Poems (Piatt)/Volume 2/A President at Home
A PRESIDENT AT HOME.[1]
I passed a President's House to-day——— "A President, mamma, and what is that?"Oh, it is a man who has to stay Where bowing beggars hold out the hatFor something: a man who has to beThe Captain of every ship that weSend with our darling flag to the sea:The Colonel at home who has to command
Each marching regiment in the land. This President now has a single room,That is low and not much lighted, I fear; Yet the butterflies play in the sun and gloomOf his evergreen avenue, year by year; And the child-like violets up the hillClimb, faintly wayward, about him still;And the bees blow by at the wind's wide will;And the cruel river, that drowns men so,Looks pretty enough in the shadows below.
Just one little fellow (named Robin) was there, In a red Spring vest, and he let me passWith that charming-careless, high-bred air Which comes of serving the great. In the grassHe sat, half-singing, with nothing to do———No, I did not see the President too:His door was locked (what I say is true),And he was asleep, and has been, it appears,Like Rip Van Winkle, asleep for years!
- ↑ At North Bend, Ohio River—the tomb of General William Henry Harrison, ninth President of the United States of America.