Son of New York! sit thou amongst us daily
Where all go by,
And Broadway's currents meet and flow most gayly
In our bright sky!
Reveal that pen whose hidden work was greater
Than cannon's roar,
And boyish brow, the placid agitator
Of times of yore!

Sit with thy books, thou man of gentle story!
There is no heaven
For thee, unless the clangor of its glory
Shall have their leaven;
Not on the sword, the ermine, or the gavel
Thy farewell look,
Thou rounded life's adventures with a travel,
And made a book.

And from thy closest thoughts of power departed,
Like eagles freed,
And distant foemen saw a lion-hearted
Hero indeed.
Domestic traitors held thy life abhorrent,
Thy name a spell,
And still the spring that fed the swelling torrent
Was but a cell.

Child of the State, whose sceneries imposing
Are like its acts—
The storm upon its lakes and mountains dozing
And cataracts—
Thine was the pen that clove the war's disorder
With our decree,
And wrote on history the Godlike order:
Let man be free!

Not in a general's dress, a sword and tassels,
Thou greet'st the age,
Like one who came to free another's vassals
By might of rage;
But in the simple vesture of thy neighbors,
With book and pen,
A tired lawyer resting from his labors,
And citizen.

There where the crowds of every nation haunt thee
And ne'er desist,
Cosmopolite or pioneer, we plant thee,
Thou optimist!
Thy mind as various as the race of people
Thy heart forsaw;
Thy lesson loftier than the Christian steeple—
A Higher law!

Son of New York! sit thou amongst us daily
Where all go by,
And Broadway's currents meet and flow most gayly
In our bright sky;
Reveal that pen whose hidden work was greater
Than cannon's roar,
And boyish brow, the placid agitator
Of times of yore!