The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme The witch of Shiloh, the last of the Wampanoags, the gentle earl, the enchanted voyage |
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 | The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme |  |
XIX
I hold opinion that the sprites
Who fell from Eden's shining heights
Do very rarely slumber well;
And often pace their grievous hell,
Or wander Yaveh's universe,
Bethinking them with zeal perverse
What manner sin to fashion next
Whereby to keep the angels vext;
Or, chancing near a worthy man,
Asleep, or watching ill, they plan
A scurvy scheme to make him gird
At Yankee Doodle's Baldybird.
Who fell from Eden's shining heights
Do very rarely slumber well;
And often pace their grievous hell,
Or wander Yaveh's universe,
Bethinking them with zeal perverse
What manner sin to fashion next
Whereby to keep the angels vext;
Or, chancing near a worthy man,
Asleep, or watching ill, they plan
A scurvy scheme to make him gird
At Yankee Doodle's Baldybird.
No doubt it was an imp like this,
A vagrom rogue from burning Dis,
Who tricksily allured, or drove,
A Tory robber through the grove,
And showed him Downing napping there
In sentry o'er his napping mare.
Right well the skulking skinner knew
The paladin of Freedom's crew
Whose mighty arm had brought to scorn
The Lion and the Unicorn.
So, riving sundry withes of wood,
He bound the hero where he stood,
Upright, but slumbering as sound
As any sleeper underground.
This done, he stirred his rascal shanks
To overtake the scarlet ranks,
And bade their chieftain wheel his men
To crush Columbia there and then.
A vagrom rogue from burning Dis,
Who tricksily allured, or drove,
A Tory robber through the grove,
And showed him Downing napping there
140
Right well the skulking skinner knew
The paladin of Freedom's crew
Whose mighty arm had brought to scorn
The Lion and the Unicorn.
So, riving sundry withes of wood,
He bound the hero where he stood,
Upright, but slumbering as sound
As any sleeper underground.
This done, he stirred his rascal shanks
To overtake the scarlet ranks,
And bade their chieftain wheel his men
To crush Columbia there and then.
| The Downing legends : Stories in Rhyme | |