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Spontaneous Us!
O my Camarados! I have no delicatesse as a diplomat, but I go blind on Libertad!
Give me the flap-flap of the soaring Eagle’s pinions!
Give me the tail of the British lion tied in a knot inextricable, not to be solved anyhow!
Give me a standing army (I say ‘give me,’ because just at present we want one badly, armies being often useful in time of war).
I see our superb fleet (I take it that we are to have a superb fleet built almost immediately);
I observe the crews prospectively; they are constituted of various nationalities, not necessarily American;
I see them sling the slug and chew the plug;
I hear the drum begin to hum;
72
Both the above rhymes are purely accidental and contrary to my principles.
We shall wipe the floor of the mill-pond with the scalps of able-bodied British tars!
I see Professor Edison about to arrange for us a torpedo-hose on wheels, likewise an infernal electro-semaphore;
I see Henry Irving dead-sick and declining to play Corporal Brewster;
Cornell, I yell! I yell Cornell!
I note the Manhattan boss leaving his dry-goods store and investing in a small Gatling-gun and a ten-cent banner;
I further note the Identity evolved out of forty-four spacious and thoughtful States;
I note Canada as shortly to be merged in that Identity; similarly Van Diemen’s Land, Gibraltar and Stratford-on-Avon;
Briefly, I see Creation whipped!
O ye Colonels! I am with you (I too am a Colonel and on the pension-list);
73
I drink to the lot of you; to Colonels Cleveland, Hitt, Vanderbilt, Chauncey M. Depew, O’Donovan Rossa and the late Colonel Monroe;
I drink an egg-flip, a morning-caress, an eye-opener, a maiden-bosom, a vermuth-cocktail, three sherry-cobblers and a gin-sling!
Good old Eagle!
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