William McCarty, comp. The American National Song Book. 1842.
Conflagration of WashingtonPhilip Freneau (17521832)
N
For George the Vandal shares the throne,
True flesh of flesh, and bone of bone.
Or, one a Vandal, one a Goth,
May roast or broil us into froth.
And rove from Beersheba to Dan,
To burn, and beard us—where they can.
This vagrant host were sent, to land
And leave in every house a brand.
Such war—the worst they could desire—
The felon’s war—the war of fire.
Must surely keep us all awake,
Or life is lost for freedom’s sake.
To make a noise and give a shock,
Push off, and burn their navy-dock:
How will the buckskins stand amazed,
And curse the day its walls were raised!”
Each left at night his floating ark,
And Washington was made their mark.
Was by their leaders clearly shown,
And, “Down,” they said, “with Madison!”
As closely as if Rodgers saw her—
A frigate to a seventy-four.
With Ross and Cockburn at their head,
They came—they saw—they burn’d—and fled.
They something paid, for all they fired,
In soldiers kill’d, and chiefs expired.
Who came, inflamed with lucre’s lust—
And so they waste—and so they must.
Farewell to towers and capitals!
To lofty roofs and splendid halls!
To folly, that too near us clings,
To courtiers who—’tis well—had wings.
Which yet shall guard Potomac’s shore,
And honour lost, and fame restore.
Was, once, the surest method held
To make a hostile country yield.
In conflagrating Washington,
They held our independence gone!
Were burn’d, (as we intend to do,)
Would that be burning England too?
We laid in ashes their Saint James,
Or Blenheim palace wrapp’d in flames;
And meanly, then, to sneak away,
And never ask them, what’s to pay?
Would that subvert the English throne,
Or bring the royal system down?
How would they look like simpletons,
And not at all the lion’s sons!
And make it public law, to burn,
Would not old English honour spurn
Which only suits some savage clan—
And surely not the Englishman!
A king, they hold, can do no wrong—
Merely a pitchfork, without prong:
One king, that wrong’d us, long before,
Has wrongs, by hundreds, yet in store.
He wrongs us yet, we surely know;
He’ll wrong us till he gets a blow
The mischiefs we lament this day,
This burning, damn’d, infernal play;
Its buildings low, and buildings high,
And buildings—built the Lord knows why;
That breaks his heart, or breaks his neck,
And plants our standard on Quebec.