cuss Ef it helps ary party thet ever wuz heard on, So our eagle ain't made a split Austrian bird on. But ther''s still some consarvative signs to be found Thet shows the gret heart o' the People is sound: (Excuse me for usin' a stump-phrase agin, But, once in the way on 't, they will stick like sin :) There's Phillips, for instance, hez jes' ketched a Tartar In the Law-'n'-Order Party of ole Cincinnater; An' the Compromise System ain't gone out o' reach, Long 'z you keep the right limits on freedom o' speech. 'T warn't none too late, neither, to put on the gag, For he's dangerous now he goes in for the flag. Nut thet I altogether approve o' bad criminate, No. VI. Nor don't ollus wait the right objecs to SUNTHIN' IN THE PASTORAL LINE. 'liminate; But there is a variety on 'em, you'll find, Jest ez usefle an' more, besides bein' TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. JAALAM, 17th May, 1862. GENTLEMEN,-At the special request of Mr. Biglow, I intended to inclose, together with his own contribution, (into which, at my suggestion, he has thrown a little more of pastoral sentiment than usual,) some passages from my sermon on the day of the National Fast, from the text, "Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them," Heb. xiii. 3. But I have not But the old chist wun't sarve her gran'son's wife, (For, 'thout new funnitoor, wut good in life?) An' so ole clawfoot, from the precinks dread O' the spare chamber, slinks into the shed, Where, dim with dust, it fust or last subsides To holdin' seeds an' fifty things besides; But better days stick fast in heart an husk, An' all you keep in 't gits a scent o' musk. Jes' so with poets: wut they 've airly read Gits kind o' worked into their heart an' head, So 's 't they can't seem to write but jest on sheers With furrin countries or played-out ideers, leisure sufficient at present for the copying of them, even were I altogether satisfied with the production as it stands. I should prefer, I confess, to contribute the entire discourse to the pages of your re: spectable miscellany, if it should be found acceptable upon perusal, especially as I find the difficulty of selection of greater magnitude than I had anticipated. What passes without challenge in the fervour of oral delivery, cannot always stand the colder criticism of the closet. I am not so great an enemy of Eloquence as my friend Mr. Biglow would appear to be from some passages in his contribution for the current month. I would not, indeed, hastily suspect him of covertly glancing at myself in his somewhat caustick animadversions, albeit some of the phrases he girds at are not entire strangers to my lips. I am a more hearty admirer of the Puritans than seems now to be the fashion, and believe, that, if they Hebraized a little too much in their speech, they showed remarkable practical sagacity as statesmen and founders. But such phenomena as Puri- Nor hev a feelin', ef it doos n't smack tanism are the results rather of great relig; O' wut some critter chose to feel 'way ious than merely social convulsions, and do not long survive them. So soon as an earnest conviction has cooled into a phrase, its work is over, and the best that can be done with it is to bury it. Ite, missa est. I am inclined to agree with Mr. Biglow that we cannot settle the great political questions which are now presenting themselves to the nation by the opinions of Jeremiah or Ezekiel as to the wants and duties of the Jews in their time, nor do I believe that an entire community with their feelings and views would be practicable or even agreeable at the present day. At the same time I could wish that their habit of subordinating the actual to the moral, the flesh to the spirit, and this world to the other, were more common. They had found out, at least, the great military secret that soul weighs more than body. But I am suddenly called to a sick-bed in the household of a valued par ishioner. back: This makes 'em talk o' daisies, larks, an' things, Ez though we'd nothin' here that blows Than a square mile o' larks in printer's This makes 'em think our fust o' May is ink,) May, Which 't ain't, for all the almanicks can say. O little city-gals, don't never go it They're no more like than hornets'- Or printed sarmons be to holy lives. Tuggin' my foundered feet out by the Hev seen ye come to fling on April's hearse Your muslin nosegays from the milliner's, Puzzlin' to find dry ground your queen to choose, An' dance your throats sore in morocker | Then gray hossches'nuts leetle hands shoes: I've seen ye an' felt proud, thet, come wut would, Our Pilgrim stock wuz pithed with hardihood. Pleasure doos make us Yankees kind o' winch, Ez though 't wuz sunthin' paid for by the inch; But yit we du contrive to worry thru, I, country-born an' bred, know where to find Some blooms thet make the season suit the mind, An' seem to metch the doubtin' bluebird's notes, Half-vent'rin' liverworts in furry coats, Bloodroots, whose rolled-up leaves ef you oncurl, Each on 'em 's cradle to a baby-pearl, But these are jes' Spring's pickets; sure ez sin, The rebble frosts 'll try to drive 'em in; For half our May 's so awfully like May n't, 't would rile a Shaker or an evrige saint; Though I own up I like our back'ard springs Thet kind o' haggle with their greens an' things, An' when you 'most give up, 'ithout more words Toss the fields full o' blossoms, leaves, an' birds: Thet's Northun natur', slow an' apt to doubt, But when it doos git stirred, ther' 's no gin-out! unfold Softer 'n a baby's be at three days old: Thet's robin-red breast's almanick; he knows Thet arter this ther' 's only blossom snows; So, choosin' out a handy crotch an' spouse, He goes to plast'rin' his adobe house. Then seems to come a hitch, — things lag behind, Till some fine mornin' Spring makes up her mind, An' ez, when snow-swelled rivers cresh their dams Heaped-up with ice thet dovetails in an' jams, A leak comes spirtin' thru some pin-hole cleft, Grows stronger, fercer, tears out right an' left, Then all the waters bow themselves an' come, Suddin, in one gret slope o' shedderin' foam, Jes' so our Spring gits everythin' in tune An' gives one leap from April into June: Then all comes crowdin' in; afore you think, Young oak-leaves mist the side-hill woods with pink; The catbird in the laylock-bush is loud; The orchards turn to heaps o' rosy cloud; Red-cedars blossom tu, though few folks know it, Ez ef to sell off Natur' by vendoo; One word with blood in 't 's twice ez good ez two: 'nuff sed, June's bridesman, poet o' the year, Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here; Half-hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings, Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin' wings, Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair, Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air. I ollus feel the sap start in my veins In Spring, with curus heats an' prickly pains, Thet drive me, when I git a chance, to walk Off by myself to hev a privit talk Pines, ef you 're blue, are the best friends I know, They mope an' sigh an' sheer your feel in's so, They hesh the ground beneath so, tu, I swan, 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 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 With a queer critter thet can't seem to We thriv' ez wal on jes' two stories less, 'gree Along o' me like most folks, Mister Me. For it strikes me ther' 's sech a thing ez sinnin' By overloadin' children's underpinnin': Ther' 's times when I'm unsoshle ez a Wal, here it wuz I larned my A B C, stone, An' sort o' suffocate to be alone, I'm crowded jes' to think thet folks are nigh, An' can't bear nothin' closer than the sky; Now the wind 's full ez shifty in the mind Ez wut it is ou'-doors, ef I ain't blind, An' sometimes, in the fairest sou'west weather, My innard vane pints east for weeks together, My natur' gits all goose-flesh, an' my sins Come drizzlin' on my conscience sharp ez pins : Wal, et sech times I jes' slip out o' sight An' take it out in a fair stan'-up fight With the one cuss I can't lay on the shelf, The crook'dest stick in all the heap, Myself. 'T wuz so las' Sabbath arter meetin' An' it's a kind o' favorite spot with me. We're curus critters: Now ain't jes' the minute Thet_ever fits us easy while we 're in it ; Long ez 't wuz futur', 't would be perfect bliss, Soon ez it's past, thet time's wuth ten o' this; An' yit there ain't a man thet need be told Thet Now's the only bird lays eggs o' gold. A knee-high lad, I used to plot an' plan An' think wuz life's cap-sheaf to be a man; Now, gittin' gray, there's nothin' I enjoy Like dreamin' back along into a boy : So the ole school'us' is a place I choose Afore all others, ef I want to muse; 1 set down where I used to set, an' git My boyhood back, an' better things with it, Faith, Hope, an' sunthin', ef it is n't Cherrity, It's want o' guile, an' thet 's ez gret a rerrity, While Fancy's cushin', free to Prince and Clown, Makes the hard bench ez soft ez milkweed-down. Now, 'fore I knowed, thet Sabbath | An' can't skurce take a cat-nap in my arternoon Thet I sot out to tramp myself in tune, I found me in the school'us' on my seat, 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: (A the'ry, p'raps, it wun't feel none the better for); I thought o' Reconstruction, wut we'd win 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 '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 Sabbathmornin's, An', mixed right in ez ef jest out o' spite, 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, |