# A Ballad of the Boston Tea-Party (1874)

Read at a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1874.
No! never such a draught was poured  Since Hebe served with nectar The bright Olympians and their Lord,  Her over-kind protector,— Since Father Noah squeezed the grape  And took to such behaving As would have shamed our grandsire ape  Before the days of shaving,— No! ne'er was mingled such a draught  In palace, hall, or arbor, As freemen brewed and tyrants quaffed  That night in Boston Harbor! It kept King George so long awake  His brain at last got addled, It made the nerves of Britain shake,  With sevenscore millions saddled; Before that bitter cup was drained,  Amid the roar of cannon, The Western war-cloud's crimson stained  The Thames, the Clyde, the Shannon; Full many a six-foot grenadier  The flattened grass had measured, And many a mother many a year  Her tearful memories treasured; Fast spread the tempest's darkening pall, The storm broke loose, but first of all  The Boston teapot bubbled!
An evening party,—only that,  No formal invitation, No gold-laced coat, no stiff cravat,  No feast in contemplation, No silk-robed dames, no fiddling band,  No flowers, no songs, no dancing,— A tribe of red men, axe in hand,—  Behold the guests advancing! How fast the stragglers join the throng,  From stall and workshop gathered! The lively barber skips along  And leaves a chin half-lathered; The smith has flung his hammer down,—  The horseshoe still is glowing; The truant tapster at the Crown  Has left a beer-cask flowing; The cooper's boys have dropped the adze,  And trot behind their master; Up run the tarry ship-yard lads,—  The crowd is hurrying faster,— Out from the Millpond's purlieus gush  The streams of white-faced millers, And down their slippery alleys rush  The lusty young Fort-Hillers; The ropewalk lends its 'prentice crew,—  The tories seize the omen: "Ay, boys, you'll soon have work to do  For England's rebel foemen, 'King Hancock,' Adams, and their gang,  That fire the mob with treason,— When these we shoot and those we hang  The town will come to reason."
On—on to where the tea-ships ride!  And now their ranks are forming,— A rush, and up the Dartmouth's side  The Mohawk band is swarming! See the fierce natives! What a glimpse  Of paint and fur and feather, As all at once the full-grown imps  Light on the deck together! A scarf the pigtail's secret keeps,  A blanket hides the breeches,— And out the cursèd cargo leaps,  And overboard it pitches! O woman, at the evening board  So gracious, sweet, and purring, So happy while the tea is poured,  So blest while spoons are stirring, What martyr can compare with thee,  The mother, wife, or daughter, That night, instead of best Bohea,  Condemned to milk and water!
Ah, little dreams the quiet dame  Who plies with rock and spindle The patient flax, how great a flame  You little spark shall kindle! The lurid morning shall reveal  A fire no king can smother Where British flint and Boston steel  Have clashed against each other! Old charters shrivel in its track,  His Worship's bench has crumbled, It climbs and clasps the union-jack,  Its blazoned pomp is humbled, The flags go down on land and sea  Like corn before the reapers; So burned the fire that brewed the tea  That Boston served her keepers!
The waves that wrought a century's wreck  Have rolled o'er whig and tory; The Mohawks on the Dartmouth's deck  Still live in song and story; The waters in the rebel bay  Have kept the tea-leaf savor; Our old North-Enders in their spray  Still taste a Hyson flavor; And Freedom's teacup still o'erflows  With ever fresh libations, To cheat of slumber all her foes  And cheer the wakening nations!
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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