Now, 'fore I knowed, thet Sabbath artern_The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell

When I sot out to tramp myself in tune,

I found me in the school'us' on my seat, 170

Drummin' the march to No-wheres with my feet.

Thinkin' o' nothin', I've heerd ole folks say

Is a hard kind o' dooty in its way:

It's thinkin' everythin' you ever knew,

Or ever hearn, to make your feelin's blue.

I sot there tryin' thet on for a spell:

I thought o' the Rebellion, then o' Hell,

Which some folks tell ye now is jest a metterfor

(A the'ry, p'raps, it wun't _feel_ none the better for);

I thought o' Reconstruction, wut we'd win 180

Patchin' our patent self-blow-up agin:

I thought ef this 'ere milkin' o' the wits,

So much a month, warn't givin' Natur' fits,--

Ef folks warn't druv, findin' their own milk fail,

To work the cow thet hez an iron tail,

An' ef idees 'thout ripenin' in the pan

Would send up cream to humor ary man:

From this to thet I let my worryin' creep.

Till finally I must ha' fell asleep.

Our lives in sleep are some like streams thet glide 190

'twixt flesh an' sperrit boundin' on each side,

Where both shores' shadders kind o' mix an' mingle

In sunthin' thet ain't jes' like either single;

An' when you cast off moorin's from To-day,

An' down towards To-morrer drift away,

The imiges thet tengle on the stream

Make a new upside-down'ard world o' dream:

Sometimes they seem like sunrise-streaks an' warnin's

O' wut'll be in Heaven on Sabbath-mornin's,

An', mixed right in ez ef jest out o' spite, 200

Sunthin' thet says your supper ain't gone right.

I'm gret on dreams, an' often when I wake,

I've lived so much it makes my mem'ry ache.

An' can't skurce take a cat-nap in my cheer

'thout hevin' 'em, some good, some bad, all queer.

Now I wuz settin' where I'd ben, it seemed,

An' ain't sure yit whether I r'ally dreamed,

Nor, ef I did, how long I might ha' slep',

When I hearn some un stompin' up the step,

An' lookin' round, ef two an' two make four, 210

I see a Pilgrim Father in the door.

He wore a steeple-hat, tall boots, an' spurs

With rowels to 'em big ez ches'nut-burrs,

An' his gret sword behind him sloped away

Long 'z a man's speech thet dunno wut to say.--

'Ef your name's Biglow, an' your given-name

Hosee,' sez he, 'it's arter you I came:

I'm your gret-gran'ther multiplied by three.'--

'My _wut?_' sez I.--'Your gret-gret-gret,' sez he:

'You wouldn't ha' never ben here but for me. 220

Two hundred an' three year ago this May

The ship I come in sailed up Boston Bay;

I'd been a cunnle in our Civil War,--

But wut on airth hev _you_ gut up one for?

Coz we du things in England, 'tain't for you

To git a notion you can du 'em tu:

I'm told you write in public prints: ef true,

It's nateral you should know a thing or two.'--

'Thet air's an argymunt I can't endorse,--

'twould prove, coz you wear spurs, you kep' a horse: 230

For brains,' sez I, 'wutever you may think,

Ain't boun' to cash the drafs o' pen-an'-ink,--

Though mos' folks write ez ef they hoped jes' quickenin'

The churn would argoo skim-milk into thickenin';

But skim-milk ain't a thing to change its view

O' wut it's meant for more 'n a smoky flue.

But du pray tell me, 'fore we furder go,

How in all Natur' did you come to know

'bout our affairs,' sez I, 'in Kingdom-Come?'--

'Wal, I worked round at sperrit-rappin' some, 240

An' danced the tables till their legs wuz gone,

In hopes o' larnin' wut wuz goin' on,'

Sez he, 'but mejums lie so like all-split

Thet I concluded it wuz best to quit.

But, come now, ef you wun't confess to knowin',

You've some conjectures how the thing's a-goin'.'--

'Gran'ther,' sez I, 'a vane warn't never known

Nor asked to hev a jedgment of its own;

An' yit, ef 'tain't gut rusty in the jints.

It's safe to trust its say on certin pints: 250

It knows the wind's opinions to a T,

An' the wind settles wut the weather'll be.'

'I never thought a scion of our stock

Could grow the wood to make a weather-cock;

When I wuz younger 'n you, skurce more 'n a shaver,

No airthly wind,' sez he, 'could make me waver!'

(Ez he said this, he clinched his jaw an' forehead,

Hitchin' his belt to bring his sword-hilt forrard.)--

'Jes so it wuz with me,' sez I, 'I swow.

When _I_ wuz younger 'n wut you see me now,-- 260

Nothin' from Adam's fall to Huldy's bonnet,

Thet I warn't full-cocked with my jedgment on it;

But now I'm gittin' on in life, I find

It's a sight harder to make up my mind,--

Nor I don't often try tu, when events

Will du it for me free of all expense.

The moral question's ollus plain enough,--

It's jes' the human-natur' side thet's tough;

'Wut's best to think mayn't puzzle me nor you,--

The pinch comes in decidin' wut to _du;_ 270

Ef you _read_ History, all runs smooth ez grease,

Coz there the men ain't nothin' more 'n idees,--

But come to _make_ it, ez we must to-day,

Th' idees hev arms an' legs an' stop the way;

It's easy fixin' things in facts an' figgers,--

They can't resist, nor warn't brought up with niggers;

But come to try your the'ry on,--why, then

Your facts and figgers change to ign'ant men

Actin' ez ugly--'--'Smite 'em hip an' thigh!'

Sez gran'ther, 'and let every man-child die! 280

Oh for three weeks o' Crommle an' the Lord!

Up, Isr'el, to your tents an' grind the sword!'--

'Thet kind o' thing worked wal in ole Judee,

But you forgit how long it's ben A.D.;

You think thet's ellerkence,--I call it shoddy,

A thing,' sez I, 'wun't cover soul nor body;

I like the plain all-wool o' common-sense,

Thet warms ye now, an' will a twelvemonth hence,

_You_ took to follerin' where the Prophets beckoned,

An', fust you knowed on, back come Charles the Second;

Now wut I want's to hev all _we_ gain stick, 291

An' not to start Millennium too quick;

We hain't to punish only, but to keep,

An' the cure's gut to go a cent'ry deep.'

'Wall, milk-an'-water ain't the best o' glue,'

Sez he, 'an' so you'll find afore you're thru;

Ef reshness venters sunthin', shilly-shally

Loses ez often wut's ten times the vally.

Thet exe of ourn, when Charles's neck gut split,

Opened a gap thet ain't bridged over yit: 300

Slav'ry's your Charles, the Lord hez gin the exe'--

'Our Charles,' sez I, 'hez gut eight million necks.

The hardest question ain't the black man's right,

The trouble is to 'mancipate the white;

One's chained in body an' can be sot free,

But t'other's chained in soul to an idee:

It's a long job, but we shall worry thru it;

Ef bagnets fail, the spellin'-book must du it.'

'Hosee,' sez he, 'I think you're goin' to fail:

The rettlesnake ain't dangerous in the tail; 310

This 'ere rebellion's nothing but the rettle,--

You'll stomp on thet an' think you've won the bettle:

It's Slavery thet's the fangs an' thinkin' head,

An' ef you want selvation, cresh it dead,--

An' cresh it suddin, or you'll larn by waitin'

Thet Chance wun't stop to listen to debatin'!'--

'God's truth!' sez I,--'an' ef _I_ held the club,

An' knowed jes' where to strike,--but there's the rub!'--

'Strike soon,' sez he, 'or you'll be deadly ailin',--

Folks thet's afeared to fail are sure o' failin'; 320

God hates your sneakin' creturs thet believe

He'll settle things they run away an' leave!'

He brought his foot down fiercely, ez he spoke,

An' give me sech a startle thet I woke.

No. VII

LATEST VIEWS OF MR. BIGLOW

PRELIMINARY NOTE

[It is with feelings of the liveliest pain that we inform our readers of

the death of the Reverend Homer Wilbur, A.M., which took place suddenly,

by an apoplectic stroke, on the afternoon of Christmas day, 1862. Our

venerable friend (for so we may venture to call him, though we never

enjoyed the high privilege of his personal acquaintance) was in his

eighty-fourth year, having been born June 12, 1779, at Pigsgusset

Precinct (now West Jerusha) in the then District of Maine. Graduated

with distinction at Hubville College in 1805, he pursued his theological

studies with the late Reverend Preserved Thacker, D.D., and was called

to the charge of the First Society in Jaalam in 1809, where he remained

till his death.

'As an antiquary he has probably left no superior, if, indeed, an

equal,' writes his friend and colleague, the Reverend Jeduthun

Hitchcock, to whom we are indebted for the above facts; 'in proof of

which I need only allude to his "History of Jaalam, Genealogical,

Topographical, and Ecclesiastical," 1849, which has won him an eminent

and enduring place in our more solid and useful literature. It is only

to be regretted that his intense application to historical studies

should have so entirely withdrawn him from the pursuit of poetical

composition, for which he was endowed by Nature with a remarkable

aptitude. His well-known hymn, beginning "With clouds of care

encompassed round," has been attributed in some collections to the late

President Dwight, and it is hardly presumptuous to affirm that the

simile of the rainbow in the eighth stanza would do no discredit to that

polished pen.'

We regret that we have not room at present for the whole of Mr.

Hitchcock's exceedingly valuable communication. We hope to lay more

liberal extracts from it before our readers at an early day. A summary

of its contents will give some notion of its importance and interest. It

contains: 1st, A biographical sketch of Mr. Wilbur, with notices of his

predecessors in the pastoral office, and of eminent clerical

contemporaries; 2d, An obituary of deceased, from the Punkin-Falls

'Weekly Parallel;' 3d, A list of his printed and manuscript productions

and of projected works; 4th, Personal anecdotes and recollections, with

specimens of table-talk; 5th, A tribute to his relict, Mrs. Dorcas

(Pilcox) Wilbur; 6th, A list of graduates fitted for different colleges

by Mr. Wilbur, with biographical memoranda touching the more

distinguished; 7th, Concerning learned, charitable, and other

societies, of which Mr. Wilbur was a member, and of those with which,

had his life been prolonged, he would doubtless have been associated,

with a complete catalogue of such Americans as have been Fellows of the

Royal Society; 8th, A brief summary of Mr. Wilbur's latest conclusions

concerning the Tenth Horn of the Beast in its special application to

recent events, for which the public, as Mr. Hitchcock assures us, have

been waiting with feelings of lively anticipation; 9th, Mr. Hitchcock's

own views on the same topic; and, 10th, A brief essay on the importance

of local histories. It will be apparent that the duty of preparing Mr.

Wilbur's biography could not have fallen into more sympathetic hands.

In a private letter with which the reverend gentleman has since favored

us, he expresses the opinion that Mr. Wilbur's life was shortened by our

unhappy civil war. It disturbed his studies, dislocated all his habitual

associations and trains of thought, and unsettled the foundations of a

faith, rather the result of habit than conviction, in the capacity of

man for self-government. 'Such has been the felicity of my life,' he

said to Mr. Hitchcock, on the very morning of the day he died, 'that,

through the divine mercy, I could always say, _Summum nec metuo diem,

nec opto_. It has been my habit, as you know, on every recurrence of

this blessed anniversary, to read Milton's "Hymn of the Nativity" till

its sublime harmonies so dilated my soul and quickened its spiritual

sense that I seemed to hear that other song which gave assurance to the

shepherds that there was One who would lead them also in green pastures

and beside the still waters. But to-day I have been unable to think of

anything but that mournful text, "I came not to send peace, but a

sword," and, did it not smack of Pagan presumptuousness, could almost

wish I had never lived to see this day.'

Mr. Hitchcock also informs us that his friend 'lies buried in the Jaalam

graveyard, under a large red-cedar which he specially admired. A neat

and substantial monument is to be erected over his remains, with a Latin

epitaph written by himself; for he was accustomed to say, pleasantly,

"that there was at least one occasion in a scholar's life when he might

show the advantages of a classical training."'

The following fragment of a letter addressed to us, and apparently

intended to accompany Mr. Biglow's contribution to the present number,

was found upon his table after his decease.--EDITORS ATLANTIC MONTHLY.]

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

JAALAM, 24th Dec., 1862.

RESPECTED SIRS,--- The infirm state of my bodily health would be a

sufficient apology for not taking up the pen at this time, wholesome as

I deem it for the mind to apricate in the shelter of epistolary

confidence, were it not that a considerable, I might even say a large,

number of individuals in this parish expect from their pastor some

publick expression of sentiment at this crisis. Moreover, _Qui tacitus

ardet magis uritur_. In trying times like these, the besetting sin of

undisciplined minds is to seek refuge from inexplicable realities in the

dangerous stimulant of angry partisanship or the indolent narcotick of

vague and hopeful vaticination: _fortunamque suo temperat arbitrio_.

Both by reason of my age and my natural temperament, I am unfitted for

either. Unable to penetrate the inscrutable judgments of God, I am more

than ever thankful that my life has been prolonged till I could in some

small measure comprehend His mercy. As there is no man who does not at

some time render himself amenable to the one,--_quum vix justus sit

securus_,--so there is none that does not feel himself in daily need of

the other.

I confess I cannot feel, as some do, a personal consolation for the

manifest evils of this war in any remote or contingent advantages that

may spring from it. I am old and weak, I can bear little, and can scarce

hope to see better days; nor is it any adequate compensation to know

that Nature is young and strong and can bear much. Old men philosophize

over the past, but the present is only a burthen and a weariness. The

one lies before them like a placid evening landscape; the other is full

of vexations and anxieties of housekeeping. It may be true enough that

_miscet hæc illis, prohibetque Clotho fortunam stare_, but he who said

it was fain at last to call in Atropos with her shears before her time;

and I cannot help selfishly mourning that the fortune of our Republick

could not at least stay till my days were numbered.

Tibullus would find the origin of wars in the great exaggeration of

riches, and does not stick to say that in the days of the beechen

trencher there was peace. But averse as I am by nature from all wars,

the more as they have been especially fatal to libraries, I would have

this one go on till we are reduced to wooden platters again, rather than

surrender the principle to defend which it was undertaken. Though I

believe Slavery to have been the cause of it, by so thoroughly

demoralizing Northern politicks for its own purposes as to give

opportunity and hope to treason, yet I would not have our thought and

purpose diverted from their true object,--the maintenance of the idea of

Government. We are not merely suppressing an enormous riot, but

contending for the possibility of permanent order coexisting with

democratical fickleness; and while I would not superstitiously venerate

form to the sacrifice of substance, neither would I forget that an

adherence to precedent and prescription can alone give that continuity

and coherence under a democratical constitution which are inherent in

the person of a despotick monarch and the selfishness of an

aristocratieal class. _Stet pro ratione voluntas_ is as dangerous in a

majority as in a tyrant.

I cannot allow the present production of my young friend to go out

without a protest from me against a certain extremeness in his views,

more pardonable in the poet than in the philosopher. While I agree with

him, that the only cure for rebellion is suppression by force, yet I

must animadvert upon certain phrases where I seem to see a coincidence

with a popular fallacy on the subject of compromise. On the one hand

there are those who do not see that the vital principle of Government

and the seminal principle of Law cannot properly be made a subject of

compromise at all, and on the other those who are equally blind to the

truth that without a compromise of individual opinions, interests, and

even rights, no society would be possible. _In medio tutissimus_. For my

own part, I would gladly--

Ef I a song or two could make

Like rockets druv by their own burnin',

All leap an' light, to leave a wake

Men's hearts an' faces skyward turnin'!--

But, it strikes me, 'tain't jest the time

Fer stringin' words with settisfaction:

Wut's wanted now's the silent rhyme

'Twixt upright Will an' downright Action.

Words, ef you keep 'em, pay their keep,

But gabble's the short cut to ruin; 10

It's gratis, (gals half-price,) but cheap

At no rate, ef it henders doin';

Ther' 's nothin' wuss, 'less 'tis to set

A martyr-prem'um upon jawrin':

Teapots git dangerous, ef you shet

Their lids down on 'em with Fort Warren.

'Bout long enough it's ben discussed

Who sot the magazine afire,

An' whether, ef Bob Wickliffe bust,

'Twould scare us more or blow us higher. 20

D' ye spose the Gret Foreseer's plan

Wuz settled fer him in town-meetin'?

Or thet ther'd ben no Fall o' Man,

Ef Adam'd on'y bit a sweetin'?

Oh, Jon'than, ef you want to be

A rugged chap agin an' hearty,

Go fer wutever'll hurt Jeff D.,

Nut wut'll boost up ary party.

Here's hell broke loose, an' we lay flat

With half the univarse a-singe-in', 30

Till Sen'tor This an' Gov'nor Thet

Stop squabblin' fer the gardingingin.

It's war we're in, not politics;

It's systems wrastlin' now, not parties;

An' victory in the eend'll fix

Where longest will an' truest heart is,

An' wut's the Guv'ment folks about?

Tryin' to hope ther' 's nothin' doin',

An' look ez though they didn't doubt

Sunthin' pertickler wuz a-brewin'. 40

Ther' 's critters yit thet talk an' act

Fer wut they call Conciliation;

They'd hand a buff'lo-drove a tract

When they wuz madder than all Bashan.

Conciliate? it jest means _be kicked_,

No metter how they phrase an' tone it;

It means thet we're to set down licked,

Thet we're poor shotes an' glad to own it!

A war on tick's ez dear 'z the deuce,

But it wun't leave no lastin' traces, 50

Ez 'twould to make a sneakin' truce

Without no moral specie-basis:

Ef greenbacks ain't nut jest the cheese,

I guess ther' 's evils thet's extremer,--

Fer instance,--shinplaster idees

Like them put out by Gov'nor Seymour.

Last year, the Nation, at a word,

When tremblin' Freedom cried to shield her,

Flamed weldin' into one keen sword

Waitin' an' longin' fer a wielder:

A splendid flash!--but how'd the grasp 61

With sech a chance ez thet wuz tally?

Ther' warn't no meanin' in our clasp,--

Half this, half thet, all shilly-shally.

More men? More man! It's there we fail;

Weak plans grow weaker yit by lengthenin':

Wut use in addin' to the tail,

When it's the head's in need o' strengthenin'?

We wanted one thet felt all Chief

From roots o' hair to sole o' stockin', 70

Square-sot with thousan'-ton belief

In him an' us, ef earth went rockin'!

Ole Hick'ry wouldn't ha' stood see-saw

'Bout doin' things till they wuz done with,--

He'd smashed the tables o' the Law

In time o' need to load his gun with;

He couldn't see but jest one side,--

Ef his, 'twuz God's, an' thet wuz plenty;

An' so his '_Forrards!_' multiplied

An army's fightin' weight by twenty. 80

But this 'ere histin', creak, creak, creak,

Your cappen's heart up with a derrick,

This tryin' to coax a lightnin'-streak

Out of a half-discouraged hayrick,

This hangin' on mont' arter mont'

Fer one sharp purpose 'mongst the twitter,--

I tell ye, it doos kind o' stunt

The peth and sperit of a critter.

In six months where'll the People be,

Ef leaders look on revolution 90

Ez though it wuz a cup o' tea,--

Jest social el'ments in solution?

This weighin' things doos wal enough

When war cools down, an' comes to writin';

But while it's makin', the true stuff

Is pison-mad, pig-headed fightin'.

Democ'acy gives every man

The right to be his own oppressor;

But a loose Gov'ment ain't the plan,

Helpless ez spilled beans on a dresser: 100

I tell ye one thing we might larn

From them smart critters, the Seceders,--

Ef bein' right's the fust consarn,

The 'fore-the-fust's cast-iron leaders.

But 'pears to me I see some signs

Thet we're a-goin' to use our senses:

Jeff druv us into these hard lines,

An' ough' to bear his half th' expenses;

Slavery's Secession's heart an' will,

South, North, East, West, where'er you find it, 110

An' ef it drors into War's mill,

D'ye say them thunder-stones sha'n't grind it?

D' ye s'pose, ef Jeff giv _him_ a lick,

Ole Hick'ry'd tried his head to sof'n

So's 'twouldn't hurt thet ebony stick

Thet's made our side see stars so of'n?

'No!' he'd ha' thundered, 'on your knees,

An' own one flag, one road to glory!

Soft-heartedness, in times like these,

Shows sof'ness in the upper story!' 120

An' why should we kick up a muss

About the Pres'dunt's proclamation?

It ain't a-goin' to lib'rate us,

Ef we don't like emancipation:

The right to be a cussed fool

Is safe from all devices human,

It's common (ez a gin'l rule)

To every critter born o' woman.

So _we're_ all right, an' I, fer one,

Don't think our cause'll lose in vally 130

By rammin' Scriptur' in our gun,

An' gittin' Natur' fer an ally:

Thank God, say I, fer even a plan

To lift one human bein's level,

Give one more chance to make a man,

Or, anyhow, to spile a devil!

Not thet I'm one thet much expec'

Millennium by express to-morrer;

They _will_ miscarry,--I rec'lec'

Tu many on 'em, to my sorrer:

Men ain't made angels in a day, 141

No matter how you mould an' labor 'em,

Nor 'riginal ones, I guess, don't stay

With Abe so of'n ez with Abraham.

The'ry thinks Fact a pooty thing,

An' wants the banns read right ensuin';

But fact wun't noways wear the ring,

'Thout years o' settin' up an' wooin':

Though, arter all, Time's dial-plate

Marks cent'ries with the minute-finger, 150

An' Good can't never come tu late,

Though it does seem to try an' linger.

An' come wut will, I think it's grand

Abe's gut his will et last bloom-furnaced

In trial-flames till it'll stand

The strain o' bein' in deadly earnest:

Thet's wut we want,--we want to know

The folks on our side hez the bravery

To b'lieve ez hard, come weal, come woe,

In Freedom ez Jeff doos in Slavery. 160

Set the two forces foot to foot,

An' every man knows who'll be winner,

Whose faith in God hez ary root

Thet goes down deeper than his dinner:

_Then_ 'twill be felt from pole to pole,

Without no need o' proclamation,

Earth's biggest Country's gut her soul

An' risen up Earth's Greatest Nation!

No. VIII

KETTELOPOTOMACHIA

PRELIMINARY MOTE

[In the month of February, 1866, the editors of the 'Atlantic Monthly'

received from the Rev. Mr. Hitchcock of Jaalam a letter enclosing the

macaronic verses which follow, and promising to send more, if more

should be communicated. 'They were rapped out on the evening of Thursday

last past,' he says, 'by what claimed to be the spirit of my late

predecessor in the ministry here, the Rev. Dr. Wilbur, through the

medium of a young man at present domiciled in my family. As to the

possibility of such spiritual manifestations, or whether they be

properly so entitled, I express no opinion, as there is a division of

sentiment on that subject in the parish, and many persons of the highest

respectability in social standing entertain opposing views. The young

man who was improved as a medium submitted himself to the experiment

with manifest reluctance, and is still unprepared to believe in the

authenticity of the manifestations. During his residence with me his

deportment has always been exemplary; he has been constant in his

attendance upon our family devotions and the public ministrations of the

Word, and has more than once privately stated to me, that the latter had

often brought him under deep concern of mind. The table is an ordinary

quadrupedal one, weighing about thirty pounds, three feet seven inches

and a half in height, four feet square on the top, and of beech or

maple, I am not definitely prepared to say which. It had once belonged

to my respected predecessor, and had been, so far as I can learn upon

careful inquiry, of perfectly regular and correct habits up to the

evening in question. On that occasion the young man previously alluded

to had been sitting with his hands resting carelessly upon it, while I

read over to him at his request certain portions of my last Sabbath's

discourse. On a sudden the rappings, as they are called, commenced to

render themselves audible, at first faintly, but in process of time more

distinctly and with violent agitation of the table. The young man

expressed himself both surprised and pained by the wholly unexpected,

and, so far as he was concerned, unprecedented occurrence. At the

earnest solicitation, however, of several who happened to be present, he

consented to go on with the experiment, and with the assistance of the

alphabet commonly employed in similar emergencies, the following

communication was obtained and written down immediately by myself.

Whether any, and if so, how much weight should be attached to it, I

venture no decision. That Dr. Wilbur had sometimes employed his leisure

in Latin versification I have ascertained to be the case, though all

that has been discovered of that nature among his papers consists of

some fragmentary passages of a version into hexameters of portions of

the Song of Solomon. These I had communicated about a week or ten days

previous[ly] to the young gentleman who officiated as medium in the

communication afterwards received. I have thus, I believe, stated all

the material facts that have any elucidative bearing upon this

mysterious occurrence.'

So far Mr. Hitchcock, who seems perfectly master of Webster's

unabridged quarto, and whose flowing style leads him into certain

farther expatiations for which we have not room. We have since learned

that the young man he speaks of was a sophomore, put under his care

during a sentence of rustication from ---- College, where he had

distinguished himself rather by physical experiments on the comparative

power of resistance in window-glass to various solid substances, than in

the more regular studies of the place. In answer to a letter of inquiry,

the professor of Latin says, 'There was no harm in the boy that I know

of beyond his loving mischief more than Latin, nor can I think of any

spirits likely to possess him except those commonly called animal. He

was certainly not remarkable for his Latinity, but I see nothing in the

verses you enclose that would lead me to think them beyond his capacity,

or the result of any special inspiration whether of beech or maple. Had

that of _birch_ been tried upon him earlier and more faithfully, the

verses would perhaps have been better in quality and certainly in

quantity.' This exact and thorough scholar then goes on to point out

many false quantities and barbarisms. It is but fair to say, however,

that the author, whoever he was, seems not to have been unaware of some

of them himself, as is shown by a great many notes appended to the

verses as we received them, and purporting to be by Scaliger, Bentley,

and others,--among them the _Esprit de Voltaire_! These we have omitted

as clearly meant to be humorous and altogether failing therein.

Though entirely satisfied that the verses are altogether unworthy of Mr.

Wilbur, who seems to Slave been a tolerable Latin scholar after the

fashion of his day, yet we have determined to print them here, partly as

belonging to the _res gestæ_ of this collection, and partly as a

warning to their putative author which may keep him from such indecorous

pranks for the future.]

KETTELOPOTOMACHIA

P. Ovidii Nasonis carmen heroicum macaronicum perplexametrum, inter

Getas getico moro compostum, denuo per medium ardentispiritualem

adjuvante mensâ diabolice obsessâ, recuperatum, curâque Jo. Conradi

Schwarzii umbræ, allis necnon plurimis adjuvantibus, restitutum.

LIBER I

Punctorum garretos colens et cellara Quinque,

Gutteribus quæ et gaudes sunday-am abstingere frontem,

Plerumque insidos solita fluitare liquore

Tanglepedem quem homines appellant Di quoque rotgut,

Pimpliidis, rubicundaque, Musa, O, bourbonolensque,

Fenianas rixas procul, alma, brogipotentis

Patricii cyathos iterantis et horrida bella,

Backos dum virides viridis Brigitta remittit,

Linquens, eximios celebrem, da, Virginienses

Rowdes, præcipue et TE, heros alte, Polarde! 10

Insignes juvenesque, illo certamine lictos,

Colemane, Tylere, nec vos oblivione relinquam.

Ampla aquilæ invictæ fausto est sub tegmine terra,

Backyfer, ooiskeo pollens, ebenoque bipede,

Socors præsidum et altrix (denique quidruminantium),

Duplefveorum uberrima; illis et integre cordi est

Deplere assidue et sine proprio incommodo fiscum;

Nunc etiam placidum hoc opus invictique secuti,

Goosam aureos ni eggos voluissent immo necare

Quæ peperit, saltem ac de illis meliora merentem. 20

Condidit hanc Smithius Dux, Captinus inclytus ille

Regis Ulyssæ instar, docti arcum intendere longum;

Condidit ille Johnsmith, Virginiamque vocavit,

Settledit autem Jacobus rex, nomine primus,

Rascalis implens ruptis, blagardisque deboshtis,

Militibusque ex Falstaffi legione fugatis

Wenchisque illi quas poterant seducere nuptas;

Virgineum, ah, littus matronis talibus impar!

Progeniem stirpe ex hoc non sine stigmate ducunt

Multi sese qui jactant regum esse nepotes: 30

Haud omnes, Mater, genitos quæ nuper habebas

Bello fortes, consilio cautos, virtute decoros,

Jamque et habes, sparso si patrio in sanguine virtus,

Mostrabisque iterum, antiquis sub astris reducta!

De illis qui upkikitant, dicebam, rumpora tanta,

Letcheris et Floydis magnisque Extra ordine Billis;

Est his prisca fides jurare et breakere wordum:

Poppere fellerum a tergo, aut stickere clam bowiknifo,

Haud sane facinus, dignum sed victrice lauro;

Larrupere et nigerum, factum præstantius ullo: 40

Ast chlamydem piciplumatam, Icariam, flito et ineptam,

Yanko gratis induere, illum et valido railo

Insuper acri equitare docere est hospitio uti.

Nescio an ille Polardus duplefveoribus ortus,

Sed reputo potius de radice poorwitemanorum;

Fortuiti proles, ni fallor, Tylerus erat

Præsidis, omnibus ab Whiggis nominatus a poor cuss;

Et nobilem tertium evincit venerabile nomen.

Ast animosi omnes bellique ad tympana ha! ha!

Vociferant læti, procul et si proelia, sive 50

Hostem incautum atsito possint shootere salvi;

Imperiique capaces, esset si stylus agmen,

Pro dulci spoliabant et sine dangere fito.

Præ ceterisque Polardus: si Secessia licta,

Se nunquam licturum jurat res et unheardof,

Verbo hæsit, similisque audaci roosteri invicto,

Dunghilli solitus rex pullos whoppere molles,

Grantum, hirelingos stripes quique et splendida tollunt

Sidera, et Yankos, territum et omnem sarsuit orbem.

Usque dabant operam isti omnes, noctesque diesque, 60

Samuelem demulgere avunculum, id vero siccum;

Uberibus sed ejus, et horum est culpa, remotis,

Parvam domi vaccam, nec mora minima, quærunt,

Lacticarentem autem et droppam vix in die dantem;

Reddite avunculi, et exclamabant, reddite pappam!

Polko ut consule, gemens, Billy immurmurat Extra;

Echo respondit, thesauro ex vacuo, pappam!

Frustra explorant pocketa, ruber nare repertum;

Officia expulsi aspiciunt rapta, et Paradisum

Occlusum, viridesque Laud illis nascere backos; 70

Stupent tunc oculis madidis spittantque silenter.

Adhibere usu ast longo vires prorsus inepti,

Si non ut qui grindeat axve trabemve reuolvat,

Virginiam excruciant totis nunc mightibu' matrem;

Non melius, puta, nono panis dimidiumne est?

Readere ibi non posse est casus commoner ullo;

Tanto intentius imprimere est opus ergo statuta;

Nemo propterea pejor, melior, sine doubto,

Obtineat qui contractum, si et postea rhino;

Ergo Polardus, si quis, inexsuperabilis heros, 80

Colemanus impavidus nondum, atque in purpure natus

Tylerus Iohanides celerisque in flito Nathaniel,

Quisque optans digitos in tantum stickere pium,

Adstant accincti imprimere aut perrumpere leges:

Quales os miserum rabidi tres ægre molossi,

Quales aut dubium textum atra in veste ministri,

Tales circumstabant nunc nostri inopes hoc job.

Hisque Polardus voce canoro talia fatus:

Primum autem, veluti est mos, præceps quisque liquorat,

Quisque et Nicotianum ingens quid inserit atrum, 90

Heroûm nitidum decus et solamen avitum,

Masticat ac simul altisonans, spittatque profuse:

Quis de Virginia meruit præstantius unquam?

Quis se pro patria curavit impigre tutum?

Speechisque articulisque hominum quis fortior ullus,

Ingeminans pennæ lickos et vulnera vocis?

Quisnam putidius (hic) sarsuit Yankinimicos,

Sæpius aut dedit ultro datam et broke his parolam?

Mente inquassatus solidâque, tyranno minante,

Horrisonis (hic) bombis moenia et alta quatente, 100

Sese promptum (hic) jactans Yankos lickere centum,

Atque ad lastum invictus non surrendidit unquam?

Ergo haud meddlite, posco, mique relinquite (hic) hoc job,

Si non--knifumque enormem mostrat spittatque tremendus.

Dixerat: ast alii reliquorant et sine pauso

Pluggos incumbunt maxillis, uterque vicissim

Certamine innocuo valde madidam inquinat assem:

Tylerus autem, dumque liquorat aridus hostis,

Mirum aspicit duplumque bibentem, astante Lyæo;

Ardens impavidusque edidit tamen impia verba; 110

Duplum quamvis te aspicio, esses atque viginti,

Mendacem dicerem totumque (hic) thrasherem acervum;

Nempe et thrasham, doggonatus (hic) sim nisi faxem;

Lambastabo omnes catawompositer-(hic) que chawam!

Dixit et impulsus Ryeo ruitur bene titus,

Illi nam gravidum caput et laterem habet in hatto.

Hunc inhiat titubansque Polardus, optat et illum

Stickere inermem, protegit autem rite Lyæus,

Et pronos geminos, oculis dubitantibus, heros

Cernit et irritus hostes, dumque excogitat utrum 120

Primum inpitchere, corruit, inter utrosque recumbit,

Magno asino similis nimio sub pondere quassus:

Colemanus hos moestus, triste ruminansque solamen,

Inspicit hiccans, circumspittat terque cubantes;

Funereisque his ritibus humidis inde solutis,

Sternitur, invalidusque illis superincidit infans;

Hos sepelit somnus et snorunt cornisonantes,

Watchmanus inscios ast calybooso deinde reponit.

No. IX

[The Editors of the 'Atlantic' have received so many letters of inquiry

concerning the literary remains of the late Mr. Wilbur, mentioned by his

colleague and successor, Rev. Jeduthun Hitchcock, in a communication

from which we made some extracts in our number for February, 1863, and

have been so repeatedly urged to print some part of them for the

gratification of the public, that they felt it their duty at least to

make some effort to satisfy so urgent a demand. They have accordingly

carefully examined the papers intrusted to them, but find most of the

productions of Mr. Wilbur's pen so fragmentary, and even chaotic,

written as they are on the backs of letters in an exceedingly cramped

chirography,--here a memorandum for a sermon; there an observation of

the weather; now the measurement of an extraordinary head of cabbage,

and then of the cerebral capacity of some reverend brother deceased; a

calm inquiry into the state of modern literature, ending in a method of

detecting if milk be impoverished with water, and the amount thereof;

one leaf beginning with a genealogy, to be interrupted halfway down with

an entry that the brindle cow had calved,--that any attempts at

selection seemed desperate. His only complete work, 'An Enquiry

concerning the Tenth Horn of the Beast,' even in the abstract of it

given by Mr. Hitchcock, would, by a rough computation of the printers,

fill five entire numbers of our journal, and as he attempts, by a new

application of decimal fractions, to identify it with the Emperor

Julian, seems hardly of immediate concern to the general reader. Even

the Table-Talk, though doubtless originally highly interesting in the

domestic circle, is so largely made up of theological discussion and

matters of local or preterite interest, that we have found it hard to

extract anything that would at all satisfy expectation. But, in order to

silence further inquiry, we subjoin a few passages as illustrations of

its general character.]

I think I could go near to be a perfect Christian if I were always a

visitor, as I have sometimes been, at the house of some hospitable

friend. I can show a great deal of self-denial where the best of

everything is urged upon me with kindly importunity. It is not so very

hard to turn the other cheek for a kiss. And when I meditate upon the

pains taken for our entertainment in this life, on the endless variety

of seasons, of human character and fortune, on the costliness of the

hangings and furniture of our dwelling here, I sometimes feel a singular

joy in looking upon myself as God's guest, and cannot but believe that

we should all be wiser and happier, because more grateful, if we were

always mindful of our privilege in this regard. And should we not rate

more cheaply any honor that men could pay us, if we remembered that

every day we sat at the table of the Great King? Yet must we not forget

that we are in strictest bonds His servants also; for there is no

impiety so abject as that which expects to be _deadheaded (ut ita

dicam)_ through life, and which, calling itself trust in Providence, is

in reality asking Providence to trust us and taking up all our goods on

false pretences. It is a wise rule to take the world as we find it, not

always to leave it so.

It has often set me thinking when I find that I can always pick up

plenty of empty nuts under my shagbark-tree. The squirrels know them by

their lightness, and I have seldom seen one with the marks of their

teeth in it. What a school-house is the world, if our wits would only

not play truant! For I observe that men set most store by forms and

symbols in proportion as they are mere shells. It is the outside they

want and not the kernel. What stores of such do not many, who in

material things are as shrewd as the squirrels, lay up for the spiritual

winter-supply of themselves and their children! I have seen churches

that seemed to me garners of these withered nuts, for it is wonderful

how prosaic is the apprehension of symbols by the minds of most men. It

is not one sect nor another, but all, who, like the dog of the fable,

have let drop the spiritual substance of symbols for their material

shadow. If one attribute miraculous virtues to mere holy water, that

beautiful emblem of inward purification at the door of God's house,

another cannot comprehend the significance of baptism without being

ducked over head and ears in the liquid vehicle thereof.

[Perhaps a word of historical comment may be permitted here. My late

reverend predecessor was, I would humbly affirm, as free from prejudice

as falls to the lot of the most highly favored individuals of our

species. To be sure, I have heard Him say that 'what were called strong

prejudices were in fact only the repulsion of sensitive organizations

from that moral and even physical effluvium through which some natures

by providential appointment, like certain unsavory quadrupeds, gave

warning of their neighborhood. Better ten mistaken suspicions of this

kind than one close encounter.' This he said somewhat in heat, on being

questioned as to his motives for always refusing his pulpit to those

itinerant professors of vicarious benevolence who end their discourses

by taking up a collection. But at another time I remember his saying,

'that there was one large thing which small minds always found room for,

and that was great prejudices.' This, however, by the way. The statement

which I purposed to make was simply this. Down to A.D. 1830, Jaalam had

consisted of a single parish, with one house set apart for religions

services. In that year the foundations of a Baptist Society were laid by

the labors of Elder Joash Q. Balcom, 2d. As the members of the new body

were drawn from the First Parish, Mr. Wilbur was for a time considerably

exercised in mind. He even went so far as on one occasion to follow the

reprehensible practice of the earlier Puritan divines in choosing a

punning text, and preached from Hebrews xiii, 9: 'Be not carried about

with _divers_ and strange doctrines.' He afterwards, in accordance with

one of his own maxims,--'to get a dead injury out of the mind as soon as

is decent, bury it, and then ventilate,'--in accordance with this maxim,

I say, he lived on very friendly terms with Rev. Shearjashub Scrimgour,

present pastor of the Baptist Society in Jaalam. Yet I think it was

never unpleasing to him that the church edifice of that society (though

otherwise a creditable specimen of architecture) remained without a

bell, as indeed it does to this day. So much seemed necessary to do away

with any appearance of acerbity toward a respectable community of

professing Christians, which might be suspected in the conclusion of the

above paragraph.--J.H.]

In lighter moods he was not averse from an innocent play upon words.

Looking up from his newspaper one morning, as I entered his study, he

said, 'When I read a debate in Congress, I feel as if I were sitting at

the feet of Zeno in the shadow of the Portico.' On my expressing a

natural surprise, he added, smiling, 'Why, at such times the only view

which honorable members give me of what goes on in the world is through

their intercalumniations.' I smiled at this after a moment's reflection,

and he added gravely, 'The most punctilious refinement of manners is the

only salt that will keep a democracy from stinking; and what are we to

expect from the people, if their representatives set them such lessons?

Mr. Everett's whole life has been a sermon from this text. There was, at

least, this advantage in duelling, that it set a certain limit on the

tongue. When Society laid by the rapier, it buckled on the more subtle

blade of etiquette wherewith to keep obtrusive vulgarity at bay.' In

this connection, I may be permitted to recall a playful remark of his

upon another occasion. The painful divisions in the First Parish, A.D.

1844, occasioned by the wild notions in respect to the rights of (what

Mr. Wilbur, so far as concerned the reasoning faculty, always called)

the unfairer part of creation, put forth by Miss Parthenia Almira Fitz,

are too well known to need more than a passing allusion. It was during

these heats, long since happily allayed, that Mr. Wilbur remarked that

'the Church had more trouble in dealing with one _she_resiarch than with

twenty _he_resiarchs,' and that the men's _conscia recti_, or certainty

of being right, was nothing to the women's.

When I once asked his opinion of a poetical composition on which I had

expended no little pains, he read it attentively, and then remarked

'Unless one's thought pack more neatly in verse than in prose, it is

wiser to refrain. Commonplace gains nothing by being translated into

rhyme, for it is something which no hocus-pocus can transubstantiate

with the real presence of living thought. You entitle your piece, "My

Mother's Grave," and expend four pages of useful paper in detailing your

emotions there. But, my dear sir, watering does not improve the quality

of ink, even though you should do it with tears. To publish a sorrow to

Tom, Dick, and Harry is in some sort to advertise its unreality, for I

have observed in my intercourse with the afflicted that the deepest

grief instinctively hides its face with its hands and is silent. If your

piece were printed, I have no doubt it would be popular, for people like

to fancy that they feel much better than the trouble of feeling. I would

put all poets on oath whether they have striven to say everything they

possibly could think of, or to leave out all they could not help saying.

In your own case, my worthy young friend, what you have written is

merely a deliberate exercise, the gymnastic of sentiment. For your

excellent maternal relative is still alive, and is to take tea with me

this evening, D.V. Beware of simulated feeling; it is hypocrisy's first

cousin; it is especially dangerous to a preacher; for he who says one

day, "Go to, let me seem to be pathetic," may be nearer than he thinks

to saying, "Go to, let me seem to be virtuous, or earnest, or under

sorrow for sin." Depend upon it, Sappho loved her verses more sincerely

than she did Phaon, and Petrarch his sonnets better than Laura, who was

indeed but his poetical stalking-horse. After you shall have once heard

that muffled rattle of clods on the coffin-lid of an irreparable loss,

you will grow acquainted with a pathos that will make all elegies

hateful. When I was of your age, I also for a time mistook my desire to

write verses for an authentic call of my nature in that direction. But

one day as I was going forth for a walk, with my head full of an "Elegy

on the Death of Flirtilla," and vainly groping after a rhyme for _lily_

that should not be _silly_ or _chilly_, I saw my eldest boy Homer busy

over the rain-water hogshead, in that childish experiment at

parthenogenesis, the changing a horse-hair into a water-snake. All

immersion of six weeks showed no change in the obstinate filament. Here

was a stroke of unintended sarcasm. Had I not been doing in my study

precisely what my boy was doing out of doors? Had my thoughts any more

chance of coming to life by being submerged in rhyme than his hair by

soaking in water? I burned my elegy and took a course of Edwards on the

Will. People do not make poetry; it is made out of _them_ by a process

for which I do not find myself fitted. Nevertheless, the writing of

verses is a good rhetorical exercitation, as teaching us what to shun

most carefully in prose. For prose bewitched is like window-glass with

bubbles in it, distorting what it should show with pellucid veracity.'

It is unwise to insist on doctrinal points as vital to religion. The

Bread of Life is wholesome and sufficing in itself, but gulped down with

these kickshaws cooked up by theologians, it is apt to produce an

indigestion, nay, eyen at last an incurable dyspepsia of scepticism.

One of the most inexcusable weaknesses of Americans is in signing their

names to what are called credentials. But for my interposition, a person

who shall be nameless would have taken from this town a recommendation

for an office of trust subscribed by the selectmen and all the voters of

both parties, ascribing to him as many good qualities as if it had been

his tombstone. The excuse was that it would be well for the town to be

rid of him, as it would erelong be obliged to maintain him. I would not

refuse my name to modest merit, but I would be as cautious as in signing

a bond. [I trust I shall be subjected to no imputation of unbecoming

vanity, if I mention the fact that Mr. W. indorsed my own qualifications

as teacher of the high-school at Pequash Junction. J.H.] When I see a

certificate of character with everybody's name to it, I regard it as a

letter of introduction from the Devil. Never give a man your name unless

you are willing to trust him with your reputation.

There seem nowadays to be two sources of literary inspiration,--fulness

of mind and emptiness of pocket.

I am often struck, especially in reading Montaigne, with the obviousness

and familiarity of a great writer's thoughts, and the freshness they

gain because said by him. The truth is, we mix their greatness with all

they say and give it our best attention. Johannes Faber sic cogitavit

would be no enticing preface to a book, but an accredited name gives

credit like the signature to a note of hand. It is the advantage of fame

that it is always privileged to take the world by the button, and a

thing is weightier for Shakespeare's uttering it by the whole amount of

his personality.

It is singular how impatient men are with overpraise of others, how

patient with overpraise of themselves; and yet the one does them no

injury while the other may he their ruin.

People are apt to confound mere alertness of mind with attention. The

one is but the flying abroad of all the faculties to the open doors and

windows at every passing rumor; the other is the concentration of every

one of them in a single focus, as in the alchemist over his alembic at

the moment of expected projection. Attention is the stuff that memory is

made of, and memory is accumulated genius.

Do not look for the Millennium as imminent. One generation is apt to get

all the wear it can out of the cast clothes of the last, and is always

sure to use up every paling of the old fence that will hold a nail in

building the new.

You suspect a kind of vanity in my genealogical enthusiasm. Perhaps you

are right; but it is a universal foible. Where it does not show itself

in a personal and private way, it becomes public and gregarious. We

flatter ourselves in the Pilgrim Fathers, and the Virginian offshoot of

a transported convict swells with the fancy ef a cavalier ancestry.

Pride of birth, I have noticed, takes two forms. One complacently traces

himself up to a coronet; another, defiantly, to a lapstone. The

sentiment is precisely the same in both cases, only that one is the

positive and the other the negative pole of it.

Seeing a goat the other day kneeling in order to graze with less

trouble, it seemed to me a type of the common notion of prayer. Most

people are ready enough to go down on their knees for material

blessings, but how few for those spiritual gifts which alone are an

answer to our orisons, if we but knew it!

Some people, nowadays, seem to have hit upon a new moralization of the

moth and the candle. They would lock up the light of Truth, lest poor

Psyche should put it out in her effort to draw nigh, to it.

No. X

MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

DEAR SIR,--Your letter come to han'

Requestin' me to please be funny;

But I ain't made upon a plan

Thet knows wut's comin', gall or honey:

Ther' 's times the world does look so queer,

Odd fancies come afore I call 'em;

An' then agin, for half a year,

No preacher 'thout a call's more solemn.

You're 'n want o' sunthin' light an' cute,

Rattlin' an' shrewd an' kin' o' jingleish, 10

An' wish, pervidin' it 'ould suit,

I'd take an' citify my English.

I _ken_ write long-tailed, ef I please,--

But when I'm jokin', no, I thankee;

Then, fore I know it, my idees

Run helter-skelter into Yankee.

Sence I begun to scribble rhyme,

I tell ye wut, I hain't ben foolin';

The parson's books, life, death, an' time

Hev took some trouble with my schoolin'; 20

Nor th' airth don't git put out with me,

Thet love her 'z though she wuz a woman;

Why, th' ain't a bird upon the tree

But half forgives my bein' human.

An' yit I love th' unhighschooled way

Ol' farmers hed when I wuz younger;

Their talk wuz meatier, an' 'ould stay,

While book-froth seems to whet your hunger;

For puttin' in a downright lick

'twixt Humbug's eyes, ther' 's few can metch it, 30

An' then it helves my thoughts ez slick

Ez stret-grained hickory does a hetchet.

But when I can't, I can't, thet's all,

For Natur' won't put up with gullin';

Idees you hev to shove an' haul

Like a druv pig ain't wuth a mullein:

Live thoughts ain't sent for; thru all rifts

O' sense they pour an' resh ye onwards,

Like rivers when south-lyin' drifts

Feel thet th' old arth's a-wheelin' sunwards. 40

Time wuz, the rhymes come crowdin' thick

Ez office-seekers arter 'lection,

An' into ary place 'ould stick

Without no bother nor objection;

But sence the war my thoughts hang back

Ez though I wanted to enlist 'em,

An' subs'tutes,--_they_ don't never lack,

But then they'll slope afore you've mist 'em.

Nothin' don't seem like wut it wuz;

I can't see wut there is to hender, 50

An' yit my brains jes' go buzz, buzz,

Like bumblebees agin a winder;

'fore these times come, in all airth's row,

Ther' wuz one quiet place, my head in,

Where I could hide an' think,--but now

It's all one teeter, hopin', dreadin'.

Where's Peace? I start, some clear-blown night,

When gaunt stone walls grow numb an' number,

An' creakin' 'cross the snow-crus' white,

Walk the col' starlight into summer; 60

Up grows the moon, an' swell by swell

Thru the pale pasturs silvers dimmer

Than the last smile thet strives to tell

O' love gone heavenward in its shimmer.

I hev been gladder o' sech things

Than cocks o' spring or bees o' clover,

They filled my heart with livin' springs,

But now they seem to freeze 'em over;

Sights innercent ez babes on knee,

Peaceful ez eyes o' pastur'd cattle, 70

Jes' coz they be so, seem to me

To rile me more with thoughts o' battle.

Indoors an' out by spells I try;

Ma'am Natur' keeps her spin-wheel goin',

But leaves my natur' stiff and dry

Ez fiel's o' clover arter mowin';

An' her jes' keepin' on the same,

Calmer 'n a clock, an' never carin'

An' findin' nary thing to blame,

Is wus than ef she took to swearin'. 80

Snow-flakes come whisperin' on the pane

The charm makes blazin' logs so pleasant,

But I can't hark to wut they're say'n',

With Grant or Sherman ollers present;

The chimbleys shudder in the gale,

Thet lulls, then suddin takes to flappin'

Like a shot hawk, but all's ez stale

To me ez so much sperit-rappin'.

Under the yaller-pines I house,

When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented, 90

An' hear among their furry boughs

The baskin' west-wind purr contented,

While 'way o'erhead, ez sweet an' low

Ez distant bells thet ring for meetin',

The wedged wil' geese their bugles blow,

Further an' further South retreatin'.

Or up the slippery knob I strain

An' see a hundred hills like islan's

Lift their blue woods in broken chain

Out o' the sea o' snowy silence; 100

The farm-smokes, sweetes' sight on airth,

Slow thru the winter air a-shrinkin'

Seem kin' o' sad, an' roun' the hearth

Of empty places set me thinkin'.

Beaver roars hoarse with meltin' snows,

An' rattles di'mon's from his granite;

Time wuz, he snatched away my prose,

An' into psalms or satires ran it;

But he, nor all the rest thet once

Started my blood to country-dances, 110

Can't set me goin' more 'n a dunce

Thet hain't no use for dreams an' fancies.

Rat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street

I hear the drummers makin' riot,

An' I set thinkin' o' the feet

Thet follered once an' now are quiet,--

White feet ez snowdrops innercent,

Thet never knowed the paths o' Satan,

Whose comin' step ther' 's ears thet won't,

No, not lifelong, leave off awaitin', 120

Why, hain't I held 'em on my knee?

Didn't I love to see 'em growin',

Three likely lads ez wal could be,

Hahnsome an' brave an' not tu knowin'?

I set an' look into the blaze

Whose natur', jes' like theirn, keeps climbin',

Ez long 'z it lives, in shinin' ways,

An' half despise myself for rhymin'.

Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth

On War's red techstone rang true metal, 130

Who ventered life an' love an' youth

For the gret prize o' death in battle?

To him who, deadly hurt, agen

Flashed on afore the charge's thunder,

Tippin' with fire the bolt of men

Thet rived the Rebel line asunder?

'Tain't right to hev the young go fust,

All throbbin' full o' gifts an' graces,

Leavin' life's paupers dry ez dust

To try an' make b'lieve fill their places: 140

Nothin' but tells us wut we miss,

Ther' 's gaps our lives can't never fay in,

An' _thet_ world seems so fur from this

Lef' for us loafers to grow gray in!

My eyes cloud up for rain; my mouth

Will take to twitchin' roun' the corners;

I pity mothers, tu, down South,

For all they sot among the scorners:

I'd sooner take my chance to stan'

At Jedgment where your meanest slave is, 150

Than at God's bar hol' up a han'

Ez drippin' red ez yourn, Jeff Davis!

Come, Peace! not like a mourner bowed

For honor lost an' dear ones wasted,

But proud, to meet a people proud,

With eyes thet tell o' triumph tasted!

Come, with han' grippin' on the hilt,

An' step thet proves ye Victory's daughter!

Longin' for you, our sperits wilt

Like shipwrecked men's on raf's for water. 160

Come, while our country feels the lift

Of a gret instinct shoutin' 'Forwards!'

An' knows thet freedom ain't a gift

Thet tarries long in han's o' cowards!

Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when

They kissed their cross with lips thet quivered,

An' bring fair wages for brave men,

A nation saved, a race delivered!

No. XI

MR. HOSEA BIGLOW'S SPEECH IN MARCH MEETING

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

JAALAM, April 5, 1866.

MY DEAR SIR,--

(an' noticin' by your kiver thet you're some dearer than wut you wuz, I

enclose the deffrence) I dunno ez I know Jest how to interdoose this

las' perduction of my mews, ez Parson Wilber allus called 'em, which is

goin' to _be_ the last an' _stay_ the last onless sunthin' pertikler

sh'd interfear which I don't expec' ner I wun't yield tu ef it wuz ez

pressin' ez a deppity Shiriff. Sence Mr. Wilbur's disease I hevn't hed

no one thet could dror out my talons. He ust to kind o' wine me up an'

set the penderlum agoin' an' then somehow I seemed to go on tick as it

wear tell I run down, but the noo minister ain't of the same brewin' nor

I can't seem to git ahold of no kine of huming nater in him but sort of

slide rite off as you du on the eedge of a mow. Minnysteeril natur is

wal enough an' a site better'n most other kines I know on, but the other

sort sech as Welbor hed wuz of the Lord's makin' an' naterally more

wonderfle an' sweet tastin' leastways to me so fur as heerd from. He

used to interdooce 'em smooth ez ile athout sayin' nothin' in pertickler

an' I misdoubt he didn't set so much by the sec'nd Ceres as wut he done

by the Fust, fact, he let on onct thet his mine misgive him of a sort of

fallin' off in spots. He wuz as outspoken as a norwester _he_ wuz, but I

tole him I hoped the fall wuz from so high up thet a feller could ketch

a good many times fust afore comin' bunt onto the ground as I see Jethro

C. Swett from the meetin' house steeple up to th' old perrish, an' took

up for dead but he's alive now an' spry as wut you be. Turnin' of it

over I recelected how they ust to put wut they called Argymunce onto the

frunts of poymns, like poorches afore housen whare you could rest ye a

spell whilst you wuz concludin' whether you'd go in or nut espeshully

ware tha wuz darters, though I most allus found it the best plen to go

in fust an' think afterwards an' the gals likes it best tu. I dno as

speechis ever hez any argimunts to 'em, I never see none thet hed an' I

guess they never du but tha must allus be a B'ginnin' to everythin'

athout it is Etarnity so I'll begin rite away an' anybody may put it

afore any of his speeches ef it soots an' welcome. I don't claim no

paytent.

THE ARGYMUNT

Interducshin, w'ich may be skipt. Begins by talkin' about himself:

thet's jest natur an' most gin'ally allus pleasin', I b'leeve I've

notist, to _one_ of the cumpany, an' thet's more than wut you can say of

most speshes of talkin'. Nex' comes the gittin' the goodwill of the

orjunce by lettin' 'em gether from wut you kind of ex'dentally let drop

thet they air about East, A one, an' no mistaik, skare 'em up an' take

'em as they rise. Spring interdooced with a fiew approput flours. Speach

finally begins witch nobuddy needn't feel obolygated to read as I never

read 'em an' never shell this one ag'in. Subjick staited; expanded;

delayted; extended. Pump lively. Subjick staited ag'in so's to avide all

mistaiks. Ginnle remarks; continooed; kerried on; pushed furder; kind o'

gin out. Subjick _re_staited; dielooted; stirred up permiscoous. Pump

ag'in. Gits back to where he sot out. Can't seem to stay thair. Ketches

into Mr. Seaward's hair. Breaks loose ag'in an' staits his subjick;

stretches it; turns it; folds it; onfolds it; folds it ag'in so's't, no

one can't find it. Argoos with an imedginary bean thet ain't aloud to

say nothin' in replye. Gives him a real good dressin' an' is settysfide

he's rite. Gits into Johnson's hair. No use tryin' to git into his head.

Gives it up. Hez to stait his subjick ag'in; doos it back'ards,

sideways, eendways, criss-cross, bevellin', noways. Gits finally red on

it. Concloods. Concloods more. Reads some xtrax. Sees his subjick

a-nosin' round arter him ag'in. Tries to avide it. Wun't du. _Mis_states

it. Can't conjectur' no other plawsable way of staytin' on it. Tries

pump. No fx. Finely concloods to conclood. Yeels the flore.

You kin spall an' punctooate thet as you please. I allus do, it kind of

puts a noo soot of close onto a word, thisere funattick spellin' doos

an' takes 'em out of the prissen dress they wair in the Dixonary. Ef I

squeeze the cents out of 'em it's the main thing, an' wut they wuz made

for: wut's left's jest pummis.

Mistur Wilbur sez he to me onct, sez he, 'Hosee,' sez he, 'in

litterytoor the only good thing is Natur. It's amazin' hard to come at,'

sez he, 'but onct git it an' you've gut everythin'. Wut's the sweetest

small on airth?' sez he. 'Noomone hay,' sez I, pooty bresk, for he wuz

allus hankerin' round in hayin'. 'Nawthin' of the kine,' sez he. 'My

leetle Huldy's breath,' sez I ag'in. 'You're a good lad,' sez he, his

eyes sort of ripplin' like, for he lost a babe onct nigh about her

age,--'you're a good lad; but 'tain't thet nuther,' sez he. 'Ef you want

to know,' sez he, 'open your winder of a mornin' et ary season, and

you'll larn thet the best of perfooms is jest fresh air, _fresh air_,'

sez he, emphysizin', 'athout no mixtur. Thet's wut _I_ call natur in

writin', and it bathes my lungs and washes 'em sweet whenever I git a

whiff on 't.' sez he. I often think o' thet when I set down to write but

the winders air so ept to git stuck, an' breakin' a pane costs sunthin'.

Yourn for the last time,

_Nut_ to be continooed,

HOSEA BIGLOW.

I don't much s'pose, hows'ever I should plen it,

I could git boosted into th' House or Sennit,--

Nut while the twolegged gab-machine's so plenty,

'nablin' one man to du the talk o' twenty;

I'm one o' them thet finds it ruther hard

To mannyfactur' wisdom by the yard,

An' maysure off, accordin' to demand,

The piece-goods el'kence that I keep on hand,

The same ole pattern runnin' thru an' thru,

An' nothin' but the customer thet's new. 10

I sometimes think, the furder on I go,

Thet it gits harder to feel sure I know,

An' when I've settled my idees, I find

'twarn't I sheered most in makin' up my mind;

'twuz this an' thet an' t'other thing thet done it,

Sunthin' in th' air, I couldn' seek nor shun it.

Mos' folks go off so quick now in discussion,

All th' ole flint-locks seems altered to percussion,

Whilst I in agin' sometimes git a hint,

Thet I'm percussion changin' back to flint; 20

Wal, ef it's so, I ain't agoin' to werrit,

For th' ole Queen's-arm hez this pertickler merit,--

It gives the mind a hahnsome wedth o' margin

To kin' o make its will afore dischargin':

I can't make out but jest one ginnle rule,--

No man need go an' _make_ himself a fool,

Nor jedgment ain't like mutton, thet can't bear

Cookin' tu long, nor be took up tu rare.

Ez I wuz say'n', I hain't no chance to speak

So's't all the country dreads me onct a week, 30

But I've consid'ble o' thet sort o' head

Thet sets to home an' thinks wut _might_ be said,

The sense thet grows an' werrits underneath,

Comin' belated like your wisdom-teeth,

An' git so el'kent, sometimes, to my gardin

Thet I don' vally public life a fardin'.

Our Parson Wilbur (blessin's on his head!)

'mongst other stories of ole times he hed,

Talked of a feller thet rehearsed his spreads

Beforehan' to his rows o' kebbige-heads, 40

(Ef 'twarn't Demossenes, I guess 'twuz Sisro,)

Appealin' fust to thet an' then to this row,

Accordin' ez he thought thet his idees

Their diff'runt ev'riges o' brains 'ould please;

'An',' sez the Parson, 'to hit right, you must

Git used to maysurin' your hearers fust;

For, take my word for 't, when all's come an' past,

The kebbige-heads'll cair the day et last;

Th' ain't ben a meetin' sence the worl' begun

But they made (raw or biled ones) ten to one.' 50

I've allus foun' 'em, I allow, sence then

About ez good for talkin' tu ez men;

They'll take edvice, like other folks, to keep,

(To use it 'ould be holdin' on 't tu cheap,)

They listen wal, don' kick up when you scold 'em,

An' ef they've tongues, hev sense enough to hold 'em;

Though th' ain't no denger we shall lose the breed,

I gin'lly keep a score or so for seed,

An' when my sappiness gits spry in spring,

So's't my tongue itches to run on full swing, 60

I fin' 'em ready-planted in March-meetin',

Warm ez a lyceum-audience in their greetin',

An' pleased to hear my spoutin' frum the fence,--

Comin', ez 't doos, entirely free 'f expense.

This year I made the follerin' observations

Extrump'ry, like most other tri'ls o' patience,

An', no reporters bein' sent express

To work their abstrac's up into a mess

Ez like th' oridg'nal ez a woodcut pictur'

Thet chokes the life out like a boy-constrictor, 70

I've writ 'em out, an' so avide all jeal'sies

'twixt nonsense o' my own an' some one's else's.

(N.B. Reporters gin'lly git a hint

To make dull orjunces seem 'live in print,

An', ez I hev t' report myself, I vum,

I'll put th' applauses where they'd _ough' to_ come!)

MY FELLER KEBBIGE-HEADS, who look so green,

I vow to gracious thet ef I could dreen

The world of all its hearers but jest you,

'twould leave 'bout all tha' is wuth talkin' to, 80

An' you, my ven'able ol' frien's, thet show

Upon your crowns a sprinklin' o' March snow,

Ez ef mild Time had christened every sense

For wisdom's church o' second innocence.

Nut Age's winter, no, no sech a thing,

But jest a kin' o' slippin'-back o' spring,--

[Sev'ril noses blowed.]

We've gathered here, ez ushle, to decide

Which is the Lord's an' which is Satan's side,

Coz all the good or evil thet can heppen

Is 'long o' which on 'em you choose for Cappen.

[Cries o' 'Thet's so.']

Aprul's come back; the swellin' buds of oak 91

Dim the fur hillsides with a purplish smoke;

The brooks are loose an', singing to be seen,

(Like gals,) make all the hollers soft an' green;

The birds are here, for all the season's late;

They take the sun's height an' don' never wait;

Soon 'z he officially declares it's spring

Their light hearts lift 'em on a north'ard wing,

An' th' ain't an acre, fur ez you can hear,

Can't by the music tell the time o' year; 100

But thet white dove Carliny seared away,

Five year ago, jes' sech an Aprul day;

Peace, that we hoped 'ould come an' build last year

An' coo by every housedoor, isn't here,--

No, nor wun't never be, for all our jaw,

Till we're ez brave in pol'tics ez in war!

O Lord, ef folks wuz made so's't they could see

The begnet-pint there is to an idee! [Sensation.]

Ten times the danger in 'em th' is in steel;

They run your soul thru an' you never feel, 110

But crawl about an' seem to think you're livin',

Poor shells o' men, nut wuth the Lord's forgivin',

Tell you come bunt ag'in a real live feet,

An' go to pieces when you'd ough' to ect!

Thet kin' o' begnet's wut we're crossin' now,

An' no man, fit to nevvigate a scow,

'ould stan' expectin' help from Kingdom Come,

While t'other side druv their cold iron home.

My frien's, you never gethered from my mouth,

No, nut one word ag'in the South ez South, 120

Nor th' ain't a livin' man, white, brown, nor black,

Gladder 'n wut I should be to take 'em back;

But all I ask of Uncle Sam is fust

To write up on his door, 'No goods on trust';

[Cries o' 'Thet's the ticket!']

Give us cash down in ekle laws for all,

An' they'll be snug inside afore nex' fall.

Give wut they ask, an' we shell hev Jamaker,

Wuth minus some consid'able an acre;

Give wut they need, an' we shell git 'fore long

A nation all one piece, rich, peacefle, strong; 130

Make 'em Amerikin, an' they'll begin

To love their country ez they loved their sin;

Let 'em stay Southun, an' you've kep' a sore

Ready to fester ez it done afore.

No mortle man can boast of perfic' vision,

But the one moleblin' thing is Indecision,

An' th' ain't no futur' for the man nor state

Thet out of j-u-s-t can't spell great.

Some folks 'ould call thet reddikle, do you?

'Twas commonsense afore the war wuz thru; 140

_Thet_ loaded all our guns an' made 'em speak

So's't Europe heared 'em clearn acrost the creek;

'They're drivin' o' their spiles down now,' sez she,

'To the hard grennit o' God's fust idee;

Ef they reach thet, Democ'cy needn't fear

The tallest airthquakes _we_ can git up here.'

Some call 't insultin' to ask _ary_ pledge,

An' say 'twill only set their teeth on edge,

But folks you've jest licked, fur 'z I ever see,

Are 'bout ez mad 'z they wal know how to be; 150

It's better than the Rebs themselves expected

'fore they see Uncle Sam wilt down henpected;

Be kind 'z you please, but fustly make things fast,

For plain Truth's all the kindness thet'll last;

Ef treason is a crime, ez _some_ folks say,

How could we punish it in a milder way

Than sayin' to 'em, 'Brethren, lookee here,

We'll jes' divide things with ye, sheer an' sheer,

An' sence both come o' pooty strong-backed daddies,

You take the Darkies, ez we've took the Paddies; 160

Ign'ant an' poor we took 'em by the hand,

An' they're the bones an' sinners o' the land,'

I ain't o' them thet fancy there's a loss on

Every inves'ment thet don't start from Bos'on;

But I know this: our money's safest trusted

In sunthin', come wut will, thet _can't_ be busted,

An' thet's the old Amerikin idee,

To make a man a Man an' let him be. [Gret applause.]

Ez for their l'yalty, don't take a goad to 't,

But I do' want to block their only road to 't 170

By lettin' 'em believe thet they can git

Mor'n wut they lost, out of our little wit:

I tell ye wut, I'm 'fraid we'll drif' to leeward

'thout we can put more stiffenin' into Seward;

He seems to think Columby'd better ect

Like a scared widder with a boy stiff-necked

Thet stomps an' swears he wun't come in to supper;

She mus' set up for him, ez weak ez Tupper,

Keepin' the Constitootion on to warm,

Tell he'll eccept her 'pologies in form: 180

The neighbors tell her he's a cross-grained cuss

Thet needs a hidin' 'fore he comes to wus;

'No,' sez Ma Seward, 'he's ez good 'z the best,

All he wants now is sugar-plums an' rest;'

'He sarsed my Pa,' sez one; 'He stoned my son,'

Another edds, 'Oh wal, 'twuz jes' his fun.'

'He tried to shoot our Uncle Samwell dead.'

''Twuz only tryin' a noo gun he hed.'

'Wal, all we ask's to hev it understood

You'll take his gun away from him for good; 190

We don't, wal, nut exac'ly, like his play,

Seem' he allus kin' o' shoots our way.

You kill your fatted calves to no good eend,

'thout his fust sayin', "Mother, I hev sinned!"'

['Amen!' frum Deac'n Greenleaf]

The Pres'dunt _he_ thinks thet the slickest plan

'ould be t' allow thet he's our on'y man,

An' thet we fit thru all thet dreffle war

Jes' for his private glory an' eclor;

'Nobody ain't a Union man,' sez he,

''thout he agrees, thru thick an' thin, with me; 200

Warn't Andrew Jackson's 'nitials jes' like mine?

An' ain't thet sunthin' like a right divine

To cut up ez kentenkerous ez I please,

An' treat your Congress like a nest o' fleas?'

Wal, I expec' the People wouldn' care, if

The question now wuz techin' bank or tariff,

But I conclude they've 'bout made up their min'

This ain't the fittest time to go it blin',

Nor these ain't metters thet with pol'tics swings,

But goes 'way down amongst the roots o' things; 210

Coz Sumner talked o' whitewashin' one day

They wun't let four years' war be throwed away.

'Let the South hev her rights?' They say, 'Thet's you!

But nut greb hold of other folks's tu.'

Who owns this country, is it they or Andy?

Leastways it ough' to be the People _and_ he;

Let him be senior pardner, ef he's so,

But let them kin' o' smuggle in ez Co; [Laughter.]

Did he diskiver it? Consid'ble numbers

Think thet the job wuz taken by Columbus. 220

Did he set tu an' make it wut it is?

Ef so, I guess the One-Man-power _hez_ riz.

Did he put thru the rebbles, clear the docket,

An' pay th' expenses out of his own pocket?

Ef thet's the case, then everythin' I exes

Is t' hev him come an' pay my ennooal texes.

[Profoun' sensation.]

Was 't he thet shou'dered all them million guns?

Did he lose all the fathers, brothers, sons?

Is this ere pop'lar gov'ment thet we run

A kin' o' sulky, made to kerry one? 230

An' is the country goin' to knuckle down

To hev Smith sort their letters 'stid o'Brown?

Who wuz the 'Nited States 'fore Richmon' fell?

Wuz the South needfle their full name to spell?

An' can't we spell it in thet short-han' way

Till th' underpinnin's settled so's to stay?

Who cares for the Resolves of '61,

Thet tried to coax an airthquake with a bun?

Hez act'ly nothin' taken place sence then

To larn folks they must hendle fects like men? 240

Ain't _this_ the true p'int? Did the Rebs accep' 'em?

Ef nut, whose fault is 't thet we hevn't kep 'em?

Warn't there _two_ sides? an' don't it stend to reason

Thet this week's 'Nited States ain't las' week's treason?

When all these sums is done, with nothin' missed,

An' nut afore, this school 'll be dismissed.

I knowed ez wal ez though I'd seen 't with eyes

Thet when the war wuz over copper'd rise,

An' thet we'd hev a rile-up in our kettle

'twould need Leviathan's whole skin to settle: 250

I thought 'twould take about a generation

'fore we could wal begin to be a nation,

But I allow I never did imegine

'twould be our Pres'dunt thet 'ould drive a wedge in

To keep the split from closin' ef it could.

An' healin' over with new wholesome wood;

For th' ain't no chance o' healin' while they think

Thet law an' gov'ment's only printer's ink;

I mus' confess I thank him for discoverin'

The curus way in which the States are sovereign; 260

They ain't nut _quite_ enough so to rebel,

But, when they fin' it's costly to raise h----,

[A groan from Deac'n G.]

Why, then, for jes' the same superl'tive reason,

They're 'most too much so to be tetched for treason;

They _can't_ go out, but ef they somehow _du_,

Their sovereignty don't noways go out tu;

The State goes out, the sovereignty don't stir,

But stays to keep the door ajar for her.

He thinks secession never took 'em out,

An' mebby he's correc', but I misdoubt? 270

Ef they warn't out, then why, 'n the name o' sin,

Make all this row 'bout lettin' of 'em in?

In law, p'r'aps nut; but there's a diffurence, ruther,

Betwixt your mother-'n-law an' real mother,

[Derisive cheers.]

An' I, for one, shall wish they'd all ben _som'eres_,

Long 'z U.S. Texes are sech reg'lar comers.

But, O my patience! must we wriggle back

Into th' ole crooked, pettyfoggin' track,

When our artil'ry-wheels a road hev cut

Stret to our purpose ef we keep the rut? 280

War's jes' dead waste excep' to wipe the slate

Clean for the cyph'rin' of some nobler fate.

[Applause.]

Ez for dependin' on their oaths an' thet,

'twun't bind 'em more 'n the ribbin roun' my het:

I heared a fable once from Othniel Starns,

That pints it slick ez weathercocks do barns;

Onct on a time the wolves hed certing rights

Inside the fold; they used to sleep there nights,

An' bein' cousins o' the dogs, they took

Their turns et watchin', reg'lar ez a book; 290

But somehow, when the dogs hed gut asleep,

Their love o' mutton beat their love o' sheep,

Till gradilly the shepherds come to see

Things warn't agoin' ez they'd ough' to be;

So they sent off a deacon to remonstrate

Along 'th the wolves an' urge 'em to go on straight;

They didn't seem to set much by the deacon,

Nor preachin' didn' cow 'em, nut to speak on;

Fin'ly they swore thet they'd go out an' stay,

An' hev their fill o' mutton every day; 300

Then dogs an' shepherds, after much hard dammin',

[Groan from Deac'n G.]

Turned tu an' give 'em a tormented lammin',

An' sez, 'Ye sha'n't go out, the murrain rot ye,

To keep us wastin' half our time to watch ye!'

But then the question come, How live together

'thout losin' sleep, nor nary yew nor wether?

Now there wuz some dogs (noways wuth their keep)

Thet sheered their cousins' tastes an' sheered the sheep;

They sez, 'Be gin'rous, let 'em swear right in,

An', ef they backslide, let 'em swear ag'in; 310

Jes' let 'em put on sheep-skins whilst they're swearin';

To ask for more 'ould be beyond all bearin'.'

'Be gin'rous for yourselves, where _you_'re to pay,

Thet's the best prectice,' sez a shepherd gray;

'Ez for their oaths they wun't be wuth a button,

Long 'z you don't cure 'em o' their taste for mutton;

Th' ain't but one solid way, howe'er you puzzle:

Tell they're convarted, let 'em wear a muzzle.'

[Cries of 'Bully for you!']

I've noticed thet each half-baked scheme's abetters

Are in the hebbit o' producin' letters 320

Writ by all sorts o' never-heared-on fellers,

'bout ez oridge'nal ez the wind in bellers;

I've noticed, tu, it's the quack med'cine gits

(An' needs) the grettest heaps o' stiffykits;

[Two pothekeries goes out.]

Now, sence I lef off creepin' on all fours,

I hain't ast no man to endorse my course;

It's full ez cheap to be your own endorser,

An' ef I've made a cup, I'll fin' the saucer;

But I've some letters here from t'other side,

An' them's the sort thet helps me to decide; 330

Tell me for wut the copper-comp'nies hanker,

An' I'll tell you jest where it's safe to anchor. [Faint hiss.]

Fus'ly the Hon'ble B.O. Sawin writes

Thet for a spell he couldn't sleep o' nights,

Puzzlin' which side wuz preudentest to pin to,

Which wuz th' ole homestead, which the temp'ry leanto;

Et fust he jedged 'twould right-side-up his pan

To come out ez a 'ridge'nal Union man,

'But now,' he sez, 'I ain't nut quite so fresh;

The winnin' horse is goin' to be Secesh; 340

You might, las' spring, hev eas'ly walked the course,

'fore we contrived to doctor th' Union horse;

Now _we_'re the ones to walk aroun' the nex' track:

Jest you take hol' an' read the follerin' extrac',

Out of a letter I received last week

From an ole frien' thet never sprung a leak,

A Nothun Dem'crat o' th' ole Jarsey blue,

Born copper-sheathed an' copper-fastened tu.'

'These four years past it hez ben tough

To say which side a feller went for; 350

Guideposts all gone, roads muddy 'n' rough,

An' nothin' duin' wut 'twuz meant for;

Pickets a-firin' left an' right,

Both sides a lettin' rip et sight,--

Life warn't wuth hardly payin' rent for.

'Columby gut her back up so,

It warn't no use a-tryin' to stop her,--

War's emptin's riled her very dough

An' made it rise an' act improper;

'Twuz full ez much ez I could du 360

To jes' lay low an' worry thru,

'Thout hevin' to sell out my copper.

'Afore the war your mod'rit men,

Could set an' sun 'em on the fences,

Cyph'rin' the chances up, an' then

Jump off which way bes' paid expenses;

Sence, 'twuz so resky ary way,

_I_ didn't hardly darst to say

I 'greed with Paley's Evidences.

[Groan from Deac'n G.]

'Ask Mac ef tryin' to set the fence 370

Warn't like bein' rid upon a rail on 't,

Headin' your party with a sense

O' bein' tipjint in the tail on 't,

An' tryin' to think thet, on the whole,

You kin' o' quasi own your soul

When Belmont's gut a bill o' sale on 't?

[Three cheers for Grant and Sherman.]

'Come peace, I sposed thet folks 'ould like

Their pol'tics done ag'in by proxy;

Give their noo loves the bag an' strike

A fresh trade with their reg'lar doxy; 380

But the drag's broke, now slavery's gone,

An' there's gret resk they'll blunder on,

Ef they ain't stopped, to real Democ'cy.

'We've gut an awful row to hoe

In this 'ere job o' reconstructin';

Folks dunno skurce which way to go,

Where th' ain't some boghole to be ducked in;

But one thing's clear; there _is_ a crack,

Ef we pry hard, 'twixt white an' black,

Where the ole makebate can be tucked in. 390

'No white man sets in airth's broad aisle

Thet I ain't willin' t' own ez brother,

An' ef he's happened to strike ile,

I dunno, fin'ly, but I'd ruther;

An' Paddies, long 'z they vote all right,

Though they ain't jest a nat'ral white,

I hold one on 'em good 'z another,

[Applause.]

'Wut _is_ there lef I'd like to know,

Ef 'tain't the defference o' color,

To keep up self-respec' an' show 400

The human natur' of a fullah?

Wut good in bein' white, onless

It's fixed by law, nut lef' to guess,

We're a heap smarter an' they duller?

'Ef we're to hev our ekle rights,

'twun't du to 'low no competition;

Th' ole debt doo us for bein' whites

Ain't safe onless we stop th' emission

O' these noo notes, whose specie base

Is human natur', thout no trace 410

O' shape, nor color, nor condition.

[Continood applause.]

'So fur I'd writ an' couldn' jedge

Aboard wut boat I'd best take pessige,

My brains all mincemeat, 'thout no edge

Upon 'em more than tu a sessige,

But now it seems ez though I see

Sunthin' resemblin' an idee,

Sence Johnson's speech an' veto message.

'I like the speech best, I confess,

The logic, preudence, an' good taste on 't; 420

An' it's so mad, I ruther guess

There's some dependence to be placed on 't; [Laughter.]

It's narrer, but 'twixt you an' me,

Out o' the allies o' J.D.

A temp'ry party can be based on 't.

'Jes' to hold on till Johnson's thru

An' dug his Presidential grave is,

An' _then!_--who knows but we could slew

The country roun' to put in----?

Wun't some folks rare up when we pull 430

Out o' their eyes our Union wool

An' larn 'em wut a p'lit'cle shave is!

'Oh, did it seem 'z ef Providunce

_Could_ ever send a second Tyler?

To see the South all back to once,

Reapin' the spiles o' the Free-siler,

Is cute ez though an ingineer

Should claim th' old iron for his sheer

Coz 'twas himself that bust the biler!'

[Gret laughter.]

Thet tells the story! Thet's wut we shall git 440

By tryin' squirtguns on the burnin' Pit;

For the day never comes when it'll du

To kick off Dooty like a worn-out shoe.

I seem to hear a whisperin' in the air,

A sighin' like, of unconsoled despair,

Thet comes from nowhere an' from everywhere,

An' seems to say, 'Why died we? warn't it, then,

To settle, once for all, thet men wuz men?

Oh, airth's sweet cup snetched from us barely tasted,

The grave's real chill is feelin' life wuz wasted! 450

Oh, you we lef', long-lingerin' et the door,

Lovin' you best, coz we loved Her the more,

Thet Death, not we, had conquered, we should feel

Ef she upon our memory turned her heel,

An' unregretful throwed us all away

To flaunt it in a Blind Man's Holiday!'

My frien's, I've talked nigh on to long enough.

I hain't no call to bore ye coz ye're tough;

My lungs are sound, an' our own v'ice delights

Our ears, but even kebbige-heads hez rights. 460

It's the las' time thet I shell e'er address ye,

But you'll soon fin' some new tormentor: bless ye!

[Tumult'ous applause and cries of 'Go on!' 'Don't stop!']

UNDER THE WILLOWS AND OTHER POEMS

TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON

AGRO DOLCE

The wind is roistering out of doors,

My windows shake and my chimney roars;

My Elmwood chimneys seem crooning to me,

As of old, in their moody, minor key,

And out of the past the hoarse wind blows,

As I sit in my arm-chair, and toast my toes.

'Ho! ho! nine-and-forty,' they seem to sing,

'We saw you a little toddling thing.

We knew you child and youth and man,

A wonderful fellow to dream and plan,

With a great thing always to come,--who knows?

Well, well! 'tis some comfort to toast one's toes.

'How many times have you sat at gaze

Till the mouldering fire forgot to blaze,

Shaping among the whimsical coals

Fancies and figures and shining goals!

What matters the ashes that cover those?

While hickory lasts you can toast your toes.

'O dream-ship-builder: where are they all,

Your grand three-deckers, deep-chested and tall,

That should crush the waves under canvas piles,

And anchor at last by the Fortunate Isles?

There's gray in your beard, the years turn foes,

While you muse in your arm-chair, and toast your toes.'

I sit and dream that I hear, as of yore,

My Elmwood chimneys' deep-throated roar;

If much be gone, there is much remains;

By the embers of loss I count my gains,

You and yours with the best, till the old hope glows

In the fanciful flame, as I toast my toes.

Instead of a fleet of broad-browed ships,

To send a child's armada of chips!

Instead of the great gun, tier on tier,

A freight of pebbles and grass-blades sere!

'Well, maybe more love with the less gift goes,'

I growl, as, half moody, I toast my toes.

UNDER THE WILLOWS

Frank-hearted hostess of the field and wood,

Gypsy, whose roof is every spreading tree,

June is the pearl of our New England year.

Still a surprisal, though expected long.

Her coming startles. Long she lies in wait,

Makes many a feint, peeps forth, draws coyly back,

Then, from some southern ambush in the sky,

With one great gush of blossom storms the world.

A week ago the sparrow was divine;

The bluebird, shifting his light load of song 10

From post to post along the cheerless fence,

Was as a rhymer ere the poet come;

But now, oh rapture! sunshine winged and voiced,

Pipe blown through by the warm wild breath of the West

Shepherding his soft droves of fleecy cloud,

Gladness of woods, skies, waters, all in one,

The bobolink has come, and, like the soul

Of the sweet season vocal in a bird,

Gurgles in ecstasy we know not what

Save _June! Dear June! Now God be praised for June_. 20

May is a pious fraud of the almanac,

A ghastly parody of real Spring

Shaped out of snow and breathed with eastern wind;

Or if, o'er-confident, she trust the date,

And, with her handful of anemones,

Herself as shivery, steal into the sun,

The season need but turn his hour-glass round,

And Winter suddenly, like crazy Lear,

Reels back, and brings the dead May in his arms,

Her budding breasts and wan dislustred front 30

With frosty streaks and drifts of his white beard

All overblown. Then, warmly walled with books,

While my wood-fire supplies the sun's defect,

Whispering old forest-sagas in its dreams,

I take my May down from the happy shelf

Where perch the world's rare song-birds in a row,

Waiting my choice to open with full breast,

And beg an alms of springtime, ne'er denied

Indoors by vernal Chaucer, whose fresh woods

Throb thick with merle and mavis all the year. 40

July breathes hot, sallows the crispy fields,

Curls up the wan leaves of the lilac-hedge,

And every eve cheats us with show of clouds

That braze the horizon's western rim, or hang

Motionless, with heaped canvas drooping idly,

Like a dim fleet by starving men besieged,

Conjectured half, and half descried afar,

Helpless of wind, and seeming to slip back

Adown the smooth curve of the oily sea.

But June is full of invitations sweet, 50

Forth from the chimney's yawn and thrice-read tomes

To leisurely delights and sauntering thoughts

That brook no ceiling narrower than the blue.

The cherry, drest for bridal, at my pane

Brushes, then listens, _Will he come?_ The bee,

All dusty as a miller, takes his toll

Of powdery gold, and grumbles. What a day

To sun me and do nothing! Nay, I think

Merely to bask and ripen is sometimes

The student's wiser business; the brain 60

That forages all climes to line its cells,

Ranging both worlds on lightest wings of wish,

Will not distil the juices it has sucked

To the sweet substance of pellucid thought,

Except for him who hath the secret learned

To mix his blood with sunshine, and to take

The winds into his pulses. Hush! 'tis he!

My oriole, my glance of summer fire,

Is come at last, and, ever on the watch,

Twitches the packthread I had lightly wound 70

About the bough to help his housekeeping,--

Twitches and scouts by turns, blessing his luck,

Yet fearing me who laid it in his way,

Nor, more than wiser we in our affairs,

Divines the providence that hides and helps.

_Heave, ho! Heave, ho!_ he whistles as the twine

Slackens its hold; _once more, now!_ and a flash

Lightens across the sunlight to the elm

Where his mate dangles at her cup of felt.

Nor all his booty is the thread; he trails 80

My loosened thought with it along the air,

And I must follow, would I ever find

The inward rhyme to all this wealth of life.

I care not how men trace their ancestry,

To ape or Adam: let them please their whim;

But I in June am midway to believe

A tree among my far progenitors,

Such sympathy is mine with all the race,

Such mutual recognition vaguely sweet

There is between us. Surely there are times 90

When they consent to own me of their kin,

And condescend to me, and call me cousin,

Murmuring faint lullabies of eldest time,

Forgotten, and yet dumbly felt with thrills

Moving the lips, though fruitless of all words.

And I have many a lifelong leafy friend,

Never estranged nor careful of my soul,

That knows I hate the axe, and welcomes me

Within his tent as if I were a bird,

Or other free companion of the earth, 100

Yet undegenerate to the shifts of men.

Among them one, an ancient willow, spreads

Eight balanced limbs, springing at once all round

His deep-ridged trunk with upward slant diverse,

In outline like enormous beaker, fit

For hand of Jotun, where mid snow and mist

He holds unwieldy revel. This tree, spared,

I know not by what grace,--for in the blood

Of our New World subduers lingers yet

Hereditary feud with trees, they being 110

(They and the red-man most) our fathers' foes,--

Is one of six, a willow Pleiades,

The seventh fallen, that lean along the brink

Where the steep upland dips into the marsh,

Their roots, like molten metal cooled in flowing,

Stiffened in coils and runnels down the bank.

The friend of all the winds, wide-armed he towers

And glints his steely aglets in the sun,

Or whitens fitfully with sudden bloom

Of leaves breeze-lifted, much as when a shoal 120

Of devious minnows wheel from where a pike

Lurks balanced 'neath the lily-pads, and whirl

A rood of silver bellies to the day.

Alas! no acorn from the British oak

'Neath which slim fairies tripping wrought those rings

Of greenest emerald, wherewith fireside life

Did with the invisible spirit of Nature wed,

Was ever planted here! No darnel fancy

Might choke one useful blade in Puritan fields;

With horn and hoof the good old Devil came, 130

The witch's broomstick was not contraband,

But all that superstition had of fair,

Or piety of native sweet, was doomed.

And if there be who nurse unholy faiths,

Fearing their god as if he were a wolf

That snuffed round every home and was not seen,

There should be some to watch and keep alive

All beautiful beliefs. And such was that,--

By solitary shepherd first surmised

Under Thessalian oaks, loved by some maid 140

Of royal stirp, that silent came and vanished,

As near her nest the hermit thrush, nor dared

Confess a mortal name,--that faith which gave

A Hamadryed to each tree; and I

Will hold it true that in this willow dwells

The open-handed spirit, frank and blithe,

Of ancient Hospitality, long since,

With ceremonious thrift, bowed out of doors.

In June 'tis good to lie beneath a tree

While the blithe season comforts every sense, 150

Steeps all the brain in rest, and heals the heart,

Brimming it o'er with sweetness unawares,

Fragrant and silent as that rosy snow

Wherewith the pitying apple-tree fills up

And tenderly lines some last-year robin's nest.

There muse I of old times, old hopes, old friends,--

Old friends! The writing of those words has borne

My fancy backward to the gracious past,

The generous past, when all was possible.

For all was then untried; the years between 160

Have taught some sweet, some bitter lessons, none

Wiser than this,--to spend in all things else,

But of old friends to be most miserly.

Each year to ancient friendships adds a ring,

As to an oak, and precious more and more,

Without deservingness or help of ours,

They grow, and, silent, wider spread, each year,

Their unbought ring of shelter or of shade,

Sacred to me the lichens on the bark,

Which Nature's milliners would scrape away; 170

Most dear and sacred every withered limb!

'Tis good to set them early, for our faith

Pines as we age, and, after wrinkles come,

Few plant, but water dead ones with vain tears.

This willow is as old to me as life;

And under it full often have I stretched,

Feeling the warm earth like a thing alive,

And gathering virtue in at every pore

Till it possessed me wholly, and thought ceased,

Or was transfused in something to which thought 180

Is coarse and dull of sense. Myself was lost.

Gone from me like an ache, and what remained

Become a part of the universal joy.

My soul went forth, and, mingling with the tree,

Danced in the leaves; or, floating in the cloud,

Saw its white double in the stream below;

Or else, sublimed to purer ecstasy,

Dilated in the broad blue over all.

I was the wind that dappled the lush grass,

The tide that crept with coolness to its roots, 190

The thin-winged swallow skating on the air;

The life that gladdened everything was mine.

Was I then truly all that I beheld?

Or is this stream of being but a glass

Where the mind sees its visionary self,

As, when the kingfisher flits o'er his bay,

Across the river's hollow heaven below

His picture flits,--another, yet the same?

But suddenly the sound of human voice

Or footfall, like the drop a chemist pours, 200

Doth in opacous cloud precipitate

The consciousness that seemed but now dissolved

Into an essence rarer than its own.

And I am narrowed to myself once more.

For here not long is solitude secure,

Nor Fantasy left vacant to her spell.

Here, sometimes, in this paradise of shade,

Rippled with western winds, the dusty Tramp,

Seeing the treeless causey burn beyond,

Halts to unroll his bundle of strange food 210

And munch an unearned meal. I cannot help

Liking this creature, lavish Summer's bedesman,

Who from the almshouse steals when nights grow warm,

Himself his large estate and only charge,

To be the guest of haystack or of hedge,

Nobly superior to the household gear

That forfeits us our privilege of nature.

I bait him with my match-box and my pouch,

Nor grudge the uncostly sympathy of smoke,

His equal now, divinely unemployed. 220

Some smack of Robin Hood is in the man,

Some secret league with wild wood-wandering things;

He is our ragged Duke, our barefoot Earl,

By right of birth exonerate from toil,

Who levies rent from us his tenants all,

And serves the state by merely being. Here

The Scissors-grinder, pausing, doffs his hat,

And lets the kind breeze, with its delicate fan,

Winnow the heat from out his dank gray hair,--

A grimy Ulysses, a much-wandered man, 230

Whose feet are known to all the populous ways,

And many men and manners he hath seen,

Not without fruit of solitary thought.

He, as the habit is of lonely men,--

Unused to try the temper of their mind

In fence with others,--positive and shy,

Yet knows to put an edge upon his speech,

Pithily Saxon in unwilling talk.

Him I entrap with my long-suffering knife,

And, while its poor blade hums away in sparks, 240

Sharpen my wit upon his gritty mind,

In motion set obsequious to his wheel,

And in its quality not much unlike.

Nor wants my tree more punctual visitors.

The children, they who are the only rich,

Creating for the moment, and possessing

Whate'er they choose to feign,--for still with them

Kind Fancy plays the fairy godmother,

Strewing their lives with cheap material

For wingèd horses and Aladdin's lamps, 250

Pure elfin-gold, by manhood's touch profane

To dead leaves disenchanted,--long ago

Between the branches of the tree fixed seats,

Making an o'erturned box their table. Oft

The shrilling girls sit here between school hours,

And play at _What's my thought like?_ while the boys,

With whom the age chivalric ever bides,

Pricked on by knightly spur of female eyes,

Climb high to swing and shout on perilous boughs,

Or, from the willow's armory equipped 260

With musket dumb, green banner, edgeless sword,

Make good the rampart of their tree-redoubt

'Gainst eager British storming from below,

And keep alive the tale of Bunker's Hill.

Here, too, the men that mend our village ways,

Vexing Macadam's ghost with pounded slate,

Their nooning take; much noisy talk they spend

On horses and their ills; and, as John Bull

Tells of Lord This or That, who was his friend,

So these make boast of intimacies long 270

With famous teams, and add large estimates,

By competition swelled from mouth to mouth.

Of how much they could draw, till one, ill pleased

To have his legend overbid, retorts:

'You take and stretch truck-horses in a string

From here to Long Wharf end, one thing I know,

Not heavy neither, they could never draw,--

Ensign's long bow!' Then laughter loud and long.

So they in their leaf-shadowed microcosm

Image the larger world; for wheresoe'er 280

Ten men are gathered, the observant eye

Will find mankind in little, as the stars

Glide up and set, and all the heavens revolve

In the small welkin of a drop of dew.

I love to enter pleasure by a postern,

Not the broad popular gate that gulps the mob;

To find my theatres in roadside nooks,

Where men are actors, and suspect it not;

Where Nature all unconscious works her will,

And every passion moves with easy gait, 290

Unhampered by the buskin or the train.

Hating the crowd, where we gregarious men

Lead lonely lives, I love society,

Nor seldom find the best with simple souls

Unswerved by culture from their native bent,

The ground we meet on being primal man,

And nearer the deep bases of our lives.

But oh, half heavenly, earthly half, my soul,

Canst thou from those late ecstasies descend,

Thy lips still wet with the miraculous wine 300

That transubstantiates all thy baser stuff

To such divinity that soul and sense,

Once more commingled in their source, are lost,--

Canst thou descend to quench a vulgar thirst

With the mere dregs and rinsings of the world?

Well, if my nature find her pleasure so,

I am content, nor need to blush; I take

My little gift of being clean from God,

Not haggling for a better, holding it

Good as was ever any in the world, 310

My days as good and full of miracle.

I pluck my nutriment from any bush,

Finding out poison as the first men did

By tasting and then suffering, if I must.

Sometimes my bush burns, and sometimes it is

A leafless wilding shivering by the wall;

But I have known when winter barberries

Pricked the effeminate palate with surprise

Of savor whose mere harshness seemed divine.

Oh, benediction of the higher mood 320

And human-kindness of the lower! for both

I will be grateful while I live, nor question

The wisdom that hath made us what we are,

With such large range as from the ale-house bench

Can reach the stars and be with both at home.

They tell us we have fallen on prosy days,

Condemned to glean the leavings of earth's feast

Where gods and heroes took delight of old;

But though our lives, moving in one dull round

Of repetition infinite, become 330

Stale as a newspaper once read, and though

History herself, seen in her workshop, seem

To have lost the art that dyed those glorious panes,

Rich with memorial shapes of saint and sage,

That pave with splendor the Past's dusky aisles,--

Panes that enchant the light of common day

With colors costly as the blood of kings,

Till with ideal hues it edge our thought,--

Yet while the world is left, while nature lasts,

And man the best of nature, there shall be 340

Somewhere contentment for these human hearts,

Some freshness, some unused material

For wonder and for song. I lose myself

In other ways where solemn guide-posts say,

_This way to Knowledge, This way to Repose_,

But here, here only, I am ne'er betrayed,

For every by-path leads me to my love.

God's passionless reformers, influences,

That purify and heal and are not seen,

Shall man say whence your virtue is, or how 350

Ye make medicinal the wayside weed?

I know that sunshine, through whatever rift,

How shaped it matters not, upon my walls

Paints discs as perfect-rounded as its source,

And, like its antitype, the ray divine,

However finding entrance, perfect still,

Repeats the image unimpaired of God.

We, who by shipwreck only find the shores

Of divine wisdom, can but kneel at first;

Can but exult to feel beneath our feet, 360

That long stretched vainly down the yielding deeps,

The shock and sustenance of solid earth;

Inland afar we see what temples gleam

Through immemorial stems of sacred groves,

And we conjecture shining shapes therein;

Yet for a space we love to wander here

Among the shells and seaweed of the beach.

So mused I once within my willow-tent

One brave June morning, when the bluff northwest,

Thrusting aside a dank and snuffling day 370

That made us bitter at our neighbors' sins,

Brimmed the great cup of heaven with sparkling cheer

And roared a lusty stave; the sliding Charles,

Blue toward the west, and bluer and more blue,

Living and lustrous as a woman's eyes

Look once and look no more, with southward curve

Ran crinkling sunniness, like Helen's hair

Glimpsed in Elysium, insubstantial gold;

From blossom-clouded orchards, far away

The bobolink tinkled; the deep meadows flowed 380

With multitudinous pulse of light and shade

Against the bases of the southern hills,

While here and there a drowsy island rick

Slept and its shadow slept; the wooden bridge

Thundered, and then was silent; on the roofs

The sun-warped shingles rippled with the heat;

Summer on field and hill, in heart and brain,

All life washed clean in this high tide of June.

DARA

When Persia's sceptre trembled in a hand

Wilted with harem-heats, and all the land

Was hovered over by those vulture ills

That snuff decaying empire from afar,

Then, with a nature balanced as a star,

Dara arose, a shepherd of the hills.

He who had governed fleecy subjects well

Made his own village by the selfsame spell

Secure and quiet as a guarded fold;

Then, gathering strength by slow and wise degrees 10

Under his sway, to neighbor villages

Order returned, and faith and justice old.

Now when it fortuned that a king more wise

Endued the realm with brain and hands and eyes,

He sought on every side men brave and just;

And having heard our mountain shepherd's praise,

How he refilled the mould of elder days,

To Dara gave a satrapy in trust.

So Dara shepherded a province wide,

Nor in his viceroy's sceptre took more pride 20

Than in his crook before; but envy finds

More food in cities than on mountains bare;

And the frank sun of natures clear and rare

Breeds poisonous fogs in low and marish minds.

Soon it was hissed into the royal ear,

That, though wise Dara's province, year by year,

Like a great sponge, sucked wealth and plenty up,

Yet, when he squeezed it at the king's behest,

Some yellow drops, more rich than all the rest,

Went to the filling of his private cup. 30

For proof, they said, that, wheresoe'er he went,

A chest, beneath whose weight the camel bent,

Went with him; and no mortal eye had seen

What was therein, save only Dara's own;

But, when 'twas opened, all his tent was known

To glow and lighten with heaped jewels' sheen.

The King set forth for Dara's province straight;

There, as was fit, outside the city's gate,

The viceroy met him with a stately train,

And there, with archers circled, close at hand, 40

A camel with the chest was seen to stand:

The King's brow reddened, for the guilt was plain.

'Open me here,' he cried, 'this treasure-chest!'

'Twas done; and only a worn shepherd's vest

Was found therein. Some blushed and hung the head;

Not Dara; open as the sky's blue roof

He stood, and 'O my lord, behold the proof

That I was faithful to my trust,' he said.

'To govern men, lo all the spell I had!'

My soul in these rude vestments ever clad 50

Still to the unstained past kept true and leal,

Still on these plains could breathe her mountain air,

And fortune's heaviest gifts serenely bear,

Which bend men from their truth and make them reel.

'For ruling wisely I should have small skill,

Were I not lord of simple Dara still;

That sceptre kept, I could not lose my way.'

Strange dew in royal eyes grew round and bright,

And strained the throbbing lids; before 'twas night

Two added provinces blest Dara's sway. 60

THE FIRST SNOW-FALL

The snow had begun in the gloaming,

And busily all the night

Had been heaping field and highway

With a silence deep and white.

Every pine and fir and hemlock

Wore ermine too dear for an earl,

And the poorest twig on the elm-tree

Was ridged inch deep with pearl.

From sheds new-roofed with Carrara

Came Chanticleer's muffled crow,

The stiff rails softened to swan's-down,

And still fluttered down the snow.

I stood and watched by the window

The noiseless work of the sky,

And the sudden flurries of snowbirds,

Like brown leaves whirling by.

I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn

Where a little headstone stood;

How the flakes were folding it gently,

As did robins the babes in the wood.

Up spoke our own little Mabel,

Saying, 'Father, who makes it snow?'

And I told of the good All-father

Who cares for us here below.

Again I looked at the snow-fall,

And thought of the leaden sky

That arched o'er our first great sorrow,

When that mound was heaped so high.

I remembered the gradual patience

That fell from that cloud like snow,

Flake by flake, healing and hiding

The scar that renewed our woe.

And again to the child I whispered,

'The snow that husheth all,

Darling, the merciful Father

Alone can make it fall!'

Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her:

And she, kissing back, could not know

That _my_ kiss was given to her sister,

Folded close under deepening snow.

THE SINGING LEAVES

A BALLAD

'What fairings will ye that I bring?'

Said the King to his daughters three;

'For I to Vanity Fair am bound,

Now say what shall they be?'

Then up and spake the eldest daughter,

That lady tall and grand:

'Oh, bring me pearls and diamonds great,

And gold rings for my hand.'

Thereafter spake the second daughter,

That was both white and red: 10

'For me bring silks that will stand alone,

And a gold comb for my head.'

Then came the turn of the least daughter,

That was whiter than thistle-down,

And among the gold of her blithesome hair

Dim shone the golden crown.

'There came a bird this morning,

And sang 'neath my bower eaves,

Till I dreamed, as his music made me,

"Ask thou for the Singing Leaves."' 20

Then the brow of the King swelled crimson

With a flush of angry scorn:

'Well have ye spoken, my two eldest,

And chosen as ye were born;

'But she, like a thing of peasant race,

That is happy binding the sheaves;'

Then he saw her dead mother in her face,

And said, 'Thou shalt have thy leaves.'

He mounted and rode three days and nights

Till he came to Vanity Fair, 30

And 'twas easy to buy the gems and the silk,

But no Singing Leaves were there.

Then deep in the greenwood rode he,

And asked of every tree,

'Oh, if you have ever a Singing Leaf,

I pray you give it me!'

But the trees all kept their counsel,

And never a word said they,

Only there sighed from the pine-tops

A music of seas far away. 40

Only the pattering aspen

Made a sound of growing rain,

That fell ever faster and faster,

Then faltered to silence again.

'Oh, where shall I find a little foot-page

That would win both hose and shoon,

And will bring to me the Singing Leaves

If they grow under the moon?'

Then lightly turned him Walter the page,

By the stirrup as he ran: 50

'Now pledge you me the truesome word

Of a king and gentleman,

'That you will give me the first, first thing

You meet at your castle-gate,

And the Princess shall get the Singing Leaves,

Or mine be a traitor's fate.'

The King's head dropt upon his breast

A moment, as it might be;

'Twill be my dog, he thought, and said,

'My faith I plight to thee.' 60

Then Walter took from next his heart

A packet small and thin,

'Now give you this to the Princess Anne,

The Singing Leaves are therein.'

III

As the King rode in at his castle-gate,

A maiden to meet him ran,

And 'Welcome, father!' she laughed and cried

Together, the Princess Anne.

'Lo, here the Singing Leaves,' quoth he,

'And woe, but they cost me dear!' 70

She took the packet, and the smile

Deepened down beneath the tear.

It deepened down till it reached her heart,

And then gushed up again,

And lighted her tears as the sudden sun

Transfigures the summer rain.

And the first Leaf, when it was opened,

Sang: 'I am Walter the page,

And the songs I sing 'neath thy window

Are my only heritage.' 80

And the second Leaf sang: 'But in the land

That is neither on earth nor sea,

My lute and I are lords of more

Than thrice this kingdom's fee.'

And the third Leaf sang, 'Be mine! Be mine!'

And ever it sang, 'Be mine!'

Then sweeter it sang and ever sweeter,

And said, 'I am thine, thine, thine!'

At the first Leaf she grew pale enough,

At the second she turned aside, 90

At the third, 'twas as if a lily flushed

With a rose's red heart's tide.

'Good counsel gave the bird,' said she,

'I have my hope thrice o'er,

For they sing to my very heart,' she said,

'And it sings to them evermore.'

She brought to him her beauty and truth,

But and broad earldoms three,

And he made her queen of the broader lands

He held of his lute in fee. 100

SEAWEED

Not always unimpeded can I pray,

Nor, pitying saint, thine intercession claim;

Too closely clings the burden of the day,

And all the mint and anise that I pay

But swells my debt and deepens my self-blame.

Shall I less patience have than Thou, who know

That Thou revisit'st all who wait for thee,

Nor only fill'st the unsounded deeps below,

But dost refresh with punctual overflow

The rifts where unregarded mosses be?

The drooping seaweed hears, in night abyssed,

Far and more far the wave's receding shocks,

Nor doubts, for all the darkness and the mist,

That the pale shepherdess will keep her tryst,

And shoreward lead again her foam-fleeced flocks.

For the same wave that rims the Carib shore

With momentary brede of pearl and gold,

Goes hurrying thence to gladden with its roar

Lorn weeds bound fast on rocks of Labrador,

By love divine on one sweet errand rolled.

And, though Thy healing waters far withdraw,

I, too, can wait and feed on hope of Thee

And of the dear recurrence of Thy law,

Sure that the parting grace my morning saw

Abides its time to come in search of me.

THE FINDING OF THE LYRE

There lay upon the ocean's shore

What once a tortoise served to cover;

A year and more, with rush and roar,

The surf had rolled it over,

Had played with it, and flung it by,

As wind and weather might decide it,

Then tossed it high where sand-drifts dry

Cheap burial might provide it.

It rested there to bleach or tan,

The rains had soaked, the suns had burned it;

With many a ban the fisherman

Had stumbled o'er and spurned it;

And there the fisher-girl would stay,

Conjecturing with her brother

How in their play the poor estray

Might serve some use or other.

So there it lay, through wet and dry

As empty as the last new sonnet,

Till by and by came Mercury,

And, having mused upon it,

'Why, here,' cried he, 'the thing of things

In shape, material, and dimension!

Give it but strings, and, lo, it sings,

A wonderful invention!'

So said, so done; the chords he strained,

And, as his fingers o'er them hovered,

The shell disdained a soul had gained,

The lyre had been discovered.

O empty world that round us lies,

Dead shell, of soul and thought forsaken,

Brought we but eyes like Mercury's,

In thee what songs should waken!

NEW-YEAR'S EVE, 1850

This is the midnight of the century,--hark!

Through aisle and arch of Godminster have gone

Twelve throbs that tolled the zenith of the dark,

And mornward now the starry hands move on;

'Mornward!' the angelic watchers say,

'Passed is the sorest trial;

No plot of man can stay

The hand upon the dial;

Night is the dark stem of the lily Day.'

If we, who watched in valleys here below,

Toward streaks, misdeemed of morn, our faces turned

When volcan glares set all the east aglow,

We are not poorer that we wept and yearned;

Though earth swing wide from God's intent,

And though no man nor nation

Will move with full consent

In heavenly gravitation,

Yet by one Sun is every orbit bent.

FOR AN AUTOGRAPH

Though old the thought and oft exprest,

'Tis his at last who says it best,--

I'll try my fortune with the rest.

Life is a leaf of paper white

Whereon each one of us may write

His word or two, and then comes night.

'Lo, time and space enough,' we cry,

'To write an epic!' so we try

Our nibs upon the edge, and die.

Muse not which way the pen to hold,

Luck hates the slow and loves the bold,

Soon come the darkness and the cold.

Greatly begin! though thou have time

But for a line, be that sublime,--

Not failure, but low aim, is crime.

Ah, with what lofty hope we came!

But we forget it, dream of fame,

And scrawl, as I do here, a name.

AL FRESCO

The dandelions and buttercups

Gild all the lawn; the drowsy bee

Stumbles among the clover-tops,

And summer sweetens all but me:

Away, unfruitful lore of books,

For whose vain idiom we reject

The soul's more native dialect,

Aliens among the birds and brooks,

Dull to interpret or conceive

What gospels lost the woods retrieve! 10

Away, ye critics, city-bred,

Who springes set of thus and so,

And in the first man's footsteps tread,

Like those who toil through drifted snow!

Away, my poets, whose sweet spell

Can make a garden of a cell!

I need ye not, for I to-day

Will make one long sweet verse of play.

Snap, chord of manhood's tenser strain!

To-day I will be a boy again; 20

The mind's pursuing element,

Like a bow slackened and unbent,

In some dark corner shall be leant.

The robin sings, as of old, from the limb!

The cat-bird croons in the lilac-bush!

Through the dim arbor, himself more dim,

Silently hops the hermit-thrush,

The withered leaves keep dumb for him;

The irreverent buccaneering bee

Hath stormed and rifled the nunnery 30

Of the lily, and scattered the sacred floor

With haste-dropt gold from shrine to door;

There, as of yore,

The rich, milk-tingeing buttercup

Its tiny polished urn holds up,

Filled with ripe summer to the edge,

The sun in his own wine to pledge;

And our tall elm, this hundredth year

Doge of our leafy Venice here,

Who, with an annual ring, doth wed 40

The blue Adriatic overhead,

Shadows with his palatial mass

The deep canals of flowing grass.

O unestrangèd birds and bees!

O face of Nature always true!

O never-unsympathizing trees!

O never-rejecting roof of blue,

Whose rash disherison never falls

On us unthinking prodigals,

Yet who convictest all our ill, 50

So grand and unappeasable!

Methinks my heart from each of these

Plucks part of childhood back again,

Long there imprisoned, as the breeze

Doth every hidden odor seize

Of wood and water, hill and plain:

Once more am I admitted peer

In the upper house of Nature here,

And feel through all my pulses run

The royal blood of wind and sun. 60

Upon these elm-arched solitudes

No hum of neighbor toil intrudes;

The only hammer that I hear

Is wielded by the woodpecker,

The single noisy calling his

In all our leaf-hid Sybaris;

The good old time, close-hidden here,

Persists, a loyal cavalier,

While Roundheads prim, with point of fox,

Probe wainscot-chink and empty box; 70

Here no hoarse-voiced iconoclast,

Insults thy statues, royal Past;

Myself too prone the axe to wield,

I touch the silver side of the shield

With lance reversed, and challenge peace,

A willing convert of the trees.

How chanced it that so long I tost

A cable's length from this rich coast,

With foolish anchors hugging close

The beckoning weeds and lazy ooze, 80

Nor had the wit to wreck before

On this enchanted island's shore,

Whither the current of the sea,

With wiser drift, persuaded me?

Oh, might we but of such rare days

Build up the spirit's dwelling-place!

A temple of so Parian stone

Would brook a marble god alone,

The statue of a perfect life,

Far-shrined from earth's bestaining strife. 90

Alas! though such felicity

In our vext world here may not be,

Yet, as sometimes the peasant's hut

Shows stones which old religion cut

With text inspired, or mystic sign

Of the Eternal and Divine,

Torn from the consecration deep

Of some fallen nunnery's mossy sleep,

So, from the ruins of this day

Crumbling in golden dust away, 100

The soul one gracious block may draw,

Carved with, some fragment of the law,

Which, set in life's prosaic wall,

Old benedictions may recall,

And lure some nunlike thoughts to take

Their dwelling here for memory's sake.

MASACCIO

IN THE BRANCACCI CHAPEL

He came to Florence long ago,

And painted here these walls, that shone

For Raphael and for Angelo,

With secrets deeper than his own,

Then shrank into the dark again,

And died, we know not how or when.

The shadows deepened, and I turned

Half sadly from the fresco grand;

'And is this,' mused I, 'all ye earned,

High-vaulted brain and cunning hand,

That ye to greater men could teach

The skill yourselves could never reach?'

'And who were they,' I mused, 'that wrought

Through pathless wilds, with labor long,

The highways of our daily thought?

Who reared those towers of earliest song

That lift us from the crowd to peace

Remote in sunny silences?'

Out clanged the Ave Mary bells,

And to my heart this message came:

Each clamorous throat among them tells

What strong-souled martyrs died in flame

To make it possible that thou

Shouldst here with brother sinners bow.

Thoughts that great hearts once broke for, we

Breathe cheaply in the common air;

The dust we trample heedlessly

Throbbed once in saints and heroes rare,

Who perished, opening for their race

New pathways to the commonplace.

Henceforth, when rings the health to those

Who live in story and in song,

O nameless dead, that now repose,

Safe in Oblivion's chambers strong,

One cup of recognition true

Shall silently be drained to you!

WITHOUT AND WITHIN

My coachman, in the moonlight there,

Looks through the side-light of the door;

I hear him with his brethren swear,

As I could do,--but only more.

Now, 'fore I knowed, thet Sabbath arternoon