Scott Brown's Ride

Bill Kristol has been able to procure a new and improved--and final--version of "Scott Brown's Ride," in honor of his apparent victory...

Scott Brown’s Ride
(with heartfelt apologies to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

Listen my children to a feat of renown--
The midnight ride of Scott P. Brown.
On the nineteenth of January, in Twenty-Ten,
Hardly a man will forget just when
Obamacare came crashing down.

Scott said to his friend, "If Senator Kennedy dies,
I’ll fight for his seat--for the people’s seat.
I’ll ask my fellow Bay Staters to rise
And the liberal establishment to defeat.
Martha Coakley will try her luck;
But I will turn to my trusty truck,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffler on
Silently drove around Charlestown,
Just as the moon rose in the night sky,
Where the lit Capitol was looming high--
The Capitol--the Democrats’ redoubt,
Where every party hack and lout,
In Boston as in Washington, D.C.,
Was spending the taxpayers’ money
And the people thought it no longer funny....

That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by Scott Brown, in his fight,
Kindled the land into flame as right met might....

You know the rest. On this blog you have read
How the Democratic Regulars fired and fled,
How the citizens gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the Democrats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Scott P. Brown;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,
A cry of defiance, to every city and town,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a vote that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and pluck,
The people will waken in every town
To the echoes of that old GM truck,
And the midnight message of Scott P. Brown.