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With best of paint and canvas, lath and plaster,
The Lord bless Beekman⁶² and John Jacob Astor!
As an old coat, from Jenning’s⁶³ patent screw,
Comes out clean scoured and brighter than the new;
As an old head in Saunders’⁶³ patent wig,
Looks wiser than when young, and twice as big;
As Mat Van Buren in the Senate-hall,
Repairs the loss we met in Spencer’s fall;
As the new Constitution will (we’re told)
Be worth, at least, a dozen of the old,
So is our new house better than its brother,
Its roof is painted yellower than the other,
It is insured at three per cent. ’gainst fire,
And cost three times as much, and is six inches higher.

’Tis not alone the house—the prompter’s clothes
Are all quite new, so are the fiddlers’ bows;
The supernumeraries are newly shaved,
New drilled, and all extremely well behaved
(They’ll each one be allowed, I pause to mention,
The right of suffrage by the new Convention).
We’ve some new thunder, several new plays,
And a new splendid carpet of green baize.
So that there’s naught remains to bid us reach
The topmost bough of favor, but a speech—
A speech, the prelude to each public meeting,
Whether for morals, charity, or eating—
A speech, the modern mode of winning hearts,
And power, and fame, in politics and arts.