The Poetical Writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck/To Walter Bowne, Esq.
TO WALTER BOWNE, ESQ.,10
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.”
e do not blame you, Walter Bowne,
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 forever.
Our tears, thanks to the snow and rain,
Have swelled 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 Miller 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 cursed 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;
Morrell, a justice and a wise one,
And Ned McLaughlin 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 harbor-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 Walter Bowne,
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 winged 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.