The Poetical Writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck/To Captain Seaman Weeks
TO CAPTAIN SEAMAN WEEKS,
CHAIRMAN OF THE TENTH WARD INDEPENDENT ELECTORS.40
aptain Weeks, your right hand—though I never have seen it,
I shake it on paper, full ten times a day:
I love your Tenth Ward, and I wish I lived in it;
Do you know any house there to let against May?
I don’t mind what the rent is, so long as I get off
From these party-mad beings, these tongues without heads!
I’m ashamed to be seen, sir, among such a set of
Clintonians, Tammanies, Coodies, and Feds!
Besides, I am nervous, and can’t bear the racket
These gentlemen make when they’re begging for votes;
There’s John Haff, and Ben Bailly, and Christian, and Bracket,
Only think what fine music must come from their throats!
Colonel Warner calls Clinton a “star in the banner,”
Mapes swears by his sword-knot he’ll ruin us all;
While Meigs flashes out in his fine classic manner,
“The meteor Gorgon of Clinton must fall!”
In vain I endeavor to give them a hint on
Sense, reason, or temper—they laugh at it all;
For sense is nonsense when it makes against Clinton,
And reason is treason in Tammany Hall.
So I mean (though I fear I shall seem unto some a
Strange, obstinate, odd-headed kind of an elf)
To strike my old tent in the Fourth, and become a
“Tenth Ward independent elector” myself.
D.
