Sceptered your jeweled hand, and crowned you Her chief, her guardian and her guide. Honors which weaker minds had wrought In vain for years and knelt and prayed for, Are all your own, unpriced unbought, Or (which is the same thing) unpaid for. Painfully great! against your will Her hundred offices to hold, Each chair with dignity to fill. And your own pockets, with her gold. A sort of double duty, making Your task a serious undertaking. With what delight the eyes of all Gaze on you, seated in your Hall, Like Sancho in his island reigning, Lord leader of its motley hosts Of lawyers and their bills of costs, And all things thereto appertaining, Such as crimes, constables and juries, Male pilferers and female furies. The police and the Pollissons, Illegal right and legal wrong. Bribes, perjuries, law-craft and cunning. Judicial drollery and punning; And all the et ceteras that grace That genteel, gentlemanly place! Or in the Council Chamber standing, With eloquence of eye and brow. Your voice the music of commanding, And fascination in your bow. Arranging for the civic shows Your " men in buckram," as per list, Your John Does and your Richard Roes, Those Uummys of your games of whist. The Council Chamber — where authority Consists in two words — a majority. For whose contractors' jobs we pay Our last dear sixpences for taxes, As freely as in Sylla's day Rome bled beneath his Iictor's axes. Where on each magisterial nose In colors of the rainbow linger, Like sunset hues on Alpine snows. The printmarks of your thumb and finger. Where he, the wisest of wise fowl, Bird of Jove's blue-eyed maid — the owl, That feathered alderman, is heard Nightly, by poet's ear alone. To others' eyes and ears unknown, Cheering your every look and word, And making, room and gallery through. The loud, applauding echoes peal, Of his " Oil peut-on etre mieux Qu"au sein de sa famille." Oh! for a Herald's skill to rank
Your titles in their due degrees! At Sing Sing, at the Tradesman's Bank, In courts, committees, caucuses; At Albany, where those who know The last year's secrets of the Great, Call you the golden handle to The earthen Pitcher of the State. (Poor Pitcher!3 that Van Buren ceases To want its service gives me pain, 'Twill break into as many pieces As Kitty's of Coleraine.4 ) At Bellevue, on her banquet night, Where Burgundy and business meet, On others, at the heart's delight, The Pewter Mug in Frankfort Street, From Harlem bridge to Whitehall dock, From Bloomingdale to Blackwell's isles, Forming, including road and rock, A city of some twelve square miles. O'er street and alley, square and block, Towers, temples, telegraphs and tiles, O'er wharves whose stone and timbers mock The ocean's and its navies' shock, O'er all the fleets that float before her. O'er all their banners waving o'er her, Her sky and waters, earth and air — You are Lord, for who is her Lord Mayor? Where is he? Echo answers, where? And voices like the sound of seas Breathe in sad chorus, on the breeze. The Highland mourner's melody — Oh Hone5 a rie! Oh Hone a rie! The hymn o'er happy days departed, The hope that such again may be, When power was large and liberal hearted, And wealth was hospitality. One more request, and I am lost If you its earnest prayer deny. It is that you preserve the most Inviolable secrecy 3 Nathaniel Pitcher was elected lieutenant-governor in 1S26, when De Witt Clinton was elected governor, and by the death of Clinton he became acting governor. He expected to be nominated for lieutenant-governor in 1828, when Van Buren was elected governor, and not having received the nomination he broke with his party. 4 This reference is to an old Irish song about a maid who was so startled at the sudden appearing of her lover that she dropped and broke her pitcher. He soothed her after the fashion of lovers, ami after that, " The devil a pitcher was whole in Coleraine." Mr. Abbey included the song in his illustrated volume of " Old Songs." 5 Philip Hone was a prominent citizen, and had been mavor, and was naval officer at the time of hisdeath, in 1851.
