| |
| “HUZZA! Huzza! clear, clear the way! | |
| “Run—the Balloon goes up to-day!” | |
| See old and young, black, white, and all | |
| Fill every passage to Vauxhall! | |
| Vauxhall, the gold—the flooded shore | 5 |
| Where streams from every quarter pour. | |
| See the innumerable throng, | |
| That in the Bowery crowd along! | |
| See dandy coats and bonnets gay, | |
| Shawls, ribbons, stream along Broad-way! | 10 |
| See carts and coaches dashing on! | |
| See men and boys and women run! | |
| They come, they come, from every side, | |
| Like bubbles on a rushing tide! | |
| They drive with half Niagara’s force— | 15 |
| Nor ever fleeter was his course. | |
| Greece never pour’d to Troja’s wall | |
| So great a throng, so vast a battle— | |
| Call, call your Hector forth, Vauxhall! | |
| Their shouts arise! their chariots rattle. | 20 |
| Is it revenge, or hate or fear, | |
| Or wonder urges their career? | |
| It must be Wonder’s trumpet loud! | |
| Nought else could draw so vast a crowd. | |
| But soon the driving storm is past— | 25 |
| They all have reached the goal at last! | |
| Why, what a squeezing, Virgil’s bees | |
| Were not so numerous as these! | |
| Such multitudes, Communipaw 1 | |
| Of evening singers never saw. | 30 |
| Nor did a sunbeam ever sprawl | |
| Such swarms as Monsieur Guillé’s ball. | |
| Like sheep enclosed that burst their bar— | |
| Like locusts darkening Egypt’s air, | |
| They push and crowd, and squeeze, and—“O, | 35 |
| That rascal trod upon my toe!” | |
| “Back, back!—there—yonder’s the balloon! | |
| “We all shall see it moving soon!” | |
| |
| The multitude turns all its eyes | |
| Right where the flying wonder lies. | 40 |
| From cart and window; coach and door, | |
| From wall, and housetop covered o’er, | |
| From step and block, and shed and tree, | |
| Where boys, like squirrels, climb to see, | |
| All gaze, all wonder, all desire | 45 |
| To see poor Monsieur Guillé higher. | |
| ’Tis all attention, save when rise | |
| Some false alarm of “there it flies!” | |
| Or “Voyez donc! le ballon va!— | |
| Mon Dieu! J’ai peur qu’il n’ira pas!” | 50 |
| Or save when in the crowd there pass | |
| Some learned disputes about the gas. | |
| One cannot get it in his eye | |
| What makes the mighty bladder fly. | |
| One fears delay is loss of toil; | 55 |
| And one is sure the gas will spoil. | |
| And now to show his depth profound, | |
| Some wise man calls an audience round. | |
| With arm akimbo, and with brow | |
| That says—behold importance now! | 60 |
| “I can expound all to your eyes— | |
| “Mark yon circumference e’er it flies! | |
| “You see the gas within is brighter | |
| “And being twenty-one times lighter | |
| “Than”— But a loud shout interposes. | 65 |
| And with “She mounts” the harangue closes. | |
| “Huzza! huzza!” tongues, hands, and eyes, | |
| Shout, clap, and strain to see it rise— | |
| All tiptoe stand—“Up! up, Balloon!” | |
| But ah! it stops this side the moon. | 70 |
| “Friends, you can homeward take your way! | |
| “The balloon—don’t ascend to-day!” | |
