O CITY, the beloved of Penn, | |
| How was your quiet startled when | |
| Red Mars made your calm harbor glow | |
| With all the splendors he can show! | |
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| How looked your tranquil founder down | 5 |
| That day upon his cherished town,— | |
| That town which in the sylvan wild | |
| He reared and tended like a child? | |
| |
| Methinks that patriarch and his peers, | |
| Who fashioned all your staid retreats, | 10 |
| Groaned then in their celestial seats | |
| With sad offended eyes and ears; | |
| And, had their loving faith allowed, | |
| That day, in mournful spirit bowed, | |
| Each had turned his olive-wand | 15 |
| Into a rod of reprimand. | |
| |
| The May was there,—the blue-eyed May; | |
| The sweet south breeze came up the bay, | |
| Fanning the river where it lay | |
| Voiceless, with astonished stare,— | 20 |
| The great sea-drinking Delaware. | |
| |
| There, in the broad, clear afternoon, | |
| With myriad oars, and all in tune, | |
| A swarm of barges moved away, | |
| In all their grand regatta pride, | 25 |
| As bright as in a blue lagune, | |
| When gondolas from shore to shore | |
| Swam round the golden Bucentaur | |
| On a Venetian holiday, | |
| What time the Doge threw in the tide | 30 |
| The ring which made the sea his bride. | |
| |
| Mid these were mighty platforms drawn, | |
| Each crowded like a festal lawn,— | |
| Great swimming floors, o’er which were rolled | |
| Cloth of scarlet, green, and gold, | 35 |
| Like tropic isles of flowery light | |
| Unmoored by some enchanter’s might, | |
| O’erflowed with music, floated down | |
| Before the wharf-assembled town. | |
| |
| A thousand rowers rocked and sung, | 40 |
| A thousand light oars flashed and flung | |
| A fairy rainbow where they sprung. | |
| Conjoining with the singers’ voice, | |
| In ecstatic rival trial, | |
| Every instrument of choice, | 45 |
| Mellow flute and silver viol, | |
| Wooed the soft air to rejoice; | |
| Till on wings of splendor met, | |
| Clearer, louder, wilder yet, | |
| Clarion and clarionet, | 50 |
| And the bugle’s sailing tone, | |
| As from lips of tempests blown, | |
| Made the whole wide sky its own, | |
| Shivering with its festal jar | |
| The aerial dome afar. | 55 |
| |
| Thus the music past the town | |
| Winged the swimming pageant down, | |
| Till with one loud crash it dropt, | |
| And the bright flotilla stopt, | |
| Mooring in the bannered port | 60 |
| At the flowery wharves of Sport. | |
| |
| There wide triumphal arches flamed | |
| With painted trophies, which proclaimed, | |
| With mottoes wrought in many a line | |
| Around some brave heraldic sign, | 65 |
| That all the splendors here displayed | |
| Were honors to great chieftains paid. | |
| |
| Pavilions round the field were spread, | |
| With flying banners overhead, | |
| Where, on a high and central throne, | 70 |
| The two commanders reigned alone: | |
| The admiral, whose powdered hair | |
| Had oft been fanned by ocean air; | |
| The general, whose eye oft sped | |
| O’er fields transfused from green to red, | 75 |
| As if the very plain should wear | |
| The hue his army held so dear,— | |
| Both deeming that the world must bow | |
| Before the awful name of Howe. | |
| |
| And there,—O feast for painter’s heart, | 80 |
| And yet a light to mock his art, | |
| To kindle all a poet’s fire, | |
| To waken, madden, and inspire, | |
| Yet leave him mastered and undone, | |
| As faints a taper in the sun,— | 85 |
| Yes, there, in many a beaming row, | |
| Was lit such beauty as might glow | |
| Alone in fabled tourney-rings | |
| Held in those far enchanted scenes | |
| Where all are princesses and queens | 90 |
| And all the jousting knights are kings. * * * * * | |
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