In their clothes of more hues than the rainbow of summer,
Or the dress which the Patriarch wore when a child.
Unawed by court-martials, by fines or by fears,
They glow with the feelings of free Volunteers.
Yes! long live the Militia! that free school of glory
Where Mapes, Colden, and Steddiford took their degree;
Lives there a man who ne’er heard their proud story,
What an ignorant, unlettered cub he must be!
From the Battery flag-staff their fame has ascended
To the sand-hills of Greenwich and plains of Bellevue;
And the belles of Park Place for the palm have contended
Of rewarding the feats they have promised to do!
Let the poets of Europe still scribble as hard as
They please, of their Cæsars and Bonys to tell—
Be ours the bright names of Laight, Ward, and Bogardus,
And that promising genius, the bold Colonel Pell.
H.
