You half-forgit you've gut a body on. Ther''s a small school'us' there where four roads meet,

The door-steps hollered out by little feet, An' side-posts carved with names whose owners grew

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To gret men, some on 'em, an' deacons, tu; 't ain't used no longer, coz the town hez gut A high-school, where they teach the Lord knows wut:

Three-story larnin' 's pop'lar now; I guess
We thriv' ez wal on jes' two stories less,
For it strikes me ther' 's sech a thing ez
sinnin'

By overloadin' children's underpinnin':
Wal, here it wuz I larned my A B C,
An' it's a kind o' favorite spot with me.

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

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'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 Today,

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

Now wut I want 's to hev all we gain stick, 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;

Ther' 's nothin' wuss, 'less 't is to set
A martyr-prem'um upon jawrin':
Teapots git dangerous, ef you shet

Their lids down on 'em with Fort War

ren.

'Bout long enough it's ben discussed
Who sot the magazine afire,
An' whether, ef Bob Wickliffe bust,

"T would scare us more or blow us higher.

D'ye s'pose 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-singein',
Till Sen'tor This an' Gov'nor Thet
Stop squabblin' fer the garding-ingin.

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 did n't doubt Sunthin' pertickler wuz a-brewin'.

20

30

40

He'd smashed the tables o' the Law

In time o' need to load his gun with; He could n't see but jest one side,

Ef his, 't wuz 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 hay-rick,
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

Ez though it wuz a cup o' tea,

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Jest social el'ments in solution? This weighin' things doos wal enough When war cools down, an' comes to writin';

the Democratic party, and a bitter opponent of Lincoln. He had at this time been recently elected governor of New York on a platform that denounced almost every measure the government had found it necessary to adopt for the suppression of the Rebellion. His influence contributed not a little to the encouragement of that spirit which inspired the Draft Riot in the city of New York in July, 1863. (F. B. Williams, in Riverside and Cambridge Editions.)