The omnibuses rumble
Along their cobbled way—
The "twelve inside" more humble
Than he who takes the pay:
From morn till midnight stealing,
His horses come and go—
The only creatures feeling
The "luxury of wo!" [See Notes (4)]
We editors of papers,
Who coin our brains for bread
By solitary tapers
While others doze in bed,
Have tasks as sad and lonely,
However wrong or right,
But with this difference only,
The horses rest at night.
From twelve till nearly fifty
I've toiled and idled not,
And, though accounted thrifty,
I'm scarcely worth a groat;
However, I inherit
What few have ever gained—
A bright and cheerful spirit
That never has complained.
A stillness and a sadness
Pervade the City Hall,
And speculating madness
Has left the street of Wall.
The Union Square looks really
Both desolate and dark,
And that's the case, or nearly,
From Battery to Park.
Had I a yacht, like Miller,
That skimmer of the seas—
A wheel rigged on a tiller, [See Notes (5)]
And a fresh gunwale breeze,
A crew of friends well chosen,
And all a-taunto, I
Would sail for regions frozen—
I'd rather freeze than fry.
Oh, this confounded weather!
(As some one sang or said,)
My pen, thought but a feather,
Is heavier than lead;
At every pore I'm oosing—
(I'm "caving in" to-day)—
My plumptitude I'm losing,
And dripping fast away.
I'm weeping like the willow
That droops in leaf and bough—
Let Croton's sparkling billow
Flow through the city now;
And, as becomes her station,
The muse will close her prayer:
God save the Corporation!
Long live the valiant Mayor! [See Notes (6)]
A Legend of the Mohawk.
In the days that are gone, by this sweet-flowing water,
Two lovers reclined in the shade of a tree;
She was the mountain-king's rosy-lipped daughter,
The brave warrior-chief of the valley was he.
Then all things around them, below and above,
Were basking as now in the sunshine of love—
In the days that are gone, by this sweet-flowing stream.
In the days that are gone, they were laid 'neath the willow,
The maid in her beauty, the youth in his pride;
Both slain by the foeman who crossed the dark billow,
And stole the broad lands where their children reside;
Whose fathers, when dying, in fear looked above,
And trembled to think of that chief and his love,
In the days that are gone, by this sweet flowing stream.