Who, as it was said, went out, in the year 1797, to excite discontents and insurrections in the western country, particularly, in Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee
Musician of the west! whose vast design
Schemes our new states with England to combine;
How vain the hope, with violin and bow,
Such feeble arms, to work internal wo!
How weak the attempt our union to divide
With not a sword or pistol at your side!
Not even a drum your engineer employs:—
He's right—a drum would blast the plot, by noise:
All must be done in midnight silence, all
Your plans must ripen or your projects fall.
Unknown, unseen, till in the destined hour
Descends the stroke of trans-atlantic power!
By music's note to sway the western wild
Indeed is new;—we heard it and we smiled.
In cold December's iron-hearted reign
Would you with blushing blossoms deck the plain;
Would you with sound immure the Thirteen Stars,
Or plant a garland on the front of Mars?
To sound, not sense, once brutes, they say, advanced,
When Orpheus whistled, fauns and satyrs danced—
You are no Orpheus—and it may be true
He play'd some tunes that are unknown to you.
Hopes, such as yours, on cat-gut who would place;
On tenor, treble, counter, or the bass:
Who arm'd with horse-hair, hopes a world to win
Who gains dominion from a violin?
Such if there was, in times, the lord knows when,
He must have been at least the first of men—
But now—the world would have not much to prize
In such a warfare where no soldier dies:
Thus would it say—by sad experience taught,
'Oh! may we never fight as these have fought!
'These to the charge with Thespian arms advanced,
'And when they should have fought, the soldiers danced;
'They had no drums, they felt no martial flame,
'But, cold as Christmas, to the conflict came!'
My dreams present you thrumming on your string
Playing at proper stands, God save the king!
I see you march, a pedlar with his pack,
And that poor fiddle swung athwart your back,
(Like Reynard from some hen-roost hurrying home
With plunder'd poultry for the feast to come)
Trudging the wilds, on bold adventures bent,
The woods at once your coverlet and tent,
To fierce rebellions our back-woods to call—
The attempt how mighty! and the means how small.
Amphion once, the classic stories say,
When on his organ he began to play,
So soft, so sweet, so melting were his tunes
That even the savage rocks danced rigadoons,
The trees, themselves, with frantic passions fired
Leap'd from their roots and every note admired:
Quitting the spot, where many a year they grew
Quick to the music sprung the enchanted crew,
Form'd o'er his head a sun-repelling power
And bow'd their shadowy heads to music's power.
If what, this moment, some relate be true
Still greater wonders are reserved for you.
Your music, far, all Amphion's art exceeds,
Not trees and rocks, but provinces it leads.
All Alleghany capers to the sound,
And southward moves to meet the iberian bound;
Kentucky hears the soul-enlivening notes
And on the artist and his music doats;
Remote Sanduskie spreads her eager wings,
And wild Miami with the concert rings;
Tiptoe, for flight, stands every hill and tree
From Huron's shores to savage Tennessee;
Arthur St. Clair might soon its influence feel;
But Arthur knows no music—but of steel:
Arthur St. Clair attends, with listening ears,
And when the purpose of your march appears,
Such music only will excite his rage,
He'll come, and drive you from your dancing stage;
Cut every string, the bridge, and sound-board seize,
By your own cat-gut hang you to the trees,
And bid you know, too late, It is no jest
To play rebellion's music to the west.
[151] From the edition of 1815.