Original poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

SONG.

TUNE “IN A MOULDERING CAVE.”

WHERE the hoar Alleghany towers over the clouds
Thy GENIUS, Columbia, reclin'd,
Her visage corroding anxiety shrouds,
And her locks wanton wild to the wind.

She weeps lest her sons should by fatal mischance,
Or jacobin phrensy be driven
To fraternize with infidel blood thirsty France,
And thus be abandon'd of heaven.

The ground was bedew'd with her fast falling tears—
When lo! through the wide opening sky,
On a bright cloud descending a SERAPH appears,
With a message of love from on high!

And thus he address'd the disconsolate dame:
“Your despondence and wailing give o'er,
For I am a ministering spirit of flame
Who guard blest Columbia's shore.

The storm of democracy soon will be past
And cloudless again be your skies,
The true sons of freedom distinguished at last
From those, who assume its disguise.

For those, who true liberty ever oppos'd,
And your Washington dar'd to revile,
In native deformity shall be disclos'd,
And no longer your freemen beguile.

Though Holland, Spain, Italy, Switzerland bend
To their falsely call'd freedom's control,
While no other freedom their tyrants intend
Than to tyrannise over the whole;—

Should Europe all how to dire jacobin sway,
To Columbians the charter was given
That tyrants is should never her freemen dismay,
And the franchise recorded in heaven.”