Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.

Jones’s Victory

YE brave sons of Freedom, whose bosoms beat high

For your country, with patriot pride and emotion,

Attend whilst I sing of a wonderful Wasp,

And the Frolic she gallantly took on the ocean.

This tight little Wasp, of the true Yankee stuff,

From the shores of Columbia indignant paraded;

Her eye flash’d with fire, and her spirit flamed high,

For her rights they were basely by Britons invaded.

Swift over the wave for the combat she flew,

By a sting keen and terrible arm’d and defended;

Her broad wings were white as the rough ocean-spray,

And sixteen long arms from her sides she extended.

The winds waft her gayly—but soon on the way

The foe of her fathers for battle array’d him;

From his forehead were waving the standards of Spain,

But the proud step and stare of his nation betray’d him.

Like the fierce bird of Jove, the Wasp darted forth,

And—be the tale told with amazement and wonder—

She hurl’d on the foe, from her flame-spreading arms,

The firebrands of death, and the red bolts of thunder!

And, O! it was glorious and strange to behold

What torrents of fire from her red mouth she threw,

And how from her broad wings and sulphurous sides

Hot showers of grape-shot and rifle-balls flew!

The foe bravely fought, but his arms were all broken,

And he fled from his death-wound, aghast and affrighted:

But the Wasp darted forward her death-doing sting,

And full on his bosom, like lightning, alighted.

She pierced through his entrails, she madden’d his brain,

And he writhed and he groan’d as if torn with the colic;

And long shall John Bull rue the terrible day

He met the American Wasp in a Frolic.

The tremors of death now invaded his limbs,

And the streams of his life-blood his closing eyes drown;

When, lo! on the wave this colossus of pride,

The glory and pomp of John Bull, tumbled down.

Now drink to the navy; and long may its sons,

Like the heroes of Rome, and of Carthage, and Greece,

Midst the downfall of nations triumphantly bear

The barque of our country to freedom and peace.

And drink to Decatur, and Rogers, and Hull,

And to every brave heart to his country that’s true;

And never forget, whilst the glass circles round,

The fame of the Wasp, her commander and crew.