OZYMANDIAS PAYS A CALL

  OZYMANDIAS PAYS A CALL ON SOUTHERN VERMONT
    

Three days after
         July 4, in the year one 
                  thousand eight-
     hundred and forty,
            20,000 farmers marched to this
spot, with "banners flying" and
   
"lively airs playing," and some   
             with log cabins pulled by teams of 
  white horses, to listen to Daniel
                Webster and to thunder 
        support for the Whigs, for their
             man, William Henry Harrison,

for "Tippicanoe and Tyler 
        Too," to rail against the depravities
of the Democrats, the "Tyranny"
   of Martin Van Buren, and perchance
       to drink a little cider, which 

may explain why some saw 10,000
             more, and this great 
   convention emptied out the towns of
      southern Vermont, with a good dollop of
  New Hampshire men and New 
      Yorkers, and everyone

had a fine time, and boys who
                 were there remembered the
            Stratton Convention for
         the rest of their lives,

all hard to imagine now in a 
              clearing invaded by woods,
                          no larger than a front 
     yard, so quiet where once many 
              thousands
                    cheered and jeered on a
  "large open plot of ground,"

        oh, that day Daniel Webster came
                 to Vermont!   


At the site of of the
Stratton Convention
Stratton, Vermont
July 2004