Guardian of Democracy

While struggling Factions press their rival claims,

And Envy’s tongue our CAESAR’S rule defames;

Whilst lab’ring Virtue pants beneath the weight

Of savage greed, and a divided state,

High o’er the servile crowd see DIDD arise,

To summon exil’d Justice from the skies!

All Hail, Illustrious DIDD! whose honest quill

Hath serv’d us long, and ably serves us still;

Whose lofty mind, from fear and folly free,

Shews us the path to Peace and Liberty:

‘Tis thine to guide us thro’ the fev’rish fight,

And lead us to O’SHAUNESSY and Right!

Freemen, behold! Our civil fabric stands

The bright ideal of the neighb’ring lands;

Firm at the head Imperial CAESAR holds

Enlighten’d pow’r, and all his people moulds;

Obedient Senates bless the learned reign,

And yield their judgment to their monarch’s brain:

The honest commons, aw’d at peril’s brink,

Waive with delight the tedious right to think!

Democracy! thou guardian of the just,

That bend’st the stubborn thinker to the dust;

Thou sweet contemner of the vengeful fray

Which but for thee will sweep the Goth away!

Hail to thy courage, CAESAR, who wouldst dare

The guns to muzzle, and the foe to spare:

Thy theoretic will bids hatred cease,

And without Victory would bring us Peace!

Peace! Lovely Peace! Best blessing to befall!

(I wonder why we went to war at all?)

What tho’ the Cain-mark’d Goth unpunish’d go

If we but banish warfare’s wicked woe?

Let bygones rest—the past is thro’ and done—

Brothers, embrace the dear repentant Hun!

But whilst our fluent CAESAR types his notes,

‘Tis ours to aid his strategy with votes;

Subjects, attend! A mighty monarch pleads

Your suffrage to endorse his regal deeds:

Disloyal he who ventures to debate

A sov’reign’s course—for CAESAR IS THE STATE!

CAESAR, whose soul with equal fire abhors

Ignoble conflict, and mixt metaphors!

Behold O’SHAUNESSY, in pomp array’d,

Intent to bear his royal master aid:

The people’s champion and the Kingdom’s pride,

With whom all Right and Wisdom are ally’d.

‘Tis he that sav’d our state when warfare’s cloud

Hung in the sky, and ev’ry head was bow’d:

His was the hand that gave our legions gold—

(At least, by him the legend thus is told—)

And his the strength that from the money’d clan

Seiz’d ill-got wealth to feed the working-man.

Thrice Virtuous George, who hath the blended good

Of Fox, the Gracchi, Cade, and Robin Hood!

Such is the man our loyal plebs would send

To join the Conscript Fathers as their friend;

A sage whose worth a mighty throng attest—

By Tammany enshrin’d among the best!

Yet there is one (I blush with decent shame

To utter so Republican a name)

Who dares, like Cato, ev’ry King defy,

And seek the Freedom of an age gone by:

How cant thou, COLT, so rashly mock at Fate,

And vie with CAESAR’S chosen candidate?

COLT! Who can name the dark unnumber’d crimes

Thou hast inflicted on the dismal times?

Was it not thou whose false and cruel lips

Deny’d the Goth a payment for his ships?

Fie, hateful traitor; modern Catiline!

A people’s wrath, and Kaiser’s curse, are thine!

O Foe to Labour, whose inhuman mood

Oppos’d the saintly railway brotherhood;

Couldst thou not hear a suff’ring people’s plea,

Nor spoil fair Blackmail of her sanctity?

When CAESAR, last in arms, to battle flew,

Wert thou to him and to his minions true?

Stand forth, betrayer, while thy censures ring—

Thou held’st thy country greater than thy King!

These crimes, indeed, each docile subject knows;

But what new horrors doth our DIDD disclose!

From Nooseneck’s peak unwonted wisdom pours,

And revelation sounds on Seekonk’s shores.

How boils our loyal blood as we behold

The page of sin and treachery unroll’d;

Unending evils strike our anguish’d eyes,

As deeds Republican to sight arise.

‘Ryas COLT that struck the hapless Belgian down;

COLT, who has sought a world’s Imperial crown;

LE BARON COLT, who stretch’d a greedy hand

To clutch the Serbian and the Russian land.

COLT, whose deep plot the lurking U-boats led,

And doom’d each vessel to an ocean bed;

And COLT, who (worse than all his deeds before)

Seduc’d our peaceful nation into war!

But if his crimes against the world be great,

What hath his party heap’d upon our State?

King Philip’s war, Moshassuck’s od’rous rill,

The Cove (which Democrats were forc’d to fill),

The Union Station, ugly to the gaze,

Prepayment cars—the bane of summer days,

The late Grand Trunk (whose brief career was done

Almost before its young life was begun)—

In fact, all pests reveal his workmanship,

From old Sam Gorton down to Spanish Grippe!

Would not these vile atrocities be hid

In darksome silence, but for valiant DIDD?

His voice alone convincing proof conveys,

And lifts O’SHAUNESSY to publick praise:

(For GEORGE, with modesty, hath well conceal’d

Th’ unnumber’d virtues by our DIDD reveal’d.)

A civick crown to him who thus hath shewn

So many truths, to all the world unknown!

Would that I might possess, to deck my song,

The grace of Pope, or Edward Leland Strong;

My humbler genius must attempt in vain

To sing our heroes in a fitting strain.

But skill’d or not, my subject lends me fire

To court the Muses and excite the lyre;

Say what you will, it is not wasted ink

That lauds O’SHAUNESSY and Colonel “LINK”.