joy,
As mothers blend with their caress
Lessons of truth and gentleness
And virtue for the listening boy.
Spring's lovelier flowers for many a day
Have blossom'd on his wandering way,
Beings of beauty and decay,
They slumber in their autumn tomb;
But those that graced his own Green River,
And wreathed the lattice of his home,
Charm'd by his song from mortal doom,
Bloom on, and will bloom on for ever.
And Halleck—who has made thy roof,
St. Tammany! oblivion-proof—
Thy beer illustrious, and thee
A belted knight of chivalry;
And changed thy dome of painted bricks
And porter casks and politics,
Into a green Arcadian vale,
With St*ph*n All*n for its lark,
B*n B*il*y's voice its watch-dog's bark,
And J*hn T*rg*e its nightingale.
These, and the other THIRTY-FOUR,
Will live a thousand years or more—
If the world lasts so long. For me,
I rhyme not for posterity,
Though pleasant to my heirs might be
The incense of its praise,
When I, their ancestor, have gone,
And paid the debt, the only one
A poet ever pays.
But many are my years, and few
Are left me ere night's holy dew,
And sorrow's holier tears, will keep
The grass green where in death I sleep
And when that grass is green above me,
And those who bless me now and love me
Are sleeping by my side,
Will it avail me aught that men
Tell to the world with lip and pen
That once I lived and died?
No: if a garland for my brow
Is growing, let me have it now,
While I'm alive to wear it;
And if, in whispering my name,
There's music in the voice of fame
Like Garcia's, let me hear it!
The Christmas holydays are nigh,
Therefore, till Newyear's Eve, good-by,
Then revenons a nos moutons,
Yourself and aldermen—meanwhile,
Look o'er this letter with a smile;
And keep the secret of its song
As faithfully, but not as long,
As you have guarded from the eyes
Of editorial Paul Prys,
And other meddling, murmuring claimants,
Those Eleusinian mysteries,
The city's cash receipts and payments.
Yours ever,
T. C.
EPISTLES, ETC.
W*LT*R B*WNE, Esq.,
MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL OF APPOINTMENT OF THE STATE OF NEW-YORK, AT ALBANY, 1821.
"Stand not upon the order of your going.
But go at once."
"I cannot but remember such things were,
And were most precious to me."
Macbeth.
We do not blame you, W*lt*r B*wne,
For a variety of reasons;
You're now the talk of half the town,
A man of talent and renown,
And will be for perhaps two seasons.
That face of yours has magic in it;
Its smile transports us in a minute
To wealth and pleasure's sunny bowers;
And there is terror in its frown,
Which, like a mower's scythe, cuts down
Our city's loveliest flowers.
We therefore do not blame you, sir,
Whate'er our cause of grief may be;
And cause enough we have to "stir
The very stones to mutiny."
You've driven from the cash and cares
Of office, heedless of our prayers,
Men who have been for many a year
To us and to our purses dear,
And will be to our heirs for ever,
Our tears, thanks to the snow and rain,
Have swell'd the brook in Maiden-lane
Into a mountain river;
And when you visit us again,
Leaning at Tammany on your cane,
Like warrior on his battle blade,
You'll mourn the havoc you have made.
There is a silence and a sadness
Within the marble mansion now;
Some have wild eyes that threaten madness,
Some think of "kicking up a row."
Judge M*ll*r will not yet believe
That you have ventured to bereave
The city and its hall of him:
He has in his own fine way stated,
"The fact must be substantiated,"
Before he'll move a single limb.
He deems it cursèd hard to yield
The laurel won in every field
Through sixteen years of party war,
And to be seen at noon no more,
Enjoying at his office door
The luxury of a tenth segar.
Judge Warner says that, when he's gone,
You'll miss the true Dogberry breed;
And Christian swears that you have done
A most un-Christian deed.
How could you have the heart to strike
From place the peerless Pierre Van Wyck?
And the twin colonels, Haines and Pell,
Squire Fessenden, and Sheriff Bell;
M*rr*ll, a justice and a wise one,
And Ned M'Laughlin the exciseman;
The two health officers, believers
In Clinton and contagious fevers;
The keeper of the city's treasures,
The sealer of her weights and measures,
The harbour-master, her best bower
Cable in party's stormy hour;
Ten auctioneers, three bank directors,
And Mott and Duffy, the inspectors
Of whiskey and of flour?
It was but yesterday they stood
All (ex-officio) great and good.
But by the tomahawk struck down
Of party and of W*lt*r B*wne,
Where are they now? With shapes of air,
The caravan of things that were,
Journeying to their nameless home,
Like Mecca's pilgrims from her tomb;
With the lost Pleiad; with the wars
Of Agamemnon's ancestors;
With their own years of joy and grief,
Spring's bud, and autumn's faded leaf;
With birds that round their cradles flew;
With winds that in their boyhood blew;
With last night's dream and last night's dew.
Yes, they are gone; alas! each one of them;
Departed—every mother's son of them.
Yet often, at the close of day,
When thoughts are wing'd and wandering, they
Come with the memory of the past,
Like sunset clouds along the mind,
Reflecting, as they're flitting fast
In their wild hues of shade and light,
All that was beautiful and bright
In golden moments left behind.
TO * * * * *.
Dear ***, I am writing, not to you, but at you,
For the feet of you tourists have no resting-place;
But wherever with this the mail-pigeon may catch you,
May she find you with gayety's smile on your face;
Whether chasing a snipe at the Falls of Cohoes,
Or chased by the snakes upon Anthony's Nose;
Whether wandering, at Catskill, from Hotel to Clove,
Making sketches, or speeches, puns, poems, or love;
Or in old Saratoga's unknown fountain-land,
Threading groves of enchantment, half bushes, half sand;
Whether dancing on Sundays, at Lebanon Springs,
With those Madame Hutins of religion, the Shakers;
Or, on Tuesdays, with maidens who seek wedding rings
At Ballston, as taught by mammas and match-makers;
Whether sailing St. Lawrence, with unbroken neck,
From her thousand green isles to her castled Quebec;
Or sketching Niagara, pencil on knee
(The giant of waters, our country's pet lion),
Or dipp'd at Long Branch, in the real salt sea,
With a cork for a dolphin, a Cockney Arion;
Whether roaming earth, ocean, or even the air,
Like Dan O'Rourke's eagle—good luck to you there.
For myself, as you'll see by the date of my letter,
I'm in town, but of that fact the least said the better;
For 'tis vain to deny (though the city o'erflows
With well-dressed men and women, whom nobody knows)
That one rarely sees persons whose nod is an honour,
A lady with fashion's own impress upon her;
Or a gentleman bless'd with the courage to say,
Like Morris (the Prince Regent's friend, in his day),
"Let others in sweet shady solitudes dwell,
Oh! give me the sweet shady side of Pall Mall."
Apropos—our friend A. chanced this morning to meet
The accomplish'd Miss B. as he pass'd Contoit's Garden,
Both in town in July!—he cross'd over the street,
And she enter'd the rouge-shop of Mrs. St. Martin.
Resolved not to look at another known face,
Through Leonard and Church streets she walked to Park Place,
And he turn'd from Broadway into Catharine-lane,
And coursed, to avoid her, through alley and by-street,
Till they met, as the devil would have it, again,
Face to face, near the pump at the corner of Dey-st.
Yet, as most of "The Fashion" are journeying now,
With the brown hues of summer on cheek and on brow,
The few "gens comme il faut" who are lingering here,
Are, like fruits out of season, more welcome and dear.
Like "the last rose of summer, left blooming alone,"
Or the last snows of winter, pure ice of haut ton,
Unmelted, undimm'd by the sun's brightest ray,
And, like diamonds, making night's darkness seem day.
One meets them in groups, that Canova might fancy,
At our new lounge at evening, the Opera Français,
In nines like the Muses, in threes like the Graces,
Green spots in a desert of commonplace faces.
The Queen, Mrs. Adams, goes there sweetly dress'd
In a beautiful bonnet, all golden and flowery:
While the King, Mr. Bonaparte, smiles on Celeste,
Heloise, and Hutin, from his box at the Bowery.
For news, Parry still the North Sea is exploring,
And the Grand Turk has taken, they say, the Acropolis,
And we, in Swamp Place, have discover'd, in boring,
A mineral spring to refine the metropolis.
The day we discover'd it was, by-the-way,
In the life of the Cockneys, a glorious day.
For we all had been taught, by tradition and reading,
That to gain what admits us to levees of kings,
The gentleness, courtesy, grace of high breeding,
The only sure way was to "visit the Springs."
So the whole city visited Swamp Spring en masse,
From attorney to sweep, from physician to paviour,
To drink of cold water at sixpence a glass,
And learn true politeness and genteel behaviour.
Though the crowd was immense till the hour of departure,
No gentleman's feelings were hurt in the rush,
Save a grocer's, who lost his proof-glass and bung-starter,
And a chimney sweep's, robb'd of his scraper and brush.
They linger'd till sunset and twilight had come,
Then, wearied in limb, but much polish'd in manners,
The sovereign people moved gracefully home,
In the beauty and pride of "an army with banners."
As to politics—Adams and Clinton yet live,
And reign, we presume, as we never have miss'd 'em,
And woollens and Webster continue to thrive
Under something they call the American System.
If you're anxious to know what the country is doing,
Whether ruin'd already or going to ruin,
And who her next president will be, please heaven,
Read the letters of Jackson, the speeches of Clay,
All the party newspapers, three columns a day,
And Blunt's Annual Register, year 'twenty-seven.
A FRAGMENT.
* * * * * * * * * * *
His shop is a grocer's—a snug, genteel place,
Near the corner of Oak-street and Pearl;
He can dress, dance, and bow to the ladies with grace
And ties his cravat with a curl.
He's ask'd to all parties—north, south, east, and west,
That take place between Chatham and Cherry,
And when he's been absent full oft has the "best
Society" ceased to be merry.
And nothing has darken'd a sky so serene,
Nor disorder'd his beauship's Elysium,
Till this season among our élitè there has been
What is call'd by the clergy "a schism."
'Tis all about eating and drinking—one set
Gives sponge-cake, a few "kisses" or so,
And is cool'd after dancing with classic sherbet,
"Sublimed" (see Lord Byron) "with snow."
Another insists upon punch and perdrix,
Lobster-salad, Champagne, and, by way
Of a novelty only, those pearls of our sea,
Stew'd oysters from Lynn-Haven bay.
Miss Flounce, the young milliner, blue-eyed and bright,
In the front parlour over her shop,
"Entertains," as the phrase is, a party to-night,
Upon peanuts and ginger-pop.
And Miss Fleece, who's a hosier, and not quite as young,
But is wealthier far than Miss Flounce,
She "entertains" also to-night with cold tongue,
Smoked herring, and cherry-bounce.
In praise of cold water the Theban bard spoke,
He of Teos sang sweetly of wine;
Miss Flounce is a Pindar in cashmere and cloak,
Miss Fleece an Anacreon divine.
The Montagues carry the day in Swamp Place;
In Pike-street the Capulets reign;
A limonadière is the badge of one race,
Of the other a flask of Champagne.
Now as each the same evening her soireè announces,
What better, he asks, can be done,
Than drink water from eight until ten with the Flounces,
And then wine with the Fleeces till one!
* * * * * * * * * * *
SONG.
BY MISS * * * *.
Air, "To ladies eyes a round, boy."
Moore.
The winds of March are humming
Their parting song, their parting song,
And summer's skies are coming,
And days grow long, and days grow long.
I watch, but not in gladness,
Our garden tree, our garden tree;
It buds, in sober sadness,
Too soon for me, too soon for me.
My second winter's over,
Alas! and I, alas! and I
Have no accepted lover:
Don't ask me why, don't ask me why.
'Tis not asleep or idle
That love has been, that love has been;
For many a happy bridal
The year has seen, the year has seen;
I've done a bridemaid's duty,
At three or four, at three or four;
My best bouquet had beauty,
Its donor more, its donor more.
My second winter's over,
Alas! and I, alas! and I
Have no accepted lover:
Don't ask me why, don't ask me why.
His flowers my bosom shaded
One sunny day, one sunny day;
The next, they fled and faded,
Beau and bouquet, beau and bouquet.
In vain, at ball and parties,
I've thrown my net, I've thrown my net;
This waltzing, watching heart is
Unchosen yet, unchosen yet.
My second winter's over,
Alas! and I, alas! and I
Have no accepted lover:
Don't ask me why, don't ask me why.
They tell me there's no hurry
For Hymen's ring, for Hymen's ring;
And I'm too young to marry:
'Tis no such thing, 'tis no such thing.
The next spring tides will dash on
My eighteenth year, my eighteenth year;
It puts me in a passion,
Oh dear, oh dear! oh dear, oh dear!
My second winter's over,
Alas! and I, alas! and I
Have no accepted lover:
Don't ask me why, don't ask me why.