Letter Sent to Master Timmy Dwight
Master Timmy brisk and airy
Blythe as Oberon the fairy
On thy head thy cousin wishes
Thousand and ten thousand blisses.
Never may thy wicket ball
In a well or puddle fall;
Or thy wild ambitious kite
O'er the elm's thick foliage light.
When on bended knee thou sittest
And the mark in fancy hittest
May thy marble truly trace
Where thy wishes mark'd the place.
If at hide and seek you play,
All involved in the hay
Titt'ring hear the joyful sound
"Timmy never can be found."
If you hop or if you run
Or whatever is the fun
Vic'try with her sounding pinion
Hover o'er her little minion.
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poem by Major Henry Livingston Jr.
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The IX Ode to Horace
HORACE.
While I was pleasing to your arms,
Nor any youth, of happier charms,
Thy snowy bosom blissful prest,
Not Portia's like me was blest.
LYDIA.
While for no other fair you burn'd,
Nor Lydia was for Chloe scorn'd
What maid was then so blest as thine?
Not [xx's] flame could equal mine.
HORACE.
Me Chloe now possesses whole,
Her voice her lyre command my soul;
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poem by Major Henry Livingston Jr.
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1819 New Year's Carrier's Address
Believe me, dear patrons, I have wand'red too far,
Without any compass, or planet or star;
My dear native village I scarcely can see
So I'll hie to my hive like the tempest-tost bee.
Hail home! sacred home! to my soul ever dear;
Abroad may be wonders but rapture is here.
My future ambition will never soar higher
Than the clean brushed hearth and convivial fire;
Here I lounge at my pleasure, and bask at my ease,
Full readily sooth'd, and desirous to please,
As happy myself as I happy can be,
I wish all the circle as happy as me.
But hark what a clatter! the Jolly bells ringing,
The lads and the lasses so jovially singing,
Tis New-Years they shout and then haul me along
In the mdist of their merry-make Juvenile throng;
But I burst from their grasp: unforgetful of duty
To first pay obeisence to wisdom and Beauty,
My conscience and int'rest unite to command it,
And you, my kind PATRONS, deserve & demand it.
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poem by Major Henry Livingston Jr.
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An Elegy on the Death of Montgomery Tappen
An elegy on the death of MONTGOMERY TAPPEN who dies at Poughkeepsie on the 20th of Nov. 1784 in the ninth year of his age.
The sweetest, gentlest, of the youthful train,
Here lies his clay cold upon the sable bier!
He scarce had started on life's varied plain,
For dreary death arrested his career.
His cheek might vie with the expanded rose,
And Genius sparkled in his azure eyes!
A victim so unblemish'd Heaven chose,
And bore the beauteous lambkin to the skies.
Adieu thou loveliest child! Adieu adieu!
Our wishes fain would follow thee on high.
What more can friendship - what more fondness do,
But drop the unbidden tear & heave the sigh?
Ye youths whose ardent bosoms virtue fires,
Who eager wish applause and pant for fame,
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poem by Major Henry Livingston Jr.
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Apostrophe
Of RISPAH. (who had been the concubine of King SAUL) when DAVID hanged her children, because their father had done amiss.
From morn to eve from eve to rosy morn,
On this bleak rock I'll lay me all forlorn;
Here will I stay, tho' tempests frown around,
Fierce lightnings glare, or earthquakes rock the ground.
The prowling wolves, the hungry birds of prey,
Pierc'd with my moans, will rove another way:
Less steel'd than man, with hearts dissolv'd they go,
And lose their nature at the voice of woe.
And did ye, O my hapless offspring! bleed
For your unhappy father's thoughtless deed?
He fell, alas! on Gilboa's fatal plain,
And gave his life 'mong thousands nobly slain.
--He had his faults; but he was kind and brave,
And with him all his errors found a grave;
-- Thus fondly I
With cursed, deadly hate
Against his house are hurl'd the bolts of state;
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poem by Major Henry Livingston Jr.
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On my Sister Joanna's Entrance into Her 33rd Year
On this thy natal day permit a friend -
A brother - with thy joys his own to blend:
In all gladness he would wish to share
As willing in thy griefs a part to bear.
Meekly attend the ways of higher heav'n!
Is much deny'd? Yet much my dear is giv'n.
Thy health, thy reason unimpaired remain
And while as new fal'n snows thy spotless fame
The partner of thy life, attentive - kind -
And blending e'en the interests of the mind.
What bliss is thine when fore thy glistring eye
Thy lovely infant train pass jocund by!
The ruddy cheek, the smiling morning face
Denote a healthy undegenerate race:
In them renew'd, you'll live and live again,
And children's children's children lisp thy name.
Bright be the skies where'er my sister goes
Nor scowling tempests injure her repose -
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poem by Major Henry Livingston Jr.
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The Procession
The legislators pass along
A solemn, self-important throng!
Just raised from the common mass,
They feel themselves another class.
--But let them in the sunshine play
For every dog must have his day.
There moves the law's close-wedged band
The scourge and terror of the land!
Pandora's box replete with ills
Not half so baleful as their quills.
The sons of Galen, ghastly crew!
Next pass in horrible review:
Arm'd with each instrument of death
To sap the citadel of Health.
Ten thousand times ten thousand fall
And physic's monster gulps down all.
Bellona's sons, a num'rous train,
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poem by Major Henry Livingston Jr.
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Acknowledgement
With the ladies' permission, most humbly I'd mention
How much we're obliged by all their attention;
We sink with the weight of the huge obligation
Too long & too broad to admit compensation.
For us (and I blush while I speak I declare)
The charming enchanters be-torture their hair
Till gently it rises and swells like a knoll
Thirty inches at least from the dear little poll;
From the tip-top of which all peer out together
The ribband, the gause & the ostrich's feather;
Composing a sight for an Arab to swear at
Or huge Patagonian a fortnight to stare at.
Then hoops at right angles that hang from ye knees
And hoops at the hips in connection with these
Set the fellows's presumptuous who court an alliance
And ev'ry pretender at awful defiance.
And I have been told (though I must disbelieve
For the tidings as fact I would never receive)
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poem by Major Henry Livingston Jr.
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Hiding Place
Hail sov'reign love that first began,
The scheme to rescue fallen man;
Hail matchless, free, eternal grace,
That gave my soul a Hiding-Place.
Against the God that rules the sky,
I fought with hands uplifted high;
Despis'd the mentions of his grace,
Too proud to seek a Hiding-Place.
Enwrapt in thick Egyptian night,
And fond of darkness more than light,
Madly I ran the sinful race,
Secure without a Hiding-Place.
But thus the eternal counsel ran,
Almighty Love arrest that man;
I felt the arrows of distress,
And saw that I'd no Hiding-Place.
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poem by Major Henry Livingston Jr.
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A Tenant of Mrs. Van Kleeck
Translation of a letter from a tenant of Mrs. Van Kleeck to that lady, dated January 9, 1787
My very good landlady, Mistress Van Kleeck,
(For the tears that o'erwhelm me I scarcely can speak)
I know that I promis'd you hogs two or three
(But who knows his destiny? Certain not me!)
That I promis'd three hogs I don't mean to deny
(I can prove that I had five or six upon sty.)
Three hogs did I say? Three sows I say then
'Pon honour I ne'er had a male upon pen.
Well Madam, the long and the short of the clatter
For mumbling & mincing will not better the matter;
And murder and truth, my dear mammy wd say
By some means or other forever saw day;
And Daddy himself, as we chop'd in the wood,
Would often observe that lying wasn't good.
Tell truth, my sweet fellow, no matter who feels it,
It ne'er can do hurt to the man who reveals it.
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poem by Major Henry Livingston Jr.
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