The American Cyclops, the Hero of New Orleans, and Spoiler of Silver Spoons | Page 2

lordly bird;
"Ah, tyrant!" shrieked he,
"wherefore must I die?"
The Sportsman said, "thou art less strong
than I."
And thus the world to might becomes the dower,
While
justice yields before remorseless power.
[Illustration: "He blew a warlike trump
And marched to conquest--conquest of a pump." _Page_ 23.]
When distant ages rise to view our times,
Whate'er betide our
_silv'ry_ flowing rhymes,
The brave we sing--Boeotian of the East

Will still survive to spread the mimic feast.
'Tis said in fables that
Silenus old
To Midas lent the fatal gift of gold;
But Terminus, the
god of rogues, has giv'n
Our hero gold unbless'd of man or heav'n.

'Mid all the tyrants of our age and clime,
He stands alone in infamy
and crime;
Not e'en Thersites of the cunning tribe,
Gloried in guile
like him we now describe.
Born of a race where thrift, with iron rod,

Taught punic faith and mocked the laws of God;
Where stern
oppression held her impious reign,
And mild dissent was death with
torturous pain;
His youth drank in the lessons of his race,
Which
stamp'd their impress on his hideous face.
[Illustration: "Like Fallstaff, seeks repose and dreams of glory,
While Bethel's thunder peal'd another story." _Page_ 23.]
Old England's bard with epic fire illum'd
Tartarean pits, where fiends

with darkness gloom'd;
But 'mid th' infernal host this face had shone,

Grimmest of all 'neath dread Armageddon.
The outward form
proclaimed the inner man,
And frightened virtue fled where it began;

The heart, the head, there devils might fear to dwell,
Lest in their
depths there lurked a deeper hell,
Does fiction, fancy, gild the picture
drawn,
Hate cloud our judgment, truth give place to scorn?
Go seek
the answer in the youth at school--
He scoffs at church and laughs at
human rule.
A beggar,[1] he plays his _role_ with brazen cheek,

With equal ease _insurgent_ or a "sneak."
[Illustration: "Leaves gallant Winthrop to his mournful fate,
But takes the field when haply 'tis too late." _Page_ 23.]
A theologian, without doctor's chair,
He dons the gown t' escape the
task of prayer.
"Heresiarch recant, or leave the school:"
A
recantation proved the knave no fool.[2]
Behold him later in another
sphere,
Where thieves abound and murderers appear;
Tricked out in
low and meretricious art,
He plays with skill the pettifogger's part;

Chicanery's brought to succor darkest crime,
Too basely foul t'
expose in decent rhyme.
Oh! shades of Littleton and Murray rise,

Where Webster trod and Choate all honor'd lies--
Rise to behold the
satyr in their place,
Who points the moral of his clime and race;

And if decay and shame may wake thy grief,
Weep for New England
cursed by such a chief.
[Illustration: "Our hero vowed Magruder's works to take,
Whereof the books no mention deign to make." _Page_ 23.]
Oh! hapless hour, when from the stormy North,
This modern Cyclops
marched repellent forth,
To slake his thirst for blood and plundered
wealth,
Not as the soldier, but by fraud and stealth;
To waft the
gales of death with horror rife
On helpless age, and wage with
women strife:
To leave at Baltimore and New Orleans
The

drunkard's name, or worse, the gibbet's scenes;
To license lust with
all a lecher's rage,
And stab the virtue of a Christian age:
[Illustration: "Born of a race where thrift, with iron rod,
Taught punic faith and mocked the laws of God;

His youth drank in the lessons of his
race,
Which stamp'd their impress on his
hideous face." _Page_ 11.]
This single crime will fix a beastly name,
Fresh in immortal infamy
and shame.
Whence comes his martial fame, who thus has soar'd,

While thousands fell and deadly cannon roar'd?
The _raw militia_ of
his native State
Had taught him war and made our hero great.
A
pot-house soldier, he parades by day,
And drunk by night, he sighs
the foe to slay;
In vision sees the future road to fame,
The bale-fires
burn and cities wrapped in flame:
The gathered treasure of a teeming
land
Glitters and falls beneath his blood-stained hand;
Plantations
smiling, palaces all bright,
Stuff'd with their wealth of plate, dance to
his sight,
And drunken Polyphemus[3] grimly swoons,
[Illustration: "But _Io Bacche_! Victory comes at last--
Our doughty chief in New Orleans is
cast;
The donkey stole the lion's skin and
brayed,
And Farragut our Cyclop's fortune
made." _Page_ 23.]
As heir expectant of unnumbered spoons.[4]
He wakes a patriot;
presto, he is clad
As Fallstaff for the battle--raving mad.
Lo!
Baltimore becomes the first emprise,
When Gilmor's scandal shock'd
the men