Virginia free press. (Charlestown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1832-1916, 1868-01-09
ADDRESS
TO TIE
PATRONS
OF
THE VIRGINIA FREE PRESS.
JANUARY ], 1868.

Patrons! how fleet the Old Years flown,
So late with thought and action thick
The stream Of time seems overanwn,
And the march of progress double quick
Shaking the earth from pole to pole,-
From Russian snow to Afric sun
From shore to shore, with ceaseless roll,
The tide of strife has Numbered on
From where the Shannon blithely dips
His onward current to the main,
To where the Tartar blood mare slips
Her halter on the trackless plain
From Aztec monuments of stones
Too strangely carved to tell their tales,
To glittering spires of frosty cones
That rise above Canadic's 7ales-
Men sounded out the blast Of war
The Turk. the Greek, the small-eyed Hun,
The Abyssinnian tribes afar-
The Poles from Warsaw to the Don
The children Of great Charlemain-
The God-made men of Tueton blood
All Europe felt, in every vein,
The throb of passion like food
And sudden sank, all in day,
4 peoped Isle beneath the sea!
As drops the curtain on play
So closed for them, their history!
And while the sky in splendor CLEANED,
Lo! through the braided hair Of Night,
The jewel stars, like diar'onds. streamed.
Or golden spear heads, in their fight!
II.
And whathas this chapter of time to unfold
For the Model Republic which Liberty loved
In the PALMER days of yore?
Does the story grow sadder each season has told
No warning voice needed, no lesson improved
OF the years which have feeted before
Is the Idol unbroken? with villainy crammed,
The scofIer at virtue, and disgrace Of his race,
Who limps to the hall OF State?
4 corpse without soul, save enough to be damned y
Does he still teach his fellows, with whip and
menace,
His religion of vengeance and hate?
Has Europe survived the defiant crifigue
or the Duck who tho dead has known how ia
swim
The pond which the Mermaids rule
Do the Press and the Chronicle, six times week
Still torture their reader by transporting them
Thro' Forney the knaye to Forney the
fool?
Is the South reconstruct on the Haytien plan,
By progress from light unto darkness again
From refinement TO fetishncss rude?
Do Cufee and Squashee, and the wild African
Just caught from the Congo, and Lybyan plain
Curb the pride of the Saxon blood?
Let the Old Year, departing, refuse a reply
To the augur who looks at the horoscope now,
With a gaze Of disquiet and painl
The New, with the promise Of hope in his eye,
Treads on like a monarch recording his vow
That the Right shall revive in his reign
The People have spoken and halfmillion tongues
Ring out like psan Of triumph the tone
Ofreaction, and reason restored!
The partizan traitors shall perish-the wrongs
They have wrought, and the vilainy done
Shall smite like double-edged sword!
All! vainly shall Thadeus call on his peers
To save his base faction by breaches Of faith,
And unconstitutional acts
And rainy the Spoon thief shall whistle his fears
A0OWn DN atldChiHE thS D""'N'i ''
Which the demagogue coward affects!
The People have spoken the fat gone forth!
The doom Of political damnation is theirs
Their Radical rule at an end
The thunder has rended the sky Of the North
The sentence ofjustice falls swift on their ears,
And no Grant can their lease extend!
Farewell We base pack whom the country shall rue,
And posterity curse, when your names shall
survive
In the hate of people betrayed
In vain We desert the old hull, We base crew
When We feel she is sinking. for never alive
Shall ye 'scape from the wreck ye have
madel
But enough Of the country, enough Of the past!
Sweet Patrons, increased since greeted you last
Turn your thoughts to the fires, and alars OF home
For. day after day the Carrier has come
To vour door with the news-O welcome him now
With generous smile, and light on your bro"
He wishes YOU happiness, earthly. eternal
And long life to read the Old Family Journal
He claims not a legacy left in your viii,
He seeks for no aims, be presents not DILL
He charges quarter, and prays that no worse,
befal through the Year than told in his verse
And wishes YOU iov, while you open your pursei
THE