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

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 at Guy's:?"To horse, to horse," our hero drunk exclaims,?"I'll crush rebellion--give the town to flames."?The faithful groom the pawing steed attends,?The maudlin Cyclops all oblique ascends;?But ere the lambent flames consume the town,?The Cid unhorsed, like Bacchus, topples down.?Old Juno's goose erst saved imperial Rome,?But Rebel whisky saves the Rebels' home.?Next comes the dismal order--'tis from Scott--
[Illustration: "Fraternal discord cease." _Page 27._]
"Leave Baltimore." He blew a warlike trump,?And