| Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917. | | | | Brown, of Grace Church, 1864 | | By Peter Marié |
| | | O GLORIOUS Brown! thou medley strange | |
| Of church-yard, ball-room, saint, and sinner; | |
| Flying by morn through Fashion’s range, | |
| And burying mortals after dinner— | |
| Walking one day with invitations, | 5 |
| Passing the next at consecrations, | |
| Tossing the sod at eve on coffins, | |
| With one hand drying tears of orphans | |
| And one unclasping ball-room carriage, | |
| Or cutting plum-cake up at marriage— | 10 |
| Dusting by day the pew and missal— | |
| Sounding by night the ball-room whistle— | |
| Admitted free through Fashion’s wicket, | |
| And skilled at psalms, at punch, at cricket; | |
| Relate by what mysterious art | 15 |
| Thou canst so well fulfil thy part— | |
| And how, thus sorely tasked each week, | |
| Thou look’st so happy, fat and sleek. | |
| Repeat to us the prittle-prattle | |
| About thine ears must daily rattle, | 20 |
| When marching round through Fashion’s quarters | |
| Thou’rt questioned oft by Eve’s fair daughters, | |
| And tell us why seek up, seek down, | |
| O’er all the earth, there’s but one Brown— | |
| One man alone whom church and state | 25 |
| At once consent to consecrate, | |
| With license boundless to combine | |
| The pew, the ball, the hearse, the wine! | | | | |
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