Page:Poems of home and country (IA poemsofhomecount01smit).pdf/159

 But, as good men and true need no props and no garnishing,

'T were useless to take up the business of varnishing.

My verse is sincere and hearty in praising them;

The people were wise to such office in raising them.

Fair city they struck for success in beginning it,

And with every new year their successors are winning it,

It is just to speak well of the people who merit it;

Their praise, it is fair that their sous should inherit it.

They were temperate men, never charged with ebriety,

Whose walk, like a deacon's, was marked by sobriety;

Not ruled by some party end, blindly and slavishly,

Not plauning, and fencing, and junketing knavishly;

Not famed, in debate, for their finent loquacity,

Not noted, in contracts, for grasping rapacity;

Not eager to seek entertainments aquatical;

Not pulled, like balloons, with soarings ecstatical;

Not privily chasing some shadow they 're driving at,

And blind to foresee the ends they 're arriving at;

With their fame nibbled thin, by their secret chicanery,

Like fair ears of corn by a mouse in the granary;

Above playing fast, playing loose with their politics,

Like lobbyists, zealously plying their jolly tricks:

The men for the times, and the times were a rarity, -

The times and the men were a wonderful parity.

Expenses, 't is true, in the ledger are debited,

But good things unnumbered, per contra, are credited.

So the first city fathers, we'll not rate them badly, sir,

But praise them, and toast them, and honor them gladly, sir.

Your power, good sirs, is a thing of the preterite, If you

did not rule well, 't is too late to better it;

Still, government measures are often a mystery,

But, foolish, or wise, one year makes them history.