own political views,
He told us all of the latest news:
How the Boston folks one night took tea--
Their grounds for steeping it in the sea;
What a heap of Britons our fathers did kill,
At the little skirmish of Bunker Hill;
He put us all in anxious doubt
As to how that matter was coming out;
And when at last he had fought us through
To the bloodless year of '82,
'Twas the fervent hope of every one
That he, as well as the war, was done.
But he continued to painfully soar
For something less than a century more;
Until at last he had fairly begun
The wars of eighteen-sixty-one;
And never rested till 'neath the tree
That shadowed the glory of Robert Lee.
And then he inquired, with martial frown,
"Americans, must we go down?"
And as an answer from Heaven were sent,
The stand gave way, and down he went.
A singer or two beneath him did drop--
A big fat alderman fell atop;
And that was the way
Our orator lay,
Till we fished him out, on the eloquent day,
That gave us--
_Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!_
(With a clash of arms, Pat. Henry would say,)
Our wordy Independence!

VI.
The marshal his hungry compatriots led,
Where Freedom's viands were thickly spread,
With all that man or woman could eat,
From crisp to sticky--from sour to sweet.
There were chickens that scarce had learned to crow,
And veteran roosters of long ago;
There was one old turkey, huge and fierce,
That was hatched in the days of President Pierce;
Of which, at last, with an ominous groan,
The parson essayed to swallow a bone;
And it took three sinners, plucky and stout,
To grapple the evil and bring it out.
And still the dinner went merrily on,
And James and Lucy and Hannah and John
Kept winking their eyes and smacking their lips,
And passing the eatables into eclipse.
And that was the way
The grand array
Of victuals vanished on that day,
That gave us--
_Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!_
(With some starvation, the records say,)
Our well-fed Independence!

VII.
The people went home through the sultry night,
In a murky mood and a pitiful plight;
Not more had the rockets' sticks gone down,
Than the spirits of them who had "been to town;"
Not more did the fire-balloon collapse,
Than the pride of them who had known mishaps.
There were feathers ruffled, and tempers roiled,
And several brand-new dresses spoiled;
There were hearts that ached from envy's thorns,
And feet that twinged with trampled corns;
There were joys proved empty, through and through,
And