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| THE LORD supreme the basis laid | |
| For science, commerce, and for trade; | |
| And sent a wise and chosen race, | |
| To build and beautify the place. | |
| Huge fabrics rising into view, | 5 |
| With shops of trade, and temples too, | |
| Betray the enterprise and zeal | |
| The emulous projectors feel. | |
| On either bay a street is laid, | |
| And commons into parks are made; | 10 |
| While num’rous shorter streets and lanes | |
| Divide and check the bushy plains. | |
| Anon the builder stops and views | |
| The rising village as it grows— | |
| The shores are fring’d with docks and slips | 15 |
| And boast their sev’ral thousand ships, | |
| With schooners, sloops, and brigs and boats, | |
| And ev’ry kind of thing that floats, | |
| From ev’ry nation on the globe, | |
| That makes a pin, a book, or robe. | 20 |
| And here the southern merchant hies, | |
| With fancy goods the place supplies, | |
| While Ireland her grocers sends, | |
| With rum to treat her Yankee friends; | |
| And England, France, and humbler Wales | 25 |
| Send here to see what trade prevails. | |
| And try if any chance there be | |
| To undermine our liberty. | |
| A transatlantic pride they bring, | |
| With follies, fashions, every thing. | 30 |
| Now leaving out the idle scene | |
| At gov’ment-house and bowling-green, | |
| The southern park, now batt’ry call’d, | |
| The stone and turf with which it’s wall’d, | |
| Its forts and guns and drinking-place— | 35 |
| To eastward Chatham street we’ll trace. | |
| But, passing Tammany, we come | |
| Directly to the Museum. | |
| A stately house, completely full | |
| Of mammoth bones, or bones of bull, | 40 |
| With birds and beasts, and min’ral ore, | |
| And things that ne’er were known before. | |
| It is no mark of knave or fool, | |
| To visit oft this nat’ral school, | |
| For good and wise men have been in, | 45 |
| And yet come out as wise again. | |
| But longer here we may not be, | |
| As we have other things to see; | |
| And to observe how Chatham street | |
| Has suffer’d from the fire of late. | 50 |
| Near sixty houses laid in dust, | |
| And this of evils not the worst; | |
| For families two hundred more | |
| Were robb’d of home in one short hour. | |
| On lofty house high mounted up, | 55 |
| E’en tiptoe on the very top, | |
| I view the wide extended block, | |
| Where goats and sheep commingled flock. | |
| Broadway the first that takes the eye, | |
| The noblest street I here espy, | 60 |
| The new-swept side-walks neat and clean, | |
| With poplars shaded sweet and green, | |
| And sev’ral thousand stylish folks | |
| Are seen repassing on the walks. | |
| Here side by side close converse hold, | 65 |
| A mincing pair, till each has told, | |
| Perhaps, the whole she thinks or knows | |
| About her prospects and her beaux. | |
| And there a gentleman complete, | |
| In fashion all, from head to feet, | 70 |
| With hugest seal and ruffles wide, | |
| Now strutting in the height of pride, | |
| And in his heart a want of sense, | |
| His long-neglected judgment hence; | |
| For so the fashion is, and he, | 75 |
| For fashion-sake, must shallow be. | |
| For miles around we now behold | |
| New objects, and new scenes unfold; | |
| The num’rous steeples, tow’ring high, | |
| Seen best from ships when passing by, | 80 |
| And next the thousand streets appear, | |
| Some fill’d with carts and others clear, | |
| Extending now the pow’r of sight, | |
| We view the spreads of canvas white | |
| Which press the oval hulks along, | 85 |
| As swift as horses, twice as strong. | |
| With eagle-eye we now can see | |
| Where all the public houses be: | |
| And leaving churches unobserv’d, | |
| And places where the devil’s serv’d, | 90 |
| We prospect have of Fed’ral Hall, | |
| Of hotels and of taverns small! | |
| And tow’ring high above the rest, | |
| From Jersey bank observ’d the best, | |
| Or when descending Hudson bold, | 95 |
| The City Hotel we behold; | |
| And next to that Mechanic Hall, | |
| High built, though narrow made and small; | |
| Now Washington and Tammany | |
| Which own’d by politicians be; | 100 |
| Commercial next, and old Tontine, | |
| Whose earthen roofs, sun-beaten shine, | |
| And Phœnix new, and num’rous banks, | |
| Where wealth plays off her shaving pranks. | |
| Now turning here and there we see | 105 |
| Where all the public auctions be; | |
| What motley crowds assemble there; | |
| Or loss or benefit to share— | |
| The country folks, an honest set, | |
| Here cheaply buy, but nothing get. | 110 |
| And there the market glutted stands | |
| That ev’ry class of men commands, | |
| For rich and poor commingle here, | |
| And buy they must, or cheap or dear— | |
| They have no choice, for all must eat, | 115 |
| And butchers always sell their meat. | |
| Now round and round we turn to see | |
| All kind of folks, or bond or free, | |
| Or black, or white, or brown, or grey, | |
| Blasphemers, or the folks that pray, | 120 |
| With carriages that go and come, | |
| Some Quaker-like, and glit’ring some. | |
| But weary grown, at length, of vain | |
| Review, we straight descend again, | |
| To where the sudden change of scene | 125 |
| Makes us forget where we have been. | |
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