Page:Poems of home and country (IA poemsofhomecount01smit).pdf/158



SUPPOSE I'm the aim of your eloquent battery,

And you wish for my rhymes as the pay for your flattery;

I own it accords with the ways of society,

And humbly I yield to the laws of propricty.

You'll pardon my verse, if 't is undiplomatical,

Not Republican, Mugwump, or pure Democratical;

My calling is not to discussions political,

Nor yours, at a banquet, to be sharply critical.

To raise to a city this place of our habitat,

With aldermen, mayor, common council, and all of that,

Was better than marring the town and dividing it,

Or trotting some hobby ont boldly and riding it, -

Making twain what is one by right systematical,

And calling that two which is one, geographical.

For praising it, people may charge us with vanity;

Not praising it, people would call it—insanity.

Our city régime was not sour grapes, pendulous;

But clusters, the fairest, of these we were einnlous.

The young city, launched, like a ship on the sea to sail.

Was manned by a crew whose lot never should be to fail;