After the New Jersey Election, 1865.
SAINT'S REST
(wich is in the State uv Noo Gersey),
November, 9, 1865.
Never wuz I in so pleasant a frame uv mind as last night. All wuz peace
with me, for after bein buffeted about the world for three skore years,
at last it seemed to me ez tho forchune, tired uv persekootin a
unforchnit bein, hed taken me into favor. I hed a solemn promise from
the Demekratic State Central Committy in the great State uv Noo Gersey,
that ez soon ez our candidate for Governor wuz dooly elected, I shood
hev the position uv Dorekeeper to the House uv the Lord (wich in this
State means the Capital, & wich is certainly better than dwellin in the
tents uv wicked grosery keepers, on tick, ez I do), and a joodishus
exhibition uv this promise hed prokoored for me unlimited facilities for
borrerin, wich I improved, muchly.
On Wednesday nite I wuz a sittin in my room, a enjoyin the pleasin
reflection that in a few days I should be placed above want & beyond the
contingencies uv fortune. Wood! oh wood! that I hed died then and there,
before that dream ov bliss wuz roodly broken. A wicked boy cum runnin
past with a paper wich he hed brot from the next town where there lives
a man who takes one. He flung it thro the window to me and past on. I
opened it eagerly, and glanced at the hed lines!
"NOO GERSEY--5,000 REPUBLIKIN!"
One long and piercin shreek wuz heard thro that house, and wen the
inmates rushed into the room they found me inanymate on the floor. The
fatal paper lay near me, explainin the cause uv the catastrophe. The
kind-hearted landlord, after feelin uv my pockets and diskiverin that
the contents thereof wood not pay the arrearages uv board, held a
hurried consultation with his wife as to the propriety uv bringin me to;
he insisting that it wuz the only chance uv gittin what wuz back--she
insistin that ef I was brung to I'd go on runnin up the bill, bigger and
bigger, and never pay at last. While they was argooin the matter, pro
and con, I happened to git a good smell uv his breath, wich restored me
to consciousniss to-wunst, without further assistance.
When in trouble my poetic sole alluz finds vent in song. Did ever poet
who delited in tombs, and dark, rollin streams, and consumption, and
blighted hopes, and decay, and sich themes, ever hev such a pick of
subjects ez I hev at this time? The follerin may be a consolation to the
few Dimokrats uv the North who have gone so far into copperheadism that
they can't change their base:--