The Poetical Writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck/To the Baron von Hoffman

by Fitz-Greene Halleck and Joseph Rodman Drake

TO THE BARON VON HOFFMAN,⁹⁰
Morrison’s Hotel, Dublin, June 20, 1823.

arewell, farewell to thee, Baron von Hoffman,
Thus warbled a creditor over his wine,
Of unmeaning faces I’ve gazed on enough, man,
But never on one half as stupid as thine.

Oh, gay as the negro who trotted behind thee,
How light was thy heart till thy money was gone!
But when all was gone, ’twas the devil to find thee;
The nest still remained, but the eagle was flown.

Yet long upon Harlem’s gray rocks and green highlands
Shall Burnham⁹¹ and Cato remember the name
Of him who away in the far British Islands
Now lights his cigar at the blaze of his fame.

And still when the bell at the Coffee-House ringing
Assembles, of brokers, the young and the old,
The happiest there to his memory bringing
Thy frolics, shall swear when thy story is told.

And Jacob, the tailor, as fondly he lingers
O’er the leaves of his ledger by night and by day,
Will count the sums due him from thee on his fingers,
And mournfully turn from their figures away.

Nor shall Carlo,⁹² beloved of thy bosom, forget thee,
In his merriest hour at thy name he will start;
By the side of his chaise and his horses he’ll set thee,
Embalmed in the innermost shrine of his heart.

Farewell, farewell, while the spirit of evil
Has power in a creditor’s bosom, we swear
To be with thee on earth—if thou goest to the devil,
He is an old friend of ours, and will visit thee there.

Farewell, be it ours to embitter thy pillow
With thistles whose wounds are eternal and deep,
There are packets of letters afloat on the billow
That shall poison thy whiskey and torture thy sleep.

Around thee shall hover the constable gentry,
Those bloodhounds of law, ever thirsty and true—
Worse foes than the Frenchmen who saw you a sentry
In a platoon of Dutchmen at red Waterloo.

We’ll dine where the bailiffs in Bow Street are drinking,
And bribe all their clubs to be aimed at thy head;
And when of thy snug German home thou art thinking,
Take out a ca. sa. and take thee out of bed.

H.