Things wuz ripenin' fust-rate with Buchanan to nuss 'em ;
But the People they would n't be Mexicans, cuss 'em!
Ain't the safeguards o' freedom upsot, 'z you may say,
Ef the right o' rev❜lution is took clean away?
An' doos n't the right primy-fashy include
The bein' entitled to nut be subdued?
The fact is, we'd gone for the Union so strong,
When Union meant South ollus right an' North wrong,
Thet the people gut fooled into thinkin' it might
Worry on middlin,' wal with the North in the right.
We might ha' ben now jest ez prosp❜rous ez France,
Where politikle enterprise hez a fair chance,
An' the people is heppy an' proud et this hour,
Long ez they hev the votes, to let Nap hev the power;
But our folks they went an' believed wut we'd told 'em,
An', the flag once insulted, no mortle could hold 'em.
"T wuz pervokin' jest when we wuz cert'in to win,—
An' I, for one, wunt trust the masses agin :
For a people thet knows much ain't fit to be free
In the self-cockin', back-action style o' J. D.
I can't believe now but wut half on 't is lies;
For who'd thought the North wuz a-goin' to rise,
Or take the pervokin'est kin' of a stump,
"Thout 't wuz sunthin' ez pressin' ez Gabr'el's las' trump?
Or who'd ha' supposed, arter sech swell an' bluster
'Bout the lick-ary-ten-on-ye fighters they'd muster,
Raised by hand on briled lightnin', ez op'lent 'z you please
In a primitive furrest o' femmily-trees,
Who'd ha' thought thet them Southuners ever 'ud show
Starns with pedigrees to 'em like theirn to the foe,
Or, when the vamosin' come, ever to find
Nat'ral masters in front an' mean white folks behind?
By ginger, ef I'd ha' known half I know now,
When I wuz to Congress, I would n't, I swow
Hev let 'em cair on so high-minded an' sarsy,
"Thout some show o' wut you may call vicy-varsy.
To be sure, we wuz under a contrac' jes' then
To be dreffle forbearin' towards Southun men;
We hed to go sheers in preservin' the bellance:
An' ez they seemed to feel they wuz wastin' their tellents
Nor it don't ask much gumption to pick out a flaw
In a party whose leaders are loose in the jaw :
An' so in our own case I ventur' to hint
Thet we'd better nut air our perceedins in print,
Nor pass resserlootions ez long ez your arm
Thet may, ez things heppen to turn, do us harm ;
For when you 've done all your real meanin' to smother,
The darned things 'll up an' mean sunthin' or 'nother.
Jeff'son prob❜ly meant wal with his "born free an' ekle,"
But it's turned out a real crooked stick in the sekle;
It's taken full eighty-odd year—don't you see ?-
From the pop'lar belief to root out thet idee,
An', arter all, sprouts on 't keep on buddin' forth
In the nat❜lly onprincipled mind o' the North.
No, never say nothin' without you're compelled tu,
An' then don't say nothin' thet you can be held tu,
Nor don't leave no friction-idees layin' loose
For the ign'ant to put to incend❜ary use.
You know I'm a feller thet keeps a skinned eye
On the leetle events thet go skurryin' by,
Coz it's of'ner by them than by gret ones you'll see
Wut the p❜litickle weather is likely to be.
Now I don't think the South's more 'n begun to be licked,
But I du think, ez Jeff says, the wind-bags' gut pricked;
It'll blow for a spell an' keep puffin' an' wheezin',
The tighter our army an' navy keep squeezin',-
For they can't help spread-eaglein' long 'z ther' 's a mouth
To blow Enfield's Speaker thru lef' at the South.
But it's high time for us to be settin' our faces
Towards reconstructin' the national basis,
With an eye to beginnin' agin on the jolly ticks
We used to chalk up 'hind the back-door o' politics;
An' the fus' thing 's to save wut of Slav'ry ther''s lef'
Arter this (I mus' call it) imprudence o' Jeff
For a real good Abuse, with its roots fur an' wide,
Is the kin' o' thing I like to hev on my side;
A Scriptur' name makes it ez sweet ez a rose,
An' it's tougher the older an' uglier it grows-
(I ain't speakin' now o' the righteousness of it,
But the p❜litickle purchase it gives, an' the profit).
Things look pooty squally, it must be allowed,
An' I don't see much signs of a bow in the cloud :
Ther''s too many Deemocrats-leaders, wut 's wuss-
Thet go for the Union 'thout carin' a 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 conservative 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' specch
'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 eggs,
They 're mos' gin'lly argymunt on its las' legs,-
An' their logic is ept to be tu indiscriminate,
Nor don't ollus wait the right objecs to 'liminate;
But there is a variety on 'em, you'll find,
Jest ez usefle an' more, besides bein' refined,-
I mean o' the sort thet are laid by the dictionary,
Sech ez sophisms an' cant thet 'll kerry conviction ary
Way thet you want to the right class o' men,
An' are staler than all 't ever come from a hen:
"Disunion" done wal till our resh Southun friends
Took the savor all out on 't for national ends;
guess "Abolition" 'll work a spell yit, When the war's done, an' so will "Forgive-an'-forgit." Times mus' be pooty thoroughly out o' all jint,
Ef we can't make a good constitootional pint;
An' the good time 'll come to be grindin' our exes,
When the war goes to seed in the nettle o' texes:
Ef Jon'than don't squirm, with sech helps to assist him,
I give up my faith in the free-suffrage system;
Democ'cy wun't be nut a mite interestin',
Nor p❜litikle capital much wuth investin';
An' my notion is, to keep dark an' lay low
Till we see the right minute to put in our blow.-
But I've talked longer now 'n I hed any idee,
An' ther' 's others you want to hear more 'n you du me;
So I'll set down an' give thet 'ere bottle a skrimmage,
For I've spoke till I'm dry ez a real graven image.
SUNTHIN' IN THE PASTORAL LINE.
TO THE EDITORS OF THE "ATLANTIC MONTHLY."
JAALAM, 17th May, 1962. GENTLEMEN,At the special request of Mr. Biglow, I intended to enclose, ogether 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 leisure sufficient at present for the copying of them, even where I altogether satisfied with the production as it stands. I should prefer, I confess, to contribute the entire discourse to the pages of your respectable 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 Puritanism are the results rather of great religious 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 parishioner.
Your obedient servant,
HOMER WILBUR.
ONCE git a smell o' musk into a draw
An' it clings hold like precerdents in law :
Your gran'ma'am put it there,-when, goodness knows,-
To jes' this-worldify her Sunday-clo’es;
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,
Nor hev a feelin', ef it doos n't smack
O' wut some critter chose to feel 'way back:
This makes 'em talk o' daisies, larks, an' things,
Ez though we'd nothin' here that blows an' sings,—
(Why, I'd give more for one live bobolink
Than a square mile o' larks in printer's ink,)—
This makes 'em think our fust o' May is May,
Which 't ain't, for all the almanicks can say.
O little city-gals, don't never go it
Blind on the word o' noospaper or poet!
They're apt to puff, an' May-day seldom looks
Up in the country ez it doos in books;
They 're no more like than hornets'-nests an' hives,
Or printed sarmons be to holy lives.
I, with my trouses perched on cow-hide boots,
Tuggin' my foundered feet out by the roots,
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 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;
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