Now let the laughing wags and jokers
Say that the Dutch are stupid smokers;
We only tell, that, dull or witty,
They founded famous New York city;
The largest city in the west,
For trade and commerce quite the best.
Then came along, in five years more, The Puritans, or pilgrims, o'er ;
Be sure the time and month remember-
"Twas the cold season of December.
On Plymouth rock the little band
Of weary wanderers first did land;
And hearty thanks to Heaven they gave,
For kind protection o'er the wave.
The scene was wild, for hill and dale
Were clothed in winter's snowy veil,
And all the shore the eye could mark
Was covered thick with forests dark,
Within whose gloomy shades afar
Was heard the Indian whoop of war.
But bold and strong these pilgrims were;
They feared not Indian, wolf, or bear:
Though far from home, a feeble band,
Unfriended, in a desert land,
Where wild beasts sought at night their prey,
And ruthless Indians lurked by day,
By sickness pressed, by want beset,
Each ill they braved, each danger met.
Long, long they strove, and much endured;
To sufferings were long inured;
But naught their courage could subdue:
'Mid want and war their sinews grew,
Their towns increase, their numbers double,
And soon they triumph o'er their trouble.
Thus three strong colonies, we see, Are planted in America;
New England in the northern part;
New York within the very heart;
While southward, o'er the hills away,
Is seated fair Virginia.
The first rude dangers thus o'ercome,
Others did seek this land for home,
And came like birds in numbers o'er,
Till, far along the eastern shore,
That bounds the blue Atlantic tide,
Village with village proudly vied;
While Swedes and Fins did settle down
In Delaware, and build a town.
To Maryland Lord Baltimore
A colony of papists sent,
In sixteen hundred thirty-four,
Who there did make a settlement;
And William Penn, the grave peace-maker,
Came o'er, with many an honest Quaker,
To Pennsylvania: 'twas done
In sixteen hundred eighty-one.
Story of America in Verse continued.
FULL many a tale I now might tell, Of war and wo that here befell The colonists; how oft at night Their sleep was broke by sudden fright; Of Indian whoop and cruel knife, To spill the blood of babe and wife; How prowling wolves and hungry bears Increased their dangers and their cares: But this I leave these scenes are o'er: The Indian sleeps to wake no more; The hungry wolf and bear are still, And peaceful songs our forests fill.
And only mention, in our lay,
That, spite of peril, war and bustle,
Our country grew in bone and muscle,
Till seventeen hundred seventy-five,
Three million souls did live and thrive,
Where late the savage reigned supreme
O'er mountain, valley, lake and stream.
'Twas then began that famous fray 'Twixt England and America: The revolutionary war
'Tis called, and near and far
It shook the land, from Georgia's plain
Far northward to the bounds of Maine.
At Lexington the conflict rose,
And Yorktown saw it proudly close.
For eight long years the cry of blood
And battle rang o'er field and flood.
|