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 ^"^Mii?™!?,'.*'^ poetical works of James Rus 
 
 3 1924 006 908 200 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
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 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924006908200 
 
autoB^api) l^octB 
 
 THE COMPLETE 
 
 POETICAL WORKS OF 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL 1£)WELL 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW TOEK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY ' jtH^^^'^^'"'''/,, 
 
 1910 
 
 
 
 OCT 2 7 1980 
 
 
 MOlO 1 rDDADV 
 
 4 
 
OOFTUOHT, 1848, 1867, 1866, 1868, 1869, 1876, 1886, 1888, and 1830 
 Bt JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 Copyright, 1804, 18^, md 1897, 
 Bt UABBti I-dWKU. Bt7RNETI. 
 
 esipyiiglit, 1895 
 Bt CHARLES iJLIOT NORTON. 
 
 Copyright, 1910, 
 Br QEORQB PUTNAlI iKD MOOllFIELD STOREY, EXECUioES. 
 
 All fiyttts reserved. 
 
BIOGEAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 Jamks Russell Lowell was born at Elmwood, Cambridge, Mas- 
 sacbusetts, February 22, 1819. On his father's side he came from a 
 succession of New England men who for the previous three generations 
 had been in professional life. The Lowells traced their descent from 
 Percival Lowell, — a name which survives in the family, — of Bristol, 
 England, who settled in Newbury, Massachusetts, in 1639. Of the 
 Eev. Charles Lowell, his son said, in a letter written in 1844, " He is 
 Doctor Primrose in the comparative degree, the very simplest and 
 charmingest of sexagenarians, and not without a gi'eat deal of the 
 truest magnanimity." It was characteristic of Lowell thus to go to 
 The Vicar of Wakefield for a portrait of his father. Dr. Lowell 
 lived tiU 1861, when his son was forty-two. 
 
 Mrs. Harriet Spenoe Lowell, the poet's mother, was of Scotch origin, 
 a native of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She is described as having 
 " a great memory, an extraordinary aptitude for language, and a pas* 
 siojiate fondness for ancient songs and ballads." It pleased her to 
 fancy herself descended from the hero of one of the most famous bal' 
 lads. Sir Patrick Spens, and at any rate she made a genuine link in the 
 Poetic Succession. In a letter to his mother, written in 1837, Lowell 
 says : " I am engaged in several poetical effusions, one of which I have 
 dedicated to you, who have always been the patron and encourager of 
 my youthful muse." The Russell in his name seems to intimate a strain 
 of Jewish ancestry ; at any rate Lowell took pride in the name on this 
 account, for he was not slow to recognize the intellectual power of the 
 Hebrew race. He was the youngest of a family of five, two daughters 
 and three sons. 
 
 His acquaintance with books and his schooling began early. He 
 learned his letters at a dame school. Mr. William Wells, an English- 
 man, opened a classical school in one of the spacious Tory Row houses 
 
VI BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 rear Elmwood, and, bringing with him English public school thorough* 
 ness and severity, gave the boy a drilling in Latin, which he must have 
 made almost a native speech to judge by the ease with which he han- 
 dled it afterward in mock heroics. Of course he went to Harvard Col- 
 lege. He lived at his father's house, more than a mile away from the 
 college yard ; but this could have been no great privation to him, for 
 he had the freedom of his friends' rooms, and he loved the open air. 
 He was but fifteen years old when he entered college in the class which 
 graduated in 1838. He was a reader, as so many of his fellows were, 
 and the letters which he wrote shortly after leaving college show how 
 intent he had been on making acquaintance with the best things in 
 literature. He began also to scribble verse, and he wrote both poems 
 and essays for college magazines. His class chose him their poet for 
 Class Day, and he wrote his poem ; but he was careless about conform- 
 ing to college regulations respecting attendance at morning prayers, 
 and for this was suspended from college the last term of his last year, 
 and not allowed to come back to read his poem. 
 
 After his graduation he set about the study of law, and for a short 
 time even was a clerk in a counting-room ; but his bent was strongly 
 toward literature. There was at that time no magazine of command- 
 ing importance in America, and young men were given to starting mag- 
 azines with enthusiasm and very little other capital. Such a one waf 
 the Boston Miscellany, launched by Nathan Hale, Lowell's college 
 friend, and for this Lowell wrote gayly. It lived a year, and shortly 
 after, in 1843, Lowell himself, with Kobert Carter, essayed The Pio- 
 neer. It lived just three months ; but in that time printed contribu- 
 tions by Lowell, Hawthorne, Whittier, Story, Poe, and Dr. Parsons, — 
 a group which it would be hard to match in any of the little magazines 
 , that hop across the world's path to-day. Lowell had already collected, 
 J in 1841, the poems which he had written and sometimes contributed 
 '. to periodicals into a volume entitled A Year's Life ; but he retained 
 ^: very little of the contents in later editiohs of his poems. The book 
 has a special interest, however, from its dedication in veiled phrase to 
 Maria White. He became engaged to this lady in the fall of 1840, 
 and the next twelve years of his life were profoundly affected by her 
 influence. Herself a poet of delicate power, she brought into his life 
 an intelligent sympathy with his work ; it was, however, her strong 
 moral enthusiasm, her lofty conception of purity and justice, which 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. VU 
 
 kindled his spirit and gave force and direction to a character which was 
 ready to respond, and yet might otherwise have delayed active expres- 
 sion. They were not married until 1844 ; but they were not far apart 
 in their homes, and during these years Lowell was making those early 
 ventures in literature, and first raids upon political and moral evil, 
 which foretold the direction of his later work, and gave some hipt of 
 its abundance. 
 
 About the time of his marriage, he published two books which, by 
 their character, show pretty well the divided interest of his life. His 
 bent from the beginning was more decidedly literary than that of any 
 contemporary American poet. That is to say, the history and art of 
 literature divided his interest with the production of literature, and he 
 carried the unusual gift of a rare critical power, joined to hearty 
 spontaneous creation. It may indeed be guessed that the keenness of 
 judgment and incisiveness of wit which characterize his examination 
 of literature sometimes interfered with his poetic power, and made 
 him liable to question his art when he would rather have expressed it 
 unchecked. One of the two books was a volume of poems ; the other 
 was a prose work. Conversations on Some of the Old Poets, He did 
 not keep this book aUve ; but it is interesting as marking the enthusi- 
 asm of a young scholar treading a way then almost wholly neglected in 
 America, and intimating a line of thought and study in which he after- 
 ward made most noteworthy venture. Another series of poems fol- 
 lowed in 1848, and in the same year The Vision of Sir Launfal. 
 Perhaps it was in reaction from the marked sentiment of his poetry 
 that he issued now a jeu W esprit, A Fable for Critics, in which he 
 hit off, with a rough and ready wit, the characteristics of the writers 
 of the day, not forgetting himself. 
 
 The portrait of himself, thus drawn, is but half serious, and it touches 
 but a single feature ; others can say better that Lowell's ardent nature 
 showed itself in the series of satirical poems which made him famous. 
 The Biglow Papers, written in a spirit of indignation and fine scorn, 
 when the Mexican "War was causing many Americans to blush with 
 shame at the use of the country by a class for its own ignoble ends. 
 Lowell and his wife, who brought a fervid anti-slavery temper as part 
 of her marriage portion, were both contributors to the itfierij/ 5eZZ / 
 and Lowell was a frequent contributor to the Anti-Slavery Standard, 
 ».nd was, indeed, for a while a corresponding editor. In June, 1846, 
 
Tin BIGGBAPHICUL SKETCH. 
 
 tihsre appeared one day in the. Boston Cowier a letter from Mr. 
 Ezekiel Biglow of Jaalam to the editor, Hon. Joseph T. Buckingham,, 
 inclosing a poem of his son, Mr. Hosea Biglow. It was no new thing 
 to seek to arrest the puhlix; attention with the vernacular applied to 
 public afEairs. Major Jack Downing and Sam Slick had been notable* 
 examples,, and they had many imitators ; but the reader who laughed 
 over the racy narrative of the unlettered Ezekiel, and then took up 
 Hosea's poem and eaught the gust of Yankee wrath and humor blown 
 fresh in his £ac% knew that he was in at the appearance o£ sonniething 
 new in American literature. The force which Lowell displayed in 
 these satires made his book at once a powerful ally of an anti-slavery 
 sentiment, which heretofore had been ridiculed. 
 
 A year m Europe^ 1851-S2, with his wife> whose health was then 
 precariousy stimulated hia scholarly inteTests, and gave substance to 
 his study of Dante and Italian literature. In October, 1853,. his wife 
 died ; she had borne him three children : the first-born, Blanche, died 
 in infancy ; the second, Walter, also died young ; the third, a daughter, 
 Mrs. Burnett^ survived her parents. In 1855 he was chosen successor 
 to Longfellow as Smith Professor of the Freneh and Spanish Lan- 
 guages and Literature and Professor of Belles Lettres in Harvard 
 College. He spent two. years in Europe in further preparation for the 
 duties of his office, and in 1857 was again established in Cambridge 
 and installed in his academic chair. He married, a^mtf at this time 
 Miss Frances Dunlap, of Portland, Maine. 
 
 Lowell was now in his thirty-ninth year. As a scholar, in his pro- 
 fessional work, he had acquired a versatile knowledge of the Bomanca 
 languages^ and was an adept in old French and Provencal poetry ; he 
 had given a course of twelve lectures on English poetry before the 
 Lowell Institute in Boston, which had made a strong impression on the 
 community, and his work on. the series of British Poets in connection 
 with Professor Child, especially his biographical sketch of Keats, had 
 been recognized as o£ a high order. In poetry he had published the vol- 
 umes already mentioned. In general literature he had printed in mag- 
 azines the papers which he afterward collected into his volume. Fire- 
 side Travels^ Not long after he entered on his coUege duties, The 
 Atlantic Monthly was started, and the editorship given to him. He 
 held the office for a year or two only ; but he continued to write fox 
 the magazine, and in 1862 he was associated with Mr. Charles Eliot 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. IX 
 
 ]!7orton in the oonduet of Thfi North American Review, and eontinned 
 in this <sharge for ten jeaxa. Much of his prose was contrihuted 
 to this periodical. Any one reading the titles of the papers which 
 comprise the Tolumea of his prose writings will readily see how much 
 literatare> and especially poetic literature, occupied his attention. 
 Sh^e8peare> Pryden, Leasing, Bousseau, Dante, Spenser, Words- 
 worth, Milton, Keats, Carlyle, Percival, Thoreau, Swinhurne, Chau- 
 cer, Smevson, Pope, Gray, -rr- these are the principal subjects of his 
 prose, and the range of topics indicates the catholicity of his taste. 
 
 In these papers, when studjring poetry, he was yery alive to the pe^ 
 jonality of the poets, and it was the strong interest in humanity 
 vhi^sh led Low^U, when he was moat diligent in the pursuit pf liter- 
 ature, to «pply himself also to history and polities. Several of his 
 essays bear witness to this, such as Witekeraft, New Extgland Two 
 Centimes Ago, A Great Public Character (Josiah Quinoy), Abraham 
 J4ncoln, and his great Folilioal Essays. But the most rentarkable 
 of his writings of this order was the second series of The Biglow 
 Papery, published during the war for the Union. In these, with the 
 ^it and f nn of the earlier aeries, there was mingled a deeper strain 
 of feeling and a larger tone of patriotism. The limitations of his style 
 in these satires forbade the fullest expression of his thought and emo- 
 tion ; but S'fterward in a succession of poems, occasioned by the honors 
 paid to student soldiers in Cambridge, the death of Agassiz, and the 
 celebration of national anniversaries during the years 1875 and 1876, 
 he sang in loftier, more ardent strains. The most famous of these 
 poems was his noble Commemoration Ode. 
 
 It was at the close of this period, when he had done incalculable ser- 
 vice to the republic, that Lowell waa called on to represent the coun- 
 try, first in Madrid, where he was sent in 1877, and then in London, 
 to whiph he was transferred in 1880. Eight years were thus spent 
 by him in the foreign service of the country. He had a good know- 
 ledge of the Spanish language and literature when he went to Spain ; 
 but he at once took pains to make his knowledge fuller and his accent 
 more perfect, so that he could have intimate relations with the best 
 Spanish men of the time. In England he was at once a most welcome 
 guest, and was in great demand as a public speaker. No one can read 
 his dispatches from Madrid and London without being struck by his 
 sagacity, his readiness in emergencies, his interest in and quick pereep- 
 
X BI06BAFHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 tion of the political situation in the coantiy where he was resident, and 
 his unerring knowledge as a man of the world. Above all, he was 
 through and through an American, true to the principles which un- 
 derlie American institutions. His address on Democraet/, which he 
 delivered in England, is one of the great statements of human liberty. 
 A few years later, after his return to America, he gave another address 
 to his own countrymen on The Place of the Independent in Politics. 
 It was a noble defense of his own position, not without a trace of dis- 
 couragement at the apparently sluggish movement in American self- 
 government of recent years, but with that faith in the substance of his 
 countrymen which gave him the right to use words of honest warning. 
 The public life of Mr. Lowell made him more of a figure before the 
 world. He received honors from societies and universities; he was 
 decorated by the highest honors which Harvard could pay officially ; 
 and Oxford and Cambridge, St. Andrews and Edinburgh and Bo- 
 logna, gave him gowns. He established warm personal relations with 
 Englishmen, and, after his release from public office, he made several 
 visits to England. There, too, was buried his wife, who died in 1885. 
 The closing years of his life in his own country, though touched with 
 domestic loneliness and diminished by growing physical infirmities that 
 predicted his death, were rich also with the continued expression of his 
 large personality. He delivered the public address in commemoration 
 of the 250th anniversary of the founding of Harvard University ; he 
 gave a course of lectures on the Old English Dramatists before the 
 Lowell Institute ; he collected a volume of his poems ; he wrote and 
 spoke on public affairs ; and, the year before his death, revised, re- 
 arranged, and carefully edited a definitive series of his writings in ten 
 volumes. He died at Elmwood, August 12, 1891. Since his death 
 three small volumes have been added to his collected writings, and 
 Mr. Norton has published Letters of James Bussdl Lowell, in two 
 volumes. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 EABLIEB POEMS. FXO> 
 
 Tbrenodia 1 
 
 The Sirens 2 
 
 Tien6 .. S 
 
 Serenade 4 
 
 With a Pressed Flower S 
 
 The 'Beggar . ', \ 6 
 
 My Love 5 
 
 Summer Storm . . '. 6 
 
 Love 7 
 
 To Perdita, Singing 8 
 
 The Moon ' . 9 
 
 Bemembered Music 9 
 
 Song 9 
 
 Allegra 10 
 
 The Fountain 10 
 
 Ode . ; . . 11 
 
 The Fatherland ; 13 
 
 The Forlorn 14 
 
 Midnight IS 
 
 A Prayer : IS 
 
 The Heritage 15 
 
 TheBose: A Ballad 16 
 
 Song 17 
 
 Kosaline . 17 
 
 A BeqUiem 18 r 
 
 A Parable . 18 
 
 Song 19 1 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 I. To A. C. L 19 
 
 II. " What were I, Love " 19 
 
 III. " I would not have this perfect love " 20 
 
 IV. " For this true nobleness " 20 
 
 V. To the Spirit of Keats . . 20 
 
 VL " Great Truths are portions of the soul " 20 
 
 yii. " I aslc not for those thoughts " 20 
 
 viii. To M. W., on her birthday 21 
 
 IX. " My Love, I have no fear " 21 
 
 X. "I cannot tbiulL that thou" . . . ' 21 
 
XU CONTENTS. 
 
 XI. "There never yet was flower" 21 
 
 xii. Sub FoQdere Crescit 2'2 
 
 XIII. *' Beloved, in the noisy city here " 22 
 
 XIV. On reading Wordsworth's Sonnets in Defence of Capital Punishment . . 22 
 XV. The same continued - 22 
 
 XVI, The same continued 22 
 
 XVII. The same continued 23 
 
 XVIII. Tlie same continued .23 
 
 XIX. The same continued 23 
 
 XX. To M. O. S. 23 
 
 ! XXI. "Our love is not a fading, earthly flower" 24 
 
 i XXII. In Absence < . . 21 
 
 ' XXIII. Wendell Phillips 24 
 
 ' XXIV. The Street . .24 
 
 XXV. "I grieve not that ripe Knowledge" i . . 2& 
 
 XXVI. To J. B. Oiddings , . 25 
 
 XXVII. "I thouglitourloveatfull" • , . 25 
 
 L'Envoi , 25 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 ' A Legend of Brittany - . . 27 
 
 Prometheus 33 
 
 ' The Shepherd of King Admetus 44 
 
 The Token • . 44 
 
 An Incident in a Bailroad Car 44 
 
 Bhoecus * . 40 
 
 The Falcon 43 
 
 Trial • . 48 
 
 A Glance behind the Curtain ■ . 49 
 
 A Chippewa Legend 64 
 
 Stanzas on Freedom ' ' . 66 
 
 Columbus , f 56 
 
 An Incident of the Fire at Hamburg 60 
 
 The Sower .61 
 
 Hunger and Cold 61 
 
 The Landlord .... 62 
 
 To a Pine-Tree , .... 63 
 
 Si Descendero in Infernum, Ades 63 
 
 To the Past 64 
 
 To the Future 65 
 
 Hebe . . 68 
 
 The Search 60 
 
 The Present Crisis 67 
 
 An Indian-Summer Reverie 60 
 
 The,6rowth of the Legend 74 
 
 A Contrast 70 
 
 Extreme Unction 76 
 
 The Oak .... 77 
 
 Ambrose 78 
 
 Above and Below n 
 
 The Captive 79 
 
 The Birch-Tree ■ 80 
 
 An Interview with Miles Standish 81 
 
 On the Capture of Fugitive Slaves near Washington 82 
 
, CONTENTS; XIU 
 
 To the Dandelion ,, .83 
 
 The »h08t-Beer 84 
 
 Studies for two Heads ...i .86 
 
 On a Portrait of Dante by Giotto 87 
 
 On the Death of a Friend's Child SH 
 
 Eurydice e^ 
 
 She Gaiae and Went • 90 
 
 The Changeling . , 90 
 
 The Pioneer ...,,..,. 91 
 
 Iionging ..,.92 
 
 Ode to France 92 
 
 Antl-Apis , 94 
 
 A Parable 96 
 
 Ode written tor the Celebration of the Introduction of the Cochituate Water into the 
 
 City of Boston .' 96 
 
 Lines suggested by the Graves of two English Soldiers en Concord Battle-Oround . 97 
 
 To 98 
 
 Freedom 93 
 
 Bibliolatres 99 
 
 Beaver Brook .......•,.•..•. 100 
 
 HEUOBIAL YERSBS. 
 
 Kossuth 101 
 
 To Lamartine .. 101 
 
 To John G. Palfrey 102 
 
 To W. L. Garrison 103 
 
 On the Death of C. T. Torrey 104 
 
 Elegy on the Death of Dr. Ohanning .......... 104 
 
 To the Memory of Hood 106 
 
 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAIi .... 107 
 
 A FABLE FOB GBITIOS 113 
 
 LETTER FBOU BOSTON 161 
 
 THE BIOLOW PAPERS. First Sebiss. 
 
 Notices of an Independent Presa 157 
 
 Note to Title-Fage 164 
 
 Introduction 166 
 
 X. A Letter from Mr. Ezekiel Biglow of Jaalam to the Hon. Joseph T. Buckingham 173 
 
 n. A Letter from Mr. Hosea Biglow to the Hon. J. T. Buckingham .... 175 
 
 m. What Mr. Robinson thinks 179 
 
 XV. Remarks of Increase D. 0*Phace, Esq 183 
 
 r. The Debate in the Sennit 189 
 
 TI. The Pious Editor's Creed 191 
 
 vn. A Letter from a Candidate for the Presidency in Answer to suttin Questions 
 
 proposed by Mr. Hosea Biglow 194 
 
 vni. A second Letter from B. Sawin* Esq 197 
 
 XX. A third Letter from B. Sawin, Esq. ...20< 
 
 IBE BIGLOW PAPERS. Becoxs Sibixb. 
 
 Introduction 219 
 
 z. Birdofredum Sawin, Esq., to Mr. Hosea Biglow 236 
 
 n. Mason and Slidell : A Tankee Idyll 24} 
 
 xn. Birdofredum Sawin, Esq., to Mr. Hosea Biglow ....... 254 
 
 IT. A Message of Jeff Davis in Secret Session . .. . • ^ , 261 
 
 V. Soeech of Honourable Preserved Doe in Secret Caucus . . * . 26T 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 yi. SuntMn' In tbe Paetontl Line ..c27S 
 
 vn. Latest Views of Mr. Biglow • • • • 279 
 
 Tin. Kettelopotomochia • ..■•••• 283 
 
 DC. Some Memorials of the late Beverend H. Wilbur . . * • . . 286 
 
 X. Mr. Rosea Biglow to the Editor of the Atlantic Monthly 289 
 
 XI. Mr. Hosea Biglow's Speech in March Meeting 291 
 
 NoTBS 30O 
 
 0U>B8UT 30/1 I 
 
 IHDEZ • I ,810 
 
 IHB nNHAFPT LOT OF MB. ENOTI S21 
 
 AK ORIENTAL AFOLOQUB . 332 
 
 FBAOMENIS OV AN T7NFINISHED FOKM S37 
 
 ONDER THE WnxOWS, AND OTHER POEMB. 
 
 To Charles EUot Norton 343 
 
 Under the Willows 343 
 
 Dara . . . . • 319 
 
 The First Snow-^'Jl 360 
 
 The Singing Leaves 351 
 
 Sea-Weed 352 
 
 The Finding ot the Lyre ..'....• 352 
 
 New-Tear's Eve. 1860 I, , 363 
 
 For an Autograph ••*•• 353 
 
 Al Fresco ,363 
 
 Masaccio 354 
 
 Without and within «... 365 
 
 Godminster Chimes . ..••... 365 
 
 The Farting of the Ways 356 
 
 Aladdin . 35S 
 
 Aninntation 353 
 
 TheNomades ...*. ....369 
 
 Self-Study 360 
 
 Pictures from Appledore 361 
 
 The Wind-Harp ..365 
 
 Auf Wiederaehen .............. 366 
 
 Palinode 366 
 
 Alter the Burial 367 
 
 The Dead House 367 
 
 A Mood 368 
 
 The Voyage to Vinland 368 
 
 Mahmood the Image-Breaker ............ 372 
 
 In-rita Minerva 373 
 
 The Fountain of Youth 373 
 
 Tussouf , 376 
 
 The Darkened Mind 376 
 
 What Rabbi Jehosha said 377 
 
 All-Saints 377 
 
 A Winter-Evening Hymn to my Fin 377 
 
 Fancy's Casuistry 379 
 
 To Mr. John Bartlett 380 
 
 Ode to Happiness 381 
 
 Villa Franca. 382 
 
 She Miner . . .* 383 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 Oold Egg : A Dream-Fantasy ••,<a>383 
 
 A Familiar KplBtle to a Friend • ■• •• 386 
 
 An Smber Picture 387 
 
 To H. W. L 388 
 
 Hie Niglitingale in tlie Study i ... 389 
 
 In ttie TwiUght 389 
 
 Tlie Foot-Fatli . . .... 390 
 
 POEMS OF THE WAR. 
 
 The Wasliera of the Siiroud 392 
 
 Tiro Scenes from tlie Life of Blondel •• 394 
 
 Memorise poBitum >..••.. 395 
 
 On Board tlie '76 397 
 
 Ode recited at the Harvard Commemoration ..••.•••■ 398 
 
 L'EnToi : To the Muse 401 
 
 THE CATHEDBAL 407 
 
 THREE MEMORIAL POEMS 
 
 Ode on the Hundredth AnniTeraary of the Fight at Concord Bridge . ■ . • 421 
 
 Under the Old Elm at Cambridge 424 
 
 An Ode for the Fourth of July 430 
 
 HEARTSEASE AND RUE. 
 
 I. FBIBiniSHIP. 
 
 Agassiz ......... .»•••■• 437 
 
 To Holmes on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday 445 
 
 In a Copy of Omar Khayydm 446 
 
 On receiving a Copy of Mr. Austin Dobaon's " Old World Idylls " . • • • 446 
 
 To C. F. Bradford on the Oift of a Meerschaum Pipe 446 
 
 Bankside 447 
 
 Joseph Wiclock ........ 448 
 
 Sonnet. To Fanny Alexander 448 
 
 Jeffries Wyman .. 448 
 
 To a Friend . 449 
 
 With an Armchair 449 
 
 E. G. de R. . . 449 
 
 Bon Voyage I . 460 
 
 To Whittier on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday .460 
 
 On an Autumn Slietch of H. O. Wild 450 
 
 To Miss D. T. 450 
 
 With a Copy of Aucassin and Nicolete .... ...... 451 
 
 On planting a Tree at Inveraray •....• 451 
 
 An Epistle to Qeorge William Curtis 451 
 
 n. Sektiueht. 
 
 . Endymion ...........a... 4.56 
 
 The Black Preacher 459 
 
 Arcadia redivlva .............. 461 
 
 The Nest 462 
 
 A Toutliful Experiment in English Hexameters 462 
 
 Birthday Verses 463 
 
 Estrangement — .............. 463 
 
 Phoebe 463 
 
 Das Ewig-Weibliche 464 
 
 The Recall 464 
 
 Absence ••.••....-. 4Gi 
 
XTl CONTENTS. 
 
 Uonnalilwi 465 
 
 The Optimiflt *...• ••••« 465 
 
 On buming some Old Letters •••■>• 465 
 
 The Protest . 466 
 
 The Petition 466 
 
 Fact or Fancy ? 466 
 
 Agro-Soloe 467 
 
 The Broken Tryst 467 
 
 Casa sin Alma ....• ••••«..«■ 467 
 
 A Christmas Carol 467 
 
 My Portrait Gallery .... ,.468 
 
 Paolo to Francesca ...••.....•••• 468 
 
 Sonnet. Scottish Border .....•..••••. 468 
 
 Bonnet. On being asked for an Autograph in Venice .,••.• . • 468 
 
 The Dancing Bear 469 
 
 The Maple 469 
 
 Nightwatches 469 
 
 Death of Queen Mercedes .••■•.■•...• 469 
 
 Prison of Cervantes .■••. 470 
 
 To a Iiady playing on the Cithern t..... 47P 
 
 The Eye's Treasury 470 
 
 Pessimoptimism 470 
 
 The Brakes .471 
 
 A Foreboding 471 
 
 m. Fahct. 
 
 Under the October Maples .•••••••..... 472 
 
 Lore's Clock . 472 
 
 Eleanor makes Macaroons 472 
 
 Telepathy 473 
 
 Scherzo 473 
 
 ** Franciscus de Yerulamio sic cogitavit " 473 
 
 Auspex .....■•■....«... 474 
 
 The Pregnant Comment ••■ 474 
 
 The Lesson «74 
 
 Science and Poetry ...•.••.....•. ^75 
 
 A New Tear's Greeting .••••..• 475 
 
 The Discovery •••• 475 
 
 With a Seashell 475 
 
 The Secret ..........476 
 
 IT. Hnuon Ain> SATnttt 
 
 Fits Adam's Story 477 
 
 The Origin of Didactic Poetry 487 
 
 The Flying Dutchman 488 
 
 Credidimus Jovem regnare ••..■.••••... 488 
 
 Tempera mutantur ...••.••.••••• 491 
 
 In the Half-Way House 492 
 
 At the Bums Centennial ...••..•••.• 493 
 
 In an Album ••• .... 495 
 
 At the Commencement Dinner, 1866 . . ..••.■•• 496 
 
 AParable 497 
 
 V. Epiobahs. 
 
 Sayings 498 
 
 Inscriptions. 
 
 For a Bell at Cornell Univernity . a • 498 
 
 Vor s Memorial Window to Sir Walter lUleiiitb ...... , „ 49& 
 
CONTENTS. XTll 
 
 FiopoBed for a Soldiers' and Sailors' MoQument in Boston 
 
 A Misconception 
 
 The Boss 
 
 Sun-Worship . . . , » 
 
 Changed Ferspective 
 
 With a Pair ol Gloves lost In a Wager 
 
 Sixty-Eighth Birthday 499 
 
 International Copyright 499 
 
 LAST POEMS. 
 
 How X consulted the Oracle of the Goldfishes £00 
 
 Turner's Old T^mSraire 602 
 
 St. Michael the Weigher 603 
 
 A Valentine 604 
 
 An April Birthday —at Sea 604 
 
 Love and Thought 604 
 
 The Nobler Lover 604 
 
 On healing a Sonata of Beethoven's played in the Next Room 605 
 
 Verses intended to go with a Posset Dish to my dear little Goddaughter, 1882 . . 605 
 
 On a Bust of General Grant • 606 
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 609 
 
 INDEX OF TITLES 612 
 
EARLIER POEMS. 
 
 THEENODIA. 
 
 Gone, gone from us ! and shall we see 
 Those sibyl-leaves of destiny, 
 Those calm eyes, nevermore ? 
 Those deep, dark eyes so warm and 
 
 bright. 
 Wherein the fortunes of the man 
 Lay slumbering in prophetic light. 
 In characters a child might scan? 
 So bright, and gone forth utterly I 
 O stern word — Nevermore I 
 
 The stars of those two gentle eyes 
 Will shine no more on earth ; 
 Quenched are the hopes that had their 
 
 birth, 
 As we watched them slowly rise, 
 Stars of a mother's fate ; 
 And she would read them o'er and o'er, 
 Pondering, as she sate. 
 Over their dear astrology. 
 Which she had conned and conned before, 
 Deeming she needs must read aright 
 What was writ so passing bright. 
 And yet, alas ! she knew not why, 
 Her voice would falter in its song, 
 And tears would slide from out her eye, 
 Silent, as they were doing wrong. 
 
 stem word — Kevermore ! 
 
 The tongue that scarce had learned to 
 claim 
 An entrance to a mother's heart 
 By that dear talisman, a mother's name, 
 Sleeps all forgetful of its art ! 
 
 1 loved to see the infant soul 
 (How mighty in the weakness 
 Of its untutored meekness !) 
 Peep timidly from out its nest. 
 His lips, the while. 
 
 Fluttering with half-fledged words, 
 
 Or hushing to a smile 
 
 That more than words expressed, 
 
 When his glad mother on him stole 
 And snatched him to her breast ! 
 O, thoughts were brooding in those eyes, 
 That would have soared like stronjf' 
 
 winged birds 
 Far, far into the skies, 
 Gladding the earth with song. 
 And gushing harmonies, 
 Had he but tarried with us long I 
 stern word — Nevermore I 
 
 How peacefully they lest^ , 
 
 Crossfolded there 
 Upon his little breast, 
 Those small, white hands that ne'er were 
 
 still before, 
 But ever sported with his mother's hair, 
 Or the plain cross that on her breast she 
 
 wore ! 
 Her heart no more will beat 
 To feel the touch of that soft palm, 
 That ever seemed a new surprise 
 Sending glad thoughts up to her eyes 
 To bless him with their holy calm, — 
 Sweet thoughts I they made her eyes as 
 
 sweet. 
 How quiet are the hands 
 That wove those pleasant bands ! 
 But that they do not rise and sink 
 With his calm breathiug, I should think 
 That he were dropped asleep. 
 Alas ! too deep, too deep 
 Is this his slumber ! 
 Time scarce can number 
 The years ere he shall wake again. 
 0, may we see his eyelids open then 1 
 stern word — Nevermore ! 
 
 As the airy gossamere. 
 Floating in the sunlight clear. 
 Where'er it toucheth clingeth tightly, 
 Round glossy leaf or stump unsightly. 
 So from his spirit wandered out 
 Tendrils spreading all about, 
 
EAELIER POEMS. 
 
 Knitting all things to its thrall 
 With a perfect love of all : 
 O stern word — Nevermore ! 
 
 He did but float a little way 
 Adown the stream of time, 
 With dreamy eyes watching the ripples 
 
 play, 
 Or hearkening their fairy chime ; 
 His slender sail 
 Ne'er felt the gale ; 
 He did but float a little way, 
 And, patting to the shore 
 While yet 't was early day, 
 Went calmly on his way, 
 To dwell with us no more ! 
 No jarring did he feel. 
 No grating on his shallop's keel ; 
 A strip of silver sand 
 Mingled the waters with the land 
 Where he was seen no more : 
 stem word — Nevermore ! 
 
 Full short his journey was ; no dust 
 Of earth unto his sandals clave ; 
 The weary weight that old men must, 
 He bore not to the grave. 
 He seemed a cherub who had lost his 
 
 way 
 And wandered hither, so his stay 
 With us was short, and 't was most meet 
 That he should be no delver in earth's 
 
 clod. 
 Nor need to pause and cleanse his feet 
 To stand before his God: 
 O blest word — Evermore ! 
 
 THE SIRENS. 
 
 The sea is lonely, the sea is dreaiy. 
 The sea is restless and uneasy ; 
 Thou seekest quiet, thou art weary. 
 Wandering thou knowest not whith- 
 er;— 
 Our little isle is green and breezy. 
 Come and rest thee ! come hither, 
 Colne to this peaceful home of ours, 
 
 Where evermore 
 The low west-wind creeps panting up 
 
 the shore 
 To be at rest among the flowers ; 
 Full of rest, the green moss lifts. 
 
 As the dark waves of the sea 
 Draw in and out of rooky rifts, 
 
 Calling solemnly to thee 
 With voices deep and hollow, — 
 
 "To the shore 
 Follow ! 0, follow ! 
 To be at rest forevermore I 
 Forevermore ! " 
 
 Look how the gray old Ocean 
 From the depth of his heart rejoioea^ 
 Heaving with a gentle motion. 
 When he hears our restful voices ; 
 List how he sings in an undertone. 
 Chiming with our melody ; 
 And all sweet sounds of earth and air 
 Melt into one low voice alone. 
 That murmurs over the weary sea, 
 And seems to sing from everywhere, — 
 " Here mayst thou harbor peacefully. 
 Here mayst thou rest from the acninj 
 oar; 
 Turn thy curved prow ashore. 
 And in our green isle rest forevermore I 
 
 Forevermore ! " 
 And Echo half wakes in the wooded hill. 
 And, to her heart so calm and deep. 
 Murmurs over in her sleep. 
 Doubtfully pausing and murmuring still. 
 "Evermore ! 
 
 Thus, on Life's weary sea, 
 Heareth the marinere 
 Voices sweet, from far and neaij 
 Ever singing low and clear, 
 Ever singing longingly. 
 
 Is it not better here to be, 
 Than to be toiling late and soon ? 
 In the dreary night to see 
 Nothing but the blood-red moon 
 Go up and down into the sea ; 
 Or, in the loneliness of day, 
 
 To see the still seals only 
 Solemnly lift their faces gray, 
 
 Making it yet more lonely ? 
 Is it not better than to hear 
 Only the sliding of the wave 
 Beneath the plank, and feel so near 
 A cold and lonely grave, 
 A restless grave, where thou shalt lie 
 Even in death unquietly ? 
 Look down beneath thy wave-worn bark. 
 
 Lean over the side and see 
 The leaden eye of the sidelong shark 
 Upturned patiently, 
 
 Ever waiting there for thee : 
 Look down and see those shapeless forms, 
 
 Which ever keep their dreamless sleep 
 
 Far down within the gloomy deep. 
 And only stir themselves in storms. 
 Rising like islands from beneath, 
 
ieen£ 
 
 And snorting through the angry spray, 
 
 As the frail vessel perlsheth 
 
 In the whirls of their unwieldy play ; 
 
 Look down 1 Look down ! 
 Upon the seaweed, slimy and dark. 
 That waves its arms so lank and brown, 
 
 Beckoning for thee I 
 Look down beneath thy wave-worn bark 
 Into the cold depth of the sea I 
 Look down I Look down ! 
 Thus, on Life's lonely sea, 
 Heareth the marinere ' 
 Voices sad, from far and near. 
 Ever singing full of fear. 
 Ever singing drearfuUy. 
 
 Here all is pleasant as a dream ; 
 
 The wind scarce shaketh down the dew, 
 
 The green grass floweth like a stream 
 
 Into the ocean's blue ; 
 
 Listen ! 0, listen ! 
 
 Here is a gush of many streams, 
 
 A song of many birds. 
 And every wish and longing seems 
 Lulled to a numbered flow of words, — 
 
 Listen ! 0, listen ! 
 Here ever hum the golden bees 
 Underneath full-blossomed trees. 
 At once with glowing fruit and flowers 
 
 crowned ; — 
 So smooth the sand, the yellow sand, 
 That thy keel will not grate as it touches 
 
 the land ; . 
 All around with a slumberous sound. 
 The singing waves slide up the strand, 
 And there, where the smooth, wet peb- 
 bles be. 
 The waters gurgle longingly. 
 As if they fain would seek the shore, 
 To be at rest from the ceaseless roar. 
 To be at rest forevermore, — 
 Forevermore. 
 Thus, on Life's gloomy sea, 
 Heareth the marinere 
 Voices sweet, from far and near. 
 Ever singing in his ear, 
 "Here is rest and peace for thee ! " 
 
 IKEKE. 
 
 Heks is a spirit deep, and crystal-clear ; 
 Calmly beneath her earnest face it lies, 
 Free without boldness, meek without a 
 
 fear, 
 Quicker to look than speak its sympa- 
 thies; 
 
 Far down into her large and patient eye* 
 I gaze, deep-drinking of the infinite. 
 As, in the mid- watch of a clear, stil I night, 
 I look into the fathomless blue skies. 
 
 So circled lives she with Love's holy 
 
 light. 
 That from the shade of self she walketh 
 
 free; 
 The garden of her soul still keepeth she 
 An Eden where the snake did never enter j 
 She hath a natural, wise sincerity, 
 A simple truthfulness, and these have lent 
 
 her 
 A dignity as moveless as the centre ; 
 So that no influence of our earth can stir 
 Her steadfast courage, nor can take away 
 The holy peacefulness, which night and 
 
 day, 
 Unto her queenly soul doth minister. 
 
 Most gentle is she ; her lar^e charity 
 (An all unwitting, childlike gift in her) 
 Not freer is to give than meek to bear ; 
 And, though herself not uuacquaint with 
 
 care. 
 Hath in her heart wide room for all that 
 
 be, — 
 Her heart that hath no secrets of its own. 
 But open is as eglantine full blown. 
 Cloudless forever is her brow serene. 
 Speaking calm hope and trust within her, 
 
 whence 
 Welleth a noiseless spring of patience, 
 That keepeth all her Ufe so fresh, so green 
 And full of holiness, that every look. 
 The greatness of her woman's soul reveal- 
 ing, 
 Unto me bringeth blessing, and a feeling 
 As when I read in God's own holy book. 
 
 Agraciousness in givingthatdothmake 
 The smaU'st gift greatest, and a sense 
 
 most meek 
 Of worthiness, that doth not fear to take 
 From others, but which always fears to 
 
 Its thanks in utterance, for the giver's 
 
 sake ; — 
 The deep religion of a thankful heart, 
 Which rests instinctively in Heaven's 
 
 clear law 
 With a full peace, that never can depart 
 From its own steadfastness ; — a holy awe 
 For holy things, — not those which men 
 
 call holy, 
 But such as are revealed to the eyes 
 
4 
 
 EARLIER POEMS. 
 
 Of a true woman's soul bent down and 
 
 lowly 
 Before the face of daily mysteries ; — 
 A loye that blossoms soon, Ivt ripens 
 
 slowly 
 To the full goldenness of fruitful prime. 
 Enduring with a firmness that defies 
 All shallow tricks of circumstance and 
 
 time, 
 By a sure insight knowing where to cUng, 
 And where it clingeth neverwithering ; — 
 These are Irene's dowry, which no fate 
 Can shake from their serene, deep-builded 
 
 state. 
 
 In-seeing sympathy is hers, which chas- 
 teueth 
 
 No less than loveth, scorning to be bound 
 
 With fear of blame, and yet which ever 
 hasteneth 
 
 To pour the balm of kind looks on the 
 wound. 
 
 If they be wounds whichsuch sweet teach- 
 ing makes. 
 
 Giving itself a pang for others' sakes ; 
 
 No want of faith, that chills with side- 
 long eye, 
 
 Hath she ; no jealousy, no Levite pride 
 
 That passeth by upon the other side ; 
 
 For in her soul there never dwelt a lie. 
 
 Bight from the hand of God her spirit 
 came 
 
 Unstained, and she hath ne'er forgotten 
 whence 
 
 It came, nor wandered far from thence. 
 
 But laboreth to keep her still the same, 
 
 Near to her place of birth, that she may 
 not 
 
 Soil her white raiment with an earthly 
 spot. 
 
 Yet sets she not her soul so steadily 
 Above, that she forgets her ties to earth, 
 But her whole thought would almost seem 
 
 to be 
 How to make glad one lowly human 
 
 hearth ; 
 For with a gentle courage she doth strive 
 In thought and word and feeling so to 
 
 live 
 As to make earth next heaven ; and her 
 
 heart 
 Herein doth show its most exceeding 
 
 worth, 
 That, bearing in our frailty her just part. 
 She bath not shrunk from evils of this 
 
 lile, 
 
 But hath gone calmly forth into th« 
 strife, 
 
 And all its sins and sorrows hath with- 
 stood 
 
 With lofty strength of patient woman- 
 hood : 
 
 For this I love her great soul more than 
 all, 
 
 That, being bound, like us, with earthly 
 thraU, 
 
 She walks so bright and heaven-like 
 therein, — 
 
 Too wise, too meek, too womanly, to sin. 
 
 Like a lone star through riven storm- 
 clouds seen 
 By sailors, tempest-tost upon the sea, 
 Telling of rest and peaceful heavens nigh, 
 Unto my soul her star-like soul hath 
 
 been. 
 Her sight as full of hope and calm to 
 
 me ; — 
 For she unto herself hath builded high 
 A home serene, wherein to lay her head. 
 Earth's noblest thing, a Woman per- 
 fected. 
 
 SERENABi!. 
 
 Fkom the close-shut windows gleams no 
 
 spark. 
 The night is chilly, the night is dark, 
 The poplars shiver, the pine-trees moan. 
 My hair by the aiitumn breeze is blowa. 
 Under thy window I sing alone, 
 Alone, alone, ah woe ! alone! 
 
 The darkness is pressing coldly around, 
 The windows shake with a lonely sound. 
 The stars are hid and the night is drear, 
 The heart of silence throbs in thine ear. 
 In thy chamber thou sittest alone, 
 Alone, alone, ah woe ! alone ! 
 
 The world is happy, the world is wide. 
 Kind hearts are beating on every side ; 
 Ah, why should we lie so coldly curled 
 Alone in the shell of this great world ? , 
 Why should we any more be alone ? ' 
 Alone, alone, ah woe ! alone ! 
 
 0, 't is a bitter and dreary word. 
 The saddest by man's ear ever heard ! 
 We each are young, we each have a heart 
 Why stand we ever coldly apart J 
 Must we forever, then, be alone J 
 Alone, alone, ah woe 1 alone I 
 
WITH A PRESSED FLOWER. 
 
 ■MY LOVE. 
 
 WITH A PRESSED FLOWER. 
 
 This little blossom from afar 
 Hath come from other lands to thine ; 
 For, once, its white and drooping star 
 Could see its shadow in the Rhine. 
 
 Perchance some fair-haired German maid 
 Hath plucked one from the selfsame 
 
 stalk, 
 And numbered over, half afraid. 
 Its petals in ner evening walk. 
 
 " He loves me, loves me not," she cries ; 
 " He loves me more than earth or 
 
 heaven ! " 
 And then glad tears have filled her eyes 
 To find the number was uneven. 
 
 And thou must count its petals well, 
 Beciiuse it is a gift from me ; 
 And the last one of all shall tell 
 Something I 've often told to thee. 
 
 But here at home, where we were bom. 
 Thou wilt find blossoms just as true, 
 Down-bending every summer morn, 
 With freshness of New- England dew. 
 
 For Nature, ever kind to love. 
 
 Hath granted them the same sweet 
 
 tongue. 
 Whether with German skies above, 
 Or here our granite rooks among. 
 
 THE BEGGAR. 
 
 A BEGGAR through the world am I, — 
 From place to place I wander by. 
 Fill up my pilgrim's scrip for me. 
 For Christ's sweet sake and charity 1^ 
 
 A little of thy steadfastness. 
 Bounded with leafy gracefulness, 
 Old oak, give me, — 
 That the world's blasts may round me 
 
 blow, 
 And I yield gently to and fro. 
 While my stout-hearted trunk below 
 And firm-set roots unshaken be. 
 
 Some of thy stem, unyielding might. 
 Enduring still through day and night 
 Eude tempest - shock aud withering 
 
 blight, — 
 Ihat I may keep at bay 
 
 The changeful April sky of chance 
 And the strong tide of circumstance, — 
 Give me, old granite gray. 
 
 Some of thy peusiveness serene. 
 
 Some of thy never-dying green. 
 
 Put in this scrip of mine, — 
 
 That griefs may fall like snow-flakes 
 
 light. 
 And deck me in a robe of white. 
 Ready to be an angel bright, — 
 
 sweetly mournful pine. 
 
 A little of thy merriment. 
 Of thy sparkling, light content, 
 Give me, my cheerful brook. 
 That I may still be full of glee 
 And gladsomeness, where'er I be, 
 Though fickle fate hath prisoned me 
 In some neglected nook. 
 
 Ye have been very kind and good 
 To me, since I 've been in the wood ; 
 Ye have gone nigh to fill my heart ; 
 But good-bye, kind friends, every one, 
 
 1 've far to go ere set of sim ; 
 
 Of all good things I would have part^ 
 The day was high ere I could start. 
 And so my journey 's scarce begun. 
 
 Heaven help me ! how could I forget 
 To beg of thee, dear violet ! 
 Some of thy modesty. 
 That blossoms here as well, unseen, 
 As if before the world thou 'dst been, 
 Uh, give, to strengthen me. 
 
 MT LOVE. 
 
 Not as aU other women are 
 Is she that to my soul is dear ; 
 Her glorious fancies come from far, 
 Beneath the sUver evening-star. 
 And yet her heart is ever near. 
 
 Great feelings hath she of her own. 
 Which lesser souls may never know ; 
 God giveth them to her alone. 
 And sweet they are as any tone 
 Wherewith the wind may choose to blow, 
 
 III. 
 Yet in herself she dwelleth not. 
 Although no home were half so fair ; 
 
EAELIEE POEMS. 
 
 No simplest duty is forgot, 
 Life hath no dim and lowly spot 
 That doth not in her sunshine share. 
 
 6he doeth little kindnesses, 
 Which most leave undone, or despise : 
 For naught that sets one heart at ease. 
 And giveth happiness or peace, 
 Is low-esteemed in her eyes. 
 
 She hath no scorn of common things, 
 And, though she seem of other birth. 
 Bound us her heart intwines and clings, 
 And patiently she folds her wings 
 To tread the humble paths of earth. 
 
 Blessing she is : God made her so. 
 And deeds of week-day holiness 
 Fall from her noiseless as the snow, 
 N or hath she ever chanced to know 
 That aught were easier than to bless. 
 
 She is most fair, and thereunto 
 Her life doth rightly harmonize ; 
 Feeling or thought that was not true 
 Ne'er made less beautiful the blue 
 Unclouded heaven of her eyes. 
 
 She is a woman : one in whom 
 The spring-time of her childish years 
 Hath never lost its fresh perfume, 
 Though knowing well that life hath room 
 For many blights and many tears. 
 
 I love her with a love as still 
 As a broad river's peaceful might. 
 Which, by high tower and lowly mill, 
 Seem following its own wayward will. 
 And yet doth ever flow aright. 
 
 And, on its full, deep breast serene. 
 Like quiet isles my duties lie ; 
 It flows around them and between. 
 And makes them fresh and fair and green, 
 Sweet homes wherein to live and die. 
 
 STTMHEK S10BM. 
 
 Unteemulous in the river clear. 
 Toward the sky's image, hangs the ini» 
 aged bridge ; 
 So still the air that I can hear 
 The slender clarion of the unseen midge ; 
 Out of the stillness, with a gathemig 
 creep, 
 Like rising wind in leaves, which now 
 
 Now lulls, now swells, and all the whila 
 increases. 
 The huddling trample of a drove of 
 sheep 
 
 Tuts the loose planks, and then as grad- 
 ually ceases 
 In dust on the other side ; life's em- 
 blem deej), 
 
 A confused noise between two silences. 
 
 Finding at last in dust precarious peace. 
 
 On the wide marsh the purple-blossomed 
 
 Soak up the sunshine ; sleeps the 
 brimming tide. 
 Save when the wedge-shaped wake in 
 silence passes 
 Of some slow water-rat, whose sinuous 
 glide 
 Wavers the sedge's emerald shade from 
 
 side to side ; 
 But up the west, like a rock-shivered 
 surge. 
 Climbs a great cloud edged with sun- 
 whitened spray ; 
 Huge whirls of foam boil toppling o'er 
 its verge. 
 And falling still it seems, and yet it 
 climbs alway. 
 
 Suddenly all the sky is hid 
 As with the shutting of a lid. 
 One by one great drops are falling 
 
 Doubtful and slow, 
 Down the pane they are crookedly 
 crawling, 
 And the wind breathes low ; 
 Slowly the circles widen on the 
 river. 
 Widen and mingle, one and all ; 
 Here and there the slenderer flowers 
 shiver, 
 Struck by an icy rain-drop's fall. 
 
 Now on the hills I hear the thnndel 
 mutter, 
 The wind is gathering in the west ; 
 
LOVE. 
 
 The apturned leaves first whiten and 
 flutter, 
 Then droop to a fitful rest ; 
 Up from the stream with sluggish flap 
 Struggles the gull and floats away ; 
 Nearer and nearer rolls the thunder- 
 clap, — 
 "We shall not see the sun go down to- 
 day: 
 Now leaps the wind on the sleepy marsh, 
 And tramples the grass with terrified 
 feet, 
 The startledriver turns leaden andharsh. 
 You can hear the quiuk heart of the 
 tempest beat. 
 
 Look ! look ! that livid flash ! 
 And instantly follows the rattling thun- 
 der. 
 As if some cloud-crag, split asunder, 
 Fell, splintering with a ruinous 
 crash. 
 On the Earth, which crouches in silence 
 under ; 
 And now a solid gray wall of rain 
 Shuts off the landscape, mile by mile ; 
 For a breath's space I see the blue 
 wood again. 
 And ere the next neart-beat, the wind- 
 hurled pile. 
 That seemed but now a league aloof. 
 Bursts crackling o'er the sun-parched 
 roof ; 
 Against the windows the storm comes 
 
 dashing. 
 Through tattered foliage the hail tears 
 crashing, 
 The blue lightning flashes, 
 The rapid hail clashes, 
 The white waves are tumbling, 
 
 And, in one baffled roar. 
 Like the toothless sea mumbling 
 
 A rock-bristled shore. 
 The thunder is rumbling 
 And crashing and crumbling, — 
 Will silence return nevermore ? 
 
 Hush! Still as death, 
 The tempest holds his breath 
 As from a sudden will ; 
 The rain stops short, but from the 
 
 eaves 
 You see it drop, and hear it from the 
 leaves. 
 All is so bodingly still ; 
 Again, now, now, again 
 Flashes the rain in heavy gouts, 
 
 The crinkled lightning 
 Seems ever brightening, 
 And loud and long 
 Again the thunder shouts 
 His battle-song, — 
 One quivering flash, 
 One wildering crash. 
 Followed by silence dead and dul]. 
 As if the cloud, let go, 
 Leapt bodily below 
 To whelm the earth in one mad ovei* 
 throw. 
 And then a total lull. 
 
 Gone, gone, so soon 1 
 No more my half-dazed fancy 
 
 there. 
 Can shape a giant in the air. 
 No more I see his streaming hair, 
 The writhing portent of his form ; — 
 The pale and quiet moon 
 Makes her calm forehead bare. 
 And the last fragments of the storm. 
 Like shattered rigging from a fight at sea, 
 Silent and few, are drifting over me. 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 Trtjb Love is but a humble, low-bom 
 thing. 
 
 And hath its food served up in earthen 
 ware ; 
 
 It is a thing to walk with, hand in hand. 
 
 Through the every-dayness of this work- 
 day world, 
 
 Baring its tender feet to every flint, 
 
 Yet letting not one heart-beat go astray 
 
 From Beauty's law of plainness and con- 
 tent ; 
 
 A simple, fireside thing, whose quiet 
 smile 
 
 Can warm earth's poorest hovel to a 
 home ; 
 
 Which, when our autumn cometh, as it 
 must. 
 
 And life in the chill wind shivers bare 
 and leafless. 
 
 Shall still be blest with Indian-summer 
 youth 
 
 In bleak November, and, with thankful 
 heart. 
 
 Smile on its ample stores of garnered 
 fruit. 
 
 As full of sunshine to our aged eyes 
 
 As when it nursed the blossoms of OUE 
 spring. 
 
8 
 
 EAHLIEK POEMS. 
 
 Such is trne Love, which steals into the 
 
 heart 
 With feet as silent as the lightsome dawn 
 That kisses smooth the rough brows of 
 
 the dark, 
 And hath its will through blissful gen- 
 tleness, 
 Not like a rocket, which, with passion- 
 ate glare, 
 Whirs sjiddenly up, then bursts, and 
 
 leaves the night 
 Painfully quivering on the dazed eyes ; 
 A love that gives and takes, that seeth 
 
 faults, 
 Not with iiaw-seeking eyes like needle 
 
 points. 
 But loving-kindly ever looks them down 
 With the o'ercoming faith that still 
 
 forgives ; 
 A love that shall be new and fresh each 
 
 hour. 
 As is the sunset's golden mystery. 
 Or the sweet coming of the evening-star. 
 Alike, and yet most unlike, every day. 
 And seeming ever best and fairest now; 
 A love that doth not kneel for what it 
 
 seeks, 
 But faces Truth and Beauty as their 
 
 peer, 
 Showing its worthiness of noble thoughts 
 By a clear sense of inward nobleness ; 
 A love that in its object findeth not 
 All grace and beauty, and enough to sate 
 Its thirst of blessing, but, in all of good 
 Found there, sees but the Heaven-im- 
 planted types 
 Of good and beauty in the soul of man. 
 And traces, in the simplest heart that 
 
 beats, 
 A family-likeness to its chosen one, 
 That claims of it the rights of brother- 
 hood. 
 For love is blind hut with the fleshly 
 
 eye, 
 That 80 its inner sight may be more clear ; 
 And outward shows of beauty only so 
 Are needful at the first, as is a hand 
 To guide and to uphold an infant's steps : 
 Fine natures need them not : their earnest 
 
 look 
 Pierces the body's mask of thin disguise, 
 And beauty ever is to them revealed, 
 Behind the unshapeliest, meanest lump 
 
 of clay, 
 With arms outstretched and eager face 
 
 ablaze. 
 Teaming to be but understood and loved. 
 
 TO PERDITA, SOfGINCh 
 
 Thy voice is like a fountain, 
 
 Leaping up in clear moonshine ; 
 Silver, silver, ever mounting. 
 Ever sinking. 
 Without thinking, 
 To that brimful heart of thine. 
 Every sad and happy feeling. 
 Thou hast had in bygone years. 
 Through thy lips comes stealing, steak 
 
 Clear and low ; 
 All thy smiles and all thy tears 
 In thy voice awaken. 
 And sweetness, wove of joy and woe. 
 From their teaching it hath taken : 
 Feeling and music move together. 
 Like a swan and shadow ever 
 Floating on a sky-blue river 
 In a day of cloudless weather. 
 
 It hath caught a touch of sadness, 
 
 Yet it is not sad ; 
 It hath tones of clearest gladness. 
 
 Yet it is not glad ; 
 A dim, sweet twilight voice it is 
 
 Where to-day's accustomed blue 
 Is over-grayed with memories. 
 With starry feelingsquivered through. 
 
 Thy voice is like a fountain 
 Leaping up in sunshine bright. 
 
 And I never weary counting 
 Its clear droppings, lone and single. 
 Or when in one full gush they mingle. 
 
 Shooting in melodious light. 
 
 Thine is music such as yields 
 Feelings of old brooks and fields, 
 And, around this pent-up room. 
 Sheds a woodland, free perfume ; 
 
 0, thus forever sing to me 1 
 0, thus forever I 
 The green, bright grass of childhood 
 bring to me. 
 Flowing like an emerald river. 
 And the bright blue skies above ! 
 0, sing them back, as fresh as ever, 
 Into me bosom of my love, — 
 The sunshine and the merriment. 
 The unsought, evergreen content. 
 
 Of that never cold time. 
 The joy, that, like a clear breeze, went 
 
 Through and through the old time I 
 
 Peace sits within thine eyes. 
 
 With white hands crossedin joyftilresl^ 
 
THE MOON. — SONG. 
 
 "While, through thy lips and face, arise 
 The melodies from out thy breast ; 
 
 She sits and sings, 
 
 With folded wings 
 
 And white arms crost, 
 " Weep not for bygone things. 
 
 They are not lost : 
 The beauty which the summer time 
 O'er thine opening spirit shed. 
 The forest oracles sublime 
 That filled thy soul with joyous dread. 
 The scent of every smallest flower 
 That made thy heart sweet for an 
 
 hour. 
 Yea, every holy influence. 
 Flowing to thee, thou knewest not 
 
 whence, 
 In thine eyes to-day is seen, 
 Fresh as it hath ever been ; 
 Promptings of Nature, beckonings 
 
 sweet. 
 Whatever led thy childish feet, 
 Still will linger unawares 
 The guiders of thy silver hairs ; 
 Eveiy look and every word 
 Which thou givest forth to-day, 
 Tell of the singing of the bird 
 Whose music stilled thy boyish play." 
 
 Thy voice is like a fountain, 
 Twinkling up in sharp starlight, 
 W^hen the moon behind the mountain 
 Dims the low East with faintest white, 
 Ever darkling, 
 Ever sparkling. 
 We know not if 't is dark or bright ; 
 But, when the great moon hath rolled 
 round, 
 And, sudden-slow, its solemn power 
 Grows from behind its black, clear-edged 
 bound. 
 No spot of dark the fountain keepeth, 
 But, swift as opening eyelids, leapeth 
 Into a waving silver flower. 
 
 THE MOON. 
 
 Mt soul was like the sea, 
 
 Before the moon was made. 
 Moaning in vague immensity. 
 
 Of its own strength afraid, 
 
 Unrestful and unstaid. 
 Through every rift it foamed in vain. 
 
 About its earthly prison. 
 Seeking some unknown thing in pain, 
 And sinking restless back again. 
 
 For yet no moon had risen : 
 Its only voice a vast dumb moan, 
 
 Of utterless anguish speaking. 
 It lay unhopefuUy alone. 
 
 And lived but in an aimless seeking. 
 
 So was my soul ; but when 't was full 
 
 Of unrest to o'erloading, 
 A voice of something beautiful 
 
 Whispered a dim foreboding, 
 And yet so soft, so sweet, so low. 
 It had not more of joy than woe ; 
 And, as the sea doth oft lie still. 
 
 Making its waters meet. 
 As if by an unconscious will. 
 
 For the moon's silver feet. 
 So lay my soul within mine eyes 
 When thou, itsguardian moon, didst rise. 
 
 And now, howe'er its waves above 
 May toss and seem uneaseful. 
 
 One strong, eternal law of Love, 
 With guidance sure and peaceful. 
 
 As calm and natural as breath, 
 
 Moves its great deeps through Ufe and 
 death. 
 
 REMEMBERED MUSIC. 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 Thick-rushing, like an ocean vast 
 Of bisons the far prairie shaking. 
 The notes crowd heavily and fast 
 As surfs, one plunging while the last 
 Draws seaward from its foamy breaking. 
 
 Or in low murmurs they began, 
 Rising and rising momenuy, 
 
 As o'er a harp iSoIian 
 
 A fitful breeze, until they ran 
 Up to a sudden ecstasy. 
 
 And then, like minute-drops of rain 
 
 Kinging in water silverly, 
 They lingering dropped and dropped 
 
 again. 
 Till it was almost like a pain 
 
 To listen when the next would he. 
 
 SONG. 
 TO M. L. 
 
 A LILT thou wast when I saw thee firstj 
 A lily-bud not opened quite, 
 That hourly grew more pure and. 
 white. 
 
10 
 
 EARLIER POEMS. 
 
 By morning, and noontide, and evening 
 nursed : 
 In all of nature thou hadst thy share ; 
 Thou wast waited on 
 By the wind and sun ; 
 The rain and the dew for thee took care ; 
 It seemed thou never couldst be more 
 fair. 
 
 A lily thou wast when I saw thee first, 
 A lily-bud ; but 0, how strange. 
 How full of wonder was the change, 
 VHien, ripe with all sweetness, thy full 
 bloom burst ! 
 How did the tears to my glad eyes start. 
 When the woman-flower 
 Reached its blossoming hour, 
 And I saw the warm deeps of thy 
 golden heart ! 
 
 Glad death may pluck thee, but never 
 before 
 The gold dust of thy bloom divine 
 Hath dropped from thy heart into 
 mine, 
 To quicken its fajnt germs of heavenly 
 lore ; 
 For no breeze comes nigh thee but car- 
 ries away 
 Some impulses bright 
 Of fragrance and light. 
 Which fall upon souls that are lone 
 
 and astray, 
 To plant fruitful hopes of the flower of 
 day. 
 
 ALLEGBA. 
 
 1 wotTLD more natures were like thine. 
 That never casts a glance before. 
 
 Thou Hebe, who thy heart's bright wine 
 So lavishly to all dost pour, 
 . That we who drink forget to pine. 
 And can but dream of bliss in store. 
 
 Thou canst not see a shade in life ; 
 
 With sunward instinct thou dost rise, 
 And, leaving clouds below at strife, 
 
 Gazest undazzled at the skies. 
 With all their blazing splendors rife, 
 
 A songful lark with eagle's eyes. 
 
 Thou wast some foundling whom the 
 Hours 
 Nursed, laughing, with the milk of 
 Mirth ; 
 Some influence more gay than ours 
 Hath ruled thy nature from its birth, 
 
 As if thy natal stars were flowers 
 That shook their seeds round thee on 
 earth. 
 
 And thou, to lull thine infant rest. 
 Wast cradled like an Indian child ; 
 
 All pleasant winds from south and west 
 With lullabies thine ears beguiled. 
 
 Rocking thee in thine oriole's nest, 
 Till Nature looked at thee and smiled. 
 
 Thine every fancy seems to borrow 
 A sunlight from thy childish years. 
 
 Making a golden cloud of son-ow, 
 A hope-lit rainbow out of tears, — 
 
 Thy heart is certain of to-morrow, 
 Though 'yond to-day it never peers. 
 
 I would more natures were like thine. 
 So innocently wild and free. 
 
 Whose sad thoughts, even, leap and shine^ 
 Like sunny wavelets in the sea. 
 
 Making us mindless of the brine. 
 In gazing on the brilliancy. 
 
 THE FOTJNTAIN'. 
 
 Into the sunshine. 
 
 Full of the light, 
 Leaping and flashing 
 
 From morn till night ; 
 
 Into the moonlight, 
 Whiter than snow. 
 
 Waving so flower-like 
 When the winds blow ; 
 
 Into the starlight 
 
 Rushing in spray, 
 Happy at midnight, 
 
 Happy by day ; 
 
 liver in motion. 
 
 Blithesome and cheery. 
 Still climbing heavenward. 
 
 Never aweary ; 
 
 Glad of all weathers. 
 Still seeming best, 
 
 Upward or downward, 
 Motion thy rest ; 
 
 Full of a nature 
 Nothing can tame. 
 
 Changed efery moment, 
 Ever the same : 
 
ODK 
 
 11 
 
 I stspmng, 
 Ceaseless content, 
 Darkness or sunshine 
 Thy element ; 
 
 Glorious fountain, 
 
 Let my heart be 
 Fresh, changeful, constant, 
 
 Upward, like thee ! 
 
 ODK 
 
 I. 
 
 In the old days of awe and keen-eyed 
 wonder, 
 The Poet's song with blood-warm truth 
 was rife ; 
 He saw the mysteries which circle under 
 Theoutwardshell and skin of daily life. 
 Nothing to him were fleeting time and 
 fashion. 
 His soul was led by the eternal law ; 
 There was in him no hope of fame, no 
 passion. 
 But with calm, godlike eyes he only 
 saw. 
 
 He did not sigh o'er heroes dead and 
 buried. 
 Chief-mourner at the Golden Age's 
 hearse, 
 JJor deem that souls whom Charon grim 
 had ferried 
 Alone were fitting themes of epic verse : 
 He could believe the promise of to- 
 morrow. 
 And feel the wondrous meaning of to- 
 day ; 
 He had a deeper faith in holy sorrow 
 Than the world's seeming loss could 
 take away. 
 To know the heart of all things was his 
 duty. 
 All things did sing to him to make him 
 wise. 
 And, with a son-owful and conquering 
 beauty. 
 The soul of all looked grandly from his 
 eyes. 
 He gazed on all within him and without 
 him, 
 He watched the flowing of Time'ssteady 
 tide. 
 And shapes of glory floated all about 
 him 
 And whispered to him, and he prophe- 
 lied. 
 
 Than all men he more fearless was and 
 freer. 
 And all his brethren cried with one 
 accord, — 
 "Behold the holy man! Behold the 
 Seer! 
 Him who hath spoken with the unseen 
 Lord ! " 
 He to his heart with large embrace had 
 taken 
 The universal sorrow of mankind. 
 And, from that root, a shelter nev-r 
 shaken. 
 The tree of wisdom grew with sturdy 
 rind. 
 He could interpret well the wondrous 
 voices 
 Which to the calm and silent spirit 
 come ; 
 He knew that the One Soul no more 
 rejoices 
 In the star's anthem than the insect's 
 hum. 
 He in his heart was ever meek and 
 humble. 
 And yet with kingly pomp his num- 
 bers ran, 
 As he foresaw how all things false should 
 crumble 
 Before the free, uplifted soul of man : 
 And, when he was made full to overflow- 
 ing 
 With all the loveliness of heaven and 
 earth. 
 Out rushed his song, like molten iron 
 glowing, 
 To show God sitting by the humblest 
 hearth. 
 With calmest courage he was ever ready 
 To teach that action was the truth of 
 thought, 
 And, with strong arm and purpose firm 
 and steady. 
 An anchor for the drifting world aa 
 wrought. J 
 
 So did he make the meanest man par- 
 taker 
 Of all his brother-gods unto him 
 gave ; 
 All souls did reverence him and nama 
 him Maker, 
 And when he died heaped temples on 
 his grave. 
 And still his deathless words of light are 
 swimming 
 Serene throughout the great deep in- 
 finite 
 
12 
 
 EAELIER POEMS. 
 
 Of human soul, unwaning and undim- 
 ming, 
 To cheer and guide the mariner at 
 pight. 
 
 But now the Poet is an empty rhymer 
 
 Who lies with idle elbow on the grass, 
 And fits his singing, like a cunning 
 timer, 
 To all men's prides and fancies as they 
 pass. 
 Kot his the song, which, in its metre 
 holy. 
 Chimes with the music of the eternal 
 stars, 
 Humhling the tyrant, lifting up the 
 lowly, 
 And sending sun through the soul's 
 prison-bars. 
 Maker no more, — no ! unmaker 
 rather. 
 For he unmakes who doth not all put 
 forth 
 The power given freely by our loving 
 Father 
 To show the body's dross, the spirit's 
 worth. 
 Awake ! gi'eat spirit of the ages olden ! 
 Shiver the mists that hide thy stany 
 lyre. 
 And let man's soul be yet again beholden 
 To thee for wings to soar to her desire. 
 0, prophesy no more to-morrow's splen- 
 dor, 
 Be no more shamefaced to speak out 
 for Truth, 
 Lay on her altar all the gushings tender, 
 The hope, the fire, the loving faith of 
 youth ! 
 O, prophesy no more the Maker's com- 
 
 Say not his onward footsteps thou 
 canst hear 
 In the dim void, like to the awful hum- 
 ming 
 Of the great wings of some new-light- 
 ed sphere ! 
 0, prophesy no more, but be the Poet ! 
 This longing was but granted unto 
 thee 
 That, when all beauty thou shouldst feel 
 and know it. 
 That beauty in its highest thou oouldst 
 be. 
 thou who meanest tost with sealike 
 longings. 
 
 Who dimly hearest voices call on thee^ 
 Whose soul is ovei'tilled with mighty 
 thronging 
 Of love, and fear, and glorious agony, 
 Thou of the toil-strung hands and iroa 
 sinews 
 And soul by Mother Earth with free* 
 dom fed. 
 In whom the hero-spirit yet continues. 
 The old free nature is not chained or 
 dead. 
 Arouse ! let thy soul break in music 
 thunder. 
 Let loose the ocean that is in the* ' 
 pent, 
 Pour forth thy hope, thy fear, thy love, 
 thy wonder. 
 And tell the age what all its signs 
 have meant. 
 Where'er thy wildered crowd of brethren 
 jostles. 
 Where'er there lingers but a shadow of 
 wrong, , 
 
 There still is need of martyrs and apos- 
 tles. 
 There still are texts for never-dying 
 song: 
 From age to age man's still aspiring 
 spirit 
 Finds wider scope and sees with clearer 
 eyes. 
 And thou in larger measure dost inherit 
 What made thy great forerunners free 
 and wise. 
 Sit thou enthroned where the Poet's 
 mountain 
 Above the thunder lifts its silent 
 peak, 
 And roll thy songs down like a gathering 
 fountain, 
 They all may drink and find the rest 
 they seek. 
 Sing ! there shall silence grow in earth 
 and heaven, 
 A silence of deep awe and wondering ; 
 For, listening gladly, bend the angels, 
 even. 
 To hear a mortal like an angel sing. 
 
 Among the toil-worn poor my soul is 
 seeking 
 For who shall bring the Maker's name 
 to liifht, 
 To be the voice of that almighty speak 
 i ing 
 
THE FATHEKLAND. 
 
 13 
 
 Whioh every age demands to do It 
 right. 
 Proprieties our silken bards environ ; 
 He who would be the tongue of this 
 wide land 
 Must string his harp with chords of 
 sturdy iron 
 And strike it with a toil-imbrowned 
 hand; 
 One who hath dwelt vrith Nature well 
 attended, 
 Who hath learnt wisdom from her 
 mystic books, 
 Whose soul with all her countless lives 
 hath blended. 
 So that all beauty awes us in his looks ; 
 Who not with body's waste his soul hath 
 pampered. 
 Who as the clear northwestern wind is 
 free. 
 Who walks with Form's observances un- 
 hampered. 
 And follows the One Will obediently ; 
 Whose eyes, like windows on a breezy 
 summit. 
 Control a lovely prospect every way ; 
 Who doth not sound God's sea with 
 earthly plummet, 
 And find a bottom still of worthless 
 clay; 
 Who heeds not how the lower gusts are 
 working. 
 Knowing that one sure wind blows on 
 above, 
 And sees, beneath the foulest faces lurk- 
 ing, 
 One God-built shrine of reverence and 
 love ; 
 Who sees all stars that wheel their shin- 
 ing marches 
 Around the centre fixed of Destiny, 
 Where the encircling soul serene o'er- 
 arches 
 The moving globe of being like a sky ; 
 Who feels that God and Heaven's great 
 deeps are nearer 
 Him to whose heart his fellow-man is 
 nigh, 
 Who doth not hold his soul's own free- 
 dom dearer 
 Than that of all his brethren, low or 
 high; 
 Who to the Eight can feel himself the 
 truer 
 For being gently patient with the 
 wrong, 
 Who sees a brother in the evil-doer, 
 
 And finds in Love the heart's-blood of 
 his song ; — 
 This, this is he for whom the world is 
 waiting 
 To sing the beatings of its mighty 
 heart, 
 Too long hath it been patient with the 
 grating 
 Of scrannel-pipes, and heard it mis- 
 named Art. 
 To him tlie smiling soul of man shall 
 listen. 
 Laying awhile its crown of thorns 
 aside. 
 And once again in every eye shall glisten 
 
 The glory of a nature satislied. 
 His vei-se shall have a great command- 
 ing motion. 
 Heaving and swelling with a melody 
 Learnt of the sky, the river, and the 
 ocean. 
 And all the pure, majestic things that 
 be. 
 Awake, then, thou ! we pine for thy 
 great presence 
 To make us feel the soul once more 
 sublime, 
 We are of far too infinite an essence 
 To rest contented with the lies of 
 Time. 
 Speak out ! and lo I a hush of deepest 
 wonder 
 Shall sink o'er all this many-voiced 
 scene. 
 As when a sudden burst of rattling 
 thunder 
 Shatters the blueness of a sky serene. 
 
 THE ^ATSEKLAND. 
 
 Where is the true man's fatherland ? 
 
 Is it where he by chance is born ? 
 
 Doth not the yearning spirit scorn 
 In such scant borders to be spanned ? 
 yes ! his fatherland must be 
 As the blue heaven wide and free ! 
 
 Is it alone where freedom is. 
 
 Where God is God and man is man ? 
 
 Doth he not claim a broader span 
 For the soul's love of home than this I 
 yes ! his fatherland must be 
 As the blue heaven wide and free ! 
 
 Where'er a human heart doth wear 
 Joy's myrtle-wreath or soiTow's gyves, 
 
14 
 
 EAKLIER POEMS. 
 
 Where'er a human spirit strives 
 After a life more true and fair, 
 There is the tnie man's birthplace grand, 
 His is a world-wide fatherland ! 
 
 Where'er a single slave doth pine, 
 Where'er one man may help an- 
 other, — 
 Thank God for such a birthright, 
 brother, — 
 That spot of earth is thine and mine ! 
 There is the true man's birthplace grand, 
 His is a world-wide fatherland I 
 
 THE FOELORK. 
 
 The night is dark, the stinging sleet, 
 Swept by the bitter gusts of air. 
 
 Drives whistling down the lonely street. 
 And glazes on the pavement bare. 
 
 The etreet-lamps flare and struggle dim 
 Through the gray sleet-clouds as they 
 pass. 
 
 Or, governed by a boisterous whim. 
 Drop down and rastle on the glass. 
 
 One poor, heart-broken, outcast girl 
 Faces the east-wind's searching flaws. 
 
 And, as about her heart they whirl. 
 Her tattered cloak more tightly draws. 
 
 The flat brick walls look cold and bleak, 
 Her bare feet to the sidewalk freeze ; 
 
 Yet dares she not a shelter seek, 
 Though faint with hunger and disease. 
 
 The sharp storm cuts her forehead bare. 
 And, piercing through her garments 
 thin. 
 
 Beats on her shrunken breast, and there 
 Makes colder the cold heart within. 
 
 She lingers where a ruddy glow 
 Streams outward through an open 
 shutter. 
 
 Adding more bitterness to woe, 
 More loneness to desertion utter. 
 
 One half the cold she had not felt 
 Until she saw this gush of light 
 
 Spread warmly forth, and seem to melt 
 Its slow way through the deadening 
 night. 
 
 She hears a woman's voice within. 
 Singing sweet words her childhood 
 knew, I 
 
 And years of misery and sin 
 Furl ofl', and leave her heaven blue. 
 
 Her freezing heart, like one who sinks 
 Outwearied in the drifting snow. 
 
 Drowses to deadly sleep and thinks 
 No longer of its hopeless woe : 
 
 Old fields, and clear blue summer days, 
 Old meadows, green with grass, and 
 trees 
 That shimmer through the trembling 
 haze 
 And whiten in the western breeze, 
 
 Old faces, all the friendly past 
 Eises within her heart again. 
 
 And sunshine from her childhood cast 
 Makes summer of the icy rain. 
 
 Enhaloed by a mild, warm glow, 
 From man's humanity apart. 
 
 She hears old footsteps wandering slow 
 Through the lone chambers of the 
 heart. 
 
 Outside the porch before the door. 
 Her cheek upon the cold, hard stone. 
 
 She lies, no longer foul and poor, 
 No longer dreary and alone. 
 
 Next morning something heavily 
 Against the opening door did weigh. 
 
 And there, from sin and sorrow free, 
 A woman on the threshold lay. 
 
 A smile upon the wan lips told 
 That she had found a calm release, 
 
 And that, from out the want and cold. 
 The song had borne her soul in peace. 
 
 For, whom the heart of man shuts out. 
 Sometimes the heart of God takes in. 
 
 And fences them all round about 
 With silence mid the world's loud din ; 
 
 And one of his great charities 
 Is Music, and it doth not scorn 
 
 To close the lids upon the eyes 
 Of the polluted and forlorn ; 
 
 Far was she from her childhood's home. 
 Farther in guilt had wandered thence^ 
 
 Yet thither it had bid her come 
 To die in maiden innocence. 
 
MIDNIGHT. — THE HEEITAGB. 
 
 15 
 
 MIDNIGHT. 
 
 The moon shines white and silent 
 On the mist, which, like a tide 
 
 Of some enchanted ocean. 
 O'er the wide marsh doth glide. 
 
 Spreading its ghost-like hillows 
 Silently far and wide. 
 
 A vague and starry magic 
 Makes all things mysteries, 
 
 And lures the earth's dumb spirit 
 Up to the longing skies, — 
 
 I seem to hear dim whispers. 
 And tremulous replies. 
 
 The fireflies o'er the meadow 
 
 In pulses come and go ; 
 The elm-trees' heavy shadow 
 
 Weighs on the grass below ; 
 And faintly from the distance 
 
 The dreaming cock doth crow. 
 
 All things look strange and mystic, 
 
 The very bushes swell 
 And take wild shapes and motions, 
 
 As if beneath a spell ; 
 They seem not the same lilacs 
 
 From childhood known so well. 
 
 The snow of deepest silence 
 O'er everything doth fall. 
 
 So beautiful and quiet. 
 And yet so like a pall, 
 
 As if all life were ended, 
 And rest were come to all. 
 
 wild and wondrous midnight, 
 There is a might in thee 
 
 To make the charmed body 
 Almost like spirit be, 
 
 And give it some faint glimpses 
 Of immortality I 
 
 A PEATEE. 
 
 God ! do not let my loved one die, 
 But rather wait until the time 
 
 That I am grown in purity 
 Enough to enter thy pure clime. 
 
 Then take me, I will gladly go. 
 
 So that my love remain below ! 
 
 0, let her stay ! She is by birth 
 What I through death must learn to 
 be; 
 
 We need her more on our poor earth 
 Than thou canst need in heaven with 
 thee: 
 She hath her wings already, I 
 Must burst this earth-shell ere I fly. 
 
 Then, God, take me ! We shall be near, 
 More near than ever, each to each: 
 
 Her angel ears will find more clear 
 My heavenly than my earthly speech ; 
 
 And still, as I draw nigh to thee. 
 
 Her soul and mine shall closer be. 
 
 THE HEEITAOIi. 
 
 The rich man's son inherits lands, 
 And piles of brick, and stone, 'and 
 gold, 
 
 And he inherits soft white hands, 
 And tender flesh that fears the cold. 
 Nor dares to wear a garment old ; 
 
 A heritage, it seems to me, 
 
 One scarce would wish to hold in fee. 
 
 The rich man's son inherits cares ; 
 
 The bank may break, the factory bum, 
 A breath may burst his bubble shares, 
 
 And soft white hands could hardly 
 earn 
 
 A living that would serve his turn ; 
 A heritage, it seems .to me, 
 One scarce would wish to hold in fee. 
 
 The rich man's son inherits wants, 
 His stomach craves for dainty fare ; 
 
 With sated heart, he hears the pants 
 Of toiling hinds with brown arms bare, 
 And wearies in his easy-chair ; 
 
 A heritage, it seems to me, 
 
 One scarce would wish to hold in fee. 
 
 What doth the poor man's son inherit ? 
 Stout muscles and a sinewy heart, 
 
 A hardy frame, a hardier spirit ; 
 King of two hands, he does his part 
 In every useful toil and art ; 
 
 A heritage, it seems to me, 
 
 A king might wish to hold in fee. 
 
 What doth the poor man's son inherit ? 
 Wishes o'erjoyed with humble things, 
 
 A rank adjudged by toil-won merit, 
 Contentthatfrom employment springs, 
 A heart that in his labor sings ; 
 
 A heritage, it seems to me, 
 
 A king might wish to hold in fee. . 
 
16 
 
 EAELIEB POEMS. 
 
 What doth the poor man's son inherit ? 
 A patience learned of being poor, 
 
 Courage, if sorrow come, to hear it, 
 A fellow-feeling that is sure 
 To make the outcast bless his door ; 
 
 A heritage, it seems to me, 
 
 A king might wish to hold in fee. 
 
 rich man's son ! there is a toil 
 That with all others level stands ; 
 
 Large charity doth never soil. 
 But only whiten, soft white hands, — 
 This is the best crop from thy lands ; 
 
 A heritage, it seems to me, 
 
 Worth being rich to hold in fee. 
 
 poor man's son ! scorn not thy state ; 
 There is worse weariness than thine, 
 
 In merely being rich and great ; 
 Toil only gives the soul to shine. 
 And makes rest fragrant and be- 
 nign ; 
 
 A heritage, it seems to me. 
 
 Worth being poor to hold in fee. 
 
 Both, heirs to some six feet of sod. 
 Are equal in the earth at last ; 
 
 Both, children of the same dear God, 
 Prove title to your heirship vast 
 By record of a well-filled past ; 
 
 A heritage, it seems to me, 
 
 Well worth a life to hold in fee. 
 
 THE BOSE : A BALLAD. 
 
 I. 
 
 In his tower sat the poet 
 
 Gazing on the roaring sea, 
 "Take this rose," he sighed, "and throw 
 it 
 
 Where there 's none that loveth me. 
 On the rock the billow bursteth 
 
 And sinks hack into the seas, 
 But in vain my spirit thirsteth 
 
 So to burst and be at ease. 
 Take, sea ! the tender blossom 
 
 That hath lain against my breast ; 
 On thy black and angry bosom 
 
 It will find a surer rest. 
 Life is vain, and love is hollow, 
 
 Ugly death stands there behind. 
 Hate and scorn and hunger follow 
 
 Him that toileth for his kind." 
 Forth into the night he hurled it. 
 
 And with bitter smile did mark 
 How the surly tempest whirled it 
 
 Swift into the hungry dark. 
 
 Foam and spray drive back to leeward. 
 And the gale, with dreary moan, 
 
 Drifts the helpless blossom seawards 
 Through the breakers all alone. 
 
 Stands a maiden, on the morrow. 
 
 Musing by the wave-beat strand. 
 Half in hope and half in sorrow, 
 
 Tracing words upon the sand: 
 " Shall I ever then behold him 
 
 Who hath been my life so long, 
 Ever to this sick heart fold him, 
 
 Be the spirit of his song ? 
 Touch not, sea, the blessed letters 
 
 1 have traced upon thy shore, 
 Spare his name whose spirit fetters 
 
 Mine with love forevermore ! " 
 Swells the tide and overflows it, 
 
 But, with omen pure and meet. 
 Brings a little rose, and throws it 
 
 Humbly at the maiden's feet. 
 Full of bliss she takes the token, 
 
 And, upon her snowy breast, 
 Soothes the ruffled petals broken 
 
 With the ocean's fierce unrest. ' 
 " Love is thine, heart ! and surely 
 
 Peace shall also be thine own. 
 For the heart that trasteth purely 
 
 Never long can pine alone." 
 
 In his tower sits the poet, 
 
 Blisses new and strange to him 
 Fill his heart and overflow it 
 
 With a wonder sweet and dim. 
 Up the beach the ocean slideth 
 
 With a whisper of delight. 
 And the moon in silence glideth 
 
 Through the peaceful blue of night. 
 Eippling o'er the poet's shoulder 
 
 Flows a maiden's golden hair. 
 Maiden lips, with love grown bolder. 
 
 Kiss his moon-lit forehead bare. 
 " Life is joy, and love is power, 
 
 Death all fetters doth unbind. 
 Strength and wisdom only flower 
 
 When we toil for all our kind. 
 Hope is truth, — the future giveth 
 
 More than present takes away. 
 And the soul forever liveth 
 
 Nearer God from day to day.'' 
 Not a word the maiden uttered. 
 
 Fullest hearts are Slow to speak. 
 But a withered rose-leaf fluttered 
 
 Down upon the poet's cheek. 
 
SONG. 
 
 ■ KOSALINE. 
 
 17 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Violet ! sweet violet I 
 Thine eyes are full of tears ; 
 Are they wet 
 Even yet 
 With the thought of other years ? 
 Or with gladness are they fuU, 
 For the night so beautiful, 
 And longing for those far-off spheres ! 
 
 Loved one of my youth thou wast, 
 Of my merry youth, 
 And I see, 
 Tearfully, 
 All the fair and sunny past, 
 All its openness and truth. 
 Ever fresh and green in thee 
 As the moss is in the sea. 
 
 Thy little heart, that hath with love 
 Grown colored like the sky above, 
 On which thou lookest ever, — 
 Can it know 
 All the woe 
 Of hope for what returneth never. 
 All the sorrow and the longing 
 To these hearts of ours belonging ? 
 
 Out on it ! no foolish pining 
 For the sky 
 Bims thine eye, 
 Or for the stars so calmly shining ; 
 Like thee let this soul of mine 
 Take hue from that wherefor I long, 
 Self-stayed and high, serene and strong. 
 Not satisfied with hoping — but divine. 
 
 Violet ! dear violet ! 
 
 Thy blue eyes are only wet 
 With joy and love of Him who sent thee. 
 And for the fulfilling sense 
 Of that glad obedience 
 Which mads thee all that Nature meant 
 thee! 
 
 EOSAUNE. 
 
 THOtr look'dst on rae'all yesternight, 
 Thine eyes were blue, thy hair was bright 
 As when we murmured our troth-plight 
 Beneath the thick stars, Eosaline ! 
 Thy hair was braided on thy head. 
 As on the day we two were wed. 
 Mine eyes scarceknew if thou wert dead. 
 But my shrunk heart knew, Rosaline ! 
 2 
 
 The death-watch ticked behind the wall. 
 The blackness rustled like a pall. 
 The moaning wind did rise and fall 
 Among the bleak pines, Kosaline I 
 My heart beat thickly in mine ears : 
 The lids may shut out fleshly fears, , 
 But still the spirit sees and hears, , 
 Its eyes are lidless, Bosaline ! 
 
 A wildness rushing suddenly, 
 A knowing some ill shape is nigh, 
 A wish for death, a fear to die, 
 Is not this vengeance, Eosaline ! 
 A loneliness that is not lone, 
 A love quite withered up and gone, 
 A strong soul ousted from its^hrone, 
 What wouldst thou further, Rosaline 1 
 
 'T is drear such moonless nights as these. 
 Strange sounds are out upon the breeze. 
 And the leaves shiver in the trees, 
 And then thou comest, Eosaline ! 
 I seem to hear the mourners go. 
 With long black garments trailing slow. 
 And plumes anodding to and fro. 
 As once I heard them, Eosaline I 
 
 Thy shroud is all of snowy white, 
 And, in the middle of the night. 
 Thou standest moveless and upright. 
 Gazing upon me, Eosaline ! 
 There is no sorrow in thine eyes. 
 But evermore that meek surprise, — 
 
 God ! thy gentle spirit tries 
 To deem me guiltless, Eosaline ! 
 
 Above thy grave the robin sings. 
 
 And swarms of bright and happy things 
 
 Flit all about with sunlit wings. 
 
 But I am cheerless, Eosaline ! 
 
 The violets on the hillock toss. 
 
 The gravestone is o'ergrown with moss ; 
 
 For nature feels not any loss. 
 
 But I am cheerless, Eosaline ! 
 
 1 did not know when thou wast dead ; 
 A blackbird whistling overhead 
 Thrilled through my brain ; I would have 
 
 fled, 
 But dared not leave thee, Eosaline ! 
 The sun rolled down, and very soon, 
 Like a great fire, the awful moon 
 Eose, stained with blood, and then aswoon 
 Crept chilly o'er me, Rosaline ! 
 
 The stars came out ; and, one by one. 
 Each angel from his silver throne 
 
18 
 
 EAKLIEB tOEMS. 
 
 Looked down and saw what I had done : 
 
 I dared not hide me, Rosaline ! 
 
 I crouched ; I feared thy corpse would cry 
 
 Against nie to God's silent sky, 
 
 I thought I saw the blue lips try 
 
 To utter something, EosaUue t 
 
 I waited with a maddened grin 
 To hear that voice all icy thin 
 Slide forth and tell my deadly sin 
 To hell and heaven, Rosaline ! 
 But no voice came, and then it seemed, 
 That, if the very corpse had screamed, 
 Thesoundlikesunshinegladhad streamed 
 Through that dark stillness, Rosaline ! 
 
 And then, amid the silent night, 
 
 I screamed with horrible delight. 
 
 And in my brain an awful light 
 
 Did seem to crackle, Rosaline ! 
 
 It is my curse ! sweet memories fall 
 
 From me like snow, and only all 
 
 Of that one night, like cold worms, crawl 
 
 My doomed heart over, Rosaline ! 
 
 Why wilt thou haunt me with thine eyes. 
 Wherein such blessed memories, 
 Such pitying forgiveness lies, 
 Than hate more bitter, Rosaline ! 
 Woe 's me ! I know that love so high 
 As thine, true soul, could never die. 
 And with mean clay in churchyard lie, — 
 Would it might he so, Rosaline I 
 
 A BEQTnEM. 
 
 At, pale and silent maiden. 
 
 Cold as thou liest there. 
 Thine was the sunniest nature 
 
 That ever drew the air. 
 The wildest and most wayward, 
 
 And yet so gently kind. 
 Thou seemedst but to body 
 
 A breath of summer wind. 
 
 Into the eternal shadow 
 
 That girds our life around, 
 Into the infinite silence 
 
 Wherewith Death's shore is bound, 
 Thou hast gone forth, beloved ! 
 
 And I were mean to weep, 
 That thou hast left Life's shallows. 
 
 And dost possess the Deep. 
 
 Thou liest low and silent. 
 Thy heart is cold and still, 
 
 Thine eyes are shut forever. 
 And Death hath had his will ; 
 
 He loved and would have taken, 
 I loved and would have kept, 
 
 We strove, — and he was stronger. 
 And I have never wept. 
 
 Let him possess thy body, 
 
 Thy soul is still with me. 
 More sunny and more gladsome 
 
 Than it was wont to be : 
 Thy body was a fetter 
 
 •That bound me to the flesh, 
 Tliank God that it is broken. 
 
 And now I live afresh ! 
 
 Now I can see thee clearly; 
 
 The dusky cloud of clay. 
 That hid thy starry spirit. 
 
 Is rent and blown away: 
 To earth I give thy body. 
 
 Thy spirit to the sky, 
 I saw its bright wings growing. 
 
 And knew that thou must ny. 
 
 Now I can love thee truly. 
 
 For nothing comes between 
 The senses and the spirit. 
 
 The seen and the unseen ; 
 Lifts the eternal shadow. 
 
 The silence bursts apart. 
 And the soul's boundless future 
 
 Is present in my heart. 
 
 A PABABLE. 
 
 Worn and footsore was the Prophet, 
 When he gained the holy hill ; 
 
 " God has left the earth," he murmure^ 
 " Here his presence lingers still. 
 
 " God of all the olden prophets. 
 Wilt thou speak with men no moreT 
 
 Have 1 not as truly served thee 
 As thy chosen ones of yore ? 
 
 " Hear me, guider of my fathers, 
 Lo ! a humble heart is mine ; 
 
 By thy mercy I beseech thee 
 Grant thy servant but a sign ! " 
 
 Bowing then his head, he listened 
 For an answer to his prayer ; 
 
 No loud burst of thunder followed. 
 Not a murmur stirred the air : — 
 
SONG. — SONNETS. 
 
 19 
 
 But the tuft of moss before him 
 Opened while he waited yet, 
 
 And, from out the rock's hard bosom, 
 Sprang a tender violet. 
 
 " God ! I thank thee,'" said the Prophet ; 
 
 " Hard of heart and blind was I, 
 Looking to the holy mountain 
 
 For the gift of prophecy, 
 r 
 "Still thou speakest with thy children 
 
 Freely as in eld sublime ; 
 Humbleness, and love, and patience. 
 
 Still give empire over time. 
 
 " Had I trusted in my nature. 
 And had faith in lowly things. 
 
 Thou thyself wouldst then have sought 
 me. 
 And set free my spirit's wings. 
 
 " But I looked for signs and wonders. 
 That o'er men should give me sway ; 
 
 Thirsting to be more than mortal, 
 I was even less than clay. 
 
 "Kre I entered on my journey, 
 
 As I girt my loins to start. 
 Ban to me my little daughter. 
 
 The beloved of my heart ; — 
 
 " In her hand she held a ilower, 
 
 Like to this as like may be. 
 Which, beside my very threshold. 
 
 She had plucked and brought to me.* 
 
 SONO. 
 
 MOONLIGHT deep and tender, 
 A year and more agone, -" 
 
 Your mist of golden splendor 
 Bound my betrothal shone 1 
 
 elm-leaves dark and dewy. 
 
 The very same ye seem. 
 The low wind trembles through ye. 
 
 Ye murmur in my dream 1 
 
 river, dim with distance, 
 
 Flow thus forever by, 
 A part of my existence 
 
 Within your heart doth lie I 
 
 stars, ye saw our meeting. 
 
 Two beings and one soul, 
 Two hearts so madly beating 
 
 To mingle and be whole 1 
 
 happy night, deliver 
 
 Her kisses back to me, 
 Or keep them all, and give her 
 
 A blissful di'eam of me 1 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 TO A. 0. L. 
 
 Thkoitoh suffering and sorrow thou hast 
 
 To show us what a woman true may be : 
 They have not taken sympathy from thee, 
 Nor made thee any other than thou wast. 
 Save as some tree, which, in a sudden 
 
 blast, 
 Sheddeth those blossoms, that are weakly 
 
 grown, 
 TTpon the air, but keepeth every one 
 Whose strength gives warrant of good 
 
 fruit at last : 
 So thou hast shed some blooms of gay- 
 
 ety, 
 ,Sut never one of steadfast cheerfulness ; 
 
 Nor hath thy knowledge of adversity 
 Robbed thee of any faith in happiness, 
 But rather cleared thine inner eyes to see 
 How many simple ways there are to bless. 
 
 IL 
 
 What were I, Love, if I were stripped of 
 
 thee. 
 If thine eyes shut me out whereby I live. 
 Thou, who unto my calmer soul dost give 
 Knowledge, and Truth, and holy Mys- 
 tery, 
 Wherein Truth mainly lies for those who 
 
 see 
 Beyond the earthly and the fugitive. 
 Who in the grandeur of the soul believe^ 
 And only in the Infinite are free I 
 
20 
 
 EAELIEK POEMS. 
 
 Without thee I were naked, bleak, and 
 
 bare 
 As yon dead cedar on the sea-cliff's brow ; 
 And Nature's teachings, which come to 
 
 me now, 
 Common and beautiful as light and air, 
 Would be as fruitless as a stream which 
 
 still 
 Slips through the wheel of some old 
 
 ruined mill. 
 
 IIL 
 
 I WOULD not have this perfect love of 
 
 ours 
 Grow from a single root, a single stem, 
 Bearing no goodly fruit, but only flowers 
 That idly hide life's iron diadem : 
 It sliould grow alway like that Eastern 
 
 tree 
 ■Whose limbs take root and spread forth 
 
 constantly ; 
 That love for one, from which there doth 
 
 not spring 
 Wide love for all, is but a worthless thing. 
 Not in another world, as poets prate. 
 Dwell we apart above the tide of things. 
 High floating o'er earth's clouds on faery 
 
 wings ; 
 But our pure love doth ever elevate 
 Into a holy bond of brotherhood 
 All earthly things, making them pure 
 
 and good. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " For this true nobleness I seek in vain. 
 In woman and in man I find it not ; 
 I almost weary of my earthly lot. 
 My Mfe-springs are dried up with burn- 
 ing pain." 
 Thou find'st it not ? I pray thee look 
 
 again, 
 Look inward through the depths of thine 
 
 own soul. 
 How is it with thee ? Art thou sound 
 
 and whole ? 
 Doth narrow search show thee no earthly 
 
 stain ? 
 Be noble ! and the nobleness that lies 
 In other men, sleeping, but never dead. 
 Will rise in majesty to meet thine own ; 
 Then wilt thou see it gleam in many eyes, 
 Then will pure light around thy path be 
 
 shed. 
 And thou wilt nevermore be sad and 
 
 lone. 
 
 V. 
 
 TO THE SPIKIT OF KEATS. 
 
 Geeat soul, thou sittest with me in mj 
 
 room. 
 Uplifting me with thy vast, quiet eyes. 
 On whose full orbs, withkindlylustre, lies 
 The twilight warmth of ruddy ember- 
 gloom : 
 Thy clear, strong tones will oft bring sud- 
 den bloom 
 Of hope secure, to him who lonely cries. 
 Wrestling with the young poet's agonies. 
 Neglect and scorn, which seem a certain 
 
 doom: 
 Yes! the few words which, like great 
 
 thunder-drops. 
 Thy large heart down to earth shook 
 
 doubtfully. 
 Thrilled by the inward lightning of its 
 
 might. 
 Serene and pure, like gushingjoy of light, 
 Shall track the eternal chords of Destiny, 
 After the moon-led pulse of ocean stops. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Geeat Truths are portions of the soul of 
 
 man ; 
 Great souls are portions of Eternity ; 
 Each drop of blood that e'er through true 
 
 heart ran 
 With lofty message, ran for thee and me ; 
 For God'slaw, since the starry song began. 
 Hath been, and still forevermore must be. 
 That every deed which shaUoutlast Time's 
 
 span 
 Must spur the soul to be erect and free ; 
 Slave is no word of deathless lineage 
 
 sprung ; 
 Too many noble souls have thought and 
 
 died. 
 Too many mighty poets lived and sung. 
 And our good Saxon, from lips purified 
 With martyr-fire, throughout the world 
 
 hath rung 
 Too long to have God's holy cause denied. 
 
 vn. 
 
 I ASK not for those thoughts, that sudden 
 
 leap 
 From being's sea, like the isle-seeming 
 
 Kraken, 
 With whose great rise the ocean all ia 
 
 shaken 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 21 
 
 And a heart-tremble quivers through the 
 deep; 
 
 Give me that growth which some per- 
 chance deem sleep, 
 
 "Wherewith the steadfast coral-stems up- 
 rise, 
 
 Which, by the toiI«of gathering energies. 
 
 Their upward way into clear sunshine 
 keep, 
 
 Until, by Heaven's sweetest influences. 
 
 Slowly and slowly spreads a speck of 
 green 
 
 Into a pleasant island in the seas, 
 
 Where, mid tall palms, the cane-roofed 
 home is seen. 
 
 And wearied men shall sit at sunset's 
 hour, 
 
 Hearing the leaves and loving God's dear 
 power. 
 
 vm. 
 
 TO M. W., ON HEK BIRTHDAY. 
 
 Maiden, when such a soul as thine is 
 
 bom. 
 The morning-stars their ancient musiv. 
 
 make. 
 And, joyful, once again their song awake, 
 Long silent now with melancholy scorn ; 
 And thou, not mindless of so blest a 
 
 morn. 
 By no least deed its harmony shalt break. 
 But shalt to that high chime thy foot- 
 steps take. 
 Through life's most darksome passes un- 
 
 forlorn ; 
 Therefore from thy pure faith thou shalt 
 
 not fall. 
 Therefore shalt thou be ever fair and 
 
 free. 
 And in thine every motion musical 
 As summer air, majestic as the sea, 
 A mystery to those who creep and crawl 
 Thro'-gh Time, and part it from Eternity. 
 
 rx. 
 
 My Love, I have no fear that thou 
 shouldst die ; 
 
 Albeit I ask no fairer life than thia 
 
 Whose numbering-clock is still thy gen- 
 tle kiss, 
 
 While Time and Peace with hands en- 
 looked fly, — 
 
 Yet care 1 not where in Eternity 
 
 We live and love, well knowing that 
 
 there is 
 No backward step for those who feel the 
 
 bliss 
 Of Faith as their most lofty yearnings 
 
 high: 
 Love hath so purified my being's core, 
 Meseems I scarcely should be startled, 
 
 even. 
 To find, some mom, that thou hadstgone 
 
 before ; 
 Since, with thy love, this knowledge too 
 
 was given, 
 Which each calm day doth strengthen 
 
 more and more. 
 That they who love are but one step from 
 
 Heaven. 
 
 I CANNOT think that thou shouldst pass 
 
 away, 
 Whose life to mine is an eternal law, 
 A piece of nature that can have no flaw, 
 A new and certain sunrise every day ; 
 But, if thou art to be another ray 
 About the Sun of Life, and art to live 
 Free from what part of thee was fugitive. 
 The debt of Love I will more fully pay. 
 Not downcast with the thought of thee 
 
 so high. 
 But rather raised to be a nobler man. 
 And more divine in my humanity. 
 As knowing that the waiting eyes which 
 
 scan 
 My life are lighted by a purer being. 
 And ask high, calm-browed deeds, with 
 
 it agreeing. 
 
 XL 
 
 Theeb never yet was flower fair in vain. 
 Let classic poets rhyme it as they will ; 
 The seasons toil that it may blow again, 
 Andsummer's heart doth feel its every ill; 
 Nor is a true soul ever born for naught ; 
 Wherever any such hath lived and died, 
 There hath been something for true free- 
 dom wrought. 
 Some bulwark levelled on the evil side : 
 Toil on, then. Greatness ! thou art in the 
 
 right. 
 However narrow souls may call thee 
 
 wrong; 
 Be as thou wouldst be in thine own clear 
 sight. 
 
22 
 
 EAELIEE POEMS. 
 
 And so thou shalt be in the world's ere- 
 long; 
 
 For worldlings cannot, struggle as they 
 may, 
 
 From man's great soul one great thought 
 hide away. 
 
 xn. 
 
 SUB PONDEEB CKESCIT. 
 
 The hope of Truth grows stronger, day 
 by day ; 
 
 I hear the soul of Man around me wak- 
 ing. 
 
 Like a great sea, its frozen fetters break- 
 ing. 
 
 And flinging up to heaven its sunut spray, 
 
 Tossing huge continents in scornful 
 play, 
 
 And crushing them, with din of grind- 
 ing thunder, 
 
 That makes old emptinesses siare in won- 
 der; 
 
 The memory of a glory passed away 
 
 Lingers in every heart, as, in the shell, 
 
 Eesounds the bygone freedom of the sea, 
 
 And every hour new signs of promise 
 tell. 
 
 That the great soul shall once again be 
 free. 
 
 For high, and yet more high, the mur- 
 murs swell 
 
 Of inward strife for truth and liberty. 
 
 xm. 
 
 Beloved, in the noisy city here. 
 The thought of thee can make all tur- 
 moil cease ; 
 Around my spirit, folds thy spirit clear 
 Its still, soft arms, and circles it with 
 
 peace ; 
 There is no room for any doubt or fear 
 In souls so overfilled with love's increase. 
 There is no memory of the bygone year 
 But growth in heart's and spirit's perfect 
 
 ease : 
 How hath our love, half nebulous at first, 
 Bounded itself into a full-orbed sun ! 
 How have our lives and wills (as haply 
 
 erst 
 They were, ere this forgetfulness begun) 
 Through aJl their earthly distances out- 
 burst, 
 A.nd melted, like two rays of light in 
 one! 
 
 XIV. 
 
 ON BEADING WOKOSWOKTH's SONNETS 
 IN DEFENCE OF, CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 
 
 As the broad ocean endlessly upheaveth, 
 With the majestic beating of hii heart. 
 The mighty tides, whereof its rightful 
 
 part 
 Each sea-wide bay and little weed re- 
 
 ceiveth. 
 So, through his soul who earnestly be- 
 
 lieveth. 
 
 Life from the universal Heart doth flow. 
 Whereby some eonquest of the eternal 
 
 Woe, 
 By instinct of God's nature, he achiev- 
 
 eth: 
 A fuller pulse of this all;powerfnl beauty 
 Into the poet's gulf-like heart doth tide. 
 And he more keenly feels the glorious 
 
 duty 
 Of serving Truth, despised and cnici- 
 
 fied, — 
 Happy, unknowing sect or creed, to rest. 
 And feel God flow forever through his 
 
 breast. 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE SAME CONTINUED. 
 
 Once hardly in a cycle blossometh 
 
 A flower-like soul ripe with the seeds of 
 
 song, 
 A spirit foreordained to cope with wrong. 
 Whose divine thoughts are natural as 
 
 breath. 
 Who the old Darkness thickly scattereth 
 With starry words, that shoot prevailing 
 
 light 
 Into the deeps, and wither, withtheblight 
 Of serene Truth, the coward heart ot 
 
 Death : 
 Woe, if such spirit thwart its errand high, 
 And mock with lies thelonging soul of 
 
 man! 
 Yet one age longer must true Culture lie. 
 Soothing her bitter fetters as she can. 
 Until new messages of love outstart 
 At the next beating of the infinite Heart 
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE SAME CONTINUED. 
 
 The love of all things springs from lov« 
 
 of one ; 
 Wider the soul's horizon hourly growaj 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 23 
 
 And over it with fuller glory flows 
 The sky-like spirit of God ; a hope begun 
 In doubt and darkness 'neath a fairer sun 
 Cometh to fruitage, if it be of Truth ; 
 And to the law of meekness, faith, and 
 
 ruth, 
 By inward sympathy, shall all be won : 
 This thou shouldst know, who, from the 
 
 painted feature 
 Of shifting Fashion, couldst thy brethren 
 
 turn 
 Pnto the love of ever-youthful Nature, 
 And of a beauty fadeless and eteme ; 
 And always 't is the saddest sight to see 
 An old man faithless in Humanity, 
 
 XVll. 
 
 THE SAME CONTINUED. 
 
 A POET cannot strive for despotism; 
 His harp falls shattered ; for it stUl must 
 
 be 
 The instinct of great spirits to be free, 
 And the sworn foes of cunning barba- 
 rism: 
 He who has deepest searched the wide 
 
 abysm 
 Of that life-giving Soul which men call 
 
 fate. 
 Knows that to put more faith in lies and 
 
 hate 
 Than truth and love is the true atheism : 
 Upward the soul forever turns her eyes : 
 The next hour always shames the hour 
 
 before ; 
 One beauty, at its highest, prophesies 
 That by whose side it shall seem mean 
 
 and poor 
 No Godlike thing knows aught of less 
 
 and less. 
 But widens to the boundless Perfectness. 
 
 xvm. 
 
 THE 'SAME CONTINUED. 
 
 Theebfoke think not the Past is wise 
 
 alone, 
 For Yesterday knows nothing of the Best, 
 And thou shalt love it only as the nest 
 Whence glory-winged things to Heaven 
 
 have flown : 
 To the great Soul only are all things 
 
 known ; 
 'Present and future are to her as past^ 
 
 While she in glorious madness doth fcrs- 
 
 cast 
 That perfect bud, which seems a flower 
 
 full-blown 
 To eaohnew Prophet, and yet always opes 
 Fuller and fuller with each day and hour, 
 Heartening the soul with odor of fresh 
 
 hopes, 
 And longings high, and gushings of wide 
 
 power. 
 Yet never is or shall be fully blown 
 Save in the forethought of the Eiemal 
 
 One. 
 
 XIX. 
 THE SAME CONCLUDED. 
 
 Far 'yond this narrow parapet of Time, 
 With eyes uplift, the poet's soul should 
 
 look 
 Into the Endless Promise, nor should 
 
 brook 
 One prying doubt to shake his faith sub- 
 lime; 
 To him the earth is ever in her prime 
 And dewiness of morning ; he can see 
 Good lying hid, from all eternity, 
 Within the teeming womb of sin and 
 
 crime ; 
 His soul should not be cramped by any bar, 
 His nobleness should be so Godlike high. 
 That his least deed is perfect as a star. 
 His common look majestic as the sky. 
 And all o'erflooded with a light from far, 
 Undimmed by clouds of weak mortality. 
 
 XX. 
 
 TO M. 0. S. 
 
 Mary, since first I knew thee, to this 
 
 hour, 
 My love hath deepened, with my wiser 
 
 sense 
 Of what in Woman is to reverence ; 
 Thy clear heart, fresh as e'er was forest- 
 
 flower. 
 Still opens more to me its beauteous 
 
 dower ; — 
 But let praise hush, — Love asks no evi- 
 dence 
 To prove itself well-placed ; we know not 
 
 whence 
 It gleans the straws that thatch its humble 
 
 bower : 
 We can but say we found it in the hearty 
 
24 
 
 EAEUEK POEMS. 
 
 Spring of all sweetest thoughts, arch foe 
 
 of blame, 
 Sower of flowers in the dusty mart, 
 Pure vestal of the poet's holy flame, — 
 This is enough, and we have done our 
 
 part 
 If we but keep it spotless as it came. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 OlTE love is not a fading, earthly flower : 
 Its winged seed dropped down from 
 
 Paradise, 
 And, nursed by day and night, by sun 
 
 and shower. 
 Doth momently to fresher beauty rise : 
 To us the leafless autumn is not bare. 
 Nor winter's rattling boughs lack lusty 
 
 green. 
 Our summer hearts make summer's ful- 
 ness, where 
 Ko leaf, or bud, or blossom may be seen : 
 For nature's life in love's deep life doth 
 
 lie, 
 Love, — whose forgetfulness is beauty's 
 
 death. 
 Whose mystic key these cells of Thou 
 
 and I 
 Into the infinite freedom openeth. 
 And makes the body's dark and narrow 
 
 The wide-flung leaves of Heaven's own 
 palace-gate. 
 
 xxn. 
 
 IN ABSENCE. 
 
 These rugged, -H-intry days I scarce 
 
 could bear, 
 Did I not know, that, in the early spring. 
 When wild March winds upon their 
 
 en'ands sing, 
 Thou wouldst return, bursting on this 
 
 still air, 
 Like those same winds, when, startled 
 
 from their lair, 
 They hunt up violets, and free swift 
 
 brooks 
 From icy cares, even as thy clear looks 
 Bid my heart bloom, and sing, and break 
 
 all care : 
 When drops with welcome rain the 
 
 April day, 
 My fli/i"ers shall find their April in thine 
 
 eyes. 
 
 Save there the rain in dreamy cloud* 
 
 doth stay. 
 As loath to fall out of those happy skies ; 
 Yet sure, my love, thou art most like to 
 
 May, 
 That comes with steady sun when April 
 
 dies. 
 
 xxm. 
 
 WENDELL PHILLIPS. 
 
 He stood upon the world's broad 
 
 threshold ; wide 
 The din of battle and of slaughter rose ; 
 He saw God stand upon the weaker side. 
 That sank in seeming loss before its foes : 
 Many there were who made great haste 
 
 and sold 
 Unto the cunning enemy their swords, 
 He scorned their gifts of fame, and 
 
 power, and gold. 
 And, underneath their soft and flowery 
 
 words. 
 Heard the cold serpent hiss ; therefore 
 
 he went 
 And humbly joined him to the weaker 
 
 part. 
 Fanatic named, and fool, yet well con« 
 
 tent 
 So he could be the nearer to God's heart, 
 And feel its solemn pulses sending blood 
 Through all the wide-spread veins ol 
 
 endless good. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 THE STEEET. 
 
 They pass me by like shadows, crowds 
 
 on crowds. 
 Dim ghosts of men, that hover to and fro. 
 Hugging their bodies round them like 
 
 thin shrouds 
 Wherein their souls were buried long ago : 
 They trampled on their youth, and faith, 
 
 and love, . 
 
 They oast their hope of human -kind away. 
 With Heaven's clear messages they madly 
 
 strove, 
 Andconquered, ^^andtheir spirits turned 
 
 to clay : 
 Lo ! how they wander round the world, 
 
 their grave, 
 Whose ever-gaping raaw by such is fed, 
 Gibbering at living men, and idly rave, 
 "We, only, truly live, but ye are dead." 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 25 
 
 Alas I poor fools, the anointed ej'e may 
 
 trace 
 A dead soul's epitaph in every fa oe I 
 
 XXV. 
 
 I GRIEVE not that ripe Knowledge takes 
 
 away 
 The charm that Nature to my childhood 
 
 wore, 
 For, with that insight, cometh, day by 
 
 day, 
 A greater bliss than w^onder was before ; 
 The real doth not clip the poet's wings, — 
 To win the secret of a weed's plain heart 
 Reveals some clew to spiritual things, 
 And stumbling guess becomes iirm-footed 
 
 art : 
 Flowers are not flowers unto the poet's 
 
 eyes. 
 Their beauty thrills him by an inward 
 
 sense ; 
 He knows that outward seemings are but 
 
 lies, 
 Or, at the most, but earthly shadows, 
 
 whence 
 The soul that looks within for truth may 
 
 guess 
 The presence of some wondrous heaven- 
 
 liness. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 TO J. K. OIDDINGS. 
 
 GiDDlNGS, far rougher names than thine 
 
 have grown 
 Smoother than honey on the lips of men ; 
 And thou shalt aye be honorably known, 
 As one who bravely used his tongue and 
 
 pen. 
 As best befits a freeman, — even for 
 
 those 
 To whom our Law's unblushing front 
 
 denies 
 A right to plead against the lifelong 
 
 woes 
 Which are the Negro's glimpse of Free- 
 dom's skies : 
 Fear nothing, and hope all things, as 
 
 the Right 
 Alone may do securely ; every hour 
 The thrones of Ignorance and ancient 
 
 Night 
 Lose somewhat of their long-usurped 
 
 power, 
 
 And Freedom's lightest word can make 
 
 them shiver 
 With a base dread that clings to them 
 
 forever. 
 
 xxvn. 
 
 I THOITGHT our lovc at full, but I did err ; 
 Joy's wreath drooped o'er mine eyes ; 1 
 
 could not see 
 That sorrow in our happy world must be 
 Love's deepest spokesman and inter- 
 preter : 
 But, as a mother feels her child first stir 
 Under her heart, so felt I instantly 
 Deep in my soul another bond to thee 
 Thrill with that life we saw depart from 
 
 her ; 
 mother of our angel child ! twice dear I 
 Death knits as weU as parts, and still, 
 
 I wis. 
 Her tender radiance shall infold us here. 
 Even as the light, borne up by inward 
 
 bliss. 
 Threads the void glooms of space with- 
 out a fear. 
 To print on farthest stars her pitying kiss. 
 
 L'ENVOI. 
 
 Whether my heart hath wiser grown 
 
 or not, 
 In these three years, since I to thee in- 
 scribed, 
 Mine own betrothed, the firstlings of my 
 
 muse, — 
 Poor windfalls of unripe experience. 
 Young buds plucked hastily by childish 
 
 hands 
 Not patient to await more full-blown 
 
 flowers, — 
 At least it hath seen more of life and 
 
 men. 
 And pondered more, and grown a shade 
 
 more sad ; 
 Yet with no loss of hope or settled trust 
 In the benignness of that Providence 
 Which shapes from out our elements 
 
 awry 
 The grace and order that we wonder at, 
 The mystic harmony of right and wrong, 
 Both working out His wisdom and our 
 
 good: 
 A trust, Beloved, chiefly learned of thee, 
 Who hast that gift of patient tenderness, 
 The instinctive wisdom ol a woman's 
 
 heart. 
 
26 
 
 EAELIEE POEMS. 
 
 They tell us that our land was made for 
 With its huge rivers and sky-piercing 
 
 Its sealike lakes and mighty cataracts, 
 Its forests vast and hoar, and prairies 
 
 wide. 
 And mounds that tell of wondrous tribes 
 
 extinct. 
 But Poesy springs not from rocks and 
 
 woods ; 
 Her womb and cradle are the human 
 
 heart, 
 And she can find a nobler theme for song 
 In the most loathsome man that blasts 
 
 the sight 
 Than in the broad expanse of sea and 
 
 shore 
 Between the frozen deserts of the poles. 
 All nations have their message from on 
 
 high. 
 Each the messiah of some central thought. 
 For the fulfilment and delight of Man : 
 One has to teach that labor is divine ; 
 Another Freedom ; and another Mind ; 
 And all, that God is open-eyed and just. 
 The happy centre and calm heart of all. 
 
 Are, then, our woods, our mountains, 
 , and our streams. 
 
 Needful to teach our poets how to sing? 
 O maiden rare, far other thoughts were 
 
 ours, 
 When we have sat by ocean's foaming 
 
 marge. 
 And watched the waves leap roaring on 
 
 the rocks, 
 Than young Leander and his Hero had. 
 Gazing from Sestos to the other shore. 
 The moon looks down and ocean worships 
 
 her. 
 Stars rise and set, and seasons come and go 
 Even as they did in Homer's elder time. 
 But we behold them not with Grecian 
 
 eyes: 
 Then they were types of beauty and of 
 
 strength, 
 But now of freedom, unconflned and pure, 
 Subject alone to Order's higher law. 
 What cares the Russian serf or Southern 
 
 slave 
 Though we should speak as man spake 
 
 never yet 
 Of gleaming Hudson's broad magnifi- 
 cence. 
 Or green Niagara's nevei -ending roar? 
 Our country hath a gospel of her own 
 
 To preach and practise before all the 
 
 world,— 
 The freedom and divinity of man. 
 The glorious claims of human brother- 
 hood, — 
 Which to pay nobly, as a freeman should, 
 Gains the sole wealth that will not fly 
 
 away,— 
 And the soul's fealty to none but God. 
 These are realities, which make the 
 
 shows 
 Of outward Nature, be they ne'er so 
 
 grand. 
 Seem small, and worthless, and contempt- 
 ible. 
 These are the mountain-summits for our 
 
 bards. 
 Which stretch far upward into heaven 
 
 itself. 
 And give such wide-spread and exulting 
 
 view 
 Of hope, and faith, and onward destiny, 
 That shrunk Parnassus to a molehill 
 
 dwindles. 
 Our new Atlantis, like a morning-star. 
 Silvers the mirk face of slow-yielding 
 
 Night, 
 The herald of a fuller truth than yet 
 Hath gleamed upon the upraised face of 
 
 Man 
 Since the earth glittered in her stainless 
 
 prime, — 
 Of a more glorious sunrise than of old 
 Drew wondrous melodies from Memnon 
 
 huge. 
 Yea, draws them still, though now he sit 
 
 waist-deep 
 In the ingulfing flood of whirling sand, 
 And look across the wastes of endless 
 
 gray. 
 Sole wreck, where once his hundred-gated 
 
 Thebes 
 Pained with her mighty hum the calm, 
 
 blue heaven : 
 Shall the duU stone pay grateful orisons, 
 And we till noonday bar the splendor 
 
 out. 
 Lest it reproach and chide our sluggard 
 
 hearts. 
 Warm-nestled in the down of Prejudice, 
 And be content, though clad with angel- 
 wings, 
 Close-clipped, to hop about from perch 
 
 to perch, 
 In paltry cages of dead men's dead 
 
 thoughts 1 
 0, rather, like the skylark, soar and singi 
 
A LEGEND OF BEITTANT. 
 
 27 
 
 And let onr gushing songs befit the dawn 
 And sunrise, and the yet unshaken dew 
 Brimming the chalice of each full-blown 
 
 hope, 
 Whose blithe front turns to greet the 
 
 growing day ! 
 Never had poets such high call before, 
 Never can poets hope for higher one. 
 And, if they be but faithful to their trust. 
 Earth will remember them with love and 
 
 ^ joy. 
 
 And 0, far better, God will not forget. 
 For he who settles Freedom's principles 
 Writes the death-warrant of all tyranny ; 
 Who speaks the truth stabs Falsehood to 
 
 the heart. 
 And his mere word makes despots tremble 
 
 more 
 Than ever Brutus with his dagger could. 
 Wait for no hints from waterfalls or 
 
 woods. 
 Nor dream that tales of red men, brute 
 
 and fierce, 
 Repay the finding of this Western World, 
 Or needed half the globe to give them 
 
 birth: 
 Spirit supreme of Freedom ! not for this 
 Did great Columbus tame his eagle soul 
 To jostle with the daws that perch in 
 
 courts ; 
 Not for this, friendless, on an unknown 
 
 sea. 
 Coping with mad waves and more muti- 
 nous spirits. 
 Battled he with the dreadful ache at 
 
 heart 
 Which tempts, with devilish subtleties 
 
 of doubt. 
 The hermit of that loneliest solitude. 
 The silent desert of a great New Thought ; 
 
 Though loud Niagara were to-day struck 
 
 dumb, 
 Yet would this cataract of boiling life 
 Bush plunging on and on to endless 
 
 And utter thunder till the world shall 
 
 cease, — 
 A thunder worthy of the poet's song. 
 And which alone can fill it with true life. 
 The high evangel to our country granted 
 Could make apostles, yea, with tongues 
 
 of fire. 
 Of hearts half-darkened back again to 
 
 clay ! 
 'T is the soul only that is national. 
 And he who pays true loyalty to that 
 Alone can claim the wreath of patriotism. 
 
 Beloved ! if I wander far and oft 
 From that which I believe, and feel, and 
 
 know, 
 Thou wilt forgive, not with a sorrowing 
 
 heart. 
 But with a strengthened hope of better 
 
 things ; 
 Knowing that I, though often blind and 
 
 false 
 To those I love, and 0, more false than 
 
 all 
 Unto myself, have been most true to thee, 
 And that whoso in one thing hath been 
 
 true 
 Can be as true in all. Therefore thy hope 
 Mayyet not prove unfruitful, and thy love 
 Meet, day by day, with less unworthy 
 
 thanks. 
 Whether, as now, we journey hand in 
 
 hand. 
 Or, parted in the body, yet are one 
 In spirit and the love of holy things. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 A LEGEND OF BEITTANT. 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 I. 
 
 pAlB as a summer dream was Margaret, — 
 Such dream as in a poet's soul might 
 
 start, 
 Musing of old loves while the moon doth 
 
 set : 
 
 Her hair was not more sunny than her 
 heart, 
 Though like a natural golden coro- 
 net 
 It circled her dear head with careless 
 art. 
 Mocking the sunshine, that would fain 
 
 have lent 
 To its frank grace a richer ornament. 
 
28 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 His loved one's eyes could poet ever 
 speak, 
 So kind, so dewy, and so deep were 
 hers, — 
 But, while he strives, the choicest phrase, 
 too weak. 
 Their glad reflection in his spirit blurs ; 
 As one may see a dream dissolve and 
 break 
 Out of his gi-aspwhen he to tell it stirs, 
 lake that sad Dryad doomed no more to 
 
 The mortal who revealed her loveliness. 
 
 She dwelt forever in a region hright, 
 Peopled with living fancies of her own, 
 
 Where naught could come but visions of 
 delight. 
 Far, far aloof from earth's eternal moan : 
 
 A summer cloud thrilled through with 
 rosy light. 
 Floating beneath the bine sky all alone, 
 
 Her spirit wandered by itself, and won 
 
 A golden edge from some unsetting sun. 
 
 The heart grows richer that its lot is 
 poor, 
 God blesses want with larger sympa- 
 thies, 
 Love enters gladliest at the humble door. 
 And makes the cot a palace with his 
 eyes; 
 So Margaret's heart a softer beauty wore. 
 And grew in gentleness and patience 
 wise, 
 For she was but a simple herdsman's 
 
 child, 
 A lily chance-sown in the rugged wild. 
 
 There was no beauty of the wood or field 
 But she itsfragrant bosom-secret knew. 
 Nor any but to her would freely yield 
 Some gi'ace that in her soul took root 
 and grew : 
 Nature to her shone as but now revealed. 
 All rosy-fresh with innocent morning 
 dew. 
 And looked into her heart with dim, sweet 
 
 eyes 
 That left it fuU of sylvan memories. 
 
 vr. 
 
 0, what a face was hers to brighten light, 
 And give back sunshine with an added 
 glow, 
 To wile each moment with a fresh de- 
 light, 
 And part of memory's best content- 
 ment grow I 
 0, how her voice, as with an inmate's 
 right. 
 Into the strangest heart would welcome 
 go, _ 
 And make it sweet, and ready to become 
 Of white and gracious thoughts the cho- 
 sen home ! 
 
 None looked upon her but he straight- 
 way thought 
 Of all the greenest depths of country 
 cheer. 
 And into each one's heart was freshly 
 brought 
 What was to him the sweetest time of 
 year, 
 So was her every look and motion fraught 
 With out-of-door delights and forest 
 lere ; 
 Not the first violet on a woodland lea 
 Seemed a more visible gift of Spring than 
 she. 
 
 Is love learned only out of poets' books ? 
 Is there not somewhat in the dropping 
 flood. 
 And in the mmneries of silent nooks. 
 And in the murmured longing of the 
 wood, 
 That could make Margaret dream of love- 
 lorn looks, 
 And stir a thrilling mystery in her 
 blood 
 More trembly secret than Aurora's tew 
 Shed in the bosom of an eglatere ? 
 
 Full many a sweet forewarning hath the 
 mind, 
 Full manya whispering of vague desire, 
 Ere comes the nature destined to unbind 
 Its virgin zone, and all its deeps in- 
 spire, — 
 Low stirrings in the leaves, before th« 
 wind 
 Wake all the green strings of the for- 
 est lyre. 
 
A LEGEND OF BRITTANY. 
 
 29 
 
 Faint heatings in tlie calyx, ere the rose 
 Its warm voluptuous breast doth aU un- 
 close. 
 
 Long in its dim recesses pines the spirit, 
 
 Wilderedand dark, despairinglyalone ; 
 
 Though many a shape of beauty wander 
 
 near it. 
 
 And many a wild and half-remembered 
 
 tone 
 
 Tremble from the divine abyss to cheer it. 
 
 Yet still it knows that there is only one 
 
 Before whom it can kneel and tribute 
 
 bring. 
 At once a happy vassal and a king. 
 
 To feel a want, yet scarce know what it 
 is, 
 To seek one nature that is always new, 
 Whose glance is warmer than another's 
 kiss. 
 Whom we can bare our inmost beauty 
 to, 
 Nor feel deserted afterwards, — for this 
 But with our destined co-mate we can 
 do, — 
 Such longing instinct fills the mighty 
 
 scope 
 Of the young soul with one mysterious 
 hope. 
 
 XII. 
 
 So Margaret's heart grew brimming with 
 the lore 
 Of love's enticing secrets ; and although 
 She had found none to cast it down be- 
 fore. 
 Yet oft to Fancy's chapel she would go 
 To pay her vows, and count the rosary 
 o'er 
 Of her love's promised graces : — haply 
 so 
 Miranda's hope had pictured Ferdinand 
 Long ere the gaunt wave tossed him on 
 the strand. 
 
 A new-made star that swims the lonely 
 gloom, 
 TJnwedded yet and longing for the sun. 
 Whose beams, the bride-gifts of the lav- 
 ish groom. 
 Blithely to crown the virgin planet 
 run, 
 Her being was, watching to see the bloom 
 
 Of love's fresh sunrise roofing one by 
 
 one 
 Its clouds with gold, a triuraph-aroh to be 
 For him who came to hold her heart in 
 
 fee. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Not far from Margaret's cottage dwelt a 
 
 knight 
 Of the proud Templars, a. sworn celi' 
 
 bate. 
 Whose heart in secret fed upon the light 
 And dew of her ripe beauty, through 
 
 the grate 
 Of his close vow catching what gleams 
 
 he might 
 Of the free heaven, and cursing all too 
 
 late 
 The cruel faith whose black walls hemmed 
 
 him in 
 And turned life's crowning bliss to deadly 
 
 sin. 
 
 For he had met her in the wood by chance, 
 And, having drunk her beauty's wil- 
 dering spell. 
 His heart shook like the pennon of a lance 
 That quivers in a breeze's sudden swell, 
 And thenceforth, in a close-infolded 
 trance. 
 From mistily golden deep to deep he 
 fell ; 
 Till earth did waver and fade far away 
 Beneath the hope in whose warm arms 
 he lay. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 A dark, proud man he was, whose half- 
 blown youth 
 Had shed its blossoms even in opening. 
 Leaving a few that with more winning 
 ruth 
 Trembling around grave manhood's 
 stem might cling, 
 More sad than cheery, making, in good 
 sooth, 
 Like the fringed gentian, a late autumij 
 spring : — 
 A twilight nature, braided light and 
 
 gloom, 
 A youth half-smiling by an open tomb. 
 
 Fair as an angel, who yet inly worr 
 A wrinkled heart foreboding bii ne»!> 
 fall; 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Who saw him alway wished to know him 
 
 more. 
 
 As if he were some fate's defiant thrall 
 
 And nursed a dreaded secret at his core ; 
 
 Little he loved, but power the most of 
 
 all. 
 
 And that he seemed to scorn, as one who 
 
 knew 
 By what foul paths men choose to crawl 
 I thereto. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 He had heen noble, but some great de- 
 ceit 
 Had turned his better instinct to a 
 
 vice: 
 He strove to think the world was all a 
 
 cheat. 
 That power and fame were cheap at 
 
 any price, 
 That the sure way of being shortly great 
 Was even to play life's game with 
 
 loaded dice, 
 Since he had tried the honest play and 
 
 found 
 That vice and virtue differed but in 
 
 sound. 
 
 SIX. 
 
 Yet Margaret's sight redeemed him for a 
 space 
 From his own thraldom; man could 
 never be 
 A hypocrite when first such maiden grace 
 
 Smiled in upon his heart ; the agony 
 Of wearing all day long a lying face 
 Fell lightly from him, and, a moment 
 free, 
 Erect with wakened faith his spirit stood 
 And scorned the weakness of his demon- 
 mood. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Jike a sweet wind-harp to bini was her 
 thought, 
 Which would not let the common air 
 come near. 
 Till from its dim enchantment it had 
 caught 
 A musical tenderness that brimmed his 
 ear 
 With sweetness more ethereal than aught 
 Save silver-dropping snatches that 
 whilere 
 Bained down from some sad angel's 
 
 faithful harp 
 To cool her fallen lover's anguish sharp. 
 
 Deep in the forest was a little dell 
 
 High overarched with the leafy sweej 
 
 Of a broad oak, through whose gnailed 
 
 roots there fell 
 
 A slender rill that sung itself to sleep 
 
 Where its continuous toil had scooped a 
 
 well 
 
 To please the fairy folk ; breathlessly 
 
 The stillness was, save when the dream- 
 ing brook 
 
 From its small urn a dimly murrnn 
 shook. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 The wooded hUls sloped upward all 
 around 
 With gradual rise, and made an even 
 rim. 
 So that it seemed a mighty casque un- 
 bound 
 From some huge Titan's brow to 
 lighten him, 
 ago, and left upon the ground, 
 Where the slow soil had mossed it to 
 the brim, 
 Till after countless centuries it grew 
 Into this dell, the haunt of noontide dew. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Dim vistas, sprinkled o'er with sun- 
 flecked green, 
 Wound through the thickset trunks 
 on every side, 
 And, toward the west, in fancy might be 
 seen 
 A gothic window in its blazing pride, 
 When the low sun, two arching elms 
 between. 
 Lit up the leaves beyond, which, 
 autumn-dyed 
 With lavish hues, would into splendor 
 
 start, 
 Shaming the labored panes of richest arte 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Here, leaning once against the old oak's 
 
 trunk, 
 Mordred, for such was the young 
 
 Templar's name, 
 Saw Margaret come ; unseen, the falcon 
 
 shrunk 
 From the meek dove ; sharp thrills of 
 
 tingling flame 
 Made him forget that he was vowed • 
 
 monk. 
 
A LEGEND OF BKITTANT. 
 
 31 
 
 And all the outworks of his pride o'er- 
 
 came : 
 Flooded he seemed with bright delicious 
 
 pain, 
 As if a star had burst within his brain. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Such power hath beauty and frank inno- 
 cence : 
 A flower bloomed forth, that sunshine 
 glad to bless. 
 
 Even from his love's long leafless stem ; 
 the sense 
 Of exile from Hope's happy realm grew 
 less, 
 
 And thoughts of childish peace, he knew 
 not whence. 
 Thronged round his heart with many 
 an old caress. 
 
 Melting the frost there into pearly 
 dew 
 
 That mirrored back his nature's morning- 
 blue. 
 
 She turned and saw him, but she felt no 
 dread, 
 Her purity, like adamantine mail. 
 Did so encircle her ; and yet her head 
 She drooped, and made her golden hair 
 her veil. 
 Through which a glow of rosiest lustre 
 spread. 
 Then faded, and anon she stood all 
 pale. 
 As snow o'er which a blush of northern- 
 light 
 Suddenly reddens, and as soon grows 
 white. 
 
 She thought of Tristrem and of Lanci- 
 lot. 
 Of all her dreams, and of kind fai- 
 ries' might, 
 And how that dell was deemed a haunted 
 spot. 
 Until there grew a mist before her 
 
 And where the present was she half 
 
 forgot, 
 Borne backward through the realms of 
 
 old delight, — 
 Then, starting up awake, she would have 
 
 gone. 
 Yet amiost wished it might not be 
 
 alone. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 How they went home together through 
 
 the wood. 
 And how all life seemed focussed into 
 
 one 
 Thought-dazzling spot that set ablaze 
 
 the blood. 
 What need to tell ? Fit language there 
 
 is none 
 For the heart's deepest things. Who 
 
 ever wooed 
 As in his boyish hope he would have 
 
 done? 
 For, when the soul is fullest, the hushed 
 
 tongue 
 Voicelessly trembles like a lute unstrung. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 But all things carry the heart's messages 
 And know it not, nor doth the heart 
 
 well know. 
 But Nature hath her will ; even as the 
 
 bees. 
 Blithe go-betweens, fly singing to and 
 
 fro 
 With the fruit-quickening pollen ; — 
 
 hard if these 
 Found not some all unthought-of way 
 
 to show 
 Their secret each to each ; and so they 
 
 did. 
 And one heart's flower-dust into the other 
 
 sUd. 
 
 Young hearts are free ; the selfish world 
 
 it is 
 That turns them miserly and cold as 
 
 stone. 
 And makes them clutch their fingers on 
 
 the bliss 
 Which but in giving truly is their 
 
 own ; — 
 She had no dreams of barter, asked not 
 
 his. 
 But gave hers freely as she would have 
 
 thrown 
 A rose to him, or as that rose gives forth 
 Its generous fragrance, thoughtless of its 
 
 worth. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Her summer nature felt a need to bless. 
 And a like longing to be blest again ; 
 
 So, from her sky-like spirit, gentleness 
 Dropt ever like a sunlit fall ol rain, 
 
 And his beneath drank in the bright 
 caress 
 
32 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 As thirstily as would a parched plain, 
 That long hath watched the showers of 
 
 sloping gray 
 For ever, ever, falling far away. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 How should she dream of ill? the heart 
 filled quite 
 With sunshine, like the shepherd's- 
 clook at noon, 
 Closesits leaves around its warm delight ; 
 Whate'er in life is harsh or out of tune 
 Is all shut out, no boding shade of blight 
 Can pierce the opiate ether of its 
 swoon : 
 Love is but blind as thoughtful justice is. 
 But naught can be so wanton-blind as 
 bliss. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 All beauty and all life he was to her ; 
 She questioned not his love, she only 
 knew 
 That she loved him, and not a pulse 
 could stir 
 In her whole frame but quivered 
 through and through 
 With this glad thought, and was a min- 
 ister 
 To do him fealty and service true, 
 Like golden ripples hasting to the land 
 To wreck their freight of sunshine on the 
 strand. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 dewy dawn of love ! oh hopes that are 
 Hung high, like the cliff-swallow's 
 perilous nest, 
 Most like to fall when fullest, and that jar 
 With every heavier billow ! unrest 
 Than balmiest deeps of quiet sweeter far ! 
 How did ye triumph now in Marga- 
 ret's breast. 
 Making it readier to shrink and start 
 Than quivering gold of the pond-lily's 
 heart ! 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Here let us pause : 0, would the soul 
 might ever 
 Achieve its immortality in youth, 
 When nothing yet hath damped its high 
 endeavor 
 After the starry energy of truth ! 
 Here let us pause, and for a moment sever 
 This gleam of sunshine from the sad 
 unruth 
 That sometime comes to all, for it is good 
 To lengthen to the last a sunny mood. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 As one who, from the sunshine and th« 
 green. 
 Enters the solid darkness of a cave, 
 Nor knows what precipice or pit unseen 
 May yawn before him with its sudden 
 grave. 
 And, with hushed breath, doth often for- 
 ward lean, 
 Dreaming he hears the plashing of a 
 wave 
 Dimly below, or feels a damper air 
 From out some dreary chasm, he knows 
 not where ; — 
 
 So, from the sunshine and the green of 
 love. 
 We enter on our story's darker part ; 
 And, though the horror of it well may 
 move 
 An impulse of repugnance in the heart, 
 Yet let us think, that, as there 's naught 
 above 
 The all-embracing atmosphere of Art, 
 So also there is naught that falls below 
 Her generous reach, though grimed with 
 guilt and woe. 
 
 Her •fittest triumph is to show that good 
 
 Lurks in the heart of evil evermore. 
 That love, though scorned, and outcast, 
 and withstood. 
 Can without end forgive, and yet have 
 store ; 
 God's love and man's are of the selfsame 
 blood. 
 And He can see that always at the door 
 Of foulest hearts the angel-nature yet 
 Knocks to return and cancel all its debt. 
 
 IV. 
 
 It ever is weak falsehood's destiny 
 That her thick mask turns crystal to 
 let thro\igh 
 The unsuspicious eyes of honesty ; 
 But Margaret's heart was too sincere 
 and true 
 Aught but plain truth and faithfulness 
 to see, 
 And Mordred's for a time a little grew 
 To be like hers, won by the mild reprooi 
 Of those kind eyes that kept all doubt 
 aloof. 
 
A LEGEND OF BEITTANY. 
 
 33 
 
 T. 
 
 Full oft they met, as dawn and twilight 
 meet 
 In northern climes ; she full of gi-ow- 
 ingday 
 As he of darkness, which before her feet 
 Shrank gradual, and faded quite away, 
 Soon to return; for power had made 
 love sweet 
 To him, and, when his will had gained 
 full sway, 
 The taste began to pall ; for never power 
 Can aate the hungry soul beyond anhour. 
 
 He fell as doth the tempter ever fall, 
 Even in the gaining of his loathsome 
 end; 
 God doth not work as man works, but 
 makes all 
 The crooked paths of ill to goodness 
 tend ; 
 Let him judge Margaret ! If to be the 
 thrall 
 Of love, and faith too generous to 
 defend 
 Its very life from him she loved, be sin. 
 What hope of grace may the seducer 
 win? 
 
 VII. 
 
 Grim-hearted world, that look'st with 
 Levite eyes 
 On those poor fallen by too much 
 faith in man. 
 She that upon thy freezing threshold lies. 
 Starved to more sinning by thy sav- 
 age ban, 
 Seeking that refuge because foulest vice 
 More godlike than thy virtue is, whose 
 span 
 Shuts out the wretched only, is more 
 
 free 
 To enter heaven than thon shalt ever be ! 
 
 Thou wilt not let her wash thy dainty 
 feet 
 "With such salt things as tears, or with 
 rude hair 
 Dry them, soft Pharisee, that sit'st at 
 meat 
 With him who made her such, and 
 speak'st him fair. 
 Leaving God's wandering lamb the while 
 to bleat 
 Unheeded, shivering in thp pitiless air : 
 3 
 
 Thou hast made prisoned virtue show 
 
 more wan 
 And haggard than a vice to look upon. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Now many months flew by, and weary 
 grew 
 To Margaret the sight of happy things; 
 Blight fell on all her flowers, instead of 
 dew; 
 Shut round her heart were now the 
 joyous wings 
 Wherewith it wont to soar ; yet not un- 
 true. 
 Though tempted much, her woman's 
 nature clings 
 To its first pure belief, and with sad 
 
 eyes 
 Looks backward o'er the gate of Paradise. 
 
 And so, though altered Mordred came 
 
 less oft. 
 And winter frowned where spring had 
 
 laughed before 
 In his strange eyes, yet half her sadness 
 
 doffed. 
 And in her silent patience loved him 
 
 more : 
 Sorrow had made her soft heart yet more 
 
 soft. 
 And a new life within her own she 
 
 bore 
 Which made her tenderer, as she felt it 
 
 move 
 Beneath her breast, a refuge for her love; 
 
 This babe, she thought, would surely 
 bring him back. 
 And be a bond forever them between; 
 Before its eyes the sullen tempest-rack 
 Would fade, and leave the face of 
 heaven serene ; 
 And love's return doth more than fill 
 the lack. 
 Which in his absence withered the 
 heart's green ; 
 And yet a dim foreboding still would 
 
 flit 
 Between her and her hope to darken it. 
 
 She could not figure forth a happy fate, 
 Even for this life from heaven so newly 
 come; 
 
34 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 The earth must needs he doubly desolate 
 To him scarce parted from a fairer 
 
 home: 
 Such hoding heavier on her bosom sate 
 One night, as, standing in the twilight 
 
 gloam, 
 She strained her eyes beyond that dizzy 
 
 verge 
 At whose foot faintly breaks the future's 
 
 surge, 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Poor little spirit ! naught but shame and 
 
 WO" 
 
 Nurse tHe sick heart whose lifeblood 
 nurses thine : 
 Yet not those only ; love hath triumphed 
 so, 
 As for thy sake makes sorrow more 
 divine : 
 And yet, though thou be pure, the world 
 is foe 
 To purity, if bom in such a shrine ; 
 And, having trampled it for struggling 
 
 thence, 
 Smiles to itself, and calls it Providence. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 As thus she mused, a shadow seemed to 
 
 rise 
 From out her thought, and turn to 
 
 dreariness 
 All blissful hopes and sunny memories, 
 And the quick blood would curdle up 
 
 and press 
 About her heart, which seemed to shut 
 
 its eyes 
 And hush itself, as who with shudder- 
 ing guess 
 Harks through the gloom and dreads e'en 
 
 now to feel 
 Through his hot breast the icy slide of 
 
 steel. 
 
 XV. 
 
 But, at that heart-beat, while in dread 
 
 she was. 
 In the low wind the honeysuckles 
 
 gleam, 
 A dewy thrill flits through the heavy 
 
 And, looking forth, she saw, as in a 
 dream, 
 Within the wood the moonlight's shad- 
 owy mass : 
 
 Night's starry heart yearning to hers 
 doth seem, 
 
 And the deep sky, full-hearted with the 
 
 moon. 
 Folds round her all the happiness of June. 
 
 What fear could face a heaven and earth 
 like this ? 
 What silveriest cloud could hang'neath 
 such a sky ? 
 A tide of wondrous and unwonted bliss 
 £oUs back through all her pulses sud> 
 denly, 
 As if some seraph, who had learned to 
 kiss 
 From the fair daughters of the world 
 gone by. 
 Had wedded so his fallen light with hers. 
 Such sweet, strange joy through soul and 
 body stirs. 
 
 Now seek we Mordred : he who did not 
 fear 
 The crime, yet fears the latent conse- 
 quence : 
 If it should reach a brother Templar's ear. 
 It haplymight be made a good pretence 
 To cheat him of the hope he held most 
 dear ; 
 For he had spared no thought's or 
 deed's expense, 
 That by and by might help his wish to 
 
 clip 
 Its darling bride, — the high grandmas- 
 tership. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 The apathy, ere a crime resolved is done. 
 Is scarce less dreadful than remorse 
 for crime ; 
 By no allurement can the soul be won 
 From brooding o'er the weary creep of 
 time: 
 Mordred stole forth into the happy sun. 
 Striving to hum a scrap of Breton 
 rhyme. 
 But the sky struck him speechless, and 
 
 he tried 
 In vain to summon up his callous pride. 
 
 In the courtyard a fountain leaped aiway, 
 
 A Triton blowing jewels through hi» 
 
 shell 
 
 Into the sunshine ; Mordred turned away. 
 
 Weary because the stone face did not 
 
 teU 
 
A LEGEND OF BRITTANY. 
 
 35 
 
 Of weariness, nor could he bear to-day, 
 Heartsick, to liear the patient sink 
 and swell 
 Of winds among the leaves, or golden bees 
 Drowsily humming in the orange-trees. 
 
 AH happy sights and sounds now came 
 to him 
 fjike a reproach : he wandered far and 
 wide, 
 Following the lead of his unquiet whim, 
 But still there went a something at his 
 side 
 That made the cool breeze hot, the sun- 
 shine dim ; 
 It would not flee, it could not be defied. 
 He could not see it, but he felt it there. 
 By the damp chill that crept among his 
 hair. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Day wore at last ; the evening-star arose. 
 And throbbing in the sky grew red and 
 set ; 
 Then with a guilty, wavering step he goes 
 To the hid nook where they so oft had 
 met 
 In happier season, for his heart well 
 knows 
 That he is sure to find poor Margaret 
 Watching and waiting there with love- 
 lorn breast 
 Around her young dream's rudely scat- 
 tered nest. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Why follow here that grim old chronicle 
 Which counts the dagger-strokq^ and 
 drops of blood ? 
 Enough that Margaret by his mad steel 
 fell. 
 Unmoved by murder from her trusting 
 mood. 
 Smiling on him as Heaven smiles on Hell, 
 With a sad love, remembering when 
 he stood 
 Not fallen yet, the unsealer of her heart. 
 Of all her holy dreams the holiest part. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 His crime complete, scarce knowing what 
 he did, 
 (So goes the tale,) beneath the altar 
 there 
 III the high church the stiffening corpse 
 he hid. 
 And then, to 'scape that suffocating air, 
 
 Like a scared ghoul out of the porch he 
 slid; 
 But his strained eyes saw blood-spots 
 everywhere. 
 
 And ghastly faces thrust themselves be- 
 tween 
 
 His soul and hopes of peace with blasting 
 mien. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 His heart went out within him like a 
 
 spark 
 Dropt in the sea; wherever he made 
 
 bold 
 To turn his eyes, he saw, all stiff and 
 
 stark, 
 Pale Margaret lying dead ; the lavish 
 
 gold 
 Of her loose hair seemed in the cloudy 
 
 dark 
 To spread a glory, and a thousand-fold 
 More strangely pale and beautiful she 
 
 ^ew: 
 Her silence stabbed hip conscience 
 
 through and through: 
 
 Or visions of past days, — a mother's eyes 
 That smiled down on the fair boy a> 
 her knee. 
 Whose happy upturned face to hers re- 
 plies, — 
 He saw sometimes : or Margaret mourn- 
 fully 
 Gazed on him full of doubt, as one who 
 tries 
 To crush belief that does love injury ; 
 Then she would wring her hands, but 
 
 soon again 
 Love's patience glimmered out through 
 cloudy pain. 
 
 Meanwhile he dared not go and steal away 
 Thesilent, dead-cold witness of his sin ; 
 He had not feared the life, but that dull { 
 clay, i; 
 
 Those open eyes that showed the death 
 within. 
 Would surely stare him mad ; yet all the 
 day 
 A dreadful impulse, whence his will 
 could win 
 No refuge, made him linger in the aisle, 
 Freezing with his wan look each greeting 
 smile. 
 
36 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Now, on the second day there was to be 
 A festival in chuich ; from far and near 
 Came flocking in the sunburnt peasantry, 
 And knights and dames with stately 
 antique cheer. 
 Blazing with pomp, as if all faerie 
 Had emptied her quaint halls, or, as 
 it were, 
 The illuminated marge of some old book. 
 While we were gazing, life and motion 
 took. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 When all were entered, and the roving 
 eyes 
 Of all were stayed, some upon faces 
 bright. 
 Some on the priests, some on the traceries 
 That decked the slumber of a marble 
 knight. 
 And all the rustlings over that arise 
 
 From recognizing tokens of delight. 
 When friendly glances meet, — then si- 
 lent ease 
 Spread o'er the multitude by slow de- 
 
 Then swelled the organ : up through 
 
 choir and nave 
 The music trembled with an inward 
 
 thriU 
 Of bliss at its own grandeur : wave on 
 
 wave 
 Its flood of mellow thunder rose, un- 
 til 
 The hushed air shivered with the throb 
 
 it gave. 
 Then, poising for a moment, it stood 
 
 still. 
 And sank and rose again, to burst in 
 
 spray 
 That wandered into silence far away. 
 
 Like to a mighty heart the music seemed. 
 That yearns with melodies it cannot 
 speak. 
 Until, in grand despair of what it 
 dreamed, 
 In the agony of eflbrt it doth break, 
 Yet triumphs breaking ; on it rushed and 
 
 streamed 
 ■ And wantoned in its might, as when 
 > a lake, 
 
 Long pent among the mountains, bursts 
 
 its walls 
 And in one crowding gush leaps forth 
 
 and falls. 
 
 Deeper and deeper shudders shook the 
 air, 
 As the huge bass kept gathering heav- 
 ily. 
 Like thunder when it rouses in its lair. 
 And with its hoarse growl shakes the 
 low-hung sky. 
 It grew up like a darkness everywhere. 
 
 Filling the vast cathedral ; —suddenly, 
 From the dense mass a boy's clear treble 
 
 broke 
 Like lightning, and the full-toned choir 
 awoke. 
 
 Through gorgeous windows shone the 
 sun aslant. 
 Brimming the church with gold and 
 purple mist, 
 Meet atmosphere to bosom that rich 
 chant. 
 Where fifty voices in one strand did 
 twist, 
 Their varicolored tones, and left no want 
 To the delighted soul, which sank 
 
 In the wai-m music cloud, while, far be- 
 low. 
 The organ heaved its surges to and fro. 
 
 As if t lark should suddenly drop dead 
 While the blue air yet trembled with 
 
 its song. 
 So snapped at once that music's golden 
 
 thread, 
 Struck by a nameless fear that leapt 
 
 along 
 From heart to heart, and like a shadow 
 
 spread 
 With instantaneous shiver through the 
 
 throng. 
 So that some glanced behind, as half 
 
 aware 
 A hideous shape of dread were standing 
 
 there. 
 
 As when a crowd of pale men gathel 
 round. 
 Watching an eddy in the leaden deep^ 
 
A LEGEND OF BRITTANY. 
 
 37 
 
 Prom which they deem the body of one 
 
 drowned 
 "Will be cast forth, from face to face 
 
 doth creep 
 An eager dread that holds all tongues 
 
 fast bound 
 Until the horror, with a ghastly leap. 
 Starts up, its dead blue arms stretched 
 
 aimlessly. 
 Heaved with the swinging of the care- 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 So in the faces of all these there grew, 
 As by one impulse, a dark, freezing 
 awe, 
 Which, with a fearful fascination drew 
 All eyes toward the altar ; damp and 
 raw 
 The air grow suddenly, and no man knew 
 Whether perchance his silent neighbor 
 saw 
 The dreadful thing which all were sure 
 
 would rise 
 To scare the strained lids wider from 
 their eyes. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 The incense trembled as it upward sent 
 Its slow, uncertain thread of wander- 
 ing blue. 
 As 't were the only living element 
 In all the church, so deep the stillness 
 grew; 
 It seemed one might have heard it, as it 
 went. 
 Give out an audible rustle,* curling 
 through 
 The midnight silence of that awe-struck 
 
 air. 
 More hushed than death, though so 
 much life was there. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 Nothing they saw, but a low voice was 
 heard 
 Threading the ominous silence of that 
 fear. 
 Gentle and terrorless as if a bird. 
 Wakened by some volcano's glare, 
 should cheer 
 The murk air with his song ; yet every 
 word 
 In the cathedral's farthest arch seemed 
 near. 
 
 As if it spoke to every one apart, 
 Like the clear voice of conscience in each 
 heart. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 " Rest, to weary hearts thou art most 
 dear ! 
 Silence, after life's bewildering din. 
 Thou art most welcome, whether m the 
 sear 
 Days of our age thou comest, or we 
 win 
 Thy poppy -wreath in youth 1 then where- 
 fore here 
 Linger I yet, once free to enter in 
 At that wished gate which gentle Death 
 
 doth ope. 
 Into the boundless realm of strength an<k 
 hope '! 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 "Think not in death my love could ever 
 
 cease ; 
 If thou wast false, more need there is 
 
 for me 
 StiU to be true ; that slumber were not 
 
 If 't were unvisited with ' dreams of 
 
 thee: 
 
 And thou hadst never heard such words 
 
 as these. 
 
 Save that in heaven I must forever be 
 
 Most comfortless and wretched, seeing 
 
 this 
 Our unbaptized babe shut out from bliss. 
 
 "This little spirit with imploring eyes 
 Wanders alone the dreary wild of 
 space ; 
 The shadow of his pain forever lies 
 Upon my soul in this new dwelling- 
 place ; 
 His loneliness makes me in Paradise 
 
 More lonely, and, unless I see his face. 
 Even here for grief could I lie down and 
 
 die, 
 Save for my curse of immortality. 
 
 "World after world he sees around him 
 swim 
 Crowded with happy souls, that take 
 no heed 
 Of the sad eyes that from the night's 
 faint rim 
 Gaze sick with longing on them as 
 they speed 
 
88 
 
 MISCEIXANJEOrrS POEMS. 
 
 With golden gates, that only shut on 
 
 him; 
 And shapes sometimes from Hell's 
 
 abysses freed 
 Flap darkly hy him, with enormous 
 
 sweep 
 Of wings that roughen wide the pitchy 
 
 deep. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 "I am a mother, — spirits do not shake 
 This much of earth from them, — and 
 I must pine 
 Till I can feel his little hands, and take 
 His weary head upon this heart of 
 mine; 
 And, might it he, full gladly for his 
 sake 
 Would I this solitude of bliss resign, 
 And be shut out of Heaven to dwell with 
 
 him 
 Forever in that silence drear and dim. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 "I strove to hush my soul, and would 
 
 not speak 
 At firat, for thy dear sake ; a woman's 
 
 love 
 Is mighty, but a mother's heart is weak, 
 And by its weakness overcomes; I 
 
 strove 
 To smother bitter thoughts with patience 
 
 meek. 
 But still in the abyss my soul would 
 
 rove. 
 Seeking my child, and drove me here to 
 
 claim 
 The rite that gives him peace in Christ's 
 
 dear name. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 "I sit and weep while blessed spirits 
 
 sing ; 
 j 1 can but long and pine the while they 
 ' praise. 
 
 And, leaning o'er the wall of Heaven, I 
 
 fling 
 My voice to where I deem my infant 
 
 strays. 
 Like a robbed bird that cries in vain to 
 
 bring 
 Her nestlings back beneath her wings' 
 
 embrace ; 
 But still he answers not, and I but know 
 
 XLT. 
 
 Then the pale priests, with ceremony due. 
 Baptized the child within its dreadful 
 tomb 
 
 Beneath that mother's heart, whose in- 
 stinct true 
 Star-like had battled down the triple 
 gloom 
 
 Of sorrow, love, and death : young maid- 
 ens, too, 
 Strewed the pale corpse with many a 
 milkwhite bloom. 
 
 And parted the bright hair, and on the 
 breast 
 
 Crossed the unconscious hands in sign 
 of rest. 
 
 Some said, that, when the priest had 
 sprinkled o'er 
 The consecrated drops, they seemed to 
 hear 
 A sigh, as of some heart from travail 
 sore 
 Beleased, and then two voices singing 
 clear, 
 Misereatur JJeus, more and more 
 Fading far upward, and their ghastly 
 fear 
 Fell from them with that sound, as 
 
 bodies fall 
 From souls upspringing to celestial hall. 
 
 PROMETHEtrS. 
 
 One after one the stars have risen and 
 
 set. 
 Sparkling upon the hoarfrost on my 
 
 chain : 
 The Bear, that prowled all night about the 
 
 fold 
 Of the North-star, hath shrunk into his 
 
 den. 
 Scared by the blithesome footsteps of the 
 
 Dawn, 
 Whose blushing smile floods all the 
 
 Orient ; 
 And now bright Lucifer grows less and 
 
 less. 
 Into the heaven's blue quiet deep-with- 
 drawn. 
 Sunless and starless all, the desert sky 
 Arches above me, empty as this heart 
 For ages hath been empty of all joy, 
 
 That Heaven and earth are both alike in Except to brood upon its silent hope, 
 woe. " J As o er its hope of day the sky doth now 
 
PEOMETHEUS. 
 
 39 
 
 All night have I heard voices : deeper yet 
 The deep low breathing of the silence 
 
 grew, 
 VThile all about, muffled in awe, there 
 
 stood 
 Shadows, or forms, or both, clear-felt at 
 
 heart. 
 But, when I turned to front them, far 
 
 along 
 Only ashudder through the midnightran, 
 And the dense stillness walled me closer 
 
 round. 
 But still I heard them wander up and 
 
 down 
 That solitude, and flappings of dusk 
 
 wings 
 Did mingle with them, whether of those 
 
 Let slip upon me once from Hades deep, 
 Or of yet direr torments, if such be, 
 I could but guess ; and then toward me 
 
 came 
 A shape as of a woman : very pale 
 It was, and calm ; its cold eyes did not 
 
 move, 
 And mine moved not, but only stared on 
 
 them. 
 Their fixed awe went through my brain 
 
 like ice ; 
 A skeleton hand seemed clutching at my 
 
 heart. 
 And a sharp chiU, as if a dank night fog 
 Suddenly closed me in, was all I felt ; 
 And then, methought, I heard a freezing 
 
 sigh, 
 A long, deep, shivering sigh, as from blue 
 
 lips 
 Stiffening in death, close to mine ear. I 
 
 thought 
 Some doom was close upon me, and I 
 
 looked 
 And saw the red moon through the heavy 
 
 mist, 
 Just setting, and it seemed as it were 
 
 falling. 
 Or reeling to its fall, so dim and dead 
 And palsy-struck it looked. Then all 
 
 sounds merged 
 Into the rising surges of the pines. 
 Which, leagues below me, clothing the 
 
 gaunt loins 
 Of ancient Caucasus with hairy strength. 
 Sent up a murmur in the morning wind, 
 Sad as the wail that from the populous 
 
 earth 
 All day and night to high Olympus soars, 
 Tit incense to thy wicked throne, Jove ! 
 
 Thy hated name is tossed once more in 
 
 scorn 
 From off my lips, for I will tell thy doom. 
 And are these tears ? Nay, do not tri- 
 umph, Jove I 
 They are wrung from me but by the ago- 
 
 nies 
 Of prophecy, like those sparse drops 
 
 which fall 
 From clouds in travail of the lightning, 
 
 when 
 The great wave of the storm high-curled 
 
 and black 
 Rolls steadily onward to its thunderous 
 
 break. 
 Why art thou made a god of, thou poop 
 
 type 
 Of anger, and revenge, and cunning force ? 
 True Power was never born of brutish 
 
 Strength, 
 Nor sweet Truth suckled at the shaggy 
 
 dugs 
 Of that old she-wolf. Are thy thunder- 
 bolts, 
 That quell the darkness for a space, so 
 
 strong 
 As the prevailing patience of meek Light, 
 Who, with the invincible tenderness of 
 
 peace. 
 Wins it to be a portion of herself ? 
 Why art thou made a god of, thou, who 
 
 hast 
 The never-sleeping terror at thy heart, 
 That birthright of all tyrants, worse to 
 
 bear 
 Than this thy' ravening bird on which I 
 
 smile ? 
 Thou swear'st to free me, if I will unfold 
 What kind of doom it is whose omen flits 
 Across thy heart, as o'er a troop of doves 
 The fearful shadow of the kite. What 
 
 need 
 To know that truth whose knowledge 
 
 cannot save ? 
 Evil its errand hath, as well as Good ; 
 When thine is finished, thou art known 
 
 no more : 
 There is a higher purity than thou. 
 And higher purity is greater strength ; 
 Thy nature is thy doom, at which thy 
 
 heart 
 Trembles behind the thick wall of thy 
 
 might. 
 Let man but hope, and thou art straight- 
 way chilled 
 With thought of that drear silence and 
 
 deep night 
 
40 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Which, like a dream, shall swallow thee 
 
 and thine : 
 Let man but will, and thou art god no 
 
 more. 
 More capable of ruin than the gold 
 And ivory that image thee on earth. 
 He who hurled down the monstrous 
 
 Titan-brood 
 Blinded with lightnings, with rough 
 
 thimders stunned, 
 Is weaker than a simple human thought. 
 My slender voice can shalce thee, as the 
 
 breeze. 
 That seems but apt to stir a maiden's hair, 
 Sways huge Oceanus from pole to pole ; 
 for I am still Prometheus, and foreknow 
 In my wise heart the end and doom of all. 
 
 Yes, I am still Prometheus, wiser grown 
 By years of solitude, — that holds apart 
 The past and future, giving the soul room 
 To search into itself, — and long com- 
 mune 
 With this eternal silence ; — more a god, 
 In my long-sulfering and strength to meet 
 With equal front the direst shafts of fate. 
 Than thou in thy faint-hearted despot- 
 ism, 
 Giii; with thy baby-toys of force and 
 
 wrath. 
 Yes, I am that Prometheus who brought 
 
 down 
 The light to man, which thou, in selfish 
 
 fear, 
 Hadst to thyself usurped, — his by sole 
 
 right, 
 For Man hath right to all save Tyr- 
 anny, — 
 And which shall free him yet from thy 
 
 frail throne. 
 Tyrants are but the spawn of Ignorance, 
 Begotten by the slaves they trample on, 
 Who, could they win a glimmer of the 
 
 light, 
 And see that Tyranny is always weak- 
 ness, 
 Or Fear with its own bosom ill at ease, 
 Would laugh away in scorn the sand- 
 wove chain 
 Which their own blindness feigned for 
 
 adamant. 
 Wrong ever builds on quicksands, but 
 
 the Right 
 To the firm centre lays its moveless tase. 
 The tyrant trembles, if the air but stir 
 The innocent ringlets of a child's free 
 hair, 
 
 And crouches, when the thought of some 
 
 great spirit. 
 With world-wide murmur, like a rising 
 
 gale, 
 Over men's hearts, as over standing com, 
 Eushes, and bends them to its own strong 
 
 wiH. 
 So shall some thought of mine yet circle 
 
 earth, 
 And puff away thy crumbling altars, 
 
 Jove! 
 
 And, wouldst thou know of my su- 
 preme revenge, 
 Poor tyrant, even now dethroned in 
 
 heart, 
 Realmless in soul, as tyrants ever are. 
 Listen ! and tell me if this bitter peak, 
 This never-glutted vulture, and these 
 
 chains 
 Shrink not before it ; for it shall befit 
 A sorrow-taught, unconquered Titan- 
 heart. 
 Men, when their death is on them, seem 
 
 to stand 
 On a precipitous crag that overhangs 
 The abyss of doom, and in that depth 
 
 to see. 
 As in a glass, the features dim and vast 
 Of things to come, the shadows, as if 
 
 seems, 
 Of what have been. Death ever fronti* 
 
 the wise ; 
 Not fearfully, but with clear promises 
 Of larger life, on whose broad vans up- 
 borne, 
 Their outlook widens, and they see be- 
 yond 
 The horizon of the Present and the Past, 
 Even to the very source and end of 
 
 things, 
 ^uch am I now : immortal woe hath 
 
 made 
 My heart a seer, and my soul a judge 
 Between the substance and the shadow 
 
 of Truth. 
 The sure supremeness of the Beautiful, 
 By all the martyrdoms made doubly sure 
 Of such as I am, this is my revenge, 
 Which of my wrongs builds a triumphal 
 
 arch. 
 Through which I see a sceptre and a 
 
 throne. 
 The pipings of glad shepherds on the 
 
 hills, 
 Tending the flocks no more to bleed ion 
 thee, — 
 
PROMETHEUS. 
 
 41 
 
 The songs of maidens pressing with white 
 
 feet 
 The vintage on thine altars poured no 
 
 more, — 
 The mui-murous bliss of lovers, under- 
 neath 
 Dim grapevine bowers, whose rosy 
 
 bunches press 
 Not half so closely their warm cheeks, 
 
 unpaled 
 By thoughts of thy brute lust, — the 
 
 hive-like hum 
 Of peaceful commonwealths, where sun- 
 burnt Toll 
 Reaps for itself the rich earth made its 
 
 own 
 By its own labor, lightened with glad 
 
 hymns 
 To an omnipotence which thy mad bolts 
 Would cope with as a spark with the 
 
 vast sea, — ■ 
 Even the spirit of free love and peace. 
 Duty's sure recompense through life and 
 
 death, — 
 These are such harvests as all master- 
 spirits 
 Beap, haply not on earth, but reap no 
 
 less 
 Because the sheaves are bound by hands 
 
 not theirs ; 
 These are the bloodless daggers where- 
 withal 
 They stab fallen tyrants, this their high 
 
 revenge : 
 For their best part of life on earth is 
 
 when, 
 Long after death, prisoned and pent no 
 
 more. 
 Their thoughts, their wild dreams even, 
 
 have become 
 Part of the necessary air men breathe : 
 When, like the moon, herself behind a 
 
 cloild. 
 They shed down light before us on life's 
 
 sea. 
 That cheers us to steer onward still in 
 
 hope. 
 Earth with her twining memories ivies 
 
 o'er 
 Their holy sepulchres ; the chainless sea. 
 In tempest or wide calm, repeats their 
 
 thoughts ; 
 The lightning and the thunder, all free 
 
 things. 
 Have legends of them for the ears of 
 
 men. 
 All other glories are as falling stars, 
 
 But universal Nature watches theirs : 
 Such strength is won by love of human 
 kind. 
 
 Not that I feel that hunger after fame. 
 Which souls of a half-greatness are beset 
 
 with; 
 But that the memory of noble deeds 
 Cries shame upon the idle and the vile, 
 And keeps the heart of Man forever up 
 To the heroic level of old time. 
 To be forgot at first is little pain 
 To a heart conscious of such high intent 
 As must be deathless on the lips of men ; 
 But, having been a name, to sink aud be 
 A something which the world can do 
 
 without. 
 Which, having been or not, would never 
 
 change 
 The lightest pulse of fate, — this is in. 
 
 deed 
 A cup of bitterness the worst to taste. 
 And this thy heart shall empty to the 
 
 dregs. 
 Endless despair shall be thy Caucasus, 
 And memory thy vulture ; thou wilt find 
 Oblivion far lonelier than this peak. 
 Behold thy destiny! Thou think'st it 
 
 much 
 That I should brave thee, miserable god ! 
 But I have braved a mightier than thou, 
 Even the tempting of this soaring heart. 
 Which might have made me, scarcely 
 
 less than thou, 
 A god among my brethren weak and 
 
 blind, 
 Scarce less than thou, a pitiable thing 
 To be down-trodden into darkness soon. 
 But now I am above thee, for thou art 
 The bungling workmanship of fear, the 
 
 block 
 That awes the swart Barbarian ; but I 
 Am what myself have made, — a nature 
 
 wise 
 With finding in itself the types of all. 
 With watching from the dim verge of 
 
 the time 
 What things to be are visible in the 
 
 gleams 
 Thrown forward on them from the lumi- 
 nous past. 
 Wise with the history of its own frail 
 
 heart. 
 With reverence and with sorrow, and 
 
 with love. 
 Broad as the world, for freedom and for 
 
42 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Thou and all streogth shall crumhle, 
 
 except Love, 
 By whom, and for whose glory, ye shall 
 
 cease: 
 And, when thou 'rt but a weary moaning 
 
 heard 
 From out the pitiless gloom of Chaos, I 
 Shall be a power and a memory, 
 A nanie to fright all tyrants with, a 
 
 light 
 Unsetting as the pole-star, a great voice 
 Heard in the breathless pauses of the 
 
 fight 
 By truth and freedom ever waged with 
 
 wrong, 
 Clear as a silver trumpet, to awake 
 Far echoes that from age to age live 
 
 on 
 In kindred spirits, giving them a sense 
 Of boundless power from boundless suf- 
 fering wrung ; 
 And many a glazing eye shall smile to 
 
 see 
 The memory of my tiiumph (for to meet 
 Wrong with endurance, and to overcome 
 The present with a heart that looks be- 
 yond. 
 Are triumph), like a prophet eagle, perch 
 Upon the sacred banner of the Right. 
 Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears 
 
 no seed. 
 And feeds the green earth with its swift 
 
 decay. 
 Leaving it richer for the growth of 
 
 truth; 
 But Good, once put in action or in 
 
 thought. 
 Like a strong oak, doth from its boughs 
 
 shed down 
 The ripe germs of a forest. Thou, weak 
 
 god, 
 Shalt fade and be forgotten ! but this 
 % soul, 
 
 T Fresh-living still in the serene abyss, 
 ' In every heaving shall partake, that 
 
 grows 
 From heart to heart among the sons of 
 
 men, — 
 As the ominous hum before the earth- 
 quake runs 
 Far thi-ough the ^gean from roused isle 
 
 to isle, — 
 Foreboding wreck to palaces and shrines, 
 And mighty rents in many a cavernous 
 
 error 
 That darkens the free light to man : — 
 
 This heart, 
 
 Unscarred by thy grim vulture, as the 
 
 truth 
 Grows but more lovely 'neath the beaka 
 
 and claws 
 Of Harpies blind that fain would soil it, 
 
 shall 
 In all the throbbing exultations share 
 That wait on freedom's triumphs, and 
 
 in all 
 The glorious agonies of martyr-spirits. 
 Sharp lightning-throes to split the jag- 
 ged clouds 
 That veil the future, showing them the 
 
 end, 
 Pain's thorny crown for constancy and 
 
 truth. 
 Girding the temples like a wreath of 
 
 stars. 
 This is a thought, that, like the fabled 
 
 laurel. 
 Makes my faith thunder-proof; and thy 
 
 dread bolts 
 Fall on me like the silent flakes of snow 
 On the hoar brows of aged Caucasus : 
 But, oh, thought tax more blissful, they 
 
 can rend 
 This cloud of flesh, and make my soul a 
 
 star I 
 
 Unleash thy crouching thunders now, 
 
 Jove ! 
 Free this high heart, which, a poor cap- 
 tive long, 
 Doth knock to be let forth, this heart 
 
 which still. 
 In its invincible manhood, overtops 
 Thypuny godship, as this mountain doth 
 The pines that moss its roots. 0, even 
 
 now. 
 While from my peak of suffering I look 
 
 down. 
 Beholding with a far-spread gush of 
 
 hope 
 The sunrise of that Beauty, in whose 
 
 face. 
 Shone all around with love, no man shall 
 
 look 
 But straightway like a god he be uplift 
 Unto the throne long empty for his sake, 
 And clearly oft foreshadowed in brave 
 
 dreams 
 By his free inward nature, which noi 
 
 thou. 
 Nor any anarch after thee, can bind 
 From working its great doom, — now, 
 
 now set free 
 This essence, not to die, but to become 
 
PROMETHEUS. 
 
 43 
 
 Part of that awful Presence wliich doth 
 
 haunt 
 The palaces of tyrants, to scare off, 
 With its grim eyes and fearful whisper- 
 ings 
 And hideous sense of utter loneliness, 
 AH hope of safety, all desire of peace, 
 111 but the loathed forefeeling of blank 
 
 death, — 
 Part of that spirit which doth ever brood 
 In patient calm on the unpilfered nest 
 Of man's deep heart, till mighty thoughts 
 
 grow fledged 
 To sail with darkening shadow o'er the 
 
 world, 
 Filling with dread such souls as dare not 
 
 trust 
 In the unfailing energy of Good, 
 Until they swoop, and their pale quarry 
 
 make 
 Of some o'erbloated wrong, — that spirit 
 
 which 
 Scatters great hopes in the seed-field of 
 
 man. 
 Like acorns among grain, to grow and be 
 A roof for freedom in all coming time ! 
 
 Bat no, this cannot be ; for ages yet, 
 In solitude unbroken, shall I hear 
 The angry Caspian to the Euxine shout, 
 And Euxine answer with a muffled roar. 
 On either side storming the giant walls 
 Of Caucasus with leagues of climbing 
 
 foam 
 (Less, from my height, than flakes of 
 
 downy snow). 
 That draw back baffled but to hurl again. 
 Snatched up in wrath and horrible tur- 
 moil. 
 Mountain on mountain, as the Titans 
 
 erst. 
 My brethren, scaling the high seat of 
 
 Jove, 
 Heared Pelion upon Ossa's shotdders 
 
 broad 
 In vain emprise. The moon will come 
 
 and go 
 With her monotonous vicissitude ; 
 Once beautiful, when I was free to walk 
 Among my fellows, and to interchange 
 The influence benign of loving eyes, 
 But now by aged use grown wearisome ; — 
 False thought ! most false ! for how could 
 
 I enduie 
 These crawling centuries of lonely woe 
 Unsbamed by Weak complaining, but for 
 
 thee, 
 
 Loneliest, save me, of all created things. 
 Mild-eyed Astarte, my best comforter. 
 With thy pale smi?e of sad benignity ? 
 
 Year after year will pass away and 
 
 seem 
 To me, in mine eternal agony, 
 But as the shadows of dumb summer 
 
 clouds. 
 Which I have watched so often darken- 
 ing o'er 
 The vast Sarmatian plain, league-wide 
 
 at first, 
 But, with still swiftness, lessening on 
 
 and on 
 Till cloud and shadow meet and mingle 
 
 where 
 The gray horizon fades into the sky. 
 Far, far to northward. Yes, for ages yet 
 Must I lie here upon my altar huge, 
 A sacrifice for man. Sorrow will be. 
 As it hath been, his portion; endless 
 
 doom. 
 While the immortal with the mortal 
 
 linked 
 Dreams of its wings and pines for what 
 
 it dreams. 
 With upward yearn unceasing. Bettei 
 
 so : 
 For wisdom is stem sorrow's pe*.ient 
 
 child, 
 And empire over self, and all the deep 
 Strong charities that make men seftjn 
 
 like gods ; 
 And love, that makes them be gods, 
 
 from her breasts 
 Sucks in the milk that makes mankind 
 
 one blood. 
 Good never comes unmixed, or so it 
 
 seems. 
 Having two faces, as some images 
 Are carved, of foolish gods; one face 
 
 is ill ; 
 But one heart lies beneath, and that is 
 
 good. 
 As are all hearts, when we explore theii 
 
 depths. 
 Therefore, great heart, bear up ! thou art 
 
 but type 
 Of what all lofty spirits endure, that fain 
 Would win men back to strength and 
 
 peace through love : 
 Each hath his lonely peak, and on each 
 
 heart 
 Envy, or scorn, or hatred, tears lifelong 
 With vulture beak ; yet the liigh soul i» 
 
 left; 
 
44 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 And faith, which is but hope grown 
 wise, and love 
 
 And patience which at last shall over- 
 come. 
 
 THE SHEPHERD OF KING ADMETUS. 
 
 There came a youth upon the earth. 
 
 Some thousand years ago, 
 Whose slender hands were nothing 
 
 worth. 
 Whether to plough, or reap, or sow. 
 
 Upon an empty tortoise-shell 
 
 He stretched some chords, and drew 
 Music that made men's bosoms swell 
 Fearless, or brimmed their eyes with 
 dew. 
 
 Then King Admetus, one who had 
 
 Pure taste by right divine, 
 Decreed his singing not too bad 
 To hear between the cups of wine : 
 
 And so, well pleased with being soothed 
 
 Into a sweet half-sleep. 
 Three times his kingly beard he smoothed. 
 And made him viceroy o'er his sheep. 
 
 His words were simple words enough, 
 
 And yet he used them so. 
 That what in other mouths was rough 
 In his seemed musical and low. 
 
 Men called him but a shiftless youth, 
 
 In whom no good they saw ; 
 And yet, unwittingly, in truth. 
 They made his careless words their law. 
 
 They knew not how he learned at all. 
 
 For idly, hour by hour. 
 He sat and watched the dead leaves fall. 
 Or mused upon a common flower. 
 
 It seemed the loveliness of things 
 
 Did teach him all their use, 
 For, in mere weeds, and stones, and 
 
 springs, 
 He found a healing power profuse. 
 
 Men granted that his speech was wise, 
 
 But, when a glance they caught 
 Of his slim gi'ace and woman's eyes. 
 They laughed, and called" him good-for- 
 naught. 
 
 Yet after he was dead and gone, 
 And e'en his memory (Um, 
 
 Earth seemed more sweet to live npon. 
 More fuU of love, because of him. 
 
 And day by day more holy grew 
 Each spot where he had trod. 
 Till after-poets only knew 
 Their first-bom brother as a god. '; 
 
 THE TOKEN. 
 
 It is a mere wild rosebud. 
 
 Quite sallow now, and dry, 
 Yet there 's something wondrous in it, 
 
 Some gleams of days gone by. 
 Dear sights and sounds that are to me 
 The very moons of memory, 
 And stir my heart's blood far below 
 Its short-lived waves of joy and woe. 
 
 Lips must fade and roses wither, 
 
 All sweet times be o'er ; 
 They only smile, and, murmuring 
 "Thither I" 
 
 Stay with us no more : 
 And yet ofttimes a look or smile. 
 Forgotten in a kiss's while. 
 Years after from the dark will start, 
 And flash across the trembling heart. 
 
 Thou hast given me many roses. 
 
 But never one, like this, 
 O'erfloods both sense and spirit 
 
 With such a deep, wild bliss ; 
 We must have instincts that glean up 
 Sparse drops of this life in the cup. 
 Whose taste shall give us all that we 
 Can prove of immortality. 
 
 Earth's stablest things are shadows. 
 
 And, in the life to come. 
 Haply some chance-saved trifle 
 
 May tell of this old home : 
 As now sometimes we seem to find. 
 In a dark crevice of the mind, 
 Some relic, which, king pondered o'er. 
 Hints faintly at a life before. 
 
 AS INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAB. 
 
 He spoke of Bums: men rude and 
 
 rough 
 Pressed round to hear the praise of one 
 Whose heart was made of manlv, simple 
 stuff, ^ 
 
 As homespun as their own. 
 
AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR. 
 
 45 
 
 And, when he read, they forward 
 
 leaned, 
 Drinking, with thirsty hearts and ears. 
 His brook-like songs whom glory never 
 weaned 
 From humble smiles and tears. 
 
 Slowly there grew a tender awe. 
 Sun-like, o'er faces brown and hard, 
 As if in him who read they felt and saw 
 Some presence of the bard. 
 
 It was a sight for sin and wrong 
 And slavish tyranny to see, 
 A sight to make our faith more pure and 
 strong 
 In high humanity. 
 
 I thought, these men will carry hence 
 Promptings their former life above, 
 And something of a finer reverence 
 For beauty, truth, and love. 
 
 God scatters love on every side 
 Freely among his children all. 
 And always hearts are lying open wide, 
 "Wherein some grains may falL 
 
 There is no wind but soweth seeds 
 Of a more, true and open life, 
 "Which burst, unlooked for, into high- 
 souled deeds, 
 "With wayside beauty rife. 
 
 We find within these souls of ours 
 Some wild germs of a higher birth, 
 ■Which in the poet's tropic heart bear 
 flowers 
 "Whose fragrance fills the earth. 
 
 "Within the hearts of all men lie 
 These promises of wider bliss. 
 Which blossom into hopes that cannot 
 die. 
 In sunny hours like this. 
 
 All that hath been majestical 
 In life or death, since time began, 
 Is native in the simple heart of all, 
 The angel heart of man. 
 
 And thus, among the untaught poor. 
 Great deeds and feelings find a home. 
 That cast in shadow all the golden lore 
 Of classic Greece and Borne. 
 
 O, mighty brother-soul of man, 
 "Where'er thou art, in low or high, 
 
 Thy skyey arches with exulting span 
 O'er-roof infinity ! 
 
 All thoughts that mould the age begin 
 Deep down within the primitive soul. 
 And from the many slowly upward win 
 To oue who grasps the whole : 
 
 In his wide brain the feeling deep 
 That struggled on the niany's tongue 
 Swells to a tide of thought, whose surges 
 leap 
 O'er the weak thrones of wrong. 
 
 All thought begins in feeling, — wide 
 In the great mass its base is hid. 
 And, narrowing up to thought, stands 
 glorified, 
 A moveless pyramid. 
 
 Nor is he far astray, who deems 
 That every hope, which rises and 
 grows broad 
 In the world's heart, by ordered impulse 
 streams 
 From the great heart of God. 
 
 God wills, man hopes : in common 
 
 souls 
 Hope is but vague and undefined. 
 Till from the poet's tongue the message 
 rolls 
 A blessing to his kind. 
 
 Kever did Poesy appear 
 So full of heaven to me, as when 
 I saw how it would pierce through pride 
 and fear 
 To the lives of coarsest men. 
 
 It may he glorious to write 
 Thoughts that shall glad the two or 
 three 
 High souls, like those far stars that 
 come in sight 
 Once in a century ; — 
 
 But better far it is to speak 
 One simple word, which now and then 
 Shall waken their free nature in the 
 weak 
 And friendless sons of men ; 
 
 To write some earnest verse or line. 
 Which, seeking not the praise of art, 
 Shall make a clearer faith and manhood 
 shine 
 In the untutored heart. 
 
16 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 He who doth this, in verse or prose. 
 May be forgotten in his day, 
 But surely shall be crowned at last with 
 those 
 Who live and speak for aye. 
 
 EHCECUS. 
 
 God sends his teachers unto every age, 
 To every clime, and every race of men, 
 With revelations fitted to their growth 
 And shape of mind, nor gives the realm 
 
 of Truth 
 Into the selfish rule of one sole race : 
 Therefore each form of worship that hath 
 
 swayed 
 The life of man, and given it to grasp 
 The master-key of knowledge, rever- 
 ence. 
 Infolds some germs of goodness and of 
 
 right ; 
 Else never had the eager soul, which 
 
 loathes 
 The slothful down of pampered igno- 
 rance, 
 Fn'ind in it even a moment's fitful rest. 
 
 There is an instinct in the human 
 
 heart 
 Which makes that all the fables it hath 
 
 coined. 
 To justify the reign of its belief 
 And strengthen it by beauty's right 
 
 divine. 
 Veil in their inner cells a mystic gift, 
 Which, like the hazel twig, in faithful 
 
 hands. 
 Points surely to the hidden springs of 
 
 truth. 
 For, as in nature naught is made in vain, 
 But all things have within their hull of 
 
 use 
 A wisdom and a meaning which may 
 
 Of spiritual secrets to the ear 
 Of spirit ; so, in whatsoe'er the heart 
 Hath fashioned for a solace to itself, 
 To make its inspirations suit its creed. 
 And from the niggard hands of falsehood 
 
 wring 
 Its needful food of truth, there ever is 
 A sympathy with Nature, which reveals. 
 Not less than her own works, pure 
 
 gleams of light 
 And earnest parables of inward lore. 
 Hear now this fairy legend of old Greece, 
 
 As full of gracious youth and beautj 
 
 still 
 As the immortal freshness of that grace 
 Carved for all ages on some Attic frieze. 
 
 A youth named Ehcecus, wandering in 
 
 the wood. 
 Saw an old oak just tremhUng to its fall, 
 And, feeling pity of so fair a tree. 
 He propped its gray trunk with admir- 
 ing care. 
 And with a thoughtless footstep loitered 
 
 on. 
 But, as he turned, he heard a voice be- 
 hind 
 That murmured " Ehcecus ! " 'T was as 
 
 if the leaves. 
 Stirred by a passing breath, had mur- 
 mured it. 
 And, while he paused bewildered, yet 
 
 again 
 It murmured " Ehcecus ! " softer than a 
 
 breeze. 
 He started and beheld with dizzy eyes 
 What seemed the substance of a happy 
 
 dream 
 Stand there before him, spreading a warm 
 
 glow 
 Within the green glooms of the shadowy 
 
 oak. 
 It seemed a woman's shape, yet far too 
 
 fair 
 To be a woman, and with eyes too meek 
 For any that were wont to mate with 
 
 gods. 
 All naked like a goddess stood she there, 
 And like a goddess all too beautiful 
 To feel the guilt-bom earthliness of 
 
 shame. 
 " Ehcecus, I am the Dryad of this tree," 
 Thus she began, dropping her low-toned 
 
 words 
 Serene, and full, and clear, as drops of 
 
 dew, 
 " And with it I am doomed to live and 
 
 die ; 
 The rain and sunshine are my caterers, 
 Nor have I other bliss than simple life; 
 Now ask me what thou wilt, that I can 
 
 give. 
 And with a thankful joy it shall be 
 
 thine." 
 
 Then Ehcecus, with a flutter at the 
 heart. 
 Yet, by the prompting of such beauty, 
 bold, 
 
KHCECUS. 
 
 47 
 
 Answered : " What is there that can 
 
 The endless craving of the soul but love ? 
 Give me thy love, or but the hope of that 
 Which must be evermore my nature's 
 
 goal." 
 After a little pause she said again, 
 But with a glimpse of sadness in her 
 
 tone, 
 " I give it, Ehoecus, though a perilous 
 
 gift; 
 An hour before the sunset meet me here." 
 ^d straightway there was nothing he 
 
 could see 
 But the green glooms beneath the shad- 
 owy oak. 
 And not a sound came to his straining 
 
 ears 
 But the low trickling rustle of the leaves, 
 And far away upon an emerald slope 
 The falter of an idle shepherd's pipe. 
 
 Now, in those days of simpleness and 
 
 faith. 
 Men did not think that happy things 
 
 were dreams 
 Because they overstepped the narrow 
 
 bourn 
 Of likelihood, but reverently deemed 
 Nothing too wondrous or too beautiful 
 To be the guerdon of a daring heart. 
 So Ehcecus made no doubt that he was 
 
 blest. 
 And all along unto the city's gate 
 Earth seemed to spring beneath him as 
 
 he walked, 
 The clear, broad sky looked bluer than 
 
 its wont, 
 And he could scarce believe Le had not 
 
 wings. 
 Such sunshine seemed to glitter through 
 
 his veins 
 Instead of blood, so light he felt and 
 
 strange. 
 
 Young Ehcecus had a faithful heart 
 enough, 
 
 But one thai; in the present dwelt too 
 much. 
 
 And, taking with blithj welcome what- 
 soe'er 
 
 Chance gave of joy, was wholly bound 
 in that. 
 
 Like the contented peasant of a vale, 
 
 Deemed it the w^orld, and never looked 
 beyond. 
 
 So, haply meeting in the afternoon 
 
 Some comrades who were playing at the 
 dice. 
 
 He joined them, and forgot all else be- 
 side. 
 
 The dice were rattling at the mer- 
 riest. 
 
 And Ehcecus, who had met but sorry 
 luck. 
 
 Just laughed in triumph at a happy 
 throw, 
 
 When through the room there hummed 
 a yellow bee 
 
 That buzzed about his ear with down- 
 dropped legs 
 
 As if to light. And Ehoecus laughed 
 and said. 
 
 Feeling how red and flushed he was with 
 loss, 
 
 " By Venus ! does he take me for a 
 rose ? " 
 
 And brushed him off with rough, im- 
 patient hand. 
 
 But still the bee came back, and thrice 
 again 
 
 Ehoecus did beat him off with growing 
 wrath. 
 
 Then through the window flew the 
 wounded bee. 
 
 And Ehcecus, tracking him with angrT 
 eyes. 
 
 Saw a sharp mountain-peak of Thessaly 
 
 Against the red disk of the setting sun , — • 
 
 And instantly the blood sank from his 
 heart, 
 
 As if its very walls had caved away. 
 
 Without a word he turned, and, rushing 
 * forth, 
 
 Ban madly through the city and the gate. 
 
 And o'erthe plain, which now the wood's 
 long shade, 
 
 By the low sun thrown forward broad 
 and dim. 
 
 Darkened wellnigh unto the city's walL 
 
 Quite spent and out of breath he 
 reached the tree. 
 
 And, listening fearfully, he heard once 
 more 
 
 The low voice murmur "Ehoecus ! " close 
 at hand : 
 
 Whereat he looked around him, but could 
 see 
 
 Naught but the deepening glooms be- 
 neath the oak. 
 
 Then sighed the voice, "0 Ehoecus I 
 nevermore 
 
48 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Shalt thou tehold tne or by day or night, 
 Me, who would fain have blessed thee 
 
 with a love 
 More ripe and bounteous than ever yet 
 Filled up with nectar any mortal heart : 
 But thou didst scorn my humble mes- 
 senger, 
 And sent'st him back to me with bruised 
 
 wings. 
 We spirits only show to gentle eyes. 
 We ever ask an undivided love. 
 And he who scorns the least of Nature's 
 
 works 
 Is thenceforth exiled and shut out from 
 
 all. 
 Farewell ! for thou canst never see me 
 more." 
 
 Then Ehoeous beat his breast, and 
 groaned aloud, 
 And cried, " Be pitiful ! forgive me yet 
 This once, and I shall never need it 
 
 more ! " 
 " Alas ! " the voice returned, " 't is thou 
 
 art blind. 
 Not I unmerciful ; I can forgive, 
 But have no skill to heal thy spirit's 
 
 eyes; 
 Only the soul hath power o'er itself." 
 With that again there murmured "Nev- 
 ermore! " 
 And Ehoecus after heard no other sound, 
 Except the rattling of the oak's crisp 
 
 leaves. 
 Like the long surf upon a distant shore, 
 Baking the sea-worn pebbles up and 
 
 down. 
 The night had gathered round him i o'er 
 
 the plain 
 The city sparkled with its thousand 
 
 lights, 
 And sounds of revel fell upon his ear 
 Harshly and like a curse; above, the sky. 
 With all its bright sublimity of stars. 
 Deepened, and on his forehead smote the 
 
 breeze : 
 Beauty was all around him and de- 
 light. 
 But from that eve he was alone on earth. 
 
 THE FALCON. 
 
 I KNOW a falcon swift and peerless 
 As e'er was cradled in the pine; 
 
 No bird had ever eye so fearless. 
 Or wing so strong as this of mine. 
 
 The winds not better love to pilot 
 A cloud with molten gold o'eiTun, 
 
 Than him,,a little burning islet, 
 A star above the coming sun. 
 
 For with a lark's heart he doth tower, 
 By a glorious upward instinct drawn ; 
 
 No bee nestles deeper in the flower 
 Than he in the bursting rose of dawn. 
 
 No harmless dove, no bird that singeth. 
 Shudders to see him overhead ; 
 
 The rush of his fierce swooping bringeth 
 To innocent hearts no thrill of dread. 
 
 Let fraud and wrong and baseness shiver, 
 For still between them and the sky 
 
 The falcon Truth hangs poised forever 
 And marks them with his vengeful eye. 
 
 TEIAL. 
 I. 
 
 Whether the idle prisoner through his 
 
 grate 
 Watches the waving of the grass-tuft 
 
 small. 
 Which, having colonized its rift i' th' 
 
 wall. 
 Accepts God's dole of good or evil fate, 
 And from the sky's just helmet draws its 
 
 lot 
 Daily of shower or sunshine, cold or 
 
 hot ; — 
 Whether the closer captive of a creed, 
 Cooped up from birth to grind out end- 
 less chaff, 
 Sees through his treadmill-bars the noon- 
 day laugh. 
 And feels in vain his crumpled pinions 
 
 breed ; — 
 Whether the Georgian slave lidk up and 
 
 mark. 
 With bellying sails puffed full, the tall 
 
 cloud-bark 
 Sink northward slowly, — thou alone 
 
 seem'st good, 
 Fair only thou, Freedom, whose desire 
 Can light in muddiest souls quick seeds 
 
 of fire. 
 And strain life's chords to the old heroic 
 
 mood. 
 
 Yet are there other gifts more fair than 
 
 thine. 
 Nor can I count him happiest who has 
 
 never 
 
A GLANCE BEHIND THE CURTAIN. 
 
 49 
 
 Been forced with his own hand his chains 
 
 to sever, 
 And for himself find out the way divine ; 
 He never knew the aspirar's glorious 
 
 pains, 
 He never earned the struggle's priceless 
 
 gains. 
 O, bloek by block, with sore and sharp 
 
 endeavor, 
 Lifelong we build these human natures 
 
 up 
 Into a temple fit for Freedom's shrine, 
 And Trial ever consecrates the cup 
 Wherefrom we pour her sacrificial wine. 
 
 A GLANCE BEHIND THE CURTAIN. 
 
 We see but half the causes of our deeds, 
 Seeking them wholly in the outer life. 
 And heedless of the encircling spirit- 
 world. 
 Which, though unseen, is felt, and sows 
 
 in us 
 All germs of pure and world-wide pur- 
 poses. 
 From one stage of our being to the next 
 We pass unconsciouso'er a slender bridge, 
 The momentary work of unseen hands, 
 Which crumbles down behind us ; look- 
 ing back. 
 We see the other shore, the gulf between, 
 And, marvelling how we won to where 
 
 we stand, 
 Content ourselves to call the builder 
 
 Chance. 
 We trace the wisdom to the apple's fall, 
 Not to the birth-throes of a mighty 
 
 Truth 
 Which, for long ages in blank Chaos 
 
 dumb, 
 ,Yet yearned to be incarnate, and had 
 ' found 
 
 At last a spirit meet to be the womb 
 From which it might be bom to bless 
 
 mankind, — 
 Not to the soul of Newton, ripe with all 
 The hoarded thoughtfulness of earnest 
 
 years, 
 And waiting but one ray of sunlight 
 
 more 
 To blossom fully. 
 
 But whence came that ray ? 
 We call our sorrows Destiny, but ought 
 Bather to name our high successes so. 
 Only the instincts of great souls are Fate, 
 
 And have predestined sway : all other 
 
 things, 
 Except by leave of us, could never be. 
 For Destiny is but the breath of God 
 Still moving in us, the last fragment left 
 Of our unfallen^nature, waking oft 
 Within our thought, to beckon us be- 
 yond 
 The narrow circle of the seen and known, 
 And always tending to a noble end, 
 As all things must that overrule the soul, 
 And for a space unseat the helmsman. 
 
 Will. 
 The fate of England and of freedom once 
 Seemed wavering in the heart of one 
 
 plain man : 
 One step of his, and the great dial-hand, 
 That marks the destined progress of the 
 
 world 
 In the eternal round from wisdom on 
 To higher wisdom, had been made to 
 
 pause 
 A hundred years. That step he did not 
 
 take, — 
 He knew not why, nor we, but only 
 
 God,— 
 And lived to make his simple oaken chair 
 More terrible and sobei-Iy august, 
 More full of majesty than any throne. 
 Before or after, of a British king. 
 
 Upon the pier stood two stem-visaged 
 
 men. 
 Looking to where a little craft lay 
 
 moored, 
 Swayed by the lazy current of the 
 
 Thames, 
 Which weltered by in muddy listlessness. 
 Grave men they were, and battlings of 
 
 fierce thought 
 Had trampled out all softness from their 
 
 brows. 
 And ploughed rough furrows there before 
 
 their time. 
 For other crop than such as homebred 
 
 Peace 
 Sows broadcast in the willing soil of 
 
 Youth. 
 Care, not of self, but for the common- 
 weal, 
 Had robbed their eyes of youth, and left 
 
 instead 
 A look of patient power and iron will, 
 And something fiercer, too, that gave 
 
 broad hint 
 Of the plain weapons girded at their 
 
 sides. 
 
50 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 The younger had an aspect of com- 
 
 maml, — 
 Not such na trickles down, a slander 
 
 stream, 
 In the shrunk channel of a great de- 
 scent. 
 But such as lies entowered in heart and 
 
 head, 
 And an ami prompt to do the 'hests of 
 
 botli. 
 His was a brow where gold were out of 
 
 place. 
 And yet it seemed right worthy of a 
 
 crown 
 (Though lie despised such), were it only 
 
 made 
 Of iron, or some serviceable stuff 
 That would have matched his brownly 
 
 rugged face. 
 The elder, although such he hardly 
 
 seemed 
 (Care makes so little of some five short 
 
 years). 
 Had a clear, honest face, whose rough- 
 
 liewn strength 
 Was mildened by the scholar's wiser 
 
 lieart 
 To sober courage, such as best befits 
 The unsullied temper of a well-taught 
 
 mind, 
 Yet so remained that one could plainly 
 
 guess 
 The hushed volcano smouldering under- 
 neath. 
 He spoke : the other, hearing, kept his 
 
 gaze 
 Still fixed, as on some problem in the 
 
 sky. 
 
 "0 Cromwell, we are fallen on evil 
 
 times ! 
 There was a day when England had wide 
 
 room 
 For honest men as well as foolish kings : 
 But now the uneasy stomach of the time 
 Turns squeamish at them Doth. There- 
 fore let us 
 Seek out that savage clime, where men 
 
 as yet 
 Are free : there sleeps the vessel on the 
 
 tide, 
 Her languid canvas drooping for the 
 
 wind ; 
 Give us but that, and what need we to 
 
 fear 
 Thia Order of the Council? The free 
 
 waves 
 
 Will not say No to please a wayward 
 
 king, 
 Nor will the winds turn traitors at his 
 
 beck: 
 All things are fitly cared for, and the 
 
 Lord 
 Will watch as kindly o'er the exodus 
 Of us his servants now, as in old time. 
 We have no cloud or fire, and haply we 
 May not pass dry-shod through the 
 
 ocean-stream ; 
 But, saved or lost, all things are in His 
 
 hand." 
 So spake he, and meantime the other 
 
 stood 
 With wide gray eyes still reading the 
 
 blank air. 
 As if upon the sky's blue wall he saw 
 Some mystic sentence, written by a hand. 
 Such as of old made pale the Assyrian 
 
 king. 
 Girt with his satraps in the blazing feast. 
 
 "Hampden! a moment since, my 
 
 purpose was 
 To fly with thee,— for I will call it 
 
 flight. 
 Nor flatter it with any smoother name, — 
 But something in me bids me not to go ; 
 And I am one, thou knowest, who, un- 
 moved 
 By what the weak deem omens, yet give 
 
 heed 
 And reverence due to whatsoe'er my soul 
 Whispers of warning to the inner ear. 
 Moreover, as I know that God brings 
 
 round 
 His purposes in ways undreamed by us, 
 And makes the wicked but his instru- 
 
 ments 
 To hasten their own swift and sudden fall, 
 I see the beauty of his providence 
 In the King's order : blind, he will not 
 
 let 
 His doom part from him, but must bill 
 
 it stay 
 As 'twere a cricket, whose enlivening 
 
 chirp 
 He loved to hear beneath his very hearth. 
 AVhy should we fly? Nay, why not 
 
 rather stay 
 And rear again our Zion's crumbled 
 
 walls, 
 Not, as of old the walls of Thebes were 
 
 built. 
 By minstrel twanging, but, U need 
 
 should be. 
 
A GLANCE BEHIND THE CUKTAIN. 
 
 51 
 
 With the more potent music of our 
 swords 1 
 
 Think'st thou that score of men beyond 
 the sea 
 
 Claim more God's care than all of Eng- 
 land here ? 
 
 No : when He moves His arm, it is to 
 aid 
 
 Whole peoples, heedless if a few be 
 crushed, 
 
 As some are ever, when the destiny 
 
 Of man takes one stride onward nearer 
 home. 
 
 Believe me, 't is the mass of men He 
 loves; 
 
 And, where there is most sorrow and 
 most want. 
 
 Where the high heart of man is trodden 
 down 
 
 The most, 't is not because He hides His 
 face 
 
 From them in wi'ath, as purblind teach- 
 ers prate : 
 
 Not so : there most is He, for there is 
 He 
 
 Most needed. Men who seek for Fate 
 abroad 
 
 Are not so near His heart as they who 
 dare 
 
 Frankly to face her where she faces them, 
 
 On their own threshold, where their souls 
 are stron" 
 
 To grapple with and throw her; as I 
 once. 
 
 Being yet a boy, did cast this puny king. 
 
 Who now has grown so dotard as to 
 deem 
 
 That he can wrestle with an angry realm. 
 
 And throw the brawned Antaeus of men's 
 rights. 
 
 No, Hampden ! they have half-way con- 
 quered Fate 
 
 Who go half-way to meet her, — as 
 will I. 
 
 Freedom hath yet a work for me to do ; 
 
 So speaks that inward voice which never 
 yet 
 
 Spake falsely, when ill urged the spirit on 
 
 To noble emprise for country and man- 
 kind. 
 
 And, for success, I ask no more than 
 this, — 
 
 To bear unflinching witness to the truth. 
 
 All true whole men succeed ; for what is 
 worth 
 
 Success's name, unless it be the thought. 
 
 The inward surety, to have carried out 
 
 A noble purpose to a noble end, 
 Although it be the gallows or the block ! 
 'T is only Falsehood that doth ever need 
 These outward shows of gain to bolster 
 
 her. 
 Be it we prove the weaker with our 
 
 swords ; 
 Truth only needs to be for once spoke 
 
 out, 
 And there's such music in her, such 
 
 strange rhythm. 
 As makes men's memories her joyous 
 
 slaves. 
 And clings around the soul, as the sky 
 
 clings 
 Bound the mute earth, forever beauti- 
 ful. 
 And, if o'erclouded, only to burst forth 
 More all-embracingly divine and clear : 
 Get but the truth once uttered, and 't is 
 
 like 
 A star new-bom, that drops into its 
 
 place, 
 And which, once circling in its placid 
 
 round. 
 Not all the tumult of the earth can 
 
 shake. 
 
 "What should we do in that small 
 colony 
 
 Of pinched fanatics, who would rathei 
 choose 
 
 Freedom to clip an inch more from their 
 hair. 
 
 Than the great chance of setting Eng- 
 land free ? 
 
 Not there, amid the stormy wilderness. 
 
 Should we leam wisdom ; or if learned, 
 what room 
 
 To put it into act, — else worse than 
 naught ? 
 
 We learn our souls more, tossing for an 
 hour 
 
 Upon this huge and ever-vexed sea 
 
 Of human thought, where kingdoms go 
 to wreck 
 
 Like fragile bubbles yonder in the 
 stream. 
 
 Than in a cycle of New England sloth, 
 
 Broke only by a petty Indian war. 
 
 Or quarrel for a letter more or less 
 
 In some hard word, which, spelt in 
 either way. 
 
 Not their most learned clerks can un- 
 derstand. 
 
 New times demand new measures and 
 new men; 
 
52 
 
 MISCELLANEOTTS POEMS. 
 
 The world advances, and in time out- 
 grows 
 The laws that in our fathers' day were 
 
 best; 
 And, doubtless, after us, some purer 
 
 scheme 
 "Win be shaped out by wiser men than 
 
 we, 
 Made wiser by the steady growth of 
 
 truth. 
 "We cannot hale Utopia on by force ; 
 But better, almost, be at work in sin. 
 Than in a brute inaction browse and 
 
 sleejp. 
 No man is bom into the world whose 
 
 work 
 la not bom with him ; there is always 
 
 work. 
 And tools to work withal, for those who 
 
 will; 
 And blessed are the horny hands of toil ! 
 The busy world shoves angrily aside 
 The man who stands with arms akimbo 
 
 set. 
 Until occasion tells him what to do ; 
 And he who waits to have his task 
 
 marked out 
 Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled. 
 Our time is one that calls for earnest 
 
 deeds : 
 Reason and Government, like two broad 
 
 seas. 
 Yearn for each other with outstretched 
 
 arms 
 Across this narrow isthmus of the throne, 
 And roll their white surf higher every 
 
 day. 
 One age moves onward, and the next 
 
 builds up 
 Cities and gorgeous palaces, where stood 
 The rude log -huts of those who tamed 
 
 the wild, 
 Bearing from out the forests they had 
 
 felled 
 The goodly framework of a fairer state ; 
 The builder's trowel and the settler's axe 
 Are seldom wielded by the selfsame 
 
 hand; 
 Ours is the harder task, yet not the less 
 Shall we receive the blessing for our toil 
 From the choice spirits of the aftertime. 
 My soul is not a palace of the past. 
 Where outworn creeds, like Rome's gray 
 
 senate, quake, 
 Heaiingafarthe Vandal'strumpet hoarse, 
 That shakes old systems with a thunder- 
 fit. 
 
 The time is ripe, and rotten-ripe, tat 
 
 change ; 
 Then let it come: I have no dread ol 
 
 what 
 Is called for by the instinct of mankind ; 
 Nor think I that God's world will fall 
 
 apart 
 Because we tear a parchment more or 
 
 less. 
 Truth is eternal, but her effluence. 
 With endless change, is fitted to the 
 
 hour; 
 Her mirror is turned forward to reflect 
 The promise of the future, not the past. 
 He who would win the name of tmly 
 
 great 
 Must understand his own age and the 
 
 next. 
 And make the present ready to fulfil 
 Its prophecy, and with the future merge 
 Gently and peacefully, as wave with 
 
 wave. 
 The future works out great men's pur- 
 poses ; 
 The present is enough for common souls, 
 Who, never looking forward, are indeed 
 Mere clay, wherein the footpiints of 
 
 their age 
 Are petrified forever ; better those 
 Who lead the blind old giant by the 
 
 hand 
 From out the pathless desert where he 
 
 gropes. 
 And set him onward in his darksome 
 
 way. 
 I do not fear to follow out the truth, 
 Albeit along the precipice's edge. 
 Let us spes^ plain : there is more force 
 
 in names 
 Than most men dream of ; and a lie may 
 
 Its throne a whole age longer, if it skulk 
 
 Behind the shield of some fair-seeming 
 name. 
 
 Let us call tyrants tyrants, and main- 
 tain 
 
 That only freedom comes by grace of 
 God, 
 
 And all that comes not by his grace must 
 fall; 
 
 For men in earnest have no time to waste 
 
 In patching fig-leaves for the naked 
 truth. 
 
 " I will have one more grapple witli 
 the man 
 Charles Stuart : whom the boy o'ercame^ 
 
A GLANCE BEHIND THE CUETAIN, 
 
 53 
 
 The man stands not in awe of. I, per- 
 chance, 
 Am one raised up hy the Almighty arm 
 To witness some great truth to all the 
 
 world. 
 Souls destined to o'erleap the vulgar lot, 
 And mould the world unto the scheme 
 
 of God, 
 Have a fore-consciousness of their high 
 
 doom. 
 As men are known to shiver at the heart 
 When the cold shadow of some coming 
 
 ill 
 Creeps slowly o'er their spirits unawares. 
 Hath Good less power of prophecy than 
 
 111? 
 How else could men whom God hath 
 
 called to sway 
 Earth's rudder, and to steer the bark of 
 
 Truth, 
 Beating against the tempest tow'rd her 
 
 port, 
 Bear all the mean and huzzing griev- 
 ances. 
 The petty martyrdoms, wherewith Sin 
 
 strives 
 To weary out the tethered hope of Faith? 
 The sneers, the unrecognizing look of 
 
 friends. 
 Who worship the dead corpse of old king 
 
 Custom, 
 Where it doth lie in state within the 
 
 Church, 
 Striving to cover up the mighty ocean 
 With a man's palm, and making even 
 
 the truth 
 Lie for them, holding up the glass re- 
 versed. 
 To make the hope of man seem farther 
 
 off? 
 My God ! when I read o'er the bitter lives 
 Of men whose eager hearts were quite 
 
 too great 
 To beat beneath the cramped mode of 
 
 the day. 
 And see them mocked at by the world 
 
 they love. 
 Haggling with prejudice for penny- 
 worths 
 Of that reform which their hard toil will 
 
 make 
 The common birthright of the age to 
 
 come, — 
 When 1 see this, spite of my faith in 
 
 God, 
 I marvel how their hearts bear up so 
 
 long; 
 
 Nor could they but for this same proph- 
 ecy. 
 This inward feeling of the glorious end. 
 
 "Deem me not fond; but in my 
 
 warmer youth. 
 Ere my heart's bloom was soiled and 
 
 brushed away, 
 I had great dreams of mighty things to 
 
 come; 
 Of conquest, whether by the sword or 
 
 pen 
 I knew not ; but some conquest I would 
 
 have, 
 Or else swift death : now wiser grown in 
 
 years, 
 I find youth's dreams are but the flut- 
 
 terings 
 Of those strong wings whereon the soul 
 
 shall soar 
 In after time to win a starry throne ; 
 And so I cherish them, for they were lots. 
 Which I, a boy, cast in the helm of 
 
 Fate. 
 ITow will I draw them, since a man's 
 
 right hand, 
 A right hand guided by an earnest soul, 
 With a true instinct, takes the golden 
 
 prize 
 From out a thousand blanks. What 
 
 men call luck 
 Is the prerogative of valiant souls. 
 The fealty life pays its rightful kings. 
 The helm is shalcing now, and I will stay 
 To pluck my lot forth ; it were sin to 
 
 flee!" 
 
 So they two turned together; one to 
 
 die, 
 Fighting for freedom on the bloody field ; 
 The other, far more happy, to become 
 A name earth wears forever next her 
 
 heart; 
 One of the few that have a right to rank 
 With the true Makers: for his spirit 
 
 wrought 
 Order from Chaos; proved that right 
 
 divine 
 Dwelt only in the excellence of truth ; 
 And far within old Darkness' hostile 
 
 lines 
 Advanced and pitched the shining tents 
 
 of Light. 
 ITor shall the grateful Muse forget to 
 
 tell, 
 That — not the least among his manj 
 
 claims 
 
54 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 To deathless honor — he was Milton's 
 
 friend, 
 A man not second among those who 
 
 lived 
 To show us that the poet's lyre demands 
 An arm of tougher sinew than the sword. 
 
 A CHIPPEWA LEGEND.* 
 
 a^yeii/a fi,£v [lOL /cat \iyeLV eariv raSe 
 oA^os d« criytfv, 
 
 ^ilscuYLUS, Prom. Vinct. 197, 198. 
 
 The old Chief, feeling now wellnigh 
 
 his end, 
 Called his two eldest children to his side. 
 And gave them.in few words, his parting 
 
 charge ! 
 " My son and daughter, me ye see no 
 
 more; 
 The happy hunting-grounds await me, 
 
 green 
 With change of spring and summer 
 
 through the year ; 
 But, for remembrance, after I am gone, 
 Be kind to little Sheemah for my sake : 
 Weakling he is and young, and knows 
 
 not yet 
 To set the trap, or draw the seasoned 
 
 bow; 
 Therefore of both your loves he hath 
 
 more need. 
 And he, who needeth love, to love hath 
 
 right; 
 It is not like our furs and stores of com, 
 Whereto we claim sole title by our toil, 
 But the Great Spirit plants it in our 
 
 hearts. 
 And waters it, and gives it sun, to be 
 The common stock and»heritage of all : 
 Therefore be kind to Sheemah, that 
 
 yourselves 
 May not be left deserted in your need." 
 
 Alone, beside a lake, their wigwam 
 
 stood, 
 Far from the other dwellings of their 
 
 tribe; 
 And, after many moons, the loneliness 
 Wearied the elder brother, and he said, 
 ■^ Why should I dwell here far from men, 
 
 shut out 
 From the free, natural joys that fit my 
 
 age? 
 
 J For the leading incidents in tliis tale I 
 Am indebted to the very valuable " Algic 
 Besearcheti "of Henry B. Schoolcraft. Eaii. 
 
 Lo, I am tall and strong, well skilled to 
 
 hunt. 
 Patient of toil and hunger, and not yet 
 Have seen the danger which I dared not 
 
 look 
 Full in the face; what hinders me to ba 
 A mighty Brave and Chief among my 
 
 kin?" 
 So, taking up his arrows and his bow, 
 As if to hunt, he journeyed swiftly on, 
 Until he gained the wigwams of has 
 
 tribe, 
 Where, choosing out a, bride, he soon 
 
 forgot, 
 In all the fret and bustle of new life, 
 The little Sheemah and his father's 
 
 charge. 
 
 Now when the sister found her brother 
 
 gone. 
 And that, for many days, he came not 
 
 back. 
 She wept for Sheemah more than fof 
 
 herself ; 
 For Love bides longest in a, woman's 
 
 heart, 
 And flutters many times before he flies. 
 And then doth perch so nearly, that a 
 
 word 
 May lure him back to his accustomed 
 
 nest; 
 And Duty lingers even when Love is 
 
 gone, 
 Oft looking out in hope of his return ; 
 And, after Duty hath been driven forth. 
 Then Selfishness creeps in the last of all. 
 Warming her lean hands at the lonely 
 
 hearth. 
 And crouching o'er the embers, to shut 
 
 out 
 Whatever paltry warmth and light ara 
 
 left, _ 
 With avaricious greed, from all beside. 
 So, for long months, the sister hunted 
 
 wide, 
 And cared for little Sheemah tenderly ; 
 But, daily more and more, the loneliness 
 Grew wearisome, and to herself she 
 
 sighed, 
 "Am I not fair? at least the glas.sy pool, 
 That hath no cause to flatter, tells me so; 
 But, 0, how flat and meaningless the tale, 
 Unless it tremble on a lover's tongue ! 
 Beauty hath no true glass, except it be 
 In the sweet privacy of loving eyes." 
 Thus deemed she idly, and forgot tlO 
 
 lore 
 
A CHIPPEWA LEGEND. 
 
 •55 
 
 Which she had learned of nature and the 
 
 woods, 
 That beauty's chief reward is to itself, 
 And that Love's mirror holds uo image 
 
 long 
 Save of the inward fairness, blurred and 
 
 lost 
 Unless kept clear and white by Duty's 
 
 care. 
 So she went forth and soxight the haunts 
 
 of men, 
 4ild, being wedded, in her household 
 
 cares. 
 Soon, like the elder brother, quite forgot 
 The little Sheemah and her father's 
 
 charge. 
 
 But Sheemah, left alone within the 
 
 lodge. 
 Waited and waited, with a shrinking 
 
 heart, 
 Thinkingeach rustle was his sister's step, 
 Till hope grew less and less, and then 
 
 went out, 
 And every sound was changed from hope 
 
 to fear. 
 Few sounds there were : — the dropping 
 
 of a nut. 
 The squirrel's chirrup, and the jay's 
 
 harsh scream. 
 Autumn's sad remnants of blithe Sum- 
 mer's cheer, 
 Heard at long intervals, seemed but to 
 
 make 
 The dreadful void of silence silenter. 
 Soon what small store his sister left wa.s 
 
 gone. 
 And, through the Autumn, he made shift 
 
 to live 
 On roots and berries, gathered in much 
 
 fear 
 Of wolves, whose ghastly howl he heard 
 
 ofttimes, 
 Hollow and hungry, at the dead nf night 
 But Winter came at last, and, when the 
 
 snow. 
 Thick-heaped for gleaming leagues o'er 
 
 hill and plain. 
 Spread its unbroken silence over all, 
 Made bold by hunger, he was fain to glean 
 (More sick at heart than Buth, and all 
 
 alone) 
 After the harvest of the merciless wolf, 
 Grim Boaz, who, sharp-ribbed and gaunt, 
 
 yet feared 
 A thin a; more wild and starving than 
 himself; 
 
 Till, by degrees, the wolf and he gi'ew 
 
 friends, 
 And shared together all the winter 
 
 through. 
 
 Late in the Spring, when all the ico 
 
 was gone. 
 The elder brother, fishing in the lake, 
 Upon whose edge his father's wigwam 
 
 stood, 
 Heard a liJw moaning noise upon the 
 
 shore : 
 Half like a child it seemed, half like a 
 
 wolf, 
 And straightway there was something in 
 
 his heart 
 That said, " It is thy brother Sheemah's 
 
 voice." 
 So, paddling swiftly to the bank, he saw. 
 Within a little thicket close at hand, 
 A child that seemed fast changing to a 
 
 wolf, 
 From the neck downward, gray with 
 
 shaggy hair, 
 That still crept on and upward as he 
 
 looked. 
 The face was turned away, but well he 
 
 knew 
 That it was Sheemah's, even his broth- 
 er's face. 
 Then with his trembling hands he hid 
 
 his eyes. 
 And bowed his head, so that he might 
 
 not see 
 The first look of his brother's eyes, and 
 
 cried, 
 " Sheemah ! my brother, speak to 
 
 me! 
 Dost thou not know me, that I am thy 
 
 brother? 
 Come to me, little Sheemah, thou shalt 
 
 dwell 
 With me henceforth, and know no care 
 
 or want!" 
 Sheemah was silent for a space, as if 
 'T were hard to summon up a human 
 
 voice, 
 And, when he spake, the voice was aa 
 
 a wolfs : 
 " I know thee not, nor art thou what 
 
 thou say'st ; 
 I have none other brethren than the 
 
 wolves, 
 And, till thy heart be changed from 
 
 what it is. 
 Thou art not worthv to be called their 
 
 kin." 
 
56 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Then groaned the other, with a choking 
 
 tongue, 
 "Alas! my heart is changed right bit- 
 terly; 
 'T is shrunk and parched within me 
 
 even now!" 
 And, looking upward fearfully, he saw 
 Only a wolf that shrank away and ran, 
 Ugly and fierce, to hide among the 
 woods. 
 
 STANZAS ON FEEEDOM. 
 
 Men ! whose hoast it is that ye 
 Come of fathers brave and free. 
 If there breathe on earth a slave, 
 Are ye truly free and brave ? 
 If ye do not feel the chain. 
 When it works a brother's pain, 
 Are ye not base slaves indeed. 
 Slaves unworthy to be freed ? 
 
 Women I who shall one day bear 
 Sons to breathe New England air. 
 If ye hear, without a blush, 
 Deeds to make the roused blood rush 
 Like red lava through your veins. 
 For your sisters now in chains, — 
 Answer ! are ye fit to be 
 Mothers of the brave and free ? 
 
 Is true Freedom but to break 
 Fetters for our own dear sake, 
 And, with leathern hearts, forget 
 That we owe mankind a debt ? 
 No ! true freedom is to share 
 All the chains our brothers wear. 
 And, with heart and hand, to be 
 Earnest to make others free ! 
 
 They are slaves who fear to speak 
 For the fallen and the weak ; 
 They are slaves who will not choose 
 Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, 
 Rather than in silence shrink 
 From the truth they needs must think ; 
 They are slaves who dare not be 
 In the right with two or three. 
 
 COLUMBTJS. 
 
 The cordage creaks and rattles in the 
 wind. 
 
 With whims of sudden hush; the reel- 
 ing sea 
 
 Now thumps like solid rock beneath the 
 
 stern, 
 Now leaps with clumsy wrath, strikes 
 
 short, and, falling 
 Crumbled to whispery foam, slips rus- 
 tling down 
 The broad backs of the waves, which 
 
 jostle and crowd 
 To fling themselves upon that unknown 
 
 shore. 
 Their used familiar since the dawn of 
 
 time, 
 "Whither this foredoomed life is guided 
 
 on 
 To sway on triumph's hushed, aspiring 
 
 poise 
 One glittering moment, then to break 
 
 fulfilled. 
 
 How lonely is the sea's perpetual swing, 
 
 The melancholy wash of endless waves. 
 
 The sigh of some grim monster unde> 
 scried. 
 
 Fear-painted on the canvas of the dark. 
 
 Shifting on his uneasy pillow of brine ! 
 
 Yet night brings more companions than 
 the day 
 
 To this drear waste ; new constellations 
 bum. 
 
 And fairer stars, with whose calm height 
 my soul 
 
 Finds nearer sympathy than with my 
 herd 
 
 Of earthen souls, whose vision's scanty 
 ring 
 
 Makes me its prisoner to beat my wings 
 
 Against the cold bars of their unbe- 
 lief, 
 
 Knowing in* vain my own free heaven 
 beyond. 
 
 God ! this world, so crammed with 
 eager life. 
 
 That comes and goes and wanders back 
 to silence 
 
 Like the idle wind, which yet man's 
 shaping mind 
 
 Can make his drudge to swell the long- 
 ing sails 
 
 Of highest endeavor; — this mad, un- 
 thrift world. 
 
 Which, every hour, throws life enough 
 away 
 
 To make her deserts kind and hospita- 
 ble, 
 
 Lets her great destinies be waved aside 
 
 By smooth, lip-reverent, formal infi. 
 dels. 
 
COLUMBUS. 
 
 57 
 
 Who weigh the God thoy not helieve 
 
 with gold, 
 And find no spot in Judas, save that he, 
 Driving a duller bargain than he ought. 
 Saddled his guild with too cheap prece- 
 dent. 
 Faith ! if thou art strong, thine oppo- 
 site 
 Is mighty also, and the dull fool's sneer 
 Hath ofttimes shot chill palsy through 
 
 the arm 
 Just lifted to achieve its crowning deed, 
 And made the firm-based heart, that 
 
 would have quailed 
 The rack or fagot, shudder like a leaf 
 Wrinkled with frost, and loose upon its 
 
 stem. 
 The wicked and the weak, by some dark 
 
 law. 
 Have a strange power to shut and rivet 
 
 down 
 Their own horizon round us, to unwing 
 Our heaven-aspiring visions, and to blur 
 With surly clouds the Future's gleam- 
 ing peaks. 
 Far seen across the brine of thankless 
 
 years. 
 If the chosen soul could never be alone 
 In deep mid-silence, open-doored to God, 
 No greatness ever had been dreamed or 
 
 done ; 
 Among dull hearts a prophet never 
 
 grew ; 
 The nurse of full-grown souls is soli- 
 tude. 
 
 The old world is effete ; there man with 
 
 man 
 Jostles, and, in the brawl for means to 
 
 live, 
 Life is trod underfoot, — Life, the one 
 
 block 
 Of marble that 'a vouchsafed wherefrom 
 
 to carve 
 Our great thoughts, white and godlike, 
 
 to shine down 
 The future. Life, the irredeemable block, 
 Which one o'er-hasty chisel-dint oft 
 
 mars, 
 Scanting our room to cut the features 
 
 out 
 Of our full hope, so forcing us to crown 
 With a mean head the perfect limbs, or 
 
 leave 
 The god's face glowing o'er a satyr's 
 
 trunk, 
 Failure's brief epitaph. 
 
 Yes, Europe's world 
 Keels on to judgment; there the com- 
 mon need. 
 Losing God's sacred use, to be a bond 
 'Twixt Me and Thee, sets each on» 
 
 scowlingly 
 O'er his own selfish hoard at bay; no 
 
 state. 
 Knit strongly with eternal fibres up 
 Of all men's separate and united weals, ' 
 Self-poised and sole as stars, yet one as 
 
 light. 
 Holds up a shape of large Humanity 
 To which by natural instinct every 
 
 man 
 Pays loyalty exulting, by which all 
 Mould their own lives, and feel their 
 
 pulses filled 
 With the red, fiery blood of the general 
 
 life. 
 Making them mighty in peace, as now 
 
 in war 
 They are, even in the flush of victory, 
 
 weak. 
 Conquering that manhood which should 
 
 them subdue. 
 And what gift bring I to this untried 
 
 world ? 
 Shall the same tragedy be played anew, 
 And the same lurid curtain di'op at 
 
 last 
 On one dread desolation, one fierce crash 
 Of that recoil which on its makers God 
 Lets Ignorance and Sin and Hunger 
 
 make. 
 Early or late? Or shall that common- 
 wealth 
 Whose potent unity and concentric force 
 Can draw these scattered joints and 
 
 parts of men 
 Into a whole ideal man once more, 
 Which sucks not from its limbs the life 
 
 away. 
 But sends it flood-tide and createa 
 
 itself 
 Over again in every citizen. 
 Be there built up ! For me, I have no 
 
 choice ; 
 I might turn back to other destinies. 
 For one sincere key opes all Fortune's 
 
 doors; 
 But whoso answers not God's earliest 
 
 call 
 Forfeits or dulls that faculty supreme 
 Of lying open to his crenius 
 Which makes the wise heart certain of 
 
 its ends. 
 
E8 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS P0EM3. 
 
 Hero am I ; for what end God knows, 
 
 not I ; 
 Westward still points tha inexorable 
 
 soul: 
 Here am 1, with no friend but the sad 
 
 sea, 
 The beating heart of this great enter- 
 prise. 
 Which, without me, would stiffen in 
 
 swift death ; 
 This have I mused on, since mine eye 
 
 could first 
 Among the stars distinguish and with 
 
 joy 
 Rest on that God-fed Pharos of the 
 
 north. 
 On some blue promontory of heaven 
 
 lighted 
 That juts far out into the upper sea ; 
 To this one hope my heart hath clung for 
 
 years, 
 As would a foundling to the talisman 
 Hung round his nec£ by hands he knew 
 
 not whose ; 
 A poor, vile thing and dross to all beside. 
 Yet he therein can feel a virtue left 
 By the sad pressure of a mother's hand, 
 And unto him it still is tremulous 
 With palpitating haste and wet with 
 
 tears. 
 The key to him of hope and humanness. 
 The coarse shell of life's pearl. Expect- 
 ancy. 
 This hope hath been to me for love and 
 
 fame. 
 Hath made me wholly lonely on the 
 
 earth. 
 Building me up as in a thick-ribbed 
 
 tower, 
 Wherewith enwalled my watching spirit 
 
 burned, 
 Conquering its little island from the 
 
 Dark, 
 Sole as a scholar's lamp, and heard men's 
 
 In the far hurry of the outward world, 
 
 Pass dimly forth and back, sounds heard 
 in dream. 
 
 As Ganymede by the eagle was snatched 
 up 
 
 From the gross sod to be Jove's cup- 
 bearer, 
 
 So -was I lifted by ray great design : 
 
 And who hath trod Olympus, from his 
 eye 
 
 Fades not that broader outlook of the 
 gods; 
 
 His life's low valleys overbrow earth'* 
 
 clouds, 
 And that Olympian spectre of the past 
 Looms towering up in sovereign memory, 
 Beckoning his soul from meaner heights 
 
 of doom. 
 Had but the shadow of the Thunderer's 
 
 bird. 
 Flashing athwart my spirit, made of me 
 A swift-betraying vision's Ganymede, 
 Yet to have greatly dreamed precludes 
 
 low ends ; 
 Great days have ever such a morning-red, 
 On such a base great futures are built up, 
 And aspiration, though not put in act. 
 Comes back to ask its plighted troth 
 
 again. 
 Still watches round its grave the unlaid 
 
 ghost 
 Of a dead virtue, and makes other hopes, 
 Save that implacable one, seem thin and 
 
 bleak 
 As shadows of bare trees upon the snow, 
 Bound freezing there by the unpitying 
 
 While other youths perplexed their man- 
 dolins. 
 Praying that Thetis would her fingers 
 
 twine 
 In the loose glories of her lover's hair, 
 And wile another kiss to keep back day, 
 I, stretched beneath the many-centuried 
 
 shade 
 Of some writhed oak, the wood's Lao- 
 
 cobn. 
 Did of my hope a dryad mistress make, 
 Whom I would woo to meet me privily. 
 Or underneath the stars, or when the 
 
 moon 
 Flecked all the forest floor with scattered 
 pearls. 
 
 days whose memory tames to fawning 
 
 down 
 The surly fell of Ocean's bristled neck ! 
 
 1 know not when this hope enthralled 
 
 me first. 
 But from my boyhood up I loved to hear 
 The tall pine-forests of the Apennine 
 Murmur their hoary legends of the sea. 
 Which hearing, I in vision clear beheld 
 The sudden dark of tropic night shut 
 
 down 
 O'er the huge whisper of great watery 
 
 wastes, 
 The while a pair of herons trailingly. 
 
COLUMBUS. 
 
 £9 
 
 Flapped inland, where some league-wide 
 
 jiver hurled 
 The yellow spoil of unconjectured realms 
 Far through a gulfs green silence, never 
 
 scarred 
 By any but the North-mnd's hurrying 
 
 heels. 
 And not the pines alone ; all sights and 
 
 sounds 
 To my world-seeking heart paid fealty, 
 And catered for it as the Cretan bees 
 Brought honey to the baby Jupiter, 
 "Who in his soft hand crushed a violet. 
 Godlike foremusing the rough thunder's 
 
 ?ripe; 
 Then did I entertain the poet's song, 
 My great Idea's guest, and, passing o'er 
 That iron bridge the Tuscan built to hell, 
 I heard Ulysses tell of mountain-chains 
 Whose adamantine links, his manacles. 
 The western main shook growling, and 
 
 still gnawed. 
 I brooded on the wise Athenian's tale 
 Of happy Atlantis, and heard Bjbrue's 
 
 keel 
 Crunch the gray pebbles of the Vinland 
 
 shore : 
 I listened, musing, to the prophecy 
 Of Nero's tutor-victim ; lo, the birds 
 Sing darkling, conscious of the climbing 
 
 dawn. 
 And I believed the poets ; it is they 
 Who utter wisdom from the central deep. 
 And, listening to the inner flow of things, 
 Speak to the age out of eternity. 
 
 Ah me I old hermits sought for solitude 
 In caves and desert places of the earth. 
 Where their own heart-beat was the only 
 
 stir 
 Of living thing that comforted the year ; 
 But the bald pillar-top of Simeon, 
 In midnight's blankest waste, were pop- 
 ulous, 
 Matched with the isolation drear and 
 
 deep 
 Of him who pines among the swarm of 
 
 men. 
 At once a new thought's king and pris- 
 oner. 
 Feeling the truer life within his life, 
 The fountain of his spirit's prophecy. 
 Sinking awayand wasting, drop by drop, 
 In the ungrateful sands of sceptic ears. 
 He in the palace-aisles of untrod woods 
 Doth walk a king; for him the pent-up 
 
 cell 
 Widens beyond the circles of the stars. 
 
 And all the sceptred spirits of the past 
 Come thronging in to greet him as their 
 
 peer; 
 But in the market-place's glare and 
 
 throng 
 He sits apart, an exile, and his brow 
 Aches with the mocking memory of its 
 
 crown. 
 Yet to the spirit select there is no choice ; 
 He cannot say. This will I do, or that, 
 For the cheap means putting Heaven's 
 
 ends in pawn. 
 And bartering his bleak rocks, the free- 
 hold stern 
 Of destiny's first-bom, for smoother fields 
 That yield no crop of self-denyiug will ; 
 A hand is stretched to him from out the 
 
 dark. 
 Which grasping without question, he is 
 
 led 
 Where there is work that he must do for 
 
 God. 
 The trial still is the strength's comple- 
 ment, 
 And the uncertain, dizzy path that scales 
 The sheer heights of supremest purposes 
 Is steeper to the angel than the child. 
 Chances have law's as fixed as planets 
 
 have. 
 And disappointment's dry and bitter 
 
 root. 
 Envy's harsh berries, and the choking 
 
 pool 
 Of the world's scorn, are the right 
 
 mother-milk 
 To the tough hearts that pioneer their 
 
 kind. 
 And break a pathway to those unknown 
 
 realms 
 That in the earth's broad sliadow lie 
 
 enthralled ; 
 Endurance is the crowning quality. 
 And patience all the passion of great 
 
 hearts ; 
 These are their stay, and when the leaden 
 
 world 
 Sets its hard face against their fateful 
 
 thought, 
 And brute strength, like the Gaulish 
 
 conqueror, 
 Clangs his huge glaire down in the other 
 
 scale, 
 The inspired soul but flings his patience 
 
 in, 
 And slowly that outweighs the ponAerous 
 
 globe, — 
 One faith against a whole earth's un- 
 
 beUe>« 
 
60 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 One soul against the flesh of all man- 
 kind. 
 Thus ever seems it when my soul can hear 
 The voice that errs not ; then my tri- 
 umph gleams, 
 O'er the blank ocean beckoning, and all 
 
 night 
 My heart flies on before me as I sail ; 
 Far on I see my lifelong enterprise. 
 That rose like Ganges mid the freezing 
 
 snows 
 Of a world's solitude, sweep broadening 
 
 down, 
 And, gathering to itself a thousand 
 
 streams. 
 Grow sacred ere it mingle with the sea ; 
 I see the ungated wall of chaos old, 
 With blocks Cyclopean hewn of solid 
 
 night. 
 Fade Uke a wreath of unretuming mist 
 Before the irreversible feet of light ; — 
 And lo, with what clear omen in the east 
 On day's gray threshold stands the eager 
 
 dawn. 
 Like young Leander rosy from the sea 
 Glowing at Hero's lattice I 
 
 One day more 
 These muttering shoalbrains leave the 
 
 helm to me : 
 God, let me not in their dull ooze be 
 
 stranded ; 
 Let not this one frail bark, to hollow 
 
 which 
 I have dug out the pith and sinewy heart 
 Of my aspiring life's fair trunk, be so 
 Cast up to warp and blacken in the sun. 
 Just as the opposing wind 'gins whistle 
 
 off 
 His cheek-swollen pack, and from the 
 
 leaning mast 
 Fortune's full sail strains forward ! 
 
 One poor day! — 
 Remember whose and not how short it 
 
 is! 
 It is God's day, it is Columbus's. 
 A lavish day! One day, with life and 
 
 heart. 
 Is more than time enough to find a world. 
 
 AN INCrDENT OP THE FIRE AT 
 HAMBTJEQ. 
 
 The tower of old Saint Nicholas soared 
 
 upward to the skies. 
 Like some huge piece of Nature's make, 
 
 the growth of centuries; 
 
 You could not deem its crowding spirM 
 
 a work of human art. 
 They seemed to struggle lightward from 
 
 a sturdy living heart. 
 
 Not Nature's self more freely speaks in 
 
 crystal or in oak. 
 Than, through the pious builder's hand, 
 
 in that gray pile she spoke ; 
 And as from acorn springs the oak, so, 
 
 freely and aloue. 
 Sprang from his heart this hymn to God, 
 
 sung in obedient stone. 
 
 It seemed a wondrous freak of chance, so 
 
 perfect, yet so rough, 
 A whim of Nature crystallized slowly in 
 
 gianite tough ; 
 The thick spires yearned towards the sky 
 
 in quaint harmonious lines, 
 And in broad sunlight basked an4 slept, 
 
 like a grove of blasted pines. 
 
 Never did rock or stream or tree lay claim 
 
 with better right 
 To all the adorning sympathies of shadow 
 
 and of light ; 
 And, in that forest petrified, as forester 
 
 there dwells 
 Stout Herman, the old sacristan, sole 
 
 lord of all its bells. 
 
 Surge leaping after surge, the fire roared 
 
 onward red as blood. 
 Till half of Hamburg lay engulfed be- 
 
 neath the eddying flood ; 
 For miles away the fiery spray poured 
 
 down its deadly rain, 
 And back and forth the billows sucked, 
 
 and paused, and burst again. 
 
 From square to square with tiger leaps 
 
 panted the lustful fire. 
 The air to leeward shuddered with the 
 
 gasps of its desire ; 
 And church and palace, which even now 
 
 stood whelmed but to the knee. 
 Lift their black roofs like breakers lone 
 
 amid the whirling sea. 
 
 Up in his tower old Herman sat and 
 watched with quiet look ; 
 
 His soul had trusted God too long to ba 
 at last forsook ; 
 
 He could not fear, for surely God a path- 
 way would unfold 
 
 Through this red sea for faithf'il hearts^ 
 as once he did of old. 
 
THE SOWEE. — HUNGER AND COLD. 
 
 61 
 
 But scarcely can he cross himself, or on 
 
 his good saint call, 
 Before the sacrilegious flood o'erleaped 
 
 the churchyard wall ; 
 And, ere a pater half was said, raid smoke 
 
 and crackling glare. 
 His island tower scarce juts its head 
 
 above the wide despair. 
 
 Upon the peril's desperate peak his heart 
 stood up sublime ; 
 
 His first thought was for God above, his 
 next was for his chime ; 
 
 " Sing now and make your voices heard 
 in hymns of praise," cried he, 
 
 " As did the Israelites of old, safe walk- 
 ing through the sea ! 
 
 " Through this red sea our God hath 
 
 made the pathway safe to shore ; 
 Our promised land stands full in sight ; 
 
 shout now as ne'er before ! " 
 And as the tower came crushing down, 
 
 the bells, in clear accord, 
 Pealed forth the grand old German 
 
 hymn, — "All good souls, praise 
 
 the Lord ! " 
 
 THE SOWER. 
 
 I SAW a Sower walking slow 
 Across the earth, from east to west ; 
 His hair was white as mountain snow. 
 His head drooped forward on his breast. 
 
 With shrivelled hands he flung his seed, 
 Nor ever turned to look behind ; 
 Of sight or sound he took no heed ; 
 It seemed he was both deaf and blind. 
 
 His dim face showed no soul beneath, 
 Yet in my heart I felt a stir. 
 As if I looked upon the sheath 
 That once had held Excalibur. 
 
 I heard, as still the seed he cast. 
 How, crooning to himself, he sung, 
 " I sow again the holy Past, 
 The happy days when I was young. 
 
 " Then all was wheat without a tare. 
 Then all was righteous, fair, and true ; 
 And I am he whose thoughtful care 
 Shall plant the Old World in the New. 
 
 " The fruitful germs I scatter free, 
 W^ith busy hand, while all men sleep ; 
 
 In Europe now, from sea to sea. 
 The nations bless me as they reap." 
 
 Then I looked back along his path. 
 And heard the clash of steel on steel. 
 Where man faced man, in deadly wrath. 
 While clanged the tocsin's hurrying peaL 
 
 The sky with burning towns flared red. 
 Nearer the noise of fighting rolled. 
 And brothers' blood, by brothers shed, 
 Crept curdling over pavements cold. 
 
 Then marked I how each germ of truth 
 Which through the dotarcf s fingers ran 
 Was mated with a dragon's tooth 
 Whence there sprang up an armed man. 
 
 I shouted, hut he could not hear ; 
 Made signs, but these he could not see ; 
 And stiU, without a doubt or fear. 
 Broadcast he scattered anarchy. 
 
 Long to my straining ears the blast 
 Brought faintly back the words h« 
 
 sung : 
 " I sow again the holy Past, 
 The happy days when I was young." 
 
 HTJNGEE AND COLD. 
 
 Sisters two, all praise to you, 
 With your faces pinched and blue ; 
 To the poor man you 've been true 
 
 From of old : 
 You can speak the keenest word. 
 You are sure of being heard, 
 From the point you re never stirred. 
 
 Hunger and Cold ! 
 
 Let sleek statesmen temporize ; 
 Palsied are their shifts and lies 
 When they meet your bloodshot eyea^ 
 
 Grim and bold ; 
 Policy you set at naught, 
 In their traps you '11 not be caught, 
 You 're too honest to be bought. 
 
 Hunger and Cold ! 
 
 Bolt and bar the palace door ; 
 While the mass of men are poor, 
 Naked truth grows more and mors 
 
 Uncontrolled ; 
 You had never yet, I guess. 
 Any praise for bashfulness. 
 You can visit sans court-diess, 
 
 Hunger and Cold t 
 
62 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS P0EM8. 
 
 While the music fell and rose, 
 And the dance reeled to its close, 
 Where her round of costly woes 
 
 Fashion strolled, 
 I beheld with shuddering fear 
 Wolves' eyes through the windows peer ; 
 Little dream they you are near, 
 
 Hunger and Cold 1 
 
 When the toiler's hea,rt you clutch. 
 Conscience is not valued much, 
 He recks not a bloody smutch 
 
 On his gold : 
 Everything to you defers, 
 You are potent reasoners, 
 At your whisper Treason stirs, 
 
 Hunger and Cold ! 
 
 Eude comparisons you draw. 
 Words refuse to sate your maw, 
 Your gaunt limbs the cobweb law 
 
 Cannot hold : 
 You 're not clogged with foolish pride. 
 But can seize a right denied : 
 Somehow God is on your side, 
 
 Hunger and Cold ! 
 
 You respect no hoary wrong 
 More for having triumphed long ; 
 Its past victims, haggard throng, 
 
 From the mould 
 You unbury : swords and spears 
 Weaker are than poor men's tears. 
 Weaker than your silent years. 
 
 Hunger and Cold ! 
 
 Let them guard both hall and bower ; 
 Through the window you will glower. 
 Patient till your reckoning hour 
 
 Shall be tolled ; 
 Cheeks are pale, but hands are red, 
 Guiltless blood may chance be shed, 
 But ye must and will be fed. 
 
 Hunger and Cold ! 
 
 God has plans man must not spoil. 
 Some were made to starve and toil. 
 Some to share the wine and oil. 
 
 We are told: 
 Devil's theories are these. 
 Stifling hope and love and peace, 
 Framed your hideous lusts to please. 
 
 Hunger and Cold 1 
 
 Scatter ashea on thy head, 
 Tears of burning sorrow shed. 
 
 Earth ! and be by Pity led 
 
 To Love's fold ; 
 Ere they block the very door 
 With lean corpses of the poor. 
 And will hush for naught but gore, 
 
 Hunger and Cold ! 
 1811. 
 
 THE LANDLORD. 
 
 What boot your houses and your landsl 
 In spite of close-drawn deed and fence, 
 Like water, 'twixt your cheated hands. 
 They slip into the graveyard's sands, 
 And mock your ownership's pretence. 
 
 How shall you speak to urge your right. 
 Choked with that soil for which you 
 lust? 
 The bit of clay, for whose delight 
 You grasj), is mortgaged, too ; Death 
 might 
 Foreclose this very day in dust. 
 
 Fence as you please, this plain poor 
 man. 
 
 Whose only fields are in his wit. 
 Who shapes the world, as best he can, 
 According to God's higher plan. 
 
 Owns you, and fences as is fit. 
 
 Though yours the rents, his incomes 
 wax 
 
 By right of eminent domain ; 
 From factory tall to woodman's axe. 
 All things on earth must pay their tax. 
 
 To feed his hungry heart and brain. 
 
 He takes you from your easy-chair. 
 And what he plans that you must 
 do; 
 You sleep in down, eat dainty fare, — 
 He mounts his crazy garret-stair 
 And starves, the landlord over you. 
 
 Feeding the clods your idlesse drains. 
 
 You make more green six feet of soil ; 
 His fruitful word, like suns and rains. 
 Partakes the seasons' bounteous pains. 
 And toils to lighten human toil. 
 
 Yoxir lands; with force or cunning got. 
 Shrink to the measure of the grave ; 
 But Death himself abridges not 
 The tenures of almighty thought, 
 The titles of the wise and brave. 
 
TO A PINE-TEEE. — SI DESCEXDEKO IN INFEUNUM, ADES. 63 
 
 TO A PINE-TREE. 
 
 Far up on Katahdin thou towerest, 
 Purple-blue with the distance and 
 vast; 
 Like a cloud o'er the lowlands thou 
 lowerest, 
 That hangs poised on a lull in the 
 blast, 
 To its fall leaning awful. 
 
 In the storm, like a prophet o'ermad- 
 dened. 
 Thou singest and tossest thy branches ; 
 Thy heart with the terror is gladdened, 
 Thou forebodest the dread avalanches. 
 Whin whole mountains swoop vale- 
 ward. 
 
 In the calm thou o'erstretchest the val- 
 leys 
 With thine arms, as if blessings im- 
 ploring, 
 like an old king led forth from his pal- 
 ace. 
 When his people to battle are pouring 
 From the city beneath him. 
 
 To the lumberer asleep 'neath thy gloom- 
 ing 
 Thou dost sing of wild billows in mo- 
 tion. 
 Till he longs to be swung mid their boom- 
 ing 
 In the tents of the Arabs of ocean. 
 Whose finned isles are their cattle. 
 
 For the gale snatches thee for his lyre, 
 With mad hand crashing melody 
 frantic. 
 While he pours forth his mighty de- 
 sire 
 To leap down on the eager Atlantic, 
 Whose arms stretch to his play- 
 mate. 
 
 The wild storm makes his lair in thy 
 branches, 
 Swooping thence on the continent un- 
 der ; 
 like a lion, crouched close on his 
 haunches, 
 There awaiteth his leap the fierce 
 thunder, 
 Growling low with impatience. 
 
 Spite of winter, thou keep'st thy green 
 glory. 
 Lusty father of Titans past number I 
 The suow-Uakes alone make thee hoary, 
 Nestling close to thy branches in 
 slumber. 
 And thee mantling with silence. 
 
 Thou alone know'st the splendor ot 
 winter. 
 Mid thy snow-silvered, hushed pre- 
 cipices, 
 Hearing crags of green ice groan and 
 splinter, 
 And then plunge down the muffled 
 abysses 
 In the quiet of midnight. 
 
 Thou alone know'st the glory of summer, 
 Gazing down on thy broad seas of 
 forest. 
 On thy subjects that send a proud mur- 
 mur 
 Up to thee, to their sachem, who tow- 
 erest 
 From thy bleak throne to heaven. 
 
 SI DESCENDERO IN XNFERNUM, ADE3. 
 
 0, VITANDEMNG dim On the extremest 
 edge 
 Of God's bright providence, whose 
 spirits sigh 
 Drearily in you, like the winter sedge 
 That shivers o'er the dead pool stiff 
 
 and dry, 
 A thin, sad voice, when the bold wind 
 roars by 
 From the clear North of Duty, — 
 Still by cracked arch and broken shaft I 
 
 trace 
 That here was once a shrine and holy 
 place 
 Of the supernal Beauty, 
 A child's play-altar reared of stones 
 
 and moss, 
 With wilted flowers for offering laid 
 across. 
 Mute recognition of the all-ruling Grace. 
 
 How far. are ye from the innocent, from 
 
 those 
 Whose hearts are as a little lane serene. 
 Smooth-heaped from wall to wall with 
 
 unbroko snows, 
 
64 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Or in the summer blithe with lamb- 
 cropped green, 
 Save ' the one track, where naught 
 more rude is seen 
 Than the plump wain at even 
 Cringing home four months' sunshine 
 
 bound in sheaves ! 
 How far are ye from those! yet who 
 believes 
 That ye can shut out heaven ? 
 Your souls partake its influence, not 
 
 in vain 
 Nor all unconscious, as that silent lane 
 Its driit of noiseless apple-blooms re- 
 ceives. 
 
 Looking within myself, I note how thin 
 A plank of station, chance, or pros- 
 perous fate. 
 Doth fence me from the clutching waves 
 of sin ; 
 In my own heart I find the worst 
 
 man's mate. 
 And see not dimly the smooth-hinged 
 gate 
 That opes to those abysses 
 Where ye grope darkly, — ye who never 
 
 knew 
 On your young hearts love's consecrating 
 dew. 
 Or felt a mother's kisses. 
 Or home's restraining tendrils round 
 
 you curled ; 
 Ah, sid« by side with heart's-ease in 
 this world 
 The fatal nightshade grows andbitter rue ! 
 
 One band ye cannot break, — the force 
 that clips 
 And grasps your circles to the central 
 light; 
 Yours is the prodigal comet's long el- 
 lipse. 
 Self-exiled to the farthest verge of 
 
 night; 
 Yet strives with you no less that in- 
 ward might 
 No sin hath e'er imbruted ; 
 The god in you the creed-dimmed eye 
 
 eludes ; 
 The Law brooks not to have its solitudes 
 By bigot feet polluted ; 
 Yet they who watch your God-com- 
 pelled return 
 May see your happy perihelion bum 
 Where the calm sun his unfledged 
 planets broods. 
 
 TO THE EAST. 
 
 WoNDEOTTs and awful are thy silent 
 halls, 
 kingdom of the past ! 
 There lie the bygone ages in their palls, 
 Guarded by shadows vast ; 
 There all is hushed and breathless, 
 Save when some image of old error falls 
 Earth worshipped once as deathless. 
 
 There sits drear Egypt, mid beleaguer- 
 ing sands, 
 Half woman and half beast. 
 The burnt-out torch within her moul- 
 dering hands 
 That once lit all the East ; 
 A dotard bleared and hoary. 
 There Asser crouches o'er the blackened 
 brands 
 Of Asia's long-quenched glory. 
 
 Still as a city buried 'neath the sea 
 Thy courts and temples stand ; 
 Idle as forms on wind-waved tapestry 
 Of saints and heroes grand. 
 Thy phantasms grope and shiver, 
 Or watch the loose shores crumbling si- 
 lently 
 Into Time's gnawing river. 
 
 Titanic shapes with faces blank and dun. 
 
 Of their old godhead lorn. 
 Gaze on the embers of the sunken sun. 
 Which they misdeem for mom ; 
 And yet the eternal sorrow 
 In their unmonarched eyes says day is 
 done 
 Without the hope of morrow. 
 
 realm of silence and of swart eclipse, 
 The shapes that haunt thy gloom 
 Make signs to us and move their with- 
 ered lips 
 Across the gulf of doom ; 
 Yet all thair sound and motion 
 Bring no more freight to us than wraiths 
 of ships 
 On the mirage's ocean. 
 
 And if sometimes a moaning wandereth 
 
 From out thy desolate halls, 
 If some grim shadow of thy living deatU 
 Across our sunshine falls 
 And scares the world to error. 
 The etemal life sends forth melodious 
 breath 
 To chase the misty terror. 
 
TO THE FUTURE. 
 
 65 
 
 Thy mighty clamors, wars, and world- 
 uoised deeds 
 Are silent now in dust. 
 Gone like a tremble of the huddling 
 reeds 
 Beneath some sudden gust ; 
 Thy forms and creeds have vanished, 
 Tossed out to mther like unsightly weeds 
 From the world's garden hanished. 
 
 Whatever of true life there was in thee 
 
 Leaps in our age's veins ; 
 Wield still thy bent and wrinkled em- 
 pery, 
 And shake thine idle chains ; — 
 To thee thy dross is clinging, 
 For us thy martyrs die, thy prophets see, 
 Thy poets still are singing. 
 
 Here, mid the bleak waves of our strife 
 and care. 
 Float the green Fortunate Isles 
 Where all thy hero-spirits dwell, and 
 share 
 Our martyrdoms and toils ; 
 The present moves attended 
 With all of brave and excellent and fair 
 That made the old time splendid. 
 
 TO THE FUTTTRE. 
 
 O Land of Promise ! from what Pisgah's 
 
 height 
 
 Can I behold thy stretch of peaceful 
 
 bowers, 
 
 ■ Thy golden harvests flowing out of sight, 
 
 Thy nestled homes and sun-illumined 
 
 towers ? 
 Gazing upon the sunset's high-heaped 
 gold. 
 Its crags of opal and of chrysolite, 
 Its deeps on deeps of glory, that un- 
 fold 
 Still brightening abysses, 
 And blazing precipices. 
 Whence but a scanty leap it seems to 
 heaven, 
 Sometimes a glimpse is given 
 Of thy more gorgeoivs realm, thy more 
 unstinted blisses. 
 
 Land of Quiet ! to thy shore the surf 
 Of the perturbed Present rolls and 
 sleeps ; 
 Our storms breathe soft as June upon 
 thy turf 
 
 5 
 
 And lure out blossoms ; to thy boaom 
 
 As to a mother's, the o'erwearied heart. 
 Hearing far off and dim the toiling 
 mart, 
 The hurrying feet, the curses without 
 number, 
 And, circled with the glow Elysian 
 Of thiue exulting vision, 
 Out of its very cares wooes charms foi 
 peace and slumber. 
 
 To thee the earth lifts up her fettered 
 hands 
 And cries for vengeance ; with a pity- 
 ing smile 
 Thou blessest her, and she forgets hei 
 bands, 
 And her old woe-worn face a little 
 while 
 Grows young and noble ; unto thee the 
 Oppressor 
 Looks, and is dumb with awe ; 
 The eternal law, 
 Which makes the crime its own blind- 
 fold redresser. 
 Shadows his heart with perilous fore- 
 boding, 
 And he can see the grim-eyed Doom 
 From out the trembling gloom 
 Its silent-footed steeds towards his pal- 
 
 What promises hast thou for Poets' 
 eyes, 
 Aweary of the turmoil and the wrong ! 
 To all their hopes what overjoyed re- 
 plies ! 
 What undreamed ecstasies for bliss- 
 ful song ! 
 Thy happy plains no war-trump's brawl- 
 ing clangor 
 Disturbs, and fools the poor to hate 
 the poor ; 
 The humble glares not on the high with 
 anger ; ' 
 Love leaves no grudge at less, no greed 
 for more ; 
 In vain strives Self the godlike sense to 
 smother ; 
 From the soul's deeps 
 It throbs and leaps ; 
 The noble 'neath foul rags beholds hia 
 long-lost brother. 
 
 To thee the Martyr looketh, and tda 
 fires 
 
66 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Unlock their fangs and leave his 
 spirit free ; 
 To thee the Poet mid his toil aspires, 
 ; And grief and hunger climb about his 
 
 knee, 
 Welcome as children ; thou upholdest 
 The lone Inventor by his demon 
 haunted ; 
 The Prophet cries to thee when hearts 
 are coldest, 
 And gazing o'er the midnight's 
 
 bleak abyss, 
 Sees the drowsed soul awaken at 
 thy kiss. 
 And stretch its happy arms and leap up 
 disenchanted. 
 
 Thou bringest vengeance, but so loving- 
 kindly 
 The guilty thinks it pity ; taught by 
 thee, 
 Fierce tyrants drop the scourges where- 
 with blindly 
 Their own souls they were scarring ; 
 conquerors see 
 With horror in their hands the accursed 
 spear 
 That tore the meek One's side on 
 Calvary, 
 And from their trophies shrink with 
 ghastly fear ; 
 Thou, too, art the Forgiver, 
 The beauty of man's soul to man re- 
 vealing ; 
 The arrows from thy quiver 
 Pierce Error's guilty heart, but only 
 pierce for healing. 
 
 0, whither, whither, glory-winged 
 dreams. 
 From out Life's sweat and turmoil 
 would ye bear me ? 
 Shut, gates of Fancy, on your golden 
 gleams, — 
 This agony of hopeless contrast spare 
 me! 
 Fade, cheating glow, and leave me to 
 my night ! 
 He is a coward, who would bor- 
 row 
 A charm against the present sorrow 
 From the vague Future's promise of de- 
 light: 
 As life's alarums nearer roll, 
 The ancestral buckler calls, 
 Self-clanging from the walls 
 In the high temple of the soul ; 
 
 Where are most sorrows, there the po- 
 et's sphere is, 
 To feed the soul with patience, 
 To heal its desolations 
 With words of unshorn truth, with love 
 that never wearies. 
 
 I SAW the twinkle of white feet, 
 I saw the flash of robes descending ; 
 
 Before her ran an influence fleet. 
 That bowed my heart like barley bend* 
 ing. 
 
 As, in bare fields, the .searching bees 
 Pilot to blooms beyond our finding. 
 
 It led me on, by sweet degrees 
 Joy's simple honey-cells unbinding. 
 
 Those Graces were that seemed grim 
 Fates ; 
 With nearer love the sky leaned o'er 
 me; 
 The long-sought Secret's golden gates 
 On musical hinges swung before me. 
 
 I saw the brimmed bowl in her grasp 
 Thrilling with godhood ; like a lover 
 
 I sprang the profiered life to clasp;— ^ 
 The beaker fell ; the luck was over. 
 
 The Earth has drunk the vintage up ; 
 What boots it patch the goblet's splin- 
 ters ? 
 Can Summer fill the icy cup, 
 Whose treacherous crystal is but Win- . 
 ter's? 
 
 spendthrift haste ! await the Gods ; 
 Their nectar crowns the lips of Pa- 
 tience ; 
 
 Haste scatters on unthankful sods 
 The immortal gift in vain libations. 
 
 Coy Hebe flies from those that woo. 
 And shuns the hands would seize upon 
 her; 
 
 Follow thy life, and she will sue 
 To pour for thee the cup of honor. 
 
 THE SEARCH. 
 
 I WENT to seek for Christ, 
 And Nature seemed so fair 
 That first the woods and fields my youtk 
 enticed. 
 
THE PEESENT CRISIS. 
 
 67 
 
 And I was sure to find him there : 
 The temple I forsook, 
 And to the solitude 
 Allegiance paid ; but Winter came and 
 shook 
 The crown and pui-ple from my 
 wood ; 
 His snows, like desert sands, with scorn- 
 ful drift, 
 Besieged the columned aisle and pal- 
 ace-gate ; 
 My Thebes, cut deep with many a sol- 
 emn rift. 
 But epitaphed her own sepulchred 
 
 Then I remembered whom I went to seek. 
 And blessed blunt Winter for his coun- 
 sel bleak. 
 
 Back to the world I turned. 
 For Christ, I said, is King ; 
 So the cramped alley and the hut I 
 spumed. 
 As far beneath his sojourning : 
 Mid power and wealth I sought, 
 But found no trace of him, 
 And aU the costly offerings I had 
 brought 
 With sudden rust and mould grew 
 dim: 
 I found his tomb, indeed, where, by 
 their laws, 
 All must on stated days themselves 
 imprison, 
 Mocking with bread a dead creed's grin- 
 ning jaws. 
 Witless how long the life had thence 
 arisen ; 
 Due sacrifice to this they set apart, 
 Prizing it more than Christ's own living 
 heart. 
 
 So from my feet the dust 
 Of the proud World I shook ; 
 Then came dear Love and shared with 
 me his cnist, 
 And half my sorrow's burden took. 
 After the World's soft bed. 
 Its rich and dainty fare, 
 Like down seemed Love's coarse pillow 
 to my head. 
 His cheap food seemed as manna 
 rare ; 
 Fresh-trodden prints of bare and bleed- 
 ing feet. 
 Turned to the heedless city whence I 
 came, 
 
 Hard by I saw, and springs of worship 
 
 sweet 
 Gushed from my cleft heart smitten 
 
 by the same ; 
 Love looked me in the face and spake no 
 
 words. 
 But straight I knew those footprints 
 
 were the Lord's. 
 
 I followed where they led, 
 And in a hovel rude. 
 With naught to fence the weather from 
 his head. 
 The King I sought for meekly stood ; 
 A naked, hungry child 
 Clung round his gracious knee, 
 And a poor hunted slave looked up and 
 smiled 
 To bless the smile that set him 
 free; 
 New miracles I saw his presence do, — 
 No more I knew the hovel bare and 
 poor. 
 The gathered chips into a woodpile 
 grew, 
 The broken morsel swelled to goodly 
 store ; 
 I knelt and wept : my Christ no more 
 
 I seek. 
 His throne is with the outcast and the 
 weak. 
 
 THE PRESENT CRISIS. 
 
 When a deed is done for Freedom, 
 
 through the broad earth's aching 
 
 breast 
 Kuns a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling 
 
 on from east to west. 
 And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels 
 
 the soul within him climb 
 To the awful verge of manhood, as the 
 
 energy sublime 
 Of a century bursts full-blossomed on 
 
 the thorny stem of Time. 
 
 Through the walls of hut and palaco 
 
 shoots the instantaneous throe. 
 When the travail of the Ages wrings 
 
 earth's systems to and fro ; 
 At the birth of each new Era, with a 
 
 recognizing start, 
 Nation wildly looks at nation, standing 
 
 with mute lips apart. 
 And glad Truth's yet mightier mau-child 
 
 leaps beneath the Future's heart. 
 
68 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 So the Evil's triumph sendeth, with 
 
 a terror and a chill, 
 Under contineut to continent, the sense 
 
 of coming ill. 
 And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels 
 
 his sympathies with God 
 In hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to 
 
 be drunk up by the sod. 
 Till a corpse crawls round unburied, 
 
 delving in the nobler clod. 
 
 For mankind are one in spirit, and an 
 
 instinct bears along. 
 Bound the earth's electric circle, the 
 
 swift flash of right or wrong ; 
 Whether conscious or unconscious, yet 
 
 Humanity's vast frame 
 Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels 
 
 the gush of joy or shame ; — 
 In the gain or loss of one race all the 
 
 rest have equal claim. 
 
 Once to every man and nation comes the 
 
 moment to decide. 
 In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, 
 
 for the good or evil side ; 
 Some great cause, God's new Messiah, 
 
 ofi'ering each the bloom or blight. 
 Parts the goats upon the left hand, and 
 
 the sheep upon the right. 
 And the choice goes by forever 'twixt 
 
 that darkness and that light. 
 
 Hast thou chosen, my people, on 
 whose party thou shalt stand. 
 
 Ere the Doom from its worn sandals 
 shakes the dust against our land ? 
 
 Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 
 't is Truth alone is strong. 
 
 And, albeit she wander outcast now, I 
 see around her throng 
 
 Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to en- 
 shield her from all wrong. 
 
 Backward look across the ages and the 
 
 beacon-moments see. 
 That, like peaks of some sunk continent, 
 
 jut through Oblivion's sea ; 
 Not an ear in court or market for the 
 
 low foreboding cry 
 Of those Crises, God's stem winnowers, 
 
 from whose feet earth's chaff must 
 
 fly; 
 
 Never shows the choice momentous till 
 the judgment hath passed by. 
 
 Careless seems the great Avenger ; his- 
 tory's pages but record 
 
 One death-grapple in the darkness 'twiit 
 old systems and the Word ; 
 
 Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong 
 forever on the throne, — 
 
 Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, 
 behind the dim unknown, 
 
 Standeth God within the shadow, keep- 
 ing watch above his own. 
 
 We see dimly in the Present what is 
 
 small and what is great. 
 Slow of faith how weak an arm may 
 
 turn the iron helm of fate. 
 But the soul is still oracular ; amid the 
 
 market's din, 
 List the ominous stem whisper from the 
 
 Delphic cave within, — 
 "They enslave their children's children 
 
 who make compromise with sin." 
 
 Slavery, the earth-bom Cyclops, fellest 
 of the giant brood. 
 
 Sons of brutish Force and Darkness, who 
 have drenched the earth with blood. 
 
 Famished in his self-made desert, blind- 
 ed by our purer day, 
 
 Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his 
 miserable prey ; — 
 
 Shall we guide his gory fingers where 
 our helpless children play ? 
 
 Then to side with Trath is noble when 
 
 we share her wretched crust. 
 Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 
 
 't is prosperous to be just ; 
 Then it is the brave man chooses, while 
 
 the coward stands aside, 
 Doubting in his abject spirit, till his 
 
 Lord is crucified. 
 And the multitude make virtue of the 
 
 faith they had denied. 
 
 Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes , — 
 
 they were souls that stood alone, 
 While the men they agonized for hurled 
 
 the contumelious stone, 
 Stood serene, and down the future saw 
 
 the golden beam incline 
 To the side of perfect justice, mastered 
 
 by their faith divine, 
 By one man's plain tmth to manhood 
 
 and to God's supreme design. 
 
 By the light of burning heretics Christ's 
 
 bleeding feet I track. 
 Toiling up new Calvaries ever with th» 
 
 cross that turns not back. 
 
AN INDIAN-SUMMER EEVERIE. 
 
 69 
 
 And these mounts of anguish number 
 how each generation learned 
 
 One new word of that grand Credo which 
 in prophet-hearts hath burned 
 
 Since the first man stood God-conquered 
 with his face to heaven upturued. 
 
 Por Humanity sweeps onward : where 
 
 to-day the martyr stands, 
 On the morrow crouches Judas with the 
 
 silver in his hands ; 
 Far in front the cross stands ready and 
 
 the crackling fagots burn, 
 While the hooting mob of yesterday in 
 
 silent awe return 
 To glean up the scattered ashes into 
 
 History s golden urn. 
 
 'T is as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle 
 slaves 
 
 Of a legendary virtue carved upon our 
 fathers' graves, 
 
 Worshippers of light ancestral make the 
 present light a crime ; — 
 
 Was the Mayflower launched by cow- 
 ards, steered by men behind their 
 time? 
 
 Turn those tracks toward Past or Fu- 
 ture, that make Plymouth Rock 
 sublime ? 
 
 They were men of present valor, stalwart 
 
 old iconoclasts. 
 Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all 
 
 virtue was the Past's ; 
 But we make their truth our falsehood, 
 
 thinking that hath made us free. 
 Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, 
 
 while our tender spirits flee 
 The rude grasp of that great Impulse 
 
 which drove them across the sea. 
 
 They have rights who dare maintain 
 
 them ; we are traitors to our sires. 
 Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's 
 
 new-lit altar- fires ; 
 Shall we make their creed our jailer ? 
 
 Shall we, in our haste to slay, 
 From the tombs of the old prophets steal 
 
 the funeral lamps away 
 To light up the martyr-fagots round the 
 
 prophets of to-day? 
 
 New occasions teach new duties ; Time 
 makes ancient good uncouth ; 
 
 Thfiy must upward still, • and onward, 
 who would keep abreast of Truth ; 
 
 Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires ! we 
 ourselves must Pilgrims be. 
 
 Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly 
 through the desperate winter sea, 
 
 Nor attempt the Future's portal with 
 the Past's blood-rusted key. 
 December, 1344. 
 
 AN INDIAlf-STJMMER EEVERES. f 
 
 What visionary tints the year puts 
 on, 
 When falling leaves falter through 
 motionless air 
 Or numbly cling and shiver to be 
 gone ! 
 How shimmer the low flats and pas- 
 tures bare. 
 As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills 
 The bowl between me and those dis- 
 tant hUls, 
 And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, 
 tremulous hair I 
 
 No more the landscape holds its 
 wealth apart, 
 Making me poorer in my poverty. 
 But mingles with my senses and my 
 heart ; 
 My own projected spirit seems to me 
 In her own reverie the world to 
 
 steep ; 
 'T is sne that waves to sympathetic 
 
 Moving, as she is moved, each field and 
 hill and tree. 
 
 How fuse and mix, with what un- 
 felt degrees, 
 Clasped by the faint horizon's languid 
 arms, 
 Each into each, the hazy distances 1 
 The softened season all the landscape 
 charms ; 
 Those hills, my native village that 
 
 In waves of dreamier purple roll 
 away. 
 And floating in mirage seem all the 
 glimmering farms. 
 
 Far distant sounds the hidden chick- 
 adee 
 Close at my side ; far distant sound 
 the leaves ; 
 
 The fields seem fields of dieam, 
 where Memory 
 
fO 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Wanders like gleaning Buth ; and as 
 
 the sheaves 
 Of wheat and barley wavered in the 
 
 eye 
 Of Boaz as the maiden's glow went 
 
 So tremhle and seem remote all things 
 the sense receives. 
 
 ; The cock's shrill trump that tells 
 of scattered com, 
 Passed breezily on by all his flapping 
 mates, 
 Faint and more faint, from bam to 
 bam is borne, 
 Southward, perhaps to far Magellan's 
 Straits ; 
 Dimly I catch the throb of distant 
 
 flaUs; 
 Silently overhead the hen-hawk 
 sails, 
 With watchful, measuring eye, and for 
 his quarry waits. 
 
 The sobered robin, hunger-silent 
 now. 
 Seeks cedar-berries blue, his autumn 
 
 cheer ; 
 The chipmunk, on the shingly shag- 
 bark's bough. 
 Now saws, now lists with downward 
 eye and ear, 
 Then drops his nut, and, cheeping, 
 with a bound 
 Whisks to his winding fastness 
 underground ; 
 The clouds like swans drift down the 
 streaming atmosphere. 
 
 O'er yon bare knoll the pointed 
 cedar shadows 
 Drowse on the crisp, gray moss ; the 
 ploughman's call 
 Creeps faint as smoke from black, 
 fresh-furrowed meadows ; 
 The single crow a single caw lets fall ; 
 And all around me every bush and 
 
 tree 
 Says Autumn 's here, and Winter 
 soon will be. 
 Who snows his soft, white sleep and 
 silence over all. 
 
 The birch, most shy and ladylike 
 of trees. 
 Her poverty, as best she may, re- 
 trieves, 
 
 And hints at her foregone gentiU* 
 ties 
 With some saved relics of her wealth 
 of leaves ; 
 
 The swamp-oak, with his royal pur- 
 ple on, 
 
 Glares red as blood across the sink- 
 ing sun. 
 As one who proudlier to a falling for- 
 tune cleaves. 
 
 He looks a sachem, in red blanket 
 wrapt. 
 Who, mid some council of the sad- 
 garbed whites, 
 Erect and stem, in his own memo- 
 ries lapt. 
 With distant eye broods over othet 
 
 Sees the hushed wood the city's flare 
 replace, 
 
 The wounded turf heal o'er the rail- 
 way's trace. 
 And roams the savage Past of his un- 
 dwindled rights. 
 
 The red-oak, softer-grained, yields 
 
 all for lost. 
 
 And, with his crumpled foliage stifl 
 
 and dry. 
 
 After the first betrayal of the frost, 
 
 Eebufis the kiss of the relenting sky i 
 
 The chestnuts, lavish of their long. 
 
 hid gold. 
 To the faint Summer, beggared now 
 and old. 
 Pour back the sunshine hoarded 'neath 
 her favoring eye. 
 
 The ash her purple drops forgiv- 
 ingly 
 And sadly, breaking not the generaj 
 hush ; 
 
 The maple-swamps glow like a sun, 
 set sea, 
 Each leaf a ripple with its separat* 
 flush; 
 
 All round the wood's edge creeps 
 the skirting blaze 
 
 Of bushes low, as when, on cloudy 
 
 Ere the rain fall, the cautious farmST 
 bums his brush. 
 
 O'er yon low wall, which guard* 
 one unkempt zone, 
 Where vines and weeds and scrnbi 
 oaks intertwino 
 
AN INDIAN-SUMMEK KEVERIE. 
 
 71 
 
 Safe from the plough, whose rough, 
 
 discordant stons 
 Is massed to one soft gray by lichens 
 
 fine, 
 The tangled blaokherry, crossed and 
 
 recrossed, weaves 
 A prickly network of ensanguined 
 
 leaves ; 
 Hard by, with coral beads, the prim 
 
 black-alders shine. 
 
 Pillaring with flame this crumbling 
 
 boundary, 
 
 ^hose loose blocks topple 'neath the 
 ploughboy's foot, 
 Who, with each sense shut fast ex- 
 cept the eye, 
 Creeps close and scares the jay he 
 hoped to shoot. 
 The woodbine up the elm's straight 
 
 stem aspires. 
 Coiling it, harmless, with autumnal 
 fires ; 
 In the ivy's paler blaze the martyr oak 
 stands mute. 
 
 Below, the Charles — a stripe of 
 nether sky, 
 Kow hid by rounded apple-trees be- 
 tween. 
 Whose gaps the misplaced sail 
 sweeps belljring by, 
 Now flickering golden through a wood- 
 land screen. 
 Then spreading out, at his next 
 
 turn beyond, 
 A silver circle like an inland pond — 
 Blips seaward silently through marshes 
 purple and green. 
 
 Dear marshes ! vain to him the gift 
 of sight 
 Who cannot in their various incomes 
 share. 
 From every season drawn, of shade 
 and light, 
 Who sees in them but levels brown 
 and bare ; 
 Each change of storm or sunshine 
 
 scatters free 
 On them its largess of variety. 
 For Nature with cheap means still works 
 her wonders rare. 
 
 In Spring they lie one broad expanse 
 of green, 
 O'er which the light winds run vrith 
 glimmering feet : 
 
 Here, yellower stripes track out the 
 creek unseen, 
 There, darker growths o'er hidden 
 ditches meet; 
 And purpler stains show where the 
 
 blossoms crowd, , 
 
 As if the silent shadow of a cloud 
 Hung there becalmed, with the next 
 breath to fleet. 
 
 All round, upon the river's ilippery 
 edge. 
 Witching to deeper calm the drowsy 
 tide. 
 Whispers and leans the breeze- 
 entangling sedge ; 
 Through emerald glooms the lingering 
 waters slide. 
 Or, sometimes wavering, throw back 
 
 the sun. 
 And the stiff banks in eddies melt 
 and run 
 Of dimpling light, and with the current 
 seem to glide. 
 
 In Summer 't is a blithesome sight 
 to see, 
 As, step by step, with measured swing, 
 they pass. 
 The wide-ranked mowers wading to 
 the knee. 
 Their sharp scythes panting through 
 the wiry grass ; 
 Then, stretched beneath a rick's 
 
 shjide in a ring. 
 Their nooning take, while one 
 begins to sing 
 A stave that droops and dies 'neath the 
 close sky of brass. 
 
 Meanwhile that devil-may-care, the 
 bobolink. 
 Remembering duty, in mid-quaver' 
 stops ' 
 
 Just ere he sweeps o'er rapture's 
 tremulous brink, 
 And 'twixt the winrows most demurely 
 drops, 
 A decorous bird of business, who 
 
 provides 
 For his brown mate and fledglings 
 six besides. 
 And looks from right to left, a farmer 
 mid his crops. 
 
 Another change subdues them in 
 the Fall, 
 
72 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 But saddens not ; they still show mer- 
 rier tints, 
 Though sober russet seems to cover 
 all; 
 When the first sunshine through their 
 dew-drops glints, 
 Look how the yellow clearness, 
 
 streamed across, 
 Bedeems with rarer hues the season's 
 loss. 
 As Dawn's feet there had touched and 
 left their rosy prints. 
 
 Or come when sunset gives its fresh- 
 ened zest, 
 Lean o'er the bridge and let the ruddy 
 thrill, 
 WhUe the shorn sun swells down 
 the hazy west, 
 Glow opposite; — the marshes drink 
 their fill 
 And swoon with purple veins, then 
 
 slowly fade 
 Through pink to brown, as eastward 
 moves the shade. 
 Lengthening with stealthy creep, of Si- 
 mond's darkening hill. 
 
 Later, and yet ere Winter wholly 
 shuts. 
 Ere through the first dry snow the 
 runner grates, 
 And the loath cart-wheel screams in 
 slippery ruts. 
 While firmer ice the eager boy awaits, 
 Trying each buckle and strap beside 
 
 the fire, 
 And until bedtime plays with his 
 desire, 
 Twenty times putting on and off his new- 
 bought skates ; — 
 
 Then, every mom, the river's banks 
 shine bright 
 With smooth plate-armor, treacherous 
 and frail. 
 By the frost's clinking hammers 
 forged at night, 
 'Gainst which the lances of the sun 
 prevail. 
 Giving a pretty emblem of the 
 
 day 
 When guiltier arms in light shall 
 melt away. 
 And states shall move free-limbed, loosed 
 from war's cramping mail. 
 
 And now those waterfalls the ebl>. 
 ing river 
 Twice every day creates on either 
 side 
 Tinkle, as through their fresh- 
 sparred grots they shiver 
 In grass-arched channels to the sun 
 denied ; 
 High flaps in sparkling blue the far- 
 heard crow. 
 The silvered flats gleam frostily be- 
 low. 
 Suddenly drops the guU and breaks the 
 glassy tide. 
 
 But crowned in turn by vying sea- 
 sons three. 
 Their winter halo hath a fuller ring ; 
 This glory seems to rest immova- 
 bly,— 
 The others were too fleet and vanish- 
 ing; 
 When the hid tide is at its highest 
 
 flow, 
 O'er marsh and stream one breath- 
 less trance of snow 
 With brooding fulness awes and hushes 
 everything. 
 
 The sunshine seems blown off by 
 the bleak wind, 
 As pale as formal candles lit by day ; 
 Gropes to the sea the river dumb and 
 blind ; 
 The brown ricks, snow-thatched by 
 the storm in play. 
 Show pearly breakers combing o'er 
 
 their lee. 
 White crests as of some just en- 
 chanted sea. 
 Checked in their maddest leap and hang- 
 ing poised midway. 
 
 But when the eastern blow, with 
 rain aslant, 
 From mid-sea's prairies green and roll- 
 ing plains 
 Drives in his wallowing herds of bil- 
 lows gaunt, 
 And the roused Charles remembers in 
 his veins 
 Old Ocean's blood and snaps his 
 
 gyves of frost, 
 That tyrannous silence on the shores 
 is tost 
 In dreary wreck, and crumbling desola* 
 tion reigna. 
 
AU INDIAN-SUMMER EKVEUIB. 
 
 73 
 
 Ed^wise or flat, in Druid-like de- 
 vice, 
 With leaden pools between or gullies 
 bare, 
 The blocks lie strewn, a bleak Stone- 
 henge of ice ; 
 No life, no sound, to break the grim 
 despair. 
 Save sullen plunge, as through the 
 
 sedges stiif 
 Down crackles riverward some 
 thaw-sapped cliff, 
 Or when the close-wedged fields of ice 
 crunch here and there. 
 
 But let me turn from fancy-pic- 
 tured scenes 
 To that whose pastoral calm before me 
 lies: 
 Here nothing harsh or rugged inter- 
 venes ; 
 The early evening with her misty dyes 
 Smooths off the ravelled edges of 
 
 the nigh, 
 Eelieves the distant with her cooler 
 sky. 
 And tones the landscape down, and 
 soothes the wearied eyes. 
 
 There gleams my native village, dear 
 to me. 
 Though higher change's waves each 
 day are seen, 
 Whelming iielda famed in boyhood's 
 history, 
 Sanding with houses the diminished 
 green ; 
 There, in red brick, which soften- 
 ing time defies. 
 Stand square and stiff the Muses' 
 factones ; — 
 \ow with my life knit up is every well- 
 known scene ! 
 
 Flow on, dear river ! not alone you 
 flow 
 To outward sight, and through your 
 marshes wind ; 
 Fed from the mystic springs of long- 
 ago. 
 Your twin flows silent through my 
 world of mind : 
 Grow dim, dear marshes, in the 
 
 evening's gray I 
 Before my inner sight ye stretch 
 away, 
 ^d will forever, though these fleshly 
 eyes grow blind. 
 
 Beyond the hillock's house-bespot- 
 ted swell, 
 Where Gothic chapels house the horse 
 and chaise. 
 Where quiet cits in Grecian tem- 
 ples dwell. 
 Where Coptic tombs resound with 
 prayer and praise, 
 Where dust and mud the e^aal 
 
 year divide, 
 There gentle AUston lived, and 
 wrought, and died. 
 Transfiguring street and shop with his 
 illumined gaze. 
 
 Virgilium vidi tantum, — I have 
 seen 
 But as a boy, who looks alike on all. 
 That misty hair, that fine Undine-lika 
 mien. 
 Tremulous as down to feeling's faintest 
 call ; — 
 Ah, dear old homestead ! count it to 
 thy fame 
 That thither many times the Paint- 
 er came ; — 
 One elm yet bears his name, a feathery 
 tree and tall. 
 
 Swiftly the present fades in mem- 
 ory's glow, — 
 Our only sure possession is the past ; 
 The village blacksmith died a 
 month ago. 
 And dim to me the forge's roaring 
 blast; 
 Soon fire' new medisevals we shall 
 
 see 
 Oust the black smithy from its chest- 
 nut-tree. 
 And that hewn down, perhaps, the bee- 
 hive green and vast. 
 
 How many times, prouder than 
 king on throne, 
 Loosed from the village school-dame's 
 A's and B's, 
 Panting have I the creaky bellows 
 blown, 
 And watched the pent volcano's red 
 increase. 
 Then paused to see the ponderous 
 
 sledge, brought down 
 By that hard arm voluminous and 
 brown, 
 From the white iron swarm its golden 
 vanishing bees. 
 
74 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Dear native town! whose choking 
 elms each year 
 "With eddying dust hefore their time 
 turn gray, 
 Pining for rain, — to me thy dust is 
 dear; 
 It glorifies the eve of summer day, 
 And when the westering sun half 
 
 sunken bums, 
 The mote-thick air to deepest orange 
 turns, 
 The westward horseman rides through 
 clouds of gold away, 
 
 So palpable, I 've seen those unshorn 
 few, 
 The six old willows at the causey's 
 end 
 (Such trees Paul Potter never 
 dreamed nor drew). 
 Through this dry mist their checker- 
 ing shadows send, 
 Striped, here and there, with many 
 
 a long-drawn thread. 
 Where streamed through leafy 
 chinks the trembling red, 
 Past which, in one bright trail, the 
 hangbird's flashes blend. 
 
 Yes, dearer far thy dust than aU 
 that e'er, 
 Beneath the awarded crown of victory. 
 Gilded the blown Olympic chariot- 
 eer; 
 Though lightly prized the ribboned 
 parchments three. 
 Yet collegisse jwvat, I am glad 
 That here what colleging was mine 
 I had, — 
 It linked another tie, dear native town, 
 with thee I 
 
 i Nearer art thou than simply native 
 earth. 
 My dust with thine concedes a deeper 
 tie; 
 A closer claim thy soil may well put 
 forth, 
 Something of kindred more than sym- 
 pathy; 
 For in thy hounds I reverently laid 
 
 away 
 That blinding anguish of forsaken 
 clay, 
 loat title I seemed to have in earth and 
 t sea and sky, 
 
 That portion of my life more choice 
 to me 
 (Though brief, yet in itself so round 
 and whole) 
 Than all the imperfect residue can 
 be ; — 
 The Artist saw his statue of the soul 
 Was perfect ; so, with one regretful 
 
 stroke. 
 The earthen model into fragments 
 broke. 
 And without her the impoverished sea- 
 sons roll. 
 
 THE GROWTH OF THE LEGEND. 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 A LEGEND that grew in the forest's 
 
 hush 
 Slowly as tear-drops gather and gush, 
 When a word some poet chanced to 
 
 say 
 Ages ago, in his careless way. 
 Brings our youth back to us out of its 
 
 shroud 
 Clearly as under yon thunder-cloud 
 I see that white sea-gull. It grew and 
 
 grew. 
 From the pine-trees gathering a sombre 
 
 hue, 
 Till it seems a mere murmur out of the 
 
 vast 
 
 Norwegian forests of the past ; 
 And it grew itself like a true. Northern 
 
 pine, 
 First a little slender line, 
 Like a mermaid's green eyelash, and then 
 
 anon 
 A stem that a tower might rest upon. 
 Standing spear-straight in the waist- 
 deep moss. 
 Its bony roots clutching around and 
 
 across. 
 As if they would tear up earth's heart 
 
 in their grasp 
 Ere the storm should uproot them or 
 
 make them unclasp ; 
 Its cloudy boughs singing, as suiteth the 
 
 pine. 
 To snow-bearded sea-kings old songs of 
 
 the brine, 
 Till they straightened and let theii 
 
 staves fall to the floor, 
 Hearing waves moan again on the per- 
 ilous shore 
 
THE GEOWTH OF THE LEGEND. 
 
 75 
 
 Of Vinland, {jerhaps, while their prow 
 
 groped its way 
 Twixt the frothed gnashing tusks of 
 
 some ship-crunching bay. 
 
 So, pine-like, the legend grew, strong- 
 limbed and tall, 
 
 As the Gypsy chUd grows that eats crusts 
 in the hall ; 
 
 It sucked the whole strength of the 
 earth and the sky. 
 
 Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, all 
 brought it supply ; 
 
 'T was a natural growth, and stood fear- 
 lessly there. 
 
 True part of the landscape as sea, land, 
 and air ; 
 
 For it grew in good times, ere the fash- 
 ion it was 
 
 To force these wild births of the woods 
 under glass. 
 
 And so, if 't is told as it should be told, 
 
 Though 't were sung under Venice's 
 moonlight of gold. 
 
 You would hear the old voice of its 
 mother, the pine, 
 
 Murmur sealike and northern through 
 every line. 
 
 And the verses should grow, self-sus- 
 tained and free, 
 
 Round the vibrating stem of the melody, 
 
 Like the lithe moonlit limbs of the 
 parent tree. 
 
 Yes, the pine is the mother of legends ; 
 
 what food 
 For their grim roots is left when the 
 
 thousand-yeared wood. 
 The dim-aisled cathedral, whose tall 
 
 arches spring 
 Light, sinewy, graceful, firm-set as the 
 
 wing 
 From Michael's white shoulder, is hewn 
 
 and defaced 
 By iconoclast axes in desperate waste. 
 Aid its wrecks seek the ocean it proph- 
 esied long, 
 Cassandra-like, crooning its mystical 
 
 song? 
 Then the legends go with them, — even 
 
 yet on the sea 
 A wild virtue is left in the touch of the 
 
 tree. 
 And the sailor's night-watches are 
 
 thrilled to the core 
 With the lineal ofispring of Odin and 
 
 Thor. 
 
 Yes, wherever the pine-wood has never 
 let in, 
 
 Since the day of creation, the light and 
 the din 
 
 Of manifold Ufe, but has safely con- 
 veyed 
 
 From the midnight primeval its armful 
 of shade. 
 
 And has kept the weird Past with its 
 child-faith alive 
 
 Mid the hum and the stir of To-day's 
 busy hive. 
 
 There the legend takes root in the age- 
 gathered gloom. 
 
 And its murmurous boughs for their 
 sagas find room. 
 
 Where Aroostook, far-heard, seems to 
 sob as he goes 
 
 Groping down to the sea 'neath his 
 mountainous snows ; 
 
 Where the lake's frore Sahara of never- 
 tracked white, 
 
 When the crack shoots across it, com- 
 plains to the night 
 
 With a long, lonely moan, that leagues 
 northward is lost, 
 
 As the ice shrinks away from the tread 
 of the frost ; 
 
 Where the lumberers sit by the log-fires 
 that throw 
 
 Their own threatening shadows far round 
 o'er the snow, 
 
 When the wolf howls aloof, and the 
 wavering glare 
 
 Flashes out from the blackness the eyes 
 of the bear, 
 
 When the wood's huge recesses, half- 
 lighted, supply 
 
 A canvas where Fancy her mad brush 
 _ may try. 
 
 Blotting in giant Horrors that venture 
 not down 
 
 Through the right-angled streets of the 
 brisk, whitewashed town, 
 
 But tkulk in the depths of the measure- 
 less wood 
 
 Mid the Dark's creeping whispers that 
 curdle the blood, 
 
 When the eye, glanced in dread o'er the 
 shoulder, may dream. 
 
 Ere it shrinks to the camp-fire's compan- 
 ioning gleam. 
 
 That it saw the fierce ghost of the Ked 
 Man crouch back 
 
 To the shroud of the tree-trunk's invin- 
 cible black ; — 
 
76 
 
 MISCELLAKEOUS POEMS. 
 
 There the old shapes crowd thick round 
 the pine-shadowed camp, 
 
 Which shuu the keen gleam of the schol- 
 arly lamp, 
 
 And the seed of the legend finds true 
 Norland ground, 
 
 While the border-tale 's told and the 
 canteen flits round. 
 
 A CONTRAST. 
 
 Thy love thou sentest oft to me, 
 And still as oft I thinist it back ; 
 
 Thy messengers I could not see 
 In those who everything did lack. 
 The poor, the outcast, and the black. 
 
 Pride held his hand before mine eyes. 
 The world with flattery stuffed mine 
 ears ; 
 I looked to see a monarch's guise, 
 Nor dreamed thy love would knock 
 
 for years. 
 Poor, naked, fettered, full of tears. 
 
 Yet, when 1 sent my love to thee, 
 Thou with a smile didst take it in. 
 
 And entertain'dst it royally. 
 
 Though grimed with earth, with hun- 
 ger thin, 
 And leprous with the taint of sin. 
 
 Now every day thy love I meet. 
 As o'er the earth it wanders wide, 
 
 With weary step and bleeding feet, 
 Still knocking at the heart of pride 
 And ofiering grace, though stiU de- 
 nied. 
 
 EXTREME TJNCTION. 
 
 Go! leave me. Priest; my soul would 
 be 
 Alone with the consoler, Death ; 
 Far sadder eyes than thine will see 
 This crumbling clay yield up its 
 breath ; 
 These shrivelled handshave deeper stains 
 
 Than holy oil can cleanse away. 
 Hands that have plucked the world's 
 coarse gains 
 As erst they plucked the flowers of 
 May. 
 
 Call, if thou canst, to these gray eyes 
 Some faith from youth's traditions 
 wrung; 
 
 This fruitless husk which dustward di*e# 
 Hath been a heart once, hath been 
 young; 
 On this bowed head the awful Past 
 Once laid its consecrating hands ; 
 The Future in its purpose vast 
 Paused, waiting my supreme com- 
 mands. 
 
 But look! whose shadows block tlu 
 door? 
 Who are those two that stand aloof? 
 See I on my hands this freshening gore 
 Writes o'er again its crimson proof ! 
 My looked-for death-bed guests are 
 met; 
 There my dead Youth doth wring its 
 hands, 
 And there, with eyes that goad me yet, 
 The ghost of my Ideal stands ! 
 
 God bends from out the deep and says, 
 
 " I gave thee the great gift of life ; 
 Wast thou not called in many ways ? 
 
 Are not my earth and heaven at strife • 
 I gave thee of my seed to sow, 
 
 Bringest thou me my hundred-fold?" 
 Can I look up with face aglow. 
 
 And answer, "Father, here is gold" t 
 
 I have been innocent ; God knows 
 
 When first this wasted life began. 
 Not grape with gi-ape more kindly grows. 
 
 Than I with every brother-man : 
 Now here I gasp ; what lose my kind. 
 
 When this fast ebbing breath shall 
 part? 
 What bands of love and service bind 
 
 This being to a brother heart 1 j 
 
 Christ still was wandering o'er the earth 
 
 Without a place to lay his head ; 
 He found free welcome at my hearth. 
 
 He shared my cup and broke my 
 bread : 
 Now, when I hear those steps sublime, 
 
 That bring the other world to this. 
 My snake-turned nature, sunk in slime^ 
 
 Starts sideway with defiant hiss. 
 
 Upon the hour when I was bom, 
 God said, " Another man shall be,'' 
 
 And the great Maker did not scorn 
 Out of himself to fashion me ; 
 
 He sunned me with his ripening looks^ 
 And Heaven's rich instincLs in mo 
 grew, 
 
THE OAK. 
 
 77 
 
 As effortless aa woodland nooks 
 Send violets up and paint them blue. 
 
 Yes, I who now, with angry tears. 
 
 Am exiled back to brutish clod, 
 Hare borne unc^uenched for fourscore 
 years 
 
 A spark of the eternal God ; 
 And to what end ? How yield I back 
 
 The trust for such high uses given ? 
 Heaven's light hath but revealed a track 
 
 Whereby to crawl away from heaven. 
 
 Meu think it is an awful sight 
 
 To see a soul just set adrift 
 On that drear voyage from whose night 
 
 The ominous shadows never lift ; 
 But 't is more awful to behold 
 
 A helpless infant newly born. 
 Whose little hands unconscious hold 
 
 The keys of darkness and of morn. 
 
 Mine held them once ; I flung away 
 
 Those keys that might have open set 
 The golden sluices of the day. 
 
 But clutch the keys of darkness yet ; 
 I hear the reapers singing go 
 
 Into God's harvest ; I, that might 
 With them have chosen, here below 
 
 Grope shuddering at the gates of night. 
 
 glorious Youth, that once wast mine ! 
 
 high Ideal ! all in vain 
 Ye enter at this ruined shrine 
 
 Whence worship ne'er shall rise again ; 
 The bat and owl inhabit here, 
 
 The snake nests in the altar-stone, 
 The sacred vessels moulder near, 
 
 The image of the God is gone. 
 
 THE OAK. 
 
 What gnarled stretch, what depth of 
 shade, is his ! 
 There needs no crown to mark the 
 forest's king ; 
 How in his leaves outshines full sum- 
 mer's bliss ! 
 Sun, storm, rain, dew, to him their 
 tribute bring, 
 Which he with such benignant royalty 
 Accepts, as overpayeth what is lent ; 
 All nature seems his vassal proud to be. 
 And cunning only for his ornament. 
 
 How towers ho, too, amid 'he billowed 
 snov^s. 
 An unquelled exile from the summer's 
 tlirone. 
 Whose plain, uncinctured front more 
 kmgly shows. 
 Now that the obscuring courtier leaves 
 are flown. 
 His boughs make music of the winter 
 air. 
 Jewelled with sleet, like some cathe- 
 dral front 
 Where clinging snow-flakes with quaint 
 art repair 
 The dints and furrows of time's en- 
 vious brunt. 
 
 How doth his patient strength the rude 
 March wind 
 Persuade to seem glad breaths of sum- 
 mer breeze. 
 And win the soil that fain would be 
 unkind. 
 To swell his revenues with proud in- 
 crease ! 
 He is the gem; and all the landscape 
 wide 
 (So doth his grandeur isolate the 
 sense) 
 Seems but the setting, worthless all be- 
 side. 
 An empty socket, were he fallen 
 thence. 
 
 So, from oft converse with life's wintry 
 gales. 
 Should man learn how to clasp with 
 tougher roots 
 The inspiring earth; how otherwisii 
 avails 
 The leaf-creating sap that sunward 
 shoots ? 
 So every year that falls with noiseless 
 flake 
 Should fill old scars up on the stormi 
 ward side, 
 And make hoar age revered for age's 
 sake, 
 Not for traditions of youth's leafy 
 pride. 
 
 So, from the pinched soil of a churlish 
 fate. 
 True hearts compel the sap of stur- 
 dier growth. 
 
 So between earth and heaven stand sim* 
 ply great, 
 
78 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 That these shall seem hut their at- 
 tendants both ; 
 For nature's forces with obedient zeal 
 Wait on the rooted faith and oaken 
 will; 
 As quickly the pretender's cheat they 
 feel, 
 And turn mad Pucks to flout and 
 mock him still. 
 
 Lord! all thy works are lessons; each 
 contains 
 Some emblem of man's all-containing 
 soul; 
 Shall he make fruitless all thy glorious 
 pains, 
 Delving within thy grace an eyeless 
 mole? 
 Make me the least of thy Dodona-grove, 
 Cause me some message of thy truth 
 to bring, 
 Speak but a word through me, nor let 
 thy love 
 Among my boughs disdain to perch 
 and sing. 
 
 AMBBOSE. 
 
 Never, surely, was holier man 
 Than Ambrose, since the world began ; 
 With diet spare and raiment thin 
 He shielded himself from the father of 
 
 sin; 
 With bed of iron and scourgings oft, 
 His heart to God's hand as wax made 
 
 soft. 
 
 Through earnest prayer and watchings 
 
 long 
 He sought to know 'tween right and 
 
 wrong, 
 Much wrestling with the blessed Word 
 To make it yield the sense of the Lord, 
 That he might build a storm-proof creed 
 To fold the flock in at their need. 
 
 At last he builded a perfect faith. 
 Fenced round about with The Lord thus 
 
 saith ; 
 To himself he fitted the doorway's size, 
 Meted the light to the need of his eyes. 
 And knew, by a sure and inward sign, 
 That the work of his fingers was divine. 
 
 Then Ambrose said, "All those shall die 
 The eternal death who believe not as I " ; 
 And some were boiled, some burned in fire, 
 
 Some sawn in twain, that his heart's 
 
 desire. 
 For the good of men's souls, might be 
 
 satisfied 
 By the drawing of all to the righteous 
 
 side. 
 
 One day, as Ambrose was seeking the 
 
 truth 
 In his lonely walk, he saw a youth 
 Resting himself in the shade of a tree ; 
 It had never been granted him to see 
 So shining a face, and the good man 
 
 thought 
 'T were pity he should not believe as he 
 
 ought. 
 
 So he set himself by the young man's 
 side. 
 
 And the state of his soul with questions 
 tried ; 
 
 But the heart of the stranger was hard- 
 ened indeed, 
 
 Nor received the stamp of the one true 
 creed ; 
 
 And the spirit of Ambrose waxed sore to 
 find 
 
 Such features the porch of so narrow a 
 mind. 
 
 " As each beholds in cloud and fire 
 The shape that answers his own desire. 
 So each," said the youth, " in the Law 
 
 shall find 
 The figure and fashion of his mind ; 
 And to each in his mercy hath God 
 
 allowed 
 His several pillar of fire and cloud." 
 
 The soul of Ambrose burned with zeal 
 And holy wrath for the young man's 
 
 weal: 
 "Believest thou then, moat wretched 
 
 youth," 
 Cried he, "a dividual essence in Truth! 
 I fear me thy heart istoo cramped with sin 
 To take the Lord in his glory ia." 
 
 Now there bubbled beside them where 
 
 they stood 
 A fountain of waters sweet and good ; 
 The youth to the streamlet's brink drew 
 
 near 
 Saying, "Ambrose, thou maker ol 
 
 creeds, look here I" 
 Six vases of crystal then he took. 
 And set them along the edge of tha 
 
 brook. 
 
ABOVE AND BELOW. 
 
 •THE CAPTIVE. 
 
 79 
 
 "As into these vessels the water I pour, 
 There shall one hold less, another more, 
 And the water unchanged, in every case, 
 Shall put on the figure of the vase ; 
 thou, who wouldst unity make through 
 
 strife, 
 Canst thou fit this sign to the Water of 
 
 Life ?" 
 
 When Ambrose looked up, he stood alone, 
 The youth and the stream and the vases 
 
 were gone ; 
 But he knew, by a sense of humbled 
 
 grace, 
 He had talked with an angel face to face, 
 And felt his heart change inwardly, 
 As he fell on his knees beneath the tree. 
 
 ABOVE AND BELOW. 
 
 DWELLERS in the valley-land, 
 
 Who in deep twilight grope and 
 cower. 
 Till the slow mountain's dial-hand 
 
 Shorten to noon's triumphal hour. 
 While ye sit idle, do ye think 
 
 The Lord's great work sits idle too ? 
 That light dare not o'erleap the brink 
 
 Of morn, because 't is dark with you ? 
 
 Though yet your valleys skulk in night. 
 
 In God's ripe fields the day is cried, 
 And reapers, with their sickles bright. 
 
 Troop, singing, down the mountain- 
 side: 
 Come up, and feel what health there is 
 
 In the frank Dawn's delighted eyes. 
 As, bending with a pitying kiss. 
 
 The night-shed tears of Earth she 
 dries 1 
 
 The Lord wants reapers : 0, mount up. 
 
 Before night comes, and says, "Too 
 late ! " 
 Stay not for taking scrip or cup. 
 
 The Master hungers while ye wait ; 
 'T is from these heights alone j'our eyes 
 
 The advancing spears of day can see. 
 That o'er the eastern hill-tops rise. 
 
 To break your long captivity. 
 
 Lone watcher on the mountain-height, 
 It is light precious to behold 
 
 The first long surf of climbing light 
 Flood all the thirsty east with gold ; 
 
 But we, who in the shadow sit. 
 Know also when the day is nigh, 
 
 Seeing thy shining forehead lit 
 With his inspiring prophecy. 
 
 Thou hast thine office ; we have oura ; 
 
 God lacks not early service here. 
 But what are thine eleventh hours 
 
 He counts with us for morning cheer; 
 Our day, for Him, is long enough. 
 
 And when he giveth work to do, 
 The bruised reed is amply tough 
 
 To pierce the shield of error through. 
 
 But not the less do thou aspire 
 
 Light's earlier messages to preach ; 
 Keep back no syllable of fire, 
 
 Plunge deep the rowels of thy speech. 
 Yet God deems not thine aeried sight 
 
 More worthy than our twilight dim ; 
 For meek Obedience, too, is Light, 
 
 And following that is finding Him. 
 
 THE CAPTIVE. 
 
 It was past the hour of trysting. 
 But she lingered for him still ; 
 
 Like a child, the eager streamlet 
 Leaped and laughed adown the hill, 
 
 Happy to be free at twilight 
 From its toiling at the mill. 
 
 Then the great moon on a sudden 
 
 Ominous, and red as blood. 
 Startling as a new creation. 
 
 O'er the eastern hill-top stood. 
 Casting deep and deeper shadows 
 
 Through the mystery of the wood. 
 
 Dread closed vast and vague about heaj 
 And her thoughts turned fearfully 
 
 To her heart, if there some shelter 
 From the silence there might be, 
 
 Like bare cedars leaning inland 
 From the blighting of the sea. 
 
 Yet he came not, and the stillness 
 Dampened round her like a tomb ; 
 
 She could feel cold eyes of spirits 
 Looking on her through the gloom, 
 
 She could hear the groping footsteps 
 Of some blind, gigantic doom. 
 
 Suddenly the silence wavered 
 Like a light mist in the wind. 
 
 For a voice broke gently through it, 
 Felt like sunshine by the blind. 
 
80 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 And the dread, like mist in sunshine, 
 Furled serenely from her mind. 
 
 " Once my love, my love forever, 
 Flesh or spirit, still the same. 
 
 If I failed at time of trysting. 
 Deem thou not my faith to blame ; 
 
 I, alas, was made a captive. 
 As from Holy Land I came. 
 
 " On a green spot in the desert. 
 Gleaming like an emerald star, 
 
 Where a palm-tree, in lone silence, 
 Yearning for its mate afar. 
 
 Droops' above a silver runnel. 
 Slender as a scimitar, 
 
 " There thou 'It find the humble postern 
 
 To the castle of my foe ; 
 If thy love burn clear and faithful. 
 
 Strike the gateway, green and low, 
 Ask to enter, and the warder 
 
 Surely will not say thee no." 
 
 Slept again the aspen silence. 
 But her loneliness was o'er ; 
 
 Bound her soul a motherly patience 
 Clasped its arms forevermore ; 
 
 Prom her heart ebbed back the sorrow. 
 Leaving smooth the golden shore. 
 
 Donned she now the pilgrim scallop, 
 Took the pilgrim staff in hand ; 
 
 Like a cloud-shade, flitting eastward, 
 Wandered she o'er sea and land ; 
 
 And her footsteps in the desert 
 Fell like cool rain on the sand. 
 
 Soon, beneath the palm-tree's shadow. 
 Knelt she at the postern low ; 
 
 And thereat she knocked full gently, 
 Fearing much the warder's no ; 
 
 All her heart stood still and listened, 
 As the door swung backward slow. 
 
 There she saw no surly wardfer 
 With an eye like bolt and bar ; 
 
 Through her soul a sense of music 
 Throbbed, and, like a guardian Lar, 
 
 On the threshold stood an angel. 
 Bright and silent as a star. 
 
 Fairest seemed he of God's seraphs. 
 
 And her spirit, lily-wise, 
 Opened when he turned upon her 
 
 The deep welcome of his eyes. 
 Bending upward to that sunlight 
 
 All its dew for sacrifice. 
 
 Then she heard a voice com*, inward 
 Singing with a raptjire new^ 
 
 As Eve heard the songs in Eden, 
 Dropping earthward with the dew; 
 
 Well she knew the happy singer, 
 WeU the happy song she knew. 
 
 Forward leaped she o'er the threshold. 
 
 Eager as a glancing surf ; 
 Fell from her the spirit's languor. 
 
 Fell from her the body's scurf ; 
 'Neath the palm next day some Arabs 
 
 Found a corpse upon the turf. 
 
 THE BIBCH-TBEi;. 
 
 EiPPLiNO through thy branches goes 
 the sunshine, 
 
 Among thy leaves that palpitate for- 
 ever ; 
 
 Ovid in thee a pining Nymph had pris- 
 oned, 
 
 The soul once of some tremulous inland 
 river, 
 
 Quivering to tell her woe, but, ah ! 
 dumb, dumb forever ! 
 
 While all the forest, witched with slnm> 
 
 berous moonshine. 
 Holds up its leaves in happy, happy 
 
 stillness. 
 Waiting the dew, with breath and pulse 
 
 suspended, 
 I hear afar thy whispering, gleamy 
 
 islands, 
 And track thee wakeful still amid the 
 
 wide-hung silence. 
 
 On the brink of some wood-nestled lake* 
 
 let, 
 Thy foliage, like the tresses of a Dryad, 
 Dripping round thy slim white stem, 
 
 whose shadow 
 Slopes quivering down the water's dnsl^ 
 
 quiet. 
 Thou shrink'st as on her bath's edge 
 
 would some startled Naiad. 
 
 Thou art the go-between of rustic lovers ; 
 Thy white bark has their secrets in its 
 
 keeping ; 
 Reuben writes here the happy name of 
 
 Patience, 
 And thy lithe boughs hang murinuring 
 
 and weeping 
 Above her; as she steals the mystery 
 
 froni thy keeping 
 
AN INTERVIEW WITH MLES STANDISH. 
 
 81 
 
 Thou art to mo like my Ijeloved maiden, 
 
 So frankly coy, so full of trembly confi- 
 dences ; 
 
 Thy shadow scarce seems shade, thy 
 pattering leaflets 
 
 Sprinkle their gathered sunshine o'er 
 my senses, 
 
 And Nature gives me all her summer 
 confidences. 
 
 Whether my heart with hope or sorrow 
 tremble, 
 
 Thou sympathizest still ; wild and un- 
 quiet, 
 
 1 fling me down ; thy ripple, like a river, 
 
 Flows valleyward, where calmness is, 
 and by it 
 
 My heart is floated down into the land 
 of quiet. 
 
 AN INTEEVIEW WITH MILES 
 STAIIDISH. 
 
 I SAT one evening in my room. 
 
 In that sweet hour of twilight 
 When blended thoughts, half light, half 
 gloom. 
 
 Throng through the spirit's skylight ; 
 The flames by fits curled round the bars, 
 
 Or up the chimney crinkled. 
 While embers dropped like falling stars. 
 
 And in the ashes tinkled. 
 
 I sat and mused ; the fire burned low. 
 
 And, o'er my senses stealing. 
 Crept something of the ruddy glow 
 
 That bloomed on wall and ceiling ; 
 Mypictures (they are very few. 
 
 The heads of ancient wise men) 
 Smoothed down their knotted fronts, 
 , and grew 
 
 As rosy as excisemen. 
 
 jTy antique high-backed Spanish chair 
 
 Felt thrills through wood and leather. 
 That had been strangers since whilere, 
 
 'Mid Andalusian heather. 
 The oak that built its sturdy frame 
 
 His happy arms stretched over 
 The ox whose fortunate hide became 
 
 The bottom's polished cover. 
 
 It came out in that famous bark. 
 That brought our sires intrepid, 
 
 Capacious as another ark 
 For furniture decrepit ; 
 
 6 
 
 For, as that saved of bird and beast 
 
 A pair for propagation, 
 So has the seed of these increased 
 
 And furnished half the nation. 
 
 Kings sit, they say, in slippery seats; 
 
 But those slant precipices 
 Of ice the northern voyager meets 
 
 Less slippery are than this is ; 
 To cling therein would pass the wit 
 
 Of royal man or woman. 
 And whatsoe'er can stay in it 
 
 Is more or less than human. 
 
 I offer to all bores this perch, 
 
 Dear weU-intentioned people 
 With heads as void as week-day church. 
 
 Tongues longer than the steeple ; 
 To folks with missions, whose gaunt 
 eyes 
 
 See golden ages rising, — 
 Salt of the earth ! in what queer Guys 
 
 Thou 'rt fond of crystallizing ! 
 
 My wonder, then, was not unmixed 
 
 With merciful suggestion, 
 When, as my roving eyes grew fixed 
 
 Upon the chair in question, 
 I saw its trembling arms enclose 
 
 A figure glim and rusty, 
 Whose doublet plain and plainer hose 
 
 Were something worn and dusty. 
 
 Now even such men as Nature forms 
 
 Merely to fill the street with, 
 Once turned to ghosts by hungry worms. 
 
 Are serious things to meet with ; 
 Your penitent spirits are no jokes, 
 
 And, though I 'm not averse to 
 A quiet shade, even they are folks 
 
 One cares not to speak first to. 
 
 Who knows, thought I, but he has com*. 
 
 By Charon kindly ferried. 
 To tell me of a mighty sum 
 
 Behind my wainscot buried ? 
 There is a buocaneerish air 
 
 About that garb outlandish — 
 Just then the ghost drew up his chair 
 
 And said, " My name is Standish. 
 
 " I come from Plymouth, deadly bored 
 With toasts, and songs, and speechesi 
 
 As Ion" and flat as my old sword. 
 As threadbare as my breeches : 
 
 Hiey understand us Pilgrims ! they. 
 Smooth men with rosy faces, 
 
82 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Strength's knots and gnarls all pared 
 away, 
 And varnish in their places ! 
 
 ""We had some toughness in our grain, 
 
 The eye to rightly see us is 
 Not just the one that lights the brain 
 
 Of drawing-room Tyrtseuses : 
 They talk ahout their Pilgrim hlood. 
 
 Their birthright high and holy ! 
 A mountain-stream that ends in mud 
 
 Methinks is melancholy. 
 
 " He had stiff knees, the Puritan, 
 
 That were not good at bending ; 
 The homespun dignity of man 
 
 He thought was worth defending ; 
 He did not, with his pinchbeck ore, 
 
 His country's shame forgotten. 
 Gild Freedom's coSin o'er and o'er, 
 
 When all within was rotten. 
 
 "These loud ancestral boasts of yours, 
 
 How can they else than vex us ? 
 Where were your dinner orators 
 
 When slavery grasped at Texas ? 
 Dumb on his knees was every one 
 
 That now is bold as Cajsar ; 
 Mere pegs to hang an office on 
 
 Such stalwart men as these are." 
 
 "Good sir," I said, "you seem much 
 stirred ; 
 
 The sacred compromises — " 
 " Now God confound the dastard word! 
 
 My gall thereat arises : 
 Northward it hath this sense alone. 
 
 That you, your conscience blinding. 
 Shall bow your fool's nose to the stone, 
 
 When slavery feels like grinding. 
 
 '"T is shame to see such painted sticks 
 
 In Vane's and Winthrop's places. 
 To see your spirit of Seventy-six 
 
 Drag humbly in the traces. 
 With slavery's lash upon her back. 
 
 And herds of office-holders 
 To shout applause, as, with a crack. 
 
 It peels her patient shoulders. 
 
 " We forefathers to such a rout ! — 
 No, by niy faith in God's word ! " 
 
 Half rose the ghost, and half drew out 
 The ghost of his old broadsword, 
 
 Then thrust it slowly back again. 
 And said, with reverent gesture, 
 
 "No, Freedom, nol blood should ntH 
 stain 
 The hem of thy white vesture. 
 
 ' ' I feel the soul in me draw near 
 
 The mount of prophesying ; 
 In this bleak wildei-ness I hear 
 
 A John the Baptist crying ; 
 Far in the east I see upleap 
 
 The streaks of first forewarning. 
 And they who sowed the light shall reap 
 
 The golden sheaves of morning. 
 
 " Child of our travail and our woe. 
 
 Light in our day of sorrow, 
 Through my rapt spirit I foreknow 
 
 The glory of thy morrow ; 
 I hear great steps, that through the shade 
 
 Draw nigher still and nigher. 
 And voices call like that which bade 
 
 The prophet come up higher." 
 
 I looked, no form mine eyes could find, 
 
 I heard the red cock crowing. 
 And through my window-chinks the 
 wind 
 
 A dismal tune was blowing ; 
 Thought I, My neighbor Buckingham 
 
 Hath somewhat in him gritty, 
 Some Pilgrim-stuff that hates all sham. 
 
 And he will print my ditty. 
 
 ON THE CAPTtmE OF FTrGITIVE 
 SLATTES NEAR WASHINGTON. 
 
 Look on who will in apathy, and stifle 
 
 they who can,' 
 The sympathies, the hopes, the words, 
 
 that make man truly man ; 
 Let those whose hearts are dungeoned 
 
 up with interest or with ease 
 Consent to hear with quiet pulse of 
 
 loathsome deeds like these ! 
 
 I first drew in New England's air, and 
 
 from her hardy breast 
 Sucked in the tyrant-hating milk that 
 
 will not let me rest; 
 And if my words seem treason to the 
 
 dullard and the tame, 
 'T is but my Bay-State dialect, — our 
 
 fathers spake the same 1 
 
 Shame on the costly mockery of piling 
 
 stone on stone 
 To those who won our liberty, the heroes 
 
 dead and gone. 
 
TO THE DANDELION. 
 
 83 
 
 While we look coldly on and see law- 
 shielded ruffians slay 
 
 The men who fain would win their own, 
 the heroes of to-day ! 
 
 Ave we pledged to craven silence ? 0, 
 
 fling it to the wind, 
 The parchment wall that bars us from 
 
 the least of human kind. 
 That makes us cringe and temporize, 
 
 and dumbly stand at rest, 
 While Pity's burning flood of words is 
 
 red-hot in the breast ! 
 
 Though we break our fathers' promise, 
 
 we have nobler duties first ; 
 The traitor to Humanity is the traitor 
 
 most accursed ; 
 Man is more than Constitutions ; better 
 
 rot beneath the sod. 
 Than be true to Church and State while 
 
 we are doubly false to God ! 
 
 We owe allegiance to the State ; but 
 
 deeper, truer, more. 
 To the sympathies that God hath set 
 
 within our spirit's core ; 
 Our country claims our fealty ; we grant 
 
 it so, but then 
 Before Man made us citizens, great 
 
 Nature made us men. 
 
 He 's true to God who 's true to man ; 
 
 wherever wrong is done. 
 To the humblest and the weakest, 'neath 
 
 the all-beholding sun. 
 That wrong is also done to us ; and they 
 
 are slaves most base. 
 Whose love of right is for themselves, 
 
 and not for all their race. 
 
 God works for all. Ye cannot hem the 
 hope of being free 
 
 With parallels of latitude, with moun- 
 tain-range or sea. 
 
 Put golden padlocks on Truth's lips, be 
 callous as ye will. 
 
 From soul to soul, o'er all the world, 
 leaps one electric thrill. 
 
 Chain down your slaves with ignorance, 
 ye cannot keep apart. 
 
 With all your craft of tyranny, the hu- 
 man heart from heart : 
 
 When first the Pilgrims landed on the 
 Bay State's iron shore, 
 
 The word went forth that slavery should 
 one day be no more. 
 
 Out from the land of bondage 't is de. 
 creed our slaves shall go, 
 
 And signs to us are offered, as erst to 
 Pharaoh ; 
 
 If we are blind, their exodus, like Is- 
 rael's of yore, 
 
 Through a Red Sea is doomed to be, 
 whose surges are of gore. 
 
 'T is ours to save our brethren, with 
 
 peace and love to win 
 Their darkened hearts from error, ere 
 
 they harden it to sin ; 
 But if before his duty man with listless 
 
 spirit stands, 
 Erelong the Great Avenger takes the 
 
 work from out his hands. 
 
 TO THE DANDELION. 
 
 Dear common flower, that grow'st 
 beside the way. 
 Fringing the dusty road with harmless 
 gold, 
 First pledge of blithesome May, 
 Which children pluck, and, full of pride 
 uphold. 
 High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed 
 that they 
 An Eldorado in the grass have found. 
 Which not the rich earth's ample 
 round 
 May match in wealth, thou art more 
 
 dear to me 
 Than all the prouder summer-blooms 
 may be. 
 
 Gold such as thine ne'er drew the 
 Spanish prow 
 Through the primeval hush of Indian 
 
 Nor wrinkled the lean brow 
 Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease ; 
 'T is the Spring's largess, which she 
 scatters now 
 To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, 
 Though most hearts never under- 
 stand 
 To take it at God's value, but pass by 
 The offered wealth with unrewarded 
 
 Thou art my tropics and mine Italy; 
 To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime j 
 
 The eyes thou givest me 
 Are in the heart, and need not space or 
 I time: 
 
84 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Not in mid June the golden-cui- 
 rassed bee 
 Feels a more summer-like warm ravish- 
 ment 
 In the white lily's breezy tent, 
 His fragrant Sybaiis, than I, when 
 
 first 
 From the dark green thy yellow cir- 
 cles burst. 
 
 Then think I of deep shadows on the 
 
 Of meadows where in sun the cattle 
 graze, 
 Where, as the breezes pass, 
 The gleaming rushes lean a thousand 
 ways, 
 Of leaves that slumber in u cloudy 
 mass, 
 Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue 
 That from the distance sparkle 
 through 
 Some woodland gap, and of a sky 
 
 above, 
 "Where one white cloud like a stray 
 lamb doth move. 
 
 My childhood's earliest thoughts are 
 linked with thee ; 
 The sight of thee calls back the robin's 
 song. 
 Who, from the dark old tree 
 Beside the door, sang clearly aU day 
 long. 
 And I, secure in childish piety. 
 Listened as if I heard an angel sing 
 With news from heaven, which he 
 could bring 
 Fresh every day to my untainted 
 
 ears 
 When birds and flowers and I were 
 happy peers. 
 
 ■ How like a prodigal doth nature seem, 
 When thou, for all thy gold, so common 
 art! 
 Thou teachest me to deem 
 More sacredly of every human heart, 
 Since each reflects in joy its scanty 
 
 Of heaven, and could some wondrous 
 secret show. 
 Did Ve but pay the love we owe, 
 And with a child's undoubting wis- 
 dom look 
 On all these living pages of God's 
 book. 
 
 THE GHOST-SEEB. 
 
 Yb who, passing graves by night, 
 
 Glance not to the left nor right. 
 
 Lest a spirit should arise, 
 
 Cold and white, to freeze your eyes. 
 
 Some weak phantom, which your doubt 
 
 Shapes upon the dark without 
 
 From the dark within, a guess 
 
 At the spirit's deathlessness. 
 
 Which ye entertain with fear 
 
 In your self -built dungeon here. 
 
 Where ye sell your God-given lives 
 
 Just for gold to buy you gyves, — 
 
 Ye without a shudder meet 
 
 In the city's noonday street. 
 
 Spirits sadder and more dread 
 
 Than from out the clay have fled. 
 
 Buried, beyond hope of light. 
 
 In the body's haunted night ! 
 
 See ye not that woman pale ? 
 There are bloodhounds on her trail ! 
 Bloodhounds two, all gaunt and lean, 
 (For the soul their scent is keen,) 
 Want and Sin, and Sin is last, 
 They have followed far and fast ; 
 Want gave tongue, and, at her howl. 
 Sin awakened with a growl. 
 Ah, poor girl ! she had a right 
 To a blessing from the light ; 
 Title-deeds to sky and earth 
 God gave to her at her birth ; 
 But, before they were enjoyed. 
 Poverty had made them void. 
 And had drunk the sunshine up 
 From all nature's ample cup. 
 Leaving her a first-bom's share 
 In the dregs of darkness there. 
 Often, on the sidewalk bleak. 
 Hungry, all alone, and weak. 
 She has seen, in night and storm. 
 Rooms o'erflow with firelight warm, 
 Which, outside the window-glass, 
 Doubled all the cold, alas ! 
 Till each ray that on her feE 
 Stabbed her like an icicle. 
 And she almost loved the wail 
 Of the bloodhounds on her trail. 
 Till the floor becomes her bier. 
 She shall feel their pantings near, 
 Close upon her very heels. 
 Spite of all the din of wheels ; 
 Shivering on her pallet poor. 
 She shall hear them at the door 
 Whine and scratch to be let in, 
 I Sister bloodhounds. Want and Sin I 
 
THE GHOST-SEEE. 
 
 85 
 
 Hark ! that rustle of a dress, 
 
 Stiff with lavish costliness I 
 
 Here comes one whose cheek would 
 
 flush 
 But to have her garment brush 
 'Gainst the girl whose fingers thin 
 Wove the weary broidery in, 
 Bending backward from her toil, 
 Lest her tears the silk might soil, 
 And, in midnights chill and murk, 
 Stitched her life into the work, 
 Shaping from her bitter thought 
 Heart's-ease and forget-me-not. 
 Satirizing her despair 
 With the emblems woven there. 
 Little doth the wearer heed 
 Of the heart-break in the brede ; 
 A hyena by her side 
 Skulks, down-looking, — it is Pride, 
 He digs for her in the earth. 
 Where lie all her claims of birth. 
 With his foul paws rooting o'er 
 Some long-buried ancestor. 
 Who, perhaps, a statue won 
 By the ill deeds he had done, 
 By the innocent blood he shed. 
 By the desolation spread 
 Over happy villages. 
 Blotting out the smile of peace. 
 
 There walks Judas, he who sold 
 Yesterday his Lord for gold. 
 Sold God's presence in his heart 
 For a proud step in the mart ; 
 He hath dealt in flesh and blood; 
 At the bank his name is good ; 
 At the bank, and only there, 
 'T is a marketable ware. 
 In his eyes that stealthy gleam 
 Was not learned of sky or stream, 
 But it has the cold, hard glint 
 Of new dollars from the mint. 
 Open now your spirit's eyes, 
 liook through that poor clay disguise 
 Which has thickened, day by day, 
 Till it keeps all light at bay, 
 And his soul in pitchy gloom 
 Gropes about its narrow tomb, 
 From whose dank and slimy walls 
 Drop by drop the horror falls. 
 Look ! a serpent lank and cold 
 Hugs his spirit fold on fold ; 
 From his heart, all day and night, 
 It doth suck God's blessed light. 
 Drink it will, and drink it must, 
 Till the cup holds naught but dust; 
 All day long he heai's it hiss, 
 
 Writhing in its fiendish bliss ; 
 All night long he sees its eyes 
 Flicker with foul ecstasies, 
 As the spirit ebbs away 
 Into the absorbing clay. 
 
 Who is he that skulks, afraid 
 Of the trust he has betrayed, 
 Shuddering if perchance a gleam 
 Of old nobleness should stream 
 Through the pent, unwholesome room. 
 Where his shrunk soul cowers in 
 
 gloom. 
 Spirit sad beyond the rest 
 By more instinct for the best ? 
 'T is a poet who was sent 
 For a bad world's punishment, 
 By compelling it to see 
 Golden glimpses of To Be, 
 By compelling it to hear 
 Songs that prove the angels near ; 
 Who was sent to be the tongue 
 Of the weak and spirit-wrung. 
 Whence the fiery-winged Despair 
 In men's shrinking eyes might flare. 
 'T is our hope doth fashion us 
 To base use or glorious : 
 He who might have been a lark 
 Of Truth's morning, from the dark 
 Raining down melodious hope 
 Of a freer, broader scope, 
 Aspiration.?, prophecies. 
 Of the spirit's full sunrise. 
 Chose to be a bird of night. 
 That, with eyes refusing light, 
 Hooted fpom some hollow tree 
 Of the world's idolatry. 
 'T is his punishment to hear 
 Sweep of eager pinions near, 
 And his own vain wings to feel 
 Drooping downward to his heel. 
 All their grace and import lost. 
 Burdening his weary ghost : 
 Ever walking by his side 
 He must see his angel guide, 
 Who at intervals doth turn 
 Looks on him so sadly stem. 
 With such ever-new surprise 
 Of hushed anguish in her eyes, 
 That it seems the light of day 
 From around him shrinks away, 
 Or drops blunted from the wall 
 BuUt around him by his fall. 
 Then the mountains, whose white peaks 
 Catch the morning's earliest streaks. 
 He must see, where prophets sit. 
 Turning east their faces lit, 
 
86 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Whence, with footsteps heantifol, 
 To the earth, yet dim and dull, 
 They the gladsome tidings hring 
 Of the sunlight's hastening : 
 Never can these hills of bliss 
 Be o'erclimbed by feet like his ! 
 
 But enough ! 0, do not dare 
 From the next the veil to tear. 
 Woven of station, trade, or dress. 
 More obscene than nakedness. 
 Wherewith plausible culture drapes 
 Fallen Nature's myriad shapes ! 
 Let us rather love to mark 
 How the unextinguished spark 
 Still gleams through the thin disguii 
 Of our customs, pomps, and lies, 
 And, not seldom blown to flame. 
 Vindicate its ancient claim. 
 
 STUDIES FOE TWO HEADS. 
 
 Some sort of heart I know is hers, — 
 I chanced to feel her pulse one night ; 
 
 A brain she has that never errs, 
 And yet is never nobly right ; 
 
 It does not leap to great results. 
 But, in some corner out of sight. 
 Suspects a spot of latent blight, 
 And, o'er the impatient infinite. 
 
 She bargains, haggles, and consults. 
 
 Her eye, — it seems a chemic test 
 
 And drops upon you like an acid ; 
 It bites you with unconscious zest. 
 
 So clear and bright, so coldly placid ; 
 It holds you quietfy aloof. 
 
 It holds, — and yet it does not win 
 you; 
 It merely puts you to the proof 
 
 And sorts what qualities are in you ; 
 It smiles, but never brings you nearer. 
 
 It lights, — her nature draws not nigh ; 
 T is but that yonis is growing clearer 
 
 To her assays ; — yes, try and try, 
 
 You 'U get no deeper than her eye. 
 
 There, you are classified : she's gone 
 
 Far, far away Into herself; 
 Each with its Latin label on. 
 Your poor components, one by one. 
 
 Are laid upon their proper shelf 
 In her compact and ordered mind. 
 And what of you is left behind 
 Is no more to her than the wind; 
 
 In that clear brain, which, day and 
 night, 
 No movement of the heart e'er jostles. 
 Her friends are ranged on left and 
 
 right, — 
 Here, silex, hornblende, sienite ; 
 There, animal remains and fossils. 
 
 And yet, subtile analyst. 
 
 That ca'nst each property detect 
 
 Of mood or grain, that canst untwist 
 Each tangled skein of intellect, 
 
 And with thy scalpel ej'es lay bare 
 
 Each mental nerve more fine than air, — • 
 brain exact, that in thy scales 
 
 Canst weigh the sun and never err. 
 For once thy patient science fails. 
 One problem still defies thy art ; — • 
 
 Thou never canst compute for her 
 
 The distance and diameter 
 Of any simple human heart. 
 
 Hear him but speak, and you wiU feel 
 The shadows of the Portico 
 
 Over your tranquil spirit steal. 
 To modulate all joy and woe 
 To one subdued, subduing glow ; 
 
 Above our squabbling business-hours. 
 
 Like Phidian Jove's, his beauty lowers. 
 
 His nature satirizes ours ; 
 A form and front of Attic grace. 
 He shames the higgling market-plac^ 
 
 And dwarfs our more mechanic powera. 
 
 What throbbing verse can fitly render 
 That face so pure, so trembling-ten. 
 der? 
 
 Sensation glimmers through its rest, 
 It speaks unmanacled by words. 
 
 As full of motion as a nest 
 That palpitates with unfledged birds ; 
 
 'T is likest to Bethesda's stream. 
 Forewarned through all its thrilling 
 springs. 
 
 White with the angel's coming gleam, 
 And rippled with his fanning wings. 
 
 Hear him unfold his plots and plans, 
 And larger destinies seem man's ; 
 You conjure from his glowing face 
 The omen of a fairer race ; 
 With one grand trope he boldly spans 
 
 The gulf wherein so many fall, 
 
 'Twixt possible and actual ; 
 His first swift word, talaria-shod. 
 Exuberant with conscious God, 
 
ON A PORTRAIT OF DANTE. — ON THE DEATH OF A CHILD. 87 
 
 Out of the choir of planets blots 
 The present earth with all its spots. 
 
 Himself unshaken as the sky, 
 His words, like whirlwinds, spin on 
 high 
 
 Systems and creeds pellmell together ; 
 'T is strange as to a deaf man's eye, ' 
 While trees uprooted splinter by. 
 
 The dumb turmoil of stormy weather ; 
 
 Less of iconoclast than shaper. 
 His spirit, safe behind the reach 
 Of the tornado of his speech. 
 
 Bums calmly as a glowworm's ta- 
 per. 
 
 So great in speech, but, ah ! in act 
 
 So overrun with vermin troubles, 
 The coarse, sharp-cornered, ugly fact 
 
 Of life collapses all his bubbles : 
 Had he but lived in Plato's day, 
 
 He might, unless my fancy errs. 
 Have shared that golden voice's sway 
 
 O'er barefooted philosophers. 
 Our nipping climate hardly suits 
 The ripening of ideal fruits : 
 His theories vanquish us all summer. 
 But winter makes him dumb and 
 
 dumber ; 
 To see him mid life's needful things 
 
 Is something painfully bewildering ; 
 He seems an angel with dipt wings 
 
 Tied to a mortal wife and children. 
 And by a brother seraph taken 
 In the act of eating eggs and bacon. 
 Like a clear fountain, his desire 
 
 Exults and leaps toward the light, 
 In every drop it says "Aspire ! " 
 
 Striving for more ideal height ; 
 And as the fountain, falling thence, 
 
 Crawls baffled through the common 
 gutter. 
 So, from his speech's eminence. 
 He shrinks into the present tense, 
 
 Unkinged by foolish bread and butter. 
 
 Yet smile not, worldling, for in deeds 
 
 Not all of life that 's brave and wise 
 is; 
 He strews an ampler future's seeds, 
 
 'T is your faijlt if no harvest rises ; 
 Smooth back the sneer ; for is it naught 
 
 That all he is and has is Beauty's ? 
 By soul the soul's gains must be wrought. 
 The Actual claims our coarser thought, 
 
 The Ideal hath its higher duties. 
 
 ON A POETEATT OF DANTE BY GIOTTa 
 
 Can this be thou who, lean and pale. 
 
 With such immitigable eye 
 Didst look upon those writhing souls in 
 bale, 
 
 And note each vengeance, and pass by 
 Unmoved, save when thy heart by chance 
 Cast backward one forbidden glance, 
 
 And saw Francesca, with child's glee. 
 
 Subdue and mount thy wild-horse knee 
 And with proud hands control its fiery 
 prance ? 
 
 With half-drooped lids, and smooth, 
 round brow. 
 
 And eye remote, that inly sees 
 Fair Beatrice's spirit wandering now 
 
 In some sea-lulled Hesperides, 
 Thou movest through the jarring street, 
 Secluded from the noise of feet 
 
 By her gift-blossom in thy hand. 
 
 Thy branch of palm from Holy 
 Land; — 
 No trace is here of ruin's fiery sleet. 
 
 Yet there is something round thy lips 
 
 That prophesies the coming doom. 
 The soft, gray hei-ald-sbadow ere the 
 eclipse 
 Notches the perfect disk with gloom ; 
 A something that would banish thee. 
 And thine untamed pursuer be. 
 
 From men and their unworthy fates. 
 Though Florence had not shut her 
 gates. 
 And Grief had loosed her clutch and let 
 thee free. 
 
 Ah ! he who follows fearlessly 
 
 The beckonings of a poet-heart 
 Shall wander, and without the world's 
 decree, 
 A banished man in field and mart ; 
 Harder than Florence' walls the bar 
 Which with deaf sternness holds him 
 far 
 From home and friends, till death's 
 
 relea.se, 
 And makes his only prayer for peace. 
 Like thine, scarred veteran of a lifelong 
 war! 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF A FEIEND'S CHILD. 
 
 Death never came so nigh to me before. 
 Nor showed me his mild face : oft had I 
 mused 
 
88 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Of calm and peace and safe forgetful- 
 ness, 
 
 Of folded hands, closed eyes, and heart 
 at rest, 
 
 And slumber sound beneath a flowery 
 turf, 
 
 Of faults forgotten, and an inner place 
 
 Kept sacred for us in the heart of 
 friends ; 
 
 But these were idle fancies, satisfied 
 
 With the mere husk of this great mys- 
 tery. 
 
 And dwelling in the outward shows of 
 things. 
 
 Heaven is not mounted to on wings of 
 dreams. 
 
 Nor doth the unthankful happiness of 
 youth 
 
 Aim thitherward, but floats from bloom 
 to bloom. 
 
 With earth's warm patch of sunshine 
 well content : 
 
 'T is sorrow builds the shining ladder up. 
 
 Whose golden rounds are our calamities. 
 
 Whereon our firm feet planting, nearer 
 God 
 
 The spirit climbs, and hath its eyes un- 
 sealed. 
 
 True is it that Death's face seems stem 
 
 and cold, 
 When he is sent to summon those we 
 
 love. 
 But all God's angels come to us dis- 
 guised ; 
 Sorrow and sickness, poverty and death. 
 One after other lift their frowning 
 
 masks, 
 And we behold the seraph's face beneath, 
 All radiant \pth the glory and the calm 
 Of having looked upon the front of God. 
 With every anguish of our earthly part 
 The spirit's sight grows clearer ; this was 
 
 meant 
 When Jesus touched the blind man's 
 
 lids with clay. 
 Life is the jailer. Death the angel sent 
 To draw the unwilling bolts and set us 
 
 free. 
 He flings not ope the ivory gate of 
 
 Rest, — 
 Only the fallen spirit knocks at that, — 
 But to benigner regions beckons us. 
 To destinies of more rewarded toil. 
 In the hushed chamber, sifting by the 
 
 dead, 
 It grates on us to hear the flood of life 
 
 Whirl rustling onward, senseless of ouf 
 
 loss. 
 The bee hums on ; around the blossomed 
 
 vine 
 Whirs the light humming-bird; the 
 
 cricket chirps ; 
 The locust's shrill alarum stings the 
 
 ear; 
 Hard by, the cock shouts lustily ; from 
 
 farm to fann, 
 His cheery brothers, telling of the sun. 
 Answer, till far away the joyanoe dies : 
 We never knew before how God had 
 
 filled 
 The summer air with happy Uviug 
 
 sounds ; 
 All round us seems an overplus of life. 
 And yet the one dear heart lies cold and 
 
 stia 
 It is most strange, when the great mir- 
 acle 
 Hath for our sakes been done, when we 
 
 have had 
 Our inwardest experience of God, 
 When with his presence still the room 
 
 expands. 
 And is awed after him, that naught is 
 
 changed. 
 That Nature's face looks unaeknowl- 
 
 edging. 
 And the mad world still dances heedless 
 
 on 
 After its butterflies, and gives no sign. 
 'T is hard at first to see it all aright: 
 In vain Faith blows her trump to sum- 
 mon back 
 Her scattered troop : yet, through the 
 
 clouded glass 
 Of our own bitter tears, we learn to look 
 Undazzled on the kindness of God's 
 
 face; 
 Earth is too dark, and Heaven alone 
 
 shines through. 
 
 It is no little thing, when a fresh soul 
 And a fresh heart, with their unmeas* 
 
 ured scope 
 For good, not gravitating earthward yet, 
 But circling in diviner periods. 
 Are sent into the world, — no little 
 
 thing, 
 When this unbounded possibility 
 Into the outer silence is withdrawn. 
 Ah, in this world, where every guiding 
 
 thread 
 Ends suddenly in the one sure centre^ 
 
 death, 
 
EUETDICE. 
 
 89 
 
 The visionary hand of Might-have-been 
 Alone can fill Desire's cup to the brim ! 
 
 How changed, dear friend, are thy part 
 
 and thy child's ! 
 He bends above thy cradle now, or holds 
 His warning iinger out to be thy guide ; 
 Thou art the nursling now ; he watches 
 
 thee 
 Slow learning, one by one, the secret 
 
 things 
 Which are to him used sights of every 
 
 day; 
 He smiles to see thy wondering glances 
 
 con 
 The grass and pebbles of the spirit- 
 
 worid. 
 To thee miraculous ; and he will teach 
 Thy knees their due observances of 
 
 prayer. 
 Children are God's apostles, day by day 
 Sent forth to preach of love, and hope, 
 
 and peace ; 
 Nor hath thy babe his mission left un- 
 done. 
 To me, at least, his going hence hath 
 
 given 
 Serener thoughts and nearer to the skies. 
 And opened a new fountain in my heart 
 For thee, my friend, and all : and 0, if 
 
 Death 
 More near approaches meditates, and 
 
 Even now some dearer, more reluctant 
 
 hand, 
 God, strengthen thou my faith, that I 
 
 may see 
 That 't is thine angel, who, with loving 
 
 haste, 
 ITnto the service of the inner shrine. 
 Doth waken thy beloved with a kiss. 
 
 ETJRTDICE. 
 
 Heaven's cup held down to me I 
 
 drain, 
 The sunshine mounts and spurs my 
 
 brain; 
 Bathing in grass, with thirsty eye 
 I suck the last drop of the sky ; 
 With each hot sense I draw to the lees 
 The quickening out-door inQuences, 
 And empty to each radiant comer 
 A supernaculum of summer : 
 Not, Bacchus, all thy grosser juice 
 Could bring enchantment so profuse, 
 
 Though for its press each grape-bunch had 
 The white feet of an Oread. 
 
 Through our coarse art gleam, now and 
 
 then. 
 The features of angelic men : 
 'Neath the lewd Satyr's veiling paint 
 Glows forth the Sibyl, Muse, or Saint ; 
 The dauber's botch no more obscures 
 The mighty master's portraitures. j 
 
 And who can say what luckier beam 
 The hidden glory shall redeem. 
 For what chance clod the soul may wait 
 To stumble on its nobler fate, 
 Or why, to his unwarned abode. 
 Still by surprises comes the God 1 
 Some moment, nailed on sorrow's cross, 
 May mediate a whole youth's loss, 
 Some windfall joy, we know not whence. 
 Redeem a lifetime's rash expense. 
 And, suddenly wise, the soul may mark. 
 Stripped of their simulated dark. 
 Mountains of gold that pierce the sky, 
 Girdling its valleyed poverty. 
 
 I feel ye, childhood's hopes, return. 
 With olden heats my pulses bum, — 
 Mine be the self-forgetting sweep. 
 The torrent impulse swift and wild, 
 Wherewith Taghkanic'a rockbom child 
 Dares gloriously the dangerous leap. 
 And, in his sky-descended mood. 
 Transmutes each drop of sluggish blood. 
 By touch of bravery's simple wand, 
 To amethyst and diamond, 
 Proving himself no bastard slip. 
 But the true granite-cradled one, 
 Nursed with the rock's primeval drip. 
 The cloud-embracing mountain's son ! 
 
 Prayer breathed in vain ! no wish's sway 
 Rebuilds the vanished yesterday ; 
 For plated wares of Sheffield stamp 
 We gave the old Aladdin's lamp ; 
 'T is we are changed ; ah, whither went 
 That undesigned abandonment, 
 That wise, unquestioning content. 
 Which could erect its microcosm 
 Out of a weed's neglected blossom. 
 Could call up Arthur and his peers 
 By a low moss's clump of spears, 
 Or, in its shingle trireme launched. 
 Where Charles in some green inlet 
 
 branched. 
 Could venture for the golden fleece 
 And dragon-watched Hesperides, 
 Or, from its ripple-shattered fate. 
 
90 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Ulysses' chances re-create ? 
 When, heralding life's every phase, 
 There glowed a goddess- veiling haze, 
 A plenteous, forewarning grace, 
 Like that more tender dawn that flies 
 Before the full moon's ample rise ? 
 Methinks thy parting glory shines 
 Through yonder grove of singing pines ; 
 At that elm-vista's end I trace 
 Dimly thy sad leave-taking face, 
 Eurydice ! Eurydice ! 
 The tremulous leaves repeat to me 
 Eurydice ! Eurydice ! 
 No gloomier Orcus swallows thee 
 Than the unclouded sunset's glow ; 
 Thine is at least Elysian woe ; 
 Thou hast Good's natural decay. 
 And fadest like a star away 
 Into an atmosphere whose shine 
 With fuller day o'ermasters thine. 
 Entering defeat as 't were a shrine ; 
 For us, — we turn life's diary o'er 
 To find but one word, — Nevermore. 
 
 SHE CAME AND WENT. 
 
 As a twig trembles, which a hird 
 Lights on to sing, then leaves unhent, 
 
 So is my memory thrilled and stirred ; — 
 I only know she came and went. 
 
 As clasps some lake, hy gusts unriven, 
 The blue dome's measureless content. 
 
 So my soul held th at moment's heaven ; — 
 I only know she came and went. 
 
 As, at one hound, our swift spring heaps 
 The orchards full of bloom and scent. 
 
 So clove her May my wintry sleeps ; — 
 I only know she came and went. 
 
 An angel stood and met my gaze, 
 Through the low doorway of my tent ; 
 
 The tent is struck, the vision stays ; — 
 I only know she came and went. 
 
 O, when the room grows slowly dim. 
 And life's last oil is nearly spent, 
 
 One gush of light these eyes will brim. 
 Only to think she came and went 
 
 THE CHAN-QELING. 
 
 I HAD a little daughter. 
 And she was given to me 
 
 To lead me gently backward 
 To the Heavenly Father's knee. 
 
 That I, by the force of nature, 
 Might in some dim wise divina 
 
 The depth of his infinite patience 
 To this wayward soul of mine. 
 
 I know not how others saw her, 
 
 But to me she was wholly fair. 
 And the light of the heaven she came 
 from 
 
 Still lingered and gleamed in her hair; 
 For it was as wavy and golden. 
 
 And as many changes took. 
 As the shadows of sun-gilt ripples 
 
 On the yellow bed of a brook. 
 
 To what can I liken her smiling 
 
 Upon me, her kneeling lover. 
 How it leaped from her lips to her eye- 
 lids. 
 
 And dimpled her wholly over. 
 Till her outstretched hands smiled also, 
 
 And I almost seemed to see 
 The very heart of her mother 
 
 Sending sun through her veins to me ! 
 
 She had been with us scarce a twelve- 
 month. 
 
 And it hardly seemed a day. 
 When a troop of wandering angels 
 
 Stole my little daughter away ; 
 Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari 
 
 But loosed the hampering strings, 
 And when they had opened her cage« 
 door. 
 
 My little bird used her wings. 
 
 But they left in her stead a changeling, 
 
 A little angel child. 
 That seems like her bud in full blossom. 
 
 And smiles as she never smiled : 
 When I w^ake in the morning, I see it 
 
 Where she always used to lie. 
 And I feel as weak as a violet 
 
 Alone 'neath the awful sky. 
 
 As weak, yet as trustful also ; 
 
 For the whole year long I see 
 All the wonders of faithful Nature 
 
 Still worked for the love of me ; 
 Winds wander, and dews drip earthward, 
 
 Rain falls, suns rise and set. 
 Earth whirls, and all but to prosper 
 
 A poor little violet. 
 
 This child is not mine as the first wag, 
 
 I cannot sing it to rest, 
 I cannot lift it up fatherly 
 
 And bliss it upon my breast ; 
 
THE PIONKEE. 
 
 91 
 
 yet it lies in my little one's cradle 
 And sits in ray little one's chair, 
 
 And the light of the heaven she 's gone to 
 Xransligures its golden hair. 
 
 THE PIONEER. 
 
 What man would live coffined with 
 brick and stone. 
 Imprisoned from the healing touch of 
 
 air. 
 And cramped with selfish landmarks 
 everywhere, 
 When all before him stretches, furrow- 
 less and lone, 
 The unmapped prairie none can fence 
 or own ? 
 
 What man would read and read the 
 selfsame faces. 
 And, like the marbles which the 
 
 windmill grinds, 
 Kub smooth forever with the same 
 smooth minds, 
 This year retracing last year's, every 
 year's, dull traces. 
 When there are woods and un-pen- 
 f olded spaces ? 
 
 What man o'er one old thought would 
 pore and pore. 
 Shut like a book between its covers 
 
 thin 
 For every fool to leave his dog's- 
 ears in. 
 When solitude is his, and God forever- 
 more. 
 Just for the opening of a paltry door ? 
 
 What man would watch life's oozy 
 element 
 Creep Lethemard forever, when he 
 
 might 
 Down some great river drift beyond 
 men's sight. 
 To where the nndethroned forest's royal 
 tent 
 Broods with its hush o'er haM a con- 
 tinent ? 
 
 What man with men would push and 
 
 altercate. 
 Piecing out crooked means to 
 
 crooked ends, 
 When he can have the skies and 
 
 woods for friends. 
 
 Snatch back the rodder of his nndis- 
 mantled fate. 
 And in himself be ruler, church, and 
 state ? 
 
 Cast leaves and feathers rot in last 
 year's nest. 
 The winged brood, flown thence, 
 
 new dwellings plan ; 
 The serf of his own Past is not a 
 man; 
 To change and change is life, to move 
 and never rest; — 
 Not what we are, but what we hope, 
 is best. 
 
 The wild, free woods make no man 
 halt or blind; 
 Cities rob men of eyes and hands 
 
 and feet. 
 Patching one whole of many incom- 
 plete ; 
 The general preys upon the individual 
 mind. 
 And each alone is helpless as the wind. 
 
 Each man is some man's servant; 
 every soul 
 Is by some other's presence quite 
 
 discrowned ; 
 Each owes the next through all the 
 imperfect round. 
 Yet not with mutual help ; each man is 
 his own goal, 
 And the whole earth must stop to pay 
 him toll. 
 
 Here, life the undiminished man de- 
 mands ; 
 New faculties stretch out to meet 
 
 new wants ; 
 What Nature asks, that Nature also 
 grants ; 
 Here man is lord, not drudge, of eyes 
 and feet and hands. 
 And to his life is knit with hourly 
 bands. 
 
 Come out, then, from the old thoughts 
 and old ways. 
 Before you harden to a crystal cold 
 Which the new life can shatter, but 
 not mould ; 
 Freedom for you still waits, still, look- 
 ing backward, stays, 
 But widens still the irretrievable 
 space. 
 
92 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 LOITGIKa 
 
 Of all the myriad moods of mind 
 
 That through the aoul come thronging, 
 Which one was e'er so dear, so kind, 
 
 So beautiful as Longing ? 
 The thing we long for, that we are 
 
 For one transcendent moment. 
 Before the Present poor and bare 
 
 Can make its sneering comment. 
 \ 
 Still, through our paltry stir and strife, 
 
 Glows down the wished Ideal, 
 And Longing moulds in clay what Life 
 
 Carves in the marble Real ; 
 To let the new Ufe in, we know. 
 
 Desire must ope the portal ; 
 Perhaps the longing to be so 
 
 Helps make ue soul immortal. 
 
 Longing is God's fresh heavenward will 
 
 "With our poor earthward striving ; 
 We quench it that we may be still 
 
 Content with merely living ; 
 But, would we learn that heart's full 
 scope 
 
 Which we are hourly wronging. 
 Our lives must climb from hope to hope 
 
 And realize our longing. 
 
 Ah ! let us hope that to our praise 
 
 Good God not only reckons 
 The moments when we tread His ways, 
 
 But when the spirit beckons, — 
 That some slight good is also wrought 
 
 Beyond sel^satisfaction, 
 When we are simply good in thought, 
 
 Howe'er we fail in action. 
 
 ODE TO FRAlfCB. 
 FEBRUARY, 1848. 
 
 As, flake by ilake, the beetling ava- 
 lanches 
 Build up their imminent crags of 
 noiseless snow. 
 Till some chance thrill the loosened ruin 
 launches 
 In unwarned havoc on the roofs be- 
 low. 
 Bo grew and gathered through the silent 
 years 
 The madness of a People, wrong by 
 wrong. 
 
 There seemed no strength in the dnmli 
 
 toiler's tears, 
 
 No strength in suffering ; hut the Past 
 
 was strong : 
 
 The brute despair of trampled centuries 
 
 Leaped up with one hoarse yell and 
 
 snapped its bands, 
 Groped for its right with homy, cal- 
 lous hands. 
 And stared around for God vrith blood- 
 shot eyes. 
 What wonder if those palms were aJl 
 too hard 
 For nice distinctions, — if that maenad 
 throng — 
 They whose thick atmosphere no bard 
 Had shivered with the lightning of his 
 song. 
 Brutes with the memories and desires 
 
 of men. 
 Whose chronicles were writ with iron 
 pen. 
 In the crooked shoulder and the 
 forehead low. 
 Set wrong to balance wrong, 
 And physicked woe with woe ? 
 
 They did as they were taught ; not theirs 
 
 the blame. 
 If men who scattered firebrands reaped 
 the flame : 
 They trampled Peace beneath their 
 savage feet. 
 And by her golden tresses drew 
 Mercy along the pavement of the 
 street. 
 Freedom I Freedom ! is thy moming- 
 dew 
 So gory red? Alas, thy light had 
 
 ne'er 
 Shone in upon the chaos of their 
 lair! 
 They reared to thee such symbol as they 
 knew, 
 And worshipped it with flame and 
 
 blood, 
 A Vengeance, axe in hand, that 
 stood 
 Holding a tyrant's head up by the clot- 
 ted hair. 
 
 What wrongs the Oppressor sufiered, 
 these we know ; 
 These have found piteous vqjee in song 
 and prose ; 
 
ODE 10 FRANCE. 
 
 93 
 
 But for the Oppressed, their darkness 
 and their woe, 
 Their grinding ceotaries, — whatMuse 
 had those ! 
 Though hall and palace had nor eyes 
 nor ears. 
 Hardening a people's heart to senseless 
 stone, 
 Thou kuewest them, O Earth, that 
 drank their tears, 
 O Heaven, that heard their inarticu- 
 late moan I 
 They noted down their fetters, link by 
 
 link ; 
 Coarse was the hand that scrawled, and 
 red the ink ; 
 Bade was their score, as suits unlet- 
 tered men, 
 Notched with a headsman's axe upon 
 
 a block : 
 What marvel if, when came the aveng- 
 ing shock, 
 'Twas At'^ not Urauia, held the 
 pen? 
 
 With eye averted, and an anguished 
 frown, 
 Loathingly glides the Muse through 
 scenes of strife. 
 Where, like the heart of Vengeance up 
 and down. 
 Throbs in its framework the blood- 
 muffled knife ; 
 Blow are the steps of Freedom, but her 
 feet 
 Turn never backward : hers no bloody 
 glare ; 
 Her light is calm, and innocent, and 
 sweet. 
 And where it enters there is no de- 
 spair : 
 Not first on palace and cathedral spire 
 Quivers and gleams that unconsuming 
 fire ; 
 While these stand black against her 
 morning skies, 
 The peasant sees it leap from peak to 
 peak 
 Alpng his hiUs ; the craftsman's burn- 
 ing eyes 
 Own with cool tears its influence mother- 
 meek ; 
 It lights the poet's heart up like a 
 
 star ; 
 Ah ! whUe the tyrant deemed it still 
 afar, 
 
 And twined with golden threads his 
 futile snare. 
 That swift, convicting glow all round 
 him ran; 
 'T WHS close beside him there, 
 Sunrise whose Memuon is the soul of 
 
 Broker-King, is this thy wisdom's 
 fruit? 
 A dynasty plucked out as 'twere a 
 
 weed 
 Grown rankly in a night, that leaves 
 no seed t 
 Could eighteen years strike down no 
 deeper root ? 
 But now Uiy vulture eye was turned 
 on Spain ; 
 A shout from Paris, and thy crown falls 
 off, 
 Thy race has ceased to reign, 
 And thou become a fugitive and scoff : 
 Shppery the feet that mount by stairs 
 of gold, 
 And weakest of all fences one of steel ; 
 Go and keep school again like him of 
 old, 
 The Syracusan tyrant; — thou mayst 
 
 feel 
 Eoyal amid a birch-swayed commonweal 1 
 
 Not long can he be ruler who allows 
 His time to run before him ; thou 
 wast naught 
 Soon as the strip of gold about thy brows 
 Was no more emblem of the People's 
 thought : 
 Vain were thy bayonets against the foe 
 Thou hadst to cope with ; thou didst 
 
 War not with Frenchmen merely ; — no. 
 Thy strife was with the Spirit of the 
 Age, 
 The invisible Spirit whose first breath 
 divine 
 Scattered thy frail endeavor, 
 And, like poor last year's leaves, 
 whirled thee and thine 
 Into the Dark forever ! 
 
 Is here no triumph? Nay, what 
 though 
 The yellow blood of Trade meanwhils 
 should pour 
 
94 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Along its arteries a shrunken flow. 
 And the idle canvas droop around the 
 shore ? 
 These do not make a state, 
 Nor keep it great ; 
 I think God made 
 The earth for man, not trade; 
 And where each humblest human crea- 
 ture 
 Can stand, no more suspicious or afraid. 
 Erect and kingly in his right of nature. 
 To heaven and earth knit with harmo- 
 nious ties, — 
 Where I hehold the exultation 
 Of manhood glowing in those eyes 
 That had been dark for ages. 
 Or only lit with bestial loves and 
 rages, 
 There I behold a Nation : 
 
 The France which lies 
 Between the Pyrenees and Bhine 
 Is the least part of France ; 
 I see her rather in the soul whose shine 
 Bums through the craftsman's grimy 
 countenance. 
 In the new energy divine 
 Of Toil's enfranchised glance. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 And if it be a dream, 
 If the great Future be the little Past 
 'Neath a new mask, which drops and 
 
 shows at last 
 The same weird, mocking face to balk 
 and blast, 
 Yet, Muse, a gladder measure suits the 
 theme, 
 And the Tyrtaean harp 
 Loves notes more resolute and 
 
 Throbbing, as throbs the bosom, hot 
 and fast : 
 Such visions are of morning. 
 Theirs is no vague forewarning, 
 The dreams which nations dream come 
 true. 
 And shape the world anew ; 
 If this be a sleep, 
 Make it long, make it deep, 
 Father, who sendest the harvests men 
 reap ! 
 While Labor so sleepeth. 
 His sorrow is gone, 
 No longer he weepeth, 
 But smileth and steepeth 
 
 His thoughts in the dawn ; 
 He heareth Hope yonder 
 
 Bain, lark-like, her fancies. 
 His dreaming hands wander 
 
 Mid heart's-ease and pansies ; 
 " 'T is a dream ! 'T is a vision I'' 
 
 Shrieks Mammon aghast ; 
 " The day's broad derision 
 
 Will chase it at last ; 
 Ye are mad, ye have taken 
 A slumbering kraken 
 
 For firm land of the Past 1 " 
 Ah ! if he awaken, 
 
 God shield us all then, 
 If this dream rudely shaken 
 
 Shall cheat him again 1 
 
 IX. 
 
 Since first I heard our North-wind 
 
 blow, 
 Since first I saw Atlantic throw 
 On our grim rocks his thunderous 
 
 snow, 
 I loved thee, Freedom ; as a boy 
 The rattle of thy shield at Marathon 
 Did with a Grecian joy 
 Through all my pulses run ; 
 But I have learned to love thee now 
 Without the helm upon thy gleaming 
 brow, 
 A maiden mild and undefiled 
 Like her who bore the world's redeem- 
 ing child ; 
 And surely never did thine altars 
 
 glance 
 With purer fires than now in France ; 
 While, in their clear white flashes. 
 Wrong's shadow, backward cast. 
 Waves cowering o'er the ashes 
 
 Of the dead, blaspheming Past, 
 O'er the shapes of fallen giants. 
 His own unburied brood. 
 Whose dead hands clench defiance 
 
 At the overpowering Good : 
 And down the happy future runs a flood 
 
 Of prophesying light ; 
 It shows an Earth no longer staiued 
 
 with blood, 
 Blossom and fruit where now we see the 
 bud 
 Of Brotherhood and Eight. 
 
 ANTI-APIS. 
 
 Praisest Law, friend ? We, too, love it 
 much as they that love it best ; 
 
 'T is the deep, august foundation, whers" 
 on Peace and Justice rest; 
 
ANTI-APIS. 
 
 95 
 
 On the rock primeval, hidden in the 
 
 Past its bases be, 
 Block by block the endeavoring Ages 
 
 built it up to what we see. 
 
 But dig down : the Old unbury ; thou 
 
 shalt find on every stone 
 That each Age hath carved the symbol 
 
 of what god to them was known. 
 Ugly shapes and brutish sometimes, but 
 
 the fairest that they knew ; 
 If their sight were dim and earthward, 
 
 yet their hope and aim were true. 
 
 Surely as the unconscious needle feels 
 the far-off loadstar diraw, 
 
 So strives every gracious nature to at- 
 one itself with law ; 
 
 And the elder Saints and Sages laid their 
 pious framework right 
 
 By a theocratic instinct covered from the 
 people's sight. 
 
 As their gods were, so their laws were ; 
 
 Thor the strong could reave and 
 
 steal. 
 So through many a peaceful inlet tore the 
 
 Norseman's eager keel ; 
 But a new law came when Christ came, 
 
 and not blameless, as before, 
 Can we, paying him our lip-tithes, give 
 
 our lives and faiths to Thor. 
 
 Law is holy : ay, but what law ? Is there 
 nothing more divine 
 
 Than the patched-up broils of Congress, 
 v«nal, full of meat and wine ? 
 
 Is there, say you, Bothing higher? 
 Naught, God save us ! that tran- 
 scends 
 
 Laws of cotton texture, wove by vulgar 
 men for vulgar ends ? 
 
 Did Jehovah ask their counsel, or sub- 
 mit to them a plan. 
 
 Ere he filled with loves, hopes, longings, 
 this aspiring heart of man ? 
 
 For their edict does the soul wait, ere it 
 swing round to the pole 
 
 Of the true, the free, the God-willed, all 
 that makes it be a soul ? 
 
 Law is holy ; but not your law, ye who 
 
 keep the tablets whole 
 While ye dash the Law to pieces, shatter 
 
 it in life and soul ; 
 
 Bearing up the Ark is lightsome, golden 
 
 Apis hid within. 
 While we Levites share the offerings, 
 
 richer by the people's sin. 
 
 Give to Csesar what is Caesar's ? yes, but 
 tell me, if you can, 
 
 Is this superscription Caesar's here upon 
 our brother man ? 
 
 Is not here some other's image, dark and 
 sullied though it be. 
 
 In this fellow-soul that worships, strug- 
 gles Godward even as we ? 
 
 It was not to such a future that the May- 
 flower's prow was turned ; 
 
 Not to such a faith the martyrs clung, 
 exulting as they burned ; 
 
 Not by such laws are men fashioned, 
 earnest, simple, valiant, great 
 
 In the household virtues whereon rests 
 the unconquerable state. 
 
 Ah ! there is a higher gospel, overhead 
 
 the God-roof springs. 
 And each glad, obedient planet like a 
 
 golden shuttle sings 
 Through the web which Time is weaving 
 
 in his never-resting loom. 
 Weaving seasons many-colored, bringing 
 
 prophecy to doom. 
 
 Think you Truth a farthing rushlight, 
 to be pinched out when you will 
 
 With your deft official fingOTS, and your 
 politicians' skill ? 
 
 Is your God a wooden fetish, to be hid- 
 den out of sight 
 
 That his block eyes may not see you do 
 the thing that is not right? 
 
 But the Destinies think not so ; to their 
 
 judgment-chamber lone 
 Comes no noise of popular clamor, there 
 
 Fame's trumpet is not blown ; 
 Your majorities they reck not ; that 
 
 you grant, but then you say 
 That you differ with them somewhat, — 
 
 which is stronger, you or they ? 
 
 Patient are they as the insects that build 
 
 islands in the deep ; 
 They hurl not the bolted thunder, hut 
 
 their silent way they keep ; 
 
96 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Where they have been that we know ; 
 
 where empires towered that were not 
 
 just; 
 Lo ! the skulking wild fox scratches in a 
 
 little heap of dust. 
 
 1891. 
 
 APAEABLE. 
 
 Said Christ our Lord, "I will go and see 
 How the men, my brethren, believe in 
 
 me." 
 He passed not agaia through the gate of 
 
 birth, 
 But made himself known to the children 
 
 of earth. 
 
 Then said the chief priests, and rulers, 
 
 and kings, 
 " Behold, now, the Giver of all good 
 
 things ; 
 Go to, let us welcome with pomp and 
 
 state 
 Him who alone is mighty and great." 
 
 With carpets of gold the ground they 
 
 spread 
 Wherever the Son of Man should tread, 
 And in palace-chambers lofty and rare 
 They lodged him, and served him with 
 
 kingly fare. 
 
 Great organs surged through arches dim 
 Their jubilant floods in praise of him ; 
 And in church, and palace, and judg- 
 ment-hall, 
 He saw his own image high over alL 
 
 But still, wherever his steps they led. 
 The Lord in sorrow bent down his head, 
 And from under the heavy foundation- 
 stones, 
 The son of Mary heard bitter groans. 
 
 And in church, and palace, and judg- 
 ment-hall. 
 
 He marked great fissures that rent the 
 wall, 
 
 And opened wider and yet more wide 
 
 As the living foundation heaved and 
 sighed. 
 
 "Have ye founded your thrones and 
 
 altars, then, 
 On the bodies and souls of living men ? 
 And think ye that building shall endure, 
 Which shelters the noble and crushes the 
 
 poor? 
 
 "With gates of silver and bars of gold 
 Ye have fenced my sheep from thej« 
 
 Father's fold ; 
 I have heard the dropping of their teari 
 In heaven these eighteen hundred years. " 
 
 " Lord and Master, not ours the guilt, 
 We build but as our fathers built ; 
 Behold thine images, how they stand. 
 Sovereign and sole, through all our land. 
 
 "Our task is hard, — with sword and 
 
 flame 
 To hold thine earth forever the same. 
 And with sharp crooks of steel to keep 
 Still, as thou leftest them, thy sheep. 
 
 Then Christ sought out an artisan, 
 A low-browed, stunted, haggard man, 
 And a motherless girl, whose fingers thin 
 Pushed from her faintly want and sin. 
 
 These set he in the midst of them, 
 
 And as they drew back their garment- 
 hem, 
 
 For fear of defilement, "Lo, here," said 
 he, 
 
 " The images ye have made of me 1" 
 
 ODE 
 
 VTEITTEN FOR THE CELEBRATION OF 
 THE INTRODUCTION OF THE COCHIT- 
 UATE WATER INTO THE CITY OF 
 BOSTON. 
 
 Mt name is Water : I have sped 
 Through strange, dark ways, untried 
 before, 
 
 By pure desire of friendship led, 
 Cochituate's ambassador ; 
 
 He sends four royal gifts by me : 
 
 Long life, health, peace, and purity. 
 
 I 'm Ceres' cup-bearer ; I pour, 
 For flowers and fruits and all their kin. 
 
 Her crystal vintage, from of yore 
 Stored in old Earth's selectest bin, 
 
 Flora's Falemian ripe, since God 
 
 The wine-press of the deluge tiod. 
 
 In that far isle whence, iron-willed. 
 The New World's sires their bark 
 unmoored, 
 
 The fairies' acorn-cups I filled 
 Upon the toadstool's silver board, 
 
LINES. 
 
 97 
 
 And, 'neath Heme'a oak, for Shake- 
 speare's sight, 
 
 Strewed moss and grass with diamonds 
 bright. 
 
 No fairies in the Mayflower came, 
 And, lightsome as I sparkle here. 
 
 For Mother Bay State, busy dame, 
 I 've toiled and drudged this many a 
 year. 
 
 Throbbed in her engines' iron veins, 
 
 Twirled myriad spindles for her gains. 
 
 I, too, can weave : the warp I set 
 Through which the sun his shuttle 
 throws. 
 
 And, bright as Noah saw it, yet 
 For you the arching rainbow glows, 
 
 A sight in Paradise denied 
 
 To unfallen Adam and his bride. 
 
 When Winter held me in his grip, 
 You seized and sent me o'er the wave, 
 
 Ungrateful ! in a prison-ship ; 
 But I forgive, not long a slave. 
 
 For, soon as summer south-winds blew, 
 
 Homeward I fled, disguised as dew. 
 
 For countless services I 'm iit. 
 Of use, of pleasure, and of gain, 
 
 But lightly from all bonds I flit, 
 Nor lose my mirth, nor feel a stain ; 
 
 From mill and wash-turb I escape. 
 
 And take in heaven my proper shape. 
 
 So, free myself, to-day, elate 
 I come from far o'er hill and mead. 
 
 And here, Coohituate's envoy, wait 
 To be your blithesome Ganymede, 
 
 And brim your cups with nectar true 
 
 That never will make slaves of you. 
 
 LINES 
 
 61TGSBSTBD. BY THE GKAVES OF TWO 
 ENGLISH S0LDIEE3 ON CONCORD 
 BATTLE-GROUND. 
 
 The same good blood that now refills 
 The dotard Orient's shrunken veins, 
 The same whose vigor westward thrills, 
 Bursting Nevada's silver chains. 
 Poured here upon the April grass, 
 Freckled with red the herbage new ; 
 On reeled the battle's trampfing mass. 
 Back to the ash the bluebird flew. 
 7 
 
 Pouredhere in vain ; — that stxirdy blood 
 Was meant to make the earth more 
 
 green, 
 
 But in a higher, gentler mood 
 Than broke this April noon serene ; 
 Two graves are here : to mark the place, 
 At head and foot, an unhewn stone. 
 O'er which the herald lichens trace 
 The blazon of Oblivion. 
 
 These men were brave enough, and true 
 To the hired soldier's bull-dog creed ; 
 What brought them here they never 
 
 knew, 
 They fought as suits the English breed : 
 They came three thousand miles, and 
 
 died. 
 To keep the Past upon its throne ; 
 Unheard, beyond the ocean tide. 
 Their English mother made her mean. 
 
 The turf that covers them no thrill 
 Sends up to fire the heart and brain ; 
 No stronger purpose nerves the will. 
 No hope renews its youth again : 
 From farm to farm the Concord glides. 
 And trails my fancy with its flow ; 
 O'erhead the balanced hen-hawk slides. 
 Twinned in the river's heaven below. 
 
 But go, whose Bay State bosom stirs, 
 Proud of thy birth and neighbor's right, 
 Where sleep the heroic villagers 
 Borne red and stiff' from Concord fight ; 
 Thought Reuben, snatching down his 
 
 gun. 
 Or Seth, as ebbed the life away, 
 What earthquake rifts would shoot and 
 
 run 
 World-wide from that short April fray ? 
 
 What then ? With heart and hand thej 
 
 wrought. 
 According to their village light ; 
 'T was for the Future that they fought. 
 Their rustic faith in what was right. 
 Upon earth's tragic stage they burst 
 Unsummoned, in the humble sock ; 
 Theirs the fifth act ; the curtain first 
 Rose long ago on Charles's block. 
 
 Their graves have voices ; if they threw 
 Dice charged with fates beyond their 
 
 ken. 
 Yet to their instincts they were true. 
 And had the genius to be men. 
 
98 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Fine privilege of Freedom's host, 
 Of humblest soldiers for the Uight ! — 
 Age after age ye hold your post, 
 Your graves send courage forth, and 
 might. 
 
 TO . 
 
 We, too, have autumns, when our leaves 
 Drop loosely through the dampened 
 air, 
 WTien all our good seems hound in 
 sheaves. 
 And we stand reaped and, bare. 
 
 Our seasons have no fixed returns. 
 Without our will they come and go ; 
 
 At noon our sudden summer burns. 
 Ere sunset all is snow. 
 
 BiTt each day brings less summer cheer. 
 Crimps more our ineffectual spring. 
 
 And something earlier every year 
 Our singing birds take wing. 
 
 As less the olden glow abides. 
 And less the chillier heart aspires. 
 
 With drift-wood beached in past spring- 
 tides 
 We light our sullen fires. 
 
 By the pinched rushlight's starving 
 beam 
 We cower and strain our wasted sight, 
 To stitch youth's shroud up, seam by 
 seam. 
 In the long arctic night. 
 
 It was not so — we once were young — 
 When Spring, to womanly Summer 
 turning. 
 Her dew-drops on each grass-blade 
 strung, 
 In the red sunrise burning. 
 
 We trusted then, aspired, helieved 
 That earth could be remade to-mor- 
 row; 
 
 Ah, why be ever undeceived ? 
 Why give up faith for sorrow ? 
 
 thou, whose days are yet all spring. 
 Faith, blighted once, is past retriev- 
 ing! 
 
 Experience is a dumb, desid tmng ; 
 The victory 's in believing. 
 
 FREEDOM. 
 
 Ake we, then, wholly fallen 1 Can it b« 
 That thou, North wind, that from thy 
 
 mountains bringest 
 Their spirit to our plains, and thou, 
 
 blue sea. 
 Who on our rocks thy wreaths of free- 
 dom flingest, 
 As on an altar, — can it be that ye 
 Have wasted inspiration on dead ears. 
 Dulled with the too familiar clank of 
 
 chains ? 
 The people's heart is like a harp foi 
 
 years 
 Hung where some petrifying torrent rains 
 Its slow-incrusting spray : the stiffened 
 
 chords 
 Faint and more faint make answer to the 
 
 tears 
 That drip upon them : idle are all words: 
 Only a golden plectrum wakes the tone 
 Deep buried 'neath that ever-thickening 
 
 stone. 
 
 We are not free : doth Freedom, then, 
 
 consist 
 In musing with our faces toward the 
 
 Past, 
 While petty cares, and crawling inter- 
 ests, twist 
 Their spider-threads about us, which at 
 
 last 
 Grow strong as iron chains, to cramp 
 
 and bind 
 In formal narrowness heart, soul, and 
 
 mind? 
 Freedom is recreated year by year. 
 In hearts wide open on the Godward side. 
 In souls calm-cadenoed as the whirling 
 
 sphere. 
 In minds that sway the future like a tide. 
 No broadest creeds can hold her, and no 
 
 codes ; 
 She chooses men for her august abodes. 
 Building them fair and ironting to the 
 
 dawn ; 
 Yet, when we seek her, we hut find a 
 
 few 
 Light footprints, leading mom-ward 
 
 through the dew : 
 Before the day had risen, she was gone. 
 
 And we must follow : swiftly runs she on, 
 And, if our steps should slacken in d& 
 I spair, 
 
BIBLIOLATEES. 
 
 gg 
 
 Half turns her face, half smiles through 
 
 golden hair, 
 Forever yielding, never wholly won : 
 That is not love which pauses in the race 
 Two close-linked names on ileeting sand 
 
 to trace ; 
 Freedom gained yesterday is no more 
 
 GUI'S ; 
 Men gather hut dry seeds of last year's 
 
 flowers ; 
 Still there 's a charm ungranted, still a 
 
 grace, 
 Still rosy Hope, the free, the nnattained. 
 Makes us Possession's languid hand let 
 
 fall ; 
 'T is but a fragment of ourselves is 
 
 gained. 
 The Future brings us more, but never 
 
 all. 
 
 And, as the finder of some unknown 
 realm. 
 
 Mounting a summit whence he thinks to 
 see 
 
 On either side of him the imprisoning 
 sea, 
 
 Beholds, above the clouds that over- 
 whelm 
 
 The valley-land, peak after snowy peak 
 
 Stretch out of sight, each like a silver 
 helm 
 
 Beneath its plume of smoke, sublime 
 and bleak, 
 
 And what he thought an island finds to 
 be 
 
 A continent to him first oped, — so we 
 
 Can from our height of Freedom look 
 along 
 
 A boundless future, ours if we be strong ; 
 
 Or if we shrink, better remount our 
 ships 
 
 And, fleeing God's express design, trace 
 back 
 
 The hero-freighted Mayflower's prophet- 
 track 
 
 To Europe, entering her blood-red eclipse. 
 
 1848. 
 
 BIBLIOLATEES. 
 
 Bowing thyself in dust before a Book, 
 And thinking the great God is thine 
 
 alone, 
 rash iconoclast, thou wilt not brook 
 What gods the heathen carves in wood 
 
 and stone. 
 As if the Shepheid who from outer cold | 
 
 Leads all his shivering Iambs to one sura 
 
 fold 
 Were careful for the fashion of his crook. 
 
 There is no broken reed so poor and base. 
 No rush, the bending tilt of swamp-fly 
 
 blue. 
 But he therewith the ravening wolf can 
 
 chase. 
 And guide his flock to springs and pas- 
 
 tures new ; 
 Through ways unlocked for, and through 
 
 many lands, 
 Far from the rich folds built with human 
 
 hands. 
 The gracious footprints of his love I 
 
 trace. 
 
 And what art thou, own brother of the 
 
 clod. 
 That from his hand the crook woald'st 
 
 snatch away 
 And shake instead thy dry and sapless 
 
 rod. 
 To scare the sheep out of the wholesome 
 
 day? 
 Yea, what art thou, blind, unconverted 
 
 Jew, 
 That with thy idol- volume's covers two 
 Wouldst make a jail to coop the living 
 
 God? 
 
 Thou hear'st not well the mountain 
 
 organ-tones 
 By prophet ears from Hor and Sinai 
 
 caught. 
 Thinking the cisterns of those Hebrew 
 
 brains 
 Drew dry the springs of the All-knower's 
 
 thought, 
 Kor shall thy lips be touched with liv. 
 
 ing fire. 
 Who blow'st old altar-coals with sole 
 
 desire 
 To weld anew the spirit's broken chains, 
 
 f 
 
 God is not dumb, that he should speak 
 no more ; 
 
 If thou hast wanderings in the wilder- 
 ness 
 
 And find'st not Sinai, 't is thy soul is 
 poor; 
 
 There towers the mountain of the Voice 
 no less. 
 
 Which whoso seeks shall find, but ha 
 who bends, 
 
100 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Intent on manna still and mortal ends, 
 Sees it not, neither hears its thundered 
 lore. 
 
 Slowly the Bible of the race is writ. 
 And not on paper leaves nor leaves of 
 
 stone ; 
 Each age, each kindred, adds a verse 
 
 to it, 
 Texts of despair or hope, of joy or moan. 
 While swings the sea, whUe mists the 
 
 mountains shroud, 
 While thunder's surges burst on cliffs of 
 
 cloud. 
 Still at the prophets' feet the nations sit. 
 
 BEAVEB BBOOE. 
 
 Httshed with broad sunlight lies the 
 
 hill, 
 And, minuting the long day's loss. 
 The cedar's shadow, slow and still, 
 Creeps o'er its dial of gray moss. 
 
 Warm noon brims full the valley's cup, 
 The aspen's leaves are scarce astir ; 
 Only the little mill sends up 
 Its busy, never-ceasing burr. 
 
 Climbing the loose-piled wall that hems 
 The road along the mill-pond's brink, 
 From 'neath the arching barberry-stems. 
 My footstep scares the shy chewink. 
 
 Beneath a bony buttonwood 
 The mill's red door lets forth the din ; 
 The whitened miller, dust-imbued, 
 Flits past the square of dark within. 
 
 Ko mountain torrent's strength is here ; 
 Sweet Beaver, child of forest still. 
 
 Heaps its small pitcher to the ear. 
 And gently waits the miller's will. 
 
 Swift slips Undine along the race 
 Unheard, and then, with flashing bound. 
 Floods the dull wheel with light and 
 
 grace, 
 And, laughing, hunts the loath drudge 
 
 round. 
 
 The miller dreams not at what cost 
 The quivering millstones hum and 
 
 whirl, 
 Nor how for every turn are tost 
 Armfuls of diamond and of pearl. 
 
 But Summer cleared my happier eyes 
 With drops of some celestial juice, 
 To see how Beauty underlies, 
 Forevermore each form of use. 
 
 And more ; methought I saw that flood. 
 Which now so dull and darkling steals. 
 Thick, here and there, with human 
 
 blood. 
 To turn the world's laborious wheels. 
 
 No more than doth the miller there. 
 Shut in our several cells, do we 
 Know with what waste of beauty rare 
 Moves every day's machinery. 
 
 Surely the wiser time shall come 
 When this fine overplus of might, 
 No longer sullen, slow, and dumb. 
 Shall leap to music and to light. 
 
 In that new childhood of the Earth 
 Life of itself shall dance and play. 
 Fresh blood in Time's shrunk veins mak« 
 
 mirth. 
 And labor meet delight half-way. 
 
KOSSUTH. — TO ULMAETINE. 
 
 101 
 
 MEMORIAL VERSES. 
 
 KOSSTJTH. 
 
 A KACE of nobles may die out, 
 A royal line may leave no heir ; 
 Wise Nature sets no guards about 
 Her pewter plate and wooden ware. 
 
 But they fail not, the kinglier breed, 
 Who starry diadems attain ; 
 To dungeon, axe, and stake succeed 
 Heirs of the old heroic strain. 
 
 The zeal of Nature never cools. 
 Nor is she thwarted of her ends ; 
 When gapped and duUed her cheaper 
 
 tools, 
 Then she a saint and prophet spends. 
 
 Land of the Magyars ! though it be 
 The tyrant may relink his chain. 
 Already thine the victory. 
 As the just Future measures gain. 
 
 Thou hast succeeded, thou hast won 
 The deathly travail's amplest worth ; 
 A nation's duty thou hast done, 
 Giving a hero to our earth. 
 
 And he, let come what will of woe. 
 Hath saved the land he strove to save ; 
 No Cossack hordes, no traitor's blow, 
 Can quench the voice shall haunt his 
 grave. 
 
 " I Kossuth am : Future, thou 
 That clear'st the just and blott'st the 
 
 vile, 
 O'er this small dust in reverence bow, 
 Kemembering what I was erewhile. 
 
 " I was the chosen trump wherethrough 
 Our God sent forth awakening breath; 
 Came chains? Came death? The strain 
 
 He blew 
 Sopjids on, outliving chains and death." 
 
 TO LAMABTINS. 
 
 1848. 
 
 I DID not praise thee when the crowd, 
 'Witched with the moment's inspi- 
 ration, 
 Vexed thy still ether with hosannas loud. 
 And stamped their dusty adoration j 
 I but looked upward with the rest. 
 And, when they shouted Greatest, whis- 
 pered Best. 
 
 They raised thee not, but rose to thee, 
 Their fickle wreaths about thee fling, 
 ing; 
 So on some marble Phcebus the swol'n sea 
 Might leave his worthless seaweed 
 clinging, 
 But pious hands, with reverent care. 
 Make the pure limbs once more sub- 
 limely bare. 
 
 Now thou 'rt thy plain, grand self again, 
 
 Thou art secure from panegyric. 
 Thou who gav'st politics an epic strain. 
 And actedst Freedoms noblest 
 lyric; 
 This side the Blessed Isles, no tree 
 Grows green enough to make a wreath 
 for thee. 
 
 Nor can blame cling to thee ; the snow 
 From swinish footprints takes no 
 staining. 
 But, leaving the gross soils of earth be- 
 low, 
 Its spirit mounts, the skies regain- 
 ing. 
 And nnresentful falls again, 
 To beautify the world with dews and 
 rain. 
 
 The highest duty to mere man vouch- 
 safed 
 Was laid on thee, — out of wild 
 chaos. 
 
102 
 
 MEMOEIAL TEKSES. 
 
 When the roused popular ocean foamed 
 and chafed, 
 And vulture War from his Imaus 
 Snuffed blood, to summon homely 
 Peace, 
 And show that only order is release. 
 
 To carve thy fullest thought, what 
 though 
 Time was not granted? Aye in 
 history, 
 Like that Dawn's face which baffled 
 Angelo 
 Left shapeless, grander for its mys- 
 tery, 
 Thy great Design shall stand, and day 
 flood its blind front from Orients far 
 away. 
 
 Who says thy day is o'er? Control, 
 
 My heart, that bitter first emotion ; 
 While men shall reverence the steadfast 
 soul. 
 The heart in silent self-devotion 
 Breaking, the mild, heroic mien. 
 Thou 'It need no prop of marble, Lamar- 
 tina. 
 
 If France reject thee, 't is not thine. 
 
 But her own, exile that she utters ; 
 Ideal France, the deathless, the divine. 
 Will be where thy white pennon 
 flutters. 
 As once the nobler Athens went 
 With Aristides into banishment. 
 
 No fitting metewand hath To-day 
 
 For measuring spirits of thy stat- 
 ure; 
 Only the Future can reach up to lay 
 The laurel on that lofty nature. 
 Bard, who with some diviner art 
 Hast touched the bard's true lyre, a na^ 
 tion'a heart. 
 
 Swept by thy hand, the gladdened 
 chords, 
 Crashed now in discords fierce by 
 others, 
 Gave forth one note beyond all skill of 
 words. 
 And chimed together. We are broth- 
 ers. 
 poem unsurpassed ! it ran 
 All round the world, unlocking man to 
 man* 
 
 France is too poor to pay alone 
 
 The service of that amp^'e spirit ; 
 Paltry seem low dictatorship and throne, 
 Weighed with thy self-renouncing 
 merit; 
 They had to thee been rust and loss ; 
 Thy aim was higher, — ihou hast climbed 
 a Cross 1 
 
 TO JOmr G. PALFREY. 
 
 There are who triumph in a losing 
 
 cause. 
 Who can put on defeat, as 't were a 
 
 wreath 
 Unwithering in the adverse popular 
 
 breath. 
 Safe from the blasting demagogue's 
 
 applause ; 
 'T is they who stand for Freedom and 
 
 God's laws. 
 
 And so stands Palfrey now, as Marvell 
 
 stood. 
 Loyal to Truth dethroned, nor could be 
 wooed 
 To trust the playful tiger's velvet 
 paws : 
 And if the sesond Charles brought in 
 decay 
 Of ancient virtue, if it well might 
 wring 
 Souls that had broadened 'neath a 
 nobler day. 
 To see a loseh marketable king 
 Fearfully watering with his realm's best 
 blood 
 Cromwell's quenched bolts, that erst 
 had cracked and flamed. 
 Scaring, through all their depths of 
 courtier mud, 
 Europe's crowned bloodsuckers, — 
 how more ashamed 
 Ought we to be, who see Corruption's 
 flood 
 Still rise o'er last year's mark, to 
 
 mine away 
 Our brazen idol's feet of treacherous 
 clay! 
 
 utter degradation ! Freedom turned 
 Slavery's vile bawd, to cozen and be- 
 
 tray 
 To the old lecher's clutch a maiden 
 
 prey, 
 If so a loathsome pander's fee ba 
 earned! 
 
TO W. L. GAEEISOiT, 
 
 103 
 
 And we are silent, — we who daily- 
 tread 
 A soil sublime, at least, with heroes' 
 graves ! — 
 Beckon no more, shades of the noble 
 dead I 
 Be dumb, ye heaven-touched lips of 
 winds and waves ! 
 Or hope to rouse some Coptic dullard, 
 hid 
 Ages ago, wrapt stiffly, fold on fold, 
 "With cerements close, to wither in the 
 cold, 
 Forever hushed, and sunless pyramid ! 
 
 Beauty and Truth, and all that these 
 
 contain. 
 Drop not like ripened fruit about our 
 
 feet ; 
 We climb to them through years of 
 
 sweat and pain ; 
 Without long struggle, none did e'er 
 
 attain 
 The downward look from Quiet's bliss- 
 ful seat : 
 Though present loss may be the hero's 
 
 part, 
 Yet none can rob him of the victor 
 
 heart 
 Wherehy the broad-realmed future is 
 
 subdued. 
 And Wrong, which now insults from 
 
 triumph's car, 
 Sending her vulture hope to raven 
 
 far, " 
 
 Is made unwilling tributary of Good. 
 
 Mother State, how quenched thy 
 Sinai fires ! 
 Is there none left of thy stanch May- 
 flower breed ? 
 So spark among the ashes of thy sires, 
 Of Virtue's altar-flame the kindling 
 seed? 
 Are these thy great men, these that 
 cringe and creep. 
 And writhe through slimy ways to 
 place and power ? — 
 How long, Lord, before thy wrath 
 shall reap 
 Our frail-stemmed summer prosper- 
 ings in their flower ? 
 O for one hour of that undaunted 
 
 stock 
 That went with Vane and Sidney to 
 the block! 
 
 for a whiff of Naseby, that would 
 sweep. 
 With its stem Puritan besom, all this 
 
 chaff 
 From the Lord's threshing-floor 1 Yet 
 more than half 
 The victory is attained, when one or 
 two, 
 Through the fool's laughter and the 
 
 traitor's scorn, 
 Beside thy sepulchre can bide the 
 morn. 
 Crucified Truth, when thou shalt rise 
 anew. 
 
 TO W. L. GARRISON. 
 
 "Some time afterward, it was reported to me 
 by the city oillcers that they had ferreted out 
 tlie paper and its editor ; that his office was aa 
 obscure hole, his only visible auxiliary a negro 
 boy. and his supporters a few very insignifi- 
 cant persons of all colors." — Letter qfll. G. 
 Otis. 
 
 In a small chamber, friendless and un- 
 seen. 
 Toiled o'er his types one poor, un- 
 learned young man; 
 The place was dark, unfurnitured, and 
 mean ; 
 Yet there the freedom of a race began. 
 
 Help came but slowly ; surely no man 
 yet 
 Put lever to the heavy world with 
 less: 
 What need of help? He knew how 
 types were set. 
 He had a dauntless spirit, and a 
 press. 
 
 Such earnest natures are the fiery pith. 
 The compact nucleus, round which 
 systems grow ; 
 Mass after mass becomes inspired there- 
 with. 
 And whirls impregnate with the cen- 
 tral glow. 
 
 Truth ! Freedom 1 how are ye still 
 bom 
 In the mde stable, in the manger 
 nurst! 
 What humble hands unbar those gates 
 of mom 
 Through which the splendors of the 
 New Day burst 1 
 
104 
 
 MEMORIAL VERSES. 
 
 What! shall one monk, scarce known 
 beyond his cell, 
 Front Rome's far-reaching holts, and 
 scorn her frown ? 
 Brave Luther answered Yes ; that thun- 
 der's swell 
 Becked Europe, and discharmed the 
 triple crown. 
 
 Whatever can he known of earth we 
 know, 
 Sneered Europe's wise men, in their 
 snail-shells curled ; 
 No! said one man in Genoa, and that 
 No 
 Out of the darkness summoned this 
 New World. 
 
 Who is it will not dare himself to trust ? 
 Who is it hath not strength to stand 
 alone ? 
 Who is it thwarts and bilks the inward 
 
 MUST? 
 
 He and his works, like sand, from 
 earth are blown. 
 
 Men of a thousand shifts and wiles, 
 
 look here! 
 
 See one straightforward conscience 
 
 put in pawn 
 
 To win a world ; see the obedient sphere 
 
 By braveiy's simple gravitation drawn ! 
 
 Shall we not heed the lesson taught of 
 old, 
 And by the Present's lips repeated 
 still, 
 In our own single manhood to be bold, 
 Fortressed in conscience and impreg- 
 nable will ? 
 
 We stride the river daily at its spring, 
 Nor, in our childish thoughtlessness, 
 foresee, 
 What myriad vassal streams shall trib- 
 ute bring. 
 How like an equal it shall greet the 
 
 O small beginnings, ye are great and 
 
 Based on a faithful heart and weari- 
 less brain ! 
 ye build the future fair, ye conquer 
 wrong, 
 
 Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in 
 vain. 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF C. T. TOREET. 
 
 Woe worth the hour when it is crime 
 To plead the poor dumb bondmau'g 
 cause, 
 When aU that makes the heart sublime^ 
 The glorious throbs that conquer time, 
 Are traitors to our cruel laws ! 
 
 He strove among God's suffering poor 
 One gleam of brotherhood to send ; 
 The dungeon oped its hungry door 
 To give the truth one martyr more, 
 Then shut, — and here behold the 
 end! 
 
 Mother State ! when this was done. 
 No pitying throe thy bosom gave ; 
 
 Silent thou saw'st the death-shroud 
 spun. 
 
 And now thou givest to thy son 
 The stranger's charity, — a grave. 
 
 Must it be thus forever ? No ! 
 
 The hand of God sows not in vain ; ] 
 Long sleeps the darkling seed below. 
 The seasons come, and change, and go, 
 
 And all the fields are deep with grain. 
 
 Although our brother lie asleep, 
 Man's heart still struggles, still as- 
 pires ; 
 His grave shall quiver yet, while deep 
 Through the brave Bay State's pulses 
 leap • 
 
 Her ancient energies and fires. 
 
 When hours like this the senses' gush 
 
 Have stilled, and left the spirit room. 
 It hears amid the eternal hush 
 The swooping pinions' dreadful nish, 
 That bring the vengeance and the 
 doom ; — 
 
 Not man's brute vengeance, such as rends 
 
 What rivets man to man apart, — 
 
 God doth not so bring round his ends, 
 
 But waits the ripened time, and sends 
 
 His mercy to the oppressor's heart. 
 
 ELEOY ON THE DEATH OF DE. 
 CHAINING. 
 
 I DO not come to weep above thy pall, 
 And mourn the dying-out of noblfl 
 powers ; 
 
ELEGY OK THE DEATH OF DR. CHANNING. 
 
 105 
 
 The poet's clearer eye shonld see, in all 
 Daith's seeming woe, seed of immor- 
 tal flowers. 
 
 Truth needs no champions : in the infi- 
 nite deep 
 Of everlasting Soul her strength 
 abides, 
 From Nature's heart her mighty pulses 
 leap. 
 Through Nature's veins her strength, 
 undying, tides. 
 
 Peace is more strong than war, and gen- 
 tleness. 
 Where force were vain, makes con- 
 quest o'er the wave ; 
 And love lives on and hath a power to 
 bless, 
 When they who loved are hidden in 
 the grave. 
 
 The sculptured marble brags of death- 
 strewn fields, 
 And Glory's epitaph is writ in blood; 
 But Alexander now to Plato yields, 
 Clarkson wiU stand where Wellington 
 hath stood. 
 
 I watch the circle of the eternal years, 
 And read forever in the storied page 
 One lengthened roll of blood, and wrong, 
 and tears. 
 One onward step of Truth from age to 
 age. 
 
 The poor are crushed ; the tyrants link 
 their chain ; 
 The poet sings through narrow dun- 
 geon-grates ; 
 Man's hope lies qnenched ; and, lo ! 
 with steadfast gain 
 Freedom doth forge her mail of adverse 
 fates. 
 
 Men slay the prophets ; fagot, rack, and 
 cross 
 Make up the groaning record of the 
 past; 
 But Evil's triumphs are her endless loss, 
 And sovereign Beauty wins the soul 
 at last. 
 
 No power can die that ever wrought for 
 Truth; 
 Thereby a law of Nature it became. 
 
 And lives unwithered in its blithesoma 
 youth, 
 When he who called it fo^h is but a 
 name. 
 
 Therefore I cannot think thee wholly 
 gone; 
 The better part of thee is with us 
 still ; 
 Thy soul its hampering clay aside hath 
 thrown, 
 And only freer wrestles with the 111. 
 
 Thou livest in the life of all good things ; 
 What words thou spak'st for Freedom 
 shall not die ; 
 Thou sleepest not, for now thy Love hath 
 wings 
 To soar where hence thy Hope could 
 hardly fly. 
 
 And often, from that other world, on 
 this 
 Some gleams from great souls gone 
 before may shine. 
 To shed on struggling hearts a clearer 
 bliss. 
 And clothe the Eight with lustre more 
 divine. 
 
 Thou art not idle : in thy higher sphere 
 Thy spirit bends itself to loving tasks. 
 
 And strength to perfect what it dreamed 
 of here 
 Is all the crown and glory that it asks. 
 
 For sure, in Heaven's wide chambers, 
 there is room 
 For love and pity, and for helpful 
 deeds ; 
 Else were our summons thither but a 
 doom 
 To life more vain than this in clayey 
 weeds. 
 
 From off the starry mountain-peak of 
 song, 
 Thy spirit shows me, in the coming 
 time. 
 An earth unwithered by the foot of 
 wrong, 
 A race revering its own soul sublime. 
 
 What wars, what martjrrdoms, what 
 crimes, may come. 
 Thou knowest not, nor I; hut God 
 will lead 
 
106 
 
 MEMOEIAL VEESES. 
 
 The prodigal soul from want and sorrow 
 home, 
 And Eden ope her gates to Adam's 
 seed. 
 
 Farewell ! good man, good angel now ! 
 this hand 
 Soon, like thine own, shall lose its 
 cunning too ; 
 Soon shall this soul, like thine, hewil- 
 dered stand, 
 Then leap to thread the free, iinfath- 
 omed blue : 
 
 When that day comes, 0, may this hand 
 grow cold, 
 Easy, like thine, for Freedom and the 
 Right ; 
 O, may this soul, like thine, be ever bold 
 To face dark Slavery's encroaching 
 blight! 
 
 This laurel-leaf I cast upon thy bier ; 
 Let worthier hands than these thy 
 wreath intwine ; 
 Upon thy hearse 1 shed no useless tear, — 
 Tor ns weep rather thou in calm di- 
 vine ! 
 1842. 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF HOOD. 
 
 Ajiothee star 'neath Time's horizon 
 dropped. 
 To gleam o'er unknown lands and 
 seas ; 
 Another heart that beat for freedom 
 stopped, — 
 What mournful words are these ! 
 
 O Love Divine, that olaspest our tired 
 earth, 
 And lullest it upon thy heart, 
 
 Thou knowest how much a gentle soul 
 is worth 
 To teach men what thou art ! 
 
 His was a spirit that to all thy poor 
 Was kind as slumber after pain: 
 
 Why ope so soon thy heaven-deep 
 Quiet's door 
 And call him home again ! 
 
 Freedom needs all her poets : it is they 
 Who give her aspirations wings. 
 
 And to the wiser law of music sway 
 Her wild imaginings. 
 
 Yet thou hast called him, nor art thou 
 unkind, 
 Love Divine, for 't is thy will 
 That gracious natures leave their love 
 behind 
 To work for Mercy still. 
 
 Let laurelled marbles weigh on other 
 tombs, 
 Let anthems peal for other dead. 
 Rustling the bannered depth of minster? 
 glooms 
 With their exulting spread. 
 
 His epitaph shall mock the short-lived 
 stone. 
 No lichen shall its lines efface. 
 He needs these few and simple lines 
 alone 
 To mark his resting-place : — 
 
 "Here lies a Poet. Stranger, if to 
 
 thee 
 His claim to memory be obscure, 
 If thou wouldst learn how truly great 
 was he, 
 Go, ask it of the poor." 
 
THE VISION OF SIK LACIfTAL. 
 
 107 
 
 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 
 
 PRELUDE TO PART FIRST. 
 
 Over Ms keys the musing organist, 
 
 Beginning doubtfully and far away, 
 First lets his fingers wander as they list, 
 And builds a bridge from Dreamland 
 for his lay : 
 Then, as the touch of his loved instru- 
 ment 
 Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws 
 his theme. 
 First guessed by faint auroral flushes 
 sent 
 Along the wavering vista of his dream. 
 
 Not only around our infancy 
 Doth heaven with all its splendors lie ; 
 Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, 
 We Sinais climb and know it not. 
 
 Over ouv manhood bend the skies ; 
 
 Against our fallen and traitor lives 
 The great winds utter prophecies ; 
 
 With our faint hearts the mountain 
 strives ; 
 Its arms outstretched, the druid wood 
 
 Waits with its benedicite ; 
 And to our age's drowsy blood 
 
 Still shouts the inspiring sea. 
 
 Earth gets its price for what Earth gives 
 us ; 
 The beggar is taxed for a comer to die 
 in, 
 The priest hath his fee who comes and 
 shrives us, 
 We bargain for the graves we lie in ; 
 At the devil's booth are all things sold. 
 Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of 
 gold; 
 For a cap and bells our lives we pay. 
 Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's 
 tasking : 
 'T is heaven alone that is given away, 
 T is only God may be had for ''he ask- 
 ing; 
 
 No price is set on the lavish summer ; 
 June may be had by the poorest comer. 
 
 And what is so rare as a day in June ? 
 
 Then, if ever, come perfect days ; 
 Then Heaven tries earth if it be in 
 tune. 
 And over it softly her warm ear lays : 
 Whether we look, or whether we listen, 
 We hear life murmur, or see it glisten ; 
 Every clod feels a stir of might, 
 ■ An instinct within it that reaches and 
 
 towers. 
 And, groping blindly above it for light. 
 Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers ;' 
 The flush of life may well be seen 
 
 Thrilling; back over hills and valleys ; 
 The cowslip startles in meadows green^ 
 The buttercup catches the sun in its 
 chalice. 
 And there 's never a leaf nor a blade too 
 mean 
 To be some happy creature's palace ; 
 The little bird sits at his door in tha 
 sun, 
 Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, 
 And lets his illumined being o'errun 
 
 With the deluge of summer itreceives ; 
 His mate feels the eggs beneath her 
 
 wings. 
 And the heart in her dumb breast flutter* 
 
 and sings ; 
 He sings to the wide world, and she to 
 
 her nest, — 
 In the nice ear of Nature which song ia 
 the best ? 
 
 Now is the high-tide of the year. 
 
 And whatever of life hath ebbed away 
 
 Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer, 
 
 Into every bare inlet and creek and 
 
 bay; 
 Now the heart is so full that a, drop 
 
 overfiUs it. 
 We are happy now because God wills it; 
 No matter how barren the past may 
 
 have been, 
 
108 
 
 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 
 
 'T is enough for us now that the leaves 
 
 are green ; 
 We sit in the warm shade and feel right 
 
 well 
 How the sap creeps up and the hlossoms 
 
 swell; 
 We may shut our eyes, but we cannot 
 
 help knowing 
 That skies are clear and grass is grow- 
 ing; 
 The breeze comes whispering in our ear, 
 That dandelions are blossoming near, 
 That maize has sprouted, that streams 
 
 are flowing. 
 That the river is bluer than the sky, 
 That the robin is plastering his house 
 
 hard by; 
 And if the breeze kept the good news 
 
 back, 
 For other couriers we should not lack ; 
 We could guess it all by yon heifer's 
 
 lowing, — 
 And hark ! how clear bold chanticleer, 
 Warmed with the new wine of the year, 
 Tells all in his lusty crowing ! 
 
 Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how ; 
 Everything is happy now. 
 
 Everything is upward striving ; 
 'T is as easy now for the heart to be true 
 As for grass to be green or skies to be 
 blue, — 
 'T is the natural way of living : 
 Who knows whither the clouds have 
 fled? 
 In the unscarred heaven they leave no 
 wake ; 
 And the eyes forget the tears they have 
 shed, 
 The heart forgets its sorrow and ache ; 
 The soul partakes the season's youth. 
 And the sulphurous rifts of passion 
 and woe 
 Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and 
 smooth. 
 Like burnt-out craters healed with 
 snow. 
 What wonder if Sir Launfal now 
 Eemembered the keeping of his vow ? 
 
 PAET FIKST. 
 
 " My golden spurs now bring to me, 
 
 And bring to me my richest mail. 
 
 For to-morrow I go over land and sea 
 
 In search of the Holy Grail ; 
 
 Shall never a bed for me be spread. 
 
 Nor shall a piUow be under my head. 
 
 Till I begin my vow to keep ; 
 
 Here on the rushes will I sleep, 
 
 And perchance there may come a vision 
 true 
 
 Ere day create the world anew." 
 Slowly Sir Launfal's eyes grew dim. 
 Slumber fell like a cloud on him, 
 
 And into his soul the vision flew. 
 
 The crows flapped over by twos and 
 
 threes. 
 In the pool drowsed the cattle up to 
 their knees. 
 The little birds sang as if it were 
 The one day of summer in all the year. 
 And the very leaves seemed to sing on 
 
 the trees : 
 The castle alone in the landscape lay 
 Like an outpost of winter, dull and 
 
 gray: 
 'Twas the proudest hall in the North 
 
 Countree, 
 And never its gates might opened be. 
 Save to lord or lady of nigh degree ; 
 Summer besieged it on every side. 
 But the churlish stone her assaults de- 
 fied; 
 She could not scale the chilly wall. 
 Though around it for leagues her pa- 
 vilions tall 
 Stretched left and right, 
 Over the hills and out of sight ; 
 Green and broad was every tent, 
 And out of each a murmur went 
 TiU the breeze fell off at night. 
 
 The drawbridge dropped with a sirrly 
 
 clang. 
 And through the dark arch a charger 
 
 sprang. 
 Bearing Sir Launfal, the maiden knight, 
 In his gilded mail, that flamed so bright 
 It seemed the dark castle had gathered 
 
 all 
 Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over 
 
 its wall 
 In his siege of three hundred summers 
 
 long, 
 And, binding them all in one blazing 
 
 sheaf, 
 Had cast them forth : so, young and 
 
 strong, 
 
THE VISION OF SIE LAUNFAL. 
 
 109 
 
 And lightsome as a looust-leaf, 
 
 Sir Launfal flashed forth in his maiden 
 
 mail, 
 To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail. 
 
 It was morning on hill and stream and 
 
 tree, 
 And morning in the young knight's 
 
 heart ; 
 Only the castle moodily 
 Rebuffed the gifts of the sunshine free, 
 
 And gloomed by itself apart ; 
 The season brimmed all other things up 
 Jull as the rain fills the pitcher-plant's 
 
 cup. 
 
 V. 
 
 As Sir Launfal made mom through the 
 darksome gate. 
 He was 'ware of a leper, crouched by 
 the same. 
 Who begged with his hand and moaned 
 asne sate ; 
 And a loathing over Sir Launfal came ; 
 The sunshine went out of his soul with 
 a thrill, 
 The ilesh 'neath his armor 'gan shrink 
 and crawl. 
 And midway its leap his heart stood still 
 
 Like a frozen waterfall ; 
 For this man, so foul and bent of stature, 
 Rasped harshly against his dainty nature. 
 And seemed the one blot on the svimmer 
 
 mom, — 
 So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn. 
 
 The leper raised not the gold from the 
 
 dust: 
 " Better to me the poor man's crust, 
 Better the blessing of ihe poor. 
 Though I turn me e^j^ty from his door ; 
 That is no true alms which the hand 
 
 can hold ; 
 He gives only the worthless gold 
 
 Who gives from a sense of duty ; 
 But he who gives but a slender mite, 
 And gives to that which is out of sight, 
 That thread of the all-sustaining 
 
 Beauty 
 Which runs through all and doth all 
 
 unite, — 
 The hand cannot clasp the whole of his 
 
 alms, 
 Tno heart outstretches its eager palms, 
 
 For a god goes with it and makes it 
 store 
 
 To the soul that was starving in dark- 
 ness before." 
 
 PRELUDE TO PART SECOND. 
 
 Down swept the chill wind from tha 
 mountain peak, 
 From the snow five thousand summers 
 old; 
 
 On open wold and hill-top bleak 
 It had gathered all the cold, 
 
 And whirled it like sleet on the wan- 
 derer's cheek ; 
 
 It carried a shiver everywhere 
 
 From the unleafed boughs and pastures 
 bare; 
 
 The little brook heard it and built a roof 
 
 'Neath which he could house him, win- 
 ter-proof; 
 
 All night by the white stars' frosty 
 gleams 
 
 He groined his arches and matched his 
 beams ; 
 
 Slender and clear were his crystal spars 
 
 As the lashes of light that trim the 
 stars : 
 
 He sculptured every summer delight 
 
 In his halls and chambers out of sight ; 
 
 Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt 
 
 Down through a frost-leaved forest- 
 crypt, 
 
 Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed 
 trees 
 
 Bending to counterfeit a breeze ; 
 
 Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew 
 
 But silvery mosses that downward grew ; 
 
 Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief 
 
 With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf; 
 
 Sometimes it was simply smooth and 
 clear 
 
 For the gladness of heaven to shine 
 through, and here 
 
 He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops 
 
 And hung them thickly with diamond 
 drops. 
 
 That crystalled the beams of moon and 
 sun. 
 
 And made a star of every one : 
 
 No mortal builder's most rare device 
 
 Could match this winter-palace of ice ; 
 
 'T was as if every image that mirrored 
 lay 
 
 In his depths serene through the sam* 
 mer day, 
 
110 
 
 THK VISION OF SIB LAUNFAL, 
 
 Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky, 
 Lest the liappy model should be lost, 
 
 Had been mimicked in fairy masonry 
 By the eliiu builders of the frost. 
 
 Within the hall are song and laughter, 
 The cheeks of Christmas glow red and 
 
 jolly. 
 And sprouting is every corbel and rafter 
 With lightsome green of ivy and holly ; 
 Through the deep gulf of the chimney 
 
 wide 
 Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide ; 
 The broad flame-pennons droop and flap 
 And belly and tug as a flag in the 
 wind ; 
 Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, 
 Hunted to death in its galleries blind ; 
 And swift little troops of silent sparks, 
 Kow pausing, now scattering away as 
 in fear. 
 Go threading the soot-forest's tangled 
 darks 
 Like herds of startled deer. 
 
 But the wind without was eager and 
 
 sharp, 
 Of Sir Launfal's gray hair it makes a harp. 
 And rattles and wrings 
 The icy strings. 
 Singing, in dreary monotone, 
 A Christmas carol of its own, 
 Whose burden still, as he might guess. 
 Was — "Shelterless, shelterless, shel- 
 terless ! " 
 The voice of the seneschal flared like a 
 
 torch 
 As he shouted the wanderer away from 
 
 the porch, 
 And he sat in the gateway and saw all 
 night 
 The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold. 
 Through the window-slits of the cas- 
 tle old. 
 Build out its piers of ruddy light 
 Against the drift of the cold. 
 
 PAUT SECOND. 
 1. 
 
 There was never a leaf on bush or tree. 
 The bare boughs rattled shudderingly ; 
 The river was dumb and could not speak, 
 For the weaver Winter its shroud had 
 spun; 
 
 A single crow on the tree-top bleak 
 From his shining feathers shed off tha 
 
 cold sun ; 
 Again it was morning, but shrunk and 
 
 cold. 
 As if her veins were sapless and old. 
 And she rose up decrepitly 
 For a last dim look at earth and sea. 
 
 Sir Launfal turned from his own hard 
 
 gate. 
 For another heir in his earldom sate ; 
 An old, bent man, worn out and frail, 
 He came back from seeking the Holy 
 
 Grail; 
 Little he recked of his earldom's loss, 
 No more on his surcoat was blazoned the 
 
 cross. 
 But deep in his soul the sign he wore. 
 The badge of the suffering and the poor. 
 
 III. 
 Sir Launfal's raiment thin and spare 
 Was idle mail 'gainst the barbed air, 
 For it was just at the Christmas time ; 
 So he mused, as he sat, of a sunnier 
 
 clime. 
 And sought for a shelter from cold and 
 
 snow 
 In the light and warmth of long-ago ; 
 He sees the snake-like caravan crawl 
 O'er the edge of the desert, black and 
 
 small, 
 Then nearer and nearer, till, one by one, 
 He can count the camels in the sun. 
 As over the red-hot sands they pass 
 To where, in its slender necklace of grass, 
 The little spring laughed and leapt in 
 
 the shade. 
 And with its own self like an infant 
 
 played. 
 And waved its signal of palms. 
 
 " For Christ's sweet sake, 1 beg an 
 
 alms" ; — 
 The happy camels may reach the spring. 
 But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome 
 
 thing. 
 The leper, lank as the rain-blanched 
 
 bone. 
 That cowers beside him, a thing as lone 
 And white as the ice-isles of Northeta 
 
 seas 
 In the desolate horror of his disease. 
 
THE VISION 01? SIU LAUNFAL. 
 
 Ill 
 
 And Sir Launfal said, — "I behold in 
 
 thee 
 An image of Him who died on the tree ; 
 Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns, — 
 Thou also hast had the world's buffets and 
 
 scorns, — 
 And to thy life were not denied 
 The wounds in the hands and feet and 
 
 side: 
 Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me ; 
 Behold, through him, I give to theel" 
 
 Then the soul of the leper stood up in his 
 
 eyes 
 And looked at Sir Launfal, and 
 
 straightway he 
 Eemembered in what a haughtier guise 
 
 He had flung an alms to leprosie, 
 When he girt his young life up in gilded 
 
 mail 
 And set forth in search of the Holy Grail. 
 The heart within him was ashes and dust ; 
 He jiarted in twain his single crust, 
 He broks the ice on the streamlet's 
 
 brink. 
 And gave the leper to eat and drink, 
 'T was a mouldy crust of coarse brown 
 
 bread, 
 'T was water out of a wooden bowl, — 
 Yet with flue wheateu bread was the leper 
 
 fed, 
 And 't was red wine he drank with his 
 
 thirsty soul. 
 
 VII. 
 
 As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast 
 
 face, 
 A light shone round about the place ; 
 The leper no longer crouched at his side, 
 But stood before him glorified, 
 Shining and tall and fair and straight 
 As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful 
 
 Gate, — 
 Himself the Gate whereby men can 
 Enter the temple of God in Man. 
 
 His words were shed softer than leaves 
 
 from the pine, 
 And they fell on Sir Launfal as snows on 
 
 ' the brine. 
 That mingle their softness and quiet in 
 
 one 
 
 With the shaggy unrest they float down 
 
 upon ; 
 And the voice that was softer than 
 
 silence said, 
 " Lo it is I, be not afraid I 
 In many climes, without avail, 
 Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy 
 
 Grail; 
 Behold, it is here, — this cup which thou 
 Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now ; 
 This crust is my body broken for thee, 
 This water his blood that died on the 
 
 tree; 
 The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, 
 In whatso we share with another's need } 
 Not what we give, but what we share, 
 For the gift without the giver is bare ; 
 Who gives himself with his alms feeds 
 
 three, 
 Himself, his hungering neighbor, and 
 
 me." 
 
 Sir Launfal awoke as from a swound ; 
 " The Grail in my castle here is found 1 
 Hang my idle armor up on the wall, 
 Let it be the spider's banquet-hall ; 
 He must be fenced with stronger mail 
 Who would seek and find the Holy 
 Grail." 
 
 The castle gate stands open now. 
 And the wanderer is welcome to the 
 
 hall 
 As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough ; 
 
 No longer scowl the turrets tall, 
 The Summer's long siege at last is o'er ; 
 When the first poor outcast went in at 
 
 the door. 
 She entered with him in disguise. 
 And mastered the fortress by surprise ; 
 There is no spot she loves so well oa 
 
 ground. 
 She lingers and smiles there the whole 
 
 year round ; 
 The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land 
 Has hall and bower at his command ; 
 And there 'a no poor man in the North 
 
 Countiee 
 But is lord of the earldom as much as he. 
 
 NOTE. — According to the mythology of the 
 Romancers, the San Greal, or Holy Grail, was 
 the cup out of which Jesus partook of the Last 
 Supper with his disciples. It was hrought into 
 England by Joseph of Arimathea, and remained 
 there, an ol^ect of pilgrimage and adoraUoo, 
 
112 
 
 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 
 
 for many yeara in the keeping of his lineid de- 
 scendants. It was incumbent upon those who 
 Lad charge of it to be chaste in thought, word, 
 and deed; but one of the keepers having 
 broken this condition, the Holy Grail disap- 
 peared. From that time it was a favorite enter- 
 prise of the knights of Arthur's court to go in 
 search of it. Sir Galahad was at last success- 
 ful in finding it, as may be read in the seven- 
 teenth book of the Romance of King Arthur. 
 
 Tennyson has made Sir Galahad the subject of 
 one of the most exquisite of his poems. 
 
 The plot (if I may give that name to anything 
 so slight^ of the foregoing poem is my own, and, 
 to serA'e its purposes, I have enlarged the circle 
 of competition in search of the miraculous cup 
 in such a manner as to include, not only othet 
 persons than the heroes of the Bound Table, 
 but also a period of time subsequent to the 
 supposed ^aie of King Arthur's reign. 
 
Reader ! walk up at once (it will soon be too late) 
 and buy at a perfectly ruinous rate 
 
 FABLE FOR CRITICS; 
 
 OR, BETTER, 
 
 (/ like, as a thing that the reader's first fancy may strike, 
 
 an oldfaskioned title-page, 
 
 such as presents a talmlar view of the volume's contents,) 
 
 A GLANCE 
 
 AT A FEW OF OUR LITERARY PROGENIES 
 {.Mrs. Malaprop's word) 
 
 THE TUB OF DIOGENES; 
 
 A VOCAL AND MUSICAL MEDLEY, 
 
 THAT IS, 
 
 A SERIES OF JOKES 
 
 who accompanies himself with a rub-a-dub-dub, full of spirit and grace, 
 on the top of the tub. 
 
 Set forth in October, the 31st day, 
 
 In the year '48, G. P. Putnam, Broadway. 
 
TO 
 
 CHARLES F. BRIGGS, 
 
 THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. 
 
k FABLE FOR CRITICS. 
 
 115 
 
 It being the commonest mode of proced- 
 ure, I premise a few candid remarks 
 
 To THE Reader : — 
 
 This trifle, begun to please only myself 
 and my own private fancy, was laid on the 
 shelf. But some friends, who had seen it, 
 induced me, by dint of saying they liked 
 it, to put it in print. That is, having 
 come to that very conclusion, I asked their 
 advice when 't would make no confusion. 
 For though (in the gentlest of ways) they 
 had hinted it was scarce worth the while, 
 I should doubtless have printed it. 
 
 I began it, intending a Fable, a frail, 
 slender thing, rhyme- ywlnged, with a sting 
 in its tail. But, by addings and alterings 
 not previously planned, digressions chance- 
 hatched, like birds' eggs in the sand, and 
 dawdlings to suit ever}' whimsey's demand 
 (always freeing the bird which I held in 
 my hand, for the two perched, perhaps out 
 of"^ reach, in the tree),. — it grew by degrees 
 to the size which you see. 1 was like the 
 old woman that carried the calf, and my 
 neighbors, like hers, no doubt, wonder and 
 laugh; and when, my strained arms with 
 their grown burthen full, I call it my Fable, 
 they call it a bull. 
 
 Having scrawled at full gallop (as far as 
 that goes) in a style that is neither good 
 verse nor bad prose, and being a person 
 whom nobody knows, some people will 
 say I am rather more free with my readers 
 than it is becoming to be, that I seem to 
 expect them to wait on my leisure in fol- 
 lowing wherever I wander at pleasure, 
 that, m short, I take more than a young 
 author's lawful ease, and laugh in a queer 
 way so like Mephistopheles, that the Pub- 
 lic will doubt, as they grope through my 
 rhythm, if in truth I am making fun of 
 them or ieith them. 
 
 So the excellent Public is hereby as- 
 sured that the sale of my book is already 
 secured. For there is not a poet through- 
 out the whole land but will purchase a 
 copy or two out of hand, in the fond ex- 
 pectation of being amused in it, by seeing 
 his betters cut up and abused in it. Now, 
 I find, by a pretty exact calculation, there 
 <ire something like ten thousand bards in 
 
 the nation, of that special variety whom 
 the Review and Magazine critics call lofty 
 and true, and about thirty thousand {this 
 tribe is increasing) of the kinds who are 
 termed full of promise and pleasing. The 
 Public will see by a glance at this sched- 
 ule, that they cannot expect me to be over- 
 sedulous about courtmg them, since it 
 seems I have got enough fuel made sure of 
 for boiling my pot. 
 
 As for such of our poets as find not 
 their names mentioned once in my pages, 
 with praises or blames, let them send in 
 THEIE CARDS, without further delay, to 
 my friend G. P. Putnam, Esquire, in 
 Broadway, where a list will be kept with 
 the strictest regard to the day and the 
 hour of receiving the card. Then, taking 
 them up as I chance to have time (that is, 
 if their names can be twisted in rhyme), 
 I will honestly give each his proper po- 
 sition, at the rate of one author to each 
 NEW EDITION. Thus a PREMIUM is of- 
 fered sufficiently high (as the magazines 
 say when they tell their best lie) to induce 
 bards to club their resources and buy the 
 balance of every edition, until they have 
 all of them fairly been run through the 
 mill. 
 
 One word to such readers (judicious and 
 wise) as read books with something behind 
 the mere eyes, of whom in the coimtry, 
 perhaps, there are two, including myself, 
 gentle reade^ and you. All the characters 
 sketched in this slight je« d'esprit, though, 
 it may be, they seem, here and there, 
 rather free, and drawn from a somewhat 
 too cynical standpoint, are meant to be 
 faithful, for that is the grand point, and 
 none but an owl would ^el sore at a rub 
 from a jester who tells you, without any 
 subterfuge, that he sits in Diogenes' tub. 
 
 A PRELIMINARY NOTE TO THB 
 SECOND EDITION, 
 
 though it well maybe reckoned, of all cora« 
 position, the species at once most delight- 
 ful and healthjr, is a thing which an au- 
 thor, unless he be wealthy and willing tb 
 
116 
 
 A FABLE FOE CRITICS. 
 
 pay for that kind of delight, is not, in all 
 instances, called on to write, though 
 there are, it is said, who, their spirits to 
 cheer, slip in a new title-pa^e three times 
 a year, and in this way snuli up an imagi- 
 nary savor of that sweetest of dishes, the 
 popular favor, — much as if a starved 
 painter should fall to and treat the Ugo- 
 lino inside to a picture of meat. 
 
 Ton remember (if not, pray tarn back- 
 ward and look) that, in writing the preface 
 which nshered my book, I treated you, ex- 
 cellent Public, not merely with a cool dis- 
 regard, but downright cavalierly. Now I 
 would not take back the least thing I then 
 said, though I thereby could butter both 
 sides of my bread, for I never could see 
 that an author owed aught to the people 
 he solaced, diverted, or taught ; and, as 
 for mere fame, I have long ago learned 
 that the persons by whom it is finally 
 earned are those with whom your verdict 
 weighed not a pin, unsustained by the 
 higher court sitting within. 
 
 But I wander from what I intended to 
 say, — that you have, namely, shown such 
 a liberal way of thinking, and so much 
 sesthetic perception of anonymous worth 
 in the handsome reception you gave to my 
 book, spite of some private piques (having 
 bought the first thousand in barely two 
 weeks), that I think, past a doubt, if you 
 measured the phiz of yours most devotedly. 
 Wonderful Quiz, you would find that its 
 vertical section was shorter, by an inch 
 and two tenths, or 'twixt that and a 
 quarter. 
 
 You have watched a child playing — in 
 those wondrous years when belief is not 
 bound to the eyes and the ears, and the 
 vision divine is so clear and unmarred, 
 that each baker of pies in the dirt is a 
 bard ? Give a knife and a shingle, he fits 
 out a fleet, and, on that little mud-puddle 
 over the street, his fancy, in purest ^ood 
 faith, will make sail round the globe with a 
 > puS of his breath for a gale, will visit in 
 S barely ten minutes all climes, and do the 
 I Columbus-feat hundreds of times. Or, sup- 
 I pose the j-oung poet fresh stored with de- 
 . lights from that Bible of childhood, the 
 \ Arabian Kights, he will turn to a crony 
 / and cry, "Jack, let 's play that I am a 
 Genius ! " Jacky straightway makes Alad- 
 din's lamp out of a stone, and, for hours, 
 they enjoy each his own supernatural 
 powers. This is all very pretty and pleas- 
 ant, but then suppose our two urchins have 
 grown into men, and both have turned 
 authors, — one says to his brother, "Let's 
 play we're the American somethings or 
 other, — say Homer or Sophocles, Goethe 
 *r Scott (only let them be big enough, no 
 
 matter what). Come, you shall be Bvron 
 or Pope, which you choose: I'll be Cole- 
 ridge, and both shall write mutual reviews." 
 So they both (as mere strangers) before 
 many days send each other a cord of anony« 
 mous bays. Each, piling his epithets, 
 smiles in his sleeve to see what his friend 
 can be made to believe ; each, reading the 
 other's unbiased review, thinks — Here's 
 
 Sretty high praise, but no more than my 
 ue. WSl, we laugh at them both, and 
 yet make no great fuss when the same farce 
 IS acted to benefit us. Even I, who, ifj 
 asked, scarce a month since, what Fudge 
 meant, shoald have answered, the dear 
 Public's critical judgment, begin to think 
 sharp-witted Horace spoke sooth when ha 
 said, that the Public lometimet hit the 
 truth. 
 
 In reading these lines, you perhaps have 
 a vision of a person in pretty good health 
 and condition ; and yet, since I put forth 
 my primary edition, I have been crushed, 
 scorciied, withered, used up and put down 
 (by Smith with the cordial assistance of 
 Brown), in all, if you put any faith in my 
 rhymes, to the number of ninety-five sev- 
 eral times, and, while I am writing, — I 
 tremble to think of it, for I may at this 
 moment be just on the brink of it, — Mo- 
 lybdostom, angry at being omitted, has 
 begun a critique, — am I not to be 
 pitied?* 
 
 Now I shall not crush them since, in- 
 deed, for that matter, no pressure I know 
 of could render them flatter ; nor wither, 
 nor scorch them, — no action of fire could 
 make either them or their articles drier ; 
 nor waste time in putting them down — 
 I am thinking not their own self -inflation 
 will keep them from sinking ; for there 'a 
 this contradiction about the whole bevy, — 
 though without the least weight, they are 
 awfiUly heavy. No, my dear honest bore, 
 mrdo fatmlam narras, they are no more 
 to me than a rat in the arras. I can walk 
 with the Doctor, get facts from the Don, 
 or draw out the Lambish quintessence of 
 John, and feel nothing more than a half- 
 comic sorrow, to think that they all will 
 be lying to-morrow tossed carelessly up on 
 the waste-paper shelves, and forgotten by 
 all but their half-dozen selves. Once snug 
 in my attic, my fire in a roar, I leave the 
 whole pack of them outside the door.. 
 With Hakluyt or Purchas I wander away 
 to the black northern seas or barbaric 
 Cathay ; get/o« with O'Shanter, and sobai 
 me then with that builder of brick-kiluish 
 
 * The wise Scandinavians probably called 
 their bards by the queer-looking title of Scald, 
 in a delicate way, as it were, Just to hint to tbi 
 world the hot water they always get into. 
 
A FABLE FOB CRITICS. 
 
 117 
 
 dramas, tare Ben ; snuff Herbert, as holy 
 as a flower on a grave ; with Fletcher wax 
 lender, o'er Chapman grow brave ; with 
 Marlowe or Kyd take a fine poet-rave ; in 
 Very, most Hebrew of Saxons, find peace ; 
 with Lyoidaa welter on vext Irish seas ; 
 with Webster grow wild, and climb earth- 
 ward again, down by mystical Browne's 
 Jacob's-ladder-like brain, to that spiritual 
 Pepys (Cotton's version) Montaigne ; find 
 a new depth in Wordsworth, undreamed 
 of before, that marvel, a poet divine who 
 can bore. Or, out of my study, the scholar 
 thrown off, Nature holds up her shield 
 'gainst the sneer and the scoS; the land- 
 scape, forever consoling and kind, pours her 
 wine and her oil on the smarts of the mind. 
 The waterfall, scattering Its vanishing 
 gems; the tall grove of hemlocks, with moss 
 on their stems, like plashes of sunlight ; 
 the pond in the woods, where no foot but 
 mine and the bittern's intrudes, where 
 pitcher-plants purple and gentians bard by 
 recall to September the blue of June's sky; 
 these are all my kind neighbors, and leave 
 me no wish to say aught to you all, my poor 
 critics, but — pish I I 've buried the hatchet: 
 I 'm twisting an allumette out of one of yoa 
 now, and relighting my calumet. In your 
 private capacities, come when you please, 
 1 will give you my hand and a fresh pipe 
 apiece. 
 
 As I ran through the leaves of my poor 
 little book, to take a fond author s first 
 tremulous look, it was quite an excitement 
 to hunt the errata, sprawled in as birds' 
 tracks are in some kinds of strata (only 
 these made things crookeder). Fancy an 
 heir that a father had seen bom well-fea- 
 tured and fair, turning suddenly wry-nosed, 
 club-footed, squint-eyed, hair-lipped, wap- 
 per-jawed, carrot-haired, from a pride be- 
 «ome an aversion, — my case was yet worse. 
 A club-foot (by way of a change' in a verse. 
 
 I might have forgiven, an o's being wry, 
 a limp in an e, or a cock in an i, — but te 
 have the sweet babe of my brain served in 
 jail I am not queasy-stomached, but such 
 a Thyestean banquet as that was quite out 
 of the question. 
 
 In the edition now issued no pains are 
 neglected, and my verses, as orators say, 
 stand corrected. Yet some blunders re- 
 main of the Public's own make, which I 
 wish to correct for my personal sake. 
 For instance, a character drawn in pure 
 fun and condensing the traits of a dozen 
 in one, has been, as I hear, by some per- 
 sons applied to a good friend of mine, 
 whom to stab in the side, as we walked 
 along chatting and joking together, would 
 not be »ny way. I can hardly tell whether 
 a question will ever arise in which he and 
 I should by any strange fortune agree, 
 but meanwhile my esteem for him grows 
 as I know him, and, though not the best 
 judge on earth of a poem, he knows what 
 it is he is saying and why, and is honest 
 and fearless, two good points which I 
 have not found so rife I can easily smother 
 my love for them, whether on my side or 
 t' other. 
 
 For my other anonymi, you may be sure 
 that I know what is meant by a carica- 
 ture, and what by a portrait. There are 
 those who think it is capital fun to be 
 spattering their ink on ^uiet, unquarrel- 
 some folk, but the minute the game 
 changes sides and the others begin it, they 
 see something savage and horrible in it. 
 As for me I respect neither women nor 
 men for their gender, nor own any sex in 
 a pen. I choose just to hint to some 
 causeless unfriends that, as far as I know, 
 there are always two ends (and one oi 
 them heaviest, too) to a staff, and two 
 parties idso to every good laugh. 
 
A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 
 
 Phcebus, sitting one day in a laurel- 
 tree's shade, 
 Was reminded of Daphne, of whom it 
 
 was made. 
 For the god being one day too warm in 
 
 his wooing. 
 She took to the tree to escape his pur- 
 suing ; 
 Be the cause what it might, from his 
 
 offers she shrunk. 
 And, Giaevra-like, shut herself up in 
 
 a trunk ; 
 And, though 't was a step into which he 
 
 had driven her. 
 He somehow or other had never for- 
 given her ; 
 Her memory he nursed as a kind of 
 
 a tonic. 
 Something bitter to chew when he'd 
 
 play the Byronic, 
 And I can't count the obstinate nymphs 
 
 that he brought over 
 By a strange kind of smile he put on 
 
 when he thought of her. 
 " My case is like Dido's," he sometimes 
 
 remarked ; 
 "When I last saw my love,, she was 
 
 fairly embarked 
 In a laurel, as she thought — but (ah, 
 
 how Pate mocks !) 
 She has found it by this time a very 
 
 bad box ; 
 Let hunters from me take this saw when 
 
 they need it, — 
 You're not always sure of your game 
 
 when you 've treed it. 
 Just conceive such a change taking place 
 
 in one's mistress ! 
 What romance would be left? — who 
 
 cau flatter or kiss trees ? 
 And, for mercy's sake, how could one 
 
 keep up a dialogue 
 With a dull wooden thing that will live 
 
 and will die a log, — 
 
 Not to say that the thoaght would for- 
 ever intrude 
 
 That you 've less chance to win her the 
 more she is wood ? 
 
 Ah I it went to my heart, and the mem- 
 ory still grieves, 
 
 To see those loved graces all taking 
 their leaves ; 
 
 Those charms beyond speech, so en- 
 chanting but now. 
 
 As they left me forever, each making 
 its bough ! 
 
 If her tongue had a tang sometimes 
 more than was right. 
 
 Her new bark is worse than ten times 
 her old bite." 
 
 Now, Daphne — before she was hap- 
 pily treeified — 
 
 Over all other blossoms the lily had 
 deified, 
 
 And when she expected the god on a 
 visit 
 
 ('T was before he had made his inten- 
 tions explicit), 
 
 Some buds she arranged with a vast 
 deal of care, 
 
 To look as if artlessly twined in her hair. 
 
 Where they seemed, as he said, when 
 he paid his addresses, 
 
 Like the day breaking through the long 
 night of her tresses ; 
 
 So whenever he wished to be quite irre- 
 sistible. 
 
 Like a man with eight trumps in his 
 hand at a whist-table 
 
 (I feared me at first that the rhyme was 
 untwistable. 
 
 Though I might have lugged in an allu- 
 sion to Cristabel), — 
 
 He would take up a lily, and gloomily 
 look in it. 
 
 As I shall at the , when they cut 
 
 up my book In it. 
 
120 
 
 A FABLE FOE CKITICS, 
 
 Well, here, after all the had rhyme 
 I 've been spinning, 
 
 I've got back at last to my stoiy's begin- 
 ning : 
 
 Sitting there, as I say, in the shade of 
 his mistress. 
 
 As dull as a volume of old Chester mys- 
 teries. 
 
 Or as those puzzling specimens which, 
 in old histories. 
 
 We read of his verses — the Oracles, 
 namely, — 
 
 (I wonder the Greeks should have swal- 
 lowed them tamely. 
 
 For one might bet safely whatever he 
 has to risk, 
 
 They were laid at his door by some 
 ancient Miss Asterisk, 
 
 And so dull that the men who retailed 
 them out-doors 
 
 Got the ill name of augurs, because 
 they were bores, — ■) 
 
 First, he mused what the animal sub- 
 stance or herb is 
 
 Would induce a mustache, for you 
 know he's imberbis; 
 
 Then he shuddered to think how his 
 youthful position 
 
 Was assailed by the age of his sou the 
 physician ; 
 
 At some poems he glanced, had been 
 sent to him lately, 
 
 And the metre and sentiment puzzled 
 him greatly ; 
 
 " Mehercle ! I 'd make such proceed- 
 ing felonious, — 
 
 Have they all of them slept in the cave 
 of Trophonius ? 
 
 Look well to your seat, 'tis like taking 
 an airing 
 
 On a corduroy road, and that out of re- 
 pairing ; 
 
 It leads one, 'tis true, through the 
 primitive forest, 
 
 Grand natural features, but then one 
 has no rest ; 
 
 You just catch a glimpse of some rav- 
 ishing distance, 
 
 When a jolt puts the whole of it out of 
 existence, — 
 
 Why not use their ears, if they happen 
 to have any?" 
 
 — Here the laurel-leaves murmured the 
 name of poor Daphne. 
 
 '0, weep with me, Daphne,'' he 
 d, "for you know it's 
 
 A terrible thing to be pestered with 
 
 poets ! 
 But, alas, she is dumb, and the proverb 
 
 holds good, 
 She never will cry till she 's out of the 
 
 wood ! 
 What wouldn't I give if I never had 
 
 known of her ? 
 'T were a kind of relief had I something 
 
 to groan over ; 
 If I had but some letters of hers, now, 
 
 to toss over, 
 I might turn for the nonce a Byronio 
 
 philosopher. 
 And bewitch all the flats by bemoaning 
 
 the loss of her. 
 One needs something tangible, though, 
 
 to begin on, — 
 A loom, as it were, for the fancy to 
 
 spin on ; 
 What boots all your grist ? it can never 
 
 be ground 
 Till a breeze makes the arms of the 
 
 windmill go round, 
 (Or, if 't is a water-mill, alter the meta- 
 phor. 
 And say it won't stir, save the wheel be 
 
 well wet afore, 
 Or lug in some stuff about water "so 
 
 dreamily," — 
 It is not a metaphor, though, 'tis a 
 
 simile) ; 
 A lily, perhaps, would set my mill 
 
 a-going, 
 For just at this season, I think, they 
 
 are blowing. 
 Here, somebody, fetch one; not very 
 
 far hence 
 They 're in bloom by the score, 't is but 
 
 climbing a fence ; 
 There 's a poet hard by, who does noth- 
 ing but fill his 
 Whole garden, from one end to t' other, 
 
 with lilies ; 
 A very good plan, were it not for sati- 
 ety, 
 One longs for a weed here and there, 
 
 for variety ; 
 Though a weed is no more than a flower 
 
 in disguise, 
 Which is seen through at once, if love 
 
 give a man eyes." 
 
 Now there happened to be among 
 Phoebus's followers, 
 A gentleman, one of the omnivoioiu 
 swallowers. 
 
A FABLE FOR CKITICS. 
 
 121 
 
 VTho bolt every book that comes out of 
 the press. 
 
 Without the least question of larger or 
 less, 
 
 Whose stomachs are strong at the ex- 
 pense of their head, — 
 
 For reading new books is like eating 
 new bread, 
 
 One can bear it at first, but by gradual 
 steps he 
 
 Is brought to death's door of a mental 
 
 On a previous stage of existence, our 
 Hero 
 
 Had ridden outside, with the glass be- 
 low zero ; 
 
 He had been, 'tis a fact you may safely 
 rely on, 
 
 Of a very old stock a most eminent 
 scion, — 
 
 A stock all fresh quacks their fierce 
 boluses ply on, 
 
 Who stretch the new boots Earth 's un- 
 willing to try on, 
 
 Whom humbugs of all shapes and sorts 
 keep their eye on 
 
 Whose hair 's in the mortar of every" 
 new Zion, 
 
 Who, when whistles are dear, go directly 
 and buy one, 
 
 Who think slavery a crime that we 
 must not say fie on, 
 
 Who hunt, if they e'er hunt at all, with 
 the lion 
 
 (Though they hunt lions also, whenever 
 they spy one). 
 
 Who contrive to make every good for- 
 tune a wry one, 
 
 And at last choose the hard bed of honor 
 to die on, 
 
 Whose pedigree, traced to earth's earli- 
 est years, 
 
 Is longer than anything else but their 
 ears ; — 
 
 In short, he was sent into life with the 
 wrong key. 
 
 He unlocked the door, and stept forth 
 a poor donkey. 
 
 Though kicked and abused by his bi- 
 pedal betters 
 
 Yet he filled no mean place in the king- 
 dom of letters ; 
 
 Far happier than many a literary hack, 
 
 He bore only paper-mill rags on his 
 back 
 
 (For it makes a vast difference which 
 side the mill 
 
 One expends on the paper his labor and 
 
 skill) ; 
 So, when his soul waited a new trans- 
 miration. 
 And Destmy balanced 'twixt this and 
 
 that station, 
 Not having much time to expend upon 
 
 botnei's, 
 Remembering he 'd had some connec> 
 
 tion with authors. 
 And considering his four legs had grown 
 
 paralytic, — 
 She set him on two, and he came forth 
 
 a critic. 
 
 Through his babyhood no kind of 
 
 pleasure he took 
 In any amusement but tearing a book ; 
 For him there was no intermediate stage 
 From babyhood up to straight-laced 
 
 middle age ; 
 There were years when he did E't wear 
 
 coat-tails behind, 
 But a boy he could never be rightly de- 
 fined; 
 Like the Irish Good Folk, though ia 
 
 length scarce a span. 
 From the womb he came gravely, a lit- 
 tle old man ; 
 While other boys' trousers demanded 
 
 the toil 
 Of the motherly fingers on all kinds of 
 
 soil. 
 Red, yellow, brown, black, clayey, 
 
 gravelly, loamy, 
 He sat in the comer and read Viri 
 
 Romse, 
 He never was known to unbend or to 
 
 revel once 
 In base, marbles, hockey, or kick up 
 
 the devil once ; 
 He was just one of those who excite the 
 
 benevolence 
 Of your old prigs who sound the soul's 
 
 depths with a ledger, 
 And are on the lookout for some young 
 
 men to "edger- 
 cate," as they call it, who won't be too 
 
 costly, 
 And who '11 afterward take to the min- 
 istry mostly; 
 Who always wear spectacles, always 
 
 look bilious, 
 Always keep on good terms with each 
 
 mater-familias 
 Throughout the whole parish, and man* 
 
 age to rear 
 
122 
 
 A FABLE FOR CEITICS. 
 
 Ten boys like themselves, on four hun- 
 dred a year : 
 
 Who, fulfilling In turn the same fearful 
 conditions, 
 
 Either preach through their noses, or go 
 upon missions. 
 
 In this way our Hero got safely to col- 
 lege, 
 ; ftTiere he bolted alike both his com- 
 < mens and knowledge ; 
 
 A reading-machine, always wound up 
 and going, 
 ; He mastered whatever was not worth 
 the knowing. 
 
 Appeared in a gown, and a vest of black 
 satin. 
 
 To spout such a Gothic oration in Latin 
 
 That TuUy could never have made out a 
 word in it 
 
 (Though himself was the model the au- 
 thor preferred in it). 
 
 And grasping the parchment which gave 
 him in fee 
 
 All the mystic and-so-forths contained 
 in A. B., 
 
 He was launched (life is always com- 
 pared to a sea) 
 
 With just enough learning, and skill 
 for the using it, 
 
 To prove he 'd a brain, by forever con- 
 fusing it. 
 
 So worthy St. Benedict, piously burn- 
 ing 
 
 With the holiest zeal against secular 
 learning, 
 
 NesdensqiM aeienier, as writers express 
 it, 
 
 Tndoctusque sapienter a Soma recessit. 
 
 'T would be endless to tell you the 
 things that he knew, 
 
 Each a separate fact, undeniably true, 
 
 But with him or each other they 'd 
 nothing to do ; 
 
 No power of combining, arranging, dis- 
 cerning, 
 
 Digested the masses he learned into 
 learning ; 
 
 There was one thing in life he had prac- 
 tical knowledge for 
 
 (And this, you will think, he need scarce 
 go to college for), — 
 
 Not a deed would he do, nor a word 
 would he utter. 
 
 Till he 'd weighed its relations to plain 
 bread and butter. 
 
 When he left Alma Mater, he practised 
 
 his wits 
 In compiling the journals' historical 
 
 bits, — 
 Of shops broken open, men falling in 
 
 fits. 
 Great fortunes in England bequeathed 
 
 to poor printers. 
 And cold spells, the coldest for many 
 
 past winters, — 
 Then, rising by industiy, knack, and 
 
 address. 
 Got notices up for an unbiased press. 
 With a mind so well poised, it seemed 
 
 equally made for 
 Applause or abuse, just which chanced 
 
 to be paid for : 
 From this point his progress was rapid 
 
 and sure. 
 To the post of a regular heavy reviewer. 
 
 And here I must say he wrote excel- 
 lent articles 
 
 On Hebraical points, or the force o{ 
 Greek particles ; 
 
 They filled up the space nothing else 
 was prepared for. 
 
 And nobody read that which nobody 
 cared for; 
 
 If any old book reached a fiftieth edi- 
 tion. 
 
 He could fill forty pages with safe eru- 
 dition : 
 
 He could gauge the old books by the old 
 set of rules, 
 
 And his very old nothings pleased very 
 old fools ; 
 
 But give him a new book, fresh out of 
 the heart, 
 
 And you put him at sea without com- 
 pass or chart, — 
 
 His blunders aspired to the rank of an 
 art; 
 
 For his lore was engraft, something for- 
 eign that grew in him, 
 
 Exhausting the sap of the native and 
 true in him, 
 
 So that when a man came with a soul 
 that was new in him. 
 
 Carving new forms of truth out of Na- 
 ture's old granite. 
 
 New and old at their birth, like Le 
 Terrier's planet, 
 
 Which, to get a true judgment, them- 
 selves must create 
 
 In the sonl of their critic the measnr* 
 and weight. 
 
A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 
 
 123 
 
 Being rather themselrea a fresh stand- 
 ard of grace. 
 To compute their own judge, and assign 
 
 him his place, 
 Our reviewer would crawl all about it 
 
 and round it, 
 And, reporting each circumstance just 
 
 as he found it, 
 Without the least malice, — his record 
 
 would be 
 Profoundly testhetic as that of a flea. 
 Which, supping on Wordsworth, should 
 
 print, for our sakes. 
 Recollections of nights with the Bard of 
 
 the Lakes, 
 Or, lodged by an Arab guide, ventured 
 
 to render a 
 Comprehensive account of the mins at 
 
 Denderah. 
 
 As I said, he was never precisely un- 
 kind. 
 
 The defect in his brain was just absence 
 of mind ; 
 
 If he boasted, 'twas simply that he was 
 self-made, 
 
 A position which I, for one, never gain- 
 said. 
 
 My respect for my Maker supposing a 
 skill 
 
 In His works which our Hero would an- 
 swer but ill ; 
 
 And I trust that the mould which he 
 used may be cracked, or he, 
 
 Made bold by success, may enlarge his 
 phylactery. 
 
 And set up a kind of a man-manufac- 
 tory, — 
 
 An event which I shudder to think 
 about, seeing 
 
 That Man is a moral, accountable being. 
 
 He meant well enough, but was still 
 in the way. 
 
 As dunces still are, let them be where 
 they may ; 
 
 Indeed, they appear to come into exist- 
 ence 
 
 To impede other folks with their awk- 
 ward assistance ; 
 
 If you set up a dunce on the very North 
 pole 
 
 All alone with himself, I believe,- on my 
 soul. 
 
 He 'd manage to get betwixt somebody's 
 shins. 
 
 And pitch him down bodily, all in his 
 
 To the grave polar bears sitting round 
 on the ice. 
 
 All shortening their grace, to be in for 
 a slice ; 
 
 Or, if he found nobody ;else there to 
 pother. 
 
 Why, one of his legs would just trip up 
 the other, 
 
 For there 's nothing we read of in tor- 
 ture's inventions. 
 
 Like a well-meaning dunce, with the 
 best of intentions. 
 
 A terrible fellow to meet in soci- 
 ety, 
 
 Not the toast that he buttered was ever 
 so dry at tea ; 
 
 There he 'd sit at the table and stir in 
 his sugar, 
 
 Crouching close for a spring, all the 
 while, like a cougar ; 
 
 Be sure of your facts, of your measures 
 and weights. 
 
 Of your time, — he 's as fond as an Arab 
 of dates ; 
 
 You '11 be telling, perhaps, in your com- 
 ical way. 
 
 Of something you 've seen in the course 
 of the day ; 
 
 And, just as you 're tapering out the 
 conclusion. 
 
 You venture an ill-fated classic allu- 
 sion, — 
 
 The girls have all got their laughs ready, 
 when, whack I 
 
 The cougar comes down on your thun- 
 derstruck back ! 
 
 You had left out a comma, — your 
 Greek 's put in joint, 
 
 And pointed at cost of your story's 
 whole point. 
 
 In the course of the evening yon find 
 chance for certain 
 
 Soft speeches to Anne, in the shade of 
 the curtain : 
 
 You tell her your heart can be likened 
 to one flower, 
 
 "And that, most charming of wo- 
 men 's the sunflower. 
 
 Which turns " — here a clear nasal voice, 
 to your terror, 
 
 From outside the curtain, says, " That 'a 
 all an error." 
 
 As for him, he 's — no matter, he never 
 grew tender. 
 
 Sitting after a ball, with his feet on th* 
 fender. 
 
124 
 
 A FABLE FOE CRITICS. 
 
 Shaping somebody's, sweet features out 
 
 of cigar smoke 
 (Though he 'd willingly grant you that 
 
 such doings are smoke) ; 
 All women he damns with rmUabile 
 
 semper, 
 And if ever he felt something like love's 
 
 distemper, 
 'T was tow 'rds a young lady who spoke 
 
 ancient Mexican, 
 And assisted her father in making a lex- 
 icon ; 
 Though I recollect hearing him get 
 
 quite ferocious 
 About Mary Clausum, the mistress of 
 
 Grotius, 
 Or something of that sort, — but, no 
 
 more to bore ye 
 With character-painting, I '11 turn to 
 
 my story. 
 
 Now, Apollo, who finds it conven- 
 ient sometimes 
 
 To get his court clear of the makers of 
 rhymes, 
 
 The germs, I think it is called, irritabile, 
 
 Every one of whom thinks himself 
 treated most shabbily. 
 
 And nurses a — what is it? — immedi- 
 cabile, 
 
 Which keeps him at. boiling-point, hot 
 for a quarrel, 
 
 As bitter as wormwood, and sourer than 
 sorrel. 
 
 If any poor devil but look at a laurel ; — 
 
 Apollo, I say, being sick of their riot- 
 ing 
 
 (Though he sometimes acknowledged 
 their verse had a quieting 
 
 Effect after dinner, and seemed to sug- 
 gest a 
 
 Retreat to the shrine of a tranquil 
 siesta). 
 
 Kept our Hero at hand, who, by means 
 of a bray. 
 
 Which he gave to the life, drove the 
 rabble away ; 
 
 And if that would n't do, he was sure 
 to succeed. 
 
 If he took his review out and offered to 
 read ; 
 
 Or, failing in plans of this milder de- 
 scription, 
 
 He would ask for their aid to get up a 
 subscription. 
 
 Considering that authorship wasn't a 
 rich craft, 
 
 To print the "American drama of 
 Witchcraft." 
 
 " Stay, I '11 read you a scene," — but he 
 hardly began. 
 
 Ere Apollo shrieked " Help 1 " and the 
 authors all ran : 
 
 And once, when these purgatives acted 
 with less spiiit. 
 
 And the desperate case asked a remedy 
 desperate, 
 
 He drew from his pocket a foolscap 
 epistle 
 
 As calmly as if 't were a nine-barrelled 
 pistol. 
 
 And threatened them all with the judg- 
 ment to come. 
 
 Of "A wandering Star's first impressions 
 of Kome.' 
 
 "Stop ! stop !" with their hands o'er 
 their ears, screamed the Muses, 
 
 " He may go off and murder himself, if 
 he chooses, 
 
 'Twas a means self-defence only sanc- 
 tioned his trjdng, 
 
 'T is mere massacre now that the ene- 
 my 's flying; 
 
 If he 's forced to 't again, and we hap- 
 pen to be there. 
 
 Give us each a large handkerchief soaked 
 in strong ether." 
 
 I called this a " Fable for Critics '" ; 
 
 you think it 's 
 More like a display of my rhythmical 
 
 trinkets ; 
 My plot, like an icicle, 's slender and 
 
 slippery, 
 Every moment more slender, and likely 
 
 to slip awry. 
 And the reader unwilling in loco desipere 
 Is free to jump over as much of my 
 
 frippery 
 As he fancies, and, if he 's a provident 
 
 skipper, he 
 May have like Odysseng control of the 
 
 And get safe to port, ere his patience 
 
 quite fails ; 
 Moreover, although 't is a slender return 
 For your toil and expense, yet my paper 
 
 will bum, 
 And, if you have manfully struggled 
 
 thus far with me. 
 You may e'en twist me up, and just 
 
 light your cigar with me : 
 If too angry for that, you can tear me in 
 
 pieces. 
 
A FABLE FOB CEITIC3. 
 
 125 
 
 And my membra disjecta consign to tha 
 
 breezes, 
 A fate like great Eatzau's, whom one of 
 
 those bores, 
 Who beflead with bad verses poor Louis 
 
 Quatorze, 
 Describes (the first verse somehow ends 
 
 with victoire), 
 As dispersant partout et ses memhres et 
 
 sa gloire ; 
 Or, if I were over-desirous of earning 
 A repute among noodles for classical 
 
 learning, 
 I could pick you a score of allusions, I 
 
 wis. 
 As new as the jests of Didaskalos tis ; 
 Better still, I could make out a good 
 
 solid list 
 From authors recondite who do not ex- 
 ist, — 
 But that would be naughty : at least, I 
 
 could twist 
 Something out of Absjrrtua, or turn 
 
 your inquiries 
 After Milton's prose metaphor, drawn 
 
 from Osiris ; — 
 But, as Cicero says he won't say this or 
 
 that 
 (A fetch, I must say, most transparent 
 
 and flat). 
 After saying whate'er he could possibly 
 
 think of, — 
 I simply will state that I pause on the 
 
 brink of 
 A mire, ankle-deep, of deliberate con- 
 fusion. 
 Made up of old jumbles of classic allu- 
 sion : 
 So, when you were thinking yourselves 
 
 to be pitied. 
 Just conceive how much harder your 
 
 teeth you'd have gritted. 
 An 'twere not for the dulness I've 
 
 kindly omitted. 
 
 I 'd apologize here for my many di- 
 gressions, 
 
 Were it not that I 'm certain to trip into 
 fresh ones 
 
 fTis so hard to escape if you get in 
 their mesh once) ; 
 
 Just reflect, if you please, how 't is said 
 by Horatius, 
 
 That Maeonides nods now and then, and, 
 my gracious ! 
 
 It certainly does look a little bit omi- 
 nous 
 
 When he gets under way witli ton 
 
 d' apaineibomenos. 
 (Here a something occurs which I '11 just 
 
 clap a rhyme to. 
 And say it myself, ere a Zoilus have 
 
 time to, — 
 Any author a nap like Van Winkle'* 
 
 may take. 
 If he only contrive to keep readers 
 
 awake, 
 But he '11 very soon find himself laid on 
 
 the shelf. 
 If they fall a-nodding when he nods 
 
 himself.) 
 
 Once for all, to return, and to stay, 
 
 wiUI, nilll- 
 When Phcebus expressed his desire for 
 
 a lily. 
 Our hero, whose homoeopathic sagacity 
 With an ocean of zeal mixed his drop 
 
 of capacity, 
 Set off for the garden as fast as the 
 
 wind 
 (Or, to take a, comparison more to my 
 
 mind. 
 As a sound politician leaves conscience 
 
 behind), 
 And leaped the low fence, as a party 
 
 hack jumps 
 O'er his principles, when something else 
 
 turns up trumps. 
 
 He was gone a long time, and Apollo, 
 
 meanwhile. 
 Went over some sonnets of his with a 
 
 file. 
 For, of all compositions, he thought 
 
 that the sonnet 
 Best repaid all the toil you expended 
 
 upon it ; 
 It should reach with one impulse the 
 
 " end of its course. 
 And for one final blow collect all of its 
 
 force ; 
 Not a verse should be salient, but each 
 
 one should tend 
 With a wave-like up-gathering to break 
 
 at the end ; 
 So, condensing the strength here, thera 
 
 smoothing a wry kink, 
 He was killing the time, when up walked 
 
 Mr. D ; 
 
 At a few steps behind him, a small man 
 
 in glasses 
 Went dodging about, muttering, "Mur- 
 derers I asses ! " 
 From out of his pocket a paper he 'd take^ 
 
126 
 
 X FABLE FOR CBITICS. 
 
 With a proud look of martyrdom tied to 
 
 its stake, 
 And, reading a squib at himself, he'd 
 
 say, " Here I see 
 'Gainst American letters a bloody con 
 
 spiracy. 
 They are all by my personal enemies 
 
 written ; 
 I must post an anonymous letter to 
 
 Britain, 
 And show that this gall is the merest 
 
 sugge^on 
 Of spite at my zeal on the Copyright 
 
 question, 
 For, on this side the water, 't is prudent 
 
 to pull 
 O'er the eyes of the public their national 
 
 wool. 
 By accusing of slavish respect to John 
 
 BiiU 
 All American authors who have more or 
 
 less 
 Of that anti- American humbug — suc- 
 cess. 
 While in private we're always em- 
 bracing the knees 
 Of some twopenny editor over the seas, 
 And licking his critical shoes, for you 
 
 know 't is 
 The whole aim of our lives to get one 
 
 English notice ; 
 My American puffs I would willingly 
 
 bum all 
 (They 're all from one source, monthly, 
 
 weekly, diurnal) 
 To get but a kick from ^ transmarine 
 
 journal ! " 
 
 So, culling the gibes of each critical 
 
 scomer 
 As if they were plums, and himself were 
 
 Jack Homer, 
 He came cautiously on, peeping round 
 
 every comer. 
 And into each hole where a weasel might 
 
 pass in. 
 Expecting the knife of some critic as- 
 sassin. 
 Who stabs to the heart with a caricafiiM, 
 Not so bad as those daubs of the Sun, 
 
 to be sure, 
 Yet done with a dagger-o'-type, whose 
 
 vile portraits 
 Disperse all one's good and condense aU 
 
 one's poor traits. 
 Apollo looked up, hearing footsteps 
 
 approaching. 
 
 And slipped out of sight the new rhyme* 
 
 he was broaching, — 
 " Good day, Mr. D , I 'm happy to 
 
 meet, 
 With a scholar so ripe, and a critic so 
 
 neat. 
 Who through Gmb Street the soul of a 
 
 gentleman carries ; 
 What news from that suburb of London 
 
 and Paris 
 Which latterly makes such shrill claims 
 
 to monopolize 
 The credit of being the New World's 
 
 metropolis ? ' 
 
 " Why, nothing of consequence, save 
 
 this attack 
 On my friend there, behind, by some 
 
 pitiful hack, 
 Who thinks every national author a poor 
 
 one. 
 That is n't a copy of something that 'a 
 
 foreign. 
 And assaults the American Dick — " 
 
 " Nay, 't is clear 
 That your Damon there 's fond of a flea 
 
 in his ear. 
 And, if no one else furnished them gra- 
 tis, on tick 
 He would buy some himself, just to hear 
 
 the old click ; 
 Why, 1 honestly think, if some fool in 
 
 Japan 
 Should turn up his nose at the ' Foems 
 
 on Man,' 
 (Which contain many verses as fine, by 
 
 the bye, 
 Aa any that lately came under my eye.) 
 Your friend there by some inward in- 
 stinct would know it, 
 Would get it translated, reprinted, and 
 
 snow it ; 
 As a man might take off a high atock to 
 
 exhibit 
 The autograph round his own neck of 
 
 the gibbet ; 
 Nor would let it rest so, but fire column 
 
 after column, 
 Signed Cato, or Bmtus, or something as 
 
 solemn. 
 By way of displaying his critical crosses, 
 And tweaking that poor transatlantic 
 
 proboscis, 
 His broadsides resulting (this last there 's 
 
 no doubt of) 
 In successively sinking the craft they 'le 
 
 fired out of^ 
 
A FABLE FOB CRITICS. 
 
 127 
 
 Now nolmdy knows when ai: author is 
 
 hit. 
 If he have not a public hysterical fit ; 
 Let him only keep close in his snug 
 
 garret's dim ether, 
 And nobody 'd think of his foea — or of 
 
 him either ; 
 If an author have any least fibre of 
 
 worth in him, 
 Abuse would but tickle the organ of 
 
 mirth in him; 
 All the critics on earth cannot crush 
 
 with their ban 
 One word that 's in tune with the nature 
 
 of man," 
 
 " "Well, perhaps so ; meanwhile I have 
 brought you a book. 
 
 Into which if you '11 just have^the good- 
 ness to look. 
 
 You may feel so delighted (when once 
 you are through it) 
 
 As to deem it not unworth your while 
 to review it. 
 
 And I think I can promise your thoughts, 
 if you do, 
 
 A place in the next Democratic Eeview." 
 
 " The most thankless of gods you must 
 
 surely have thought me, 
 For this is the forty-fourth copy you 've 
 
 brought me, 
 I have given them away, or at least I 
 
 have tried. 
 But I 've forty-two left, standing all side 
 
 by side 
 (The man who accepted that one copy 
 
 died), — 
 From one end of a shelf to the other 
 
 they reach, 
 'With the author's respects' neatly 
 
 written in each. 
 The publisher, sure, will proclaim a Te 
 
 Deum, 
 When he hears of that order the British 
 
 Museum 
 Has sent for one set of what books were 
 
 first printed 
 In America, little or big, — for 't is 
 
 hinted 
 That this is the first truly tangible hope 
 
 he 
 Has ever had raised for the sale of a copy. 
 I 've thought very often 't would be a 
 
 good thing 
 In all public collections of books, if a 
 
 wing 
 
 Were set off by itself, like the seas from 
 
 the dry lands, 
 Marked LUeratura suited to desolata 
 
 islands. 
 And filled with such books as could 
 
 never be read 
 Save by readers of proofs, forced to do it 
 
 for bread, — 
 Such books as one's wrecked on in small 
 
 country-taverns. 
 Such as hermits might mortify over in 
 
 caverns, 
 Such as Satan, if printing had then been 
 
 invented, 
 As the climax of woe, would to Job havt 
 
 presented. 
 Such as Crusoe might dip in, although 
 
 there are few so 
 Outrageously cornered by fate as pool 
 
 Crusoe ; 
 And since the philanthropists just now 
 
 are banging 
 And gibbeting all who 're in favor o( 
 
 hanging 
 (Though Cheever has proved that tht 
 
 Bible and Altar 
 Were let down from Heaven at the end 
 
 of a halter, 
 And that vital religion would dull and 
 
 grow callous, 
 Unrefreshed, now and then, with a snifl 
 
 of the gallows), — 
 And folks are beginning to think it looks 
 
 odd, 
 To choke a poor scamp for the glory of 
 
 God; 
 AndthatHe who esteemsthe Virginia reel 
 A bait to draw saints from their spiritual 
 
 weal, 
 And regards the quadrille as a far greater 
 
 knavery 
 Than crushing His African children 
 
 with slavery, — 
 Since all who take part in a waltz or 
 
 cotillon 
 Are mounted for hell on the Devil's own 
 
 pillion. 
 Who, as every true orthodox Christian 
 
 well knows. 
 Approaches the heart through the door 
 
 of the toes, — 
 That He, I was saying, whose judgments 
 
 are stored 
 For such as take steps in despite of His 
 
 word. 
 Should look with delight on the ago- 
 nized prancing 
 
128 
 
 A FABLE FOE CRITICS. 
 
 Of a wretch who has not the least ground 
 
 for his dancing, 
 While the State, standing by, sings a 
 
 verse from the Psalter 
 About offering to God on His favorite 
 
 halter. 
 And, when the legs droop from their 
 
 twitching divergence, 
 Sells the clothes to a Jew, and the 
 
 corpse to the surgeons; — 
 Kow, instead of all this, I think I can 
 
 direct you all 
 To a criminal code both humane and 
 
 effectual ; — 
 I propose to shut up every doer of 
 
 wrong 
 With these desperate books, for such 
 
 term, short or long, 
 As by statute in such cases made and 
 
 provided. 
 Shall be by your wisfc legislators de- 
 cided : 
 Thus : Let murderers be shut, to grow 
 
 wiser and cooler, 
 At hard labor for life on the works of 
 
 Miss ; 
 
 Petty thieves, kept from flagranter 
 
 crimes by their fears, 
 Shall peruse Yankee Doodle a blank 
 
 term of years, — 
 Tliat American Punch, like the English, 
 
 no doubt, — 
 Just the sugar and lemons and spirit 
 
 left out. 
 
 " But stay, here comes Tityrua Gris- 
 wold, and leads on 
 
 The flocks whom he first plucks alive, 
 and then feeds on, — 
 
 A loud-cackling swarm, in whose feath- 
 ers warm-drest. 
 
 He goes for as perfect a — swan as the 
 rest. 
 
 "There comes Emerson first, whose 
 
 rich words, every one. 
 Are like gold nails in temples to hang 
 
 trophies on. 
 Whose prose is grand verse, while his 
 
 verse, the Lord knows, 
 Is some of it pr — No, 't is not even 
 
 prose ; 
 I 'm speaking of metres ; some poems 
 
 have welled 
 From those rare depths of soul that have 
 
 ne'er been excelled ; 
 
 They're not epics, but that doesn't 
 
 matter a pin, 
 In creating, the only hard thing 's te 
 
 begin; 
 A grass-blade 's no easier to make than 
 
 an oak ; 
 If you 've once found the way, you 've 
 
 achieved the grand stroke ; 
 In the worst of his poems are mines of 
 
 rich matter. 
 But thrown in a heap with a cruGh and 
 
 a clatter; 
 Now it is not one thing nor another alone 
 Makes a poem, but rather the general 
 
 tone. 
 The something pervading, uniting tha 
 
 whole. 
 The before unconceived, unconceivable 
 
 soul. 
 So that just in removing this trifle or 
 
 that, you 
 Take away, as it were, a chief limb of 
 
 the statue ; 
 Boots, wood, bark, and leaves singly 
 
 perfect may be. 
 But, clapt hodge-podge together, they 
 
 don't make a tree. 
 
 " But, to come back to Emerson (whom, 
 by the way, 
 
 I believe we left waiting), — his is, we 
 may say, 
 
 A Greek head on right Yankee shoul- 
 ders, whose range 
 
 Has Olympus for one pole, for t' other 
 the Exchange ; 
 
 He seems, to my thinking (although I'm 
 afraid 
 
 The comparison must, long ere this, have 
 been made), 
 
 A Plotinus-ilontaigne, where the Egyp- 
 tian's gold mist 
 
 And the Gascon's shrewd wit cheek -by- 
 jowl coexist; 
 
 All admire, and yet scarcely six converts 
 he's got 
 
 To I don't (nor they either) exactly 
 know what ; 
 
 For though he builds glorious temples, 
 't IS odd 
 
 He leaves never a doorway to get in a 
 god. 
 
 'T is refreshing to old-fashioned people 
 like me 
 
 To meet such a primitive Pagan as he. 
 
 In whose mind all creation is duly le- 
 
A FABLE FOR CEITICS, 
 
 129 
 
 A.8 parts of himself — just a little pro- 
 jected ; 
 And who 's willing to worship the stars 
 
 and the sun, 
 A convert to — nothing but Emerson, 
 Ijo perfect a balance there is in his 
 
 head. 
 That he talks of things sometimes as if 
 
 they were dead ; 
 Life, nature, love, God, and affairs of 
 
 thnt sort. 
 He looks at as merely ideas ; in short, 
 As if they were fossils stuck round in a 
 
 cabinet, 
 Of such vast extent that our earth 's a 
 
 mere dab in it ; 
 Composed just as he is inclined to con- 
 jecture her, 
 Namely, one part pure earth, ninety-nine 
 
 "parts pure lecturer ; 
 You are filled with delight at his clear 
 
 demonstration, 
 Each figure, word, gesture, just fits the 
 
 occasion. 
 With the quiet precision of science he '11 
 
 sort 'em 
 Bat you can't help suspecting the whole 
 
 a. post mortem. 
 
 " There are persons, mole-blind to the 
 
 soul's make and style. 
 Who insist on a likeness 'twixt him and 
 
 Carlyle ; 
 To compare him with Plato would be 
 
 vastly fairer, 
 Carlyle 's the more burly, but E. is the 
 
 rarer ; 
 He sees fewer objects, but clearlier, true- 
 
 lier, 
 If C. 's as original, E. 's more peculiar ; 
 That he 's more of a man you might say 
 
 of t^^e one. 
 Of the other he 's more of an Emerson ; 
 C. 's the Titan, as shaggy of mind as of 
 
 limb, — 
 E. the clear-eyed Olympian, rapid and 
 
 slim; 
 The one's two thirds Norseman, the 
 
 other half Greek, 
 Where the one 's most abounding, the 
 
 other 's to seek ; 
 O.'s generals require to be seen in the 
 
 mass, — 
 B.'s specialties gain if enlarged by the 
 
 glass ; 
 C. gives nature and God his own fits of 
 
 the blues. 
 
 And rims common-sense things with 
 
 mystical hues, — 
 E. sits in a mystery calm and intense, 
 And looks coolly around him with shai-p 
 
 Gommon-sense ; 
 0. shows you how e very-day matters 
 
 unite 
 With the dim transdiumal recesses of 
 
 night, — 
 While E., in a plain, preternatural way, 
 Makes mysteries matters of mere every 
 
 day; 
 C. draws all his characters quite d la 
 
 Fuseli, — 
 Not sketching their bundles of muscles 
 
 and thews illy. 
 He paints with a brush so untamed and 
 
 profuse. 
 They seem nothing but bimdles of mus- 
 cles and thews ; 
 E. is rather like Flaxman, lines strait 
 
 and severe, 
 And a colorless outline, but full, round, 
 
 and clear ; — 
 To the men he thinks worthy he frankly 
 
 accords 
 The design of a white marble statue in 
 
 words. 
 C. labors to get at the centre, and 
 
 then 
 Take a reckoning from there of his ac- 
 tions and men ; 
 E. calmly assumes the said centre as 
 
 granted, 
 And, given himself, has whatever is 
 
 wanted. 
 
 " He hals imitators in scores, who omit 
 No part of the man but his wisdom and 
 
 wit, — 
 Who go carefully o'er the sky-blue of 
 
 his brain, 
 And when he has skimmed it once, 
 
 skim it again ; 
 If at all they resemble him, you may be 
 
 sure it is 
 Becaase their shoals mirror his mists 
 
 and obscurities, 
 As a mud-puddle seems deep as heaven 
 
 for a minute, 
 While a cloud that floats o'er is reflected 
 
 within it. 
 
 " There comes , for instance ; to 
 
 see him 's rare sport, 
 Tread in Emerson's tracks with legs pain- 
 fully short ; 
 
130 
 
 A FABLE FOB CEITICS. 
 
 How he jumps, how he stiains, and gets 
 red in the face, 
 
 To keep step with the mystagogue's 
 natural pace ! 
 
 He follows as close as a stick to a rock- 
 et. 
 
 His fingers exploring the prophet's each 
 pocket. 
 
 Ke, for shame, brother hard ; with good 
 fruit of your own, 
 
 Can't you let Neighbor Emerson's or- 
 chards alone ? 
 
 Besides, 't is no use, you '11 not find e'en 
 a core, — 
 
 has picked up all the windfalls be- 
 fore. 
 
 They might strip every tree, and E. 
 never would catch 'em, 
 
 His Hesperides have no rude dragon to 
 watch 'em ; 
 
 When they send him a dishful, and ask 
 him to try 'em, 
 
 He never suspects how the sly rogues 
 came by 'em ; 
 
 He wonders why 't is there are none 
 such his trees on, 
 
 And thinks 'em the best he has tasted 
 this season. 
 
 "Yonder, calm as a, cloud, Alcott 
 stalks in a dream. 
 
 And fancies himself in thy groves. Aca- 
 deme, 
 
 With the Parthenon nigh, and the olive- 
 trees o'er him, 
 
 And never a fact to perplex him or bore 
 him, 
 
 With a snug room at Plato's when night 
 comes, to walk to. 
 
 And people from morning till midnight 
 to talk to, 
 
 And from midnight till morning, nor 
 snore in their listening ; — 
 
 So he muses, his face with the joy of it 
 glistening. 
 
 For his highest conceit of a happiest 
 state is 
 
 Where they'd live upon atoms, and hear 
 him talk gratis ; 
 
 A»d iadeed, I believe, no man ever 
 talked better, — 
 
 Each sentence hangs perfectly poised to 
 a letter ; 
 
 He seems piling words, but there 's royal 
 dust hid 
 
 In the heart of each sky-piercing pyra- 
 mid. 
 
 While he talks he is great, but goes out 
 
 like a taper, 
 If you shut him up closely with pen, ink, 
 
 and paper ; 
 Yet his fingers itch for 'em from morning 
 
 till night. 
 And he thinks he does wrong if he don't 
 
 always write ; 
 In this, as in all things, a lamb among 
 
 men. 
 He goes to sure death when he goes to 
 
 his pen. 
 
 "Close behind him is Brownson, his 
 
 mouth very full 
 With attempting to gulp a Gregorian 
 
 buU; 
 Who contrives, spite of that, to pour out 
 
 as he goes 
 A stream of transparent and forcible 
 
 prose ; 
 He shifts quite about, then proceeds to 
 
 expound 
 That 't is merely the earth, not himself, 
 
 that turns round. 
 And wishes it clearly impressed on your 
 
 mind 
 That the weathercock rules and not fol- 
 lows the wind ; 
 Proving first, then as deftly confuting 
 
 each side. 
 With no doctrine pleased that 's not 
 
 somewhere denied. 
 He lays the denier away on the 
 
 shelf. 
 And then — down beside him lies gravely 
 
 himself. 
 He's the Salt River boatman, who al- 
 ways stands willing 
 To convey friend or foe without charging 
 
 a shilling. 
 And so fond of the trip that, when lei- 
 sure 's to spare, 
 He '11 row himself up, if he can't get a 
 
 fare. 
 The worst of it is, that his logic 'a so 
 
 strong. 
 That of two sides he commonly chooses 
 
 the wrong; 
 If there is only one, why, he'll split it 
 
 in two, 
 And first pummel this half, then that, 
 
 black and blue. 
 That white 's white needs no proof, but 
 
 it takes a deep fellow 
 To prove it jet-black, and that jet-black 
 
 is yeUow. 
 
A FABLE FOR CKITICS. 
 
 131 
 
 He offers the true faith to drmk in a 
 
 sieve, — 
 When it reaches your lips there 's naught 
 
 left to helieve 
 But a few silly- (syllo-, I mean,) -gisms 
 
 that sijuat 'em 
 Like tadpoles, o'erjoyed with the mud at 
 
 the bottom. 
 
 "There is Willis, all naity and jaunty 
 and gay, 
 
 Who says his best things in so foppish 
 a way. 
 
 With conceits and pet phrases so thickly 
 o'erlaying 'em, 
 
 That one hardly knows whether to thank 
 him for saying 'em ; 
 
 Over-omament ruins both poem and 
 prose, 
 
 Just conceive of a Muse with a ring in 
 her nose ! 
 
 His prose had a natural grace of its 
 own. 
 
 And enough of it, too, if he 'd let it 
 alone ; 
 
 But he twitchsB and jerks so, one fairly 
 gets tired. 
 
 And is forced to forgive where one might 
 have admired ; 
 
 Yet whenever it slips away free and un- 
 laced. 
 
 It runs like a stream with a musical 
 waste. 
 
 And gurgles along with the liquidest 
 sweep ; — 
 
 'T is not deep as a river, but who 'd 
 have it deep ? 
 
 In a country where scarcely a village is 
 found 
 
 That has not its author sublime and pro- 
 found. 
 
 For some one to be slightly shallow '3 a 
 duty. 
 
 And Willis's shallowness makes half his 
 beauty. 
 
 His prose winds along with a blithe, 
 gurgling error. 
 
 And reflects all of Heaven it can see in 
 its mirror : 
 
 'T is a narrowish strip, but it is not an 
 artifice ; 
 
 'T is the true out-of-doors with its genu- 
 ine hearty phiz ; 
 
 It is Nature herself, and there 's some- 
 thing in that. 
 
 Since most brains reflect but the crown 
 of a hat. 
 
 Few volumes I know to read under a tree, 
 More truly delightful than his A I'Abri, 
 With the shadows of leaves flowing over 
 
 your book. 
 Like ripple-shades netting the bed of a 
 
 brook ; 
 With June coming softly your shoulder 
 
 to look over, 
 Breezes waiting to turn every leaf of 
 
 your book over. 
 And Nature to criticise still as you 
 
 read, — 
 The page that bears that is a rare one 
 
 indeed. 
 
 "He 's so innate a cockney, that had 
 
 he been born 
 Where plain bare-skin's the only full- 
 dress that is worn. 
 He 'd have given his own such an air that 
 
 you 'd say 
 'T had been made by a tailor to lounge 
 
 in Broadway. 
 His nature 's a glass of champagne with 
 
 the foam on 't. 
 As tender as Fletcher, as witty as Beau- 
 mont; 
 So his best things are done in the flush 
 
 of the moment ; 
 If he wait, all is spoiled ; he may stir it 
 
 and shake it. 
 But, the fixed air once gone, he can never 
 
 remake it. 
 He might be a marvel of easy delightful- 
 
 ness. 
 If he would not sometimes leave the r out 
 
 of sprightfulness ; 
 And he ought to let Scripture alone — 
 
 't is self-slaughter. 
 For nobody likes inspiration-and-water. 
 He 'd have been just the fellow to sup at 
 
 the Mermaid, 
 Cracking jokes at rare Ben, with an eye 
 
 to the barmaid, 
 His wit running up as Canary ran 
 
 down, — 
 The topmost bright bubble on the wave 
 
 of The Town. 
 
 "Here comes Parker, the Orson of par- 
 sons, a man 
 
 Whom the Church undertook to put un- 
 der her ban 
 
 (The Church of Socinus, I mean), — his 
 opinions 
 
 Being So- (ultra) -cinian, they shocked 
 the Socinians ; 
 
132 
 
 They believed — faith, I 'm puzzled 
 
 think I may call 
 Their belief a believing in nothing at 
 
 all, 
 Or something of that sort ; I know they 
 
 all went 
 For a general union of total dissent : 
 He went a step farther; without cough 
 
 or hem, 
 He frankly avowed he believed not in 
 
 them ; 
 And, before he could be jumbled up or 
 
 prevented, 
 From their orthodox kind of dissent he 
 
 dissented. 
 There was heresy here, you perceive, for 
 
 the right 
 Of privately judging means simply that 
 
 light 
 Has been granted to me, for deciding on 
 
 you; 
 And in happier times, before Atheism 
 
 grew. 
 The deed contained clauses for cooking 
 
 you too : 
 Now at Xerxes and Knut we all laugh, 
 
 yet our foot 
 With the same wave is wet that mocked 
 
 Xerxes and Knut, 
 And we all entertain a secure private 
 
 notion, 
 That our Thus far ! will have a great 
 
 weight with the ocean. 
 'T was so with our liberal Christians ; 
 
 they bore 
 With sincerest conviction their chairs to 
 
 the shore ; 
 They brandished their worn theological 
 
 birches. 
 Bade natural progress keep out of the 
 
 Churches, 
 And expected the lines they had drawn 
 
 to prevail 
 With the fast-rising tide to keep out of 
 
 their pale ; 
 They had formerly dammed the Pontiii- 
 
 cal See, 
 And the same thing, they thought, 
 
 would do nicely for P. ; 
 But he turned up his nose at their mum- 
 ming and shamming, 
 And cared (shall I say ?) not a d for 
 
 their damming ; 
 So they iirst read him out of their 
 
 church, and next minute 
 Turned round and declared he had never 
 
 been in it. 
 
 A FABLE FOE CKITICS. 
 I 
 
 But the ban was too small or the man 
 
 was too big. 
 For he recks not their bells, books, and 
 
 candles a fig 
 (He scarce looks like a man who would 
 
 stay treated shabbily, 
 Sophroniscus' son's head o'er the fea- 
 tures of Rabelais) ; — 
 He bangs and bethwacks them, — their 
 
 backs he salutes 
 With the whole tree of knowledge torn 
 
 up by the roots ; 
 His sermons with satire are plenteously 
 
 verjuiced. 
 And he talks in one breath of Confut- 
 
 zee, Cass, Zerduscht, 
 Jack Robinson, Peter the Hermit, Strap, 
 
 Dathan, 
 Cush, Pitt (not the bottomless, that 
 
 he's no faith in). 
 Pan, Pillicock, Shakespeare, Paul, 
 
 Toots, Monsieur Tonson, 
 Aldebaran, Alcainder, Ben Khorat, Ben 
 
 Johson, 
 Thoth, Eichter, Joe Smith, Father Paul, 
 
 Judah Monis, 
 Musseus, Muretus, hem, — /i Scorpio- 
 
 nis, 
 Maocabee, Macoaboy, Mao — Mac — ah ! 
 
 Machiavelli, 
 Condorcet, Count d'Orsay, Conder, Say, 
 
 Ganganelli, 
 Orion, O'Connell, the Chevalier D'O, 
 (See the Memoirs of Sully,) to vav, the 
 
 great toe 
 Of the statue of Jupiter, now made to 
 
 pass 
 For that of Jew Peter by good Eomish 
 
 brass, 
 (You may add for yourselves, for I find 
 
 it a bore, 
 All the names you have ever, or not, 
 
 heard before, 
 And when you 've done that — why, in- 
 vent a few more.) 
 His hearers can't tell you on Sunday 
 
 beforehand. 
 If in that day's discourse they '11 be 
 
 Bibled or Koraned, 
 For he 's seized the idea (by his mar- 
 tyrdom fired) 
 That all men (not orthodox) 7rui/y it 
 
 inspired ; 
 Yet though wisdom profane with his 
 
 creed he may weave in, 
 He makes it quite clear what he doe* n't 
 
 believe in. 
 
A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 
 
 133 
 
 VHiile some, who decry him, think all 
 
 Kingdom Come 
 Is a sort of a, kind of a, species of 
 
 Hum, 
 Of which, as it were, so to speak, not a 
 
 crumb 
 Would be left, if we did n't keep care- 
 fully mum, 
 And, to make a clean breast, that 't is 
 
 perfectly plain 
 That all kinds of wisdom are somewhat 
 
 profane ; 
 Now P.'s creed than this may be lighter 
 
 or darker 
 But in one thing, 't is clear, he has 
 
 faith, namely — Parker ; 
 And this is what makes him the crowd- 
 drawing preacher, 
 There 's a background of god to each 
 
 hard-working feature, 
 Every word that he speaks has been 
 
 fierily furnaced 
 In the blast of a hfe that has sti-uggled 
 
 in earnest : 
 There he stands, looking more like a 
 
 ploughman than priest. 
 If not dreadfully awkward, not graceful 
 
 at least. 
 His gestures all downright and same, if 
 
 you will, 
 As of brown-fisted Hobnail in hoeing a 
 
 drill. 
 But his periods fall on you, stroke after 
 
 stroke, 
 like the blows of a lumberer felling an 
 
 oak, 
 You forget the man wholly, you 're 
 
 thankful to meet 
 "With a preacher who smacks of the 
 
 field and the street. 
 And to hear, you 're not over-particular 
 
 whence, 
 Ahnflst Taylor's profusion, quite Lati- 
 mer's sense. 
 
 "There is Bryant, as quiet, as cool, 
 
 and as dignified. 
 As a smooth, silent iceberg, that never 
 
 is ignified. 
 Save when by reflection 't is kindled o' 
 
 nights 
 With a semblance of flame by the ohiU 
 
 Northern Lights. 
 He may rank (Griswold says so) first 
 
 bard of your nation 
 (There 's no doubt that he stands in 
 
 supreme ice-olation), 
 
 Your topmost Parnassus he may set his 
 
 heel on. 
 But no warm applauses come, peal fal- 
 lowing peal on, — 
 He 's too smooth and too polished to 
 
 hang any zeal on : 
 Unqualified merits, I '11 grant, if you 
 
 choose, he has 'em, 
 But he lacks the one merit of kindling 
 
 enthusiasm ; 
 If he stir you at all, it is just, on my 
 
 soul. 
 Like being stirred up with the very 
 
 North Pole. 
 
 "He is very nice reading in summer, 
 
 but inter 
 Nos, we don't want extra freezing in 
 
 winter ; 
 Take him up in the depth of July, my 
 
 advice is. 
 When you feel an Egyptian devotion to 
 
 ices. 
 But, deduct all you can, there 's enough 
 
 that 's right good in him. 
 He has a true soul for field, river, and 
 
 wood in him ; 
 And his heart, in the midst of brick 
 
 walls, or where'er it is. 
 Glows, softens, and thrills with the ten- 
 
 derest charities — 
 To you mortals that delve in this trade- 
 ridden planet? 
 No, to old Berkshire's hills, with their 
 
 limestone and granite. 
 If you're one wlio m loco (add foco 
 
 here) desipis, 
 You will get of his outermost heart (as 
 
 I guess) a piece ; 
 But you d get deeper down if you came 
 
 as a precipice, 
 And would break the last seal of its in- 
 
 wardest fountain, 
 If you only could palm yourself off for 
 
 a mountain. 
 Mr. Quivis, or somebody quite as dis- 
 cerning. 
 Some scholar who 's hom'ly expecting 
 
 his learning, 
 Galls B. the American Wordsworth ; 
 
 but Wordsworth 
 May be rated at more than your whole 
 
 tuneful herd 's worth. 
 No, don't be absurd, he 's an excellent 
 
 Bryant ; 
 But, my friends, you '11 endanger the 
 
 life of your client. 
 
134 
 
 A FABLE FOE CRITICS. 
 
 By attempting to stretch him up into a 
 
 giant : 
 If you choose to compare him, I think 
 
 there are two per- 
 -sons fit for a parallel — Thompson and 
 
 Cowper ; * 
 I don't mean exactly, — there 's some- 
 thing of each, 
 There 's T.'s love of nature, C.'a pen- 
 chant to preach; 
 Just mix up their minds so that C.'s 
 
 spice of craziness 
 Shall balance and neutralize T.'s turn 
 
 for laziness. 
 And it gives you a, brain cool, quite 
 
 frictionless, quiet. 
 Whose internal police nips the buds of 
 
 all riot, — 
 A brain like a permanent strait-jacket 
 
 put on 
 The heart that strives vainly to hurst 
 
 off a button, — 
 A brain which, without being slow or 
 
 mechanic, 
 Does more than a larger less drilled, 
 
 more volcanic ; 
 He 's a Cowper c, condensed, with no 
 
 craziness bitten. 
 And the advantage that Wordsworth 
 
 before him had written. 
 
 " But, my dear little bardlings, don't 
 prick up your ears 
 
 Nor suppose 1 would rank you and Bry- 
 ant as peers ; 
 
 If I call him an iceberg, 1 don't mean 
 to say 
 
 There is nothing in that which is grand 
 in its way ; 
 
 He is almost the one of your poets that 
 knows 
 
 How much grace, strength, and dignity 
 lie in Repose ; 
 
 If he sometimes fall short, he is too 
 wise to mar 
 
 His thought's modest fulness by going 
 too far ; 
 
 'T would be well if your authors should 
 all make a trial 
 
 Of what virtue there is in severe self- 
 denial, 
 
 • To demonstrate quickly and easily how per- 
 -versely absurd 'tis to sound this name 
 
 Cowper, 
 As people in general call him named swper, 
 1 remaric that he rhymes it himself irith 
 horse- trooper. 
 
 And measure their writings by Hesiod's 
 
 staff. 
 Which teaches that all has less value 
 
 than half. 
 
 "There is Whittier, whose swelling 
 
 and vehement heart 
 Strains the strait-breasted drab of the 
 
 Quaker apart. 
 And reveals the live Man, still supreme 
 
 and erect. 
 Underneath the bemummying wrappers 
 
 of sect ; 
 There was ne'er a man bom who had 
 
 more of the swing 
 Of the true lyric bard and all that kind 
 
 of thing ; 
 And his failures arise (though he seem 
 
 not to know it) 
 From the very same cause that has 
 
 made him a poet, — 
 A fervor of mind which knows no sep- 
 aration 
 'Twixt simple excitement and pure in- 
 spiration. 
 As my Pythoness erst sometimes erred 
 
 from not knowing 
 If 't were I or mere wind through her 
 
 tripod was blowing ; 
 Let his mind once get head in its fa- 
 vorite direction 
 And the torrent of verse bursts the dams' 
 
 of reflection. 
 While, home with the rush of the metre 
 
 along, 
 The poet may chance to go right or ga 
 
 wrong, 
 Content with the whirl and delirium of 
 
 song; 
 Then his grammar 's not always correct, 
 
 nor his rhymes. 
 And he 's prone to repeat his own lyrics 
 
 sometimes, * 
 
 Not his best, though, for those are 
 
 struck off at white-heats 
 When the heart in his breast like a trip- 
 hammer beats. 
 And can ne'er be repeated again any 
 
 more 
 Than they could have been carefully 
 
 plotted before : 
 Like old what's-his-name there at the 
 
 battle of Hastings 
 (Who, however, gave more than mere 
 
 rhythmical bastings). 
 Our Quaker leads oS metaphoricai 
 
 fights 
 
A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 
 
 135 
 
 For reform and whatever they call hu 
 
 man rights. 
 Both singing and striking in front of 
 
 the war, 
 And hitting his foes with the mallet of 
 
 Thor ; 
 Anne haec, one exclaims, on beholding 
 
 his knocks, 
 Vestisfilii tui, leather-clad Fox? 
 Can that be thy son, in the battle's mid 
 
 din, 
 Preaching brotherly love and then driv- 
 ing it in 
 To the brain of the tonghold Goliath of 
 
 sin, 
 With the smoothest of pebbles from 
 
 Castaly's spring 
 Impressed on his hard moral sense with 
 
 a sling 1 
 
 "All honor and praise to the right- 
 hearted bard 
 
 Who was true to The Voice when such 
 service was hard. 
 
 Who himself was so free he dared sing 
 for the slave 
 
 When to look but a protest in silence 
 was brave ; 
 
 All honor and praise to the women and 
 men 
 
 Who spoke out for the dumb and the 
 down-trodden then ! 
 
 It needs not to name them,alreadyforeach 
 
 I see History preparing the statue and 
 niche ; 
 
 They were harsh, but shall you be so 
 shocked at hard words 
 
 Who have beaten your pruning-hooks 
 up into swords. 
 
 Whose rewards and hurralis men are 
 surer to gain 
 
 By the reaping of men and of women 
 than grain ? 
 
 Why should you stand aghast at their 
 fierce wordy war, if 
 
 You scalp one another for Bank or for 
 Tariff? 
 
 Your calling them out -throats and 
 knaves all day long 
 
 Doesn't prove that the use of hard lan- 
 guage is wrong ; 
 
 While the World's heart beats quicker 
 to think of such men 
 
 As signed Tyranny's doom with a bloody 
 steel-pen, 
 
 While on Fourth-of-Julys beardless ora- 
 tors fright one 
 
 With hints at Harmodlna and Aristc 
 geiton. 
 
 You need not look shy at your sisteri 
 and brothers 
 
 Who stab with sharp words for the free- 
 dom of others ; — 
 
 No, a, wreath, twine a wreath for the 
 loyal and true 
 
 Who, for sake of the many, dared stand 
 with the few, 
 
 Not of blood-spattered laurel for ene- 
 mies braved, 
 
 But of broad, peaceful oak-leaves for 
 citizens saved ! 
 
 " Here comes Dana, abstractedly loi- 
 tering along, 
 Involved in a paulo-post-future of song, 
 Who '11 be going to write what '11 never 
 
 be written 
 TUI the Muse, ere he think of it, gives 
 
 him the mitten, — 
 Who is so weU aware of how things 
 
 should be done. 
 That his own works displease him before 
 
 they 're begun, — 
 Who so well all that makes up good 
 
 poetry knows. 
 That the best of his poems is written in 
 
 prose ; 
 All saddled and bridled stood Pegasua 
 
 waiting, 
 He was booted and spurred, but he loi- 
 tered debating ; 
 In a very grave question his soul was 
 
 immersed, — 
 Which foot in the stirrup he ought to 
 
 put first ; 
 And, while this point and that he judi- 
 cially dwelt on, 
 He, somehow or other, had written 
 
 Paul Felton, 
 Whose beauties or faults, whichsoever? 
 
 you see there, ' 
 
 You '11 allow only genius could hit upon 
 
 either. 
 That he once was the Idle Man nous 
 
 will deplore, 
 But I fear he will never be anything more ; 
 The ocean of song heaves and glitters 
 
 before him, 
 The depth and the vastness and longing 
 
 sweep o'er him. 
 He knows every breaker and shoal on 
 
 the chart, 
 He has the Coast Pilot and so on liy 
 
 heart. 
 
136 
 
 A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 
 
 Yet he spends his whole life, like the 
 man in the fable, 
 
 In learning to swim on his library- 
 table. 
 
 "There swaggers John Neal, who has 
 
 wasted in Maine 
 The sinews and cords of his pugilist 
 
 brain. 
 Who might have been poet, but that, 
 
 in its stead, he 
 Preferred to believe that he was so 
 
 already ; 
 .Too hasty to wait till Art's ripe fruit 
 
 should drop. 
 He must pelt down an unripe and 
 
 colicky crop; 
 Who took to the law, and had this 
 
 sterling plea for it. 
 It required him to quarrel, and paid 
 
 him a fee for it ; 
 A man who 's made less than he might 
 
 have, because 
 He always has thought himself more 
 
 than he was, — 
 Who, with very good natural gifts as a 
 
 bard, 
 Broke the strings of his lyre out by 
 
 striking too hard, 
 And cracked half the notes of a truly 
 
 fine voice, 
 Because song drew less instant attention 
 
 than noise. 
 Ah, men do not know howmuch strength 
 
 is in poise, 
 That he goes the farthest who goes far 
 
 enough. 
 And that all beyond that is just bother 
 
 and stuff. 
 No vain man matures, he makes too 
 
 much new wood ; 
 His blooms are too thick for the fruit 
 
 to be good ; 
 'T is the modest man ripens, 't is he 
 
 that achieves. 
 Just what 's needed of sunshine and 
 
 shade he receives ; 
 Grapes, to mellow, require the cool dark 
 
 of their leaves ; 
 Neal wants balance ; he throws his mind 
 
 always too far. 
 Whisking out flocks of comets, but never 
 
 a star ; 
 He has so much muscle, and loves so to 
 
 show it. 
 That he strips himself naked to prove 
 
 he's a poet, 
 
 And, to show he could leap Art's wids 
 
 ditch, if he tried, 
 Jumps clean o'er it, and into the hedge 
 
 t' other side. 
 He has strength, but there 's nothing 
 
 about him in keeping ; 
 One gets surelier onward by walking 
 
 than leaping ; 
 He has used his own sinews himself to 
 
 distress, 
 And had done vastly more had he done 
 
 vastly less ; 
 In letters, too soon is as bad as too late ; 
 Could he only have waited he might 
 
 have been great ; 
 But he plumped into Helicon up to the 
 
 waist. 
 And muddied the stream ere he took his 
 
 first taste. 
 
 "There is Hawthorne, with genius 
 
 so shrinking and rare 
 That you hardly at first see the strength 
 
 that is there ; 
 A frame so robust, with a nature so sweet. 
 So earnest, so graceful, so lithe, and so 
 
 fleet. 
 Is worth a descent from Olympus to 
 
 meet ; 
 'T is as if a rough oak that for ages had 
 
 stood, 
 With his gnarled bony branches like 
 
 ribs of the wood. 
 Should bloom, after cycles of struggle 
 
 and scathe. 
 With a single anemone trembly and 
 
 rathe ; 
 His strength is so tender, his wildnesa 
 
 so meek. 
 That a suitable parallel sets one to 
 
 seek, — 
 He 's a John Bunyan Fouque, a Puritan 
 
 Tieck ; 
 When Nature was shaping him, clay was 
 
 not granted 
 For making so full-sized a man as she 
 
 wanted. 
 So, to fill out her model, a little she 
 
 spared 
 From some finer-grained stuff for a 
 
 woman prepared. 
 And she could not have hit a more ex. 
 
 cellent plan 
 For making him fully and perfectly 
 
 man. 
 The success of her scheme gave her M 
 
 much delight, 
 
A FABLE rOK CRITICS. 
 
 137 
 
 Kiat she tried it again, shortly after, in 
 Dwight ; 
 
 Only, while she was kneading and shap- 
 ing the clay, 
 
 She sang to her work in her sweet child- 
 ish way. 
 
 And found, when she 'd put the last 
 touch to his soul. 
 
 That the music had somehow got mixed 
 with the whole. 
 
 " Here 's Cooper, who '3 written six 
 
 volumes to show 
 He 's as good as a lord : well, let 's 
 
 grant that he 's so ; 
 If a person prefer that description of 
 
 praise, 
 Why, a coronet 's certainly cheaper than 
 
 But he need take no pains to convince 
 
 us he's not 
 (As his enemies say) the American Scott. 
 Choose any twelve men, and let C. read 
 
 aloud 
 That one of his novels of which he 's 
 
 most proud. 
 And I 'd lay any bet that, without ever 
 
 quitting 
 Their box, they 'd be all, to a man, for 
 
 acquitting. 
 He has drawn you one character, though, 
 
 that is new, 
 One wildflower he 's plucked that is wet 
 
 with the dew 
 Of this fresh Western world, and, the 
 
 thing not to mince, 
 He has done naught but copy it ill ever 
 
 since ; 
 His Indians, with proper respect be it 
 
 said. 
 Are just Natty Bumpo, daubed over 
 
 with red. 
 And his very Long Toms are the same 
 
 useful Nat, 
 Rigged up in duck pants and a sou'- 
 wester hat 
 (Though once in a Coffin, a good chance 
 
 was found 
 To have slipped the old fellow away 
 
 underground). 
 AU his other men-figures are clothes 
 
 upon sticks. 
 The dernUre chemise of a man in a fix 
 (As a captain besieged, when his garri- 
 son 's small, 
 Bets up caps upon poles to be seen o'er 
 
 the wall) ; 
 
 And the women he draws from one 
 
 model don't vary. 
 All sappy as maples and flat as a prsi- 
 
 rio. 
 When a character *s wanted, he goes to 
 
 the task 
 As a cooper would do in composing a 
 
 cask ; 
 He picks out the staves, of their quali- 
 ties heedful. 
 Just hoops them together as tight as is 
 
 needful. 
 And, if the best fortune should crown 
 
 the attempt, he 
 Has made at the most something 
 
 wooden and empty. 
 
 " Don't suppose I would nnderratr 
 Cooper s abilities ; 
 
 If I thought you 'd do that, I should 
 feel very iU at ease ; 
 
 The men who have given to one charac- 
 ter life 
 
 And objective existence are not very 
 rife ; 
 
 You may number them all, both prose- 
 writers and singers. 
 
 Without overrunning the bounds of 
 your fingers. 
 
 And Natty won t go to oblivion quicker 
 
 Than Adams the parson or Primrose the 
 vicar. 
 
 " There is one thing in Cooper I like, 
 too, and that is 
 
 That on manners he lectures his coun- 
 trymen gratis ; 
 
 Not precisely so either, because, for a 
 rarity. 
 
 He is paid for his tickets in unpopu- 
 larity. 
 
 Now he may overcharge his American 
 pictures. 
 
 But you 'U grant there 's a good deal of 
 truth in his strictures ; 
 
 And I honor the man who is willing to 
 sink 
 
 Half his present repute for the freedom 
 to think. 
 
 And, when he has thought, be his cause 
 strong or weak. 
 
 Will risk t' other half for the freedom to 
 speak, 
 
 Caring naught for what vengeance the 
 mob has in store. 
 
 Let that moh be the upper ten thousand 
 or lower. 
 
138 
 
 A f ABLE FOK CRITICS. 
 
 "There are truths yoa Americans 
 need to be told, 
 
 And it never '11 refute them to swagger 
 and scold ; 
 
 John Bull, looking o'er the Atlantic, in 
 choier 
 
 At your aptness for trade, says you wor- 
 ship the dollar ; 
 
 But to scorn such eye-dollar-try 's what 
 very few do, 
 
 And John goes to that church as often 
 as you do. 
 
 No matter what John says, don't try to 
 outcrow him, 
 
 'T is enough to go quietly on and out- 
 grow him, 
 
 Like most fathers, Bull hates to see 
 Number One 
 
 Displacing himself in the mind of his 
 son. 
 
 And detests the same faults in himself 
 he 'd neglected 
 
 When he sees them again in his child's 
 glass reflected ; 
 
 To love one another you 're too like by 
 . half; 
 
 If he is a bull, you 're a pretty stout calf. 
 
 And tear your own pasture for naught 
 but to show 
 
 What a nice pair of horns you 're begin- 
 ning to grow. 
 
 " There are one or two things 1 should 
 
 just like to hint. 
 For you don't often get the truth told 
 
 you in print ; 
 The most of you (this is what strikes all 
 
 beholders) 
 Have a mental and physical stoop in the 
 
 shoulders ; 
 Though you ought to be free as the 
 
 winds and the waves. 
 You've the gait and the manners of 
 ■^ runaway slaves ; 
 
 J Though you brag of your New World, 
 
 you don't half believe in it; 
 And as much of the Uld as is possible 
 
 weave in it ; 
 Your goddess of freedom, a tight, buxom 
 
 girl. 
 With lips like a cherry and teeth like a 
 
 pearl. 
 With eyes bold as Here's, and hair float- 
 ing free. 
 And full of the sun as the spray of the 
 
 sea. 
 Who can sing at a husking or romp at a 
 
 shearing, 
 
 Who can trip through the forests alone 
 
 without fearing, 
 "Who can drive home the cows with a 
 
 song through the grass, 
 Keeps glancing aside into Europe's 
 
 cracked glass. 
 Hides her red hands in gloves, pinches 
 
 up her lithe waist. 
 And makes herself wretched with trans- 
 marine taste ; 
 She loses her fresh country charm when 
 
 she takes 
 Any mirror except her own rivers and 
 
 lakes. 
 
 "You steal Englishmen's Tiooks and 
 think Englishmen's thought, 
 
 With their salt on her tail your wild 
 eagle is caught ; 
 
 Your literature suits its each whisper 
 and motion 
 
 To what will be thought of it over the 
 ocean ; 
 
 The cast clothes of Europe your states- 
 manship tries 
 
 And mumbles again the old blarneys and 
 lies ; — 
 
 Forget Europe wholly, j-our veins throb 
 with blood. 
 
 To which the dull current in hers is but 
 mud ; 
 
 Let her sneer, let her say your experi- 
 ment fails, 
 
 In her voice there 's a tremble e'en now 
 while she rails. 
 
 And your shore will soon be in the na- 
 ture of things 
 
 Covered thick with gilt drift-wood of 
 castaway kings, 
 
 Where alone, as it were in a Longfellow's 
 Waif, 
 
 Her fugitive pieces will find themselves 
 safe. 
 
 my friends, thank your god, if you 
 have one, that he 
 
 'Twixt the Old World and you set the 
 gulf of a sea ; 
 
 Be strong -backed, brown-banded, up. 
 right as your pines, 
 
 By the scale of a hemisphere shape your 
 designs, , 
 
 Be true to yourselves and this new nine- 
 teenth age,_ 
 
 As a statue by Powers, Or a picture by 
 Page, 
 
 Plough, sail, forge, build, carve, painty 
 make all over new, 
 
A FABLE FOR CRITICS. 
 
 139 
 
 To your own New-World instincts con- 
 trive to be true, 
 
 Keep your ears open wide to the Future's 
 first call, 
 
 Be whatever you will, but yourselves 
 first of all. 
 
 Stand fronting the dawn on Toil's 
 heaven-scaling peaks. 
 
 And become my new race of more prac- 
 tical Greeks. 
 
 Hem ! your likeness at present, I shud- 
 der to teU o't. 
 
 Is that you have your slaves, and the 
 Greek had his helot." 
 
 Here a gentleman present, who had 
 in his attic 
 
 More pepper than brains, shrieked, " The 
 maa 's a fanatic, 
 
 I 'm a capital tailor with waim tar and 
 feathers. 
 
 And will make him a suit that '11 serve 
 in all weathers ; 
 
 But we '11 argue the point first, I 'm 
 willing to reason 't, 
 
 Palaver before condemnation 's but de- 
 cent ; 
 
 So, through my humble person, Hu- 
 manity begs 
 
 Of the friends of true freedom a loan of 
 bad eggs." 
 
 But Apollo let one such a look of his 
 show forth 
 
 As when ijVe viKTi ioiKiis, and so forth. 
 
 And the gentleman somehow slunk out 
 of the way, 
 
 But, as he was going, gained courage to 
 say, — 
 
 "At slavery in the abstract my whole 
 soul rebels, 
 
 I am as strongly opposed to 't as any one 
 else." 
 
 " Ay, no doubt, but whenever I 've hap- 
 pened to meet 
 
 With a wrong or a crime, it is always 
 concrete," 
 
 Answered Phcebus severely ; then turn- 
 ing to us, 
 
 "The mistake of such fellows as just 
 made the fuss 
 
 Is only in taking a great busy nation 
 
 For a part of their pitiful cotton-plan- 
 tation. — 
 
 But there comes Miranda, Zeus! where 
 shall I flee to?' 
 
 She has such a penchant for bothering 
 me too I 
 
 She always keeps asking if I don't ob- 
 serve a 
 
 Particular likeness 'twixt her and Mi- 
 nerva ; 
 
 She tells me my efforts in verse are quite 
 clever ; — 
 
 She 's been travelling now, and will b* 
 worse than ever ; 
 
 One would think, though, a sharp- 
 sighted noter she 'd be 
 
 Of all that 's worth mentioning over the 
 sea. 
 
 For a woman must surely see well, if 
 she try, 
 
 The whole of whose being's a cap- 
 ital I: 
 
 She wiU take an old notion, and make 
 it her own. 
 
 By saying it o'er in her Sibylline 
 tone, 
 
 Or persuade you 't is something tremen- 
 dously deep. 
 
 By repeating it so as to put you to 
 sleep ; 
 
 And she well may defy any mortal to 
 see through it. 
 
 When once she has mixed up her in- 
 finite me through it. 
 
 There is one thing she owns in her own 
 single right, 
 
 It is native and genuine — namely, her 
 spite ; 
 
 Though, when acting as censor, she 
 privately blows 
 
 A censer of vanity 'neath her own 
 nose." 
 
 Here Miranda came up, and said, 
 
 " Phcebus ! you know 
 That the infinite Soul has its infinite woe. 
 As I ought to know, having lived cheek 
 
 by jowl. 
 Since the day I was bom, with the In- 
 finite Soul ; 
 I myself introduced, I myself, I alone. 
 To my Land's better life authors solely 
 
 my own, 
 Who the sad heart of earth on their 
 
 shoulders have taken, 
 Whose works sound a depth by Life'* 
 
 quiet unshaken, 
 Such as Shakespeare, for instance, thai 
 
 Bible, and Bacon, 
 Not to mention my own works ; Time's 
 
 nadir is fleet, 
 And, as for myself, I 'm quite out «f 
 
 conceit — " 
 
140 
 
 A FABLE FOE CRITICS. 
 
 " Quite out of conceit ! I 'm en- 
 chanted to hear it," 
 
 Cried Apollo aside. " Who 'd have 
 thought she was near it ? 
 
 To be sure, one is apt to exhaust those 
 commodities 
 
 One uses too fast, yet in this case as odd 
 it is 
 
 As if Neptune should say to his turbots 
 and whitings, 
 
 ' I 'm as much out of salt as Miranda's 
 own writings ' 
 
 ( Which, as she in her own happy man- 
 ner has said, 
 
 Sound a depth, for 't is one of the func- 
 tions of lead). 
 
 She often has asked me if I could not 
 find 
 
 A place somewhere near me that suited 
 her mind ; 
 
 I know hut a single one vacant, which 
 she 
 
 With her rare talent that way, would fit 
 toaT. 
 
 And it would not imply any pause or 
 cessation 
 
 In the work she esteems her peculiar 
 vocation, — 
 
 She may enter on duty to-day, if she 
 chooses. 
 
 And remain Tiring-woman for life to 
 the Muses." 
 
 Miranda meanwhile has succeeded in 
 
 driving 
 Up into a comer, in spite of their 
 
 striving, 
 A small ilock of terrified victims, and 
 
 there. 
 With an I-tum-the-crank-of-the-ITni- 
 
 verse air 
 And a tone which, at least to my fancy, 
 
 appears 
 Not so much to he entering as hoxing 
 
 your ears, 
 Is unfolding i tale (of herself, I sur- 
 mise. 
 For 't is dotted as thick as a peacock's 
 
 with I's). 
 Apropos of Miranda, I '11 rest on my 
 
 oars 
 And drift through a trifling digression 
 
 on hores, 
 "Box, though not wearing ear-rings in 
 
 more inajorum. 
 Our ears are kept bored just as if we stiU 
 
 wore em. 
 
 There was one feudal custom worth 
 keeping, at least, 
 
 Koasted bores made a part of each well- 
 ordered feast, 
 
 And of all quiet pleasures the very nt 
 plus 
 
 Was in hunting wild bores as the tame 
 ones hunt us. 
 
 Archaeologians, I know, who have per- 
 sonal fears 
 
 Of this wise application of hounds and 
 of spears. 
 
 Have tried to make out, with a zeal 
 more than wonted, 
 
 'T was a kind of wild swine that our 
 ancestors hunted ; 
 
 But I '11 never believe that the age which 
 has strewn 
 
 Europe o'er with cathedrals, and other- 
 wise shown 
 
 That it knew what was what, could by 
 chance not have known 
 
 (Spending, too, its chief time with its buff 
 on, no doubt). 
 
 Which beast 't would improve the world 
 most to thin out. 
 
 I divide bores myself, in the manner of 
 rifles. 
 
 Into two great divisions, regardless of 
 trifles ; — 
 
 There 's your smooth-bore and screw- 
 bore, who do not much vary 
 
 In the weight of cold lead they respec- 
 tively carry. 
 
 The smooth-bore is one in whose essence 
 the mind 
 
 Not a corner nor cranny to cling by can 
 find ; 
 
 You feel as in nightmares sometimes, 
 when you slip 
 
 Down a steep slated roof, where there 's 
 nothing to grip ; 
 
 You slide and you slide, the blank hor- 
 ror increases, — 
 
 You had rather by far be at once smashed 
 to pieces ; 
 
 You fancy a whirlpool below white and 
 frothing, 
 
 And finally drop off and light upon — 
 nothing. 
 
 The screw-bore has twists in him, faint 
 predilections 
 
 For going just wrong in the tritest di- 
 rections ; ■ 
 
 When he 's wrong he is flat, when he'i 
 right he can't show it, 
 
A fa:ble fob ckitics. 
 
 141 
 
 He '11 tell you what Snooks said about 
 the new poet,* 
 
 Or how Fogmm was outraged by Ten- 
 nyson's Princess; 
 
 He has spent all his spare time and in- 
 tellect since his 
 
 Birth in perusing, on each art and 
 science, 
 
 Just the books in which no one puts any 
 reliance, 
 
 And though nemo, we 're told, fwris 
 omnibus sapit, 
 
 The rule will not lit him, however you 
 shape it. 
 
 For he has a perennial foisou of sappi- 
 ness ; 
 
 He has just enough force to spoil half 
 your day's happiness, 
 
 And to make hiin a sort of mosquito to 
 be with, 
 
 But just not enough to dispute or agree 
 with. 
 
 These sketches I made (not to be too 
 explicit) 
 
 From two honest fellows who made me 
 a visit, 
 
 And broke, like the tale of the Bear and 
 the Fiddle, 
 
 My reflections on Halleck short off by 
 the middle ; 
 
 I sha' n't now go into the subject more 
 deeply. 
 
 For I notice that some of my readers look 
 sleep'ly ; 
 
 1 will barely remark that, 'mongst civi- 
 lized nations. 
 
 There 's none that displays more exem- 
 plary patience 
 
 Under all sorts of boring, at all sorts of 
 hours. 
 
 From all sorts of desperate persons, than 
 ours. 
 
 Not to speak of our papers, our State 
 legislatures, 
 
 And other such trials for sensitive na- 
 tures, 
 ■ Just look for a moment at Congress, — 
 appalled. 
 
 My fancy shrinks back from the phan- 
 tom it called ; 
 
 Why, there 's scarcely a member un- 
 worthy to frown 
 
 *(If you call Snooks an owl, hs will show by 
 his looks 
 That ho 's morally certain you 're jealous of 
 Snooks.) 
 
 'Neath what Fourier nicknames tha 
 Boreal crown; 
 
 Only think what that infinite bore- 
 pow'r could do 
 
 If applied with a utilitarian view ; 
 
 Suppose, for example, we shipped it 
 with care 
 
 To Sahara's great desert and let it bore 
 there ; 
 
 If they held one short session and did 
 nothing else, 
 
 They 'd fill the whole waste with Arte- 
 sian wells. 
 
 But 'tis time now with pen phono- 
 graphic to follow 
 
 Through some more of his sketches our 
 laughing Apollo : — 
 
 "There comes Harry Franco, and, as 
 
 he draws nes^r. 
 You find that 's a smile which you took 
 
 for a sneer ; 
 One half of him contradicts t' other ; 
 
 his wont 
 Is to say very sharp things and do very 
 
 blunt ; 
 His manner 's as hard as his feelings are 
 
 tender. 
 And a sortie he '11 make when he means 
 
 to surrender ; 
 He's in joke half the time when ha 
 
 seems to be sternest, 
 When he seems to be joking, be sure 
 
 he 's in earnest ; 
 He has common sense in a way that 's 
 
 uncommon. 
 Hates humbug and cant, loves his 
 
 friends like a woman, 
 Builds his dislikes of cards and his 
 
 friendships of oak, 
 Loves a prejudice better than aught but 
 
 a joke. 
 Is half upright Quaker, half downright 
 
 Gome-outer, 
 Loves Freedom too well to go stark mad 
 
 about her. 
 Quite artless himself, is a lover of Art, 
 Shuts you out of his secrets and into his 
 
 heart. 
 And thongh not a, poet, yet all must 
 
 admire 
 In his letters of Pinto his skill on the liar. 
 
 "There comes Poe, with his raven, 
 like Bamaby Budge, 
 Three fifths of him genius and two 
 fifths sheer fudge^ 
 
142 
 
 A FABLE FOR CEITICS. 
 
 Who talks like a, book of iambs and 
 pentameters, 
 
 In a way to make people of common 
 sense damn metres. 
 
 Who has written some things quite the 
 best of their kind, 
 
 But the heart somehow seems all 
 squeezed out by the mind, 
 
 Who— But hey-day! What's this? 
 Messieurs Mathews and Poe, 
 
 You must n't fling mud-balls at Long- 
 fellow so. 
 
 Does it make a man worse that his char- 
 acter's such 
 
 As to make his friends love him (as you 
 think) too much ? 
 
 Why, there is not a bard at this mo- 
 ment alive 
 
 More willing than he that his fellows 
 should thrive ; 
 
 While you are abusing him thus, even 
 now 
 
 He would help either one of you out of 
 a slough ; 
 
 You may say that he 's smooth and all 
 that till you 're hoarse. 
 
 But remember that elegance also is force ; 
 
 After polishing granite as much as you 
 wiU, 
 
 The heart keeps its tough old persis- 
 tency still ; 
 
 Deduct all you can, that still keeps you 
 at bay ; 
 
 Why, he'll live till men weary of 
 Collins and Gray. 
 
 I 'm not over-fond of Greek metres in 
 English, 
 
 To me rhyme 's a gain, so it be not too 
 jinglish. 
 
 And your modem hexameter verses are 
 no more 
 
 Like Greek ones than sleek Mr. Pope is 
 like Homer ; 
 
 As the roar of the sea to the coo of a 
 pigeon is, 
 
 So, compared to your modems, sounds 
 old Melesigenes ; 
 
 I may be too partial, the reason, per- 
 haps, o't is 
 
 That I 've heard the old blind man re- 
 cite his own rhapsodies, 
 
 And my ear with that music impreg- 
 nate may be, 
 
 Like the poor exiled shell with the soul 
 of the sea, 
 
 Or as one can't bear Strauss when his 
 nature is cloven 
 
 To its deeps within deeps by the stroke 
 
 of Beethoven ; 
 But, set that aside, and 't is truth that 
 
 I speak. 
 Had Theocritus written in English, not 
 
 Greek, 
 I believe that his exquisite sense would 
 
 scarce change a line 
 In that rare, tender, virgin-like pastoral 
 
 Evangeline. 
 That 's not ancient nor modern, its 
 
 place is apart 
 Where time has no sway, in the realm 
 
 of pure Art, 
 'Tis a shrine of retreat from Earth's 
 
 hubbub and strife 
 As quiet and chaste as the author's own 
 
 life. 
 
 " There comes Philothea, her face all 
 aglow. 
 
 She has just been dividing some poor 
 creature's woe. 
 
 And can't tell which pleases her most, 
 to relieve 
 
 His want, or his story to hear and be- 
 lieve ; 
 
 No doubt against many deep griefs she, 
 prevails. 
 
 For her ear is the refuge of destitute 
 tales ; 
 
 She knows well that silence is sorrow's 
 best food, 
 
 And that talking draws off from the 
 heart its black blood. 
 
 So she '11 listen with patience and let 
 you unfold 
 
 Your bundle of rags as't were pure cloth 
 of gold. 
 
 Which, indeed, it all turns to as soon 
 as she 's touched it. 
 
 And (to borrow a phrase from the nur- 
 sery) mtiched it ; 
 
 She has such a, musical taste, she will 
 
 go 
 Any distance to hear one who draws a 
 
 long bow ; 
 She will swallow a wonder by mere 
 
 might and main. 
 And thinks it Geometry's fault if she's 
 
 fain 
 To consider things flat, inasmuch as 
 
 they 're plain ; 
 Facts with her are accomplished, as 
 
 Frenchmen would say — 
 They will prove all she wishes them to 
 
 either way, — 
 
A FABLE FOE CEITICS. 
 
 143 
 
 ^nd, as fact lies on this side or that, we 
 
 must try, 
 If we're seeking the truth, to find 
 
 where it don't He ; 
 I was telling her once of a marvellous 
 
 aloe 
 That for thousands of years had looked 
 
 spindling and sallow, 
 And, though nursed by the fruitfuUest 
 
 powers of mud. 
 Had never vouchsafed e'en so much as a 
 
 bud. 
 Till its owner remarked (as a sailor, you 
 
 know, 
 Often will in a calm) that it never would 
 
 blow. 
 For he wished to exhibit the plant, and 
 
 designed 
 That its wowing should help him in 
 
 raising the wind ; 
 At last it was told him that if he should 
 
 water 
 Its roots with the blood of his unmar- 
 ried daughter 
 (Who was born, as her mother, a Cal- 
 
 vinist, said. 
 With William Law's serious caul on 
 
 her head). 
 It would blow as the obstinate breeze 
 
 did when by a 
 Like decree of her father died Iphigenia ; 
 At first he declared he himself would be 
 
 blowed 
 Ere his «ouscience with such a foul 
 
 crime he would load. 
 But the thought, coming oft, grew less 
 
 dark than before. 
 And bemused, as each creditor knocked 
 
 at his door, 
 If this were but done they would dun 
 
 me no more; 
 I told Philothea his straggles and 
 
 doubts. 
 And how he considered the ins and the 
 
 outs 
 Of the visions he had, and the dreadful 
 
 dyspepsy, 
 How he went to the seer that lives at 
 
 Po'keepsie, 
 How the seer advised him to sleep on it 
 
 first. 
 And to read his big volume in case of 
 
 the worst, 
 And further advised he should pay him 
 
 five dollars 
 For writing |gura, Jgum, on his wiist- 
 
 \>ands and collars; 
 
 Three years and ten days these dark 
 
 words he had studied 
 When the daughter was missed, and the 
 
 aloe had budded ; 
 I told how he watched it grow large and 
 
 more large, 
 And wondered how much for the show 
 
 he should charge, — 
 She had listened with utter indifference 
 
 to this, till 
 I told how it bloomed, and, discharging 
 
 its pistil 
 With an aim the Eumenides dictated, 
 
 shot 
 The botanical filicide dead on the spot ; 
 It had blown, but he reaped not his 
 
 horrible gains. 
 For it blew with such force as to blow 
 
 out his brains, 
 And the crime was blown also, because 
 
 on the wad, 
 Which was paper, was writ ' Visitation 
 
 of God,^ 
 As well as a thrilling account of the deed 
 Which the coroner kindly allowed me to 
 
 read. 
 
 " Well, my friend took this story up 
 
 just, to be sure. 
 As one might a poor foundling that's 
 
 laid at one s door ; 
 She combed it and washed it and clothed 
 
 it and fed it. 
 And as if 't were her own child most 
 
 tenderly bred it. 
 Laid the scene (of the legend, I mean) 
 
 far away a- 
 -mong the green vales underneath Hima- 
 laya, 
 And by artist-like touches, laid on here 
 
 and there. 
 Made the whole thing so touching, I 
 
 frankly declare 
 I have read it all thrice, and, perhaps I 
 
 am weak. 
 But I found every time there were tears 
 
 on my cheek. 
 
 " The pole, science tells us, the mag- 
 net controls, 
 
 But she is a magnet to emigrant Poles, 
 
 And folks with a mission that nobody 
 knows. 
 
 Throng thickly about her as bees round 
 a rose ; 
 
 She can fill up the carets in such, makt 
 their scope 
 
144 
 
 A FABLE FOR CKITICS. 
 
 Converge to some focus of rational hope, 
 
 And, with sympathies fresh as the morn- 
 ing, their gall 
 
 Can transmute into honey, — but this is 
 not all ; 
 
 Not only for those she has solace, 0, say. 
 
 Vice's desperate nursling adiift in Broad- 
 way, 
 
 Who clingest, with all that is left of thee 
 human. 
 
 To the last slender spar from the wreck 
 of the woman. 
 
 Hast thou not found one shore where 
 those tired drooping feet 
 
 Could reach firm mother-earth, one full 
 heart on whose heat 
 
 The soothed head in silence reposing 
 could hear 
 
 The chimes of far childhood throb back 
 on the ear ? 
 
 Ah, there's many a beam from the foun- 
 tain of day 
 
 That, to reach us unclouded, must pass, 
 on its way. 
 
 Through the soul of a woman, and hers 
 is wide ope 
 
 To the influence of Heaven as the blue 
 eyes of Hope ; 
 
 Yes, a great heart is hers, one that dares 
 to go in 
 
 To the prison, the slave-hut, the alleys 
 of sin, 
 
 And to bring into each, or to find there, 
 some line 
 
 Of the never completely out-trampled 
 divine ; 
 
 If her heart at high floods swamps her 
 brain now and then, 
 
 'T is but richer for that when the tide 
 ebbs agen, 
 
 As, after old Nile has subsided, his 
 plain 
 
 Overflows with a second broad deluge of 
 grain; 
 
 What a wealth would it bring to the 
 narrow and sour 
 
 Could they be as a Child but for one lit- 
 tle hour ! 
 
 " What ! Irving ? thrice welcome, 
 warm heart and fine brain, 
 
 You bring back the happiest spirit from 
 Spain, 
 
 And the gravest sweet humor, that ever 
 were there 
 
 Since Cervantes met death in his gentle 
 
 Nay, don't be embarrassed, nor look so 
 
 beseeching, — 
 I sha' n't run directly against my own 
 
 preaching, 
 And, having just laughed at their Eaph- 
 
 aels and Dantes, 
 Go to setting you up beside matchless 
 
 Cervantes ; 
 But allow me to speak what I honestly 
 
 feel, — 
 To a true poet-heart add the fun of Dick 
 
 Steele, 
 Throw in all of Addison, minus the 
 
 chill, 
 With the whole of that partnership's 
 
 stock and good-will. 
 Mix well, and while stirring, hum o'er, 
 
 as a spell, 
 The fine old English Gentleman, sim- 
 mer it well, 
 Sweeten just to your own private liking, 
 
 then strain, 
 That only the finest and clearest remain. 
 Let it stand out of doors till a soul it 
 
 receives 
 From the warm lazy sun loitering down 
 
 through green leaves. 
 And you'll find a choice nature, not 
 
 wholly deserving 
 A name either Englidi or Yankee, — 
 
 just Irving. 
 
 " There goes, — but slet nominis um- 
 bra, — his name 
 You'll be glad enough, some day or 
 
 other, to claim, 
 And will all crowd about him and swear 
 
 that you knew him 
 If some English critic should chance to 
 
 review him. 
 The old porcos anie ne projidatis 
 Makgaritas, for him you have verified 
 
 gratis ; 
 What matters, his name ? Why, it may 
 
 be Sylvester, 
 Judd, junior, or Junius, Ulysses, or 
 
 Nestoi-, 
 For aught I know or care ; 't is enough 
 
 that I look 
 On the author of 'Margaret,' the first 
 
 Yankee book 
 With the soul of Down East in 't, and 
 
 things farther East, 
 As far as the threshold of morning, at 
 
 least. 
 Where awaits the fair dawn of the sink 
 
 pie and true, 
 
A FABLE FOK CRITICS. 
 
 145 
 
 Of the day that comes slowly to make 
 
 all things now. 
 'T has a smack of pine woods, of bare 
 
 field and bleak hill, 
 Such as only the breed of the Mayflower 
 
 could till ; 
 The Puritan 's shown in it, tough to the 
 
 core, 
 Such as prayed, smiting Agag on red 
 
 Marston Moor: 
 "With an unwilling humor, half choked 
 
 by the drouth 
 In brown hollows about the inhospitable 
 
 mouth ; 
 With a soul full of poetry, though it has 
 
 qualms 
 About finding a happiness out of the 
 
 Psalms ; 
 Full of tenderness, too, though it shrinks 
 
 in the dark. 
 Hamadryad-like, underthecoarse, shaggy 
 
 bark; 
 That sees visions, knows wrestlings of 
 
 God with the Will, 
 And has its own Sinais and thunderings 
 
 stUl." 
 
 Here, — "Forgive me, Apollo, I 
 
 cried, "while I pour 
 My heart out to my birthplace : loved 
 
 more and more 
 Dear Baystate, from whose rooky bosom 
 
 thy sons 
 Should suck milk, strong-will-giving, 
 
 brave, such as runs 
 In the veins of old Graylook — who is it 
 
 that dares 
 Call thee pedler, a soul wrapped in bank- 
 books and shares ? 
 It is false ! She 's a Poet ! I see, as I 
 
 write. 
 Along the far railroad the steam-snake 
 
 glide white. 
 The cateract-throb of her mill-hearts I 
 
 hear, 
 The awift strokes of trip-hammers weary 
 
 my ear. 
 Sledges ring upon anvils, through logs 
 
 the saw screams, 
 Blocks swing to their place, beetles 
 
 drive home the beams : - - 
 It is songs such as these that she croons 
 
 to the din 
 Of her fast- flying shuttles, year out and 
 
 year in, 
 While from earth's farthest comer there 
 
 comes not a breeze 
 
 10 
 
 But wafts her the buzz of her gold- 
 
 eleaning bees : 
 What though those horn hands have as 
 
 yet found small time 
 For painting and sculpture and music 
 
 and rhyme ? 
 These will come in due order; the need 
 
 that pressed sorest 
 Was to vanquish the seasons, the ocean, ■ 
 
 the forest, ! 
 
 To bridle and harness the rivers, the 
 
 steam. 
 Making that whirl her null-wheels, this 
 
 tug in her team, 
 To vassalize old tjrrant Winter, and make 
 Him delve surlily for her on river and 
 
 lake; — 
 When this New World was parted, she 
 
 strove not to shirk 
 Her lot in the heirdom, the tough, si- 
 lent Work, 
 The hero-share ever, from Herakles down 
 To Odin, the Earth's iron sceptre and 
 
 crown : 
 Yes, thou dear, noble Mother ! if ever 
 
 men's praise 
 Could be claimed for creating heroical 
 
 lays. 
 Thou hast won it ; if ever the laurel di- 
 vine 
 Crowned the Maker and Builder, that 
 
 glory is thine ! 
 Thy songs are right epic, they tell how 
 
 this rude 
 Rock-rib of our earth here was tamed and 
 
 subdued ; 
 Thou hast written them plain on the 
 
 face of the planet 
 In brave, deathless letters of iron and 
 
 granite ; 
 Thou hast printed them deep for all 
 
 time ; they are set 
 From the same runic type-fount and 
 
 alphabet 
 With thy stout Berkshire hills and the 
 
 arms of thy Bay, — 
 They are staves from the burly old May« 
 
 flower lay. 
 If the drones of the Old World, in queru- 
 lous ease. 
 Ask thy Art and thy Letters, point 
 
 proudly to these, 
 Or, if they deny these are Letters and Art, 
 Toil on with the same old invincible 
 
 heart; 
 Thou art rearing the pedestal broad* 
 
 based and grand 
 
146 
 
 A FABLE FOR CEITICa 
 
 ■Whereon the fair shapes of the Artist 
 shall stand. 
 
 And creating, through labors undai'jited 
 and long, 
 
 The theme for all Sculpture and Paint- 
 ing and Song ! 
 
 " But my good mother Baystate wants 
 
 no praise of mine. 
 She learned from her mother a precept 
 
 divine 
 About something that butters no pars- 
 nips, hex forte 
 In another directionlies, workisher sport 
 (Though she '11 courtesy and set her cap 
 
 straight, that she will. 
 If you talk about Plymouth and red 
 
 Bunker's hUl). 
 Dear, notable goodwife ! by this time of 
 
 night, 
 Her health is swept neatly, her fire 
 
 burning bright. 
 And she sits in a chair (of home plan and 
 
 make) rocking. 
 Musing much, all the while, as she dams 
 
 on a stocking, 
 "Whether turkeys will come pretty high 
 
 next Thanksgiving, 
 Whether flour '11 be so dear, for, as sure 
 
 as she 's living. 
 She will use rye-and-injun then, whether 
 
 the pig 
 By this time ain't got pretty tolerable big, 
 ibid whethertoseUitoutrightwill be best. 
 Or to smoke hams and shoulders and 
 
 salt down the rest, — 
 At this minute, she 'dswop all my verses, 
 
 ah, cruel ! 
 For the last patent stove that is saving 
 
 of fuel ; 
 So I '11 just let Apollo go on, for his phiz 
 Shows I 've kept him awaiting too long 
 
 as it is." 
 
 "If our friend, there, who seems a 
 
 reporter, is done 
 With his burst of emotion, why, / will 
 
 go on," 
 Said Apollo ; some smiled, and, indeed, 
 
 I must own 
 There was something sarcastic, perhaps, 
 
 in his tone;— 
 
 " There 's Holmes, who is matchless 
 among you for wit ; 
 A Leyden-jar always full-charged, from 
 which flit 
 
 The electrical tingles of hit aftet 
 
 hit; 
 In long poems 't is painful sometimes, 
 
 and invites 
 A thought of the way the new Telegraph 
 
 writes. 
 Which pricks down its little sharp sen- 
 tences spitefully 
 As if you got more than you 'd title to 
 
 rightfully, 
 And you find yourself hoping its wild 
 
 father Lightning 
 Would flame in for a second and give 
 
 you a fright'ning. 
 He has perfect sway of what I call a 
 
 sham metre. 
 But many admire it, the English pen- 
 tameter. 
 And Campbell, I think, wrote most com- 
 monly worse. 
 With less nerve, swing, and fire in the 
 
 same kind of verse, 
 Nor e'er achieved aught in 't so worthy 
 
 of praise 
 As the tribute of Holmes to the gi'and 
 
 Marseillaise. 
 You went crazy last year over Bulwer's 
 
 New Timou; — • 
 Why, if B., to the day of his dying, 
 
 should rhyme on. 
 Heaping verses on verses and tomes 
 
 upon tomes. 
 He could ne'er reach the best poiut and 
 
 vigor of Holmes. 
 His are just the fine hands, too, to 
 
 weave you a lyric 
 Full of fancy, fun, feeling, or spiced 
 
 with satyric 
 In a measure so kindly, you doubt if 
 
 the toes 
 That are trodden upon are your own or 
 
 your foes'. 
 
 "There is Lowell, who's striving 
 
 Parnassus to climb 
 With a whole bale of isms tied together 
 
 with rhyme, 
 He might get on alone, spite of bram- 
 bles and boulders. 
 But he can't with that bundle he has on 
 
 nis shoulders. 
 The top of the hill he will ne'er come 
 
 nigh reaching 
 Till he learns the distinction 'twixt 
 
 singing and preaching ; 
 His lyre has some chords that would 
 
 ring pretty well, 
 
A FABLE FOE CRITICS. 
 
 147 
 
 But he 'd rather by half make a drum 
 
 of the shell, 
 And rattle away till he 's old as Me- 
 
 thusalem, 
 At the head of a march to the last new 
 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 " There goes Halleck, whose Fanny 's 
 a pseudo Dou Juan, 
 
 "With the wickedness out that gave salt 
 to the true one. 
 
 He 's a wit, though, I hear, of the very 
 first order. 
 
 And once made a pun on the words soft 
 Recorder ; 
 
 More than this, he 's a very great poet, 
 I 'm told. 
 
 And has had his works published ia 
 crimson and gold. 
 
 With something they call ' Illustra- 
 tions,' to wit, 
 
 Like those with which Chapman ob- 
 scured Holy Writ,* 
 
 Which are said to illustrate, because, as 
 1 view it. 
 
 Like lucus a non, they precisely don't do 
 it; 
 
 Let a man who can write what himself 
 understands 
 
 Keep clear, if he can, of designing men's 
 
 Who bury the sense, if there's any 
 
 worth having. 
 And then very honestly call it engrav- 
 ing. ■ 
 But, to quit badinage, which there 's n't 
 
 much wit in, 
 Halleck 's better, I doubt not, than all 
 
 he has written ; 
 In his verse a clear glimpse you will 
 
 frequently find. 
 If not of a great, of a fortunate mind. 
 Which contrives to be true to its natural 
 
 loves 
 In a world of back-offices, ledgers, and 
 
 stoves. 
 When his heart breaks away from the 
 
 brokers and banks. 
 And kneels in his own private shrine to 
 
 give thanks, 
 There 's a genial manliness in him that 
 
 earns 
 Our sincerest respect (read, for instance, 
 
 his ' Bums '), 
 
 * (Cuts Tightly called wooden, as all must 
 admit.) 
 
 And we can't but regret (seek excuse 
 where we may) 
 
 That so much of a man has been ped- 
 dled away. 
 
 " But what 's that ? a mass-meeting ? 
 No, there come in lots, 
 
 The American Bulwers, Disraelis, and 
 Scotts, 
 
 And in short the American everything- 
 elses. 
 
 Each charging the others with envies and 
 jealousies ; — 
 
 By the way, 'tis a fact that displays 
 what profusions 
 
 Of all kinds of greatness bless free insti- 
 tutions, 
 
 That while the Old World has produced 
 barely eight 
 
 Of such poets as all men agree to call 
 great. 
 
 And of other great characters hardly a 
 score 
 
 (One might safely say less than that 
 rather than more). 
 
 With you every year a whole crop is 
 begotten, 
 
 Tiiey 're as much of a staple as com is, 
 or cotton ; 
 
 Why, there 's scarcely a huddle of log- 
 huts and shanties 
 
 That has not brought forth its own Mil- 
 tons and Dantes ; 
 
 I myself know teu Byrons, one Cole- 
 ridge, three Shelleys, 
 
 Two Raphaels, six Titians, (I think) one 
 Apelles, 
 
 Leonardos and Rubenses plenty as 
 lichens. 
 
 One (but that one is plenty) American 
 Dickens, 
 
 A whole flock of Lambs, any number of 
 Tennysons, — 
 
 In short, if a man has the luck to have 
 any sons, 
 
 He may feel pretty certain that one out 
 of twain 
 
 Will be some very great person over again. 
 
 There is one inconvenience in all this, 
 which lies 
 
 In the fact that by contrast we estimate 
 size,* 
 
 * That is in most cases we do, but not all. 
 Past a doubt, there are men who are innately 
 
 small. 
 Such as Blank, who, without being 'minished 
 
 a little. 
 Might stand for a type of the Absolute Little. 
 
148 
 
 A FABLE FOR OKITICS. 
 
 And, where there are none except Ti- 
 tans, great stature 
 Is only the normal proceeding of nature. 
 What puff the strained sails of your 
 
 praise will you furl at, if 
 The calmest degree that you know is 
 
 superlative ? 
 At Eome, all whom Charon took into 
 
 his wherry must, 
 As u matter of course, be well issirtmst 
 
 and errimust, 
 A Greek, too, could feel, while in that 
 
 famous boat he tost. 
 That his friends would take care he was 
 
 iiTTost and uroTOst, 
 And formerly we, as through grave- 
 yards we past, 
 Thought the world went from bad to 
 
 worst fearfully fast ; 
 Let us glance for a moment, 'tis well 
 
 worth the pains, 
 And note what an average graveyard 
 
 contains ; 
 There lie levellers levelled, duns done 
 
 up themselves, 
 There are booksellers finally laid on their 
 
 shelves, 
 Hoiizontally there lie upright politi- 
 cians, 
 Dose-a-dose with their patients sleep 
 
 faultless physicians. 
 There are slave-drivers quietly whipped 
 
 underground. 
 There bookbinders, done up in boards, 
 
 are fast bound, 
 There card-players wait till the last 
 
 trump be played, 
 There all the choice spirits get finally 
 
 laid. 
 There the babe that 's unborn is supplied 
 
 with a berth, 
 There men without legs get their six 
 
 feet of earth. 
 There lawyers repose, each wrapped up 
 
 in his case, 
 There seekens of office are sure of a 
 
 place, 
 There defendant and plaintiff get equally 
 
 cast. 
 There shoemakers quietly stick to the 
 
 last, 
 There brokers at length become silent 
 
 as stocks, 
 There stage-drivers sleep without quit- 
 ting their box, 
 And so foi-th and so forth and so forth 
 
 and so on. 
 
 With this kind of stuff one might end- 
 lessly go on ; 
 
 To come to the point, I may safely as- 
 sert you 
 
 Will find in each yard every cardinal 
 virtue ; * 
 
 Each has six truest patriots : four dis- 
 coverers of ether, 
 
 Who never had thought on 't nor men- 
 tioned it either; 
 
 Ten poets, the greatest who ever wrote 
 rhyme : 
 
 Two hundred and forty first men of 
 their time : 
 
 One person whose portrait just gave the 
 least hint 
 
 Its original had a most horrible squint : 
 
 One critic, most (what do they call 
 it ?) reflective. 
 
 Who never had used the phrase oh- or 
 subjective : 
 
 Forty fathers of Freedom, of whom 
 twenty bred 
 
 Their sons for the rice-swamps, at so 
 much a head. 
 
 And their daughters for— faugh I thirty 
 mothers of Gracchi : 
 
 Non-resistants who gave many a spirit- 
 ual black-eye : 
 
 Eight true friends of their kind, one of 
 whom was a jailer : 
 
 Four captains almost as astounding as 
 Taylor : 
 
 Two dozen of Italy's exiles who shoot 
 us his 
 
 Kaisership daily, stem pen-and-ink 
 Brutuses, 
 
 Who, in Yankee back-parlors, with 
 crucified smile, t 
 
 Mount serenely their country's funereal 
 pile ; 
 
 Ninety-nine Irish heroes, ferocious re- 
 hellers 
 
 'Gainst the Saxon in cis-marine garrets 
 and cellars, 
 
 Who shake their dread fists o'er the sea 
 and all that, — 
 
 As long as a copper drops into the hat : 
 
 Nine hundred Teutonic republicans 
 stark 
 
 From Vaterland's battles just won — in 
 the Park, 
 
 * (And at this just conclusion will surely a^ 
 
 rive, 
 That the eoodness of earth is more dead than 
 
 alive.) 
 \ Not forgetting their tea and their toaat^ 
 
 though, the while. 
 
A FABLE FOE CRITICS. 
 
 149 
 
 Who the happy profession of martyrdom 
 
 take 
 Whenever it gives them a chance at a 
 
 steak : 
 Sixty-two second Washingtons : two or 
 
 three Jacksons : 
 And so many everythings-else that it 
 
 racks one's 
 Poor memory too much to continue the 
 
 list, 
 Especially now they no longer exist ; — 
 I would merely observe that you 've 
 
 taken to giving 
 The puffs that belong to the dead to the 
 
 living, 
 And that somehow your trump-of-con- 
 
 temporarv-doom's tones 
 la tuned after old dedications and tomb- 
 stones." 
 
 Here the critic came in and .a thistle 
 
 presented — * 
 From a frown to a smile the god's fea- 
 tures relented. 
 As he stared at his envoy, who, swelling 
 
 with pride, 
 To the god's asking look, nothing 
 
 daunted, replied, — 
 "You're surprised, I suppose, I was 
 
 absent so long. 
 But your godship respecting the lilies 
 
 was wrong ; 
 I hunted the garden from one end to 
 
 t' other. 
 And got no reward but vexation and 
 
 bother. 
 Till, tossed out with weeds in a comer 
 
 to wither, 
 This one lily I found and made haste to 
 
 bring hither." 
 
 " Did he think I had given him a book 
 to review ? 
 
 I ought to have known what the fellow 
 would do," 
 
 Muttered Phoebus aside, "for a thistle 
 will pass 
 
 Beyond doubt for the queen of all flow- 
 ers with an ass ; 
 
 He has chosen in just the same way as 
 he 'd choose 
 
 His specimens out of the books he re- 
 views; 
 
 • Turn back now to page — goodness only 
 knows what, 
 And take a fresh bold on the thread of my 
 plot 
 
 And now, as this offers an excellent text, 
 I 'U give 'em some brief hints on oriti" 
 
 cism next." 
 So, musing a moment, he turned to the 
 
 crowd. 
 And, clearing his voice, spoke as follows 
 
 aloud : — 
 
 "My friends, in the happier days of 
 
 the muse. 
 We were luckily free from such things 
 
 as reviews ; 
 Then naught came between with its fog 
 
 to make clearer 
 The heart of the poet to that of his 
 
 hearer ; 
 Then the poet brought heaven to the 
 
 people, and they 
 Felt that they, too, were poets in hear; 
 
 ing his lay ; 
 Then the poet was prophet, the past in 
 
 his soul 
 Precreated the future, both parts of one 
 
 whole ; 
 Then for him there was nothing too great 
 
 or too small, 
 For one natural deity sanctified all ; 
 Then the bard owned no clipper and 
 
 meter of moods 
 Save the spirit of silence that hovers and 
 
 broods 
 O'er the seas and the mountains, the 
 
 rivers and woods ; 
 He asked not earth's verdict, forgetting 
 
 the clods. 
 His soul soared and sang to an audience 
 
 of gods ; 
 'T was for them that he measured the 
 
 thought and the line. 
 And shaped for their vision the perfect 
 
 design. 
 With as glorious a foresight, a, balance 
 
 as true. 
 As swung out the worlds in the infinite 
 
 blue; 
 Then a glory and greatness invested 
 
 man's heart. 
 The imiversal, which now stands es> 
 
 tranged and apart, 
 In the free individual moulded, was 
 
 Art; 
 Then the forms of the Artist seemed 
 
 thrilled with desire 
 For something as yet unattained, fuller, 
 
 higher, 
 As once with her lips, lifted hands, and 
 
 eyes listening, 
 
150 
 
 A FABLE FOE CEITICS. 
 
 And her whole upward soul in her coun- 
 tenance glistening, 
 Eurydice stood — like a beacon unfired, 
 Which, once touched with flame, will 
 
 leap heav'nward inspired — 
 And waited with answering kindle to 
 
 mark 
 The first gleam of Orpheus that pained 
 
 the red Dark. 
 Then painting, song, sculpture did more 
 
 than relieve 
 The need that men feel to create and 
 
 believe. 
 And as, in all beauty, who listens with 
 
 love 
 Hears these words oft repeated — ' be- 
 yond and above,' 
 So these seemed to be but the visible 
 
 sign 
 Of the grasp of the soul after things more 
 
 divine; 
 They were ladders the Artist erected to 
 
 climb 
 O'er the narrow horizon of space and of 
 
 time, 
 And we see there the footsteps by which 
 
 men had gained 
 To the one rapturous glimpse of the 
 
 never-attained. 
 As shepherds could erst sometimes trace 
 
 in the sod 
 The last spuming print of a sky-cleaving 
 
 god. 
 
 "But now, on the poet's dis-privacied 
 moods 
 With do this and do thai the pert critic 
 
 intrudes ; 
 While he thinks he 's been barely fulfill- 
 ing his duty 
 To interpret 'twixt men and their own 
 J, sense of beauty, 
 
 h'- And has striven, while others sought 
 
 honor or pelf, 
 ■ To make his kind happy as he was him- 
 self, 
 , He finds he's been guilty of horrid 
 '■ offences 
 
 In all kinds of moods, numbers, genders, 
 
 and tenses ; 
 He 's been db and *a&jective, what Kettle 
 
 calls Pot, 
 Precisely, at all events, what he ought not. 
 You have done this, says one judge ; 
 
 done that, says another ; 
 You should have done this, grumbles 
 one ; that, says 't other ; 
 
 Kever mind what he touches, one shrieks 
 
 out Taboo! 
 And while he is wondering what he shall 
 
 do, 
 Since each suggests opposite topics for 
 
 song. 
 They aU shout together you're rigJU/ 
 
 and you 're wrong I 
 
 " Nature fits all her children with 
 something to do, 
 
 He who would write and can't write, can 
 surely review. 
 
 Can set up a small booth as critic and sell 
 us his 
 
 Petty conceit and his pettier jealousies ; 
 
 Thus a lawyer's apprentice, just out of 
 his teens. 
 
 Will do for the Jeflrey of six maga- 
 zines ; 
 
 Having read Johnson's lives of the poets 
 half through. 
 
 There's nothing on earth he 's not com- 
 petent to ; 
 
 He reviews with as much nonchalance as 
 he whistles, — 
 
 He goes through a book and just picks 
 out the thistles ; 
 
 It matters not whether he blame or com- 
 mend, 
 
 If he 's bad as a foe, he 's far worse as a 
 friend : 
 
 Let an author but write what 's above his 
 poor scope, 
 
 He goes to work gravely and twists up a 
 rope. 
 
 And, inviting the world to see punish- 
 ment done. 
 
 Hangs himself up to bleach in the wind 
 and the sun ; 
 
 'T is delightful to see, when a man comes 
 along 
 
 Who has anything in him peculiar and 
 strong. 
 
 Every cockboat that swims clear its fierce 
 (pop) gundeck at him. 
 
 And make as he passes its ludicrous Feck 
 at him — " 
 
 Here Miranda came up and began, 
 
 "As to that—" 
 Apollo at once seized his gloves, cane, 
 
 and hat. 
 And, seeing the place getting rapidly 
 
 cleared, 
 I, too, snatched my notes and forthwith 
 
 disappeared. 
 
UTTER FROM BOSTON. 
 
 151 
 
 LETTER FROM BOSTON. 
 
 Dtcember, 1846. 
 
 DaAB M. * 
 
 By way of saving time, 
 I '11 do this letter up in rhyme. 
 Whose slim stream through four pages 
 
 flows 
 Ere one is packed with tight-screwed 
 
 prose. 
 Threading the tube of an epistle. 
 Smooth as a child's breath through a 
 
 whistle. 
 
 The great attraction now of all 
 Is the " Bazaar " at Faneuil Hall, 
 Where swarm the anti-slavery folks 
 As thick, dear Miller, as your jokes. 
 There 's Gabkibon, his features very 
 Benign for an incendiary. 
 Beaming forth sunshine through his 
 
 glasses 
 On the surrounding lads and lasses, 
 (No bee could blither be, or brisker,) — 
 A Pickwick somehow turned John Ziska, 
 His bump of firmness swelling up 
 Like a rye cupcake from its cup. 
 And there, too, was his English tea-set. 
 Which in his ear a kind of flea set. 
 His Uncle Samuel for its beauty 
 Demanding sixty dollars duty, 
 ('Twas natural Sam should serve his 
 
 trunk ill. 
 For G., you know, has cut his uncle,) 
 Whereas, had he but once made tea in 't. 
 His uncle's ear bad had the flea in 't. 
 There being not a cent of duty 
 On any pot that ever drew tea.t 
 
 There was Mabia Chapman, too, 
 
 * Mr. James Miller McKim. 
 
 t When Mr. Garrison visited Edinburgh in 1846, 
 a handsome silver tea-set was presenl^d to him 
 by hiB friends in that city. On the arrival of 
 this gift at the Boston custom-house, it was 
 charged \rith an enormous entrance duty which 
 Would have been remitted if the articles had 
 
 With her swift eyes of clear steel-blne. 
 The coiled-up mainspring of the Fair, 
 Originating everywhere 
 The expansive force without a sound 
 That whirls a hundred wheels around. 
 Herself meanwhile as calm and still 
 As the bare crown of Prospect Hill ; 
 A noble woman, brave ^nd apt, 
 Cumsean sibyl not more rapt. 
 Who might, with those fair tresses shorn. 
 The Maid of Orleans' casque have worn. 
 Herself the Joan of our Ark, 
 For every shaft a shining mark. 
 
 And there, too, was Eliza Follen, 
 Who scatters fruitcreating pollen 
 Where'er a blossom she can find 
 Hardy enough for Truth's north wind, 
 Each several point of all her face 
 Tremblingly bright with the inward 
 
 gra^e. 
 As if all motion gave it light 
 Like phosphorescent seas at night. 
 
 There jokes our Edmund.J plainly son 
 Of him who bearded Jefferson, 
 A non-resistant by conviction. 
 But with a bump in contradiction. 
 So that whene'er it gets a chance 
 His pen delights to play the lance. 
 And — you may doubt it, or believe it'^' 
 Full at the head of Joshua Leavitt 
 The very calumet he 'd launch. 
 And scourge him with the olive branch. 
 A master with the foils of wit, 
 'T is natural he should love a hit ; 
 A gentleman, withal, and scholar. 
 Only base things excite his choler, 
 
 ever been used. It was supposed that if tho 
 owner had not been the leader of the unpopular 
 abolitionists, this heavy impost would not have 
 been laid on a friendly British tribute to an emi* 
 nent American. 
 t Edmund Quincy. 
 
152 
 
 tETTEB FROM BOSTON. 
 
 And then his satire 's been and thin 
 As the lithe blade of Saladin. 
 Good letters aie a gift apart, 
 And his are gems of Flemish art, 
 True ofispring of the fireside Muse, 
 Not a rag-gathering of news 
 Like a new hopfield which is all poles, 
 But of one blood with Horace Walpole's. 
 
 There, with one hand behind his back, 
 Stands Phillips buttoned in a sack. 
 Our Attic orator, our Chatham ; 
 Old fogies, when he lightens at 'em. 
 Shrivel like leaves ; to him 't is granted 
 Always to say the word that 's wanted, 
 So that he seems but speaking clearer 
 The tiptop thought of every hearer ; 
 Each flash his brooding heairt lets fall 
 Fires what 's combustible in all, 
 And sends the applauses bursting in 
 Xike an exploded magazine. 
 His eloquence no frothy show. 
 The gutter's street-polluted flow, 
 No Mississippi's yellow flood 
 Whose shoalness can't be seen for 
 
 mud; — 
 So simply clear, serenely deep, 
 So silent-strong its graceful sweep. 
 None measures its nnrippling forc« 
 Who has not striven to stem its course ; 
 How fare their barques who think to 
 
 play 
 With smooth Niagara's mane of spray, 
 Let Austin's total shipwreck say.* 
 He never spoke a word too much — 
 Except of Story, or some such. 
 Whom, though condemned by ethics 
 
 strict, 
 Theheart refuses to convict. 
 
 Beyond, a crater in each eye. 
 
 Sways brown, broad-shouldered Pills- 
 
 BHRT, 
 
 Who tears up words like trees by the 
 
 roots, 
 A Theseus in stout cow-hide boots, 
 The wager of eternal war 
 Against that loathsome Minotaur 
 To whom we sacrifice each year 
 The best blood of our Athens here, 
 (Dear M., pray bfush up your Lem- 
 
 priere.) 
 
 * Od the occasion of the murder of Rev. Eli- 
 jah P. LoTOJoy, editor of an anti-slavery news- 
 paper at Aicon, Illinois, an indignation meeting 
 was held in Boston, at which Mr. Austin, Attor- 
 isy-Oeneral of Uasgachusetts, made a violent 
 
 A terrible denouncer he. 
 
 Old Sinai bnrns unquenchably 
 
 Upon his lips; he well might be s 
 
 Hot-blazing soul from fierce Judea, 
 
 Habakkuk, Ezra, or Hosea. 
 
 His words are red-hot iron searers, 
 
 And nightmare-like he mounts his heap 
 
 ers, 
 Spurring them like avenging Fate, or 
 As Waterton his alligator. 
 
 Hard by, as calm as summer even, 
 Smiles the reviled and pelted Stephen,! 
 The unappeasable Boanerges 
 To all the Churches and the Clergies, 
 The grim savant who, to complete 
 His own peculiar cabinet, 
 Contrived to label 'mong his kicks 
 One from the followers of Hicks; 
 Who studied mineralogy 
 Not with soft book upon the knee. 
 But learned the properties of stones 
 By contact sharp of flesh and bones, 
 And made the experimentum cruets 
 With his own body's vital juices ; 
 A man with caoutchouc endurance, 
 A perfect gem for life insurance, 
 A kind of maddened John the Bap- 
 tist, 
 To whom the harshest word comes apt- 
 
 est, 
 Who, struck by stone or brick ill-starred. 
 Hurls back an epithet as hard. 
 Which, deadlier than stone or brick. 
 Has a propensity to stick. 
 His oratory is like the scream 
 Of the iron-horse's frenzied steam 
 Which warns the world to leave wide 
 
 space 
 For the black engine's swerveless race. 
 Ye men with neckcloths white, I warn 
 
 yon — 
 Habet a whole haymow in comu. 
 
 A Judith there, tnmed Quakeress, 
 
 Sits Abet in her modest dress,t 
 
 Serving a table quietly. 
 
 As if that mild and downcast eye 
 
 Flashed never, with its scorn intense, 
 
 More than Medea's eloquence. 
 
 So the same force which shakes its diea4 
 
 Far-blazing locks o'er Etna's head. 
 
 pro-slavery speech, which called forth a cmsh. 
 ing reply from Wendell Phillips, who thenoef ortA 
 became a main pillar of abolitiouifim. 
 
 t Stephen S. Foster. 
 
 t Abby Eelley. 
 
LETTER FROM BOSTON. 
 
 163 
 
 Along the wires in silence fares 
 And messages of commerce bears. 
 No nobler gift of heart and brain, 
 No life more white from spot or stain, 
 Was e'er on Freedom's altar laid 
 Than hers, the simple Quaker maid. 
 
 These last three (leaving in the lurch 
 Some other themes) assault the Church, 
 Who therefore writes them in her lists 
 As Satan's limbs and atheists ; 
 For each sect has one argument 
 Whereby the rest to hell are sent. 
 Which serves them like the Giaise's 
 
 tooth. 
 Passed round in turn from mouth to 
 
 mouth ; — 
 If any ism should arise, 
 They look on it with constable's eyes. 
 Tie round its neck a heavy athe-. 
 And give it kittens' hydropathy. 
 This trick with other (useful verj) tricks 
 Is laid to the Babylonian meretrix. 
 But 't was in vogue before her day 
 Wherever priesthoods had their way, 
 And Buddha's Popes with this struck 
 
 dumb 
 The followers of Fi and Fum. 
 Well, if the world, with prudent fear, 
 Pay God a seventh of the year, 
 And as a Farmer, who would pack 
 All his religion in one stack, 
 For this world works six days in seven 
 And idles on the seventh for Heaven, 
 
 Expecting, for his Sunday's sowing. 
 In the next world to go a-mowing 
 The crop of all his meeting-going ; — 
 If the poor Church, by power enticed, 
 Finds none so infidel as Christ, 
 Quite backward reads his Gospel meek, 
 (As 't were in Hebrew writ, not Gieek,) 
 Fencing the gallows and the sword 
 With conscripts drafted from his word. 
 And makes one gate of Heaven so wide 
 That the rich orthodox might ride 
 Through on their camels, while the poor 
 Squirm through the scant, unyielding 
 
 door. 
 Which, of the Gospel's straitest size. 
 Is narrower than bead-needles' eyes. 
 What wonder World and Church should 
 
 call 
 The true faith atheistical % 
 
 Yet, after all, 'twixt yon and me, 
 Dear Miller, I fcould never see 
 That Sin's and Error's ugly smirch 
 Stained the walls only of the Church ; 
 There are good priests, and men wha 
 
 take 
 Freedom's torn cloak for lucre's sake ; 
 I can't believe the Church so strong. 
 As some men do, for Right or Wrong, 
 But, for this subject (long and vext) 
 I must refer yon to my next, 
 As also for a list exact 
 Of goods with which the Hall was 
 
 packed. 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
NOTICES OF AN INDEPENDENT PRESS. 
 
 ri HAVE observed, reader Cbene- or male- 
 volent, as it may happen), that it is cus- 
 tomary to append to the second editions of 
 books, and to the second works of authors, 
 short sentences commendatory of the first, 
 under the title of Notices of the Press. 
 These, I have been given to understand, 
 are procurable at certain established rates, 
 payment being made either in money or 
 advertising patronage by the publisher, or 
 by an adequate outlay of servility on the 
 part of toe author. Considering these 
 things with myself, and also that such 
 notices are neither intended, nor generally 
 believed, to convey any real opinions, be- 
 ing a purely ceremonial accompaniment of 
 literature, and resembling certificates to the 
 virtues of various morbiferal panaceas, I 
 conceived that it would be not only more 
 economical to prepare a sufficient number 
 of such myself, but also more immediately 
 subservient to the end in view to prefix 
 them to this our primary edition rather 
 than await the contingency of a second, 
 when they would seem to be of small util- 
 ity. To delay attaching the bobs until the 
 second attempt at flying the kite would 
 indicate but a slender experience in that 
 useful art. Neither has it escaped my 
 notice, nor failed to afford me matter of 
 reflection, that, when a circus or a caravan 
 is about to visit Jaalam, the initial step 
 is to send forward large and highly orna- 
 mented bills of performance to be hung in 
 the bar-room and the post-office. These 
 having been sufficiently gazed at, and be- 
 ginning to lose their attractiveness except 
 for the flies, and, truly, the boys also (in 
 whom I find it impossible to repress, even 
 during school-hours, certain oral and tele- 
 graphic communications concerning the 
 expected show), upon some fine morning 
 the band enters in a gayly painted wagon, 
 or triumphal chariot, and with noisy ad- 
 Tertiaement, by means of brass, wood, and 
 sheepskin, makes the circuit of our startled 
 Villaee streets. Theuy as the exciting 
 sounds draw nearer and nearer, do I de- 
 
 siderate those eyes of Aristarchus, " whose 
 looks were as a breeching to a boy." 
 Then do I perceive, with vain regret 
 of wasted opportunities, the advantage 
 of a pancratic or pantechnio education, 
 since he is most reverenced by my little 
 subjects who can throw the cleanest sum- 
 merset or walk most securely upon the 
 revolving cask. The story of the Pied 
 Piper becomes for the first time credible 
 to me (albeit confirmed by the Hameliners 
 dating their legal instruments from the 
 period of his exit), as I behold how those 
 strains, without pretence of magical po- 
 tency, bewitch the pupillary legs, nor 
 leave to the pedagogic an entire self-con- 
 trol. For these reasons, lest my kingly 
 prerogative should suffer diminution, I 
 prorogue my restless commons, whom I 
 follow into the street, chiefly lest some 
 mischief may chance befall them. After 
 the manner of such a band, I send forward 
 the following notices of domestic manufac- 
 ture, to make brazen proclamation, not 
 unconscious of the advantage which will 
 accrue, if our little craft, cyrnbula sutilis, 
 shall seem to leave port with a clipping 
 breeze, and to carry, in nautical phrase, a 
 bone in her mouth. Nevertheless, I have 
 chosen, as being more equitable, to pre- 
 pare some also sufficiently objurgatory, 
 that readers of every taste may find a dish 
 to their palate. I have modelled them 
 upon actually existing specimens, pre- 
 served in mjr own cabinet of natural curios- 
 ities. One, in particular, I had copied with 
 tolerable exactness from a notice of one 
 of my own discourses, which, from its su- 
 perior tone and appearance of vast experi- 
 ence, I concluded to have been written by 
 a man at least three hundred years of age, 
 though I recollected no existing instance 
 of such antediluvian longevity. Never- 
 theless, I afterwards discovered the author 
 to be a young gentleman preparing for the 
 ministry under the direction of one of my 
 brethren in a neighboring town, and whom 
 I had once instinctively corrected in a 
 
158 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 Latin quantity. But this I have been 
 forced to omit, from its too great length. 
 — H. W.] 
 
 From the Uni/versal Littery Universe. 
 Full of passages which rivet the attention of 
 the reader. .... Under a rustic garb, senti- 
 ments are conveyed which should be committed 
 to the memory and engraven on the heart of 
 every moral and social being. . . . , We con- 
 sider this a unique performance. .... We 
 hope to see it soon introduced into our common 
 
 schools Mr. Wilbur has performed his 
 
 duties as editor with excellent taste and judg- 
 ment This Is a vein which we hope to 
 
 see successfully prosecuted. .... We hail the 
 appearance of tms Vork as a long stride toward 
 the formation of a purely aboriginal, indige- 
 nous, native, and American literature. We re- 
 joice to meet with an author national enough 
 to break away from the slavish deference, too 
 common among us, to English grammar and 
 orthography. .... Where all is so good, we 
 
 are at a loss how to make extracts On 
 
 the whole, we may call it a volume which no 
 library, pretending to entire completeness, 
 should ful to place upon its shelves. 
 
 From the Higginbottomopolis Sitappim^'turtU. 
 
 A collection of the merest balderdash and 
 doggerel that it was ever our bad fortune to 
 lay eyes on. The author is a vulgar buffoon, 
 and the editor a talkative, tedious old fool. 
 We use strong language, but should any of our 
 readers peruse the book, (from which calamity 
 Heaven jjreserve them !) they will find reasons 
 for it thick as the leaves of Vallumbrozer, or, 
 to use a still more expressive comparison, as 
 the combined heads of author and editor. The 
 work is wretchedly got up. .... We should 
 like to know how much British gold was pock- 
 eted by this libeller of our couulry and her 
 purest patriots. 
 
 From, the Oldfogrwmville Mentor. 
 
 We have not had time to do more than glance 
 through this handsomely printed volume, but 
 the name of its respectable editor, the Rev, Mr. 
 Wilbur, of Jaalam, will afford a sufficient guar- 
 anty for the worth of its contents The 
 
 paper is white, the type clear, and the volume 
 
 of a convenient and attractive size In 
 
 reading this elegantly executed work, it has 
 seemed to us that a passage or two might have 
 been retrenched with advantage, and that the 
 general style of diction was susceptible of a 
 
 higher polish On the whole, we may 
 
 ■afely leave the ungrateful task of criticism to 
 the reader. We will barely suggest, that in 
 volumes intended, as this is, for the illustration 
 of a provincial dialect and turns of expression, 
 ft dash of humor or satire might be thrown in 
 
 with advantage The work is admirably 
 
 got up This work will form an ajipro- 
 
 jiriate ornament to the centre-table. It is 
 beautifully printed, on paper of an excellent 
 quality. 
 
 From the Dekay Bulwark. 
 
 We should be wanting in our duty as th« 
 conductor of that tremendous engine, a publib 
 press, as an American, and as a man, did we 
 allow such an opportunity as is presented to us 
 by "The Biglow Papers" to pass by without 
 entering our earnest protest against such at- 
 tempts (now, alas ! too common) at demoraliz- 
 ing the public sentiment Under a wretched 
 mask of stupid drollery, slavery, war, the so- 
 cial glass, and, in short, all the valuable and 
 time-honored institutions justly dear to our 
 common humanity and especially to republi- 
 cans, are made the butt of coarse and senseless 
 ribaldry by this low-minded scribbler. It is 
 time that the respectable and religious portion 
 of our community should be aroused to the 
 alarming inroads of foreign Jacobinism, sans- 
 culottism, and infidelity. It is a fearful proof 
 of the wide-spread nature of this contagion, 
 that these secret stabs at religion and virtue 
 are given from under the cloak (cr^ite, posteri !) 
 of a clergyman. It is a mournful spectacle in- 
 deed to the patriot and Christian to see liber- 
 ality and new ideas (falsely so called, — they 
 are as old as Eden) invading the sacred pre- 
 cincts of the pulpit On the whole, we 
 
 consider this volume as one of th« first shock- 
 ing results which we predicted would spring 
 out of the late French "Revolution " (I). 
 
 From the Bungtown Copper and Comprehensive 
 Tocsin (a try-weakly family journal). 
 
 Altogether an admirable work Full 
 
 of humor, boisterous, but delicate, — of wit 
 withering and scorching, yet combined with a 
 pathos cool as morning dew, — of satire pon- 
 derous as the mace of Richard, yet keen as the 
 
 scymitar of Saladin A work full of 
 
 " mountain-mirth," mischievous as Puck, and 
 
 lightsome as Ariel We know not whether 
 
 to admire most the genial, &esh, and discursive 
 concinnity of the author, or his playful fancy, 
 weird imagination, and compass of etyle, at 
 
 once both objective and subjective We 
 
 might indulge in some criticisms, but, were the 
 author other than he is, he would be a different 
 being. As it is, he has a wonderful pose, which 
 flits from flower to flower, and bears the reader 
 irresistibly along on its eagle pinions (like Gany- 
 mede) to the "highest heaven of invention." 
 
 .... We love a book so purely objective 
 
 Many of his pictures of natural scenery have an 
 extraordinaiy subjective clearness and fidelity. 
 .... In fine, we consider this as one of the 
 most extraordinary volumes of this or any age. 
 We know of no English author who could have 
 written it It is a work to which the proud 
 genius of our country, standing with one foot 
 on the Aroostook and the other on the Rio 
 Grande, and holding up the star-spangled ban- 
 ner amid the wreck of matter and the crush of 
 worlds, may point with bewildering scorn of the 
 punier efforts of enslaved Europe. .... We 
 hope soon to encounter our author among those 
 higher walks of literature in which he is evi- 
 dently capable of achieving enduring fame. 
 Already we should be inclined to assign him a 
 high position in the bright galaxy of our Amer« 
 lean hards. 
 
NOTICES OF AH INDEPENDENT PRESS. 
 
 169 
 
 From the Saltriver Pilot and Flag ofFreedcm. 
 
 A volume in bad grammar and worse taste. 
 .... While the pieces here collected were cou- 
 flned to their appropriate sphere in the comers 
 of obscure newspapers, we considered them 
 'Wholly beneath coiitempt, but, as the author 
 has chosen to come forward in this public 
 manner, he must expect the lash he so richly 
 
 merits Contemptible slanders. .... 
 
 Vilest Billingsgate. .... Has raked all the 
 
 gutters of our language The most pure, 
 
 apright. and consistent politicians not safe 
 m>m his malignant venom General Gush- 
 ing comes iu for a share of his vile calumnies. 
 .... The Rev&rend Homer Wilbur is a disgrace 
 to his cloth 
 
 From tlie WoTld-Rar7rioni(>'^oliaii-Attachm&}it 
 Speech is silver : silence is golden. No ut- 
 terance more Orphic than this. While, there- 
 fore, as highest author, we reverence him whose 
 works continue heroically unwritten, we have 
 also our hopeful word for those who with pen 
 (from wing of goose loud-cackling, or seraph 
 God-commissioned) record the thing that is re- 
 vealed. .... Under mask of quaintest irony, 
 we detect here the deep, storm-tost (nigh ship- 
 wracked) soul, thunder-scarred, semi-articu- 
 late, but ever climbing hopefully toward the 
 peaceful summits of an Infinite Sorrow. .... 
 Yes, thou poor, forlorn Hosea, with Hebrew 
 flre-flaming soul in thee, for thee also this life 
 of ours has not been without its aspects of 
 heavenliest pity and laughingest mirth. Con- 
 ceivable enough 1 Through coarse Thersites- 
 cloak, we have revelation of the heart, wild- 
 glowing, world-clasping, that is in him. Brave- 
 ly he grapples with the life-problem as it pre- 
 sents itself to him, uncombed, shaggy, careless 
 of the '* nicer proprieties," inexpert of " elegant 
 diction," yet with voice audible enough to 
 whoso hath ears, up there on the gravelly side- 
 hills, or down on the splashy, indiarubber-like 
 salt-marshes of native Jaalam. To this soul 
 also the Necessity of Creating somewhat has un- 
 veiled its awful Aronl If not (Edipuses and 
 Electras and Alcestises, then in God's name 
 Birdofredum Sawins 1 These also shall get born 
 Into the world, and filch (if so need) a Zingali 
 subsistence therein, these lank, omnivorous 
 Yankees of his. He shall paint the Seen, since 
 the Unseen will not sit to him. Yet in him 
 also are Nibelungen-lays, and Iliads, and Ulys- 
 ses-wanderings, and Divine Comedies, — if only 
 once he could come at them 1 Therein lies 
 much, nay all ; for what truly is this which we 
 name All, but that which we do not possess ? 
 .... Glimpses also are given us of an old 
 father Ezekiel, not without paternal pride, as 
 is the wont of such. A brown, parchment- 
 hided old man of the geoponic or bucolic spe- 
 cies, gray-eyed, we fancy, queued perhaps, with 
 much weather-cunning and plentiful Septem- 
 ber-gale memories, bidding fair iu good time 
 to become the Oldest Inhabitant. After such 
 hasty apparition, he vanishes and is seen no 
 more. .... Of "Rev. Homer Wilbur, A.M., 
 Pastor of the First Church in Jaalam," we have 
 small care to speak here. Spare touch in him 
 of his Uelesigenes namesake, save, haply, the 
 —blindness I A tolerably callginose, nephe- 
 
 legeretous elderljr gentleman, with Infinite fac- 
 ulty of sermon izmg, rauscularizud by long prac- 
 tice, and excellent digestive apparatus, and, for 
 the rest, well-meaning enough, and with small 
 private illuminations (somewhat tallowy, it is 
 to be feared ) of his own. To him, there, ' ' Pastor 
 of the First Church in Jaalam," our Hoaea pre- 
 sents himself as a quite inexplicable Sphinx- 
 riddle. A rich poveity of Latin and Greek, — 
 so far is clear enough, even to eyes peering my- 
 opic through hom-lensed editorial spectacles, 
 — but naught farther? purblind, well-mean- 
 ing, altogether fuscous Melesigenes-Wilbur, 
 there are things in him Incomnmnicable by 
 stroke of bb^ch I Did it ever enter that old be- 
 wildered head of thine that tliere was the Poa- 
 sibility of the Infinite in him? To thee, quite 
 wingless (and even featherless) biped, has not 
 so much even as a dream of wings ever come ? 
 "Talented young parishioner"? Among the 
 Arts whereof thou art Magister, does that of 
 seeing happen to be one? Unhappy Artium 
 Magister! Somehow a Nemean lion, fUlvous, 
 torrid-eyed, dry-nursed in broad-howling sand- 
 wildernesses of a sufficiently rare spirit-Libya 
 (it may be supposed) has got whelped among 
 the sheep. Already he stands wild-glaring, with 
 feet clutching the ground as with oak-roots, 
 gathering for a Eemus-spring over the walls of 
 thy little fold. In Heaven's name, go not near 
 him with that flybite crook of thine ! In good 
 time, thou painful preacher, thou wilt go to the 
 appointed place of departed Artillery-Election 
 Sermons, Right-Hands of Fellowship, and Re- 
 sults of Councils, gathered to thy spiritual 
 fathers with much Latin of the Epitaphial sort ; 
 thou, too, Shalt have thy reward ; but on him 
 the Eumenides have looked, .not Xantippes of 
 the pit, snake-tressed, finger-threatening, but 
 radiantly calm as on antique gems ; for him 
 paws impatient the winged courser of the gods, 
 champing unwelcome bit ; him the starry deeps, 
 the empyrean glooms, and far-flashing splen- 
 dors await 
 
 From the Onion Grove Fhmntx. 
 
 A talented young townsman of onrs, recently 
 returned fiwm a Continental tour, and who is 
 already favorably known to our readers by his 
 sprightly letters ft-om abroad which have gi-aced 
 our columns, called at our office yesterday. -We 
 learn ftom him, that, having enjoyed the dis- 
 tinguished privilege, while in Germany, of an 
 introduction to the celebrated Von Humbug, 
 he took the opportunity to present that emi- 
 nent man with a copy of the " Biglow Papers." 
 The next morning he received the following 
 note, which he has kindly furnished us for 
 publication. We prefer to print it verbatim, 
 knowing that our readers will readily forgive 
 the few errors into which the illustrious writer 
 has fallen, through ignorance of our language. 
 
 " High-Worthy Mister ! 
 " I <ihall also now especially happy starve, 
 because I have more or lees a work oue thosa 
 aboriginal Red-Men seen in which have I so 
 deaf an interest ever taken full-worthy on th^ 
 self shelf with our Gottsched to be upset. 
 
 " Pardon my in the English-speech un-praoi 
 ticel 
 
 "VOM HUUBUO." 
 
160 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPEKS. 
 
 He also sent with the above note a copy of his 
 famous work on " Cosmetics," to be presented 
 t« Mr. Biglow ; but this was talten ft-ora our 
 ftiend by the English custom-house ofiicera, 
 probably through a petty national spite. No 
 doubt, it has by this time found its way Into 
 the British Museum. We trust this outrage 
 will be exposed in all our American papers. 
 We shall do our best to bring it to the notice 
 of the State Department. Our numerous read- 
 era will share in the pleasure we experience at 
 seeing our young and vigorous national litera- 
 ture thus encouragingly patted on the head by 
 this venerable and world-renowned German. 
 We love to see these reciprocations of good- 
 feeling between the different branches of the 
 great Anglo-Saxon race. 
 
 [The followine genuine " notice" having 
 met my eye, I gladly insert a portion of it 
 here, the more especially as it contains 
 one of Mr. Biglow's poems not elsewhere 
 printed. — H.W.] 
 
 Jfr-OTft the Jaalam Ind^endent BUmderiuss. 
 
 .... But, while we lament to see onr young 
 townsman thus mingling in the heated contests 
 of party politics, we think we detect in him the 
 presence of talents which, if properly directed, 
 might give an innocent pleasure to many. As 
 a proof that he is competent to the production 
 of other kinds of poetry, we copy for our read- 
 ers a short fragment of a pastoral by him, the 
 manuscript of which v/slh loaned us by a friend. 
 The title of it is " The Courtin'." 
 
 Zekle crop' up, quite unbeknown, 
 An' peeked in thru the winder. 
 
 An' there sot Huldy all alone, 
 'ith no one nigh to hender. 
 
 Agin' the chimbly crooknecks hung, 
 
 An' in amongst 'em rusted 
 Ihe ole queen's-arm thet gran'ther Toung 
 
 Fetched back frura Concord busted. 
 
 The wannnt logs shot sparkles out 
 Towards the pootiest, bless her 1 
 
 An' leetle fires danced all about 
 The Ghiny on the dredser. 
 
 The very room, coz she wtiz in. 
 Looked warm fi'um floor to ceilin'f 
 
 An' she looked full ez rosy agin 
 £z th' apples she wuz peeUn'. 
 
 She heard a foot an' knowed it, tu* 
 
 Araspin' on the scraper, — 
 All ways to once her feelins flew 
 
 Like sparks in bumt-up paper. 
 
 He kin' o' I'itered on the mat. 
 
 Some doubtfie o' the seekle ; 
 His heart kep' goin' pitypat. 
 
 But hem went pity Zekle. 
 
 An' yet she gin her cheer a jerk 
 Ez though she wished him furder 
 
 An' on her apples kep' to work 
 Ez ef a wager spurred her. 
 
 " You want to see my Pa, I spose ? " 
 " Wal, no : I come designin' — " 
 
 " To see my Ma ? She 's spriuklin' clo'es 
 Agin to-morrow's i'nin'." 
 
 He stood a spell on one foot fnst 
 
 Then stood a spell on tother. 
 An' on which one he felt the wust 
 
 He could n't ha' told ye, nuther. 
 
 Sez he, " I 'd better call agin " : 
 Sez she, " Think likely. Mister" ; 
 
 The last word pricked him like a pini 
 An' — wal, he up and kist her. 
 
 When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips, 
 
 Huldy sot pale ez ashes. 
 All kind o' smily round the lips 
 
 An' teary round the lashes. 
 
 Her blood riz quick, though, like the tide 
 
 Down to the Bay o' Fundy, 
 An' all I know is they wnz cried 
 
 lu meetiu', come nes Sunday. 
 
 Satis multis sese emptores futures libri 
 professis, Georgius Nichols, Cantabrigien- 
 fiis, opus emittet de parte gravi sed adhuc 
 neglecta historic naturalis, cum titulo 
 sequente, videlicet : 
 
 Conatus ad Delineatifmem nafuralem 
 nonnihil per/ectiorem ScoralxBi BnmbUa- 
 toris, imlgo dicti Humbug, ab Homero 
 WiLBUK, Artium Magistro Societatis 
 historico-naturalis Jaalamensis Prseside 
 (Seoretario, Sooioque (eheu !) singiilo), 
 mnltanimque aliarura Societatum erudi- 
 tarum (sive ineruditarum) tarn domesti- 
 carum quam transmarinarum Socio — tor- 
 ■itan futuro. 
 
 PBOEMIUM. 
 Lectori Benevolo S. 
 
 Toga scholastica nondum deposita, qunm 
 systemata varia entomologica, a viris ejus 
 seientise cultoribus st^idiosissimis summa 
 diligentia eedificata, penitus indagassem, 
 non fuit quin luotuose omnibus in iis, 
 quamvis aliter laude dignissimis, hiatum 
 magni moment! peroiperem. Tunc, nescia 
 quo motu superiore impulsus, aut qua 
 captus dulcedine operia, ad eum implen- 
 duni (Curtius alter) me solemniter devovi. 
 Nee ab isto lahore, Saifiovinis imposito, ab- 
 stinui autequam traotatulum sufBoientei 
 inconcinnum lingua vemacula perfeoeram. 
 IndOj juveuiliter ttunefactus, et barathrt 
 
NOTICES OF AN INDEPENDENT PEESS. 
 
 161 
 
 beptise tS>v pipAioiroi^Sv (necnon "Putlioi 
 Legentis") nusquam explorato, me com- 
 posuisse quod quasi placentas prsefervidas 
 (ut sio dioam) homines ingurgitarent cre- 
 nidi. Sed, quum liuic et alio bibliopolae 
 MSS. mea submislssem et nihil solidins 
 responsione valde negativa in Musajum 
 meum retulissem, horror ingens atque 
 miserioordia, ob orassitudinem Lamber- 
 tianam in cerebris homunoulorum istius 
 muneris coelesti quadam ira infixam, me 
 invasere. Extemplo mei solius impensis 
 librum edere decrevi, nihil omnino du- 
 bitans quin " Mimdus Soientlficus " (ut 
 aiunt) crumenam meam ampliter repleret. 
 NuUam, attamen, ex agro illo meo parvulo 
 segetem demessni, prseter gaudium vacuum 
 bene de Republica merendi. Iste panis 
 meus pretiosus super aquas literarias faecu- 
 lentas prsefidenter j actus, quasi Harpyi- 
 arum quarundam (scilicet bibliopolarum 
 istoruni facinorosorum supradictorum) tac- 
 tu rancidus, intra perpaucos dies mihi 
 domum rediit. Et, quum ipse tali victu 
 ali non tolerarem, primum in mentem 
 venit piston (typographo nempe) nihilo- 
 minus solvendum esse. Animum ,non id- 
 circo demisi, imo seque ac pueri naviculas 
 fiuas penes se lino retinent (eo ut e recto 
 oursu delapsas ad lipam retrahant), sic 
 ego Aigfi meam chartaceam fluctibus la- 
 borantem a qusesitu velleris aurei, ipse 
 potius tonsus pelleque exutus, mente so- 
 lida revooavl. Metaphoram ut mutem, 
 boomarangam meam a scopo aberrantem 
 retraxi, dum majore vi, occasione minis- 
 trante, adversus Fortunam intorquerem. 
 Ast mihl, talia volventi, et, sicut Satumus 
 ille iratSojSdpos, liberos intellectfis mei de- 
 pasoere fidenti, casus miserandus, nee an- 
 tea inauditus, supervenit. Nam, ut ferunt 
 Scythas pietatis causa et parsimoniae, pa- 
 rentes suos mortuos devorasse, siofiliushio 
 meus primogenitus, Scythis ipsis minus 
 mansuetus, patrem vivum totum et cal- 
 citrantem exsorbere enixus est. Nee ta- 
 aien hac de causa eobolem meam esurien- 
 tem exheredavi. Sed famem istam pro 
 Talido testimonio virilitatis roborisque 
 potius habui, cibumque ad eam satiandam, 
 salva patema mea came, petii. Et quia 
 bilem illam scaturientem ad ses etiam con- 
 coquendum idoneam esse estiniabam, unde 
 «es alienum, ut minoris pretii, haberem, 
 circumspexi. Kebus ita se habentibus, 
 ab avunculo meo Johanne Doolittle, Ar- 
 migero, impetravi ut pecunias necessarias 
 Buppeditaret, ne opus esset mihi universi- 
 tatem relinqueudi antequam ad gradum 
 primum in artibus pervenissem. Tunc ego, 
 Balvum facere patronum meum munificum 
 maxime cupiens, omnes libros primse edi- 
 ^onis operis mei non venditos una cum 
 
 privllegio in omne sevura ejnsdem impri- 
 mendi et edendi avunculo meo dicto pig- 
 neravi. Ex illo die, atro lapide notando, 
 curse vociferantes familise singulis annis 
 crescentis eo usque insultabant ut nun- 
 quam tam carum pignus e vlnculis istis 
 aheneis solvere possem. 
 
 Avunculo vero nuper mortuo, quum 
 inter alios consanguineos testament! ejus 
 lectionem audiendi causa advenissem, erec- 
 tis auribus verba talia sequentia accepi : 
 — " Quoniam persuasum liabeo meum di- 
 leotum nepotem Homerum, longa et inti- 
 ma rerum angustarum domi experientia, 
 aptissimum esse qui divitias tueatur, bene- 
 ficenterque ao prudenter iis divinis credi- 
 tis utatur, — ergo, motus hisce cogitatio- 
 nibus, exque amore meo in ilium magno, 
 do, legoque nepoti caro meo supranomina- 
 to omnes singularesque istas possessiones 
 neo ponderabiles nee computabiles meas 
 quffi sequuntur, scilicet : quingentos libros 
 quos miliipigneravit dictus Homerus, anno 
 lucis 1792, cum privilegio edendi et repe- 
 tendl opus istudT ' scientificum ' (quod di- 
 cunt) suum, si sic elegerit. Tamen D. 0. 
 M. precor oculos Homeri nepotis mei ita 
 aperiat eumque moveat, ut libros istos in 
 bibliotheca unius e plurimis castellis suia 
 Hispaniensibus iuto abscondat." 
 
 His verbis (vix credibilibus) auditis, 
 cor meum in pectore exsultavit. Delude, 
 quoniam traotatus Anglice scriptus spem 
 auctoris fefellerat, quippe quum etudium 
 Historiae Naturalis in Republica nostra 
 inter factionis strepitum languescat. La- 
 tine versum edere statui, et eo potius quia 
 nescio quomodo disciplina academica et 
 duo diplomata proficiant, nisi quod peritod 
 linguarum omnino mortuarum (et dam * 
 nandarum, ut dicebat iste iraraCpYW Guli- 
 elmus Cobbett) nos faciant. 
 
 Et mihi adhuc superstes est tota ilia 
 editio prima, quam quasi crepitaculum 
 per quod denies caninos deutibam retineo. 
 
 OPERIS SPECIMEN. 
 
 (Ad exemplum Johatvnis PhysiopkUi 8pedm{W.8 
 Mtmachologiw.) 
 
 12. S. B. Militarls, WiLEnR. Camifex, Ja- 
 BLONSK. . Profanus, Desfont. 
 
 Oilale hancce epeciem Cydoptm, Fabricius vo- 
 cat, ut qui singulo oculo ad quod Eul interest 
 distinguitur. Melius vero Isaacus Outis nul- 
 lum inter S. milit. S. que Belzebul (Fabric. 
 152) diBcrimen esse defendit.] 
 
 Habitat civitat. Americ. austral. 
 
 Aureis lineis splendidus ; plerumque tamen 
 sordidus, utpote lanienas valde frequentans, 
 foetore sanguinis allectus. Amat qnoque insu- 
 per septa apricari, neque inde, nisi maxima 
 conatione detruditur. Candidatus ergo pnpu- 
 laritor vocatus. Caput cristam quasi penna- 
 
162 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 rum Gstendit. Pro cibo vaccam publicain cal- 
 lide mulget ; abdoineu enorme ; faculty suctus 
 baud facile estimanda. Otiosus, fatuus ; ferox 
 nihilominus, semperque dimicare paratua. 
 Tortuose repit. 
 
 Capite ssepe maxima cum cura disseoto, ne 
 illud rudiraeiitum etiam cerebri commmie om- 
 xubus prope insectifi detegere poteram. 
 
 Unani de hoc S. inilit. rem singularem notavi; 
 nam S. Guineena. (Fabric. 143) servos facit, et 
 iduirco a multis smnma la revere&tla habitus, 
 quasi scintillas ratiouis ptene imnrnme demon- 
 Straus. 
 
 24. S. B. Criticua, Wilbur. Zoilua, FAKiia 
 Pygmwus, Carlsen. 
 
 [Stultissime Johannes Stryx cum S. punctato 
 (Fabric, 64-109) confundit Bpechiiiua quam- 
 plurima scrutationi microscopicae subjeci, uu;i- 
 quam tameu unum ulla indicia puncti uujuavis 
 prorsus ostendentem inveuLj 
 
 PKEcipue fonnidolosus, msectatusque, in 
 proxima rima anonyma sese abscondit, we, wq, 
 oreberrime stridens. lueptus, seguipRS. 
 
 Habitat ubique gentium ; in aicco ; iiiduM 
 suum terebratioue indefesaa ajdilicaus. Cibua 
 Libros depaacit ; siccus prfticipua 
 
MELIBCE US-aiPPONAX. 
 THE 
 
 BigiotD ipapcra, 
 
 EDITED, 
 
 I7ITH AN INTRODUCTION, NOTES, GLOSSARY, AND 
 COPIOUS INDEX, 
 
 BY 
 
 HOMER WILBUR, A. M., 
 
 CASTOR OF THE FIRST CHURCH IN JAALAM, AND (PROSPECTIVE) MEMBER OP MANY 
 LITERARY, LEARNED, AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES, 
 
 \Jbr whick see page i6S-) 
 
 The ploughman's whistle, or the trivial flutet 
 Finds more respect than great Apollo's lute. 
 
 Quarts' s Emblems^ B. ii. b. 8. 
 
 Af aigaritas, munde porcine, calcSsti : en, siliquas accipe. 
 
 ^ac. Car. Fil. ad Pub, Leg. \ u 
 
NOTE TO TITLE-PAGE. 
 
 It will not have escaped: the attentive 
 eye, that I have, on the title-page, omitted 
 those honorary appendages to the editorial 
 name which not only add greatly to the 
 value of every hook, but whet and exacer- 
 bate the appetite of the reader. For not 
 only does he surmise that an honorary 
 membership of literary and scientific so- 
 cieties implies a certain amount of neces- 
 sary distinction on the part of the recipient 
 of such decorations, but he is willing to 
 trust himself more entirely to an author 
 who writes under the fearful responsibility 
 of involving the reputation of such bodies 
 as the <S. Archceol. Dahom. or the Acad. 
 Lit. et Seient. Kamtadud. I cannot but 
 think that the early editions of Shake- 
 speare and Milton would have met with 
 more rapid and general acceptsince, but for 
 the barrenness of their respective title- 
 pages ; and I believe that, even now, a 
 publisher of the works of either of those 
 justly distinguished men would find his 
 account in procuring their admission to 
 the membership of learned bodies on the 
 Continent, — a proceeding no whit more 
 incongruous than the reversal of the judg- 
 ment against Socrates, when he was al- 
 ready more than twenty centuries beyond 
 the reach of antidotes, and when his mem- 
 ory had acquired a deserved respectability. 
 I conceive that it was a feeling of the im- 
 portance of this precaution which induced 
 Mr. Locke to style himself "Gent." on 
 the title-page of his Essay, as who should 
 say to his readers that they could receive 
 his metaphysics on the honor of a gentle- 
 man. 
 
 Nevertheless, finding that, without de- 
 scending to a smaller size of type than 
 would have been compatible with the dig- 
 nity of the several societies to be named, 
 I could not compress my intended list 
 within the limits of a single page, and 
 thinking, moreover, that the act would 
 
 rirry with it an air of decorous modesty, 
 have chosen to take the reader aside, as 
 *S were, into my private closet, and there 
 
 not only e^^ibit tc Km the diplomas 
 which i already possess, but also to fur- 
 nish him with a prophetic vision of those 
 which I may, vrithont undue presumption, 
 hope for, as not beyond the reach of hu- 
 man ambition and attainment. And I am 
 the rather induced to- this from the fact 
 that my name has been unaecoilntably 
 dropped from the last triennial catalogue 
 of our beloved Ahna Mater. Whether 
 this is to be attributed to the difSculty of 
 Latinizing any of those honorary adjuncts 
 (with a complete list of which I took care 
 to furnish the proper persons nearly a 
 year beforehand), or whether it had its 
 origin in any more culpable motives, I 
 forbear to consider in this place, the mat- 
 ter being in course of painful investiga- 
 tion. But, however this may be, I felt 
 the omission the more keenly, as I had, in 
 expectation of the new catalogue, enriched 
 the library of the Jaalam At&nsum with 
 the old one then in my possession, by 
 which means it has come about that my 
 children will be deprived of a never- weary- 
 ing winter-evening's amusement in looking 
 out the name of thelf parent in that dis- 
 tinguished roll. Those harmless inno- 
 cents had at least committed no but 
 
 I forbear, having intrusted my reflections 
 and animadversions on this painful topic 
 to the safe-keeping of my private diary, 
 intended for posthumous publication. I 
 state this fact here, in order that certain 
 nameless individuals, who are, perhaps, 
 overmuch congratulating themselves upon 
 my sflence, may know that a rod is in 
 pickle which the vigorous hand of a justly 
 incensed posterity will apply to their 
 memories. 
 
 The careful reader will note that, in 
 the list which I have prepared, I have 
 included the names of several Cisatlantic 
 societies to which a place is not commonly 
 assigned in processions of this nature. I 
 have ventured to do this, not only to en- 
 courage native ambition and genius, but 
 also because 1 have never been able to 
 
KOTE TO TITLE-PAGE. 
 
 165 
 
 perceive in what way distance (unless we 
 suppose them at the end of a lever) could 
 increase the weight of learned bodies. As 
 far as I have been able to extend my re- 
 searches among such stuffed specimens as 
 occasionally reach America, I have dis- 
 covered no generic difference between the 
 antipodal Fogrum Japonicum and the F. 
 Americanum sufficiently common in our 
 own immediate neighborhood. Yet, with 
 a becoming deference to the popular be- 
 lief that distinctions of this sort are en- 
 hanced in value by every additional mile 
 they travel, I have intermixed the names 
 of some tolerably distant literary and oth- 
 er associations with the rest. 
 
 ,1 add here, also, an advertisement, 
 which, that it may be the more readily 
 understood by those persons especially 
 interested therein, I have written in that 
 curtailed and otherwise maltreated canine 
 Iiatin, to the writing and reading of which 
 they are accustomeoL 
 
 OUNIB. FEB TOT. OrB. TEBBAB. 
 
 Cataloq. Acasem. Edd. 
 
 ' Minim, gent, dlplom. ab inclytiss. acad. 
 vest, orans, vir. honorand. operosiss., at 
 sol. ut sciat. quant, glor. nom. meum 
 (dipl. fort, concess.) catal. vest. temp. 
 futuT. affer., ill. subjec, addit. omnio. 
 titul. honorar. qu. adh. non tant. opt. 
 quam probabjput. 
 
 %* Litt. Vneial. dittinx. ut Prat. 8. 
 Eiit.ifat.Jaal. 
 
 nOMERUS WILBUR, Mr., Bpisc. 
 Jaalam, S. T. D. 1860, et Yal. 1849, et 
 Nco-CiBS. et Brun. et Gulielm. 18S2, et 
 Qui. et Mar. et Bowd. et Qeorgiop. et 
 Viridimont. et Columb. Nov. Ebor. 1853, 
 et Amherst, et Watervill. et S. Jarlath. 
 Hib. et S. Mar. et S. Joseph, et S. And. 
 Scot. 1854, et Nashvill. et Dart, et Dickina. 
 et Concord, et Wash, et Columbian, et 
 Chariest, et Jeff, et Dubl. et Oxon. et 
 Cantab, et Cset. 1855, P. U. N. C. H. et 
 J. U. D. Gott. et Osnab. et Heidelb. 1860. 
 et Acad. Bore us. Berolin. Soc, et SS. 
 BB. Lugd. Bat. et Patav. et Lond. et 
 Edinb. et Ins. Feejee. et Null. Terr, et 
 Pekin. Soc. Hon. et S. H. S. et S. P. A. 
 et A. A. S. et S. Humb. Univ. et S. Omn. 
 Ber. Quarund. q. Aliar. Promov. Passa- 
 maquod. et H. P. C. et L 0. H. et A. A. 
 «. et II. K. P. et «. B. K. et Pencin. et 
 Erosoph. et Philadelph. et Frat. in Unit. 
 et 2. T. et S. Archaeolog. Athen. et Acad. 
 Sclent, et Lit. Panorm. et SS. B. H. 
 Matrit. et Beeloochist.et Caffrar. etCaribb. 
 et M. S. Beg. Paris, et S. Am. Antiserv. 
 Soc. Hon. et P. D. Gott. et LL. D. 1852, 
 et D. C. L. et Mus. Doc. Oxon. 1860, et 
 M. M. S. S. et M. D. 1854, et Med. Fac. 
 Univ. Harv. Soc. et S. pro Clonvers. Polly- 
 wc^. Soc. Hon. et Higgl. Figgl. et LL. B, 
 18^, et S. pro Christianiz. Moschet. Soc. 
 et SS. Ante-I)iluv. ubiq. Gent. Soc. Hon. 
 et Civit. Cleric. Jaalam. et S. pro Qiffua. 
 GeneraL Tenebr. Secret Coir. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 When, more than three years ago, my 
 talented yomig parishioner, Mr. Biglow, 
 came to me and submitted to my animad- 
 versions the first of his poems which he 
 intended to commit to the more hazardous 
 trial of a city newspaper, it never so much 
 as entered my imagination to conceive that 
 his productions would ever be gathered 
 Into a fair volume, and ushered into the 
 tugust presence of the reading public by 
 <ayself. So little are we short-sighted 
 mortals able to predict the event ! I con- 
 fess that there is to me a quite new satis- 
 faction in being associated (though only 
 as sleeping partner) in a book which can 
 stand by itself in an independent unity on 
 the shelves of libraries. For there is always 
 this drawback from the pleasure of print- 
 ing a sermon, that, whereas the queasy 
 stomach of this generation will not bear 
 a discourse long enough to make a sepa- 
 rate volume, those religious and godly- 
 minded children (those Samuels, if I may 
 call them so) of the brain must at first lie 
 buried in an undistinguished heap, and 
 then get such resurrection as is vouchsafed 
 to them, mummy -wrapped with a score 
 of others in a cheap binding, with no other 
 mark of distinction than the word " Mis- 
 cellaneous " printed upon the back. Far 
 be it from me to claim any credit for the 
 quite unexpected popularity which I am 
 pleased to find these bucolic strains have 
 attained unto. If I know myself, I am 
 measurably free from the itch of vanity ; 
 yet I may be allowed to say that I was 
 not backward to recognize in them a cer- 
 tain wild, puckery, acidulous (sometimes 
 even verging toward that point which, in 
 our rustic phrase, is termed shut-eye) 
 flavor, not wholly unpleasing, nor un- 
 wholesome, to palates cloyed with the 
 sugariness of tamed and cultivated fruit. 
 It may be, also, that some touches of my 
 own, here and there, may have led to their 
 wider acceptance, albeit solely from my 
 larger experience of literature and author- 
 ship.* 
 
 * The reader curious in such matters may 
 refer (if he can find them) to "A sermon 
 preached on the Anniversary of the Dark 
 Day," " An Artillery Election Sermon," " A 
 
 I was, at first, inclined to discourage Mr. 
 Biglow's attempts, as knowing that the 
 desire to poetize is one of the diseases 
 naturally incident to adolescence, which, 
 if the fitting remedies be not at once and 
 with a bold hand applied, may become 
 chronic, and render one, who might else 
 have become in due time an ornament of 
 the social circle, a painful object even to 
 nearest friends and relatives. But think- 
 ing, on a further experience, that there 
 was a germ of promise in him which re- 
 quired only culture and the pulling up of 
 weeds from around it, I thought it best to 
 set before him the acknowledged examples 
 of English composition in verse, and leave 
 the rest to natural emulation . With this 
 view, I accordingly lent him some volumes 
 of Pope and Goldsmith, to the assiduous 
 study of which he promised to devote his 
 evenings. Not long afterward, he brought 
 me some verses written upon that model, 
 a specimen of which I subjoin, having 
 changed some phrases of less elegancy, 
 and a few rhymes objectionable to the cul- 
 tivated ear. The poem consisted of child- 
 ish reminiscences, and tl;e sketches which 
 follow will not seem destitute of truth to 
 those whose fortunate education began in 
 a country village. And, first, let us hang 
 up his charcoal portrait of the school- 
 dame. 
 
 " Propped on the marsh, a dwelling now, I see 
 The humble school-house of my A, B, C, 
 Where well-drilled urchins, each behind his 
 
 tire, 
 "Waited in ranks the wished command to fire. 
 Then all together, when the signal came, 
 Discharged their a-h ahs against the darae. , 
 Daughter of Danaus, who coidd daily pour 
 In treacherous pipkins her Pierian store, 
 She, mid the volleyed learning firm and calm. 
 Patted the furloughed ferule on her palm. 
 And, to our wonder, could divine at once 
 Who flashed the pan, and who was downright 
 dunce. 
 " There young Devotion learned to climb with 
 ease 
 The gnarly limbs of Scripture family-trees. 
 And he was most commended and admired 
 
 Discourse on the Late Eclipse," "Dorcas, a 
 Funeral Sermon on the Death of Madam Sub- 
 mit Tidd, Relict of the late Experience Tiddt 
 Ksci.," &c,, &c 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 107 
 
 Who soonest to tlie topmost twig perspired ; 
 Each naine was calldd as many various ways 
 As pleased the reader's ear on different days, 
 Ho that the weatlier. or the ferule's stiugs, 
 Culds in the head, or Ufty other things, 
 Transformed the helpless Hebrew thrice a 
 
 week 
 To guttural Pequot or resounding Greek, 
 The vibi-ant aceent skipping here and there. 
 Just 03 it pleased Invention or despair : 
 No controversial Hebraist was the Dume ; 
 AVith or without tlie points pleased her the 
 
 same ; 
 If any tyro found a name too tough, 
 And looked at her, pride furnislied skill 
 
 enough ; 
 She nerved her larynx for the desperate thing, 
 And cleared the five-harred syllables at a 
 
 spnng. 
 
 * Ah, dear old times I there once it was my 
 
 hap, 
 Perched on a stool, to wear the long-eaied 
 
 cap : 
 From books degraded, there I sat at ease, 
 A drone, the envy of compulsory bees ; 
 Bewards of merit, too, full many a time, 
 Each with its woodcut and its moral rhyme, 
 And pierced half-dollars bung on ribbons gay 
 About my neck — to be restored next day, 
 I carried home, rewards as shining then 
 As those which deck the lifelong pains of men. 
 More solid than the redemanded praise 
 With which the world beribbons later days. 
 
 * Ah, dear old times ! how brightly ye return ! 
 How, rubbed afresh, your phosphor traces 
 
 burn I 
 The ramble schoolward through dewspark- 
 
 ling meads 
 The willow-wands turned Cinderella steeds 
 The impromptu pinbent hook, the deep re- 
 morse 
 O'er the chance-captured minnow's inchlong 
 
 corse ; 
 The pockets, plethoric with marbles round. 
 That still a space for ball and pegtop found, 
 Nor satiate yet, could manage to confine^ 
 Horsechestnuts, •flagroot, and the kite's 
 
 wound twine, 
 Nay, like the prophet's carpet could take in, 
 Enlarging still, the popgun's magazine ; 
 The dinner carried in the small tin pail, 
 Shared with some dog, whose most beseech- 
 ing tail 
 And dripping tongue and eager ears "belied 
 The assumed indifference of canine pride ; 
 The caper homeward, shori;ened if the cai-t 
 Of Neighbor Pomeroy, trundling from the 
 
 mart, 
 O'ertook me, —then, translated to the seat 
 I praised the steed, how stanch he was and 
 
 fleet. 
 While the bluff farmer, with superior gnn, 
 EjEplained where horses should be thick, 
 
 where thin. 
 And warned me Ooke he always had in store) 
 To shun a beast that four white stockings 
 
 wore. 
 What a fine natural courtesy was his ! 
 His nod was plea'^nre, and his full hnw bhss : 
 How did his well-thumbed hat, with ardor 
 
 rapt. 
 Its curve decorous to each rank adapt I 
 
 How did it graduate with a courtly case 
 The whole long scale of social dift'ercuces. 
 Yet so gave each his measure running o'er. 
 None thought his own was less, his neighbor's 
 
 more; 
 The squire was flattered, and the pauper knew 
 Old times acknowledged 'neath the thread- 
 
 bare blue I 
 Dropped at the corner of the embowered lane, 
 Whistling I wade the knee-deep leaves again. 
 While eager Argus, who has missed all day 
 The sharer of his condescending play. 
 Conies leaping onward with a bark elate 
 And boisterous tail to greet me at the gate ; 
 That I was true in absence to our love 
 Let the thick dog's-ears in ray primer prove. •" 
 
 I add only one further extract, which 
 will possess a melancholy interest to all 
 such as have endeavored to glean the ma- 
 terials of revolutionary history from the 
 lips of aged persons, who took a part in 
 the actual making of it, and, finding the 
 manufacture profitable, continued the sup- 
 ply in an adequate proportion to the de- 
 mand, 
 
 *' Old Joe is gone, who saw hot Percy goad 
 His slow artillery up the Concord road, 
 A tale which grew in wonder, year by year. 
 As, every time he told it, Joe drew near 
 To the main fight, till, faded and grown gray. 
 The original scene to bolder tmts gave way ; 
 Then Joe had heard the foe's scared double- 
 quick 
 Beat on stove drum with one uncaptured 
 
 stick. 
 And, ere death came the lengthening tale to 
 
 lop, 
 Himself had fired, and seen a red-coat drop ; 
 Had Joe lived long enough, that scrambling 
 
 flgbt 
 Had squared more nearly with his sense of 
 
 right, 
 And vanquished Percy, to complete the tale. 
 Had hammered stoneforlife in Concord jaiL" 
 
 I do not know that the foregoing ex- 
 tracts ought not to be called my own 
 rather than Mr. Biglow's, as, indeed, he 
 maintained stoutly that my file had left 
 nothing of his in them. I should not, 
 perhaps, have felt entitled to take so great 
 liberties with them, had I not more than 
 suspected an hereditary vein of poetry in 
 myself, a very near ancestor having writ- 
 ten a Latin poem in the Harvard Gratula- 
 Ho on the accession of George the Third. 
 Suffice it to say, that, whether not satis- 
 fied with such limited approbation as I 
 could conscientiously bestow, or from a 
 sense of natural inaptitude, certain it is 
 that my young friend could never be in- 
 duced to any further essays in this kind. 
 He affirmed that it was to him like writ- 
 ing in a foreign tongue, — that Mr. Pope's 
 versification was like the regular ticking 
 of one of Willard's clocks, in which ono 
 could fancy, after long listening, a certain 
 
168 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 kind of rhythm or tune, but whicn yet 
 was only a poverty-stricken tick, tick, af- 
 ter all, — and that he had never seen a 
 sweet-water on a trellis growing so fairly, 
 or in forms so pleasing to his eye, as a fox- 
 grape over a scrub-oak in a swamp. He 
 added I know not what, to the effect that 
 the sweet-water would only be the more 
 disfigured by having its leaves starched 
 and ironed out, and that Pegasus (so he 
 called him) hardly looked right with his 
 mane and tail in curl-papers. These and 
 other such opinions I did not long strive 
 to eradicate, attributing them rather to a 
 defective education and senses untuned by 
 too long familiarity with purely natural ob- 
 jects, than to a perverted moral sense. I 
 was the more inclined to this leniency since 
 sufficient evidence was not to seek, that 
 his verses, as wanting as they certainly 
 were in classic polish and point, had some- 
 how taken hold of the public ear In a sur- 
 prising manner. So, only setting him right 
 as to the quantity of the proper name Pega- 
 sus, I left nim to follow the bent of his nat- 
 ural genius. 
 
 Yet could I not surrender him wholly 
 to the tutelage of the pagan (which, lit- 
 erally interpreted, signifies village) muse 
 without yet a further effort for his conver- 
 sion, and to this end I resolved that what- 
 ever of poetic fire yet burned in myself, 
 aided by the assiduous bellows of correct 
 models, should be put in requisition. Ac- 
 cordingly, when my ingenious young par- 
 ishioner brought to my study a copy of 
 verses which he had written touching the 
 acquisition of territory resulting from the 
 Mexican war, and the folly of leaving the 
 question of slavery or freedom to the ad- 
 judication of chance, I did myself indite 
 a short fable or apologue after the man- 
 ner of Gay and Prior, to the end that he 
 might see how easily even such subjects 
 as he treated of were capable of a more 
 refined style and more elegant expression. 
 Mr. Biglow's production was as follows : — 
 
 THE TWO GUNNERS. 
 
 A FABLE. 
 
 Two fellers, Isrel named and Joe, 
 One Sundy mornin' 'greed to go 
 Agiinnin' soon'z the bells wuz done 
 And meetin' finally begun, 
 Bo'st no one would n't be about 
 Ther Sabbath-breakin' to spy out 
 
 Joe did n't want to go a mite ; 
 
 He felt ez though 't wamt skeereely right, 
 
 But, when his doubts he went te speak on, 
 
 Isrel be up and called him Deacon, 
 
 An" kep' apokin' fun like sin 
 
 An' then arubbin' on it in, 
 
 Tin Joe, less skeered o' doin' wrong 
 
 Than bein' laughed at, went along. 
 
 Past noontime they went trampin' ronnd 
 
 An' nary thing to pop a^ found. 
 
 Till, fairly tired o' their spree, 
 
 Tliey leaned their guns agin a tree. 
 
 An' jest ez they wuz settin' down 
 
 To take their noonin', Joe looked roun' 
 
 And see (acrost lots in a pond 
 
 That wam't mor 'n twenty rod beyond), 
 
 A goose that on the water sot 
 
 Ez ef awaitin' to be shot. 
 
 Isrel he ups and grabs his gun ; 
 
 Sea he, " By ginger, here 's some fim ! " 
 
 "Don't fire," sez Joe, " it aint no use, 
 
 Thet's Deacon Peleg's tame wil'-goose": 
 
 8eys Isrel, " I don't care a cent. 
 
 I 've sighted an' I '11 let her went" ; 
 
 Batig ! went queen's-arm, ole gander flopped 
 
 His wings a spell, an' quorked, an' dropped. 
 
 Sez Joe, " I would n't ha' been hired 
 At that poor critter to ha' fired. 
 But sence it 's clean gin up the ghost. 
 We 'U hev the tallest kind o' roast ; 
 X guess our waistbands '11 be tight 
 'Fore it comes ten o'clock temight." 
 
 " I won't a^ee to no such bender," 
 Sez Isrel ; "keep it tell it 's tender ; 
 'T aint wuth a snap afore it's ripe." 
 Sez Joe, " I 'd jest ez lives eat tripe ; 
 Yon air a buster ter suppose 
 I 'd eat what makes me hoi' my nose 1 " 
 
 So they disputed to an' fro 
 Till cunnin' Isrel sez to Joe, 
 " Don't le's stay here an' play the fool, 
 Le 's wait till both on us git cool. 
 Jest for a day or two le's hide it 
 An' then toss up an' so decide it" 
 " Agreed 1 " sez Joe, an' so they did, 
 An' the ole goose wuz safely hid. 
 
 Now 't wuz the hottest kind o' weather, 
 An' when at last they come together. 
 It did n't signify which won. 
 Per all the mischief hed been done : 
 The goose wuz there, but, fer his sonl, 
 Joe would n't ha' tetched it with a pole ; 
 But Isrel kind o' liked the smell on 't 
 An' made hU dinner very well on 't 
 
 My own humble attempt was in manner 
 and form following, and I print it here, I 
 sincerely trust, out of no vainglory, but 
 solely with the hope of doing good. 
 
 LEAVING THE MATTER OPEN. 
 
 A TALE. 
 BT HOHEB WILBUB, A. M. 
 
 Two brothers once, an ill-matched pair. 
 Together dwelt (no matter where). 
 To whom an Uncle Sam, or some one. 
 Had left a house and farm in common. 
 The two in principles and habits 
 Were different as rats from rabbits ; 
 Stout Parmer North, with frugal care, 
 Laid up provision for his heir, 
 Not scorning with hard sun-browned hands 
 To scrape acquaintance with his lands; 
 
INTEODUCTION. 
 
 169 
 
 Whatever thing he had to do 
 
 He did, and utade it pay hiiii. too ; 
 
 He sold his waste stone by the pound, 
 His drains made water-wheels spin round. 
 His ice in auuimer-time he sold, 
 His wood brought profit when 't was cold. 
 He dug and delved from morn till night. 
 Strove to make profit square with right. 
 Lived on his means, cut no great dash. 
 And paid his debts in honest cash. 
 
 On tother hand, his brother )South 
 
 Lived very much from hand to mouth. 
 
 Played gentleman, nursed dainty hands. 
 
 Borrowed North's money on his lands. 
 
 And culled his morals and his graces 
 
 Prom cock-pits, bar-rooms, fights, and races ; 
 
 His sole work in the farming line 
 
 Was keeping droves of long-legged swine. 
 
 Which brought great bothers and expenses 
 
 To North in looking after fences, 
 
 And, when they happened to break through. 
 
 Cost him both time and temper too. 
 
 For South insisted it was plain 
 
 He ought to drive them home again. 
 
 And North consented to the work 
 
 Because he loved to buy cheap pork. 
 
 Meanwhile, South's swine increasing f^t. 
 His farm became too small at last ; 
 So, having thought the matter over. 
 And feeling bound to live in clover 
 And never pay the clover's worth. 
 He said one day to Brother North : — 
 
 "Our families are both increasing, 
 And, though we labor without ceasing. 
 Our produce soon will be too scant 
 To keep our children out of want ; 
 They who wish fortune to be lasting 
 Must be both prudent and forecasting; 
 We soon shall need more land ; a lot 
 I know, that cheaply can be bo*t ; 
 You lend the cash, I '11 buy the acres. 
 And we '11 be equally pailakers. " 
 
 Poor North, whose Anglo-Saxon blood 
 Gave him a hankering after mud, 
 VTavered a moment, then consented. 
 And, when the c^h was paid, repented ; 
 To make the new land worth a pin. 
 Thought he, it musfebe all fenced in. 
 For, if South's swine once get the run on 't 
 No kind of farming can be done on *t ; 
 If that don't suit the other side, 
 T is best we instantly divide. 
 
 But somehow South could ne'er incline 
 This way or that to run the line, 
 And always found some new pretence 
 'Gainst setting the division fence ; 
 At last he said : — 
 
 " For peace's sake. 
 Liberal concessions I will make ; 
 Though I believe, upon my soul, 
 I "ve a just title to the whole, 
 1 11 make an offer which I call 
 Gen'rous, — we 'II have no fence at all ; 
 Then both of us, whene'er we choose. 
 Can take what part we want to use ; 
 If you should chance to need it first, 
 Fick you tbe beat, 1 '11 take the worst" 
 
 " Agreed 1 " cried North ; thought he. This fall 
 With wheat and rye I '11 sow it all ; 
 In that way I shall get the start. 
 And South may whistle for his part 
 Ho thought, 80 done, the field was sown. 
 And, winter having come and gone. 
 Sly North walked blithely forth to spy. 
 The progress of his wheat and rye ; 
 Heavens, what a sight 1 his brother's swine 
 Had asked themselves all out to dine ; 
 Such grunting, munching, rooting, shoving. 
 The soil seemed all alive and moving, t 
 
 As for his grain, such work they 'd made on *t. 
 He could n't spy a single blade on 't 
 
 Off in a rage he rushed to South, 
 
 ■' My wheat and rye " — grief choked his 
 
 mouth ; 
 " Pray don't mind me," said South, '* but plant 
 All of the new land that you want " ; 
 " Yes, but your hogs," cried North ; 
 
 " The grain 
 ■Won't hurt them," answered South again ; 
 ** But tirey destroy my crop " ; 
 
 "No doubt; 
 'T is fortunate you 've found it out ; 
 Misfortunes teach, and only they, 
 You must not sow it in their way " ; 
 "Nay, you," says North, "must keep them 
 
 out " ; 
 " Did I create them with a snout ? " 
 Asked South demurely ; " as agreed. 
 The land is open to your seed. 
 And would you fain prevent my pigs 
 From running there their harmless rigs? 
 God knows 1 view this compromise 
 With not the most approving eyes ; 
 I gave up my unquestioned rights 
 For sake of quiet days and nights ; 
 I offered then, you know 't is true, 
 To cut the piece of land in two." 
 " Then cut it now," growls North ; 
 
 " Abate 
 Your heat," says South, " 't is now too late ; 
 I offered you the rocky comer. 
 But you, of your own good the scomer, 
 Refused to take it ; I am sorry ; 
 No doubt you might have found a quarry. 
 Perhaps a gold-mine, for aught I know. 
 Containing heaps of native rhino ; 
 You can't expect me to resign 
 My rights " — 
 
 " But where," quoth North, "are mine!* 
 yourrights," says tother, " well, tliat 's funny, 
 I bought the land " — 
 
 " I paid the money " ; 
 " That," answered South, " is from the point. 
 The ownership, you 11 grant, is joint; 
 I *m sure my only hope and trust is 
 Not law so much as abstract justice. 
 Though, you remember, 'twas agreed 
 That^o and so — consult the deed ; 
 Objections now are out of date. 
 They might have answered once, but Fato 
 Quashes them at the point we 've got to ; 
 Oista prindpiis, that 's my motto. ' 
 So saying, South began to whistle 
 And looked as obstinate as gristle, 
 "While North went homeward, each brown paif 
 Clenched like a knot of natural law, 
 And all the while, in either ear. 
 Heard something clicking wondrous clear. 
 
170 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 To turn now to other matters, there are 
 two things upon which it would seem fitting 
 to dilate somewhat more largely in this 
 place, — the Yankee character and the Yan- 
 kee dialect. And, first, of the Yankee char- 
 acter, which has wanted neither open ma- 
 ligners, nor even more dangerous enemies 
 in the persons of those unskilful painters 
 who have given to it that hardness, angu- 
 larity, and want of proper perspective, 
 which, in truth, belonged, not to their 
 subject, but to their own niggard and uu- 
 akilful pencil. 
 
 New England was not so much the col- 
 ony of a mother countiy, as a Hagar driven 
 forth into the wilderness. The little self- 
 exiled band which came hither in 1620 
 came, not to seek gold, but to found a 
 democracy. They came that they might 
 have the privilege to work and pray, to sit 
 upon hard benches and listen to painful 
 preachers as long as they_ would, yea, even 
 unto thirty-seventhly, if the spirit so 
 willed it. And surely, if the Greek might 
 boast his Thennopylse, where three hun- 
 dred men fell in resisting the Persian, we 
 may well be proud of our Plymouth Eock, 
 where a handful of men, women, and chil- 
 dren not merely faced, but vanquished, 
 winter, famine, the wilderness, and the yet 
 more Invincible siori/e that drew them back 
 to the green island far away. These found 
 no lotus growing upon the surly shore, the 
 taste of which could make them forget 
 their little native Ithaca ; nor were they so 
 wanting to themselves in faith as to bum 
 their ship, but could see the fair west- wind 
 belly the homeward sail, and then turn 
 unrepining to grapple with the terrible 
 Unknown. 
 
 As Want was the prime foe these hardy 
 exodists had to fortress themselves against, 
 so it Is little wonder if that traditional 
 feud is long in wearing out of the stock. 
 The wounds of the old warfare were long 
 a-healing, and an east-wind of hard times 
 pnts a new ache into every one of them. 
 Thrift was the first lesson in their horn- 
 book, pointed out, letter after letter, by the 
 lean finger of the hard schoolmistress, Ne- 
 cessity. Neither were those plump, rosy- 
 Rilled Englishmen that came hither, but a 
 hard-faced, atrabilious, earnest-eyed race, 
 stiff from long wrestling with the Lord in 
 prayer, and who had taught Satan to 
 dread the new Puritan hug. Add two 
 iiundred years' influence of soil, climate, 
 and exposure, with its necessary result of 
 idiosyncrasies, and we have the present 
 Yankee, full of expedients, half-master of 
 all trades, inventive in !»11 but the beauti- 
 ful, full of shifts, not yet capable of com- 
 fort, armed at all points against the old 
 
 enemy Hunger, longanimoua, good at 
 patching, not so careful for what is best 
 as for what will do, with a clasp to his 
 purse and a button to his pocket, not 
 skilled to build against Time, as in old 
 countries, but against sore-pressing Need, 
 accustomed to move the world with no 
 nov cTTw but his own two feet, and no lever 
 but his own long forecast. A strange 
 hybrid, indeed, did circumstance beget, 
 here in the New World, upon the old 
 Puritan stock, and the earth never before 
 saw such mystio-practicalism, such nig- 
 gard-geniality, such calculating-fanaticism, 
 such cast-iron-enthusiasm, such sour-faced- 
 humor, such close-fisted-generosity. This 
 new Orceculus esuriens will make a living 
 out of anything. He will invent new 
 trades as well as tools. His brain is his 
 capital, and he will get education at all 
 risks. Put him on Juan Fernandez, and 
 he would make a spelling-book first, and a 
 salt-pan afterward. In ccdvm, jusseris, 
 ibit, — or the other way either, — it is all 
 one, so anything is to be got by it. Yet, 
 after all, thin, speculative Jonathan is 
 more like the Englishman of two centuries 
 ago than John Bull himself is. He has 
 lost somewhat in solidity, has become flu- 
 ent and adaptable, but more of the origi- 
 nal groundwork of character remains. He 
 feels more at home with Fulke Greville, 
 Herbert of Cherbury, Quarles, George Her- 
 bert, and Browne, than with his modem 
 English cousins. He is nearer than John, 
 by at least a hundred years, to Naseby, 
 ilarston Moor, Worcester, and the time 
 when, if ever, there were true Englishmen. 
 John Bull has suffered the idea of the 
 Invisible to be very much fattened out of 
 him. Jonathan is conscious still that ha 
 lives in the world of the Unseen as well as 
 of the Seen. To move John you must 
 make your fulcrum of solid beef and pud- 
 ding ; an abstract idea will do for Jona- 
 than. 
 
 *,» TO THE INDULGENT READER. 
 
 My friend, the Rev. Mr. Wilbiu*, having been 
 seized with a dangerous fit of illness, before 
 this Introduction had passed through the press, 
 and being incapacitaiied for all literary exer- 
 tion, sent to me his notes, memoranda, &c., 
 and requested me to fashion them into some 
 shape more fitting for the general eye. This, 
 owing to the fragmentary and disjointed state 
 of his manuscripts, I have felt wholly unable to 
 do ; yet, being unwilling that the reader should 
 be deprived of such parts of his lucubrations as 
 seemed more finished, and not well discerning 
 how to segregate these from the rest, I have 
 concluded to send them all to the press pre- 
 cisely as they are. Columbus Nye. 
 
 Pastor 0/ a Church in Eunglovm Cortur. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 171 
 
 It remains to speak of the Yankee dia- 
 lect. And, fint, it may be premised, in a 
 general way, that any one much read in 
 the writings of the early colonists need 
 not he told that the far greater share of 
 the words and phrases now esteemed pe- 
 culiar to New England, and local there^ 
 were brought from the mother country. 
 A person familiar with the dialect of cer- 
 tain portions of Massachusetts will not 
 fail to recognize, in ordinary discourse, 
 many words now noted in English vocabu- 
 laries as archaic, the greater part of which 
 were in common use about the time of 
 the King James translation of the Bible. 
 Shakespeare stands less in need of a glos- 
 sary to most New-Englanders than to 
 many a native of the Old Country. The 
 peculiarities of our speech, however, are 
 rapidly wearing out. As there is no 
 country where reading is so universal and 
 newspapers are so multitudinous, so no 
 phrase remains long local, but is trans- 
 planted in the mail-bags to every remotest 
 comer of the land. Consequently our 
 dialect approaches nearer to imiformity 
 than that of any other nation. 
 
 The English have complained of us for 
 coining d«w words. Many of those so 
 stigmatized were old ones by them forgot- 
 ten, and all make now an unquestioned 
 part of the currency, wherever English is 
 spoken. Undoubtedly, we have a right to 
 make new words, as they are needed by 
 the fresh aspects under which life presents 
 itself here in the yew World; and, indeed, 
 wherever a language is alive, it grows. It 
 might be questioned whether we could not 
 establish a stronger title to the ownership 
 of the English tongue than the mother- 
 islanders themselves. Here, past all ques- 
 tion, is to be its great home and centre. 
 And not only is it already spoken here by 
 greater numbers, but with a far higher 
 popular average of correctness than in 
 Britain. The great writers of it, too, we 
 might claim as ours, were ownership to be 
 settled by the number of readers and lovers. 
 
 As regards the provincialisms to be met 
 with in this volume, I may say that the 
 reailer will not find one which is not (as I 
 believe) either native or imported witli the 
 early settlers, nor one which I have not, 
 with my own ears, heard in familiar use. 
 In the metrical portion of the book, I 
 have endeavored to adapt the spelling as 
 nearly as possible to the ordinary mode of 
 pronunciation. Let the reader who deems 
 me over-particular remember this caution 
 of Martial : — 
 
 " QKtm ruAlai, meas est, Fidmtlne, Ubdinu ; 
 Ued -male cum recitas, incipU ase twu" 
 
 A few farther explanatory remarks will 
 not be impertinent. 
 
 I shall barely lay down a few general 
 rules for the reader's guidance. 
 
 1. The genuine Yankee never gives the 
 rough sound to the r when he can help it, 
 and often displays considerable ingenuity 
 in avoiding it even before a vowel. 
 
 2. He seldom sounds the final g, a pieca 
 of self-denial, if we consider his partiality 
 for nasals. The same of the final d, as 
 ?um' and stan' for hand and stand. 
 
 3. The h in such words as ivhiU, when, 
 where, he omits altogether. 
 
 4. In regard to o, ne shows some incon- 
 sistency, sometimes giving a close and 
 obscure soimd, as hev for have, hendy for 
 handy, ez for as, thet for that, and again 
 giving it the broad sound it has in father, 
 as hwnsome for handsome. 
 
 5. To the sound ou he prefixes an e 
 (hard to exemplify otherwise than orally). 
 
 The following passage in Shakespeare 
 he would recite thus : — 
 
 *' Neow is the winta uv eour discontent 
 Med glorious summa by tiiia sun o* Yock, 
 An' all tlie cleouds thet kowered upon eour 
 
 heouse 
 In the deep buzzum o' the oshin buried ; 
 Neow air eour breows beound 'ith victorious 
 
 wreaths : 
 Eour breused arms hung up fer monimunce ; 
 Eour stam alarums changed to merry meetins, 
 Eour dreffle marches to delighfle masures. 
 Grim-visagedwar heth smeuthed his wrinkled 
 
 front, 
 An' neow, instid o' mountin' barebid steeds 
 To fright the souls o' ferfle edverseries. 
 He capers nimly in a lady's chamber. 
 To the lascivious pleasin' uv a loot." 
 
 6. Au, in such words as daughter and 
 slaughter, he pronounces ah. 
 
 7. To the dish thus seasoned add a drawl 
 ad libitum. 
 
 [Mr. Wilbur's notes here become entirely 
 fragmentary. — C. N.] 
 
 a. Unable to procure a likeness of Mr. 
 Biglow, I thought the curious reader might 
 be gratified with a sight of the editorial 
 effigies. And here a choice between two 
 was offered, — the one a profile (entirely 
 ; black) cut by Doyle, the other a portrait 
 painted by a native artist of much promise. 
 The first of these seemed wanting in ex- 
 pression, and in the second a slight obliq- 
 uity of the visual organs has been height- 
 ened (perhaps from an over-desire of force 
 on the part of the artist) into too cV je an 
 approach to actual strabismus. Tliis slight 
 divergence in my optical apparatus from 
 the ordinary model — however I may hav* 
 
172 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 been taught to regard it in the light of a 
 mercy rather than a cross, since it enahled 
 me to give as much of directness and per- 
 sonal application to my discourses as met 
 the wants of my congregation, without 
 risk of offending any by bemg supposed to 
 have liim or her in my eye (as the saying 
 is) — seemed yet to Mrs. Wilbur a sufficient 
 objection to the engraving of the aforesaid 
 painting. We read of many who either 
 : absolutely refused to allow the copying of 
 their features, as especially did Plotinus 
 andAgesilans among the ancients, not to 
 mention the more modem instances of 
 Soioppius, Palaeottos, Pinellus, Velserus, 
 Gatalcer, and others, or were indifferent 
 thereto, as Cromwell! 
 
 p. Yet was Caesar desirous of concealing 
 his baldness. Per corvtra, my Lord Pro- 
 tector's carefulness in the matter of his 
 wart might be cited. Men generally more 
 desirous of being improved in their por- 
 traits than characters. Shall probably 
 find very unflattered likenesses of ourselves 
 in Recording Angel's gallery. 
 
 y. Whether any of our national peculiar- 
 ities may be traced to our use of stoves, as 
 a certain closeness of the lips in pronuncia- 
 tion, and a smothered smoulderingness of 
 disposition seldom roused to open flame ? 
 An unrestrained intercourse with fire prob- 
 ably conducive to generosity and hospi- 
 tality of soul. Ancient Mexicans used 
 stoves, as the friar Augustin Euiz reports, 
 Hakluyt, III. 468, — but Popish priests 
 not always reliable authority. 
 
 To-day picked my Isabella grapes. Crop 
 Injured by attacks of rose-bug in the 
 spring. Whether Noah was jus^fiable in 
 preserving this class of insects ? 
 
 J. Concerning "Mr. Biglow's pedigree. 
 Tolerably certain that there was never a 
 poet mnong his ancestors. An ordination 
 nymn attributed to a maternal uncle, but 
 perhaps a sort of production not demand- 
 ingthe creative faculty. 
 
 His grandfather a painter of the gran- 
 diose or Michael Angelo school. Seldom 
 painted objects smaller than houses or 
 Dams, and these with uncommon ex- 
 pression. 
 
 «. Of the Wilburs no complete pedigree. 
 The crest said to be a mid iomr, whence, 
 perhaps, the name. (?) A connection with 
 the Earls of Wilbraham {qimsi wild boar 
 Jiam) might be made out. This suggestion 
 worth following uj). In 1677, John W. m. 
 Expect— ^, had issue, 1. John, 2. Hag- 
 gu, 3. Expect, 4. Ruhamah, 6. Desire. 
 
 " Hear lyes y« bodye of Mrs Expect 'Wlllwr, 
 Ye crewell salvages they kil'd her 
 Together wth other Christian soles eleaven, 
 October ye ix daye, 1707. 
 Ye stream of Jordan sb' as crost ore 
 And now ezpeaets me on ye other shore : 
 I live in hope her soon to join ; 
 Her earthlye yeeres were forty and nine," 
 From Gravesttme in Pekussettt North Parish. 
 
 This -is unquestionably the same John 
 who afterward (1711) married Tabitha 
 Hagg or Ragg. 
 
 But if this were the case, she seems to 
 have died early ; for only three years after, 
 namely, 1714, we have evidence that he 
 married Winifred, daughter of Lieutenant 
 Tipping. 
 
 He seems to have been a man of sub- 
 stance, for we find him in 1696 conveying 
 "one undivided eightieth part of a salt- 
 meadow " in Yabbok, and ne commanded 
 a sloop in 1702. 
 
 Those who doubt the importance of gen- 
 ealogical studies fuste potius quam argu- 
 meiUo erudiendi. 
 
 I trace him as far as 1723, and there lose 
 him. In that year he was chosen selectman. 
 
 No gravestone. Perhaps overthrown 
 when new hearse-house was built, 1802. 
 
 He was probably the son of John, who 
 came from BilhamComit. Salop, circa 1642. 
 
 This first John was a man of consider- 
 able importance, being twice mentioned 
 with the honorable prefix of Mr. in the 
 town records. Name spelt vrithtwo Is. 
 
 " Hear lyeth ye bod [tAone wnhappily broken.) 
 Mr. Ihon Willber [Esq.] [1 inclose Ms im 
 
 brackets as doubtful. Tome it seems dear. ] 
 Ob'tdie [illegible; looks like zviii.'] 
 
 lU [prob. 1693.] 
 
 paynt 
 
 «... deseased seinte ; 
 A friend and tfath]er untoe all ye opreast, 
 Hee gave ye wicked familists noe reast, 
 When Sat [an bl]ewe his Antinomlan blasts, 
 "Wee clong to [Willber as a steadfjast maste. 
 [A] gaynst ye horrid Qua[kers] " 
 
 It is greatly to be lamented that this 
 curious epitaph is mutilated. It is said 
 that the sacrilegious British soldiers made 
 a target of this stone during the war of 
 Independence. How odious an animosity 
 which pauses not at the grave ! How 
 brutal that which spares not the monu- 
 ments of authentic history ! This is not 
 improbrbly from the pen of Rev. Moody 
 Pyram, who is mentioned by Hubbard as 
 having been noted for a silver vein of 
 poetry. II his papers be still extant, a 
 copy might possibly be recovered. 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPEES. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 A LETTER 
 
 ntOU MB. EZKKIEL BIOLOW OF JAALAU TO 
 THE HON. JOSEPH T. BUCKINQHAM, ED- 
 ITOR OF THS BOSTON COBRIER, IN0L08- 
 INO A FOEM OF BIS SON, MB. HOSEA 
 BIOLOW. 
 
 Jayleu, ]nne 1846. 
 MisTKB Eddtteb : — Our Hosea wuz 
 dovm to Boston last week, and he see a 
 cruetin Sarjtait a strattin round as popler 
 as a hen with 1 chicking, with 2 fellers a 
 drummin and fifin arter him like all nater. 
 the earjnnt he thont Hosea hed n't gut his 
 i teeth cut cos ha looked a kindo 's though 
 he 'd lest com down, so he cal'lated to 
 hook him in, but Hosy wood n't take none 
 o' his sarse for all he hed' much as 20 
 Booster's tales stuck onto his hat and 
 eenamost enuf brass a bobbin up and down 
 on his shoulders and figureed onto his coat 
 and trousis„ let alone wut nater hed sot 
 in his festers, to make a 6 pounder out on. 
 wal, Hosea he com home considerabal 
 riled, and arter I 'd gone to bed I heem 
 Him a thrashin round like a short-tailed 
 Bull in fii-tiraa The old Woman ses she 
 to me ses she, Zekle, ses she, our Hosee 's 
 gut the chollery or suthin anuther ses she, 
 don't you Bee sk«ered, ses I, he 's oney 
 amakin pottery* ses i, he 's oilers' on 
 hand at that ere busynes like Da & mar- 
 tin, and shure enuf, cum momin, Hosy he 
 cum down stares fuJl chizzle, hare on eend 
 and cote tales flyin, and sot rite of to go 
 reed his varses to Parson Wilbur hern he 
 haint aney grate shows o' book lamin him- 
 self, bimeby he cum back and sed the 
 parson wuz dreffle tickled with 'em as i 
 hoop you will Be, and said they wuz True 
 grit. 
 
 Hosea ses taint hardly fair to call 'em 
 bisn now, cos the parson kind o' slicked 
 off sum o' the last varses, but he told 
 * Aut Uuanit, oul wrxa fatU. — B. W. 
 
 Hosee he didn't want to put his ore in to 
 tetch to the Best on 'em, bein they wuz 
 verry well As thay wuz, and then Hosy 
 ses he sed suthih a nuther about Simplex 
 Mundishes or sum sech feller, but I guesa 
 Hosea kind o' did n't hear him, for I never 
 beam o" nobody o' that name in this' Wl- 
 ladge, and I 've lived here man and boy 78 
 year cum next tater diggin, and thair aint 
 no wheres a kitting spryer 'n I be. 
 
 If you print 'em I wish you 'd jest let 
 folks know who hosy's father is, cos my 
 ant Keziah used to say it 's nater to ba 
 curus ses she, she aint livin though and 
 he 's a likely kind o' lad. 
 
 EZEEIEL BIGLOW. 
 
 Thrash away, you 'II Aev to rattle 
 
 On them kittle-drums o' youm, — 
 'Taint a knowin' kind o' cattle 
 
 Thet is ketched with mouldy com ; 
 Put in stiff, you fifer feller, 
 
 Let folks see how spry you be, — 
 Guess yon '11 toot till you are yeller 
 
 'Fore you git aholdi o' me ! 
 
 Thet air fla§ 'a a leetle rotten, 
 
 Hope it aint your Sunday's befit;— 
 Fact ! it takes a sight o' cotton 
 
 To stuff out a soger's chest : 
 Sence we farmers hev to pay fer 't, 
 
 £f you must wear humps like these, 
 Sposin' you should try salt hay fer 't, 
 
 It would dn ez slick ez grease. 
 
 'T would n't suit them Southun felletg^ 
 
 They 're a dreffle graspin' set. 
 We must oilers blow the bellers 
 
 Wen they want their irons het ; 
 May be it 's all right ez preachia'. 
 
 But my narves it kindTo' grates^ 
 Wen I see the overreachin,' 
 
 0' them nigger-diiviu'' States 
 
174 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPEK3. 
 
 Them thet rule ua, them slave-traders, 
 
 Halnt they cut a thunderin' swarth 
 (Helped by Yankee renegaders), 
 
 Thru the vartu o' the North ! 
 We begin to think it 's nater 
 
 To take sarse an' not be riled ; — 
 Who 'd expect to see a tater 
 
 All on eend at bein' bUed ? 
 
 Ez fer war, I call it murder, — 
 
 There you hev it plain an' flat ; 
 I don't want to go no furder 
 
 Than my Testyment fer that ; 
 God hez sed so plump an' fairly, 
 
 It 's ez long ez it is broad. 
 An' you 've gut to git up airly 
 
 Ef you want to take in God. 
 
 Taint your eppyletts an' feathers 
 
 Make the thing a grain more right ; 
 'Taint afoUerin' your bell-wethers 
 
 Will excuse ye in His sight ; 
 Ef you take a sword an' dror it, 
 
 An' go stick a feller thru, 
 Guv'ment aint to answer for it, 
 
 God '11 send the bill to you. 
 
 Wut 's the use o' meetin'-goin' 
 
 Every Sabbath, wet or dry, 
 Ef it 's right to go amowin' 
 
 Feller-men like oats an' rye ! 
 1 dnnno but wut it 's pooty 
 
 Trainin' round in bobtail coats, — 
 But it 's curus Christian dooty 
 
 This 'ere cuttin' folks's throats. 
 
 They may talk o' Freedom's airy 
 
 Tell they 're pupple in the face,— 
 It 's a grand gret cemetary 
 
 Fer the barthrights of our race ; 
 They jest want this Califomy 
 
 So 's to lug new slave-states in 
 To abuse ye, an' to scorn ye, 
 
 An' to plunder ye like sin. 
 
 Aint it cute to see a Yankee 
 
 Take sech everlastin' pains. 
 All to git the Devil's thankee 
 
 Helpin' on 'em weld their chains ! 
 Wy, it 's jest ez clear ez figgers. 
 
 Clear ez one an' one make two, 
 Chaps thet make black slaves o' niggers 
 
 Want to make wite slaves o' you. 
 
 Tell ye jest the eend I 're come to 
 Arter cipherin' plaguy smart. 
 
 An' it makes a handy sum, tu. 
 Any gump could lam by heart; 
 
 Laborin' man an' laborin' woman 
 Hev one glory an' one shame. 
 
 Ev'y thin' thet 's done inhuman 
 Injers all on 'em the same. 
 
 Taint by tumin' out to hack folks 
 
 You 're agoin' to git your right. 
 Nor by lookin' down on black folks 
 
 Coz you 're put upon by wite ; 
 Slavery aint o nary color, 
 
 'Taint the hide thet makes it wot. 
 All it keers fer in a feller 
 
 S jest to make him fill its pus. 
 
 Want to tackle me in, du ye t 
 
 I expect you '11 hev to wait ; 
 Wen cold lead puts daylight thru ye 
 
 You '11 begin to kal'late ; 
 S'pose the crows wun't fall to pickin' 
 
 All the carkiss from your bones, 
 Coz you helped to give a lickin' 
 
 To them poor half-Spanish drones ( 
 
 Jest go home an' ask our Nancy 
 
 Wether I 'd be sech a goose 
 Ez to jine ye, — guess you 'd fancy 
 
 The etamal bung wuz loose ! 
 She wants me fer home consumption. 
 
 Let alone the hay 's to mow, — 
 Ef you 're arter folks o' gumption. 
 
 You 've a darned long row to hoe. 
 
 Take them editors thet 's crowin' 
 
 Like a cockerel three months old, — 
 Don't ketch any on 'em goin', 
 
 Though they be so blasted bold ; 
 Aint they a prime lot o' fellers ? 
 
 'Fore they think on 't guess they 1 
 sprout 
 (Like a peach thet 's got the yellers). 
 
 With the meanness bustin' out, 
 
 Wal, go 'long to help 'em stealin* 
 
 Bigger pens to cram with slaves. 
 Help the men thet 's oilers, dealin' 
 
 Insults on your fathers' graves ; 
 Help the strong to grind the feeble, 
 
 Help the many agin the few, 
 Help the men thet call your people 
 
 Witewashed slaves an' peddlin crew I 
 
 Massachusetts, God forgive her. 
 
 She 's akneelin' with the rest. 
 She, thet ough' to ha' clung ferever 
 
 In her grand old eagle-nest ; 
 She thet ough' to stand so fearless 
 
 Wile the wracks are round her hurledS' 
 Holdin' up a beacon peerless 
 
 To the oppressed of all the world I 
 
THK BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 175 
 
 Ha'n't they sold your colored seamen ? 
 
 Ha'u't they made your env'ys w'iz ? 
 IVut '11 make ye act like tVeemeu ? 
 
 IVut '11 git your dander liz ? 
 Come, I '11 tell ye wut I *m thinkin' 
 
 Is our dooty in this fix, 
 They 'd ha* done 't ez quick ez winkin' 
 
 In the days o' seventy-six. 
 
 Clang the bells in every steeple, 
 
 Call all true men to disown 
 The tradoocers of our people, 
 
 The enslavers o' their own ; 
 Let our dear old Bay State proudly 
 
 Put the tmmpet to her mouth, 
 Let her ring this messidge loudly 
 
 In the ears of all the South : — 
 
 " I *11 return ye good fer evil 
 
 Much ez we frail mortils can, 
 But I wun't go help the Devil 
 
 Makin' man the cus o' man ; 
 Call me coward, call me traiter, 
 
 Jest ez suits your mean idees, — 
 Here I stand a tyrant-hater, 
 
 An' the friend o* God an' Peace i " 
 
 Ef I 'd my way I hed ruther 
 
 We should go to work an* part, — 
 They take one way, we take t' other, — 
 
 Guess it would n't break my heait ; 
 Man hed ough' to put asunder 
 
 Them thet God has noways jined ; 
 An' I should n't gretly wonder 
 
 Ef there 's thousands o' my mind. 
 
 pThe first recruiting sergeant on record I 
 conceive to have "been that individual who is 
 mentioned in the Book of Job as going to aTid 
 fro in the. earth, ar.d vjalldng up and doivn in 
 it. Bishop Latimer will have him to have 
 "been a bishop, bnt to me that other calling 
 would appear more congenial. The sect of 
 Cainites is not yet extinc-t. who esteemed the 
 first-born of Adam to be the most worthy, not 
 only because of that privilege of primogeniture, 
 bnt inasmnrh as he was able to overcome and 
 slay his younger brother. That was a wise 
 saying of the famous Marquis Peseara to the 
 Papal Legate, that it was impossible for rn.en to 
 serve Mars and Christ at the same time. Yet in 
 time past the profession of arms was judged 
 to be kot' i^oxnv that of a gentleman, nor does 
 this opinion want for strenuous upholders even 
 in our day. Must we suppose, then, that the 
 profession of Christianity was only intended 
 for losels, or, at best, to afford an opening for 
 plebeian ambition? Or shall we bold with that 
 nicely metaphysical Pomeranian, Captain Vratz, 
 who was Count Kouipsmark's chief instrument 
 in the murder of Mr. Thynne, that the Scheme 
 of Salvation has been arranged with an es]>e- 
 eial eye to the necessities of the upper classes, 
 and that "GodwouldconsideragenfZemanand 
 
 deal with him suitably to the condition and 
 jirofesblon he hudplauedliini in"? It may bo 
 said of ua all, Exemplo plus yuam ratione vivU 
 mus. — H. W.] 
 
 No. II. 
 A LETTER 
 
 FROM MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE HON. 
 J. T. BUCKINGHAM, EDITOR OF THK BOS- 
 TON COURIER, COVERING A LETTKU FROM 
 MR. B. SAWIN, PRIVATE IN THE MASSA- 
 CHUSETTS REGIMENT. 
 
 [This letter of Mr. 8awin''8 was not originally 
 written in verse. Mr. Biglow, thinking it pe- 
 culiarly susceptible of metrical adornment, 
 translated it, so to speak, into his own vernac- 
 ular tongue. This is not the time to consider 
 the (piestion, whether rhyme be a mode of ex- 
 pression natural to the human race. If leisui-e 
 from other and moi-e important avocations be 
 granted, I will handle the matter more at largo 
 in an appendix to the present volume. In tliia 
 place I will barely remark, that I have some- 
 times noticed in the unlanguaged prattlings of 
 infants a fondness for alliteration, assonance, 
 and even rhyme, in which natural predisposi- 
 tion we may trace the three degrees through 
 which our Angle-Saxon verse rose to its culmi- 
 nation in the poetry of Pope. I would not be 
 understood us questioning in these remarks 
 that pious theory which supposes that children, 
 if left entirely to themselves, would naturally 
 discourse in Hebrew. For this the authority 
 of one experiment is claimed, and I could, with 
 Sir Thomas Browne, desire its establishment, 
 inasmuch as the acquirement of that sacred 
 tongue would thereby be facilitated. I am 
 aware that Herodotus states the conclusion of 
 Psammeticus to liavo been in favor of a dialect 
 of the Phrygian. But, beside the chance that 
 a trial of this importance would hardly be 
 blessed to a Pagan monarch whose only motive 
 was curiosity, we have on the Hebrew side the 
 comparatively recent investigation of James 
 the Fourth of Scotland. I will add to this 
 prefatorj' remark, that Mr. Sawin, though a 
 native of Jaalam, has never been a stated at- 
 tendant on the religious exercises of my con- 
 gregation. X consider my humble efforts pros- 
 pered in that not one of my sheep hath ever 
 indued the wolfs clothing of war, save for the 
 comparatively innocent diversion of a militia 
 training. Not that my flock are backward te 
 undergo the hardships of defensive warfare. 
 They serve cheerfully in the great army which 
 fights even unto death pro arts et fods, accoutred 
 with the spade, the axe, the plane, the sledge, 
 the spelling-book, and other such effectual 
 weapons against want and ignorance and un- 
 thrift. I have taught them (under God) to es- 
 teem our human institutions as but tents of a 
 night, to be stricken whenever Truth puts the 
 bugle to her lips and sounds a march to tli« 
 heights of wider-viewed intelligence and more 
 perfect organization. — E. W.] 
 
176 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 Mister BtrcKmuM, the follerin Billet 
 Tas writ hum by a Yung feller of our town 
 that wuz cussed fool enuff to goe atrottin 
 inter Miss Chiff arter a Drum and fife, it 
 ain't Nater for a feller to let on that he 's 
 fiok o' any bizuess that He went intu oiT 
 his own free will and a Cord, but I rather 
 cal'late he's middlin tired o' voluntearin 
 By this Time. I bleeve u may put depen- 
 dunts on his statemence. For I never 
 heernd nothin bad on liim let Alone his 
 havin what Parson Wilbur cals a pong 
 shong for cocktales, and he ses it wuz a 
 Boshiashun of idees sot him agoin arter the 
 Crootin Sargient cos he wore a cocktale 
 onto his hat. 
 
 his Folks gin the letter to me and i shew 
 it to parson Wilbur and he ses it oughter 
 Bee printed, send It to mister Buckintim, 
 ses he, i don't oilers agree with him, ses 
 lie, but by Time,* ses he, I du like a feller 
 that aint a Feared. 
 
 I have iutusspussed a Few refleckshuns 
 hear .and thair. We 're kind o' prest with 
 Hayin. 
 
 Ewers respecfly 
 
 HOSEA BIGLOW. 
 
 This kind o' sogerin' aint a mite like 
 our October trainin', 
 
 A chap could clear right out from there 
 ef 't only looked like rainin', 
 
 An' th' Cunnles, tu, could kiver up 
 their shappoes with bandanners. 
 
 An' send the insines skootin' to the bar- 
 room with their banners 
 
 (Fear o' gittin' on 'em spotted), an' a fel- 
 ler could cry quarter 
 
 Ef he fired away his ramrod arter tn 
 much rum an' water. 
 
 PecoUect wut fun we bed, you'n' I an' 
 Ezry HoUis, 
 
 Up there to Waltham plain last fall, 
 along o' the Comwallis ? t 
 
 This sort o' thing aint jest like thet, — 
 I wish thet I wuz furder, — { 
 
 Nimepunce a day fer killin' folks comes 
 land o' low fer murder 
 
 * In relation to this expression, I cannot but 
 think that Mr. Biglow has been too liasty in 
 attributing it to me. Though Time be a cora- 
 Varatively innocent personage to swear by, and 
 tliough Longinus in his discourse Ilepl'Vi/rou! 
 have commended timely oaths as not only a use- 
 ful but sublime figure of speech, yet I have al- 
 ways kept my lips free from that abomination. 
 Odi profamvm vulgus, I hate your swetiring and 
 hectoring fellows. — H. W. 
 
 t i hait the Site of a feller with a muflkit as I 
 du pizn But their is fun to a comwallis I aint 
 agoin' tn deny it. — H. B. 
 
 I be means Not quite so fur I guess. — H. B. 
 
 (Wy I 've worked cut to slarterin' some 
 fer Deacon Cephas Billins, 
 
 An' in the hardest times there wuz I 
 oilers tctched ten shillins,) 
 
 There 's sutthin' gits into my throat thet 
 makes it hard to swaller, 
 
 It comes so nateral to think about a 
 hempen collar ; 
 
 It 's gloiy, — but, in spite o' all my try- 
 in' to git callous, 
 
 I feel a kind o' in a cart, aridin' to the 
 gallus. 
 
 But wen it comes to bein' killed, — I tell 
 ye I felt streaked 
 
 The fust time 't ever I found out wy 
 baggonets wuz peaked ; 
 
 Here 's how it wuz : I started out to go 
 to a fandango, 
 
 The sentinul he ups an' sez, "Thet's 
 furder 'an you can go." 
 
 "None o' your sarse," sez I ; sez he, 
 " Stan' back ! " "Aint you a bus- 
 ter?" 
 
 Sez I, " I 'm up to all thet air, I guess 
 I 've ben to muster ; 
 
 I know wy sentinuls air sot ; you aint 
 agoin' to eat us ; 
 
 Caleb haint no monopoly to court the 
 seenoreetas ; 
 
 My folks to hum air full ez good ez hisn 
 be, by golly ! " 
 
 An' so ez I wuz goin' by, not thinkin' 
 wut would folly, 
 
 The everlastin' cus he stuck his one- 
 pronged pitchfork in me 
 
 An' made a hole right thru my close ez 
 ef I wuz an in'my. 
 
 Wal, it beats all how big I felt hooraw- 
 
 in' in ole Funnel 
 Wen Mister BoUes he gin the sword to 
 
 our Leftenant Cunnle, 
 (It 's Mister Secondary BoUes,* thet 
 
 writ the prize peace essay ; 
 Thet 's why he did n't list himself along 
 
 o' us, I dessay,) 
 An' Rantoul, tu, talked pooty loud, but 
 
 don't put his foot in it, 
 Coz human life 's so sacred thet he 's 
 
 principled agin it, — 
 Though I myself can't rightly see it 'a 
 
 any wus achokin' on 'em, 
 Than puttin' bullets thru their lights, oi 
 
 with a bagnet pokin' on 'era ; 
 
 • the ignorant creeter means Sehketary ; but 
 be ollccs stuck to his books like cobbler's woi 
 tu an ite-stune. — ii. B. 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 177 
 
 How dreffle slick he reeled it off (like 
 
 Blitz at our lyceum 
 Ahaulin' ribbins from his chops so quick 
 
 you skeercely see 'em), 
 About the Anglo-Saxon race (an' saxons 
 
 would be nandy 
 To du the buryin' down here upon the 
 
 Rio Grandy), 
 About our patriotic pas an' our star- 
 spangled banner, 
 Our country's bird alookin' on an' sing- 
 in' out hosanner. 
 An' how he (Mister B. himself) wuz 
 
 happy fer Ameriky, — 
 I felt, ez sister Patience sez, a leetle mite 
 
 histericky. 
 I felt, I swon, ez though it wuz a dreffle 
 
 kind o' pri^alege 
 Atrampin' round thru Boston streets 
 
 among the gutter's drivelage ; 
 I aot'Uy thought it wuz a treat to hear 
 
 a little drummin'. 
 An' it did bonyfidy seem millauyum wuz 
 
 acomin' 
 Wen all on us got suits (darned like 
 
 them wore in the state prison) 
 An' every feller felt ez though all Mexico 
 
 wuz hisn.* 
 
 This 'ere 's about the meanest place a 
 skunk could wal diskiver 
 
 (Saltillo's Mexican, I h'lieve, fer wut we 
 call Salt-river); 
 
 The sort o' trash a feller gits to eat doos 
 beat all nater, 
 
 1 'd give a year's pay fer a smell o' one 
 good blue-nose tater ; 
 
 The country here thet Mister Bolles de- 
 clared to be so charmin' 
 
 Throughout is swarmin' with the most 
 alarrain' kind o' varmin'. 
 
 He talked about delishis froots, but then 
 
 it wuz a wopper all, 
 The holl on 't 's mnd an' prickly pears, 
 
 with here an' there a chapparal ; 
 You see a feller peekin' out, an', fust you 
 
 know, a lariat 
 
 * it must be aloud that thare 's a streak of 
 nater in lovin' sho, but it sartinly is 1 of the 
 cunisest things in nater to see a rispeclctable 
 dri goods dealer (deekon off a ohutoh mayliy) 
 a riggin' himself out in the Weigh they du and 
 Btrattin' round in the Reign aspilin' his trowsis 
 and makin' wet goods of himself. Ef any thin's 
 foolisher and moor dicklus than niiliterry gloa- 
 i; it is milisby gloary. — H. B. 
 
 Is round yotir throat an' you a copse, 'fore 
 
 you can say, " Wut air ye at ? "• 
 You never see sech darned gret bugs (it 
 
 may not be irrelevant 
 To say I 've seen a scarabcetis p^lulariusjt 
 
 big ez a year old elephant), 
 The rigiment come up one day in time 
 
 to stop a red bug 
 From runnin' off with Cunnle Wright, 
 
 — 't wuz jest a common cimex lee- 
 tiilarius. 
 
 One night I started up on eend an' 
 
 thought I wuz to hum agin, 
 I heern a horn, thinks I it 's Sol the 
 
 fisherman hez come agin, 
 His bellowses is sound enough, — ez I 'm 
 
 a livin' creeter, 
 I felt a thing go tlirn my leg, — 't wuz 
 
 nothin' more 'n a skeeter ! 
 Then there 's the yaller fever, tu, they 
 
 call it here el vomito, — 
 (Come, thet wun't du, you landcrab 
 
 there, I tell ye to le' go my toe ! 
 My gracious ! it 's a scorpion thet 's took 
 
 a shine to play with 't, 
 I darsn't skeer the tamal thing fer fear 
 
 he 'd run away with 't.) 
 Afore I come away from hum I hed a 
 
 strong persuasion 
 Thet Mexicans wom't human beans, J 
 
 — an ourang outang nation, 
 
 A sort o' folks a chap could kill an' 
 
 never dream on 't ailer, 
 No more 'n a feller 'd dream o' pigs thet 
 
 he hed hed to slarter ; 
 I 'd an idee thet they were built arter 
 
 the darkie fashion all. 
 An' kiokin' colored folks about, you 
 
 know, 's a kind o' national ; 
 But wen I jined 1 womt so wise ez thet 
 
 air queen o' Slieby, 
 Fer, come to look at 'em, they aint 
 
 much diff'rent from wut we be, 
 An' here we air ascrougin' 'em out o' thir 
 
 own dominions, 
 
 * these fellers are verry proppilly called Rank 
 Heroes, and the more tha kill the ranker and 
 more Herowick tha bekum. — H. B. 
 
 f it wuz " tinnblebng" as he Writ it, but the 
 parson put the Latten instid. i sed tother maid 
 better meeter, but he said tha was eddykated 
 pecpl to Boston and tha would n't stan' it no 
 how. idnow as tha wood and idnow as tlia 
 wood. — H. B. 
 
 X he means human beins, that 's wut be 
 means, i spose he kinder thought tha wua 
 human beans ware the Xisle Foles comes from. 
 
 — H.a 
 
178 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 Ashelterin' 'em, ez Caleb sez, under our 
 
 eagle's pinions, 
 Wich means to take a feller up jest hy 
 
 the slack o' 's trowsis 
 An' walk him Spanish clean right out o' 
 
 all his homes an' houses ; 
 Wal, it doos seem a curus way, hut then 
 
 hooraw fer Jackson ! 
 It must be right, fer Caleb sez it 's reg'- 
 
 lar Anglo-Saxon. 
 The Mex'cans don't fight fair, they say, 
 
 they piz'n all the water. 
 An' du aniazin' Jots o' things thet is n't 
 
 wut they ough' to ; 
 Bein' they haint no lead, they make 
 
 their bxiUets out o' copper 
 An' shoot the darned things at us, tu, 
 
 wich Caleb sez aint proper ; 
 He sez they 'd ough' to stan' right up 
 
 an' let us pop 'em fairly 
 (Guess wen he ketches 'em at thet he '11 
 
 hev to git up airlj'), 
 Thet our nation 's bigger 'n theirn an' 
 
 so its rights air bigger. 
 An' thet it 's all to make 'em free thet 
 
 we air puUin' trigger, 
 Thet Anglo Saxondom's idee 's abreakin' 
 
 'em to pieces, 
 An' thet idee 's thet every man doos jest 
 
 wut he damn pleases ; 
 Ef I don't make his meanin' clear, per- 
 haps in some respex I can, 
 1 know thet "every man" don't mean 
 
 a nigger or a Mexican ; 
 An' there 's another thing I know, an' 
 
 thet is, ef these creeturs, 
 Thet stick an Anglosaxon mask onto 
 
 State-prison feeturs. 
 Should come to Jaalam Centre fer to 
 
 argify an' spout on 't, 
 The gals 'ould covmt the silver spoons 
 the miunit they cleared out on 't. 
 
 This goin' ware glory waits ye haint one 
 
 agreeable feetur, 
 An' ef it worn't fer wakin' snakes, I 'd 
 
 home agin short meter ; 
 O, would n't I he off, quick time, ef 't 
 
 worn't thet I wnz sartin 
 They 'd let the daylight into me to pay 
 
 me fer desartin ! 
 I don't approve o' tellin' tales, but jest 
 
 to you I may state 
 Our ossifers aint wut they wuz afore 
 
 they left the Bay-state ; 
 Then it wuz " Mister Sawin, sir, you 're 
 
 mlddliu' well now, be ye 1 
 
 Step up an' take a nipper, sir ; I 'a 
 
 dreffle glad to see ye " ; 
 But now it 's "Ware 's my eppylet! 
 
 here, Sawin, step an' fetch it! 
 An' mind your eye, be thund' rin' spry, 
 
 or, damn ye, you shall ketch it ! " 
 "Wal, ez the Doctor sez, some pork will 
 
 bile so, but by mighty, 
 Ef I hed some on 'em to hum, I 'd give 
 
 'em linkum vity, 
 I 'd play the rogue's march on their 
 
 hides an' other music foUerin' — 
 But I must close my letter here, fer one 
 
 on 'em 's ahoUerin', 
 These Anglosaxon ossifers, — wal, taint 
 
 no use ajawin', 
 1 'm safe enlisted fer the war, 
 Youm, 
 
 BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN. 
 
 [Those have not bp-eii wanting (as, indeed, 
 when hath Satan been to seek for attorneys?) 
 who have maintained that our late inroad upon 
 Mexico was undeitaken not so much for the 
 avenging of any national quarrel, as for the 
 spreading of free institutions and of Protest- 
 antism. Capita vix dvabus Anticyris medenda t 
 Verily I admire that no pious sergeant among 
 these new Crusaders beheld Marthi Luther rid- 
 ing at the front of the host upori a tamed pon- 
 tifical bull, as, in that fonncr invasion of 
 Mexico, the zealous Gomara (spawn though he 
 were of the Scarlet Woman) was favored with 
 a vision of St. James of Compostella, skewering 
 the inlidels upon his apostolical lance. We 
 read, also, that Richard of the lion heai-t, hav- 
 ing gone to Palestine on a similar errand of 
 mercy, was divinely encouraged to cut the 
 throats of such Paynims as refused to swallow 
 the bread of life (doubtless that they might be 
 thereafter incapacitated for swallowing the 
 filthy gobbets of Mahound) by angels of heav- 
 en, who cried to the king and his knights, — 
 Seignevrs, tuez ! tuez ! providentially using the 
 French tongue, as being the only one under- 
 stood by their auditors. This wonld argue for 
 the pantoglottism of these celestial intelligences, 
 while, on the other hand, the Devil, UsU Cot- 
 ton Mather, is unversed in certain of the Indian 
 dialects. Yet must he be a senieiologist the 
 most expert, making himself intelligible tt. 
 every people and kindred by signs : no other 
 discourse, indeed, being needful, than such as 
 the mackerel-fisher holds with his finned quar- 
 ry, who, if other bait be wanting, can by a bare 
 bit of white rag at the end of a string captivate 
 those foolish fishes. Such piscatorial persuasion 
 is Satan cunning in. Before one he trails a hat 
 and feather, or a bare feather without a hat ; 
 before another, a Presidential chair or a tide- 
 waiter's stool, or a pulpit in the city, no matter 
 what. To us, dangling there over our heads, 
 they seem junkets dropped out of the seventh 
 heaven, sops dipped in nectar, but, once in our 
 mouths, they are all one, bits of fiizzy cotton. 
 
 This, however, by the way. It is time now 
 revocare gradnim. While so many miracles of 
 this sort, vouched by eyewitnesses, have bq- 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPBKS. 
 
 179 
 
 couraged the ariiTS of Papists, not to speak of 
 Ec'hetlains at Marathon and those Dioscuri 
 (whom we must conchide imps of the pit) who 
 sundry times captained the pagan Roman sol- 
 diery, it is strange that our first American cru- 
 sade was not in some such wise also signalized. 
 Yet it is said that the Lord hath manifestly 
 prospered our armies. This opens the ques- 
 tion, whether, when our hands are strength- 
 ened to make great slaughter of our enemies, 
 it be absolutely and demonstratively certain 
 that this might is added to us from above, or 
 ■whether some Potentate from an opposite 
 quarter may not have a linger in it, as there are 
 few pies into which his meddling digits are not 
 thrust. Would the Sanctiiier and Setter-apart 
 of the seventh day have assisted in a victoi^ 
 gained on tlie Sabbath, as was one in the late 
 war ? Bo we not know from Josophus, that, 
 careful of His decree, a certain river of Judaea 
 abstained from flowing on the day of Refit' 
 Or has that day become less an object of His 
 especial care since the year 1697, when bo mani- 
 fest a providence occurred to Mr. William Trow- 
 bridge, in answer to whose prayers, when he 
 and all on shipboard with him were starving, 
 a dolphin was sent daily, " which was enough 
 to serve 'em ; only on Saturdays they still 
 catched a couple, and on the Lord's Days they 
 could catch none at all ■' ? Haply they might 
 have been permitted, by way of mortification, 
 to take some few sculpLns (those banes of the 
 salt-water angler), which unseemly fish would, 
 moreover, have conveyed to them a symbolical 
 reproof for their breach of the day, being known 
 in the rude dialect of our mariners as Cape Cod 
 Ciergymen. 
 
 It has been a refreshment to many nice con- 
 sciences to know that our Chief Magistrate 
 would not regard with eyes of approval the (by 
 many esteemed) sinful pastime of dancing, and 
 1 own myself to be so far of that mind, that I 
 could not but set my face against this Mexican 
 Polka, though danced to the Presidential pip- 
 ing with a Gubernatorial second. If ever the 
 country should be seized with another such 
 infiuxBL pro propaganda fide j\ think it would be 
 wise to firf our bombshells with alternate cop- 
 ies of the Cambridge Platform and the Thirty- 
 ninp. Articles, which would produce a mixture 
 of the highest explosive power, and to wrap 
 every one of our cannon-balls in a leaf of the 
 Kew Testament, the reading of which is denied 
 to those who sit in the darkness of Popery. 
 Those iron evangelists would thus be able to 
 disseminate vital religion and Gospel truth in 
 quarters inaccessible to the ordinary mission- 
 ary. I have seen lads, unimpregnate with the 
 more sublimated punctiliousness of Walton, 
 secure pickerel, taking their unwary siesta be- 
 neath the lily-pads too nigh the surface, with 
 a gun and small shot. Why not, thei^ since 
 gunpowder was unknown in the time of the 
 Apostles (not to enter here upon the question 
 whether it were discovered before that period 
 by the Chinese), suit our metaphor to the age 
 in which we live, and say shooters as well as 
 ffsAers of men ? . ^ 
 
 I do much fear that we shall be seized now 
 and then with a Protestant fervor, as long as 
 we have neighbor Naboths whose wallowings 
 in Papistical mire excite our horror in exact 
 proportion to the size and desirableness of their 
 vineyards. Yet I rejoice that some earnest 
 Protestants have been made by this war, — I 
 
 mean those who protested against it. Fewer 
 they were than I could wish, for one might ira- 
 ^ne America to have been colonized by a 
 
 tribe of those nondescript African animals the 
 Aye-Ayes, so difficult a word is No to us alL 
 There is some malformation or defect of the 
 vocal organs, which either prevents our utter^ 
 ing it at all, or gives it so thick a pronunciation 
 as to be unintelligible. A mouth filled witl) 
 the national pudding, or watering in expecta* 
 tion thereof, is wholly incompetent to this re. 
 fractory monosyllable. An abject and herpfetid 
 Public Opinion is the Pope, the Anti-Christ, 
 for us to protest against e corde oordvum. And 
 by wliat College of Cardinals is this our God's- 
 vicar, our binder and looser, elected? Very 
 like, by the sacred conclave of Tag, Rag, and 
 Bobtail, in the gracious atmosphere of the 
 grog-shop. Yet it is of this that we must all 
 be puppets. This thumps the pulpit-cushion, 
 this guides the editor's pen, this wags the sen- 
 ator's ton(fue. This decides what Scriptures 
 are canonical, and shuffles Christ away into 
 the Apocrypha. According to that sentence 
 fathered upon Solon, Oitrui SrjfjMiriov kokov 
 epxeTai oiKaS' McurTtp. This unclean spirit is 
 skilful to assume various shapes. I have known 
 it to enter my own study and nudge my elbow 
 of a Saturday, under the semblanceof a wealthy 
 member of my congregation. It were a great 
 blessing, if every particular of what in the sum 
 we call popular sentiment could carry about 
 the name of its manufacturer stamped legibly 
 upon it I gave a stab under the fifth rib to 
 that pestilent fallacy, — "Our country, right 
 or wrong," — by tracing its original to a speech 
 of Ensign Gilley at a dinner of the Bungtowa 
 Fencibles. — H. W.] 
 
 No. III. 
 WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS. 
 
 [A PEW remarks on the following verses will 
 not be out of place. The satire in them was 
 not meant to have any personal, but only a 
 general, application. Of the gentleman upon 
 whose letter they were intended as a commen- 
 tary Mr. Biglow had never heard, till he saw the 
 letter itself. The position of the satirist is 
 oftentimes one which he would not have chos- 
 en, had the election been left to himself. In 
 attacking bad principles, he is obliged to select 
 some individual who has made himself their 
 exponent, and in whom they are impersonate, 
 to the end that what he says may not, through 
 ambiguity, be dissipated Unites in auras. For 
 what says Seneca? Longum iter per prcecepta, 
 breve et ejficace per exempUt: A bad principle is 
 comparatively harmless while it continues to 
 be an abstraction, nor can the general mind 
 comprehend it fully till it is printed in that 
 large type which all men can read at sight, 
 namely, the life and character, the sayings and 
 doings, of particular persons. It is one of the 
 cunningest fetches of Satan, that he never ex- 
 poses himself directly to our arrows, but, still 
 dodging behind this neighbor or that acquaint- 
 ance, compels us to wound him through them, 
 if at all. He holds our a'fi'ections as hostages, 
 the while be patches up a truce with our «on- 
 scionce. 
 
180 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 Meanwhile, let us not forget that the aim of 
 the true satirist is not to be severe upon per- 
 sons, hut only upon falsehood, and, as Truth 
 and Falsehood start from the same point, and 
 sometimes even go along together for a little 
 way, his business is to follow the path of the 
 latter after it diverges, and to show her floun- 
 dering in the bog at the end of it. Truth is 
 quite beyond the reach of satire. There is so 
 brave a simplicity in her, that she can no more 
 be made ridiculous than an oak or a pine. The 
 danger of the satirist is, that continual use may 
 deaden bis sensibility to the force of language. 
 He becomes more and more liable to strike 
 harder than he knows or intends. He may be 
 careful to put on his boxing-gloves, and yet 
 forget that, the older they grow, the more 
 plainly may the knuckles inside be felt More- 
 over, in the heat of contest, the eye is Insensi- 
 bly drawn to the crown of victory, whose taw- 
 dry tinsel glitters through that dust of the ring 
 ■which obscures Truth's wreath of simple leaves. 
 1 have sometimes thought that my young 
 friend, Mr^ Biglow, needed a monitory hand 
 Jaid on his arm, — aliquid suJlamiTUindus erat. 
 i have never thought it good husbandry to 
 water the tender plants of reform with aqua 
 fortis, yet, where so much is to do in the beds, 
 lie were a sorry gardener who should wage a 
 whole day's war with an iron scuffle on those 
 ill weeds that make the garden-walks of life 
 unsightly, when a sprinkle of Attic salt will 
 wither them up. Est ars etiam matediceTidi, 
 says Scaliger, and truly it is a hard thing to 
 eay where the graceful gentleness of the lamb 
 merges in downright sheepishness. We may 
 conclude with worthy and wise Dr. Fuller, that 
 "one may be a lamb in private wrongs, but in 
 hearing general affronts to goodness they are 
 asses which are not lions." — H. W.] 
 
 SuTENER B. is a sensible man ; 
 
 He stays to his home an' looks arter 
 his folks ; 
 He draws his fuiTer ez straight ez he can, 
 An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes ; 
 But John P. 
 Robinson he 
 Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. 
 
 My ! aint it terrible ? Wut shall we dii ? 
 We can't never choose him o' course, 
 — thet 's flat ; ' 
 fitiess we shall hev to come round, (don't 
 you?) 
 An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all 
 that; 
 Fer John P. 
 Robinson he 
 Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. 
 
 Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man : 
 He 's ben on all sides thet give places 
 
 or pelf; 
 But consistency still wuz a part of his 
 
 plan, — 
 
 He 's ben trae to one party, — an' thet 
 is himself ; — 
 So John P. 
 Robinson he 
 Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. 
 
 Gineral C. he goes in fer the war ; 
 He don't vally principle more 'n an 
 old cud ; 
 "Wut did God make us raytional creeturs 
 fer, 
 But glory an' gunpowder, plunder an' 
 blood ? 
 So John P. 
 Robinson he 
 Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. 
 
 We were gittin' on nicely up here to our 
 village, 
 With good old idees o' wut 's right an' 
 wut aint, 
 We kind o' thought Christ went agin 
 war an' pillage. 
 An thet eppyletts wom't the best 
 mark of a saint ; 
 But John P. 
 Robinson he 
 Sez this kind o' thing 's an exploded 
 idee. 
 
 The side of our country must oilers be 
 took. 
 An' Presidunt Polk, you know, he is 
 our country. 
 An' the angel thet writes all our sins in 
 a book 
 Puts the debit to him, an' to us the 
 per contry ; 
 An' John P. 
 Robinson he 
 Sez this is his view o' the thing to 
 aT. 
 
 Parson Wilbur he calls all these argi- 
 munts lies ; 
 Sez they 're nothin' on airth but jes* 
 fee, faw, fum: 
 An' thet all this big talk of our des- 
 tinies 
 Is half on it ign'ance, an' t' other half 
 rum; 
 But John P. 
 Robinson he , 
 Sez it aint no sech thing ; an', of 
 course, so must we. 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 181 
 
 Parson "Wilbur sez ke never heerd in his 
 life 
 Thet th* Apostles rigged out in theiv 
 s waller- tail coats, 
 An* marched round in front of a drum 
 an' a fife, 
 To git fiome on 'em office, an* some on 
 'em votes ; 
 But John P. 
 Robinson he 
 Sez they did n't know every thin' 
 down in Judee. 
 
 Wal, it *s a marcy we 've gut folks to 
 tell us 
 The rights an' the wrongs o' these 
 matters, I vow, — 
 Qod sends country lawyers, an' other 
 wise fellers, 
 To start the world's team wen it gits in 
 a slough ; 
 Fer John P. 
 Robinson he 
 Sez the world '11 go right, ef he hol- 
 lers out Gee ! 
 
 [The attentive reader will doubtless have 
 perceived in the foregoing poem an allusion to 
 that pernicious sentiment, — "Our country, 
 right or wrong. " It is an abuse of language to 
 call a certain portion of land, much more, cer- 
 tain personages, elevated for the time being to 
 high station, our country. I would not sever 
 nor loosen a single one of those ties by which 
 we are. united to the spot of our birth, nor min- 
 ish by a tittle the respect due to the Magis- 
 trate. I love our own Bay State too well to do 
 the one. and as for the other, I have myself for 
 nigh forty years exercised, however unworthily, 
 the function of Justice of the Peace, having 
 been called thereto by the unsolicited kindness 
 of that most excellent man and upright patriot, 
 Caleb Strong. Patrim fumus igne alieno hicu- 
 lentior Is best qualified with this. — Uhi liher- 
 tas, ibi patria. We are inhabitants of two 
 worlds, and owe a double, but not a divided 
 allegiance. In virtue of our clay, this little ball 
 of earth exacts a certain loyalty of us, while, in 
 our capacity as spirits, we are admitted citizens 
 of an invisible and holier fatherland. There is 
 a patriotism of the soul whose claim absolves 
 us from our other and terrene fealty. Our true 
 country is that ideal realm which we represent 
 to ourselves under the names of religion, duty, 
 and tiie like. Our terrestrial organizations are 
 but far-off approaches to so fair a model, and 
 all they are verily traitors who resist not any 
 attempt to divert them from this their original 
 Intendment. When, therefore, one would have 
 us to fiing up our caps and shout with the mul- 
 titude, — " Onr country, hmmver b(yiind.ed } " he 
 demands of us that we sacrifice the larger to the 
 less, the higher to the lower, and that we yield 
 to the imaginary claims of a few acres of soil 
 ffur duty and privilege as liegemen of Truth. I 
 
 Our true country is bounded on the north and 
 the south, on the east and the west, by Justice, 
 and when she oversteps that invisible boundary- 
 line by so much as a hair's-breadth, she ceases 
 to be our mother, and chooses rather to be 
 looked upon qvusi noverca. That is a hard 
 choice when our earthly love of country calls 
 upon us to tread one path and our duty points 
 us to another. We must make as noble and 
 becoming an election as did Penelope between 
 Icarius and Ulysses. Veiling our faces, we 
 must take silently the hand of Duty to follow 
 her. 
 
 Shortly after the publication of the foregoing 
 poem, there appeared some comments upon it 
 iu one of the public prints which seemed to 
 call for animadversion. I accordingly addressed 
 to Mr. Buckingham, of the Boston Courier, the 
 following letter. 
 
 "Jaalam, November 4, 1S47. 
 *• To the Editor of the CovHer: 
 
 "Respected Sir, — Calling at the post-ofRce 
 this morning, our worthy and efficient postmas- 
 ter offered for my perusal a paragraph In the 
 Boston Morning Post of the 3d instant, wherein 
 certain efRisions of the pastoral muse are at- 
 tributed to the pen of Mr. James Russell Low- 
 ell. For aught I know or can affirm to the 
 contrary, this Mr. Lowell may be a very de- 
 serving person and a youth of parts (though I 
 have seen verses of his which I could ne^T^r 
 rightly understand) ; and if he be such, he, I 
 am certain, as well as I, would be free from any 
 proclivity to appropriate to himself whatever 
 of credit (or discredit) may honestly belong to 
 another. I am confident, that, in penning 
 these few lines, I am only forestalling a dis- 
 claimer from that young gentleman, whose 
 silence hitherto, when rumor pointed to him- 
 ward, has excit-ed in my bosom mingled emo- 
 tions of sorrow and surprise. Well may my 
 young parishiouer, Mr. Biglow, exclaim with 
 the poet, 
 
 ' Sic Tos noD TobiB,' &e. ; 
 
 though, in saying this, I would not convey the 
 impression that he is a proficient in the Latin 
 tongue, — the tongue, I might add, of a Horace 
 and a Tully. 
 
 "Mr. B. does not employ his pen, I can 
 safely say, for any lucre of worldly gain, or t» 
 be exalted by the carnal plaudits of men, digito 
 moTistrari, &c. He does not wait upon Provi- 
 dence for mercies, and in his heart mean merccs. 
 But I should esteem myself as verily deficient 
 in my duty (who am his friend and in some un- 
 worthy sort his spiritual fidus Achates, &c.), if 
 I did not step forward to claim for him what- 
 ever measure of applause might be assigned to 
 him by the judicious. 
 
 " If this were a fitting occasion, I might ven- 
 ture here a brief dissertation touching the 
 manner and kind of my young friend's poetry. 
 But I dubitate whether this abstruser sort of 
 speculation (though enlivened by some apposite 
 instances from Aristophanes) would suflRciently 
 interest your oppidan readers. As regards their 
 satirical tone, and their plainness of speech, I 
 will only say, that, in my pastoral experience, 
 I have found that the Arch-Enemy loves noth- 
 ing better than to be treated as a religiouflv 
 
182 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 moral, aud intellectual being, and that there is 
 no (t^age Hatlumas I bo potent as ridicule. But 
 it is a kind of weapon that must have a button 
 of good-nature ou the point oi' it. 
 
 " The productions of Mr. B. have been stig- 
 matized in some quarters as unpatriotic ; but 
 I can vouch that he loves his native soil with 
 that hearty, though discriminating, attachment 
 which spxings from an intimate social inter- 
 course of many years' standing. In the plough- 
 ing season, no one has a deeper share in the 
 well-being of the country than he. If Dean 
 Swift were right in saying that he who makes 
 two blades of grass grow where one grew before 
 confers a greater benefit on the state than he 
 who taiteth a city, Mr. B. might exhibit a fairer 
 claim to the Presidency than General Scott 
 himself. I think that some of those disinter- 
 ested lovera of the hard-handed democracy, 
 wli6se fingers have never touched anything 
 rougher than the dollars of our common coun- 
 try, would hesitate to compare palms with him. 
 It would do your heart good, respected Sir. to 
 see that young man mow. He cuts a cleaner 
 and wider swath than any in this town. 
 
 " But it is time for me to be at my Po.st. It 
 is very clear that my young friend's shot has 
 stmck the lintel, for the Post is shaken (Amos 
 ix. 1). The editor of that paper is a strenuous 
 advocate of the Mexican war, aud a colonel, as 
 I am given to understand. I i. resume, that, 
 bt'iiig necessarily absent in Mexico, he has left 
 his Journal in some less judicious hnnda. At 
 any rate, the Post has been too swift on this 
 occasion. It coidd hardly have cited a more 
 incontrovertible line from any poem than that 
 which it has selected for animadversion, name- 
 ly.- 
 
 *We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an* pil- 
 lage. 
 
 " If the Post maintains the converse of this 
 proposition, it can h.irdly be considered as a 
 safe guide-po.'it for tlie moral and religious por- 
 tions of its party, however many other excel- 
 lent qualities of a post it may be blessed with. 
 There is a sign in London on which is painted, 
 — 'The Green Man.' It would do very well as 
 a portrait nf any individualwhoshould support 
 so unscriptural a thesis. As regards the lan- 
 guage of the line in question, I am bold to say 
 that He who readeth the hearts of men will not 
 account any dialect unseemly which conveys a 
 sound and pious sentiment. I could wish that 
 such sentiments were more common, however 
 uncouthly expressed. Saint Ambrose aflirms, 
 that Veritas a qtwcimque (why not, then, qiio- 
 modocunque ?) dicutur, a spiritu sancto est. Di- 
 gest also this of Baxter : ' The plainest words 
 are the most profitable oratory in the weightiest 
 matters.' 
 
 " When the paragraph in question was shown 
 to Mr. Biglow, the only part of it which seemed 
 to give him any dissatisfaction was that which 
 classed him with the Whig party. He says, 
 that, if resolutions are a nourishing kind of 
 diet, that party must be in a very liearty and 
 flourishing condition ; for that they have qui- 
 etly eaten more good ones of their own baking 
 than he could have conceived to be possible 
 without repletion. He has been for some years 
 past (I regret to say) an ardent opponent of 
 ihoee sound doetrlnea of protect! ve policy which 
 
 form 80 prominent a portion of the creed of that 
 party. I confess, that, in some discusuiona 
 which I have had with him on this point in my 
 study, he has displayed a vein of obstinacy 
 which I had not hitherto detected in his com- 
 position. He is also (horresoo re/eretis) infected 
 in no small measure with the peculiar notions 
 of a print called the Liberator, whose heresies 
 I take every proper opportunity of combating, 
 and of which, I thank God, I have never read a 
 single line. 
 
 " I did not see Mr. B.'s verses until they ap- 
 peared in print, and there iscortainly one thing 
 in them which I consider highly improper. I 
 allude to the personal references to myself 1 ly 
 name. To confer notoriety on an humble ijidi' 
 vidual who is laboring quietly in his vocation, 
 and who keeps his cloth as free as be can from 
 the dust of the political arena (though vcb mihi 
 si iwn evangelizavero), is no doubt an indeco- 
 rum. The sentimeui^ which he attributes to 
 me r will not deny to be mine. They were em- 
 bodied, though in a different form, in a dis- 
 course preached upon the last day of public 
 fasthig, and were acceptable to my entire peo- 
 ple (of whatever political views), except the 
 postmaster, who dissented ex officio. 1 observe 
 that you sometimes devote a portion of your 
 paper to a religious summary. I should be well 
 pleased to furnish a copy of my discourse for 
 insertion in this department of your instructive 
 journal. By omitting the advertisements, it 
 might easily be got within the limits of a single 
 number, and I venture to insure you tlie sale 
 of some scores of copies in this town. I will 
 cheerfully i-ender myself responsible for ten. 
 It might possibly be advantageous to issue it 
 as an extra. But perhaps you will not esteem 
 it an object, and I will not press it. My offer 
 does not spring from any weak desire of seeing 
 my name in print; for I can enjoy this satis- 
 faction at any time by tuniing to the Triennial 
 Catalogue of the LFniversity. where it also pos- 
 sesses that added emphasis of Italics with which 
 those of my calling are distinguished. 
 
 " I would simply add. that I continue to fit 
 ingenuous youth for college, aud that I have 
 two spacious and airy sleeping apartments at 
 this moment unoccupied. Iiujenvwi dw/icisse, 
 &c. Terms, which vary according to the cir- 
 cumstances of the parents, may be known on 
 application to me by letter, post-paid. In all 
 cases the lad will be expected to fetch his own 
 towels. This nile, Mrs. W. desires me to add, 
 has no exceptions. 
 
 " Respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 "HOMER WILBUR, A. M. 
 
 " P. S. Perhaps the last pai-^^^xph may k)ok 
 like an attempt to obtain the insertion of my 
 circular gratuitously. If it should appear to 
 you in that light, I desire that you would erase 
 it, or charge for it at the usual rates, and de- 
 duct the amount from the proceeds in your 
 hands from the sale of my discourse, when it 
 shall be printed. My circular is much longer 
 and more explicit, and will be forwarded with- 
 out charge to any who may desire it. It has 
 been very neatly executed on a letter sheet, by 
 a very deserving printer, who attends upon my 
 ministry, and is a creditable specimen of the 
 typographic art. I have one hung over my 
 mantel-piece in a neat frame, where it makes • 
 
THE EIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 183 
 
 fceautiftil and appropriate ornament, and bal- 
 ances* the prolllti u{ Mrs. W., uut with her toes 
 by the youug lady born without anna. 
 
 *'H. W." 
 
 I have in the foregomg letter mentioned Gen- 
 eral Scott ill connectiou witli the Presidency, 
 beuause 1 have been given to understand that 
 he has blown to pieces and otherwise caused 
 to be destroyed more Mexicans than anv other 
 commander. His claim would therefore be de- 
 servedly considered tlie Ktr(mge.st. Ujitil accu- 
 Tiite returns of the Mexicans killed, wounded, 
 and maimed be obtained, it will bii difficult to 
 settle these nice i)oints of ]irecedence. Should 
 it prove that any otlier officer has been more 
 meritorious and destructive than General S., 
 and hiis thereby rendered himself more worthy 
 of the confidence and support of the conserva- 
 tive portion of our community. T sliall cheer- 
 fully iusert his name, instead of that of General 
 S., in a future edition. Itmay be thouglit, like- 
 wise, that General S. has invalidated his claims 
 by too much attention to the decencies of ap- 
 parel, and the habits belonging to a gentleman. 
 These abstruser points of statesmanship are be- 
 yond my scope. I wonder not that successful 
 military achievement should attract the admi- 
 ration of the multitude. Rather do I rejoice 
 with wonder to behold how rapidly this senti- 
 ment is h)sing its hold u]ion the popular mind. 
 It is related of Thomas Warton, the second of 
 that honored name who held the office of Poe- 
 try Professor at Oxford, that, when one wished 
 to find him. being absconded, as was his wont. 
 in some obscure alehouse, he was counselled to 
 traverse the city with a drum and fife, the 
 sound of which inspiring music would be sure 
 lo draw the Dontor from his retirement into 
 the street. We are nil more or less bitten with 
 this martial insanity. Neseio qua djilcedine 
 .... ainctns dncit. I confess to some infec- 
 tion of that itch myself. When I see a Briga- 
 dier-General maintaining liis insecure elevation 
 In the saddle under the severe fire of the train- 
 ing-field, and wlien T remember that some mil- 
 itary enthusiasts, through haste, inexperience, 
 or an over-desire to lend reality to those ficti- 
 tious combats, will sometimes discharge their 
 ramrods, T cannot but ndmire, while T deplore, 
 the mistaken devotion of those heroic officers. 
 Seinel insaniirimits ovMies. 1 was myself, dur- 
 ing the late war with Great Britain, chaplain 
 of a regiment, which was fortunately never 
 called to active military duty. I mention this 
 circumstance with regret rather than pride. 
 Had I been summoned to actual warfare. I 
 trust that I might have been strengthened to 
 bear myself after the manner of that reverend 
 father in our New England Israel, Dr. Benja- 
 min Colman. who, as we are told in Turell's life 
 of him, wlien the vessel in which he had taken 
 passage for England was attacked by a French 
 privateer, "fought like a philosopher and a 
 
 Christian and prayed all the while he 
 
 charged and fired." As this note is already 
 long, I shall not here enter upon a discussion 
 of the question, whether Christians may law- 
 fully be sohliers. I think it sufiiciently evi- 
 dent, that, during the first two centuries of the 
 Christian era. at least, the two jirofessions 
 were esteemu<l incompatible. Consult Jortin 
 oa this head. ~U. W.] 
 
 No. IV. 
 
 REMARKS OP INCREASE D. 0*FHACB^ ES- 
 QUIRE, AT AN EXTRUMPERY CAUCUS IN 
 STATE STREET, REPORTED BY MR. H. 
 BIGLOW. 
 
 [The ingenious reader will at once understand 
 that no such speech lus the following was ever 
 totulem verbis pronounced. But there are sim- 
 pler and less guarded wits, for the satisfying o(| 
 which such an explanation may be needful. 
 For there are certain invisible lines, which as 
 Truth successively overpasses, she becomes 
 Untruth to one and another of us, as a large 
 river, flowing ft'om one kingdom into another, 
 sometimes takes a new name, albeit the waters 
 undergo no change, how small soever. There 
 is, moreover, a truth of fiction more veracious 
 than the truth of fact, as that of the Poet, 
 which represents to us things and events as 
 they ought to be, rather than servilely copies 
 them as they are imperfectly imaged in the 
 crooked and smoky glass of our mundane affairs. 
 It is this which makes the speech of Antonius, 
 though originally spoken in no wider a forum 
 than the briiin of Shakespeare, more histori- 
 cally valuable than that other which Appian 
 has reported, by as much as the understanding 
 of the Englishman was more comprehensive 
 than that of the Alexandrian. Mr. Biglow, in 
 the present instance, has only made use of a 
 license assmned by all the historians of antiq- 
 uity, who put into the mouths of various char- 
 acters such words as seem to them most fitting 
 to the occasion and to the speaker. If it be 
 objected that no such oration could ever have 
 been delivered, I answer, that there are few 
 assemblages for speech-making which do not 
 better deserve the title of Parlinmentum Indoc- 
 torum than did the sixth Parliament of Henry 
 the Fourth, and that men atill continue to have 
 as much faith in the Oracle of Fools as ever 
 Pantagniel had. Howell, in his letters, re- 
 counts a merry tale of a certain ambassador of 
 Queen Elizabeth, who. having written two let- 
 ters. — one to her Majesty, and the other to hia 
 wife. ~ directed them at cross-purposes, so that 
 the Queen was beducked and bedeared and re- 
 quested to send a change of hose, and the wife 
 was beprinccssed and otherwise unwontedly 
 besuperlatived, till the one feared for the wits 
 of her ambassador, and the other for those of 
 her husband. In like manner it may be pre- 
 sumed that our speaker has misdirected some 
 of hia thoughts, and given to the whole theatre 
 "What he would have wished to confide only to 
 a select auditory at the back of the curtain. 
 For it is seldom that we can get any frank ut- 
 terance from men, who address, for the most 
 part, a Buncombe either in this world or the 
 next. As for tlieir audiences, it may be truly 
 said of our people, that they enjoy one political 
 institution in common with the ancient Athe- 
 nians : I mean a certain profitless kind of ostra- 
 cism, wherewith, nevertheless, they seem hith- 
 erto well enough content. For in Presidential 
 elections, and other affairs of the sort, whereas 
 I observe that the oysters fall to the lot of com- 
 paratively few, the sftelh (such as the privileges 
 of voting as they are told to do by the oatrivori 
 afoi:esaid, and-oC huzzaing at public meetiutfBl 
 
184 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 are vety lilierally distributed amon^ the people, 
 as being their jjreHcriytive and quite sutticieut 
 poi-tioii. 
 
 The occasion of the speech is supposed to be 
 Mr. Palfrey's refusal to vote for the Whig can- 
 didate for the Spealtership. — H. W.J 
 
 No ? Hez he ? He haint, though ? 
 
 Wut? "Voted agin him ? 
 Ef the bird of our country could ketch 
 
 him, she 'd skin him ; 
 1 seem 's thougli I see lier, with wrath 
 
 in each quill, 
 Like a chancery lawyer, afilin' her bill. 
 An' grindin' her talents ez sharp ez all 
 
 nater, 
 To pounce like a writ on the back o' the 
 
 traitor. 
 Forgive me, my friends, ef I seem to he 
 
 het. 
 But a crisis like this must with vigor he 
 
 met; 
 Wen an Arnold the star-spangled ban- 
 ner bestains, 
 Holl Fourth o' Julys seem to bile in my 
 
 veins. 
 
 Who ever 'd ha' thought sech a pisonous 
 
 rig 
 Would be run by a chap thet wuz chose 
 
 fer a Wig ? 
 " We knotted wut his princerples wuz 
 
 'fore we sent him ? 
 Wut wuz there in them from this vote 
 
 to porvent him ■? 
 A marciful Providunce fashioned us hol- 
 ler 
 0' purpose thet we might our principles 
 
 swaller ; 
 It can hold any quantity on 'em, the 
 
 belly can, 
 An" bring 'em up ready fer use like the 
 
 pelican. 
 Or more like the kangaroo, who (wich is 
 
 stranger) 
 Puts her family into her pouch wen 
 
 there 's danger. 
 Aint princerple precious 1 then, who 's 
 
 goin' to use it 
 Wen there 's reisk o' some chap's gittin' 
 
 up to abuse it ? 
 I can't tell the wy on 't, but nothin' is 
 
 so sure 
 Ez thet princerple kind o' gits spiled by 
 
 exposure ; * 
 
 * The speaker is of a different mind from 
 TuUy, who. in his ret^ently discovered tr.intate 
 ,Jie iiepi^Uca,. tells us. Nee veto habere virtu- 
 
 A man thet lets all sorts o' folks git a 
 
 sight on 't 
 Ough' to hev it all took right away, 
 
 every mite on 't ; 
 Ef he can't keep it all to himself wen 
 
 it 's wise to, 
 He aint one it 's iit to trust nothin' so 
 
 nice to. 
 * 
 
 Besides, ther 's » wonderful power in 
 
 latitude 
 To shift a man's morril relations an' at- 
 titude ; 
 Some flossifers think thet a fakkilty 's 
 
 gi'anted 
 The minnit it 's proved to be thoroughly 
 
 wanted, 
 Thet a change o' demand makes a change 
 
 o' condition. 
 An' thet everythin' 's nothin' except by 
 
 position ; 
 Ez, fer instance, thet rubber-trees fust 
 
 begun bearin' 
 Wen p'litikle conshunces come into 
 
 wearin', 
 Thet the fears of a monkey, whose holt 
 
 chanced to fail, 
 Drawed the vertibry out to a prehensile 
 
 tail ; 
 So, wen one 's chose to Congriss, ez soon 
 
 ez he 's in it, 
 A collar grows right round his neck in a 
 
 minnit. 
 An' sartin it is thet a man cannot be 
 
 strict 
 In bein' himself, wen he gits to the 
 
 Deeiitrict, 
 Fer a coat thet sets wal here in ole M.is- 
 
 sachusetts. 
 Wen it gits on to Washinton, somehow 
 
 askew sets. 
 
 Resolves, do you say, o' the Springfield 
 
 Convention ? 
 Thet 's percisely the pint I was goin' to 
 
 mention ; 
 
 iem satis est, tjuasi arteiti alvjuam, nisi vtcire, 
 and from our Milton, who says: "1 cannot 
 praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexer- 
 cised and unbreathed, that never sallies out 
 and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the 
 race where that immortal garland is to be run 
 for, not ivitlwut thist and heat." — Areop. He 
 had taken the words out of the Roman's mouth, 
 without knowing it, and might well exclaim 
 witb Donatus (if Saint Jerome's tutor ma.T 
 stand spouiaor for a curse), Fereant t^ui ante net 
 nostra dixennt ! — II. VV. 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPEES. 
 
 185 
 
 Besolrea air a tiling we most gen'ally 
 
 keep ill, 
 They 're a cheap kind o' dust fer the 
 
 eyes o' the people ; 
 A parcel o' delligits jest git together 
 An' chat fer a spell o' the crops aii' the 
 
 weather, 
 Then, comin' to order, they squabble 
 
 avvile 
 An' let off the speeches they 're ferful '11 
 
 spile ; 
 Then — Resolve, — Thet we wunt hev 
 
 an inch o' slave territory ; 
 Thet Presidunt Polk's hoU perceedins air 
 
 very tory ; 
 Thet the war is a damned war, an' them 
 
 thet enlist in it 
 Should hev a cravat with a dreffle tight 
 
 twist in it ; 
 Thet the war is a war fer the spreadin' 
 
 o' slavery ; 
 Thet our anny desarves our best thanks 
 
 fer their bravery ; 
 Thet we 're the original friends o' the 
 
 nation. 
 All the rest air a paltry an' base fabrica- 
 tion ; 
 Thet we highly respect Messrs. A, B, an' 
 
 C, 
 An' ez deeply despise Messrs. E, F, an' G. 
 In this way they go to the eend o' the 
 
 chapter, 
 An' then they bust out in a kind of a 
 
 raptur 
 About their own vartoo, an' folks's 
 
 stone-blindness 
 To the men thet 'ould actilly do 'em a 
 
 kindness, — 
 The American eagle, — the Pilgrims thet 
 
 landed, — ■ 
 Till on ole Plymouth Eock they git 
 
 finally stranded. 
 Wal, the people they listen an' say, 
 
 " Thet 's the ticket ; 
 Ez fer Mexico, 't aint no great glory to 
 
 lick it. 
 But 't would be a darned shame to go 
 
 pullin' o' triggers 
 To extend the aree of abnsin' the nig- 
 gers." 
 
 So they march in percessions, an' git up 
 
 hooraws, 
 An' tramp thru the mud fer the good o' 
 
 the cause, 
 An' think they 're a kind o' fulfiUiu' the 
 
 prophecies. 
 
 "Wen they 're on'y jest changin' the 
 holders of offices ; 
 
 Ware A sot afore, B is comf'tably seated. 
 
 One humbug 's victor'ous an' t' other de- 
 feated. 
 
 Each honnable doughface gits jest wut 
 he axes, 
 
 An' the people, — their annooal soft- 
 sodder an' taxes. 
 
 Now, to keep unimpaired all these glo- 
 rious feeturs 
 Thet characterize morril an' reasonin' 
 
 creeturs, 
 Thet give every paytriot all he can cium, 
 Thet oust the untrustworthy Presidunt 
 
 Flam, 
 An' stick honest Presidunt Sham in his 
 
 place, 
 To the manifest gain o' the hoU human 
 
 race, 
 An' to some indervidgewals on 't in 
 
 partickler, 
 Who love Public Opinion, an' know how 
 
 to tickle her, — 
 I say thet a party with gret aims like 
 
 these 
 Must stick jest ez close ez a hive full o' 
 
 bees. 
 
 I 'm willin' a man should go tollable 
 
 strong 
 Agin wrong in the abstract, fer thet kind 
 
 o' wrong 
 Is oilers unpop'lar an' never gits pitied, 
 Because it 's a crime no one never com- 
 mitted ; 
 But he mus' n't be hard on partickler 
 
 sins, 
 Coz then he '11 be kickin' the people's 
 
 own sliins ; 
 On'y look at the Demmererats, see wut 
 
 they 've done 
 Jest simply by stickiu' together like 
 
 fun; 
 They 've sucked us right into a mis'able 
 
 war 
 Thet no one on airth aint responsible 
 
 for; 
 They 've run us a hundred cool nullions 
 
 in debt 
 (An' fer Demraercrat Homers ther 's 
 
 good plums left yet); 
 They talk agin tayriffs, but act fer a 
 
 high one. 
 An' so coax all parties to build up ti; eil. 
 
 Zion ; 
 
186 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 To the people they 're oilers ez slick ez 
 
 molasses, 
 An' butter their bread on both sides with 
 
 The Masses, 
 Half o' whom they 've persuaded, by way 
 
 of a joke, 
 Thet Washinton's mantelpiece fell upon 
 
 Polk. 
 
 Kow all o' these blessin's the Wigs 
 
 might enjoy, 
 Ef they 'd gumption enough the right 
 
 means to imploy ;* 
 For the silver spoon born in Dermoc- 
 
 'aey's mouth 
 Is a kind of a scringe thet they hev to 
 
 the South ; 
 Their masters can cuss 'em an' kick 'em 
 
 an' wale 'em, 
 An' they notice it less 'an the ass did to 
 
 Balaam ; 
 In this way they screw into second-rate 
 
 offices 
 Wich the slaveholder thinks 'ould sub- 
 
 straot too much oil' his ease ; 
 The file-leaders, I mean, du, fer they, by 
 
 their wiles, 
 Unlike the old viper, grow fat on their 
 
 files. 
 Wal, the Wigs hev been ti-yin' to grab 
 
 all this prey frum 'em 
 An' to hook this nice spoon o' good for- 
 
 tin' away frum 'em. 
 An' they might ha' succeeded, ez likely 
 
 ez not. 
 In lickin' the Demmercrats all round 
 
 the lot, 
 £f it wam't thet, wile all faithful Wigs 
 
 were their knees on. 
 Some stuffy old codger would holler out, 
 
 — " Treason ! 
 You must keep a sharp eye on a dog thet 
 
 hez bit you once. 
 An' I aint agoin' to cheat my eonstit- 
 
 oounts," — 
 Wen every fool knows thet a man repre- 
 sents 
 Not the fellers thet sent him, but them 
 
 on the fence, — 
 Impartially ready to jump cither side 
 An' make the fust use of n. turn o' the 
 
 tide, — 
 The waiters on Providunce here in the 
 
 city, 
 
 • Tlmt was a pithy saying of Persins, and fits 
 our poIiticianB without a wrinkle. — Magister 
 Ofrtie, ingeniique la/rgitor vmter. — H. W. 
 
 Who compose wut they call a State Cen- 
 
 terl Committy. 
 Constitoounts air hendy to help a man in. 
 But arterwards don't weigh the heft of a 
 
 pin. 
 Wy, the people can't all live on Uncle 
 
 Sam's pus. 
 So they 've nothin' to du with 't fer 
 
 better or wus ; 
 It 's the folks thet air kind o' brought 
 
 up to depend on 't 
 Thet hev any consam in 't, an' thet is the 
 
 end on 't. 
 
 Now here wuz New England ahevin' the 
 
 honor 
 Of a chance at the Speakership showered 
 
 upon her ; — 
 Do you say, — " She don't want no more 
 
 Speakers, but fewer ; 
 She 's hed plenty o' them, wut she wants 
 
 is a doer " ? 
 Fer the matter o' thet, it 's notorous in 
 
 town 
 Thet her own representatives du her 
 
 quite brown. 
 But thet 's nothin' to du with it ; wut 
 
 right hed Palfrey 
 To mix himself up with fanatical small 
 
 fry? 
 Wam't we gittin' on prime with our hot 
 
 an' cold blowin', 
 Acondemnin' the war wilst we kep' it 
 
 agoin' ? 
 We 'd assumed with gi-et skill a com- 
 
 mandin' position, 
 On this side or thet, no one could n't 
 
 tell wich one. 
 So, wutever side wipped, we 'd a chance 
 
 at the plunder 
 An' could sue fer infringin' our pay. 
 
 tented thunder ; 
 We were ready to vote fer whoever wuz 
 
 eligible, 
 Ef on all pints at issoo he 'd stay unin. 
 
 telligible. 
 Wal, sposin' we hed to gulp down our 
 
 perfessions. 
 We were ready to come out next mom- 
 
 in' with fresh ones ; 
 Besides, ef we did, 't was our business 
 
 alone, 
 Fer could n't we du wut we would with 
 
 our own ? 
 An'efanian can, wenpervisionshevrizso, 
 Eat up his own words, it 's » marcy it 
 
 is so. 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 187 
 
 Wy, these chaps frum the North, with 
 
 hack-boues to 'em, darn 'em, 
 'Onld be wuth more 'an Gennle Tom 
 
 Thumb is to Barnum : 
 Ther 's enough thet to oifice on this very 
 
 plan grow. 
 By exhibitin' how very small a man can 
 
 grow; 
 But an M. 0. frum here oilers hastens to 
 
 state he 
 Belongs to the order called invertebraty, 
 Wence some gret filologists judge primy 
 
 fashy 
 Thet M. C. is M. T. by paronomashy; 
 An' these few exceptions air loosus nay- 
 
 twy 
 Folks 'ould put down their quarters to 
 
 stare at, like fury. 
 
 It 's no use to open the door o' success, 
 Ef a member can bolt so fer uothin' or 
 
 less ; 
 Wy, all o' them grand constitootional 
 
 pillers 
 Our fore-fathers fetched with 'em over 
 
 the billers, 
 Them pillers the people so soundly hev 
 
 slep' on. 
 Wile to slav'iy, invasion, an' debt they 
 
 were swep' on, 
 Wile our Destiny higher an' higher kep' 
 
 mountin' 
 (Though I guess folks '11 stare wen she 
 
 hends her account in), 
 Ef members in this way go kicken' agin 
 
 'em, 
 They wunt hev so much ez a feather left 
 
 in 'em. 
 
 An', ez fer this Palfrey,* we thought wen 
 
 we 'd gut him in. 
 He 'd go kindly in wutever harness we 
 
 put him in ; 
 Snpposin' we did, know thet he wuz a 
 
 peace man ? 
 poos he think he can be Uncle Sammle's 
 
 policeman, . 
 An' wen Sam gits tipsy an' kicks up a 
 
 riot. 
 Lead him off to the lockup to snooze till 
 
 he 's quiet ? 
 Wy, the war is a war thet true paytriots 
 
 can bear, ef 
 It leads to the fat promised land of a 
 
 tayriff ; 
 ♦ There ia truth yet in this of Juvenal, — 
 "Dat Tsniam corvis, vexat censuni columbas." 
 
 VL. W. 
 
 Wt don't go an' fight it, nor aint to be 
 
 driv on. 
 Nor Demmercrats nuther, thet hev wut 
 
 to live on ; 
 Ef it aint jest the thing thet 's well 
 
 pleasin' to God, 
 It makes us thought highly on else- 
 where abroad ; 
 The Rooshian black eagle looks blue in 
 
 his eerie 
 An' shakes both his heads wen he hears 
 
 o' Monteery; 
 In the Tower Victory sets, all of a flus- 
 ter. 
 An' reads, with locked doors, how we 
 
 won Cherry Buster ; 
 An' old Philip Lewis — thet come an' 
 
 kep' school here 
 Fer the mere sake o' scorin' his ryalist 
 
 ruler 
 On the tenderest part of our kings in 
 
 futwro — 
 Hides his crown underneath an old shut 
 
 in his bureau, 
 Breaks ofT in his brags to a suckle o' 
 
 merry kings, 
 How he often bed hided young native 
 
 Amerrikins, 
 An' turnin' quite faint in the midst of 
 
 his fooleries. 
 Sneaks down stairs to bolt the front 
 
 door o' the Tooleries.* 
 You say, — "We'd ha' scared 'em by 
 
 growin' in peace, 
 A plaguy sight more then by bobberies 
 
 like these " ? 
 Who is it dares say thet our naytional 
 
 eagle 
 
 * Jortin l3 willing to allow of other miracles 
 besides those recorded in Holy Writ, and why 
 not of other prophecies? It is granting too 
 much to yatan to suppose him, as divers of the 
 learned have done, the inspirer of the ancient 
 oracles. Wiser, I esteem it, to give chance the 
 credit of the successful ones. What is said 
 here of Louis Philippe was verified in some of 
 its minute particulars within a few months' 
 time. Enough to have made the fortune of 
 Delphi or Hammon, and no thanks to Beelze- 
 bub neither! That of Seneca in Medea will 
 suit here j — 
 
 " Rapida fortune ac leviB 
 PrsBcepsque regno eripuit, exeiUo dedit." 
 
 Let us allow, even to richly deserved misfor- 
 tune, our commiseration, and be not over-hasty 
 meanwhile in our censure of the French people, 
 left for the first time to govern themselves, re- 
 membering that wise sentence of i^schylus, -• 
 
 'Airas fifl rpa^uf mrric av viov Kparfi. 
 
 H. W. 
 
188 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 Wun't much longer be classed with the 
 
 birds thet air regal, 
 Coz theim be hooked beaks, an' she, 
 
 arter this slaughter, 
 '11 bring back a bill ten times longer *n 
 
 she ough* to " ? 
 Wut 's your name ? Come, I see ye, you 
 
 up-country feller, 
 You 've put me out severil times with 
 
 your beller ; 
 Out with it ! Wut ? Biglow ? I say 
 
 nothin' furder, 
 Thet feUer would like nothin' better 'n a 
 
 murder ; 
 He 'p a traiter, blasphemer, an* wut 
 
 ruther worse is, 
 He puts all his ath'ism in dreffle bad 
 
 verses ; 
 Socity alnt safe till sech monsters air out 
 
 on it, 
 Kefer to the Post, ef you hev the least 
 
 doubt on it; 
 "Wy, he goes agin war, agin indirect 
 
 taxes, 
 Agin sellin' wild lands 'cept to settlers 
 
 with axes, 
 Agin lioldin* o' slaves, though he knows 
 
 it 's the corner 
 Our libbaty rests on, the mis'able 
 
 scorner ! 
 In short, he would wholly upset with 
 
 his ravages 
 All thet keeps us above the brute crit- 
 ters an' savages, 
 An' pitch into all kinds o* briles an' 
 
 confusions 
 The hoU of our civilized, free institu- 
 tions ; 
 He writes fer thet ruther unsafe print, 
 
 the Courier, 
 An' likely ez not hez a squintin' to 
 
 Foorier ; 
 I '11 be , thet is, I mean I '11 be 
 
 blest, 
 Ef I hark to a word frum so noted a 
 
 pest ; 
 I sha' n't talk with A-im, my religion 's 
 
 too fervent. — 
 Good mornin', my friends, I'm your 
 
 most humble servant. 
 
 [Into the question, whether the ability to ex- 
 press ourselves in articulate language has been 
 productive of moregood or evil, I shall not here 
 enter at large, The two faculties of speech and 
 of speech-making are wholly diverse in their 
 natures. By the first we make ourselves intel- 
 ligible, by the last unintelligible, to our fellows. 
 It has not seldom occui'red to me (noting how. 
 
 in our national legislature everything rana t« 
 talk, as lettuces, if the season or the soil ba 
 unpropitlous, shoot up lankly to seed, instead 
 of forming handsome heads) that Babel was 
 the first Congress, the earliest mill erected for 
 the manufacture of gabble. In these days, 
 what with Town Meetings, School Committees, 
 Boards (lumber) of one Icind and another. Con- 
 gresses, Parliaments, Diets, Indian Councils, 
 Palavers, and the like, there is scarce a village 
 which has not its factories of this description 
 driven by milk-and-water power. I cannot 
 conceive the confusion of tongues to have been 
 the curse of Babel, since I esteem my ignorance 
 of other languages as a kind of Marteilo-tower, 
 in which I am safe from the furious bombard- 
 ments of foreign garrulity. For this reason I 
 have ever preferred the study of the dead lan- 
 guages, those primitive formations being Ara- 
 rats upon whose silent peaks I sit secure and 
 watch this new deluge without fear, though it 
 rain ligures (simulacra, semblances) of speech 
 forty days and nights together, as it not un- 
 commonly happens. Thus is my coat, as it 
 were, without buttons by which, any but a ver- 
 nacular wild bore can seize me. Is it not pos- 
 sible that the Shakers may intend to convey a 
 quiet reproof and hint, in fastening their outer 
 garments with hooks and eyes ? 
 
 This reflection concerning Babel, which I 
 find in no Commentary, was first thrown upon 
 my mind when an excellent deacon of my con- 
 gregation (being infected with the Second Ad- 
 vent delusion) assured me that he had received 
 a first instalment of the gift of tongues as a 
 small earnest of larger possessions in the like 
 kind to follow. For, of a truth, I could not 
 reconcile it with my ideas of the Divine justice 
 and mercy that the single wall which protected 
 people of other languages from the incursions 
 of this otherwise well-meaning propagandist 
 should be broken down. 
 
 In reading Congr.essional debates, I have fan- 
 cied, that, after the subsidence of those painful 
 buzzings in the brain which result from sucb 
 exercises, I detected a slender residuum of val- 
 uable information. I made the discovery that 
 nothing takes longer in the saying than anything 
 else, for as ex nihilo nihil Jit, so from one poly- 
 pus nothing any number of similar ones may be 
 produced. I would recommend to the attention 
 of viva voce debaters and controversialists tlie 
 admirable example of the monk Copres, who, 
 in the fourth century, stood for half an hour 
 in the midst of a great fire, and thereby silenced 
 a Manichsean antiagonist who had less of the 
 salamander in him. As for those who quaiTcl 
 in print, I have no concern with them here, 
 since the eyelids are a divinely gi-anted shield 
 against all such. Moreover, I have observed 
 in many modern books that the printed portion 
 is becoming gradually smaller, and the number 
 of blank or fly-leaves (as they are called) great- 
 er. Should this fortunate tendency of litera- 
 ture continue, books will grow more valuable 
 from year to year, and the whole Serbonian bog 
 yield to the advances of firm arable land. 
 
 The sagacious Lacedaemonians hearing that 
 Tesephoue had bragged that he could talk all 
 day long on any given subject, made no more 
 ado, but forthwith banished him, whereby they 
 supplied him a to^ic and at the same time took 
 care that his experiment upon it should be trlet) 
 out of ear-shot. 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 189 
 
 I have wondered, in tlio Representatives' 
 Chamber of our own Cora iiiou wealth, to mark 
 how little impression seemed to be produced 
 by tliat emblematic fish suspended over the 
 heads of the members. Our wiser ancestors, 
 no doubt, hung it there as being the animal 
 which the PytJiafioreans reverenced for its si- 
 lence, and which certainly in that particular 
 does not so well merit the epithet coM-Uooded, 
 by which naturalists distinguish it. as certain 
 bipeds, afflicted with ditch-water on the brain, 
 who take occasion to tap themselves in Fan- 
 euil Halls, meeting-houses, and other places of 
 public resort. — H. W.j 
 
 No. V. 
 THE DEBATE IN THE SENNIT. 
 
 SOT TO A NDSRT RHYME. 
 
 [The incident which gave rise to the debate 
 satirized in the following verses was the un- 
 successful attempt of Drayton and Sayres to 
 give freedom to seventy men and women, fel- 
 low-beings and fellow-Christians. Had Tripoli, 
 instead of Washington, been the scene of this 
 undertaking, the unhappy leaders in it would 
 have been as secure of the theoretic as they 
 now are of the practical part of martyrdom. 1 
 question whether the Dey of Tripoli is blessed 
 with a District Attorney so benighted as ours 
 at the seat of government. Veiy fitly is he 
 named Key, who would allow himself to be 
 made the instrument of locking the door of 
 hope against sufferers in such a cause. Not all 
 the waters of the ocean can cleanse the vile 
 smutch of the jailer's fingers from off that little 
 Key. ATienea clavis, a brazen Key indeed ! 
 
 Mr. Calhoun, who is made the chief speaker 
 in this burlesque, seems to think that the light 
 of the nineteenth century is to be put out as 
 soon as he tinkles his little cow-bell curfew. 
 Whenever slavery is touched, he sets up his 
 scarecrow of dissolving the Union. This may 
 do for the North, but I should conjecture that 
 something more than a pumpkin-lantern is re- 
 quired to scare manifest and irretrievable Des- 
 tiny out of her path. Mr. Calhoun cannot let 
 go the apron-string of the Past. The Past is a 
 good nurse, but we must be weaned from her 
 sooner or later, even though, like Plotinus, we 
 should nin home from school to ask the breast, 
 after we are tolerably well-gi-own youths. It 
 will not do for us to hide our faces in her lap, 
 whenever the strange Future holds out her 
 arms and asks us to come to her. 
 
 But we are all alike. We have all heard it 
 Baid, often enough, that little boys must not 
 play with fire ; and yet, if the matches be taken 
 away from us, and put out of reach upon the 
 shelf, we must needs get into our little comer, 
 and scowl and stamp and threaten the dire re- 
 venge of going to bed without our supper. The 
 world shall stop till we get our dangerous play- 
 thing again. Dame Earth, meanwhile, who has 
 more than enough household matters to mind, 
 goes bustling hither and thither as a hiss or a 
 sputter tells her that this or that kettle of h^ra 
 jiS boiling over, and before bedtime we are glad 
 
 to eat our porridge cold, and gulp down our 
 dignity along witli it. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun has somehow acquired the nama 
 of a great statesman, and, if it be great statcp-- 
 manship to put lance in rest and run a tilt a^ 
 the Spirit of the Age with the certainty of be 
 ing next moment hurled neck and heels int( 
 the dust amid univeraal laughter, he deserve? 
 the title. He is the Sir Kay of our modem 
 chivalry. He should remember the old Scan- 
 dinavian mythus. Thor was the strongest o( 
 gods, but he could not wrestle with Time, nor 
 so much as lift up a fold of the great snake 
 which hound the universe together ; and when 
 he smote the Earth, though with his ten-ible 
 mallet, it was but as if a leaf had fallen. Yet 
 all the while it seemed to Thor that he had 
 only been wrestling with an old woman, striv- 
 ing to lift a cat, and striking a stupid giant on 
 the head. 
 
 And in old times, doubtless, the giants wen 
 stupid, and there was no better sport for the 
 Sir Launcelots and Sir Gawains than to go 
 about cutting off their great blundering heads 
 with enchanted swords. But things have won- 
 derfully changed. It is the giants, nowadays, 
 that have the science and the intelligence, 
 while the chivalrous Don Quixotes of Conserva- 
 tism still cumber themselves with the clumsy 
 armor of a bygone age. On whirls the restless 
 globe through unsounded time, with its cities 
 and its silences, its births and funerals, half 
 light, half shade, but never wholly dark, and 
 sure to swing round into the happy morning 
 at last. With an involuntary smile, one sees 
 Mr. Calhotm letting slip his pack-thread cable 
 with a crooked pin at the end of it to anchor 
 South Carolina upon the bank and shoal of the 
 Past.— H. W.] 
 
 TO MR BUCKENAM. 
 
 MR. Edtter, As i wuz kinder prunin 
 round, in a little nussry sot out a ^ear or 
 2 a go, the Dbait in the sennit cum inter 
 my mine An so i took & Sot it to wut I 
 call a nussry rime. I hev made sum onna- 
 ble Gentlemun speak that dident speak in 
 a Kind uv Poetikul lie sense the seeson is 
 dreffle backerd up This way 
 
 ewers as ushul 
 
 HOSEA BIGLOW. 
 
 "Here we stan' on the Constitution, by 
 thunder ! 
 It 's a fact o' wich ther 's bushils o* 
 proofs ; 
 Far how could we trample on 't so, I 
 wonder, 
 Ef 't wom't thet it *s oilers under out 
 hoofs ? " 
 Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; 
 "Human rights haint no more 
 Right to come on this floor. 
 No more 'n the man in the moon," 
 sez he. 
 
190 
 
 TUE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 " The North haint no kind o' bisness 
 with nothin', 
 An' you 've no idee how much hother 
 it saves ; 
 We aint none riled by their frettin' an' 
 frothin', 
 "We 're v,sed to layin' the string on our 
 slaves," 
 Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
 Sez Mister Foote, 
 " I should like to shoot 
 The hoU gang, by the gret horn 
 spoon ! " sez he. 
 
 "Freedom's Keystone is Slavery, thet 
 ther 's no doubt on. 
 It 'a sutthin' thet 's — wha' d' ye call 
 it ? — divine, — 
 An' the slaves thet we oilers maJce the 
 most out on 
 Air them north o' Mason an' Dixon's 
 line," 
 Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
 " Fer all thet," sez Mangum, 
 " 'T would be better to hang 'em, 
 An' so git red on 'em soon," sez he. 
 
 " The mass ough' to labor an' we lay on 
 soffies, 
 Thet 's the reason I want to spread 
 Freedom's aree ; 
 It puts all the cunninest on us in office, 
 An' reelises our Maker's orig'nal 
 idee," 
 Sez John C. Calhoun, .sez he ; — 
 "Thet 's ez plain," sez Cass, 
 " Ez thet some one 's an ass. 
 It 's ez clear ez the sun is at noon," 
 sez he. 
 
 " Now don't go to say I 'm the friend of 
 oppression, 
 But keep all your spare breath fer 
 coolin' your broth, 
 Fer I oilers hev strove (at least thet 's 
 my impression) 
 To make cussed free with the rights o' 
 the North," 
 Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
 "Yes," sez Davis o' Miss., 
 " The perfection o' bliss 
 Is in skinnin' thet same old coon," 
 sez he. 
 
 "Slavery 's a thing thet depends on 
 complexion. 
 It's God's law thet fetters on black 
 skins don't chafe ; 
 
 Ef brains wuz to settle it (horrid refleo> 
 tion !) 
 Wich of our onnable body 'd be safe ?" 
 Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
 Sez Mister Hannegan, 
 Afore he began agin, 
 "Thet exception is quite opper* 
 toon," sez he. 
 
 "Gen'ole Cass, Sir, you needn't bo 
 twitchin' your collar. 
 Your merit 's quite clear by the dut 
 on your knees. 
 At the North we don't make no distinc- 
 tions o' color ; 
 You can all take a lick at our shoee 
 wen you please," 
 Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
 Sez Mister Jamagin, 
 " They wunt hev to lam agin. 
 They all on 'em know the old toon," 
 sez he. 
 
 " The slavery question aint no ways be- 
 wUderin'. 
 North an' South hev one int'rest, it 'a 
 plain to a glance ; 
 No'them men, like us patriarchs, don't 
 sell their childrin. 
 But they du sell themselves, ef they 
 git a good chance," 
 Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
 Sez Atherton here, 
 "This is gittin' severe, 
 I wish I could dive like a loon," sez 
 he. 
 
 " It '11 break up the Union, this talk 
 about freedom. 
 An' your fact'ry gals (soon ez we split) 
 '11 make head, 
 An' gittin' some Miss chief or other to 
 lead 'em, 
 'II go to work raisin' permiscoovBS 
 Ned," 
 Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
 "Yes, the North," sez Colquitt, 
 " Ef we Southeners all quit, 
 Would go down like a busted bal- 
 loon," sez he. 
 
 " Jest look wut is doin', wut annyky 'a 
 brewin' 
 In the beautiful clime o' the olive an' 
 vine. 
 All the wise aristoxy 's a tumblin' to ruin. 
 An' the sankylots drorin' an' drinkin' 
 their wine," 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 191 
 
 Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
 ** Yes," sez Johnson, " in France 
 They 're beginnin' to dance 
 
 Beelzebub's own rigadoon," sez he, 
 
 " The South 's safe enough, it don't feel 
 
 a mite skeery, 
 Our slaves in theii* darkness an' dut 
 air tu blest 
 Not to welcome with proud hallylugera 
 the ery 
 "Wen our eagle kicks youm from the 
 naytional nest," 
 Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
 " 0," sez Westcott o' Florida, 
 " Wut treason is horrider 
 Then our priv'leges tryin' to proon ? " 
 sez he. 
 
 ** It 's *coz they 're so happy, thet, wen 
 crazy sarpints 
 Stick their nose in our bizness, we git 
 so darned riled ; 
 We think it 's our dooty to give pooty 
 sharp hints, 
 Thet the last crumb of Edin on airth 
 sha' n't be spiled," 
 Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
 "Ah," sez Dixon H. Lewis, 
 " It perfectly true is 
 Thet slavery's airth'sgrettestboon," 
 sez he. 
 
 [It was said of old time, that riches have 
 wings ; and, though this he not applicable in 
 a liteml strictness to the wealth of our patri- 
 archal brethren of the South, yet it is clear that 
 their possessions have legs, and an unaccount- 
 able propensity for using them in a northerly 
 direction. I marvel that the grand jury of 
 Washington did not find a true bill against the 
 North Star for aiding and abetting Drayton and 
 Sayres. It would have been quite of a piece 
 with the intelligence displayed by the South 
 on other questions connected with slavery. I 
 think that no ship of state was ever freighted 
 with a more veritable Jonah than is this same 
 domestic institution of ours. Mephistopheles 
 himself could not feign so bitterly, so satirically 
 sad a sight as this of three millions of human 
 beings crushed beyond help or hope by this 
 one mighty argument, — Our fathers knew no 
 letter ! Nevertheless, it is the unavoidable des- 
 tiny of Jonahs to be cast overboard sooner or 
 Jater. Or shall we try the experiment of hid- 
 ing our Jonah in a safe place, that none may 
 lay hands on him to make jetsam of him ? Let 
 us, then, with equal forethought and wisdom, 
 laah ourselves to the anchor, and await, in pious 
 confidence, the certain result. Perhaps our 
 suspicious passenger is no Jonah after all, be- 
 ing black. For it iswell known that a superin- 
 tending Providence made a kind of sandwich 
 of Ham and his descendants, to be devoured 
 by the Caucasian race. 
 
 In God's name, let all, who hear nearer and 
 nearer the hungry moan of the storm and the 
 growl of the breakers, speak out I But, alas ! 
 we have no right to interfere. If a man pluck" 
 an apple of miue, he shall be in danger of tha 
 justice ; but if he steal my brother, I must be 
 silent Who says this ? Our Constitution, con- 
 secrated by the callous consuetude of sixty 
 years, and grasped in triumphant argument by 
 the left hand of him whose right hand clutches 
 the clotted slave-whip. Justice, venerable with 
 the undethronable majesty of countless seons, 
 says, — Speak I The Past, wise with the sor- 
 rows and desolations of ages, from amid her 
 shattered fanes and wolf-housing palaces, ech- 
 oes, — Speak 1 Nature, through her thousani 
 trumpets of freedom, her stars, her sunrises, 
 her seas, her winds, her cataracts, her moun- 
 tains blue with cloudy pines, blows jubilant, 
 encouragement, and cries, — Speak! From 
 the soul's trembling abysses the still, small 
 voice not vaguely murmurs, — Speak 1 But, 
 alas 1 the Constitution and the Honorable Mr. 
 Bagowind, M. C, say — Be dumb 1 
 
 It occurs to me to suggest, as a topic of in- 
 quiry in this connection, whether, on tliat mo- 
 mentous occasion when the goats and the sheep 
 shall be parted, the Constitution and the Hon- 
 orable Mr. Bagowind, M. C, will be expected 
 to take their places on the left as our hircino 
 vicars. 
 
 Quid sum miser tunc dictunis f 
 Quern patronum rogaturus ? 
 
 There is a point where toleration sinks into 
 sheer baseness and poltroonery. The toleration 
 of the worst leads us to look on what is barely 
 better as good enough, and to worship what is 
 only moderately good. Woe to that man, or 
 that nation, to whom mediocrity has become an 
 ideal I 
 
 Has our experiment of self-government suc- 
 ceeded, if it barely manage to rub and go ? 
 Here, now, is a piece of barbarism which Christ 
 and the nineteenth century say shall cease, and 
 which Messrs. Smith, Brown, and others say 
 shall not cease. I would by no means deny the 
 eminent respectability of these gentlemen, but 
 I confess, that, in such a wrestling-match, I 
 cannot help having my fears for them. 
 
 Disdtejustitiam, moniti, et non leirmere divos. 
 H. W.) 
 
 No. VI. 
 THE PIOUS EDITOE'S CREED. 
 
 [At the special instance of Mr. Biglow, I 
 preface the following satire with an extract 
 from a sermon preached during the past sum- 
 mer, from Ezekiel xxxiv. 2: "Son of man, 
 prophesy against the shepherds of Israel." 
 Sintie the Sabbath on which this discourse was 
 delivered, the editor of the " Jaalam Indepen- 
 dent Blunderbuss " has unaccoimtably absented 
 himself from our house of worship. 
 
 " I know of no so responsible position as that 
 of the public journalist. The editor of our day 
 bears the same relation to his time that the 
 clerk bore to the age before the inveation ii 
 
192 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 printing. Indeed, the position which he holds 
 IS that whir-h the clergyman should hold even 
 now. But the clergyman chooses to walk off to 
 the extreme edge of the world, and to throw 
 Buch seed as he has clear over into that dark- 
 ness which he calls the Next Life. As if next 
 did not mean nea/rest, and as if any life were 
 nearer than that immediately present one which 
 boils and eddies all around him at the caucus, 
 the ratification meeting, and the polls ! Vfho 
 . taught him to exhort men to prepare for eter- 
 nity, as for some future era of which the pres- 
 ent forms no integral part? The furrow which 
 Time is even now turning runs thrnugh the 
 Everlasting, and in that nmst he plant, or no- 
 where. Yet he would fain believe and teach 
 that we are going to have more of eternity than 
 we have now. This going of his is like that of 
 the auctioneer, on which gone follows before we 
 have made up our minds to bid, — in which 
 manner, not three months back, I lost an ex- 
 cellent copy of Chappelow on Job. So it has 
 come to pass that the preacher, instead of be- 
 ing a living force, has faded into an emblematic 
 Sgure at christenings, weddings, and funerals. 
 Or, if he exercise any other function, it is as 
 keeper and feeder of certain theologic dogmas, 
 which, when occasion offers, he unkennels with 
 a stdboy ! ' to bark and bite as 't is their nature 
 to,' whence that reproach of odium tJieologicvm 
 has arisen. 
 
 "Meanwhile, see what a pulpit the editor 
 mounts daily, sometimes with a congregation 
 of fifty thousand within reach of his voice, and 
 never, so much as a nodder, even, among them 1 
 And from what a Bible can he choose his text, 
 — a Bible which needs no translation, and 
 which no priestcraft can shut and clasp from 
 the laity, — the open volumenf the world, upon 
 which, with a pen of sunshine or destroying 
 fire, the inspired Present is even now writing 
 the annals of God ! Methinks the editor who 
 should understand his calling, and be equal 
 thereto, would truly deserve that title of Trotiiti;!' 
 \aiov, which Homer bestows upon princes. He 
 would be the Moses of our nineteenth century ; 
 and whereas the old Sinai, silent now, is but a 
 common mountain stared at by the elegant 
 tourist and crawled over by the hammering 
 geologist, he must find his tables of the new law 
 here among factories and cities in this Wilder- 
 ness of Sin (Numbers xxxiii. 12) called Progress 
 of Civilization, and be the captain of our Exo- 
 dus into the Canaan of a truer social order. 
 
 "Nevertheless, our editor will not come so 
 fej* within even the shadow of Sinai as Mahomet 
 did, but chooses rather to construe Mosea by 
 Joe Smith. He takes up the crook, not that 
 the sheep may be fed, but that he may never 
 want a warm woollen suit and a joint of mut- 
 ton. 
 
 ZmmcTTior, 0, fdei, pecormnque ohlite tiwrum ! 
 
 For which reason I would derive the name 
 editor not so much from edo, to publish, as ftom 
 tdo, to eat, that being the peculiar profession 
 to which he esteems himself called. He blows 
 np the flames of political discord for no other 
 occasion than that he may thereby handily boil 
 his own pot. I believe there are two thousand 
 of these mutton-loving shepherds in the United 
 States, and of these, how many have even the 
 dimmest perception of their immense power, { 
 
 and the duties consequent thereon ? Here and 
 there, haply, one. Nine hundred and ninety- 
 nine labor to impress* upon the people the 
 great principles of Tweedled/uin, and other nine 
 hundred and ninety-nine preach with equal 
 earnestness the gospel according to Twsidlfi- 
 dee." — H. W.] 
 
 I DTJ believe in Freedom's cause, 
 
 Ez fur away ez Payxis is ; 
 I love to see her stick her claws 
 
 In them infamal Phayrisees ; 
 It 's wal enough agin a king 
 
 To dror resdves an' triggers, — 
 But libbaty 's a kind o* thing 
 
 Thet don't agree with niggers. 
 
 I du believe the people want 
 
 A tax on teas an* coffees, 
 Thet nothin' aint extra vygunt, — 
 
 Purvidin' I *m in office ; 
 Fer I hev loved my country sence 
 
 My eye-teeth filled their sockets. 
 An' Uncle Sam I reverence, 
 
 Partic'larly his pockets. 
 
 I du believe in any plan 
 
 0* levjdn' the texes, 
 Ez long ez, like a lumberman, 
 
 I git jest wut I axes ; 
 I go free-trade thru thick an* thin, 
 
 Because it kind o' rouses 
 The folks to vote, — an' keeps us in 
 
 Our quiet custom-houses. 
 
 I du believe it 's wise an' good 
 
 To sen' out furrin missions, 
 Thet is, on saitin understood 
 
 An' orthydox conditions ; — 
 I mean nine thousan* dolls, per ann.f 
 
 Nine thousan' more fer outfit, 
 An' me to recommend a man 
 
 The place 'ould jest about fit. 
 
 I du believe in special ways 
 
 0' prajdn' an' convartin' ; 
 The bread comes back in many day% 
 
 An' buttered, tu, fer sartin ; 
 T mean in preyin' till one busts 
 
 On wut the party chooses. 
 An' in convartin' public trusts 
 
 To very privit uses. 
 
 I du believe hard coin the stuff 
 Fer 'lectioneers to spout on ; 
 
 The people 's oilers soft enough 
 To make hard money out on ; 
 
 Dear Uncle Sam pervides fer his. 
 An' gives a good-sized junk to all, — * 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 193 
 
 I doH*t care how hard money is, 
 Ez long ez mine 's paid punctooal, 
 
 I du believe with all my soul 
 
 In the gret Press's freedom, 
 To pint the people to the goal 
 
 An' in the traces lead *em ; 
 Palsied the ann thet forges yokes 
 
 At my fat contracts squintin", 
 An* withered be the nose thet pokes 
 j Inter the gov'ment printin' ! 
 
 I du believe thet I should give 
 
 Wut *a his'n unto Csesar, 
 Per it 's by him I move an' live, 
 
 Frum him my bread an' cheese air ; 
 I du "believe thet all o' me 
 
 Doth bear his superscription, — 
 "Will, conscience, honor, honesty, 
 
 An' things o' thet description. 
 
 I du believe in prayer an* praise 
 
 To him thet liez the grantin' 
 0' jobs, — in every thin' thet pays, 
 
 But most of all in Gantik' ; 
 This doth my cup with marcies fill, 
 
 This lays all thought o' sin to rest, — 
 I don't believe in princerple. 
 
 But O, I du in interest. 
 
 I du believe in bein* this 
 
 Or thet, ez it may happen 
 One way or t' other hendiest is 
 
 To ketch the people nappin* ; 
 It aint by princerples nor men 
 
 My preudunt course is steadied, — 
 1 scent wich pays the best, an' then 
 
 Go into it baldheaded. 
 
 I du believe thet holdin' slaves 
 
 Comes nat'ral to a Presidunt, 
 Let 'lone the rowdedow it saves 
 
 To hev a wal-broke precedunt ; 
 Per any office, small or gret, 
 
 I could n't ax with no face, 
 *uthout I 'd ben, thru dry an' wet, 
 
 Th' unrizzest kind o' doughface. 
 
 I du believe wutever trash 
 
 '11 keep the people in blindness, — 
 Thet we the Mexicuns can thrash 
 
 Right inter brotherly kindness, 
 Thet bombshells, grape, an' powder 'n' 
 ball 
 
 Air good-will's strongest magnets, 
 Thet peace, to make it stick at all, 
 
 Must be druv in with bagnets. 
 
 In short, I firmly du believe 
 
 In Humbug generally, 
 Per it 's a thing thet I perceive 
 
 To hev a solid vally ; 
 This heth my faitliful shepherd ban. 
 
 In pasturs sweet heth led me, 
 An' this '11 keep the people green 
 
 To feed ez they hev fed me. 
 
 [I subjoin here another passage from my 
 before-meutioue^j. discourae. | 
 
 " Wonderful, to him that has eyes to see it 
 rightly, is the newspaper. To nie, for exam- 
 ple, sitting on the critical front bench of the 
 pit,' in my study here in Jaalam, the advent 
 of my weeldy journal is as that of, a strolling 
 theatre, or rather of a puppet-show, on whose 
 stage, narrow as it is, the tragedy, comedy, and 
 farce of life are played in little. Behold the 
 whole huge earth sent to me hebdomadally in 
 a brown-paper wi'apper I 
 
 "Hither, to my obscure comer, by wind or 
 steam, on horseback or dromedary-back, in the 
 pouch of the Indian runner, or clicking over 
 the magnetic wires, troop all the famous per- 
 formers from the four quai'ters of the globe. 
 Looked at fi'om a point of criticism, tiny pup- 
 pets they seem all, as the editor sets up his 
 booth upon my desk and officiates as showman. 
 Now I can truly see how little aud transitory 
 is life. The eaHh appears almost as a drop of 
 vinegar, on which the solar microscope of the 
 imagination must be brought to bear in order 
 to make out anything distinctly. Thatanimal- 
 cule there, in the pea-jacket, is Louis Philippe, 
 just landed on the coast of England. That 
 other, in the gray sui-tout and cocked hat, is 
 Napoleon Bonapai-te Smith, assuring France 
 that she need apprehend no interference from 
 him in the present alarming juncture. At that 
 spot, where you seem to see a speck of some- 
 thing in motion, is an immense mass-meeting. 
 Look sharper, and you wUl see a mite bran- 
 dishing his mandibles in an excited manner. 
 That is the great Mr. Soandso, defining his po- 
 sition amid tumultuous and irrepressible cheers. 
 That infinitesimal creature, upon whom some 
 score of others, as minute as he, are gazing in 
 open-mouthed admiration, is a famous philoso- 
 pher, expounding to a select audience their 
 capacity for the Infinite. That scarce discern- 
 ible pufflet of smoke and dust is a revolutioiL 
 That speck there is a reformer, just arranging 
 the lever with which he is to move the world. 
 And lo, there creeps forward the shadow of a 
 skeleton that blows one breath between its 
 grinning teeth, and all our distinguished actors 
 are whisked off the slippery stage into the dark, 
 Beyond. 
 
 "Yes, the little show-box has its solemner 
 suggestions. Now and then we catch a glimpse 
 of a grim old man, who lays down a scythe and 
 hour-glass In the comer while he shifts the 
 scenes. There, too, in the dim background, a 
 weird shape is ever delving. Sometimes he 
 leans upon, his mattock, and gazes, as a coach 
 whirls by, bearing the newly married on their 
 wedding jaunt, or glances carelessly at a babe 
 brought home from christening. Suddenly (for 
 the scene grows larger and larger as we look) a 
 
194 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 ■bony band snatches back a performer in tbe 
 midst of his part, aud biiu, whom yesterday 
 two infinities (past and future) would not suf- 
 fice, a handful of dust is enough to cover and 
 silence forever. Nay, we see the same fleshless 
 fingers opening to clutch the showman himself, 
 and guess, not without a shudder, that they are 
 lying in wait for spectator also, 
 
 " Think of it : for three dollars a year I buy 
 a season-ticket to this great Globe Theatre, for 
 which God would wi'ite the dramas (only that 
 we like farces, spectacles, and the tragedies of 
 ApoUyon better), whose scene-shifter is Time, 
 and whose curtain is nmg down by Death. 
 
 "Such thoughts will occur to me sometimes 
 as I am tearing off the wrapper of my news- 
 paper. Then suddenly that otherwise too often 
 vacant sheet becomes invested for me with a 
 strange kind of awe. Look I deaths and mar- 
 riages, notices of inventions, discoveries, and 
 books, lists of promotions, of killed, wounded, 
 and missing, news of fires, accidents, of sudden 
 wealth and as sudden poverty ; — I hold in my 
 hand the ends of myriad invisible electric con- 
 ductors, along which tremble the joys, sorrows, 
 wrongs, triumphs, hopes, and despairs of as 
 many men and women everywhere. So that 
 upon that mood of mind which seems to isolate 
 me from mankind as a spectator of their i»up- 
 pet-pranks, another supervenes, in which I 
 feel that I, too, unknown and unheard of, am 
 yet of some import to my fellows. For, through 
 my newspaper here, do not families take pains 
 to send me, an entire stranger, news of a death 
 among them ? Are not here two who would 
 have me know of their marriage ? And, stran- 
 gest of all, is not this singular person anxious to 
 have me informed that he has received a fresh 
 supply of Dimitry Bruisgins ? But to none of 
 us does the Present continue miraculous (even 
 if for a moment discerned as such). We glance 
 carelessly at the sunrise, and get used to 
 Orion and ttie Pleiades. The wonder wears ofT, 
 and to-morrow this sheet (Acts x. 11, 12), in 
 which a vidion was let; down to me from Heaven, 
 shall be the wrappage to a bar of soap or the 
 platter fora beggar's broken victuals.'' — H. W.] 
 
 No. VIT. 
 A LETTER 
 
 FROM A CANDIDATE FOR TBJR PTIESIDENCY 
 IN ANSWER TO STJTTIN QUESTIONS PBO- 
 
 J POSED BY MR. HOSEA BIGLOW, INCLOSED 
 IN A NOTE PROM MR. BIGLOW TO S- H. 
 
 ' GAT, ESQ., EDITOR OP THE NATIONAL 
 ANTISLAVERT STANDARD. 
 
 [CtJRiosiTT may be said to be the quality 
 which pre-eminently distinEcuishes and segi'e- 
 gates man from the lower animals. As we trace 
 the scale of animated nature downward, we 
 find this faculty (as it may truly be called) of 
 the mind diminished in the savage, and well- 
 nigh extinct In the brute. The first object which 
 cirilized man proposes to himself I take to be 
 the finding out whatsoever he can concerning 
 his aeighbors. Nihil humanum a me aiienum 
 
 piito; I am curious about even John Smith. 
 The desire next in strength to this (an oppo« 
 site pole, indeed, of the same magnet) is that 
 of communicating the unintelligence we have 
 carefully picked up. 
 
 Men in general may be divided into the in- 
 quisitive and the communicative. To the 
 first class belong Peeping Toms, eaves-drop- 
 pers, navel-contemplating Brahmins, metaphy- 
 sicians, travellers, Empedocleses, spies, the 
 various societies for promoting Rhinothism, 
 Columbuses, Yankees, discoverers, and men or, 
 science, who present themselves to the mind as 
 so many marks of interrogation wandering up 
 and down the world, or sitting in studies and 
 laboratories. The second class I should again 
 subdivide into four. In the first subdivision 
 I would rank those who have an itch to tell 
 us about themselves, — as keepers of diaries, 
 insignificant persons generally, Montaignes, 
 Horace Walpoles, autobiographers, poets. Tho 
 second includes those who are anxious to im- 
 part information concerning other people, — as 
 historians, barbers, and such. To the third be- 
 long those who labor to give us intelligence 
 about nothing at all, — as novelisl^, political 
 orators, the large majority of authors, preach- 
 ers, lecturers, and the like. In the fourth 
 come those who are communicative from mo- 
 tives of public benevolence, — as finders of 
 mares'-nests and bringers of ill news. Each of 
 us two-legged fowls without feathers embraces 
 all these subdivisions in himself to a greater or 
 less degree, for none of us so much as lays an 
 egg, or incubates a chalk one, but straightway 
 the whole barnyard shall know it by our cackle 
 or our cluck. Omnibus hoc vitium est. There 
 are different grades in all these classes. 0ns 
 will turn his telescope toward a back-yard, 
 another toward Uranus ; one will tell you that 
 he dined with Smith, another that he supped 
 with Plato. In one particular, all men may be 
 considered as belonging to the first grand divis- 
 ion, inasmuch as they all seem equally desir- 
 ous of discovering the mote in their neighbor'3 
 eye. 
 
 To one or another of these species every hu- 
 man being may safely be referred. I think it 
 beyond a peradventure that Jonah prosecuted 
 some inquiries into the digestive apparatus of 
 whales, and that Noah sealed up a letter in 
 an empty bottle, that news in regard to him 
 might not be wanting in case of the worst 
 They had else been super or subter human. I 
 conceive, also, that, as there are certain persons 
 who continually peep and pry at the keyhole 
 of that mysterious door through which, sooner 
 or later, we all make our exits, so there are 
 doubtless ghosts fidgeting and fretting on the 
 other side of it, because they have no means oi 
 conveying back to this world the scraps ot 
 news they have picked up in that For there 
 is an answer ready somewhere to every ques- 
 tion, the great law of give and take runs 
 through all nature, and if we see a hook, we 
 may be sure that an eye is waiting for it. I 
 read in every face I meet a standing advertise- 
 ment of information wanted in regard to A. B., 
 or that the friends of C. D. can hear something 
 to his disadvantage by application to such a 
 one. 
 
 It was to gratify the two groat passions ol 
 asking and answering that epistolary corre* 
 spondence was first invented. Letters (for by 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 195 
 
 this nanrped title epistles are now commonly 
 kuowu) are of several kinds. First, there are 
 those which are not letters at all, — as letters- 
 patent, letters dimissory, letters enclosing 
 hills, letters of administration, Pliny's letters, 
 letters of diplomacy, of Cato, of Mentor, of 
 Loixls Lyttelton, Chesterfield, and Orrery, of 
 Jacob Behmen, Seneca (whom St. Jerome in- 
 cludes in his list of sacred writers), letiiers fl^m 
 abroad, from sons in college to their fathers, 
 letters of marque, and letters generally, which 
 are in no wise letters of mark. Second, are 
 real letters, such as those of Gray, Cowper, 
 Walpole, Howell, Lamb, D. Y., the first letters 
 from children (printed in staggering capitals). 
 Letters from New York, letters of credit, and 
 others, interesting for the sake of the writer 
 or the thing written. I have read also letters 
 from Europe by a gentleman named Pinto, con- 
 taining some curious gossip, and which I hope 
 to see collected for the benefit of the curious. 
 There are, besides, letters addressed to pos- 
 terity, — as epitaphs, for example, written for 
 their own monuments by monarchs, whereby 
 we have lately become possessed of the names 
 of several great conquerors and kings of kings, 
 hitherto unheard of and still unpronounceable, 
 but valuable to the student of the entirely dark 
 ages. The letter of our Saviour to King Abga- 
 rus, that which St. Peter sent to King Pepin in 
 the year of grace 755, that of the Virgin to the 
 magistrates of Messina, that of the Sanhedrim 
 of Toledo to Annas and Caiaphas, A. n. 85, that 
 of Galeazzo Sforza's spirit to his brother Lodo- 
 Tico, that of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus to the 
 D — 1, and that of this last-mentioned active 
 police-magistrate to a nun of Girgenti, 1 would 
 place in a class by themselves, as also the letters 
 of candidates, concerning which 1 shall dilate 
 more fully in a note at the end of the following 
 poem. At present, sat prata biberunt. Only, 
 concerning the shape of letters, they are all 
 either square or oblong, to which general figures 
 circular letters and round-robins also conform 
 themselves. — H. W.] 
 
 Deer sib its gut to be the fashun now 
 to rite letters to the candid 8s and i wua 
 chose at a publick Meetin in Jaalam to du 
 wut wus nessary fur that town, i writ to 
 271 ginerals and gut ansers to 209. tha 
 air called candid 8s but I don't see nothin 
 candid about 'em. this here 1 wich I 
 send wus thought satty's factory. I dunno 
 as it 's ushle to print Poscrips, but as all 
 the ansers I got hed the saim, I sposed it 
 wus best, times has gretly changed. 
 Formaly to knock a man into a cooked hat 
 wus to use him up, but now it ony gives 
 him a chance fur the cheef madgustracy. 
 — H. B. 
 
 Dear Sir, — You wish to know my 
 notions 
 On sartin pints thet rile the land ; 
 TTiere 's nothin' thet my natur so shuns 
 
 Ez bein' mum or underhand ; 
 1 'm a straight-spoken kind o' creetur 
 Thet blurts right out wut's in his 
 head, I 
 
 An ef I 've one peoooler feetur. 
 It is a nose thet wunt be led. 
 
 So, to begin at the beginnin' 
 
 An' come direcly to the pint, 
 I think the country 's underpinnin' 
 
 Is some consid'ble out o' jint ; 
 I aint ac;oin' to try your patience 
 
 By tellin' who done this or thet, 
 I don't make no insinooations, 
 
 I jest let on I smell a rat. 
 
 Thet is, I mean, it seems to me so, 
 
 But, ef the public think I 'm wrong, 
 I wunt deny but wut I be so, — 
 
 An', fact, it don't smell very strong; 
 My mind 's tu fair to lose its balance 
 
 An' say wich party hez most sense ; 
 There may be folks o' greater talence 
 
 Thet can't set stiddier on the fence. 
 
 I 'm an eclectic ; ez to choosin' 
 'Twixt this an' thet, 1 'm plaguy 
 lawth ; 
 I leave a side thet looks like losin', 
 But (wile there 's doubt) I stick to 
 both; 
 I Stan' upon the Constitution, 
 Ez preudunt statesmun say, who 'V9 
 planned 
 A way to git the most profusion 
 0' chances ez to ware they '11 stand. 
 
 Ez fer the war, I go agin it, — 
 
 I mean to say 1 kind o' du, — 
 Thet is, I mean thet, bein' in it, 
 
 The best way wuz to fight it thru ; 
 Not but wut abstract war is horrid, 
 
 I sign to thet with all my heart, — 
 But civlyzation doos git forrid 
 
 Sometimes upon a powder-cart. 
 
 About thet darned Proviso matter 
 
 I never hed a grain o' doubt, 
 Nor I aint one my sense to scatter 
 
 So 'st no one could n't pick it out ; i 
 My love fer North an' South is equil, ■ 
 
 So I '11 jest answer plump an' frank. 
 No matter wut may be the sequil, — , 
 
 Yes, Sir, I am agin a Bank. 
 
 Ez to the answeriu' o' questions, 
 
 I 'm an off ox at bein' druv. 
 Though I aint one thet ary test shuns 
 
 '11 give our folks a helpin' shove ; 
 Kind o' permiscoous I go it 
 
 Fer the hell country, an' the ground 
 
196 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPEES. 
 
 I take, ez nigh ez I can show it, 
 Is pooty gen'ally all round. 
 
 1 don't appnive o' givin* pledg3s ; 
 You 'd ough' to leave a feller free, 
 
 An* not go knockin' out the wedges 
 To ketch his fingers in the tree ; 
 
 Pledges air awfle breachy cattle 
 Thet preudunt farmers don't turn 
 out, — 
 
 Ez long 'z the people git their rattle, 
 "Wut is there fer *m to grout about ? 
 
 Ez to the slaves, there 's no confusion 
 In my idees consarnin' them, — 
 
 2 think they air an Institution, 
 
 A sort of — yes, jest so, — ahem : 
 Do / own any ? Of my merit 
 
 On thet pint you yourself may jedge ; 
 All is, I never drink no sperit, 
 
 Nor I haint never signed no pledge. 
 
 Ez to my princerples, I glory 
 
 In hevin' notliin' o' the sort ; 
 I aint a Wig, I aint a Toiy, 
 
 I 'm jest a candidate, in short ; 
 Thet 's.fair an' square an* parpendicler. 
 
 But, ef the Public cares a fig 
 To hev me an' thin' in particler, 
 
 Wy, I 'm a kind o' peri- Wig. 
 
 P. S. 
 
 Ez we 're a sort o* privateftrin*, 
 
 O' course, you know, it *s sheer an' 
 sheer, 
 An' there is sutthin' wuth your hearin' 
 
 I ']1 mention in yoxcr privit ear ; 
 l^f you git me inside the White House, 
 
 Your head with ile 1 'U kin' o' 'nint 
 By gittin* yov, inside the Light-house 
 
 Down to the ecnd o* Jaalam Pint. 
 
 An' ez the North hez took to brustlin* 
 
 At bein' scrouged frum off" the roost, 
 I '11 tell ye wut '11 save all tusslin' 
 
 An' give our side a harnsome boost, — 
 Tell 'em thet on the Slavery question 
 
 I 'm RIGHT, although to speak 1 'm 
 lawth ; 
 This gives you a safe pint to rest on, 
 
 An' leaves me frontin' South by 
 North. 
 
 [And now of epistles candidatial, which are 
 nf two kinds, — namely, letters of acceptance, 
 and letters definitive of position. Our repub- 
 lie, wu the eve of an election, may safely enough 
 
 be called a republic of leftflrs. Epistolary 
 composition becomes then an epidemic, which 
 seizes one candidate after aaother, not seldom 
 cutting short the thread of political life. Ifc 
 has come to such a pass, that a party dreada 
 less the attacks of its opponents than a letter 
 from its candidate. Litera scripta manet, and 
 it will go hard if something bad cannot he made 
 of it General Harrison, it is well understood, 
 was surrounded, duiin^ his candidacy, with the 
 cordon sanitaire of a vigilance committee. No 
 prisoner in Spielberg was ever more cautiously, 
 deprived of writing materials. The soot was 
 scraped carefully ft-om the chimney-places ; out-' 
 posts of expert rifle-shooters rendered it sure 
 death for any goose (who came clad in feathers) 
 to approach within a certain limited distance 
 of North Bend ; and all domestic fowls about 
 the premises were reduced to the condition of 
 Plato's original man. By these precautiona 
 the General was saved. Parva coviponere mag- 
 nis, I remember, that, when party-spirit onco 
 ran high among my people, upon occasion of 
 the choice of a new deacon, I, having my pref- 
 erences, yet not caring too openly to express 
 them, made use of an innocent fraud to bring 
 about that result which I deemed most desira- 
 ble. My stratagem was no other than the 
 throwing a copy of the Complete Letter-Writer 
 in the way of the candidate whom I wished to 
 defeat. He caught the infection, and addressed 
 a short note to his constituents, in which the 
 opposite party detected so many and so grave 
 improprieties (he had modelled it upon the 
 letter of a young lady accepting a pro])Osal of 
 marriage), that he not only lost his election, but, 
 falling under a suspicion of Sahellianism and I 
 know not what (the widow Endive assured me 
 that he was a Paralipomenon, to hef certaia 
 knowledge), was forced to leave the town. 
 Thus it is that the letter killeth. 
 
 The ohject which candidates propose to 
 themselves in writing is to convey no meaning 
 at all. And here is a quite unsuspected pitfaU 
 into which they successively plunge headlong. 
 For it is precisely in such cryptographies that 
 mankind are prone to seelc for and find a won- 
 derful amount and variety of significance. 
 Omne ignotum pro mirifico. How do we admire 
 at the antique world striving to crack thbse 
 oracular nuts fl-om Delphi, Hammon, and else- 
 where, in only one of which can I so much as 
 surmise that any kernel had ever lodged ; that, 
 namely, wherein Apollo confessed that he was 
 mortal. One Didymus is, moreover, related to 
 have written six thousand books on the single 
 subject of grammar, a topic rendered only more 
 tenebrific hythe labors of his successors, and 
 which seems still to possess an attraction foraii- 
 thors in proportion as they can make nothing of 
 it. A singular loadstone for theologians, aiso, 
 is the Beast in the Apocalypse, whereof, in the' 
 course of my studies, I have noted two hun- 
 dred and three several interpretations, each 
 lethiferal to all the rest. Non nostrwm est tan^ 
 tas componere lites, yet I have myself ventured 
 upon a two hundred and fourth, which I em- 
 bodied in a discourse preached on occasion of 
 the demise of the late usurper, Napoleon Bona- 
 parte, and which quieted, in a large measure, 
 the minds of my people. - It is true that my 
 views on this important point were ardently 
 controverted by Mr. Sbeuijashub Holdeu, Uio 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 19T 
 
 then preceptor of our academy, and in other 
 particnlnrs a very deserving and senalble 
 young man, though possessing a somewlmt 
 limited knowledge of the Greek tongue. 13ut 
 hiu heresy struck down no deep root, and, he 
 having been lately removed by the hand of 
 Providence, I had the satisraction of reaffirm- 
 ing my cherished sentiments in a sermon 
 preached upon the Lord's day immediately suc- 
 ceeding his funeral. This might seem like tak- 
 ing an unfair advantage, did 1 not add that he 
 had made provision in his last will (being celi- 
 bate) for the publication of a posthumous trac- 
 tate in support of his own dangerous opinions. 
 
 I know of nothing in our modern times which 
 approaches so nearly to the ancient oracle as 
 the letter of a Presidential candidate. Now, 
 among the Greeks, the eating of beans was 
 strictly forbidden to all such as had it la mind 
 to consult those expert amphibologists, and 
 this same prohibition on the part of Pythag- 
 oras to his disciples is understood to imply 
 an abstinence from politics, beans having been 
 nsed as ballots. That other explication, qiutd 
 videlicet sensus eo cibo obtundi existimaret, 
 though supported pugnis et calciints by many 
 of the learned, and not wanting the counte- 
 nance of Cicero, is confuted by the larger expe- 
 rience of New England. On the whole, I think 
 it safer to apply here the rule of interpretation 
 which now generally obtains in regard to an- 
 tique cosmogonies, myths, fables, proverbial 
 expressions, and knotty points generally, which 
 is, to find a common-sense meaning, and then 
 select whatever can be imagined ths most oppo- 
 site thereto. In this way we arrive at the con- 
 clusion, that tlie Greeks objected to the ques- 
 tioning of canditlates. And very properly, if, 
 as I conceive, the chief point be not to dis- 
 cover what a person in that positi(m is, or what 
 he will do, but whether he can be elected. Vos 
 exemplaria Grceca noctuma versate manu, versate 
 diunm. 
 
 But, since an imitation of the Greeks in 
 this particular (the asking of questions being 
 one chief privilege of freemen) is hardly to be 
 hoped for, and our candidates will answer, 
 whether they are questioned or not, I would 
 recommend that these ante-electionary dia- 
 logues should be carried on by symbols, as 
 were the diplomatic correspondences of the 
 Scythians and Macrobii, or confined to the lan- 
 guage of signs, like the famous interview of 
 Panui^e and Goatsnnse. A candidate might 
 then convey a suitable reply to all committees 
 of inquiry by clo.sing one eye, or by presenting 
 them with a phial of Egyptian darkness to be 
 speculated upon by their respective constituen- 
 cies. These answers would be susceptible of 
 whatever retrospective construction the exi- 
 gencies of the political campaign might seem 
 to demand, and the candidate could take his 
 position on either side of the fence with entire 
 consistency. Or, if letters nmst be written, 
 profitable use might be made of the Dightou 
 rock hieroglyphic or the cuneiform script, 
 every fr^h decipherer of which is enabled to 
 educe a different meaning, whereby a sculp- 
 tured stone or two supplies us, and will prob- 
 ably continue to supply posterity, with a very 
 vast and various body of authentic history 
 For even the briefest epistle in the ordinary 
 chirography is dangerous. There is scarce any 
 
 style 80 compressed that superfluous wordi 
 may not be detected in it A severe ciitio 
 might curtail that famous brevity of Ojesar's by 
 two thirds, drawing his pen through tlie supo 
 erogatory veni and vidi. Perhaps, after all, 
 the surest footing of hope is to be found in the 
 rapidly increasing tendency to demand less arjd 
 less of qualification in candidates. Ali-eady 
 have statesmanship, experience, and the pos- 
 session (nay, the profession, even) of principles 
 been rtjected as superfluous, and may not the 
 patriot reasonably hope that the ability to write 
 will follow? At present, there maybe death 
 in pot-hooks as well as pots, the loop of a let- 
 ter may suffice for a bow-string, and all tho 
 dreadful heresies of Antislavery may lurk in a 
 flourish. — H. W.] 
 
 No. VIII. 
 A SECOND LETTER FROM B. SAWIN, ESQ. 
 
 [In the following epistle, we behold Mr. 
 Sawin returning, a miles emeritibs, to the bosom 
 of his family. Quantwn mutatus ! The good 
 Father of us all had doubtless intrusted to the 
 keeping of this child of his certain faculties of 
 a constructive kind. He had put in him a 
 share of that vital force, the nicest economy 
 of every minute atom of which is necessary 
 to the perfect development of Humanity. He 
 had given him a brain and heart, and so had 
 equipped his soul with the two strong wiugs of 
 knowledge and love, whereby it can mount to 
 hang its nest under the eaves of heaven. And 
 this child, so dowered, he had intrusted to the 
 keeping of his vicar, the State. How stands 
 the account of that stewardship ? The atate, 
 or Society (call her by what- name you will), 
 had taken no manner of tho* At of him till she 
 saw hira swept out into the street, the pitiful 
 leavings of last night's debauch, with cigar- 
 ends, lemon-parings, tobacco-quids, slops, vilo 
 stenches, and the whole loathsome naxt-morn- 
 ing of the bar-room, — an own child of the 
 Almighty God ! I remember him as he wa-s 
 brought to be christened, a ruddy, rugged 
 babe ; and now there Ite wallows, reeking, 
 seething, — the dead corpse, not of a man, but 
 of a soul, — a putrefying lump, horrible for the 
 life that is in it. Comes the wind of heaven, 
 thAt good Samaritan, and parts the hair npon 
 his forehead, nor is too nice to kiss those 
 parched, cracked lips ; the morning opens upon 
 him her eyes full of pitying sunshine, the sky 
 yearns down to him, —and there he lies fer- 
 menting. O sleep I let me not profane thy holy 
 name by calling that stertorous unconscious- 
 ness a slumber ! By and by comes along the 
 State, God's vicar. Does she say, — " My poor, 
 forlorn foster-child! Behold here a force 
 which I will make dig and plant and build for 
 me " ? Not so^ but, — ' ' Here is a recruit ready- 
 made to my hand, a piece of destroying energy 
 lying improfitably idle." So she claps an ugly 
 gray suit on him, puts a musket in his grasp, 
 and sends him off, with Gubernatorial and 
 other godspeeds, to do duty as a destroyer. 
 
 I made one of the crowd at the last Mechan* 
 
198 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS 
 
 Ics' Fair, and, with the rent, stood gazing in 
 wonder at a perfect machine, witli its soul of 
 Are, its boiler-heart that sent the hot Wood 
 pulsing along the iron arteries, and its thews of 
 steeL And while I was adniii-ing the adapta- 
 tion of means to end, the harmonious involu- 
 tions of contrivance, and the never-bewildered 
 complexity, I saw a grimed and greasy fellow, 
 the imperious engine's lackey and drudge, 
 whose sole otiice was to let fall, at intervals, a 
 drop or two of oil upon a certain joint. Then 
 my soul said within me. See there a piece of 
 mechanism to which that other you marvel at 
 is but as tlie rude first effort of a child, — a 
 force which not merely suffices to set a few ' 
 wheels in motion, but which can send an im- 
 pulse all through the infinite future, — a con- 
 trivance, not for turning out pins, or stitching 
 buttonholes, but for malting Hamlets and 
 Lears. And yot this thing of iron shall be 
 housed, waited on, guarded from rust and dust, 
 and it shall be a crime but so much as to 
 scratch it with a pin : while the other, with its 
 fire of God in it, shall be bufl'eted hither and 
 thither, and finally sent carefully a thousand 
 miles to be the target for a Mexican cannou- 
 balL Unthrifty Mother State ! My heart 
 burned within me for pity and indignation, and 
 I renewed this covenant with my own soul, — 
 In aliis inansuettts &ro, at, in hlaspJl^miis con- 
 tra Christum, non ita. — H. W.] 
 
 I SPOSE you wonder ware I be ; I can't 
 
 tell, fer the soul o' me, 
 Exacly ware I be myself, — meanin' by 
 
 thet the holl o' me. 
 Wen I left hum, I hed two legs, an' they 
 
 worn't bad ones neither, 
 (The scaliest trick they ever played wuz 
 
 bringin' on me hither,) 
 Now one on 'era 's I dunno ware ; — 
 
 they thought I wuz adyin'. 
 An' sawed it off because they said 't wuz 
 
 kin' o' mortifyin' ; 
 I 'm willin' to believe it wuz, an' yit I 
 
 don't see, nuther, 
 Wy one shoud take to feelin' cheap a 
 
 minnit sooner 'n t' other, 
 Sence both wuz eciuilly to blame ; but 
 
 things is ez they be ; 
 It took on so they took it off, an' thet 's 
 
 enough fer me : 
 There 's one good thing, though, to be 
 
 said about my woodenuew one, — 
 The liquor can't git into it ez 't used to 
 
 in the true one ; 
 So it saves drink ; an' then, besides, a 
 
 feller could n't beg 
 A gretter blessin' then to hev one oilers 
 
 sober peg ; 
 It 's true a chap 's in want o' two fer fol- 
 
 lerin' a dnim. 
 But all the march I' m up to now is jest 
 
 to Kingdom Come, 
 
 I 've lost one eye, but thet 's a loss it 'a 
 
 easy to supply 
 Out o' the gloi-y that I 've gut, fer tl i 
 
 is all my eye ; 
 An' one is big enough, I guess, by di '. 
 
 gently usin' it. 
 To see all I shall ever git by way o' p 
 
 fer losin' it ; 
 Off'cers I notice, who git paid fer i 
 
 our thumps an' kickins, 
 Du wal by keepin' single eyes arter t) 
 
 fattest pickins ; 
 So, ez the eye 's put fairly out, I '11 lai 
 
 to go without it. 
 An' not allow myself to be no gret pv 
 
 out about it. 
 Now, le' me see, thet isn't all ; I vsed. 
 
 'fore leavin' Jaalam, 
 To count things on my finger-eends, bu 
 
 sutthin' seems to ail 'em : 
 Ware 's my left hand ! 0, dam it, ye 
 
 I recollect wut 's come on 't ; 
 I haint no left arm but my right, ai 
 
 thet 's gut jest a thumb on 't ; 
 It aint so hendy ez it wuz to cal'late 
 
 sum on 't. 
 I 'vehed some ribs broke, — six(Ibl'ieve;. 
 
 — I haint kep' no account on 'em 
 Wen pensions git to be the talk, I '! 
 
 settle the amount on 'em. 
 An' now I'm speakin' about ribs, it kin' 
 
 o' brings to mind 
 One thet I could n't never break, — the 
 
 one I lef ' behind ; 
 Ef you should see her, jest clear out the 
 
 spout o' your invention 
 An' pour the longest sweetnin' in about 
 
 an anuooal pension. 
 An' kin' o' hint (in case, you know, the 
 
 critter should refuse to be 
 Consoled) I aint so 'xpensive now to kee » 
 
 ez wut I used to be ; 
 There 's one arm less, ditto one eye, j 
 
 then the leg thet 's wooden 
 Can be took off an' sot away weneve»" 
 
 ther 's a puddin'. 
 
 I spose you think I'm comin' back ez 
 
 opperlunt ez thimder, 
 With shiploads o' gold images an' varus 
 
 sorts o' plunder ; 
 Wal, 'fore 1 vuUinteered, I thought this 
 
 country wuz a sort o' 
 Canaan, a reg'lar Promised Land flowin' 
 
 with rum an' water. 
 Ware propaty growed up like tdm^ 
 
 without no cultivation, 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 199 
 
 An' gold wuz dug p,z taters be among our 
 
 Yankee nation, 
 Ware nateral advantages were pufficly 
 
 amazin'. 
 Ware every rock there wuz about with 
 
 precious stuns wuz blaziu', 
 Ware mill-sites filled the country up ez 
 
 thick ez you could cram em' 
 An' desput rivers run about a beggin' 
 
 folks to dam 'em ; 
 Then there were meetinhouses, tu, 
 
 chockful o' gold an' silver 
 Thet you could take, an' no one could n't 
 
 hand ye in no bill fer ; — 
 Thet's wut I thought afore I went, 
 
 thet 's wut them fellers told us 
 Thet stayed to hum an' speeohifieci an' 
 
 to the buzzards sold us ; 
 I thought thet gold-mines could be gut 
 
 cheaper than Chiny asters, 
 An' see myself acomin' back like sixty 
 
 Jacob Astors ; 
 But sech idees soon melted down an' 
 
 did n't leave a grease-spot ; 
 I vow my holl sheer o' the spiles would n't 
 
 come nigh a V spot ; 
 Although, most anywares we 've ben, 
 
 you need n't break no locks, 
 Nor run no kin' o' risks, to fill your 
 
 pocket full o' rocks. 
 1 'xpect I mentioned in my last some o' 
 
 the nateral feeturs 
 O' this all-fiered buggy hole in th' way 
 
 o' awfle creeturs. 
 But I fergut to name (new things to 
 
 speak on so abounded) 
 How one day you '11 most die o' thust, 
 
 an' 'fore the next git drownded. 
 The clymit seems to me jest like a tea- 
 pot made o' pewter 
 OurPreudencehed, thet would n't pour 
 
 (all she could du) to suit her ; 
 Fust place the leaves 'onld choke the 
 
 spout, so 's not a drop 'ould dreen 
 
 out, 
 frhen Prade 'ould tip an' tip an' tip, till 
 I the holl kit bust clean out. 
 The kiver-hinge-pin bein' lost, tea-leaves 
 
 an' tea an' kiver 
 'ould all come down kerswosh ! ez though 
 
 the dam bust in a river. 
 Jest so 't is here ; holl months there 
 
 aint a day o' rainy weather, 
 An' jest ez th' officers 'ould be a layin' 
 
 heads together 
 Ez t' how they 'd mix their drink at sech 
 ~,^ a milingtary deepot, — 
 
 'T would pour ez though the lid wuz off 
 
 the everlastin' teapot. 
 The cons'quence is, thet I shall take, 
 
 wen I m allowed to leave here. 
 One piece o' propaty along, an' thet's 
 
 the shakin' fever ; 
 It 's reggilar employment, though, an' 
 
 thet aint thought to harm one. 
 Nor 't aint so tiresome ez it wuz with 
 
 t' other leg an' arm on ; 
 An' it 's a consolation, tu, although it 
 
 doos n't pay, 
 To hev it said you 're some gret shakes 
 
 in any kin' o' way. 
 'T wom't very long, I tell ye wut, I 
 
 thought o' fortin-makin', — 
 One day a reg'lar shiver-de-freeze, an' 
 
 next ez good ez bakin', — 
 One day abrilin' in the sand, then 
 
 smoth'rin' in the mashes, — 
 Git up all sound, be put to bed a mess 
 
 o' hacks an' smashes. 
 But then, thinks I, at any rate there 's 
 
 glory to be hed, — 
 Thet's an investment, arter all, thet 
 
 may n't turn out so bad ; 
 But somehow, wen we 'd fit an' licked, 
 
 I oilers found the thanks 
 Gut kin' o' lodged afore they come ez 
 
 low down ez the ranks ; 
 The Gin'rals gut the biggest sheer, the 
 
 Cunnles next, an' so on, — 
 We never gut a blasted mite o' glory ez 
 
 I know on ; 
 An' spose we hed, I wonder how you 're 
 
 goin' to contrive its 
 Division so 's to give a piece to twenty 
 
 thousand privits ; 
 Ef you should multiply by ten the por- 
 tion o' the brav'st one. 
 You would n't git more 'n half enough to 
 
 speak of on a grave-stun ; 
 We git the licks, — we 're jest the grist fr' 
 
 thet 's put into War's hoppers ; X 
 Leftenants is the lowest grade thet helps 
 
 pick up the coppers. 
 It may suit folks thet go agin a body 
 
 with a soul in 't. 
 An' aint contented with a hide without 
 
 a bagnet hole in 't ; 
 But glory is a kin' o' thing / sha' n't 
 
 pursue no furder, 
 Coz thet 's the ofTcers parquisite, — 
 
 yourn's on'y jest th« murder. 
 
 Wal, arter I gin glory up, thinks I at 
 least there 's one 
 
200 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPEES. 
 
 Thing in the bills we aint hed yit, an' 
 
 thet's the glorious fun ; 
 Ef once we git to Mexico, we fairly may 
 
 persume we 
 All day an' night shall revel in the halls 
 
 o' Montezumy. 
 I '11 tell ye wilt my revels wuz, an' see 
 
 how you would like 'em ; 
 We never gut inside the hall : the High- 
 est ever / come 
 Wuz stan'in' sentry in the sun (an', fact, 
 
 it seemed a cent'ry) 
 A ketohin' smells o' biled an' roast thet 
 
 come out thru the entry, 
 An' hearin' ez I sweltered thru my 
 
 passes an' repasses, 
 A rat-tat-too o' knives an' forks, a 
 
 clinkty-clink o' glasses : 
 I can't tell off the bill o-' fare the Gin- 
 
 rals hed inside ; 
 All I know is, thet out o' doors a pair 
 
 o' soles wuz fried, 
 An' not a hunderd miles away frum 
 
 ware this child wuz posted, 
 A Massachusetts citizen wuz baked an' 
 
 biled an' roasted ; 
 The on'y thing like revellin' thet ever 
 
 come to me 
 Wuz bein' routed out o' sleep by thet 
 
 darned revelee. 
 
 They say the quarrel 's settled now ; fer 
 my part I 've some doubt on 't, 
 
 't '11 take more fish-skin than folks think 
 to take the rile clean out on 't ; 
 
 At any rate I 'm so used up I can't do 
 no more fightin', 
 
 The on'y chance thet 's left to me is pol- 
 itics or writin' ; 
 
 Now, ez the people 's gut to hev a mil- 
 ingtary man, 
 
 An' I aint nothin' else jest now, I 've hit 
 upon a plan ; 
 
 The can'idatin' line, you know, 'ould 
 suit me to a T, 
 
 An' ef I lose, 't wunt hurt my ears to 
 lodge another flea ; 
 
 So I '11 set np ez can'idate fer any kin' 
 o' office, 
 
 (I mean fer any thet includes good easy- 
 cheers an' sofiies ; 
 
 Fer ez tu rannin' fer a place ware work 's 
 the time o' day, 
 
 You know thet 's wut I never did, — 
 except the other way;) 
 
 Ef it 's the Presidential cheer fer wich 
 I 'd better run, 
 
 Wut two legs anywares about could keep 
 
 , up with my one ? 
 There aint no kin' o' quality in can'i- 
 
 dates, it 'a said, 
 So useful ez a wooden leg, — except a 
 
 wooden head ; 
 There 's nothin' aint so poppylar — (wy, 
 
 it 's a parfect sin 
 To think wut Mexico hez paid fer Santy 
 
 Anny's pin ;) — 
 Then I haint gut no princerples, an', 
 
 sence I wuz knee-high, 
 I never did hev any giet, ez yon can 
 
 testify; 
 I 'm a decided peace-man, tu, an' go 
 
 agin the war, — 
 Fer now the hoU on 't 'a gone an' past, 
 
 wut is there to go for ? 
 Ef, wile you 're 'lectioneerin' round, 
 
 some curus chaps should beg 
 To know my views o' state affairs, jest 
 
 answer w^ooden leg ! 
 Ef they aint settisfied with thet, an' kin' 
 
 o' pry an' doubt 
 An' ax fer sutthiu' deffynit, jest say 
 
 ONE EYE PUT OUT ! 
 
 Thet kin' o' talk I guess you '11 find '11 
 
 answer to a charm, 
 An' wen you 're druv tu nigh the wall, 
 
 hoi' up my missin' arm ; 
 Ef they should nose round fer a pledge, 
 
 put on a vartoous look 
 An' tell 'em thet 's percisely wut I never 
 
 gin nor — took ! 
 
 Then you can call me " Timbertoes," — 
 
 thet 's wut the people likes ; 
 Sutthin' combinin' morril truth with 
 
 phrases sech ez strikes ; 
 Some say the people 's fond o' this, or 
 
 thet, or wut you please, — 
 I tell ye wut the people want is jest cor- 
 rect idees ; 
 " Old Timbertoes," you see, 's a creed 
 
 it 's safe to be quite bold on. 
 There 's nothin' in 't the other side can 
 
 any ways git hold on ; 
 It 's a good tangible idee, a sutthiu' to 
 
 embody 
 Thet valooable class o' men who look 
 
 thru brandy-toddy ; 
 It gives a Party Platform, tu, jest level 
 
 with the mind 
 Of all right-thinkin', honest folks thel 
 
 mean to go it blind ; 
 Then there air other good hooraws t* 
 
 dror on ez you need 'em. 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 201 
 
 Seeh 67 the one-eyed Slakteker, the 
 
 BLOODY BlRDOFKEDUM : 
 
 Them 's wut takes hold o' folks thet 
 think, ez well ez o' the masses, 
 
 An' makes you sartin o' the aid o' good 
 men of all classes. 
 
 There 's one thing I 'm in doubt ahout ; 
 
 in order to he Presidunt, 
 It 's ahsolutely ne'ssary to be a Southern 
 
 residunt ; 
 The Constitution settles thet, an' also 
 
 thet a feller 
 Must ovm a nigger o' some sort, jet black, 
 
 or brown, or yeller. 
 Now I haint no objections agin particklar 
 
 climes, 
 'Not agin ownin' anythin' (except the 
 
 truth sometimes). 
 But, ez I haint no capital, up there 
 
 among ye, maybe, 
 You might raise funds enough fer me to 
 
 buy a low-priced baby. 
 An' then to suit the No'them folks, who 
 
 feel obleeged to say 
 They hate an' cuss the very thing they 
 
 vote fer every day. 
 Say you 're assured I go fall butt fer 
 
 Libbaty's dilfusion 
 An' made the purchis on'y jest to spite 
 
 the Institootion ; — 
 But, golly ! there 's the currier's hoss 
 
 upon the pavement pawin' ! 
 I '11 be more 'xplicit in my next. 
 Yourn, 
 
 BIEDOFREDUM SAWIN. 
 
 [We liave now a tolerably fair chance of es- 
 timating how the balance-sheet stands between 
 our returned volunteer and glory. Supposing 
 the entries to be set down on both sides of the 
 account in fractional parts of one hundred, we 
 shall arrive at something like the following re- 
 sult:— 
 
 B. Sawin, Esq., in account with (Blank) 
 Glory. 
 Or. I'f- 
 
 By loss of one leg, 20 To one 675th three 
 " do. one arm, 15 cheers in Fan- 
 " do. four Dngers, 5 euil Hall, . . 30 
 " do. one eye . .10 " do. do. on occa- 
 " the breaking of sion of presenta- 
 
 six ribs, . . 6 tion of sword to 
 
 " having served Colonel Wright, 25 
 
 under Colonel " one suit of gray 
 Gushing one clothes (ingen- 
 
 month, ... 44 iously unbecom- 
 ing) .... 15 
 
 Cr. Or. 
 
 Brought forward 100 Brought foiipard 70 
 To musical enter- 
 tainments (drum 
 and life six 
 months), . . . S 
 " one dinner after 
 
 return .... 1 
 " chance of pen- 
 sion, .... 1 
 '* privilege of 
 
 drawing long- 
 bow during rest 
 of natural life, 23 
 
 E. E. 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 
 70 
 
 It should appear that Mr. Sawin found the 
 actual feast curiously the reverse of the bill 
 of fare advertised in Faneuil Hall and other 
 places. His primary object seems to have 
 been the making of his foitune. Qucereridii 
 veciinia primum^ virtus post nvmmos. He 
 hoisted sail for Eldorado, and shipwrecked on 
 Point Tribulation. Quid non mortalia pectora 
 cogis, a/wH sacra fames ? The speculation has 
 sometimes crossed my mind, in that dreary 
 interval of drought which intervenes between 
 quarterly stipendiary showers, that Provi- 
 dence, liy the creation of a money-tree, might 
 have simplified wonderfully tlie sometimes per- 
 plexing problem of human life. We read of 
 bread-trees, the butter for which lies ready- 
 churned in Irish bogs. Milk-trees we are as- 
 sured of in South America, and stout Sil- John 
 Hawkins testifies to water-trees in the Cana- 
 ries. Boot-trees bear abundantly in Lynn and 
 elsewhere ; and I have seen, in the entries of 
 the wealthy, hat-trees with a fair show of fruit. 
 A family-tree I once cultivated myself, and 
 found therefrom but a scanty yield, and that 
 quite tasteless and innutritions. Of trees bear- 
 ing men we are not without examples : as those 
 in the park of Louis the Eleventh of France. 
 Who has forgotten, moreover, that olive-tree, 
 growing in the Athenian's back-garden, with its 
 strange uxorious crop, for the general propaga- 
 tion of which, as of a new and precious variety, 
 the philosopher Diogenes, hitherto iminterested 
 in arboriculture, was so zealous ? In the sylva 
 of our own Southern States, the females of my 
 family have called my attention to the china- 
 tree. Not to multiply examples, I will barely 
 add to my list the birch-tree, in the smaller 
 branches of which has been implanted so 
 miraculous a virtue for communicating the 
 Latin and Greek languages, and which may 
 well, therefore, be classed among the trees pro- 
 ducing necessaries of life, — vermrahile donnm 
 fatalis virga. That money-trees existed in the 
 golden age there want not prevalent reasons 
 for our believing. For does not the old prov- 
 erb, when it asserts that money does not grow 
 on every bush, imply a fortiori that there were 
 certain bushes which did produce it ? Again, 
 there is another ancient saw to the effect that 
 money is the root of all eviL From which two 
 adage<i it may be safe to infer that the afore- 
 said species of tree first degenerated into a 
 shrub, then absconded underground, and final- 
 ly, in our iron age, vanished altogether In 
 favorable exposures it may be conjectured that 
 
202 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 a specimen or two survived to a great age, as 
 in the gai*den of the Hesperides ; and, indeed, 
 ■what else could that tree in the Sixth ^neid 
 have been, with a branch whereof the Trojan 
 hero procured admission to a territory, for the 
 entering of which money is a' surer passport 
 than to a certain other more profitable and too 
 foreign kingdom? Whether these speculations 
 of mine have any force in them, or whether 
 they will not rather, by most readers, be deemed 
 impertinent to the matter in hand, is a ques- 
 tion which I leave to the determination of an 
 indulgent posterity. That there were, in more 
 primitive and happier times, shops where 
 money was sold, — and that, too, on credit and 
 at a bargain, — I take to be matter of demon- 
 stration. For what but a dealer in this article 
 was that iEolus who supplied Ulysses with 
 motive-power for his fleet in bags ? What that 
 Ericus, King of Sweden, who is said to have 
 kept the winds in his cap? what, in more 
 recent times, those Lapland Nomas who traded 
 in favorable breezes ? All which will appear 
 the more clearly when we consider, that, even 
 to this day, raising the wind is proverbial for 
 raising money, and that brokers and banks 
 were invented by the Venetians at a later pe- 
 riod. 
 
 And now for the improvement of this digres- 
 sion. I find a parallel to Mr, Sawin's fortune 
 in an adventure of my own. For, shortly after 
 I had first broached to myself the before-stated 
 natural-historical and archaeological theories, 
 as I was passing, hcec tiegotia penitus •niecvm. 
 revolvens, through one of the obscure suburbs 
 of oxu" New England metropolis, my eye was 
 attracted by these words upon a sign-board, — 
 Cheap Cash-Store. Here was at once the 
 confirmation of my speculations, and the sub- 
 stance of my hopes. Here lingered the frag- 
 tnent of a happier past, or stretched out the 
 first tremulous organic filament of a more for- 
 tunate future. Thus glowed the distant Mex- 
 ico to the eyes of Sawin, as he looked through 
 the dirty pane of the reeruiting-offlce window, 
 or speculated from the summit of that mirage- 
 Pisgah which tlie imps of the bottle are so 
 cunning to raise up. Already had my Al- 
 naschar-fancy (even during that first half-be- 
 lieving glance) expended in various useful direc- 
 tions the funds to be obtained by pledging the 
 manuscript of a proposed volume of discourses. 
 Already did a clock ornament the tower of the 
 Jaalam meeting-house, a gift appropriately, 
 ' but modestly, commemorated in the parish and 
 town records, both, for now many years, kept 
 by myself. Already had my son Seneca com- 
 pleted his course at the University. Whether, 
 for the moment, we may not be considered as 
 actually lording it over those Baratarias with 
 the viceroyalty of which Hope invests us, and 
 whether we are ever so warmly housed as in 
 our Spanish castles, would afford matter of 
 argument. Enough that I foimd that sign- 
 board to be no other than a bait to the trap of 
 a decayed grocer. Nevertheless, I bought a 
 pound of dates (getting short weight by reason 
 of immense flights or harpy flies who pursued 
 and lighted upon their prey even in the very 
 scales), which purchase I made, not only with 
 an eye to the little ones at home, but also as 
 a figurative reproof of that too frequent habit 
 of my rnind^ which, forgetting the due order of 
 
 chronology, will often persuade me thattht 
 happy sceptre of Saturn is stretched over this 
 Astnea-forsaken nineteenth century. 
 
 Having glanced at the ledge*- of Glory under 
 the title Sawin, £., let us extend our inves- 
 tigations, and discover if that instructive vol- 
 ume does not contain some charges more 
 personally interesting to ourselves. I think we 
 should be more economical of our resources, 
 did we thoroughly appreciate the fact, that, 
 whenever Brother Jonathan seems to be thrust- 
 ing his hand into his own pocket, he is, in fact, 
 picking ours. I confess that the late much 
 which the country has been running has mate- 
 rially changed my views as to the best method 
 of raising revenue. If, by means of direct tax- 
 ation, the bills for every extraordinary outlay 
 were brought under our immediate eye, so tha^ 
 like thrifty housekeepers, we could see where 
 and how fast the money was going, we should 
 be less likely to commit extravagances. At 
 present, these things are managed in such 
 a hugger-mugger way, that we know not what 
 we pay for ; the poor man is charged as much 
 as the rich ; and, while we are saving and 
 scrimping at the spigot, the government is 
 drawing off at the bung. If we could know 
 that a part of the money we expend for tea 
 and coffee goes to buy powder and balls, and 
 that it is Mexican blood which makes the 
 clothes on our backs more costly, it would set 
 some of us athinking. During the present fall, 
 I have often pictured to myself a government 
 ofiicial entering my study and handing me the 
 following biD ; — 
 
 WASBiNOTOir, Sept 30,1848. 
 Bev. Houeb Wilbub to SCncU Samuel, 
 
 J)r. 
 
 To his share of work done in Mexico on 
 partnership account, sundry jobs, 
 as below. 
 
 " killing, maiming, and wounding about 
 
 5,000 Mexicans, . . . . $ 2.00 
 
 *' slaughtering one woman carrying wa- 
 ter to wounded, 10 
 
 "extra work on two different Sabbaths 
 (one bombardment and one as- 
 sault), whereby the Mexicans 
 were prevented from defiling 
 themselves with the idolatries of 
 high mass, 3.50 
 
 " throwing an especially fortunate and 
 Protestant bombshell into the 
 Cathedral at Vera Cruz, whereby 
 several female Papists were slain, 
 at the altar, 50 
 
 " his proportion of cash paid for con- 
 quered territory, . . . .1.75 
 
 " do. do. for conquering do. . 1.50 
 
 '* manuring do. with new superior 
 compost called "American Citi- 
 zen," 50 
 
 " extending the area of freedom and 
 
 Protestantism, 01 
 
 "glory, .01 
 
 $9.87 
 
 Immediate payment is requested, 
 
 N. B. Thankful for former favors, U. SI 
 requests a continuance of patronage. Ordeil 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 203 
 
 •lernted with neatness and despatch. Terms 
 as low as those of any other contractor for the 
 same kind and style of work. 
 
 I can fancy the official answering my look of 
 horror with, — "Yes, Sir, it looks like a high 
 charge. Sir ; but in these days slaughtering is 
 slaughtering." Verily, I would that every one 
 understood that it was ; for it goes about ob- 
 taining money under the false pretence of being 
 glory. For me, I have an imagination which 
 plays me uncomfortable tricks. It happens to 
 me sometimes to see a slaughterer on his way 
 home from his day's work, and forthwith my 
 imagination puts a cocked-hat upon his head 
 and epaulettes upon his shoulders, and sets 
 him up as a candidate for the Presidency. So, 
 also, on a recent public occasion, as the place 
 assigned to the "Reverend Clergy " is just be- 
 hind that of " Officers of the Army and Navy" 
 in processions, it was my fortune to be seated 
 at the din:ier-table over against one of tliese 
 respectable persons. He was arrayed as (out 
 of his own profession) only kings, court-offi- 
 cers, and footmen are in Europe, and Indians 
 in America. Now what does my over-officious 
 imagination but set to work upon him, atrip 
 him of his gay livery, and present him to me 
 coatlesa, his trousers thrust into the tops of 
 a pair of hoots thick with clotted blood, and a 
 basket on his arm out of which lolled a gore- 
 Braeared axe, thereby destroying my relish for 
 the temporal mercies upon the board before 
 inel — H. W.) 
 
 No. IX. 
 
 A THIRD MITTER FROM B. 8AWIN, ESQ. 
 
 [Upon the following letter slender comment 
 will be needful. In what river Selemnus has Mr. 
 Sawin bathed, that he has become so swiftly 
 oblivious of his former loves ? From an ardent 
 and (as befits a soldier) confident wooer of that 
 coy bride, the popular favor, we see him sub- 
 Bide of a sudden into the (I trust not jilted) 
 Cincinnatus, returning to his plough with a 
 goodly sized branch of willow in his hand ; 
 figuratively returning, however, to a figurative 
 plough, and from no profound affection for that 
 honored implement of husbandry (for which, 
 indeed, Mr. Sawin never displayed any decided 
 predilection), but in order to be gracefully sum- 
 moned therefrom to more congenial labors. It 
 would seem that the character of the ancient 
 Dictator had become part of the recognized 
 stock of our modern political comedy, though, 
 as our term of office extends to a quadrennial 
 length, the parallel is not so minutely exact as 
 could be desired. It is sufficiently so, how- 
 ever, for purposes of scenic representation. 
 An humble cottage (if built of logs, the better) 
 forms the Arcadian background of the stage. 
 This rustic paradise is labelled Ashland, Ja- 
 alam. North Bend, Marshfield. Kiuderhook, or 
 B&ton Rouge, as occasion demands. Before 
 the door stands a something with one handle 
 (the other painted in proper perspective), 
 which represents, in happy ideal v^ueness, 
 the plou^ To thia the defeated candidate 
 
 rushes with delirious joy, welcomed as a father 
 by appropriate groups of happy laborers, or 
 from it the successful one is torn with diffi- 
 culty, sustained alone by a noble sense of pub- 
 lic duty. Only I have observed, that, if the 
 scene be laid at B&ton Rouge or Ashland, the 
 laborers are kept carefully in the background, 
 and are heard to shout from behind the scenes 
 in a singular tone resembling ululation, and 
 accompanied by a sound not unlike vigorous 
 clapping. This, however, may be artistically 
 in keeping with the habits of the rustic popula- 
 tion of those localities. The precise connection 
 between agricultural pursuits and statesman- 
 ship, I have not been able, after diligent 
 inquiry, to discover. But, that my investiga- 
 tions may not be barren of all fruit, I will 
 mention one curious statistical fact, which I 
 consider thoroughly established, namely, that 
 no real farmer ever attains practically beyond 
 a seat in General Court, however theoretically 
 qualified for more exalted station. 
 
 It is probable that some other prospect has 
 been opened to Mr. Sawin, and that he has not 
 made this great sacriHce without some definite 
 understanding in regard to a seat in the cab- 
 inet or a foreign mission. It may be supposed 
 that we of Jaalara were not untouched by a 
 feeling of villatic pride in beholding our towns- 
 man occupying so large a space in the public 
 eye. And to me, deeply revolving the quali- 
 fications necessiiry to a candidate in these fru- 
 gal times, those of Mr. S. seemed peculiarly 
 adapted to a successful campaign. The loss of 
 a leg, an arm, an eye, and four fingers reduces 
 him so nearly to the condition of a vox et pros- 
 terea nihil, that I could think of nothing but 
 the loss of his head by which his chance coidd 
 have been bettered. But since he has chosen 
 to balk our suffrages, we must content our- 
 selves with what we can get, remembering lac- 
 tucas lion esse dandas, dvmi cardui sttj/iciant. — 
 H. W.] 
 
 I SPOSE you recollect thet I explained 
 
 my gennle views 
 In the last billet thet I writ, 'way down 
 
 frum Veery Cruze, 
 Je3t arter I 'd a kind n* hen sponta- 
 
 nously sot up 
 To run unannermously fer the Presiden- 
 tial cup ; 
 0* course it worn't no wish o* mine, 
 
 't wuz ferfiely distressin', 
 But poppiler enthusiasm gut so almighty 
 
 pressin' 
 Thet, though like sixty all along I fumed 
 
 an' fussed an' sorrered, 
 There did n't seem no ways to stop their 
 
 bringin' on me forrerd : 
 Fact is, they udged the matter so, I 
 
 could n't help admittin' 
 The Father o' his Country's shoes no 
 
 feet but mine 'ould fit in, 
 Besides the savin' o' the soles fer ages to 
 
 succeed. 
 
204 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS, 
 
 Seein' thet witTi one wannut foot, a pair 
 
 'd be more 'n I need ; 
 An', tell ye wut, them shoes '11 want a 
 
 thund'rin sight o' patchin', 
 Ef this ere fashion is to last we 've gut 
 
 into o' hatchin' 
 A pair o' second WashintoE.'' fer every 
 
 new election, — 
 Though, fer ez number one 's consamed, 
 
 I don't make no objection. 
 
 I wuz agoin' on to say thet wen at fust I 
 
 saw 
 The masses would stick to 't I wuz the 
 
 Country's father-'n-law, 
 (They would ha' hed it Father, but I told 
 
 'em 't would n't du, 
 Coz thet wuz sutthin' of a sort they 
 
 could n't split in tu. 
 An' Washinton hed hed the thing laid 
 
 fairly to his door, 
 Nor dars n't say 't worn't his'n, much 
 
 ez sixty year afore,) 
 But 't aint no matter ez to thet ; wen I 
 
 wuz noniemated, 
 'T worn't natur but wut I should feel 
 
 consid'able elated. 
 An' wile the hooraw o' the thing wuz 
 
 kind o' noo an' fresh, 
 I thought our ticket would ha' caird the 
 
 country with a resh. 
 
 Sence I 've come hum, though, an' looked 
 
 round, I think I seem to find 
 Strong argimunts ez thick ez fleas to 
 
 make me change my mind; 
 It 's clear to any one whose brain aint 
 
 fur gone in a phthisis, 
 Thet hail Columby's happy land is goin' 
 
 thru a crisis. 
 An' 't would n't noways du to hev the 
 
 people's mind distracted 
 By bein' all to once by sev'ral pop'lar 
 
 names attackted ; • 
 'T would save hoU haycartloads o' fuss 
 
 an' three four months o' jaw, 
 Ef some illustrous paytriot should back 
 
 out an' withdraw ; 
 So, ez I aint a crooked stick, jest like — 
 
 like ole (I swow, 
 I dunno ez I know his name) — I '11 go 
 
 back to my plough. 
 
 Wenever an Amerikin distinguished pol- 
 
 itishin 
 Begins to try et wut they call deiinin' 
 
 bis posishin, 
 
 Wal, I, fer one, feel sure he aint gut 
 
 nothin' to define ; 
 It 's so nine cases out o' ten, but jest that 
 
 tenth is mine ; 
 And 't aint no more 'n is proper 'n' right 
 
 in sech a sitooation 
 To hint the course you think '11 be the 
 
 savin' o' the nation ; 
 To funk right out o' p'lit'cal strife aint 
 
 thought to be the thing, 
 Without you deacon off the toon you 
 
 want your folks should sing ; 
 So I edvise the noomrous friends thet 'a 
 
 in one boat with me 
 To jest up kiUick, jam right down their 
 
 helium hard a lee. 
 Haul the sheets taut, an', laying out upon 
 
 the Suthun tack, 
 Make fer the safest port they can, wich, 
 
 / think, is Ole Zack. 
 
 Kext thing j'ou 'U want to know, I 
 
 spose, wut argimunts I seem 
 To see thet makes me think this ere '11 
 
 be the strongest team ; 
 Fust place, I 've ben consid'ble round in 
 
 bar-rooms an' saloons 
 Agetherin' public sentiment, 'mongst 
 
 Demmercrats and Coons, 
 An' 't aint ve'y offen thet I meet a chap 
 
 but wut goes in 
 Fer Bough an' Eeady, fair an' square, 
 
 hufs, taller, horns, an' skin ; 
 I don't deny but wut, fer one, ez fur ez I 
 
 could see, 
 I did n't like at fust the Pheladelphy 
 
 nomernee : 
 I could ha' pinted to a man thet wuz, I 
 
 guess, a peg 
 Higher than him, — a soger, tu, an' with 
 
 a wooden leg ; 
 But every day with more an' more o' 
 
 Taylor zeal I 'm burnin', 
 Seein' wich way the tide thet sets to 
 
 oflSce is atumin' ; 
 Wy, into Bellers's we notched the votes 
 
 down on three sticks, — 
 'T wuz Birdofredum one, Cass aught, an' 
 
 Taylor twenty-six. 
 An' bein' the on'y canderdate thet wuz 
 
 upon the ground. 
 They said 't wuz no more 'n right thet I 
 
 should pay the drinks all round ; 
 Ef I 'd expected sech a trick, I would n't 
 
 ha' cut my foot • 
 By goin' an' votin' fer myself like a oott 
 
 sumed coot ; 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 205 
 
 It did n't make no difTrence, though ; I 
 
 wish I may he, oust, 
 Elf Bellers wuz n't slim enough to say he 
 
 would n't trust 1 
 
 Another pint thet influences the minds 
 
 o' sober jedges 
 Is thet the Gin'ral hez n't gut tied hand 
 
 au' foot with pledges ; 
 He hez n't told ye wut he is, an' so there 
 
 aint no kuowin' 
 But wut he may turn out to be the best 
 
 there is agoin' ; 
 This, at the on'y spot thet pinched, the 
 
 shoe directly eases, 
 Coz every one is free to 'xpect percisely 
 
 wut he pleases : 
 I want free-trade ; you don't ; the Gin- 
 'ral is n't bound to neither ; — ■ 
 I vote my way ; you, yourn ; an' both 
 
 air sooted to a T there. 
 Ole Rough an' Ready, tu, 's a Wig, but 
 
 without bein' ultry 
 (He 's like a hoi some hayiu' day, thet 's 
 
 warm, but is n't sultry ; 
 He 's jest wut I should call myself, a 
 
 kin' o' scratch ez 't ware, 
 Thet aint exacly all =• wig nor wholly 
 
 your own hair ; 
 I 've ben a Wig three weeks myself, 
 
 jpst o' this mod'rate sort. 
 An' don't find them an' Demmercrats so 
 
 different ez I thought ; 
 They both act pooty much alike, an' 
 
 push an' scrouge an' cus ; 
 They 're like two pickpockets in league 
 
 fer Uncle Samwell's pus ; 
 Each takes a side, an' then they squeeze 
 
 the ole man in between era. 
 Turn all his pockets wrong side out an' 
 
 quick ez lightnin' clean 'em ; 
 To nary one on 'era I 'd trust a secon'- 
 
 handed rail 
 No furder off 'an I could sling a bullock 
 
 by the tail. 
 
 Webster sot matters right in thet air 
 
 Mashfiel' speech o' his'n ; — 
 " Taylor," sez he, " aint nary ways the 
 
 one thet I 'd a chizzen, 
 Nor he aint fittin' fer the place, an' like 
 
 ez not he aint 
 No more 'n a tough ole buUethead, an' 
 
 no gret of a saint ; 
 But then," sez he, " obsarve my pint, 
 
 he 's jest ez good to vote fer 
 
 Ez though the grcasin" on him woru't a 
 
 thing to hire Choate fer ; 
 Aint it ez easy done to drop a ballot in 
 
 a box 
 Fer one ez 't is fer t' other, fer the bull- 
 dog ez the fox?" 
 It takes a mind like Dannel's, fact, ez big 
 
 ez all ou' doors. 
 To find out thet it looks like rain arter 
 
 it fairly pours ; 
 I 'gree with him, it aiut so drefBe trou- 
 blesome to vote 
 Fer Taylor arter all, — it 's jest to go an' 
 
 change your coat ; 
 Wen he 's once greased, you '11 swallor 
 
 him an' never know on 't, source, 
 Unless he scratches, goin' down, with 
 
 them 'ere Gin'ral'a spurs. 
 I 've ben a votin' Demmercrat, ez reg- 
 
 'lar as a clock, 
 But don't find goin' Taylor gives my 
 
 narves no gret 'f a shock ; 
 Truth is, the cutest leadin' Wigs, ever 
 
 sence fust they found 
 Wich side the bread gut buttered on, hov 
 
 kep' a edgin' round ; 
 They kin' o' slipt the planks frum out th' 
 
 ole platform one by one 
 An' made it gradooally noo, 'fore folks 
 
 know'd wut wuz done, 
 Till, fur 'z I know, there aint an inch 
 
 thet I could lay my han' on, 
 But I, or any Demmercrat, feels comf t- 
 
 ble to Stan' on. 
 An' ole Wig doctrines act'Uy look, their 
 
 oco'pants bein' gone. 
 Lonesome ez staddles on a mash with- 
 out no hayricks on. 
 
 I spose it 's time now I should give my 
 
 thoughts upon the plan, 
 Thet chipped the shell at Buffalo, o' set- 
 
 tin' up ole Van. 
 I used to vote fer Martin, but, I swaUj 
 
 I 'm clean disgusted, — 
 He aint the man thet I can say is fittin' 
 
 to be trusted ; 
 He aint half antislav'ry 'nough, nor I 
 
 aint sure, ez some be. 
 He 'd go in fer abolishin' the Deestrick 
 
 o' Columby ; 
 An', now I come to recoUec, it kin' o' 
 
 makes me sick 'z 
 A horse, to think o' wut he ivuz in 
 
 eighteen thirty-six. 
 An' then, another thing ; — I guess, 
 
 though mebby I am wrong, 
 
206 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 This Buff'lo plaster aint agoin' to dror 
 
 almighty strong ; 
 Some folks, I know, hev gut th' idee 
 
 thet No'thun dough '11 rise, 
 Though, 'fore I see it riz an' baked, I 
 
 would n't trust my eyes ; 
 'T will take more emptins, a long chalk, 
 
 than this noo party 's gut. 
 To give sech heavy cakes ez them a 
 
 start, I tell ye wut. 
 But even ef they caird the day, there 
 
 would n't be no endurin' 
 To Stan' upon a platfoim with sech crit- 
 ters ez Van Buren ; — 
 An' his son John, tu, I can't think how 
 
 thet 'ere chap should dare 
 To speak ez he doos ; wy, they say he 
 
 used to cuss an' swear ! 
 I spose he never read the hymn thet 
 
 tells how down the stairs 
 A feller with long legs wuz throwed thet 
 
 would n't say his prayers. 
 This brings me to another pint : the 
 
 leaders o' the party 
 Aint jest sech men ez I can act along 
 
 with free an' hearty ; 
 They aint not quite respectable, an' wen 
 
 a feller's morrils 
 Don't toe the straightest kin' o' mark, 
 
 wy, him an' me jest quan-ils. 
 I went to a free soil meetin' once, an' 
 
 wut d' ye think I see ? 
 A feller was aspoutin' there thet act'Uy 
 
 come to me. 
 About two year ago last spring, ez nigh 
 
 ez I can jedge. 
 An' axed me ef I did n't want to sign 
 
 the Temprunce pledge ! 
 He's one o' them that goes about an' sez 
 
 you hed n't ough'ter 
 Drink nothin', mornin', noon, or night, 
 
 stronger 'an Taunton water. 
 There 's one rule 1 've ben guided by, in 
 
 settlin' how to vote, oilers, — 
 I take the side thet is n't took by them 
 
 consarned teetotallers. 
 
 Ez fer the niggers, I 've ben South, an' 
 
 thet hez changed my min' ; 
 A lazier ; more ongrateful set you could 
 
 n't nowers fin'. 
 You know 1 mentioned in my last thet 
 
 I should buy a nigger, 
 Kf I could make a purchase at a pooty 
 
 mod' rate figger ; 
 So, ez there 's nothin' in the world I 'm 
 
 fonder of 'an gunnin', | 
 
 I closed a bargain finally to take a fellei 
 
 runnin'. 
 I shou'dered queen's-arm an' stumped 
 
 out, an' wen I come t' th' swamp, 
 'T worn't very long afore I gut upon the 
 
 nest o' Pomp ; 
 I come acrost a kin' o' hut, an', playin' 
 
 round the door. 
 Some little woolly-headed cubs, ex 
 
 many'z six or more. 
 At fust I thought o' firin', but thinl! 
 
 twice is safest oilers; 
 There aint, thinks I, not one on 'em 
 
 but 's wuth his twenty dollars. 
 Or would be, ef I hed 'em back into a 
 
 Christian land, — 
 How temptin' all on 'em would look 
 
 upon an auction-stand ! 
 (Not but wut / hate Slavery, in th' 
 
 abstract, stem to stam, — 
 I leave it ware our fathers did, a privit 
 
 State consara.) 
 Soon 'z they see me, they yelled an' run, 
 
 but Pomp wuz out ahoein' 
 A leetle patch o' corn he hed, or else 
 
 there aint no knowin' 
 He would n't ha' took a pop at me ; but 
 
 I hed gut the start. 
 An' wen he looked, I vow he groaned 
 
 ez though he 'd^roke his heart ; 
 He done it like a wite man, tu, ez nat'- 
 
 ral ez a pictur. 
 The imp'dunt, pis'nous hypocrite ! wus 
 
 'an a boy constrictur. 
 " You can't gum me, I tell ye now, an' 
 
 so you need n't try, 
 I 'xpect my eye-teeth ever}' mail, so jest 
 
 shet up," sez I. 
 "Don't go to actin' ugly now, or else 
 
 I '11 let her strip. 
 You 'd best draw kindly, seein' 'z how 
 
 I 've gut ye on the hip ; 
 Besides, you darned ole fool, it aint no 
 
 gret of a disaster 
 To be benev'lently druv back to a con- 
 tented master, 
 Ware yon hed Christian priv'ledges you 
 
 don't seem quite aware on. 
 Or you 'd ha' never run away from bein' 
 
 well took care on ; 
 Ez fer kin' treatment, wy, he wuz s* 
 
 fond on ye, he said 
 He 'd give a fifty spot right out, to git 
 
 ye, 'live or dead ; 
 Wite folks aint sot by half ez much; 
 
 'member I run away, 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS, 
 
 20T 
 
 Wen I wuz bound to Cap'n Jakes, to 
 
 Mattysqumscot Bay ; 
 Don' know him, likely ? Spose not ; 
 
 wal, the mean ole codger went 
 An' offered — wut reward, think ? Wal, 
 
 it worn't no less 'n a cent." 
 
 Wal, I jest gut 'em into line, an' druv 
 
 'em on afore me. 
 The pis'nous brutes, I 'd no idee o' the 
 
 ill-will they bore me ; 
 We walked till som'ers about noon, an' 
 
 then it grew so hot 
 I thought it best to camp awile, so I 
 
 chose out a spot 
 Jest under a magnoly tree, an' there 
 
 right down I sot ; 
 Then 1 unstrapped ray wooden leg, coz 
 
 it begun to chafe. 
 An' laid it down 'long side o' me, sup- 
 
 posin' all wuz safe ; 
 I made my darkies aU set down around 
 
 me in a ring. 
 An' sot an' kin' o' ciphered up how 
 
 much the lot would bring; 
 But, wile I drinked the peaceful cup of 
 
 a pure heart an' min 
 (Mixed with some wiskey, now an' then). 
 
 Pomp he snaked up behin'. 
 An' creepin' grad'Uy close tu, ez quiet 
 
 ez a mink, 
 Jest grabbed my leg, and then pulbd 
 
 foot, quicker 'an you could wink, 
 An', come to look, they each on 'em 
 
 bed gut behin' a tree, 
 An' Pomp poked out the leg a piece, 
 
 jest so ez I could see, 
 An' yelled to me to throw away my pis- 
 tils an' my gwa.. 
 Or else thet they 'd cair off the leg, an' 
 
 fairly cut an' run. 
 I vcw I did n't b'lieve there wuz a de- 
 cent alligatur 
 Thet hed a heart so destitoot o' common 
 
 human natur ; 
 However, ez there worn't no help, I 
 
 finally give in 
 An' heft my arms away to git my leg 
 
 safe back agin. 
 Pomp gethered all the weapins up, an' 
 
 then he come an' grinned. 
 He showed his ivory some, I guess, an' 
 
 sez, " You 're fairly pinned ; 
 Jest buckle on your leg agin, an' git 
 
 right up an come, 
 'T wun't du fer fammerly men like me 
 
 to be so long frum hum." 
 
 At fust I put my foot right down an" 
 
 swore 1 would n't budge. 
 " Jest ez you choose," sez he, quite cool, 
 
 " either be shot or trudge." 
 So this black-hearted monster took an' 
 
 act'Uy druv me back 
 Along the very feetmarks o' my happy 
 
 mornin' track. 
 An' kep' me pris'ner 'bout six months, 
 
 an worked me, tu, like sin. 
 Till I hed gut his corn an' his Carliny 
 
 taters in ; 
 He made me lam him readin', tu (al- 
 though the crittur saw 
 How much it hut my morril sense to act 
 
 agin the law), 
 So'st he could read a Bible he 'd gut ; 
 
 an' axed ef I could pint 
 The North Star out ; but there I put 
 
 his nose some out o' jint, 
 Fer I weeled roun' about aou'west, an', 
 
 lookin' up a bit. 
 Picked out a middlin' shiny one an' tole 
 
 him thet wuz it. 
 Fin'Uy, he took me to the door, an', 
 
 givin' me a kick, 
 Sez, — " Ef you know wut 's best fer ye, 
 
 be off, now, double-quick ; 
 The winter-time's a comin' on, an", 
 
 though I gut ye cheap. 
 You're so darned lazy, 1 don't think 
 
 you 're hardly wuth your keep ; 
 Besides, the childrin 's growin' up, an' 
 
 you aint jest the model 
 I 'd like to hev 'em immertate, an' so 
 
 you 'd better toddle 1 " 
 
 Now is there anythin' on airth '11 ever 
 
 prove to me 
 Thet renegader slaves like him air fit 
 
 fer bein' free ? 
 D' you think they '11 suck me in to jine 
 
 the Buff'lo chaps, an' them 
 Eank infidels thet go agin the Scriptur'l 
 
 cus o' Shem ? 
 Not by a jugfull ! sooner 'n thet, I 'd 
 
 go thru fire an' water ; 
 Wen I hev once made up my mind, a 
 
 meet'nhus aint setter; 
 No, not though all the crows thet flies 
 
 to pick my bones wuz cawin', — 
 I guess we 're in a Christian land, — 
 Youm, 
 
 BIRDOFEEDUM SAWIN. 
 
 [Here, patient reader, we take leave of each 
 other, I trast with some mutual satisfaction. 
 I say patient, for I love not that kind irhicb 
 
208 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 fiklras dipp!ngly over the surface of the page, 
 as swallows over a pool before rain. By such 
 no pearls shall be gathered, But if no pearls 
 there be (as, indeed, the world is not without 
 example of books wherefrom the longest-winded 
 diver shall bring up no more than his proper 
 handful of mud), yet let us hope that an oyster 
 or two may reward adequate perseverance. If 
 neither pearls nor oysters, yet is patience itself 
 a gem worth diving deeply ttor. 
 
 It may seem to some that too much space 
 has been usurped by my own piivate lucubra- 
 tions, and some may be fain to bring against 
 me that old jest of him who preached all his 
 hearers out of the meeting-house save only the 
 sexton, who, remaining for yet a little space, 
 from a sense of official duty, at last gave out 
 also, and, presenting the keys, humbly requested 
 our preacher to lock the doors, when he should 
 have wholly relieved himself of his testimony. 
 I confess to a satisfaction in the self act of 
 preaching, nor do 1 esteem a discourse to be 
 ■wholly thrown away even upon a sleeping or 
 unintelligent auditory. 1 cannot easily believe 
 that the Gospel of Saint John, which Jacques 
 Cartier ordered to be read in the Latin tongue 
 to the Canadian savages, upon his first meeting 
 with them, fell altogether upon stony ground. 
 For the earnestness of the preacher is a sermon 
 appreciable by dullest intellects and most alien 
 ears. In this wise did Episcopius convert 
 many to his opinions, who yet understood not 
 the language in which he discoursed. The 
 chief thing is that tlie messenger believe that 
 he has an authentic message to deliver. For 
 counterfeit messengers that mode of treatment 
 which Father John de Piano Carpini relates to 
 have prevailed among the Tartars would seem 
 effectual, and, perhajis, deserved enough. For 
 my own part, I may lay claim to so much of 
 the spirit of martyrdom as would have led me 
 to go into banishment with those clergymen 
 whom Alphonso the Sixth of Portugal drave 
 out of his kingdom for refusing to shorten their 
 pulpit eloquence. It is possible, that, having 
 been invited into my brother Biglow's desk, I 
 may have been too little scrupulous in using it 
 for the venting of my own peculiar doctrines to 
 a congi'egation drawn together in the expecta- 
 tlOE and with the desire of hearing him. 
 
 I am not wholly unconscious of a peculiarity 
 of mental organization which impels me, liko 
 the railroad-engine with its train of cars, to run 
 backward for a short distance in order to ob- 
 tain a fairer start. I may compare myself to 
 one fishing from the rocks when the sea runs 
 high, who, misinterpreting the suction of the 
 undertow for the biting of some larger flsh, 
 jerks suddenly, and finds that he has caught bol- 
 t<yin^ hauling in upon the end of his hue a trail 
 of various algce, among which, nevertheless, the 
 naturalist may haply find somewhat to repay 
 the disappointment of the angler. Yet have I * 
 conscientiously endeavored to adapt myself to 
 the impatient temper of the age, daily degener- 
 ating more and more from the high standard of 
 our pristine New England. To the catalogue 
 of lost arts I would mournfully add also that 
 of listening to two-hour sermons. Surely we 
 have been abridged into a race of pygmies. 
 For, truly, in those of the old discourses yet 
 subsisting to us in print, the endless siiinal 
 column of divisions and subdivisions can be 
 likened to nothing so exactly as to the verte- 
 brae of the saurians, whence the theorist may 
 conjecture a race of Anakim proportionate to 
 the withstanding of these other monsters. I' 
 say Anakim rather than Nephelim, because 
 there seem reasons for supposing that the race 
 of those whose heads (though no giants) are 
 constantly enveloped in clouds (which that 
 name imports) will never become extinct. The 
 attempt to vanquish the innumerable lieads 
 of one of those afore-mentioned discoui-ses 
 may supply us with a plausible interpretation 
 of the second labor of Hercules, and his suc- 
 cessful experiment with lire affords us a useful 
 precedent 
 
 But while I lament the degeneracy of the ago 
 in this regard, I cannot refuse to succumb to 
 its influence. Looking out through my study- 
 window, I see Mr. Biglow at a distance busy 
 in gathering his B^dwins, of which, to judge 
 by the number of barrels lying about under the 
 trees, his crop is more abundant than my own, 
 — by which sight 1 am admonished to turn to 
 those orchards of the mind wherein my labors 
 may be more prospered, and apply myself dili- 
 gently to the preparation of my next Sabbath's 
 discourse. — H. W.J 
 
MELIBCEUS-HIPPONAX. 
 
 THE 
 
 BtglotD Jpapcr0, 
 
 SECOND SERIES. 
 "EtTTW &p' i ISiaTUF/ibs ivlore roO Kdafwv irapairdXi iiupavurTiK&Tepw. 
 
 LONGINOS. 
 
 " J'aimerois mieulx que mon iils apprinst aux tavemes & parler, qu'aux escholes de la 
 parlerie." 
 
 MONTAIGNB. 
 
 „Unfet Sftflii^ ift auc^ ctn ©t)ttt(i^ utib Ian fo Bo^l tin ©ad ncnnen ttl8 Me Sartiet 
 saccus." 
 
 FiSCHART. 
 
 " Vim rebus aliquando ipsa verborum humilitas affert" 
 
 QUINTILIANUS. 
 
 " O ma lengo, 
 Plantariy une estMo ^ toun froun encrumit I" 
 
 Jasmin. 
 
•so 
 
 E. R. HOAR. 
 
MultOB enim, qulbuB loquenffl ratio non dealt, invenioE, quos curiose potius loqui dixerii 
 tiam Latine ; quomodo et ilia Attica anus Theophrastum, hominem alioqui disertissimum, 
 ^nnotata uulua aftectatioue veibi, hospitem dixit, nee alio se id depreliendifise interrofrata t» 
 Bpoiul^* quam quod nimium Attice loqueretur," — QuumuAHUS. 
 
 " Et Anglice Bermonicari solebat populo, sed secundom linguam Norfolchie ubi natua et nu- 
 tritua erat." — Gbonica Jocelini. 
 
 " La politique eat une pierre attach^e au cou de la litt^rature, et qui en moius de six mois la 
 Bubmerge. . . . Gette politique va offender mortellement une moiti^ des lectours, et ennuyez 
 Tautre qui Ta trouT^e bien autrement ap^ciale ei> ^uergique dana le journal du matin.*' — I 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Though prefaces seem of late to have 
 fallen under some reproach, they have at 
 least this advantage, that they set us 
 again on the feet of our personal conscious- 
 ness and rescue us from the gregarious 
 mock-modesty or cowardice of that we 
 which shrills feebly throughout modem 
 literature like the shrieking of mice in the 
 walls of a house that has passed its prime. 
 Having a few words to say to the many 
 friends whom the " Biglow Papers " have 
 won me, I shall accordingly take the free- 
 dom of the first person singular of the 
 personal pronoun. Let each of the good- 
 natured unknown who have cheered me by 
 the written communication of their sym- 
 pathy look upon this Introduction as a 
 private letter to himself. 
 
 When, more than twenty years ago, I 
 wrote the first of the series, I had no defi- 
 nite plan and no intention of ever writing 
 another. Thinking the Mexican war, as I 
 think it still, a national crime committed 
 In behoof of Slavei-y, our common sin, and 
 wishing to put the feeling of those who 
 thought as I did in a way that would tell, 
 I imagined to myself such an upcountry 
 man as I had often seen at antislavery 
 gatherings, capable of district-school Eng- 
 lish, but always instinctively falling back 
 into the natural stronghold of his homely 
 dialect when heated to the point of self- 
 forgetfulness. When I began to carry out 
 my conception and to write in my as- 
 sumed character, I found myself in a strait 
 between two perils. On the one hand, I 
 ■was in danger of being carried beyond the 
 limit of my own opinions, or at least of 
 that temper with which every man should 
 speak his mind in print, and on the other 
 I feared the risk of seeming to vulgarize a 
 deep and sacred conviction. I needed on 
 occasion to rise above the level of mere 
 patois, and for this purpose conceived the 
 Bev. Mr. Wilbur, who should express the 
 more cautious element of the New England 
 character and its pedantry, as Mr. Biglow 
 should sei-ve for its homely common-sense 
 virified and heated by conscience. Tlie 
 parson was tn be the complement rather 
 than the antithesis of his parishioner, and 
 I felt or fancied a certain humorous ele- 
 
 ment in the real identity of the two under 
 a seeming incongruity. Mr. Wilbur's fond- 
 ness for scraps of Latin, though drawn 
 from the life, I adopted deliberately to 
 heighten the contrast. Finding soon after 
 that I needed some one as a mouthpiece of 
 the mere drollery, for I conceive that true 
 humor is never divorced from moral con- 
 viction, I invented Mr. Sawin for the 
 clown of my little puppet-show. I meant 
 to embody in him that half-conscious un- 
 morality which I had noticed as the recoil 
 in gross natures from a puritanism that 
 still strove to keep in its creed the intense 
 savor which had long gone out of its faith 
 and life. In the three I thought I should 
 find room enough to express, as it was my 
 plan to do, the popular feeling and opin- 
 ion of the time. For the names of two of 
 my characters, since I have received some 
 remonstrances from very worthy persons 
 who happen to bear them, I would say 
 that they were purely fortuitous, proba- 
 bly mere imconscious memories of sign- 
 boards or directories. Mr. Sawin's sprang 
 from the accident of a rhyme at the end 
 of his first epistle, and I purposely chris- 
 tened him by the impossible surname of 
 Birdofredum not more to stigmatize him aa 
 the incarnation of "Manifest Destiny," in 
 other words, of national recklessness as to 
 right and wrong, than to avoid the chance 
 of wounding any private sensitiveness. 
 
 The success of my experiment soon began 
 not only to astonish me, but to make ma 
 feel the responsibility of knowing that I 
 held in my hand a weapon instep of the 
 m„i'6 fencing-stick I had supposed. Very 
 far from being a popular author under my 
 own name, so far, indeed, as to be almost 
 unread, I- found the verses of my pseu- 
 donyme copied everywhere ; I saw them 
 pinned up in workshops ; I he^rd them 
 quoted and their authorship debated ; I 
 once even, when rumor had at length 
 caught up my name in one of its eddies, 
 had the satisfaction of overhearing it dem- 
 on.strated, in the pau.ses of a concert, that 
 / was utterly incompetent to have writ- 
 tpn anything of the kind. I had read too 
 much not to know the utter v/orthlessness 
 of ccutemporary reputation, especially as 
 
214 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 regards satire, but I knew also that by 
 giving a certain amount of influence it also 
 had its worth, if that influence were used on 
 the right side. I had learned, too, that the 
 first requisite of good writing is to have an 
 earnest and definite purpose, whether ses- 
 thetic or moral, and that even good writing, 
 to please long, must have more than an 
 average amount either of imagination or 
 common-sense. Tie first of these falls to 
 the lot of scarcely one in several genera- 
 tions ; the last is vrithin the reach of many 
 in every one that "passes ; and of this an 
 author may fairly hope to become in part 
 the mouthpiece. If I put on the cap and 
 bells and made myself one of the court- 
 fools of King Demos, it was less to make 
 bis majesty laugh than to win a passage 
 to his royal ears for certain serious things 
 which I had deeply at heart. I say this 
 because there is no imputation that could 
 be more galling to any man's self-reject 
 than that of being a mere jester. I en- 
 deavored, by generalizing my satire, to 
 give it what value I could beyond the pass- 
 ing moment and the immediate applica- 
 tion. How far I have succeeded I cannot 
 tell, but I have had better luck than I 
 ever looked for in seeing my verses survive 
 to pass beyond their nonage. 
 
 In choosing the Yankee dialect, I did 
 not act without forethought. It bad long 
 seemed to me that the great vice of Amer- 
 ican writing and speaking was a studied 
 Want of simplicity, that we were in danger 
 of coming to look on om- mother-tongue 
 as a dead language, to be sought in the 
 grammar and dictionary rather than in the 
 heart, and that our only chance of escape 
 Was by seeking it at its living sources 
 among those who were, as Scottowe says 
 of Major-General Gibbons, " divinely illit- 
 erate. " President Lincoln, the only really 
 great public man whom these latter days 
 have seen, was great also in this, that he 
 was master — witness his speech at Get- 
 tysburg — of a truly masculine English, 
 classic because it was of no special period, 
 and level at once to the highest and lowest 
 of his countrymen. I learn from the high- 
 est authority that his favorite reading was 
 in Shakespeare and Milton, to which, of 
 course, the Bible should be added. But 
 Whoever should read the debates in Con- 
 gress might fancy himself present at a meet- 
 mg of the city council of some city of South- 
 ern Gaul in the decline of the Empire, where 
 barbarians with a Latin varnish emulated 
 each other by being more than Ciceronian. 
 Whether it be want of culture, for the 
 highest outcome of that is simplicity, or 
 for whatever reason, it is certain that very 
 bw American writers or speakers wield 
 
 their native language with the directness, 
 precision, and force that are common aa 
 the day in the mother country. We use 
 it like Scotsmen, not as if it belonged to 
 us, but as if we wished to prove that we 
 belonged to it, by showing our intimacy 
 with its written rather than with its 
 spoken dialect. And yet all the while our 
 popular idiom is racy with life and vigor 
 and originality, bucksome (as Milton used 
 the word) to our new occasions, and proves 
 itself no mere graft by sending up new 
 suckers from the old root in spite of us. 
 It is only from its roots in the living gen- 
 erations of men that a language can be 
 reinforced with fresh vigor for its needs; 
 what may be called a literate dialect grows 
 ever more and more pedantic and foreign, 
 till it becomes at last as unfitting a vehicle 
 for living thought as monkish Latin. That 
 we should all be made to talk like books 
 is the danger with which we are threatened 
 by the Universal Schoolmaster, who does 
 his best to enslave the minds and memo- 
 ries of his victims to what he esteems the 
 best models of English composition, that 
 Is to say, to the writers whose style is 
 faultily correct and has no blood-warmth 
 in it. No language after it has faded into 
 diction, none that cannot suck up the 
 feeding juices secreted for it in the rich 
 mother-earth of common folk, can bring 
 forth a sound and lusty book. True vigor 
 and heartiness of phrajse do not pass from 
 page to page, but from man to man, where 
 the brain is kindled and the lips suppled 
 by downright living interests and by pas- 
 sion in its very throe. Language is the 
 soil of thought, and our own especially is 
 a rich leaf -mould, the slow deposit of ages, 
 the shed foliage of feeling, fancy, and im- 
 agination, which has suffered an earth- 
 change, that the vocal forest, as Howell 
 called it, may clothe itself anew with 
 living green. There is death in the dic- 
 tionary; and, where language is too strictly 
 limited by convention, the ground for ex- 
 pression to grow in is limited also; and 
 we get a potted literature, Chinese dwarfs 
 instead of healthy trees. 
 
 But while the schoolmaster has been 
 busy starching our language and smooth- 
 ing "it flat with the mangle of a supposed 
 classical authority, the newspaper reporter 
 has been doing even more haim by stretch- 
 ing and swelling it to suit his occasions. 
 A dozen years ago I began a list, which I 
 have added to from time to time, of some 
 of the changes which may be fairly laid at 
 his door. I give a few of them as show- 
 ing their tendency, all the more dangerous 
 that their effect, like that of some poisons, 
 is insensibly cumulative, and that they are 
 
INTEODUOTION'. 
 
 215 
 
 sure at last of effect among a people whose I two columns the old style and its modem 
 chief reading is the daily paper. I give in | equivalent. 
 
 Old Style. 
 
 Was hanged. 
 
 When the baiter was put round his neck. 
 
 A great crowd came to see. 
 Great lire. 
 Vhe fire spread. 
 
 House burned. 
 
 The lire was got under. 
 
 HanfeU. 
 
 A horse and wagon ran against. 
 
 The frightened horse. 
 Sent for the doctor. 
 
 The mayor of the city in a short speech wel- 
 comed. 
 
 1 shall say a few words. 
 
 Began his answer. 
 Asked him to dine. 
 A bystander advised. 
 
 Ee died. 
 
 In one sense this is nothing new. The 
 school of Pope in verse ended by wire- 
 drawing its phrase to such thinness that 
 it could bear no weight of meaning what- 
 ever. Nor is fine writing ty any means 
 confined to America. All writers without 
 imagination fall into it of necessity when- 
 ever they attempt the figurative. I take 
 two examples from Mr. Merivale's " His- 
 tory of the Bonians under the Empire," 
 which, indeed, is full of such. " The last 
 years of the age familiarly styled the Au- 
 gustan were singularly barren of the liter- 
 ary glories from which its celebrity was 
 chiefly derived. One by one the stars in 
 its firmament had been lost to the world ; 
 Virgil and Horace, etc., had long since 
 died; the charm which the imagination of 
 Livy had thrown over the earlier annals of 
 Borne had ceased to shine on the details 
 of almost contemporary history ; and if 
 the flood of his eloquence still continued 
 flowing, we can hardly suppose that the 
 stream was as rapid, as fresh, and as clear 
 as ever." I will not waste time in criti- 
 cising the bad English or the mixture of 
 metaphor in these sentences, but will 
 pasffly cite auothen from, the same author 
 
 New Style. 
 
 Was launched into eternity. 
 
 When tlie fatal noose was adjusted about the 
 neck of the unfortunate victim of his own 
 tmbridled passions. 
 
 A vast concourse was assembled to witness. 
 
 Disastrous conflagration. ' 
 
 The conflagration extended its devastating 
 career. 
 
 Edifice consumed. 
 
 The progress of the devouring element was 
 arrested. 
 
 Individual was precipitated. 
 
 A valuable horse attached to a vehicle driven 
 by J. S., in the employment of J. B., collided 
 with. 
 
 The Infuriated animal. 
 
 Called into requisition the services of the 
 family physician. 
 
 The chief magistrate of the metropolis, in well- 
 chosen and eloquent language, frequently 
 Interrupted by the plaudits of the surging 
 multitude, officially tendered the hospitali- 
 ties. 
 
 I shall, with your permission, beg leave to 
 offer some brief observations. 
 
 Gommeaced his rejoinder. 
 
 Tendered him a banquet. 
 
 One of those omnipresent characters who, 03 
 if in pursuance of some 'previous arrange- 
 ment, are certain to be encountered in the 
 vicinity -when an accident occurs, ventured 
 the suggestioa 
 
 He deceased, he passed out of existence, his 
 spirit quitted its earthly habitation, winged 
 its way to eternity, shook off its burden, etc. 
 
 which is even worse. "The shadowy 
 
 Ehantom of the Bepublic continued to flit 
 efore the eyes of the CiBsar. There was 
 still, he apprehended, a germ of senti- 
 ment existing, on which a scion of his own 
 house, or even a stranger, might boldly 
 throw himself and raise the standard of 
 patrician independence." Now a ghost 
 may haunt a murderer, but hardly, I 
 should think, to scare him with the threat 
 of taking a new lease of its old tenement. 
 And fancy the scion of a house in the act 
 of throwing itself upon a germ of sentiment 
 to raise a standard I I am glad, since we 
 have so much in the same kind to answer 
 for, that this bit of horticultural rhetoric 
 is from beyond sea. I would not be sup- 
 posed to condemn truly imaginative prose. 
 There is a simplicity of splendor, no less 
 than of plainness, and prose would be poor 
 indeed it it could not find a tongue for 
 that meaning of the mind which is behind 
 the meaning of the words. It has some- 
 times seemed to me that in England there 
 was a growing tendency to curtail language 
 into a mere convenience, and to defecate it 
 of all emotion as thoroughly as algebraio 
 signs. Tlus has arisen, no doubt, in port 
 
216 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 from that healthy national contempt of 
 humbug which is characteristic of English- 
 men, in part from that sensitiveness to the 
 ludicrous which makes them so shy of ex- 
 pressing feeling, but in part also, it is to 
 be feared, from a growing distrust, one 
 might almost say hatred, of whatever is 
 super-material. There is something sad 
 in the scorn with which their journalists 
 treat the notion of there beuig such a thing 
 as a national ideal, seeming utterly to 
 have forgotten that even in the affairs of 
 this world the imagination is as much 
 matter-of-fact as the understanding. If 
 ■we were to trust the impression maide on 
 us by some of the cleverest and most 
 characteristic of their periodical litera- 
 ture, we should think England hopelessly 
 stranded on the good-humored cynicism of 
 well-to-do middle-age, and should fancy it 
 an enchanted nation, doomed to sit forever 
 with its feet under the mahogany in that 
 after-dinner mood which follows consci- 
 entious repletion, and which it is ill- 
 manners to disturb with any topics more 
 exciting than the quality of the wines. 
 But there are already symptoms that a 
 large class of Englishmen are getting 
 weary of the dominion of consols and 
 divine common-sense, and to believe that 
 eternal three per cent is not the chief end 
 of man, nor the highest and only kind of 
 interest to which the powers and oppor- 
 tunities of England are entitled. 
 
 The quality of exaggeration has often 
 been remarked on as typical of American 
 character, and especially of American hu- 
 mor. In Dr. Petri's OedrWngtes Handbuch 
 der Fremdwiirter, we are told that the 
 word humbug is commonly used for the 
 exaggerations of the North-Americans. To 
 be sure, one would be tempted to think 
 the dream of Columbus half fulfilled, and 
 that Europe had found in the West a 
 nearer v^ay to Orientalism, at least in dic- 
 tion. But it seems to me that a great deal 
 of what is set down as mere extravagance 
 is more fitly to be called intensity and pic- 
 turesqneness, symptoms of the imagina- 
 tive faculty in full health and strength, 
 though producing, as yet, only the raw and 
 formless material in which poetry is to 
 work. By and by, perhaps, the world 
 will see it fashioned into poem and picture, 
 and Europe, which will be hard pushed 
 for originality erelong, may have to thank 
 us for a new sensation. The French con- 
 tinue to find Shakespeare exaggerated 
 because he treated English just as our 
 country-folk do when they speak of a 
 "steep price," or say that they "freeze 
 to" n thing. The first postulate of an origi- 
 nal literature is that a people should use 
 
 their language instinctively and rmcon- 
 sciously, as if it were a lively part of their 
 growth and personality, not as the mere 
 torpid boon of education or inheritance. 
 Even Bums contrived to write very poor 
 verse and prose in English. Vulgarisms 
 are often only poetry in the egg. The late 
 Mr. Horace Mann, in one of his public 
 addresses, commented at some length on 
 the beauty and moral significance of the 
 French phrase s'orienter, and called on 
 his young friends to practise upon it in 
 life. There was not a Yankee in his 
 audience whose problem had not always 
 been to find out what was about east, and 
 to shape his course accordingly. This 
 charm which a familiar expression gains 
 by being commented, as it were, and set 
 in a new light by. a foreign language, is 
 euiious and instructive. I cannot help 
 thinking that Mr. Matthew Arnold forgets 
 this a little too much sometimes wh«i he 
 writes of the beauties of French style. It 
 would not be hard to find in the works of 
 French Academicians phrases as coarse as 
 those he cites from Burke, only they are 
 veiled by the imfamiliarity of the language. 
 But, however this may be, it is certain 
 that poets and peasants please us in the 
 same way by translating words back again 
 to their primal freshness, and infusing 
 them with a delightful strangeness which 
 is anything but alienation. What, for ex- 
 ample, is Milton's " edge of battle " but a 
 doing into English of the Latin aciest 
 Was die Gans gedacht das der Schwan 
 voUbracht, what the goose but thought, 
 that the swan full brought (or, to de-Sax- 
 onize it a little, what the goose conceived, 
 that the swan achieved), and it may well 
 be that the life, invention, and vigor shovra 
 by our ^)opular speech, and the freedom 
 with which it is shaped to the instant 
 want of those who use it, are of the best 
 omen for our having a swan at last. The 
 part I have taken on myself is that of the 
 humbler bird. 
 
 But it is affirmed that there is some- 
 thing innately vulgar in the Yankee dia- 
 lect. M. Sainte-Beuve says, with his 
 usual neatness ; " Je difmis wn patois ime 
 ancienne langue qui a eu des malliewrs, 
 mi encore ime langue toutejewne et qui n'a 
 pas fait fortune. " The first part of his 
 definition applies to a dialect like the Pro- 
 vencal, the last to the Tuscan before Dante 
 had lilted it into a classic, and neither, it 
 seems to me, will quite fit a patois, which 
 is not properly a dialect, but rather certain 
 archaisms, proverbial phrases, and modes 
 of pronunciation, which maintain them- 
 selves among the uneducated side by side 
 with the finished and universally accepted 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 217 
 
 language. Norman French, for example, 
 or Scotch down to the time of James VI., 
 could hardly be called^a^i's, whllB I should 
 be half inchued to name the Yankee a linyo 
 rather than a dialect. It has retained a 
 few words now fallen into disuse in the 
 mother oomitry, like to tarry, to progress, 
 fieshy,fall, and some others ; it has changed 
 the meaning of some, as in freshet ; and 
 it has clung to what 1 suspect to have been 
 the broad Norman pronunciation of e 
 (■which Moliere puts into the mouth of his 
 rustics) in such words as sarvant, parfect, 
 vartoo, and the like. It maintains some- 
 thing of the French sound of a also in 
 words like chdMer, danger (though the 
 latter had certainly begun to take its pres- 
 ent sound so early as 1636, when I lind it 
 sometimes spelt dainger). But in general 
 it may be said that uotting can be found 
 in it which does not still survive in some 
 one or other of the English provincial dia- 
 lects. There is, perhaps, a smgle exception 
 in the verb to sleeve. To sleeve silk means 
 to divide or ravel out a thread of silk with 
 the point of a needle till it becomes Jloss. 
 (A. S. slefan, to cZeaKe = divide.) This, I 
 think, explains the '* sleeve/ess errands" in 
 " Troilus and Cressida" so inadequately, 
 sometimes so ludicrously darkened by the 
 commentators. Is not a " sleeveless er- 
 rand " one that cannot be unravelled, in- 
 comprehensible andtherefore bootless V 
 
 1 am not speaking now of American- 
 isms properly to called, that is, of words 
 or phrases which have grown into use here 
 either through necessity, invention, or ac- 
 cident, such as a carry, a one-horse affair, 
 aprairie, to vnmose. Even these are fewer 
 than is sometimes taken for granted. But 
 I think some fair defence may he made 
 against the charge of vulgarity. Properly 
 speaking, vulgarity is in the thouglit, and 
 not in the word or" the way of pronouncing 
 it. Modern French, Ihe most polite of lan- 
 guages, is barbarously vulgar if compared 
 with the Latin out of which it has been cor- 
 rupted, or even with Italian. There is a 
 wider gap, and one implying greater boor- 
 ishness, between ministerium and jnetier, or 
 sapiens and sachant, than between druv and 
 drove or agin and ayaiiist, which last is 
 ploinlv an arrant superlative. Our rustic 
 coverlid is nearer its French original than 
 the diminutive coverlet, into which it has 
 been ignoranlly corrupted in politer speech. 
 I obtained from three ciUtivated English- 
 men at different times three diverse pro- 
 nunciations of a single word, — cowcum- 
 ber, coocumber, and ciicwmier. Of these 
 the first, which is Yankee also, comes 
 nearest to the nasality of concombre. Lord 
 Ossory assures us that Voltaire saw the 
 
 best society in England, and Voltnivn tella 
 his countrymen that handherchief was 
 pronounced hankercher. I find it so spelt 
 in Hakluyt and elsewhere. This enonnity 
 the Yankee still persists in, and as there 
 ia always a reason for such deviations from 
 the sound as represented by the spelling, 
 may we not suspect two sources of deriva- 
 tion, and find an ancestor for kercher in 
 eouvertwre rather than in couvreclie/t 
 And what greater phonetic vagary (whicli 
 Dryden, by the way, called fegary) in our 
 lingua nistica than this ker for couvre t 
 I copy from the fly-leaves of my books 
 where I have noted them from time to 
 time a few examples of pronunciation and 
 phrase which will show that the Yankee 
 often has antiquity and very respectable 
 literary authority on his side. My list 
 might be largely increased by referring to 
 glossaries, but to them every one can go 
 for himself, and I have gathered enough 
 for my purpose. 
 
 I will take first those cases in which 
 something hke the French sound has been 
 preserved in certain single letters and 
 diphthongs. And this opens a curious 
 question as to how long this Gallicism 
 maintained itself in England. Sometimes 
 a divergence in pronunciation has given 
 us two words witii different meanuigs, as 
 in genteel ixnd Jav/nty, which I find coming 
 in toward the close of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, and wavering between genteel and 
 jmitee. It is usual in America to drop 
 the u in words ending in our, — a very 
 proper change recommended by Howell 
 two centuries ago, and carried out by him 
 so far as his printers would allow. This 
 and the corresponding changes in mimque, 
 musich, and the like, which he also advo- 
 cated, show that in his time the French 
 accent indicated by the superfluous letters 
 (for French had once nearly as strong an 
 accent as Italian) had gone out of use. 
 There is plenty of French accent down to 
 the end of Elizabeth's reign. In Daniel wa 
 have riches' and counsel', in Bishop Hall 
 comet', chapelain, in Donne pictures', vir- 
 tue', presence!, mortal', merit', hainous', 
 giant', with many more, and Marstpn's 
 satires are full of them. The two latter, 
 however, are not to be relied on, as they 
 may be suspected of Chaucerizing. Her- 
 rick writes baptime. The tendency to 
 throw the accent backward began early. 
 But the incongruities are perplexing, and 
 perhaps mark the period of transition. In 
 Warner's "Albion's England" we have 
 creator' and creature' side by side with the 
 n)odern creator and creature, E'nvy and 
 »'iivyiiig occur in Campion (1602), and yet 
 
218 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 emiy' Burvived Milton, In some cases we 
 have gone back again nearer to the Frencli, 
 as in rev'eniie for reven'ue. 1 had been so 
 used to hearing imbecile pronounced with 
 the accent on ttie first syllable, which is in 
 accordance with the general tendency in 
 such matters, that I was surprised to find 
 imbec'ile in a verse of Wordsworth. The 
 dictionaries all give it so. I asked a highly 
 cultivated Englishman, and he declared 
 for imbeceel'. In general it may be as- 
 sumed that accent will finally settle on the 
 syllable dictated by greater ease and there- 
 fore quickness of utterance. Blas'phemous, 
 for example, is more rapidly pronounced 
 than blasphem'ous, to which our Yankee 
 clings, following in this the usage of many 
 of the older poets. Amer'iccm is easier 
 than Ameri'can, and therefore the false 
 quantity has carried the day, though the 
 true one may be found in George Herbert, 
 and even so late as Cowley. 
 
 To come back to the matter in hand. 
 Our " uplandish man " retains the soft or 
 thin sound of the u in some words, such 
 as rule, truth (sometimes also pronounced 
 irUth, not trooth), while he says noo for 
 Tiew, and gives to view and few so inde- 
 scribable a mixture of the two sounds with 
 a slight nasal tincture that it may be called 
 the Yankee shibboleth. Voltaire says that 
 the English pronounce true as if it rhymed 
 with view ; and this is the sonnd our rustics 
 give to it. Spenser writes deow (dew) which 
 can only be pronounced with the Yankee 
 nasality. In i-ule the least sound of a pre- 
 cedes the u. I Undreule in Pecock's "Re- 
 pressor." He probably pronounced it ray- 
 oole, as the old French word from which it 
 is derived was very likely to be sounded at 
 first, with a reminiscence of its original 
 reguln. Tindal has rueler, and the Coven- 
 try Plays have p7-eitdent. In the "Parlya- 
 nient of Bvrdes " I find rente. As for noo, 
 may it not claim some sanction in its deri- 
 vation, whether from nouveau or neuf, the 
 ancient sound of which may verv v-pfl have 
 been non/, as nearer twvus ? Beef would 
 seem more like to have come from buffe 
 than from bceuf, unless the two were mere 
 varieties of spelling. The Saxon /ew may 
 have caught enough from its French cousin 
 ^eii to claim the benefit of the same doubt 
 as to sound ; and our slang phrase a few 
 (as " I licked him a few ") may well ap- 
 
 Seal to un pen, for sense and authority, 
 fay, might not lick itself turn out to be 
 the good old word lam in an English dis- 
 guise, if the latter should claim descent as, 
 perhaps, he f.iirly might, from the Latin 
 lambere t The New England ferce for 
 fierce, and perce for pierce (sometimes 
 
 heard as fairce and pairce), are also Nor^ 
 man. For its antiquity I cite the rhyma 
 of veree and pierce in Chapman and Donne, 
 and in some commendatory verses by a 
 Mr. Berkenhead before the poems of Fran- 
 cis Beaumont. Our pairlous for perilous 
 is of the same kind, and is nearer Shake- 
 speare's parlous than the modern pronun- 
 ciation. One other Gallicism survives in 
 our pronunciation. Perhaps I should rather 
 call it a semi-Gallicism, for it is the result 
 of a futile eifort to reproduce a French 
 sound with English lip8._ Thus for joint, 
 employ, royal, we have jynt, empty, lyle, 
 the last differing only from rite (roil) in a 
 prolongation of the y sound. I find royal 
 so pronounced in the "Mirror for Magis- 
 trates." In Walter de Biblesworth I find 
 sotives Englished by gistes. This, it is true, 
 may have been pronounced yeesis, but the 
 pronunciation y^ates must have preceded the 
 present spelling, which was no doubt adopt- 
 ed after the radical meaning was forgotten, 
 as analogical with other words in oi. In the 
 same way after Norman-French influence 
 had softened the I out of would (we already 
 find woud for veut in N. F. poems), should 
 followed the example, and then an { was 
 foisted into could, where it does not belong, 
 to satisfy the logic of the eye, which has 
 affected the pronunciation and even the 
 spelling of English more than is commonly 
 supposed. I meet with eyster for oyster 
 as early as the fourteenth century. Ifind 
 viage in Bishop Hall and Middleton the 
 dramatist, bile for boil in Donne and Chro- 
 nonhotonthologos, line for loin in Hall, 
 ryall, chyse (for choice), and dystrye for de- 
 stroy in the Coventry Plays. In Chapman's 
 " All Fools " is the misprint of employ for 
 imply, fairly inferring an identity of sound 
 in the last syllable. Indeed, tliis pronun- 
 ciation was habitual till after Pope, and 
 Rogers tells us that the elegant Gray said 
 naise for noise just as our rustics still do. 
 Our cornish (which I find also in Herrick) 
 remembers the French better than cornice 
 does. While, clinging more closely to the 
 Anglo-Saxon in dropping the g from the 
 end of the present participle, the Yankee 
 now and then pleases himself with an ex- 
 periment in French nasality in words ending 
 m n. It is not, so far as my experience 
 goes, very common, though it may formerly 
 have beeii more so. Capting, for instance, 
 I never heard save in jest, the habitual form 
 being kepp'n. But at any rate it is no in- 
 vention of ours. In that delightful old vol- 
 ume, "Ane Compendious Buke of Godly 
 and Spirituall Songs," in which I know 
 not whether the piety itself or the simpli- 
 city of its expression be more charming, I 
 find burding, garding, and cousing, ana in 
 
INTBODUOTION. 
 
 219 
 
 the State Trials uncerting used by a gentle- 
 man. I confess that I like the n better than 
 the nff. 
 
 Of Yankee preterites I find rtsse and rize 
 for rose in Beaumont and Fletcher, Middle- 
 ton, and Drydon, dim in Spenser, ckees 
 (chose) in Sir John Maridevil, give (gave) in 
 the Coventry Plays, shet (shut) in Golding's 
 Ovid, het in Chapman and in Weever's Epi- 
 taphs, thriv and smit in Drayton, quit in 
 Ben jonson and Henry More, and pled in 
 ihe Fasten Letters, nay, even in the fastidi- 
 ous Landor. Rid for rode was anciently 
 common. So likewise was see for saw, but 1 
 find it in no writer of authority (except 
 Golding), unless Chaucer's seie and Gower's 
 tigh were, as I am inclined to think, so 
 sounded. Shew is used by Hector Boece, 
 Giles Fletcher, Drummond of Hawthorn- 
 den, and in the Fasten Letters. Similar 
 strong preterites, like sTiew^ thew, and even 
 mew, are not without example^ I find sew 
 for sewed in Piers Ploughman. Indeed, the 
 anomalies in English preterites are per- 
 plexing. We have probably transferi'ed 
 flew Siomjlow (as the preterite of which I 
 have heard it) toy?y because we had another 
 preterite in jled. Of weak preterites the 
 Yankee retains growed, blowed, for which 
 he has good authority, and less often 
 knowed. His sot is merely a broad sound- 
 ing of sat, no more inelegant than the com- 
 mon got for gat, which he further degrades 
 into gut. When he says darst, he uses a 
 form as old as Chancer. 
 
 The Yankee has retained something of 
 the long sound of the a in such words as 
 cux, wax, pronouncing them exe, wex 
 (shortened from aix, waix). He also says 
 hev and hed (have, had) for have and had. 
 In most cases he follows an Anglo-Saxon 
 usage. In aix for axle he certainly does. 
 I find wex and aisches (ashes) in Pecock, 
 and exe in the Paston Letters. Golding 
 Thymes wax with wexe and spells challenge 
 chelenge. Chaucer wrote hendy. Dryden 
 rhymes can with men, as Mr. Biglow 
 would. Alexander Gill, Milton's teacher, 
 in his "Logonomia" cites hez for hath as 
 peculiar to Lincolnshire. I find hayth in 
 Collier's" Bibliographical Accountof Early 
 English Literature " under the date 1584, 
 and Lord Cromwell so wrote it. Sir Chris- 
 topher Wren wrote belcony. Our feet is 
 only the 0. F. faict. Thaim for them was 
 common in the sixteenth century. We 
 have an example of the same thing in the 
 douljle form of the verb thrash, thresh. 
 While the New-Englander cannot be 
 brought to say instead for instid (com- 
 monly 'atid where not the last word in a 
 sentence), he changes the i into e in red for 
 rid, tell for till, hender for hinder, rense 
 
 for rinse. I find red in the old interlude 
 of "Thersytes," «eB in a letter of Daborne 
 to Henslowe, and also, I shudder to men- 
 tion it, in a letter of the great Duchess of 
 Marlborough, Atossa herself! It occurs 
 twice in a single verse of the Cheater Flays, 
 
 " TeU the day of dome, teU the beames blow." 
 
 From the word blow (in another sense) is 
 formed blowth, which I heard again this 
 summer after a long interval. Mr. Wright * 
 explains it as meanmg " a blossom." With 
 us a single blossom is blow, while blowth 
 means the blossoming in general. A farmer 
 would say that there was a good blowth on 
 his fruit-trees. The word retreats farther 
 inland and away from the railways, year by 
 year. Wither rhymes hinder with slender, 
 and Shakespeare and Lovelace have renchea 
 for rinsed. In " Gammer Gurton " and 
 "_ Mirror for Magistrates " is sence for 
 since; Marlborough's Duchess so writes 
 it, and Donne rhymes since with Amiens 
 and patience, Bishop Hall and Otway with 
 pretence. Chapman with citizens, Dryden 
 •with providence. Indeed, why should not 
 sithence take that form? Dryden's wife 
 (an earl's daughter) has tell for till, Mar- 
 garet, mother of Henry VII., writes seche 
 for such, and our ef finds authority in the 
 old form yeffe. 
 
 E sometimes takes the place of u, as 
 jedge, tredge, bresh. I find tredge in the 
 interlude of "Jack Jugler," bresh in a ci- 
 tation 'by Collier from " London Cries " of 
 the middle of the seventeenth century, and 
 resche for rush (fifteenth century) in the 
 very valuable "Volume of Vocabularies" 
 edited by Mr. Wright. Resce is one of the 
 Anglo-Saxon forms of the word in Bos- 
 worth's A. S. Dictionary. Goldingh&s shet. 
 The Yankee always shortens the u in the 
 endiijg ture, making ventur, natur, pictur, 
 and so on. This was common, also, among 
 the educated of the last generation. I am 
 inclined to think it may have been once 
 universal, aiid I certainly think it more 
 elegant than the vile vencher, naycher, 
 pickcher, that have taken its place, sound- 
 ing like the invention of a lexicographer 
 to mitigate a sneeze. Nash in his "Pierce 
 Penniless " has ventur, and so spells it, 
 and I meet it also in Spenser, Draj'ton, 
 Ben Jonson, Herriok, and Prior. Spenser 
 has t-ort'rest, which can bo contracted only 
 from tortv/r and not from torcher. Quarles 
 rhymes nature with creator, and l5ryden 
 with satire, which he doubtless pronounced 
 according to its older form of satyr. Quarles 
 has also torture and mortar. Mary Boleyn 
 
 * Dictionary of Obsolete and Provineiai 
 
 English. 
 
220 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 writes hreatur. I findpiiter'm Xzaak Wal- 
 ton's autograph will. 
 
 I shall now give some examples which 
 cannot so easily be ranked under any spe- 
 cial head. Gill charges the Eastern coun- 
 ties with Hver for coi'e;', and ta for to. 
 The Yankee pronounces both too and to 
 like ta (like the tou in touch) where they 
 are not emphatic. When they are, both 
 become tu. In old spoiling, to is the com- 
 mon (and indeed correct) form of tou, which 
 13 only to with the sense of in addition, 
 I suspect that the sound of our too has 
 canght something from the French tout, 
 and it is possible that tiie old too too is not 
 a reduplication, but a reminiscence of the 
 feminine form of the same word (toute) as 
 anciently pronounced, with the e not yet 
 silenced. Gill gives a Northern origin to 
 geaun for gown and waund for wound 
 {vulnus). Lovelace has waund, but there 
 is something too dreadful in suspecting 
 Spenser (who borealized in his pastorals) 
 of having ever been guilty of geaun I And 
 yet some delicate mouths even now are 
 careful to observe the Hibemicism of 
 ge-ard for guard, and ge-url for girl. Sir 
 Philip Sidney {credite posteri I) wrote fmr 
 tor far. I would hardly have believed it 
 had I not seen it in facsimile. As some 
 consolation, 1 find furder in Lord Bacon 
 and Donne, and Wither rhjfmes far with 
 car. The Yankee, who omits the final d 
 in many words, as do the Scotch, makes 
 up for it by adding oue in geound. The 
 purist does not feel the loss of the d sen- 
 sibly in laion and yon, from the former of 
 ■which it has dropped again after a wrong- 
 ful adoption (retained in laundry), while 
 it properly belongs to the latter. But 
 what shall we make of git, yit, and yis i 
 I find yis and git in Warner's " Albion's 
 England," yet rhyming with wit, admit, 
 and fit in Donne, with wit in the ■" Ee- 
 venger's Tragedy," Beaumont, and Suck- 
 ling, with writ in Dryden, and latest of all 
 •with wit in Sir Hanbury Williams. Prior 
 rhycaes fitting and begetting. Worse is to 
 come. Among others, Donne rhymes again 
 with sin, and Quarles repeatedly with in. 
 Ben for been, of which our dear Whittier 
 is so fond, has the authority of Sackville, 
 "Gammer Gurton" (the work of a bishop). 
 Chapman, Dryden, and many more, though 
 Hn seems to have been the common form. 
 Whittier's accenting the first syllable of 
 rom'ance finds an accomplice in Drayton 
 among others, and though manifestly 
 Wrong, is analogous with Romfans. Of 
 other Yankeeisms, whether of form or pro- 
 huuciation, which I have met with I add a 
 few at random. Pecock writes smiidiers 
 isogers, soudoyers), and Chapman and Gill 
 
 sadder. This absorption of the I is com- 
 mon in various dialects, especially in the 
 Scottish. Pecock writes also biyende, and 
 the authors of "Jack Jugler" and "Gam- 
 mer Gurton" yender. 'The Yankee in- 
 cludes " yon " in the same category, and 
 says "hither an' yen," for "to and fro." 
 (Cf. German /cMseite ) Pecock and plenty 
 more have wrastle. Tindal has agynste, 
 greiter, shett, ondone, dehyt'e, and scace. 
 " Jack Jugler "has scacely (which I have 
 often heard, ttiough skurce is the common 
 form), and Donne and Dryden make great 
 rhyme with set. In the inscription on 
 Caxton's tomb I find ynd for end, which 
 the Yankee more often makes eend, still 
 using familiarly the old phrase "right 
 auend" for " continuously." His "stret 
 (straight) along" in the same sense, wiiich 
 I thought peculiar to him, I find in Pecock. 
 Tindal's debytS for deputy is so perfectly 
 Yankee that I could almost fancy the brave 
 martyr to have been deacon of the First 
 Parish at Jaalam Centre. "Jack Jugler" 
 further gives us playsent and sartayne. 
 Dryden rhymes certain with parting, and 
 Chapman and Ben Jonsou use certain, as 
 the Yankee always does, for certainly. 
 The " Coventry Mysteries " have occapied, 
 massage, nateralle, materal (material), 
 and meracles, — all excellent Yankeeisms. 
 In the "Quatre fils, Aymon" (1501),* is 
 verlus for mrtuous, Thomas Fuller called 
 volume vollum, I suspect, for he .spells it 
 volumne. However, per contra, Yankees 
 habitttally say colume for column. In- 
 deed, to prove that our ancestors brought 
 their pronunciation with them from the 
 Old Country, and have not wantonly de- 
 based their mother tongue, I need only to 
 cite the words scriptur, Israll, athists, and 
 cherfuiness from Governor Bradford's 
 " History. " So the good man wrote them, 
 and so the good descendants of his fellow- 
 exiles still pronounce them. Brampton 
 Gurdon writes shet in a letter to Winthrop. 
 Pwtend {pretend) has crept like a serpent 
 into the " Paradise of Dainty Devices " ; 
 puraide, which is not so bad, is in Cliaucer. 
 These, of course, are universal vulgarisms, 
 and not peculiar to tlie Yankee. Butler 
 has a Yankee phrase, and pronunciation 
 too, in "To which these carr'ings~on did 
 tend. " Langham or Laneham, who wrote 
 an account of the festivities at Kenil worth 
 in honor of Queen Bess, and who evidently 
 tried to spell phonetically, makes sorrows 
 into sororx. Herrick writes Iwlloto for 
 halloo, and perhaps pronounced it (Aor- 
 
 * Cited in Collier. (I srive rnv anthnritj 
 where 1 do not quote fi'oni the ori;^inf.l book.) i 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 221 
 
 r«sco mggerensl) hollo, as YanTcees do. 
 Why not, when it comes from hold t I 
 nuAffelaschyppe (fellowship) in the Coven- 
 try Plays. Spenser and his queen neither 
 of them sorapled to write afore, and the 
 lormer feels no inelegance even in chaw 
 and idee. 'Fore was common till after 
 Hen-ick. Dryden has do's for does, and 
 his vrife spells worse wosce. A feared was 
 once nniversal. Warner has ery for ever a ; 
 nay, he also has illy, with which we were 
 once Ignorantly reproached by persons 
 more familiar with Murray's Grammar 
 than with English literature. And why 
 not illy t Mr. Bartlett says it is " a word 
 used by writers of an inferior class, who 
 do not seem to perceive that ill is itself an 
 adverb, without the termination ly," and 
 quotes Dr. Messer, President of Brown 
 University, as asking triumphantly, " Why 
 don't you say welly i " I should like to 
 have had Dr. Messer answer his own qnes- 
 tion. It would be truer to say that it was 
 used by people who still remembered that 
 t« was an adjective, the shortened form of 
 tvil, out of which Shakespeare and the trans- 
 lators of the Bible ventured to make evilly. 
 This slurred evil is "the dram of eale" in 
 "Hamlet.'l Ifind% in Warner. Theob- 
 
 i'ection to iUy is not an etymological one, 
 lut simply that it is contrary to good usage, 
 — a very' sufficient reason." Ill as an ad- 
 verb was at first a vulgarism, preciseh' 
 like the rustic's when he says, "I was 
 treated bad." May not the reason of this 
 exceptional form be looked for in that tend- 
 ency to dodge what is hard to pronounce, 
 fo which I have already alluded V If the 
 letters were distinctly uttered, as they 
 should be, it would take too much time 
 to say ill-ly, well-ly^ and it is to be ob- 
 ■served that we have avoided smally* and 
 tally in the same way, though we add ish 
 to them without hesitation in smallish and 
 tallish. We have, to be sure, dully and 
 fully, but for the one we prefer stupidly, 
 and the other (though this may have come 
 li-om eliding the y before as) is giving way 
 to/wM. The uneducated, whose utterance 
 is slower, still make adverbs when they 
 will by adding like to all manner of adjec- 
 tives. We have had % charged upon us, 
 because we use it where an Englishman 
 would now use great. I fully admit that 
 it were better to distinguish between them, 
 allowing to big a certain contemptuous 
 quality ; but as for authority, I want none 
 better than that of Jeremy Taylor, who, 
 in his noble sermon " On the "Return of 
 Prayer," speaks of "Jesus, whose spirit 
 
 • Tbe word occurs in a letter of Mary Boleyn, 
 In Golding and \yarner. Milton also waa fond 
 of the word. 
 
 was meet and gentle up to the greatness 
 of thn Uggest example." As for our double 
 negative, I shall waste no time in quoting 
 instances of it, because it was once as uni- 
 versal in English as it still is in the neo- 
 Latin languages, where it does not strike 
 us as vulgar. I am not sure that the loss 
 of it is not to be regretted. But surely 
 I shall adnr.it the vulgarity of slurring or 
 altogether eliding certain terminal conso- 
 nants ? I admit that a clear and sharp-cut 
 enunciation is one of the crowning charms 
 and elegancies of speech. Words so ut- 
 tered are like coins fresh from the mint, 
 compared with the worn and dingy drudges 
 of long service, — I do not mean American 
 coins, for those look less badly the more 
 they lose of their original ugliness. No 
 one is more painfully conscious than I of 
 the contrast between the rifle-crack of an 
 Englishman's yes and no, and the wet-fuse 
 drawl of the same monosyllables in the 
 mouths of my countrymen. But I do not 
 find the dropping of final consonants disa- 
 
 feeable in Allan Ramsay or Bums, nor do 
 believe that our literary ancestors wers 
 sensible of that inelegance in the fusing 
 them together of which we are conscious. 
 How many educated meu pronounce 
 the t in chestnut i how many say pent- 
 ise for penthouse, as they sliould ? When 
 a Yankee skipper says that he is "boun' 
 for Gloster " (not Gloucester, with the leave 
 of the Universal Schoolmaster), f he but 
 speaks like Chaucer or an old ballad-singer, 
 though they would have pronounced it 
 boon. This is one of the cases where the 
 d is sun-eptitious, and has been added in 
 compliment to the verb hind, with whieli 
 it has nothing to do. If we consider the 
 root of the word (though of course I grant 
 that every race has a right to do what it 
 will with what is so peculiarly its own as 
 its speech), the d has no more right there 
 than at the end of gone, where it is often 
 put by children, who are our best guides 
 to the sources of linguistic corruption, and 
 the best teachers of its processes. Crom- 
 well, minister of Henry VIII., writes worU 
 for world. Chapman has wan for wand, 
 and lawn has rightfully displaced laund, 
 though with no thought, I suspect, of ety- 
 mology. Rogers tells us that Lady Ba- 
 thurst sent him some letters written to 
 William III. by Queen Mary, in which 
 she addresses him as " Z)ear Husban. " The 
 old form expovm,', which our farmers use, 
 is more correct than the form with a bar- 
 barous d tacked on which has taken its 
 place. Of the kind opposite to this, like 
 
 t Though I find Worcester in the Mirror fm 
 Magistrates. 
 
222 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 tfar gownd for govm, arid the London cock- 
 ney's wind for mne, I find drownd for 
 droion in the " Misfortunes of Arthur " 
 (1584), and in Swift. And, by the way, 
 whence came the long sound of vHnd which 
 onr poets still retain, and which survives 
 in "winding" a horn, a totally different 
 word from " winding " a kite-string ? We 
 say behind and hinder (comparative), and 
 yet to hinder. Shakespeare pronounced 
 kind kind, or what becomes of his play on 
 that word and kin in Hamlet ? Nay, did 
 he not even (shall I dare to hint it?) drop 
 the final d as the Yankee still does ? John 
 Lilly plays in the same way on kindred 
 and kindness. But to come to some other 
 ancient instances. Warner rhymes bounds 
 with crowns, grounds with towns, text with 
 sex, worst with crust, interrupts with cups; 
 Drayton, defects with sex; Chapman, 
 amends with cleanse; Webster, defects 
 with checks; Ben Jonson, minds with 
 combines; Marston, trust and obsequious, 
 clothes and shows; Dryden gives the same 
 sound to clothes, and has also minds with 
 designs. Of course, I do not affirm that 
 their ears may not have told them that 
 these were Imperfect rhymes (though I am 
 by no means sure even of that), but they 
 surely would never have tolerated any such 
 had they suspected the least vulgarity in 
 them. pTiOT has the Thyme first And trust, 
 but puts it into the mouth of a landlady. 
 Swift has stunted and burnt it, an inten- 
 tionally imperfect rhyme, no doubt, but 
 which I cite as giving precisely the Yankee 
 pronunciation of bu/rried. Donne couples 
 in unhallowed wedlock after and matter, 
 thus seeming to give to both the true Yan- 
 kee sound ; and it is not uncommon to find 
 after and daughter. Worse than all, in 
 one of Dodsley's Old Plays we have onions 
 rhyming with minions, — I have tears in 
 my eyes while I record it. And yet what 
 is viler than the universal Misses {Mrs.) 
 for Mistress ? This was once a vulgarism, 
 and in "The Miseries of Inforced Mar- 
 riage" the rhyme (printed as prose in 
 Dodsley's Old Plays by Collier), 
 
 " To make my young mistress. 
 Delighting in kisses," 
 
 Is put into the mouth of the clown. Our 
 people say Injun for Indian. The ten- 
 dency to make this change where i follows 
 d is common. The Italian giomo and 
 French jowr from diumus are familiar ex- 
 amples. And yet Injun is one of those 
 depravations which the taste challenges 
 peremptorily, though it have the authority 
 of Charles Cotton — who rhymes "Indies" 
 iwith "cringes" — and four English lexi- 
 cographers, beginning with Dr. Sheridan, 
 
 bid us say invidgeous. Yet after all it ia 
 no worse than the debasement which all 
 our terminations in tion and tience have 
 undergone, which yet we hear with redg- 
 nashvm, and payshunce, though it might 
 have aroused both impat-i-ence and indig- 
 na-ti-on in Shakespeare's time. Wlien 
 George Herbert tells iis that if the sermon 
 be dull, 
 
 "God takes a text and preacheth pati-ence," 
 
 the prolongation of the word seems to con- 
 vey some nint at the longanimity of ths 
 virtue. Consider what a poor curtal wb 
 have made of Ocean. There was some- 
 thing of his heave and expanse in o-ce-an, 
 and Fletcher knew how to use it when he 
 wrote so fine a verse as the second of these, 
 the best deep-sea verse I know, — 
 
 ' " In 'desperate storms stem with a little ruddei 
 The tumbling ruins of the ocean," 
 
 Ooeanus was not tben wholly shorn of his 
 divine proportions, and our modem oshun 
 sounds like the gush of small-beer in com- 
 parison. Some other contractions of ours 
 have a vulgar air about them. More 'n for 
 more than, as one of the worst, may stand 
 for a type of such. Yet our old dramatists 
 are full of such obscurations (elisions they 
 can hardly be called) of the th, making 
 wTie'r of whether, where of whither, here 
 of hither, bro^r of brother, smo'r of smother, 
 mo'r of mother, and so on. And dear Brer 
 Rabbit, can I forget him ? Indeed, it is this 
 that explains the word rare (which has 
 Dryden's support), and which we say of 
 meat where an Englishman would use under- 
 done. I do not believe, with the dictiona- 
 ries, that it bad ever anything to do with 
 the Icelandic hrar (.raw), as it plainly has 
 not in rareiipe, which means earlier ripe. 
 President Lincoln said of a precocious boy 
 that "he was a rareripe." And I do not 
 believe it, for this reason, that the earliest 
 form of the word with us was, and the com- 
 moner now in the inland parts still is, so 
 far as I can discover, raredone. Goiding 
 has "egs reere-rosted," which, whatever 
 el.'ie it mean, cannot mean raw-roasted. 
 I find rather as a monosyllable in Donne, 
 and still better, as giving "the sound, rhym- 
 ing vfithfair in Warner. There is an epi- 
 gram of Sir Thomas Browne in which the 
 words rather than make a monosyllable: 
 
 "What furie is 't to take Death's part 
 And rather than by Nature, die by Art I " 
 
 The contraction more 'n I find in the old 
 play " Fuimus Troes," in a verse where 
 the measure is so strongly accented as to 
 leave it beyond doubt, — 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 223 
 
 " A golden crown whose heirs 
 More than half the world subdue." 
 
 It may be, however, that the contraction is 
 in "th' orld." It is unmistakable in the 
 " Second Maiden's Tragedy " : — 
 
 " It were but folly, 
 Dear soul, to boast of more than I can perform." 
 
 Is our gin for given more violent than 
 mar'l for marvel, which was once common, 
 and which I find as late as Herrick ? Nay, 
 Herrick has gin, (spelling it g'en), too, as 
 do the Scotch, who agree with us likewise 
 in preferring chvmly to chimney. 
 
 I will now leave pronunciation and turn 
 to words or phrases which have been sup- 
 posed peculiar to us, only pausing to pick 
 up a single dropped stitch, in the pronun- 
 ciation of the word gwpreme, which I had 
 thought native till I found it in the well- 
 languaged Daniel. I will begin with a 
 word of which I have never met with any 
 example in an}* English writer of authority. 
 We express the first stage of withering in 
 a green plant suddenly cut down by the 
 verb to wilt. It is. of course, own cousin 
 of the German wellcen, but I have never 
 come upon it in literary use, and my own 
 books of reference give me faint help. 
 GrafE pives vielken, mareescere, and refers 
 to weth (weak), and conjecturally to A.-S. 
 hvelan. The A.-S. wedlwian (to wither) 
 is nearer, but not so near as two words in 
 the Icelandic, which perhaps put us on the 
 track of its ancestry, — vetgi, tepejacere 
 {and velki, with the derivative) meaning 
 contaminare. Wilt, at any rate, is a good 
 word, filling, as it does, a sensible gap be- 
 tween drooping and withering, and the im- 
 aginative phrase " he wilted right down," 
 like "he caved right in," is a true Amer- 
 icanism. Wilt occurs in English provin- 
 cial glossaries, but is explained bv wither, 
 which with us it does not mean. "We have 
 A few words such as cache, cohog, carry 
 (portage), shoot (chute), tirtAer (jorest), 
 fuehwkack (to pull a boat along by the 
 bushes on the edge of a stream), buckeye 
 (a picturesque word for the horse-chestnut) ; 
 but how many can we be said to have fairly 
 brought into the language, as Alexander 
 Gill, who first mentions Americanisms, 
 meant it when he said, " Sed et ab Ameri- 
 canis nonnulla muiuamur ut MAiz et CA- 
 jjoA"? Very few, I suspect, and those 
 mostly by borrowing from the French, Ger- 
 man, "Spanish, or Indian.* "The Dipper " 
 for the ■' Great Bear " strikes me as hav- 
 ing a native air. Bogus, in the sense of 
 worthless, is undoubtedly ours, but is, I 
 
 • This WM written twenty years ago, and now 
 (1890) I cannot open an Knglish journal without 
 coming upon an Americanism. 
 
 more than suspect, a corruption of the 
 French bagasse (from low Latin bagasea), 
 which travelled up the Mississippi from 
 New Orleans, where it was used for the 
 refuse of the sugar-cane. It is true, we 
 have modified the meaning of some words. 
 We use freshet in the sense of Jlood, for 
 which I have not chanced upon any au- 
 thority. Our New England cross between 
 Ancient Pistol and Dugald Dalgetty, Cap. 
 tain Underbill, uses the word (1638) to 
 mean a current, and I do not recollect it 
 elsewhere in that sense. I therefore leave 
 it with a ? for future explorers. Crick 
 for c;-ee4 I find in Captain .lolin Smith 
 and in the dedication of Fuller's "Holy 
 Warre," and run, meaning a small stream, 
 in Waymouth's "Voyage" (1605). Hu- 
 mans for mere, which Mr. Bartlett includes 
 in his "Dictionary of Americanisms," ia 
 Chapman's habitual phrase in his transla- 
 tion of Homer. I find it also in the old 
 play of "The Hog hath lost his Pearl." 
 Dogs for andirons is still current in New 
 England, and in Walter de Biblesworth I 
 find chiens glossed in the margin by and- 
 irons. Gunning for shooting is in Dray- 
 ton. We once got credit for the poetical 
 word fall for autumn, but Mr. Bartlett 
 and the last edition of Webster's Diction- 
 ary refer us to Dryden. It is even older, 
 for I find it in Dr'avton, and Bishop Hall 
 has autumn fall, Middleton plays upon 
 the word: "May'st thou have a reason- 
 able good spring, for thou art like to have 
 many dangerous foul fills." Daniel does 
 the same, and Coleridge uses it as wa 
 do. Gray uses the archaism picked for 
 peaked, and the word smudge (as our 
 backwoodsmen do) for a smothered fire. 
 Lord Herbert of Cherbury (more prop- 
 erly perhaps than even Sidney, the last 
 preva chevalier ) has "the Emperor's folks " 
 just as a Yankee would say it. Loan for 
 lend, with which we have hitherto been 
 blackened, I must retort upon the mother 
 island, for it appears so long ago as in 
 ' ' Albion's England. " Fleshy, in the sense 
 of stout, may claim Ben Jonson's warrant, 
 and I find it also so lately as in Francklin's 
 "Lucian." Chore is also Jonson's word, 
 and I am inclined to prefer it to chare and 
 chotr^ because I think that I see a more nat- 
 ural origin in it for the Frenchjoar — whence 
 it might come to mean a da3''s work, and 
 thence a job — than anywhere else.f At 
 onst for at once I thought a corruption of 
 our own, till I found it in the Chester 
 Plays. I am now inclined to suspect it 
 no corruption at all, but only an erratic 
 and obsolete superlative at onest. To 
 
 t The Rev. A. L. Mayhew of Wadham OoIIeget 
 Oxford, has cuoTinced me that 1 was astray in 
 this- 
 
224 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 progress' was finng in our teeth till 
 Mr. Pickering retorted with Shakespeare'a 
 "doth pro'gress down thy cheeks." I 
 confess that I was never satisfied with 
 this answer, because the accent was differ- 
 ent, and because the word might here be 
 reckoned a substantive quite as well as 
 a verb. Mr. Bartlett (in his dictionary 
 above cited) adds a sunebutter in a verse 
 from Ford's "Broken Heart." Here the 
 word is clearly a verb, but with the accent 
 unhappily still on the first syllable. Mr. 
 Bartlett says that he " cannot say whether 
 the word was used in Bacon's time or 
 not." It certainly was, and with the ac- 
 cent we give to it. Ben Jonson, in the 
 "Alchemist," has this verse, 
 
 " Progress' so from extreme xmto extreme," 
 
 and Sir Philip Sidney, 
 
 "Progressing then from fair Turias' golden 
 place." 
 
 Surely we may now sleep in peace, and 
 our English cousins will forgive us, since 
 we have cleared ourselves from any suspi- 
 cion of originality in the matter! Even 
 after I had convinced myself chat the 
 chances were desperately against our hav- 
 ing invented any of the Amerieardsms with 
 which we aie faulted and which we are in 
 the habit of voicing, there were one or two 
 which bad so prevailingly indigenous an 
 accent as to stagger me a little. One of 
 these was " the biggest tMng out." Alas, 
 even this slender comfort is denied me. 
 Old Gower has 
 
 *' So harde an lierte was none ouie^" 
 
 and 
 
 " That such merveiles was none outej" 
 
 He also, by the way, says "a sighie of 
 flowres" as naturally as our up-country 
 folk would say it. Poor for lean, thirds for 
 dower, and dryioi thirsty I find in Middle- 
 ton's nlave. Dry is also in Skelton and in 
 the " World " (1754). In a note on Middle- 
 ton, Mr. Dyce thinks it needful to explain 
 the phrase / can't tell (universal in Amer- 
 ica) bj' the gloss / cou&i not say. Middle- 
 ton also uses snecked, which I had believed 
 an Americani.-m till I saw it there. It is, 
 of course, only another form of snatch, anal- 
 ogous to the'ek and thatch (cf. the proper 
 names Dekker and Thacher), breah (brack) 
 and breach, make (still common with us) 
 and match. 'Long on for occasioned by 
 ("who is this 'long on V") occurs constantly 
 in Gower and likewise in Milton. 'Cause 
 why is in Chaucer. Raising (an English 
 version of the French leaven) tor yeast is em- 
 ploved by Gay ton in his ' ' Festivous Notes 
 •n t>oo Quixote." I have never seen an in- 
 
 stance of our New England word emptint iq 
 the Sdme sense, nor can I divine its original. 
 Gay ton has timekill; also shuts for shutters, 
 and the latter is used by Mrs. Hutchins-on in 
 her " Life of Colonel Hutchinson." Bishop 
 Hall, and Purchas in his " Pilgrims," have 
 chist for chest, and it is certainly nearer 
 cista, as well as to its form in ttie Teu- 
 tonic languages, whence probably we got 
 it. We retain the old sound from cist, but 
 chest is as old as Chaucer. Lovelace says 
 toropt for wrapt. " Musiolauer " I had al- 
 ways associated with the militia-musters 
 of my boyhood, and too hastily concluded 
 it an abomination of our own, but Mr. 
 Wright calls it a Norfolk word, and I find 
 it to be as old as 1642 by an extract in 
 Collier. "Not worth the time of day" 
 had passed with me for native till I saw 
 it in Shakespeare's " Pericles." For slick 
 (which is only a shorter sound of shek, 
 like crick and the now universal britches 
 for breeches) I will only call Chapman 
 and Jonson. "That 's a sure card ! " and 
 " "That 's a stinger ! " both soimd like 
 modem slang, but you will find the one 
 in the old interlude of "Thersytes" (1537), 
 and the other in Middleton. "Eight 
 here" a favorite phrase with our orators 
 and with a certain class of our editors, 
 turns up passim in the Chester and Cov- 
 entry plays. Mr. Dickens foimd some- 
 thing very ludicrous in what he considered 
 our neologism right away. Bnt I find a ■ 
 phrase very like it, and which I would 
 gladly suspect to be a misprint for it, in 
 " Gammer Gurtou " : — 
 
 " Lyght it and bring it tite away." 
 
 But «s«c is the true word in this case. Af tet 
 all, what is it but another form of straight- 
 way i Cussedness,meitmne wickedness, ma- 
 lignity, and cuss, a sneaking, ill-natured 
 fellow, in such phrases as " He done it out 
 o' pure cussedness," and "He is anateral 
 cuss," have been commonly thought Yan- 
 keeisms. To vent certain contemptuousljr 
 indignant moods they are admirable in their 
 rough-and-ready way. But neither is. our 
 own. Oursydriesse, in the same sense of ma- 
 lignant wickedness, occurs in the Coventry 
 Plays, and cuss mav perhaps claim, to have 
 come in with the Conqueror. At least the 
 term is also French. Saint Simon uses it 
 and confessei its usefulness. Speaking ot 
 the Abb^ Dubois, he says, "Qui 6toit en 
 plelu ce qu'un mauvais fran^ois appelle un 
 sacre, mais qui ne se peat guere exprimer 
 autrement." " Not worth a cuss," though 
 supported by " not worth a damn," may 
 be a mere corruption, since "not worth a 
 cress " is in " Piers Ploughman." " I 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 225 
 
 don't see it" was the popular slang a 
 year or two ago, and seemed to spring 
 from the soil ; but no, it is in Gib- 
 ber's " Careless Husband." Green sauce 
 for vegetables I meet in Beaumont and 
 Fletcher, Gayton, and elsewhere. Our 
 rustic pronunciation sahce (for either the 
 diphthong au was anciently pronounced ah, 
 or else we have followed abundant analogy 
 in changing it to the latter sound, as we 
 have in chance, dance, and so many more) 
 may be the older one, and at least gives 
 some hint at its ancestor salsa. Warn, 
 in the sense of notify, is, I believe, now 
 peculiar to us, but Peoook so employs it. 
 I find pn'mmc)' (primer, as we pronounce it) 
 in Beaumont and Fletcher, and a " square 
 eater" too ^compare our "square meal'*), 
 heft for weight, and "muchness" in the 
 "Mirror for Magistrates," bankbillm Swift 
 and Fielding, and as for that I mi^^ht say 
 passim. To cotton to is, X rather think, an 
 Americanism. The nearest approach to it 
 I have found is cotton together, in Congreve*8 
 " Love for Love." To cotton or cotten, in 
 another sense, is old and common. Our 
 word means to cling, and its origin, pos- 
 sibly, is to be sought in another direction, 
 perhaps in A. S. cvead, which means miul, 
 clay (both proverbially clinging), or better 
 yet, in the Icelandic qyoda (otherwise 
 %6d), meaning resin and glue, which are 
 nar" i((i\^v sticky Substances. To spit cot- 
 ton is, I think, American, and also, per- 
 haps, to flax for to heat. To the halves 
 still survives among us, though apparently 
 obsolete in England. It means either to 
 let or to hire a piece of land, receiving half 
 the profit in money or in kind (partibus 
 locare). I mention it because in a note 
 by some English editor, to which I have 
 lost my reference, I have seen it wrongly 
 explained. The editors of Nares cite Bur- 
 ton. To put, in the sense of to go, as Put I 
 for Begone I would seem our own, and yet 
 it is strictly analogous to the French se 
 mettre d la vaie, and the Italian mettersi in 
 via. Indeed, Dante has a verse, 
 
 *' lo sarei [for mi sarei] gid imsso per lo sentiero," 
 
 which, but for the indignity, might be 
 translated, 
 
 "I should, ere this, have put along the way." 
 
 I deprecate in advance any share in 
 General Banks's notions of international 
 law, but we may all take a just pride in 
 his exuberant eloquence as sometliing 
 distinctively American. When he spoke a 
 few years ago of " letting the Union slide," 
 even those who, for political purposes, re- 
 proached him with the sentiment, admired 
 the indigenous virtue of his phrase. Yet 
 
 I tind " let the world slide " in Heywood's 
 "Edward IV."; and in Beaumont and 
 Fletcher's "Wit without Money" Valen- 
 tine says, 
 
 *' Will you go drinlt. 
 And let the world slide ? " 
 
 So also in Sidney's Arcadia, 
 
 " Let his dominion slide." 
 
 In the one case it is put into the mouth of 
 a clown, in the other, of a gentleman, and 
 was evidently proverbial. It has even 
 higher sanction, for Chaucer writes, 
 
 " Well nigh all other cures let he slide." 
 
 Mr. Bartlett gives " above one's bend " as 
 an Americanism; but compare Hamlet's 
 "to the top of my bent." In his tracks 
 for immediately has acquired an American 
 accent, and passes where he can for a 
 native, but is an importation nevertheless ; 
 for what is he but the Latin e vestigio, or 
 at best the Norman French eneslespas, 
 both which have the same meaning ? Hot- 
 foot (provincial also in England), I find in 
 the old romance of "Tristan," 
 
 "Si s'en parti chaut pas." 
 
 Zdke for as is never used in New England, 
 but is universal in the South and West. 
 It has on its side the authority of two 
 kings {ego sum rex Romanorum et supra 
 grammaticam), Henry VIII. and Charles 
 I. This were ample, without throwing 
 into the scale the scholar and poet Daniel. 
 Them was used as a nominative by the 
 majesty of Edward VI., by Sir P. Hoby, 
 and by Lord Paget (in Fronde's " His- 
 tory"). I have never seen any passage 
 adduced where guess was used as the 
 Yankee uses it. The word was familiar in 
 the mouths of our ancestors, but witli a dif- 
 ferent shade of meaning from that we have 
 given it, which is something like ratlier 
 think, though the Yankee implies a confi- 
 dent certainty by it when he says, "I 
 guess \dul" There are two examples in 
 Otway, one of which (" So in the struggle, 
 I guess the note was lost ") perhaps might 
 serve our purpose, and Coleridge's 
 
 " T fnif "*? 't was fearful there to see " 
 certainly comes very near. But I have 
 a higher authority than either in Selden, 
 who, in one of his notes to the "Polyol- 
 bion," writes, "The first inventor of them 
 (I guess you dislike not the addition) wa« 
 one Bertbold Swartz." Here he nmst 
 mean by it, "I take it for granted." 
 Robert Greene, in his " Quip for an Upstart 
 Courtier," makes Cloth-breeches say, " but 
 I gesse 3'our maistership never tried what 
 true honor meant." In this case the word 
 
226 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 Beems to be used with a meaning precisely 
 like that which we give it. Another pecu- 
 liarity almost as prominent ia the beginning 
 sentences, especially in answer to questions, 
 with " well." Put before such a phrase as 
 "How d'e do ? " it is commonly short, and 
 has the sound of wul, but in reply it is de- 
 liberative, and the various shades of mean- 
 ing which can be conveyed by difference of 
 intonation, and by prolonging or abbreviat- 
 ing, I should vainly attempt to describe. I 
 have heard ooa-ahl, leahl, ahl, wal, and 
 something nearly approaching the sound of 
 the le in aile. Sometimes before "I" it 
 dwindles to a mere I, as " '1 / dunno." A 
 friend of mine (why should I not please 
 myself, though I displease him, by bright- 
 ening my page with the initials of the most 
 exquisite of humorists, J. H. V) told me that 
 he once heard five "wells," like pioneers, 
 precede the answer to an inquiry about 
 the price of land. The first was the 
 ordinary wul, in deference to custom ; 
 the second, the long, perpending ouahl, 
 with a falling inflection of the voice ; the 
 third, the same, but with the voice rising, 
 as if in despair of a conclusion, into a 
 plaintively nasal whine ; the fourth, wulh, 
 ending in the aspirate of a sigh ; and 
 then, fifth, came a short, sharp wal, show- 
 ing that a conclusion had been reached. 
 I have used this latter form in the " Biglow 
 Papers," because, if enough nasality be 
 added, it represents most nearly the aver- 
 age sound of what I may call the inteijec- 
 tion. 
 
 A locution prevails in the Southern and 
 Middle States which is so curious that, 
 though never heard in New England, I 
 win give a few lines to its discussion, the 
 more readily because it is extinct else- 
 where. I mean the use of allow in the 
 sense of affirm, as " I allow that 's a good 
 horse." I find the word so used in 
 1558 by Anthony Jenkinson in Hakluyt : 
 "Come they sowe not, neither doe eate 
 any bread, mocking the Christians for 
 the same, and disabling our strengthe, say- 
 ing we live by eating the toppe of a weede, 
 and drinke a drinke made of the same, 
 aUovnng theyr great devouring of flesh 
 and drinking of milke to b" the increase 
 of theyr strength." That is, they under- 
 valued our strength, and affirmed their 
 own to be the result of a certain diet. In 
 another passage of the same narrative 
 the word has its more common meaning 
 of approving or praising : "The said king, 
 much allowing this declaration, said." 
 Diicange quotes Bracton sui voce adlo- 
 CABE for the meaning "to admit as 
 proved," and the transition from this to 
 "affirm" is by no means violent. Izaak 
 
 Walton has "Lebault alloms waferfroga 
 to be good meat," and here the word ia 
 equivalent to aflrms. At the same time, 
 when we consider some of the meanings 
 of allow in old English, and of aUouer in 
 old French, and also remember that the 
 verbs priza and praise are from one root, 
 I think we must admit allaudare to a share 
 in the paternity of allow. The sentenco 
 from Hakluyt would read equally well, 
 "contemning our strengthe, .... and 
 praising (or valuing) their great eating 
 of flesh as the cause of their increase in 
 strength." After all, if we confine our- 
 selves to allocare, it may turn out that 
 the word was somewhere and somewhea 
 used for to bet, analogously to put up, put 
 down,, post (cf. Spanish aposlar), and the 
 like. I hear boys in the street continually 
 saying, "I bet that's a good horse," or 
 what not, meaning by no means to risk 
 anything beyond their opinion in the 
 matter. 
 
 The word improve, in the sense of " to 
 occupy, make use of, employ," as Dr. 
 Pickering defines it, he long ago proved 
 to be no neologism. He would nave done 
 better, I think, had he substituted projll 
 by for employ. He cites Dr. Franklin as 
 saying that the word had never, so far as 
 he knew, been used in New England 
 before he left it in 1723, except in 
 Dr. Mather's " Remarkable Providences," 
 which he oddly calls a "very old book." 
 Franklin, as Dr. Pickering goes on to 
 show, was mistaken. Mr. Bartlett in his 
 " Dictionary " merely abridges Pickering. 
 Both of them should have confined the 
 application of the word to material things, 
 its extension to which is all that is peculiai 
 in the supposed American use of it. For 
 surely "^Complete Letter- Writers " have 
 been " improving this opportunity " time 
 out of mind. I will illustrate the word a 
 little further, because Pickering cites no 
 Gnglish authorities. Skelton has a pas- 
 sage in his " Phyllyp Sparowe," which I 
 quote the rather as it contains also the 
 word allowed, and as it distinguishes im- 
 prove from employ ; — 
 
 " His [Chaucer's} Englysh well alowed. 
 So as it is enprowed. 
 For as it is enployd, 
 There is no English voyd." 
 
 Here the meaning is to profit by. In 
 Puller's "Holy Warre" (1647), we have 
 "The Egyptians standing on the firm 
 ground, were thereby enabled to improve 
 and enforce their darts to the utmost." 
 Here the word might certainly mean tn 
 make use of. Mrs. Hutchinson (Life ol 
 Colonel H. ) uses the word in the saiiM 
 
INTEODUCTION. 
 
 221 
 
 way : " And therefore did not emproove M» 
 interest to engage the country in the 
 quarrell." Swift in one of his letters says : 
 " There is not an acre of land in Ireland 
 turned to half its advantage ; yet it is 
 better improved than the people. " I find 
 it also in, "Strength out of Weakness" 
 (1652), and Plutarch's "Morals" (1714), 
 but I know of only one example of its 
 use in the purely American sense, and that 
 is, "a very good improvement for a mill" 
 in the " State Trials " (Speech of the 
 Attorney-General in the Lady Ivy's case, 
 1684). In the sense of employ^ I could 
 cite a dozen old English authorities. 
 
 In running over the Hy-leaves of those 
 delightful folios for this reference, I find 
 a note which reminds me of another word, 
 for our abuse of which we have been de- 
 servedly ridiculed. I mean lady. It is 
 true I might cite the example of the Italian 
 don/na * (domina), which has been treated 
 in the same way by a whole nation, and 
 not, as lady among us, by the uncultivated 
 only. It perhaps grew into use in the 
 half-democratic republics of Italy in the 
 same way and for the same reasons as with 
 us. But I admit that our abuse of the 
 word is villanous. I know of an orator who 
 once said in a public meeting where bon- 
 nets preponderated, that " the ladies were 
 last at the cross and first at the tomb" ! 
 But similar sins were committed before our 
 day and in the mother country. In the 
 "Harleian Misicellan y " (vol. v. p. 455) I find 
 **this lady is my servant; the hedger's 
 daughter loan." In the " State Trials " 
 I learn of "& gentlewoman that lives cook 
 with" Kuch a one, and I hear the Lord 
 High Steward speaking of the wife of 
 a waiter at a bagnio as a gentlewoman! 
 From the same authority, by the way, I 
 cau state that our vile habit of chewing 
 tobacco had the somewhat unsavory ex- 
 ample of Titus Gates, and I know by tra- 
 dition from an eyewitness that the elegant 
 General Burgoyne partook of the same 
 vice. Howell, in one of his letters (dated 
 26 August, 1623), speaks thus of another 
 ** institution " -which many have thought 
 American: "They speak much of that 
 boisterous Bishop of Halverstadt (for so 
 they term him here), that, having taken 
 a place wher ther were two Monasteries 
 nf Nuns and Friers, he caus'd divers feath- 
 er-beds to be rip'd, and all the feathers 
 to be thrown in a great Hall, whither 
 the Nuns and Friers were thrust naked 
 with their bodies oil'd and pitch'd, and 
 to tumble among the feathers." How- 
 
 * Dame, in EnRlish, is a decayed gentle- 
 woman of tiio same family. 
 
 ell speaks as if the thing were new to him, 
 and I know not if the " boisterous " Bishop 
 was the inventor of it, but I find it prac- 
 tised in England before our Revolution. 
 
 Before leaviug the subject, 1 will add a 
 few comments made from time to time 
 on the margin of Mr. Bartlett's excellent 
 "Dictionary," to which I am glad thus 
 publicly to acknowledge my many obliga- 
 tions. "Avails " is good old English, and 
 the vails of Sir Joshua Reynolds's porter 
 are famous. Averse /ram, averse to, and 
 in connection with them the English vul- 
 garism "different to." The corrupt use 
 of to in these cases, as well as in the Yan- 
 kee "he lives to Salem," "to home," and 
 others, must be a very old one, for in the 
 one case it plainly arose from confounding 
 the two French prepositions d (from Latin 
 ad and ab), and in the other from trans- 
 lating the first of them. I once thought 
 "diiferent to" a modern vulgarism, and 
 Mr. Thackeray, on my pointing it out to 
 him in " Henry Esmond," confessed it to 
 be an anachronism. Mr. Bartlett refers 
 to " the old writers quoted in Richardson's 
 Dictionary" for "different to," though in 
 my edition of that work all the examples 
 are with /mm. But I find to used invaria- 
 bly by Sir R. Hawkins in Kakluyt. Banjo 
 is a negro corruption of 0. E. bandore. 
 Bind-weed can nardly be modem, for 
 wood-hind is old and radically right, inter- 
 twining itself through bindan and windan 
 with classic stems. Bobolink: is this a 
 contraction for Bob o' Lincoln? I find 
 bobolynen, in one of the poems attributed 
 to Skelton, where it may be rendered 
 giddy-pate, a term very fit for the bird in 
 his ecstasies. Cniel for great is in Hak- 
 luyt. Bowling-alley is in Nash's " Pierce 
 Pennilesse." CvHous, meaning nice, oc- 
 curs continually in old writers, and is as 
 old as Peoock's "Repressor." Droger 
 is O. E. drugger. Educational is in 
 Burke. Feeze is only a form of fizz. To 
 fijc, in the American sense, I find used by 
 the Commissioners of the United Colonies 
 so early as 1675, " their arms well fixed 
 and fit for service." To take the foot in 
 the hand is German ; so is to go umder. 
 Gundalow is old : 1 find gundelo in Kak- 
 luyt, and gundeUo in Booth's reprint of the 
 folio Shakespeare of 1623. Gnnnff is 0. B. 
 gnoffe. Heap is in "Piers Ploughman" 
 ("and other names an keep "), and in Hak- 
 luyt ("seeing such aheap of their enemies 
 ready to devour them"). To liquor is 
 in the " Puritan "{" call 'em in, and liquor 
 'em a little "). To loaf: this, I think, is 
 unquestionably German. Laufen is pro- 
 nounced lofen in some parts of Germany, 
 and I once heard one German student say 
 
228 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 to another, Ich lauf (lofe) Aier bis du 
 viiederkehrest, and he began accordingly 
 to saunter up and down, in short, to luaf. 
 To mull, Mr. Bartlett says, means "to 
 soften, to dispirit," and quotes from "Mar- 
 garet," — "There has been a pretty consid- 
 erable muUm going on among the doc- 
 tors," — where it surely cannot mean what 
 be says it does. We have always heard 
 mulling used for stirring, bustling, some- 
 times in an underhand way. It is a meta- 
 phor derived probably from mulling wine, 
 and the word itself must be a corruption 
 of msll, from 0. F. mesler. Pair of stairs 
 is in Hakluyt. To pull up stakes is in 
 Curwen's Journal, and therefore pre-Kev- 
 olutionary. I think I have met with it 
 earlier. Raise: under this word Mr. 
 Bartlett omits "to raise a house," that is, 
 the frame of a wooden one, and also the 
 substantive formed from it, a raisin'. Re- 
 tire for go to bed is in Fielding's "Amelia." 
 Setting-poles cannot be new, for I find 
 "some set [the boats] with long poles" 
 in Hakluyt. Shoulder-hitters : I find that 
 shmilder-striker is old, though I have lost 
 the reference to my authority. Snag is 
 no new word, though perhaps the Western 
 ajjplication of it is so ; but I find in 
 Gill the proverb; " A bird in the bag is 
 worth two on the snag." Dryden has 
 swop and to rights. Trail : Hakluyt 
 has "many wayes iraled by the wilde 
 beastes." 
 
 I subjoin a few phrases not in Mr. Bart- 
 lett's book which I have heard. Bald- 
 headed: " to go it bald-headed " ; in great 
 haste, as where one rashes out without his 
 hat. Rogue : " I don't git ranch done 
 'thout I bogue right in along 'th my men," 
 Carry : a portage. Cat-nap : a short doze. 
 Cat-stick : a small .stick. Chowder-head : 
 a muddle-brain. Cling-john : a soft cake 
 of rye. Cocoa-nut: the head. Cohees' : 
 applied to the people of certain settle- 
 ments in Western Pennsylvania, from their 
 use of the archaic form Quo' he. Dun- 
 now'z I know : the nearest your true 
 Yankee ever comes to acknowledging igno- 
 rance. Essence-pedler : a skunk. First- 
 rate and a half. Fish-fiakes, for drying 
 fish : 0. E. fleck (cratis). Gander-party : 
 a social gathering of men only. Gawni- 
 cus : a dolt. Hawkins's wlietstone : rum ; 
 in derision of one Hawkins, a well-kno^vn 
 temperance-lecturer. Hyper : to bustle : 
 " I mus' hyper about an' git tea." Keeler- 
 tid>: one in which dishes are washed. 
 ("And Greasy Joan doth keel the pot.") 
 Lap-tea: where the guests are too many to 
 sit at table. Last of pea-time : to be hard- 
 up. Lose-laid (locse-laid) : a weaver's 
 term, and probably English; weak-willed. 
 
 Malahack : to cut up hastily or awk* 
 wardly. lloonglade: a beautiful word! 
 for the track of moonlight on the water. 
 Off-ox : an unmanageable, cross-grained 
 fellow. Old Driver, Old Splitfoot ; the 
 Devil. Onhitch ; to pull trigger (cf. Span- 
 ish disparar). Popular : conceited. Rote : 
 sound of surf before a storm. Rot-gut i 
 cheap whiskey ; the word occurs in Hey- 
 wood's " English Traveller " and Addison's 
 " Drummer," for a poor kind of drink. 
 Seem: it is habitual with the New-Eng- 
 lander to put this verb to strange uses, as, 
 " I can't seem to be suited," "I could n't 
 seem to know him." Sidehill, for hill- 
 side. State-hcmse : this seems an Ameri- 
 canism, whether invented or derived from 
 the Dutch Stadhuys, 1 know not. Strike 
 and string : from the game of ninepins ; 
 to make a strike is to knock down all the 
 pins with one ball, hence it has come to 
 mean fortunate, successful. Swampers: 
 men who break out roads for lumberers. 
 Tormented: euphemism for damned, as, 
 " not a tormented cent." Virginia fence, 
 to make a : to walk like a drunken man. 
 
 It is always worth while to note down 
 the erratic words or phrases which one 
 meets with in any dialect. They may 
 throw light on the meaning of other words, 
 on the relationship of languages, or even on 
 history itself. In so composite a language 
 as ours they often supply a different form 
 to express a different shade of meaning, 
 as in viol and fiddle, thrid and thread, 
 smother and smoulder, where the Z has crept 
 in by a false analogy with would. We 
 have given back to Englaml the excel- 
 lent adjective Ungthy, formed honestly like 
 earthy, drouthy, and others, thus enabling 
 their journalists to characterize our Presi- 
 dent's messages by a word civilly compro- 
 mising between long and tedious, so as not 
 to endanger the peace of the two countries 
 by wounding our national sensitiveness to 
 British criticism. Let me give two curious 
 examples of the antiseptic property of 
 dialects at which I have already glanced. 
 Dante has dindi as a childish or low word 
 for danari (money), and in Shropshire 
 small Roman coins are still dug up which 
 the peasants call dinders. This can hard- 
 ly be a chance coincidence, but seems 
 rather to carry the word back to the 
 Roman soldiery. So our farmers say 
 chuk, chuk, to their pigs, and ciaceo is 
 one of the Italian words for hog. When 
 a countryman tells us that he " fell all oj 
 a heap," I cannot help thinking that he 
 unconscioiLsly points to an affinity be- 
 tween our word tumble, and the Latin 
 tum/ulus, that is older than most others. 
 I believe that words, or even the mert 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 229 
 
 Intonation of them, have an astonishing 
 vitality and power of propagation by the 
 root, like the gardener s pest, quitch- 
 grass * while the application or combina- 
 tion of them may be new. It is in tliese 
 last that my countrymen seem to me full 
 of humor, invention, quickness of wit, and 
 that sense of subtle analogy which needs 
 only refining to become fancy and imagi- 
 nation. Piosaic as American life seems 
 in many of its aspects to a European, bleak 
 and bare as it is on the side of tradition, 
 and utterly orphaned of the solemn inspira- 
 tion of antiquity, I cannot help thinking 
 that the ordinary talk of unlettered men 
 among us is fuller of metaphor and of 
 phrases that suggest lively images than 
 that of any other people I have seen. 
 Very many such will be found in Mr. 
 Bartlett's book, though his short list of 
 proverbs at the end seem to me, with one 
 or two exceptions, as un-American as pos- 
 sible. Most of them have no character at 
 all but coarseness, and are quite too long- 
 skirted for working proverbs, in which 
 language always "takes off its coat to it," 
 as a Yankee would say. There are plenty 
 that have a more native and piickery 
 flavor, seedlings from the old stock often, 
 and yet new varieties. One hears such 
 not seldom among us Easterners, and the 
 West would yield many more. "Mean 
 enough to steal acorns from a blind hog " ; 
 " Cold as the north side of a Jenooary 
 gravestone by starlight" ; " Hungry as a 
 graven image " ; " Pop'lar as a hen with 
 one chicken" ; " A hen s time ain't much" ; 
 " Quicker 'n greased lightnin' " ; " Ther 's 
 sech a thing ez bein' tu" (our Yankee par- 
 aphrase of iiTfiSev ayav) ; hence the phrase 
 tooin' rownd, meaning a supererogatory 
 activity like that of flies ; " Stingy enough 
 to skim his milk atboth eends"; "Hot as 
 the Devil's kitchen " ; "Handy as a pocket 
 in a shirt " ; " He 's a whole team and the 
 dog under the wagon " ; " All deacons are 
 good, but there's odds in deacons" (to dea- 
 con berries is to put the largest atop) ; " So 
 thievish they hev to take in their stone 
 walls nights " ; t may serve as specimens. 
 "I take my tea barfoot," said a back- 
 woodsman when asked if he would have 
 cream and sugar. (I find barfoot, by the 
 way, in the Coventry Plays.) A man 
 speaking to me once of a very rocky 
 clearing said, "Stone 's got a pretty heavy 
 mortgage on that land," and I overheard 
 
 * Which, whether in that form, or under its 
 aliases wi^c%-grass and cooc^grass, points us 
 back to its original Saxon quick, 
 
 t And, by the way, the Yankee never saya 
 " o' nights," but uses the older adverbial form, 
 analogous to the German notihts. 
 
 a guide in the woods say to his compan- 
 ions who were urging him to sing, " Wal, 
 I did sing once, but toons gut invented, an' 
 thet spilt my trade." Whoever has driven 
 over a stream by a bridge made of slabs 
 will feel the picturesque force of the epi- 
 thet slab-bridged applied to a fellow of 
 shaky character. Almost every county 
 has some good die-sinker in phrase, whose 
 mintage passes into the currency of the 
 whole neighborhood. Such a one described 
 the county jail (the one stone building 
 where all the dwellings are of wood) as 
 " the house whose underoinnin' come up 
 to the eaves," and called hell "the place 
 where they didn't rake up their fires 
 nights." I once asked a stage-driver if 
 the other side of a hill were as steep as 
 the one we were climbing : "Steep? chain 
 lightnin' could n' go down it 'thout puttin' 
 the shoe on ! " And this brings me back 
 to the exaggeration of which 1 spoke be- 
 fore. To me there is something very tak- 
 ing in the negro " so black that charcoal 
 made a chalk-mark on him," and the 
 wooden shingle "painted so like marbla 
 that it sank in water," as if its very con- 
 sciousness or its vanity had been over- 
 persuaded by the cunning of the painter. 
 I heard a man, in order to give a notion 
 of some very cold weather, say to another 
 that a certain Joe, who had been taking 
 mercury, found a lump of quicksilver in 
 each boot, when he went home to dinner. 
 This power of rapidly dramatizing a dry 
 fact into flesh and blood and the vivid 
 conception of Joe as a human thermom- 
 eter strike me as showing a poetic sense 
 that may be refined into faculty. At 
 any rate there is humor here, and not 
 mere quickness of wit, — the deeper and 
 not the shallower quality. The tendency 
 of humor is always towards overplus of 
 expression, while the very essence of wit 
 is its logical precision. Captain Basil 
 Hall denied that our people had any 
 humor, deceived, perhaps, by their gravity 
 of manner. But this very seriousness is 
 often the outward sign of that humorous 
 quality of the mind which delights in 
 finding an element of identity in things 
 seemingly the most incongruous, and then 
 again in forcing an incongruity upon things 
 identical. Perhaps Captain Hall had no 
 humor himself, and if so he would never 
 find it. Did he always feel the point of 
 what was said to himself? I doubt it, 
 because I happen to know a chance he 
 once had given him in vain. The Captain 
 was walking up and down the veranda of 
 a country tavern in Massachusetts while 
 the coach changed horses. A thmnder- 
 storm was going on, and, with that pleas- 
 
230 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPEES. 
 
 «nt European air of indirect self-oompll- 
 ment in condescending to be surprised by 
 American merit, which we find so concili- 
 ating, lie said to a countryman lounging 
 against the door, " Pretty heavy thunder 
 you have here." The other, who had di- 
 vined at a glance his feeling of gtaerous 
 concession to a new country, drawled 
 gravely, "Waal, we du, considerin' the 
 number of inhabitants." Tliis, the more 
 I analyze it, the more humorous does it 
 seem. The same man was capable of wit 
 also, when he would. He was a cabinet- 
 maker, and was once employed to make 
 some commandment-tables for the parish 
 meeting-house. The parson, a very old 
 man, annoyed him by looking into his 
 workshop every morning, and cautioning 
 him to be very sure to pick out " clear 
 mahogany without any knots in it." At 
 last, wearied out, he retorted one day : 
 "Wal, Dr. B., I guess ef I was to leave 
 the nots out o' some o' the c'man'ments, 
 't 'ould soot you full ez wal ! " 
 
 If I had taken the pains to write down 
 the proverbial or pithy phrases I have 
 heard, or if I had sooner thought of noting 
 the Yankeeisms I met with in my reading, 
 1 might have been able to do more justice 
 to my theme. But I have done all I 
 wished in respect to pronunciation, it I 
 have proved that where we are vulgar, we 
 have the countenance of very good com- 
 pany. For, as to the Jus et nonna loquen- 
 aif I agree with Horace and those who 
 have paraphrased or commented him, from 
 Boileau to Gray. I think that a good rule 
 for style is Galiani's definition of sublime 
 oratory, — " I'art de tout dire sans etre 
 mis i, la Bastille dans un pays ou il est 
 d^fendu de rien dire." I profess myself 
 a fanatical purist, but with a hearty con- 
 tempt for the speech-gilders who affect 
 purism without any thorough, or even 
 pedagogic, knowledge of the engendure, 
 growth, and afTmities of the noMe lan- 
 guage about whose mesalliances they pro- 
 fess (like Dean Alford) to be so solicitous. 
 If they had their way — ! " Doch es sey," 
 says Lessing, " dass jene gothische Hof- 
 lichkeit eine unentbehrliche Tugend des 
 heutigen Umganges ist. Soil sie darum 
 imsere Schriften eben so schaal und f'alsch 
 machen als unsern Umgang ? " And Dray- 
 ton was not far wrong in affirming that 
 
 " 'T is possible to climb. 
 To kindle, or to slake, 
 Although la Skelton's rhyme." 
 
 Cumberland in his Memoirs tells us that 
 when, in the midst of Admiral Rodney's 
 great sea-fight. Sir Charles Douglas said 
 
 I to him, " Behold, Sir George, the Greeks 
 and Trojans contending for the body ol 
 Patroclus ! " the Admiral answered, pee- 
 vishly, " Damn the Greeks and damn the 
 Trojans ! I have other things to think of." 
 After the battle was won, Rodney thus 
 to Sir Charles, " Now, my dear friend, I 
 am at the service of your Greeks and 
 Trojans, and the whole of Homer's Iliad, 
 or as much of it as you please ! " I had 
 some such feeling of the impertinence of 
 our pseudo-classicality when I chose our 
 hqmely dialect to woi-k in. Should we be 
 nothing, because somebody had contrived 
 to be something (and that perhaps in a 
 provincial dialect) ages ago? and to be 
 nothing by our very attempt to be that 
 something, which they had already been, 
 and which therefore nobody could be again 
 without being a bore ? Is there no way 
 left, then, I thought, of being natural, of 
 being naif, whicn means nothing more 
 than native, of belonging to the age and 
 country in which you are born ? The 
 Yankee, at least, is a new phenomenon ; 
 let lis try to be that. It is perhaps a pis 
 alter, but is not iVo Thoroughfare written 
 up everywhere else ? In the literary 
 world, things seemed to me very much as 
 they were in the latter half of the last 
 century. Pope, skimming the cream of 
 good sense and expression wherever he 
 could find it, had made, not exactly 
 poetry, but an honest, salable butter of 
 worldly wisdom which pleasantly lubri- 
 cated some of the drier morsels of life's 
 daily bread, and, seeing this, scores of 
 harmlessly insane people went on for the 
 next fifty years coaxing his buttermilk 
 with the regular up and down of the pen- 
 tameter churn. And in our day do we 
 not scent everywhere, and even carry 
 away in our clothes against our will, that 
 faint perfume of musk which Mr. Tenny- 
 son has left behind him, or worse, of 
 "Remei a patchouli i And might it not be 
 possible to escape them by turning into 
 one of our narrow New England lanes, 
 shut in though it were by bleak stone 
 walls on either hand, and where no better 
 flowers were to be gathered than golden- 
 rod and hardback ? 
 
 Beside the advantage of getting out of 
 the beaten track, our dialect offered others 
 hardly inferior. As I was about to make 
 an endeavor to state them, I remembered 
 something that the clear-sighted Goethe 
 had said about Hebel's Ailemarmische 
 Qediehte, which, making proper deduction 
 for special reference to the book under 
 review, expresses what I would have said 
 far better than I could hope to do : "Allen 
 diesen inneru guten Eigenschaften kommt 
 
INTKODUCTION, 
 
 231 
 
 die behagliche naive Sprache sehr zn atat- 
 ten. Man findet mehrere sinnlicli bedeu- 
 tende und wohlkllngende Worte .... von 
 einem, zwei Buchstaben, Abbreviationen, 
 Contraotlonen, viele kurze, leiohte Sylben, 
 ueue Reime, welches, mehr als man glaubt, 
 ein Vortheil fiir den Dichter ist. Diese 
 Elemente werden durcb gliickliche Con- 
 structionen und lebhafte Formen zu einem 
 Styl zusammengedvangt der zu diesem 
 Zwecke vor unserer Biichersprache grosse 
 Vorzuge hat." Of course I do not mean 
 to imply that / have come near achieving 
 any such success as the great critic here in- 
 dicates, but I think the success is there, and 
 to be plucked by some more fortunate hand. 
 Nevertheless, I was encouraged by the 
 approval of many whose opinions I valued. 
 With a feeling too tender and grateful to 
 bo mixed with any vanity, I mention as 
 one of these the late A. H. Clough, who 
 more than any one of those I have known 
 (no longer living), except Hawthorne, im- 
 pressed me with the constant presence 
 of that indefinable thing we call genius. 
 He often suggested that I should try my 
 hand at some Yankee Pastorals, which 
 would admit of more sentiment and a 
 higher tone without foregoing the advan- 
 tage offered by the dialect. I have never 
 completed anything of the kind, but, in 
 this Second Series, both my remembrance 
 of his counsel and the deeper feeling 
 called up by the great interests at stake, 
 led me to venture some passages nearer 
 to what is called poetical than could have 
 been admitted without incongruity into 
 the former series. The time seemed call- 
 ing to me, with the old poet, — 
 
 " Leave, then, your wonted prattle 
 The oaten reed forbear ; 
 For I hear a sound of battle, 
 And trumpets rend the air I " 
 
 The only attempt I had ever made at 
 anything like a pa.storal (if that may be 
 called an attempt which was the result 
 almost of pure accident) was in "The 
 Courtin'." While the introduction to the 
 First Series was going through the press, 
 I received word from the printer that 
 there was a blank page left which must be 
 filled. I sat down at once and improvised 
 another fictitious "notice of the press," 
 in which, because verse would fill up 
 space more cheaply than prose, I inserted 
 an extract from a supposed ballad of Mr. 
 Biglow. I kept no copy of it, and the 
 printer, as directed, cut it otf when the 
 gap was filled. Presently I began to re- 
 ceive letters asking for the rest of it, 
 sometimes for the balcmce of it. I had 
 
 none, but to answer such demands, I 
 patched a conclusion upon it in a later 
 edition. Those who had only the first 
 continued to importune me. Afterward, 
 being asked to write it out as an auto- 
 graph for the Baltimore Sanitary Commis- 
 sion F^air, 1 added other verses, into some 
 of which I infused a little more sentiment 
 in a homely way, and after a fashion com- 
 pleted it by sketching in the characters 
 and making a connected story. Most 
 likely I have spoiled it, but I shall put it 
 at the end of this Introduction, to answer 
 once for all those kindly importunings. 
 
 As I have seen extracts from what pur- 
 ported to be writings of Mr. Biglow, 
 which were not genuine, I may properly 
 take this opportunity to say, that the two 
 volumes now published contain every line 
 I ever printed under that pseudonyme, 
 and that I have never, so far as I can re- 
 member, written an anonymous article 
 (elsewhere than in the North Ainerican 
 Review and the A tlantic Monthly, during 
 my editorship of it) except a review of 
 Mrs. Stowe's " Minister's Wooing," and, 
 some twenty years ago, a sketch of the 
 antislavery movement in America for an 
 English journal. 
 
 A word more on pronunciation. I have 
 endeavored to express this so far as I 
 could by the types, taking such pains as, 
 I fear, may sometimes make the reading 
 harder than need be. At the same time, 
 by studying uniformity I have sometimes 
 been obliged to sacrifice minute exact- 
 ness. The emphasis often modifies the 
 habitual sound. For example, for is com- 
 monly fer (a shorter sound than fwr for 
 far), but when emphatic it always be- 
 comes/or, as "wut /or/" So too is pro- 
 nounced like to (as it was anciently spelt), 
 and to like ta (the sound as in the tou of 
 touch), but too, when emphatic, changes 
 into tue, and to, sometimes, in similar 
 cases, into toe, as, " I did n' hardly know 
 wut toe du ! " Where vowels come to- 
 gether, or one precedes another following' 
 an aspirate, the two melt together, as was ' 
 common with the older poets who formed 
 their versification on French or Italian 
 models. Drayton is thoroughly Yankee 
 when he .says " I 'xpect," and Pope when 
 he says " t' inspire." With becomes some- 
 times 'ith, 'nth, or 'th, or even disappears 
 wholly where it comes before the, as, " I 
 went along th' Square" (along vrith the 
 Squire), the are sound being an archaism 
 which I have noticed also in chmr, like 
 the old Scottish quhair.* (Herrick has, 
 
 * Greene, in his Quipjbr an XTpstart Cimrtifr 
 s»yfl, " to square it up and downe the streetetf 
 before his mistresss." 
 
232 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPEKS. 
 
 " Of flowers ne'er sucked by th' theeving 
 bee.") Without becomes athout and 'thout. 
 Afterwards always retains its locative s, 
 and is pronounced always ahterwurdif , 
 with a strong accent on the last syllable. 
 This oddity has some support in the 
 erratic tov)ards^ instead of to' wards, which 
 we find in the poets and sometimes hear. 
 The sound given to the first syllable of 
 to'wards, I may remark, sustains the Yan- 
 kee lengthening of the o in to. At the 
 beginning of a sentence, ahtervrwrds has 
 the accent on the first syllable ; at the 
 end of one, on the last ; as, " ah'terwwrds' 
 he tol' me," "he tol' me ahterwturdsf .' 
 The Yankee never makes a mistake in 
 his aspirates. U changes in many words 
 to e, always in auoh, brush, tush, hush, 
 rush, blush, seldom in much, oftener in 
 trust and crust, never in mush, gust, bust, 
 tumble, or (?) flush, in the latter case 
 probably to avoid confusion with flesh. I 
 nave heard flush with the ^ sound, how- 
 ever. For the same reason, I suspect, 
 never in gush (at least, I never heard it), 
 because we have already one gesh for gash. 
 A and i short frequently become e short. 
 U always becomes o in the prefix un (ex- 
 cept unto), and o in return changes to u 
 short in itv for of, and in some words be- 
 ginning with om. T and d, b and p, v and 
 w, remain intact. So much occurs to me 
 in addition to what I said on this head in 
 the preface to the former volume. 
 
 Of course in what I have said I wish to 
 be understood as keeping in mind the dif- 
 ference between provincialisms properly 
 so called and slang. Slang is always vul- 
 gar, because it is not a natural but an 
 affected way of talking, and all mere 
 tricks of speech or writing are offensive. 
 I do not think that Mr. Biglow can be 
 fairly charged with vulgarity, and I should 
 have entirely failed in my design, if I had 
 not made it appear that high and even 
 refined sentiment may coexist with the 
 shrewder and more comic elements of the 
 ' Yankee character. I believe that what is 
 essentially vulgar and mean-spirited in 
 politics seldom has its source in the body 
 of the people, hut much rather among 
 those who are made timid by their wealth 
 or selfish by their love of power. A 
 democracy can afford much better than 
 an aristocracy to follow out its convic- 
 tions, and is perhaps better qualified to 
 build those convictions on plain princi- 
 ples of right and wrong, rather than on 
 the shifting sands of expediency. I had 
 always thought "Sam Slick" a libel on 
 the Yankee character, and a complete 
 falsification of Yankee modes of speech, 
 though, for aught I know, it may be true 
 
 in both respects so far as the British pror- 
 inces are concerned. To ine the dialect 
 was native, was spoken all about me when 
 a boy, St a time when an Irish day-laborer 
 was as rare as an American one now. 
 Since then I have made a study of it so 
 far as opportunity allowed. But when I 
 write in it, it is as in a mother tongue, 
 and I am carried back far beyond any 
 studies of it to long-ago noonings in my 
 father's hay-fields, and to the talk of Sara 
 and Job over their jug of blackstrap under 
 the shadow of the ash-tree which still 
 dapples the grass whence they have been 
 gone so long. 
 
 But life is short, and prefaces should be. 
 And so, my good friends, to whom this 
 introductory epistle is addressed, farewell. 
 Though some of you have remonstrated 
 with me, I shaU never write any more 
 "Biglow Papers," however great the 
 temptatioHj —great especially at the pres- 
 ent time, — unless it be to complete the 
 original plan of this Series by bringing out 
 Mr. Sawin as an "original Union man." 
 The very favor with which they have been 
 received is a hindrance to me, by forcing 
 on me a self-consciousness from which 1 
 was entirely free when I wrote the First 
 Series. Moreover, I am no longer the 
 same careless youth, with nothing to do 
 but live to myself, my books, and my 
 friends, that I was then. I always hated 
 politics, in the ordinary sense of the word, 
 and I am not likely to grow fonder of 
 them, now that I have learned how rare it 
 is to find a man who can keep principle 
 clear from party and personal prejudice, 
 or can conceive the possibility of another's 
 doing so. I feel as if I could in some sort 
 claim to be an emeritus, and I am sure 
 that political satire will have full juistice 
 done it by that genuine and delightful 
 humorist, the Rev. Petroleum V. Nasby. 
 I regret that I killed off Mr. Wilbur so 
 soon, for he would have enabled me to 
 bring into this preface a number of learned 
 quotations, which must now go a-begging, 
 and also enabled me to dispersonalize my- 
 self into a vicarious egotism. He would 
 have helped me likewise in clearing mysell 
 from a charge which I shall briefly touch 
 on, because my friend Mr. Hughes has 
 found it needful to defend me in his pref- 
 ace to one of the English editions of the 
 "Biglow Papers." I thank Mr. Hughes 
 heartily for his friendly care of my gpod 
 name, and were his Preface accessible to 
 my readers here (as I am glad it is not, 
 for its partiality makes me blush), I 
 should leave the matter where he left it 
 The charge is of profanity, brought in bj 
 persons who proclaimed African slaveij 
 
IKTEODUCTION. 
 
 233 
 
 of Divine institution, and is 'bused (so far 
 as I have heard) on two passages in the 
 First Series -V 
 
 *' An' you 've gut to git up airly, 
 Ef you WMit to take in God/' 
 and, 
 
 " God '11 send tie Ml to you," 
 
 and on some Scriptural illustrations bj 
 Mr. Sawin. 
 
 Now, in the iirst place, I was writinp; 
 under an assumed character, and must talk 
 as the person would whose mouthpiece' I 
 made myself. Will any one familiar with 
 the New England countryman venture to 
 tell me that Tie does not speak of sacred 
 things familiarly ? that Biblical allusions 
 (allusions, that is, to the single book with 
 whose language, from his church-going 
 habits, he is intimate) are not frequent on 
 his lips ? If so, he cannot have pursued 
 his studies of the character on so many 
 long-ago muster-fields and at so many cat- 
 tle-shows as I. But I scorn any sudi line 
 of defence, and will confess at once that 
 one of the things I am proud of in my 
 countrymen is (I am not speaking now of 
 such persons as I have assumed Mr. Sawin 
 to be) that they do not put their Maker 
 away far from them, or interpret the fear of 
 God into being afraid of Him. The Tal- 
 mudists had conceived a deep truth wlien 
 they said, that "all things were In the 
 power of God, save the fear of God " ; and 
 when people stand in great dread of an 
 invisible power, I suspect they mistake 
 
 ?ulte another personage for the Deity, 
 might justify myself for the passages 
 criticised by many parallel ones from 
 Scripture, but I need not. The Reverend 
 Homer Wilbur's note-books supply me 
 with three apposite quotations. The first 
 is from a Father of the Eoman Church, 
 the second from a Father of the Anglican, 
 and the third from a Father of Modem 
 English poetry. The Puritan divines 
 would furnish me with many more such. 
 St. Bernard says, Sapiens nummitlarius est 
 Deus : nmnmum Jiclum non recipiet ; "A 
 cunning money-changer is God : he will 
 take in no base coin." Latimer says, 
 "You shall perceive that God, by this 
 example, shaketh us by the noses and 
 taketh us by the ears." Familiar enough, 
 both of them, one would say ! But I 
 should think Mr. Biglow had verily stolen 
 the last of the two maligned passages from 
 Dryden's " Don Sebastian," where I find 
 
 "And beg of Heaven to charge the bm on 
 
 me I" 
 And there I leave the matter, being will- 
 jug to believe that the Saint, the IMartyr, 
 
 and even the Poet, were as careful of 
 God's honor as my critics are ever likply 
 to be. 
 
 J. R. L. 
 
 THE COURTIN'. 
 
 God makes sech nights, all white an' 
 still 
 
 Fur 'z you can look or listen, 
 Moonshine an' snow on iield an' hill. 
 
 All silence au' all glisten. 
 
 Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown 
 An' peeked in thru' the winder. 
 
 An' there sot Huldy all alone, 
 'ith no one nigh to heuder. 
 
 A fireplace filled the room's one side 
 With half a cord o' wood in — 
 
 There warn't no stoves (tell comfort 
 died) 
 To bake ye to a puddin'. 
 
 The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out 
 Towards the pootiest, bless her, 
 
 in' leetle flames danced all about 
 The chiny on the dresser. 
 
 Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung. 
 
 An' in amongst 'em rusted 
 The ole queen's-arm thet gran'ther 
 Young 
 
 Fetched back from Concord busted. 
 
 The very room, coz she was in. 
 Seemed warm from floor to ceilin', 
 
 A.n' she looked full ez rosy agin 
 Ez the apples she was peeUn'. 
 
 T was kin' o' kingdom-come to loot 
 
 On sech a blessed cretur, 
 A dogrose blushin' to a brook 
 
 Ain't modester nor sweeter. 
 
 He was six foot o' man, A i. 
 Clear grit an' human natur' ; 
 
 None could n't quicker pitch a ton 
 Nor dror a furrer straighter. 
 
 He 'd sparked it with full twenty gals, 
 Hed squired 'em, danced 'em, druV 
 
234 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells — 
 All is, he could n't love 'em. 
 
 But long o' her his veins 'ould run 
 All crinkly like curled maple, 
 
 The side she breshed felt full o' sun 
 £z a south slope in Ap'il. 
 
 She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing 
 
 Ez hisn in the choir ; 
 My ! when he made Ole Hunderd ring, 
 
 She knowed the Lord was nigher. 
 
 An' she 'd blush scarlit, right in prayer. 
 When her new meetin'-bunnet 
 
 Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair 
 0' blue eyes sot upun it. 
 
 Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some! 
 
 She seemed to 've gut a new soul. 
 For she felt sartin-sure he 'd come, 
 
 Down to her very shoe-sole. 
 
 She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu, 
 
 A-raspin' on the scraper, — 
 All ways to once her feelins flew 
 
 Like sparks in bumt-up paper. 
 
 He kin' o' I'itered on the mat, 
 
 Some doubtfie o' the sekle, 
 His heart kep' goin' pity-pat, 
 
 But hern went pity Zekle. 
 
 An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk 
 Ez though she wished him furder. 
 
 An' on her apples kep' to work, 
 Farin' awav like murder. 
 
 " You want to see my Pa, I s'pose 1" 
 " Wal .... no .... I come d»> 
 signin' " — 
 "To see my Ma? She 's sprinklin' 
 clo'es 
 Agin to-morrer's i'nin'." 
 
 To say why gals acts so or so, 
 Or don't, 'ould be presumin' ; 
 
 Mebby to mean yes an' say no 
 Comes nateral to women. 
 
 He stood a spell on one foot fust, 
 Then stood a spell on t' other, 
 
 An' on which one he felt the wust 
 He could n't ha' told ye nuther. 
 
 Says he, "I 'd better call agin " ; 
 
 Says she, " Think likely. Mister" : 
 Thet last word pricked him like a pin. 
 
 An' .... Wal, he up an' kist her. 
 
 When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips, 
 
 Huldy sot pale ez ashes, 
 All kin' o' smily rouu' the lips 
 
 An' teary roun' the lashes. 
 
 For she was jes' the quiet kind 
 
 Whose naturs never vary. 
 Like streams that keep a summer mind 
 
 Snowhid in Jenooary. 
 
 The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued 
 
 Too tight for all expressin'. 
 Tell mother see how metters stood. 
 
 An' gin 'em both her blessin'. 
 
 Then her red come back like the tide 
 Down to the Bay o' Fundy, 
 
 An' all I know is they was cried 
 In meatin' come nex' Sunday. 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 BIKDOFEEDUM SAWIN, ESQ., TO 
 MR. HOSEA BIGLOW. 
 
 LETTER FROU THE REVEREND HOUEB WIL- 
 BUR, M. A., ENOLOSINQ THE EPISTLE 
 ▲FORESAID. 
 
 Jaalam, ISth Nov., 1861. 
 • • • • • 
 
 It is not from any idle wish to obtrude 
 my humble person with undue prominence 
 upon the publiok view that I resume my 
 pen upon the present occasion. Juniores 
 ad laborea. But having been a main in- 
 strument iu rescuing the talent of my young 
 parishioner from being buried in theground, 
 by giving it such warrant with the world 
 as could be derived from a name already 
 widelv known by several printed discourses 
 (all of which I may be permitted without 
 immodesty to state have been deemed 
 worthy of preservation in the Library of 
 Harvard College by my esteemed friend 
 Mr. Sibley), it seemed becoming that I 
 should not only testify to the genuineness 
 of the following production, but call atten- 
 tion to it, the more as Mr. Biglow had so 
 long been silent as to be in danger of abso- 
 lute oblivion. I insinuate no claim to any 
 share in the authorship {vixea nostra voco) 
 of the works already published by Mr. 
 Biglow, but merely take to myself the 
 credit of having fulfilled toward them the 
 ofRce of taster (experto crede), who, having 
 first tried, could afterward bear witness 
 {credenzen it was aptly named by the Ger- 
 mans), an office always arduous, and some- 
 times even dangerous, as in the case of those 
 devoted persons who venture their lives in 
 the deglutition of patent medicines (dolus 
 latet in generalibus, there is deceit in the 
 most of them) and thereafter are wonder- 
 fully preserved long enough to append their 
 signatures to testimonials in the diurnal 
 and hebdomadal prints. I say not this as 
 oovertly glancing at the authors of certain 
 
 manuscripts which have been submitted to 
 my literary judgment (though an epiok in 
 twenty-four books on the "Taking of Jer- 
 icho" might, save for the prudent fore- 
 thought of Mrs. Wilbur in secreting the 
 same just as I had arrived beneath the walls 
 and was beginning a catalogue of the various 
 horns and their blowers, too ambitiously 
 emulous in longanimity of Homer's list of 
 ships, might, I say, have rendered frustrate 
 any hope I could entertain vacare Mtiais 
 for the small remainder of my days), but 
 only the further to secure myself against 
 any imputation of unseemly forthputting. 
 I will barely subjoin, in this connexion, 
 that, whereas Job was left to desire, in the 
 soreness of his heart, that his adversary 
 had written a book, as perchance misan- 
 thropically wishing to indite a review there- 
 of, yet was not Satan allowed so far to tempt 
 him as to send Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar 
 each with an unprinted work in his wallet 
 to be submitted to his censure. But of this 
 enough. Were I in need of other excuse, 
 I might add that I write by the express de- 
 sire of Mr. Biglow himself, whose entire 
 winter leisure is occupied, as he assures me, 
 in answering demands for autographs, a 
 labor exacting enough in itself, and egre- 
 giously so to him, who, being no ready pen- 
 man, cannot sign so much ashis name with- 
 out strange contortions of the face (his nose, 
 even, being essential to complete success) 
 and painfully suppressed Saint- Vitus-dance 
 of every muscle in his body. This, with 
 his having been put in the Commission of 
 the Peace by our excellent Governor (0, si 
 sic omnes J) immediately on his accession 
 to office, keeps him continually employed. 
 Maud inexpertus loquor^ having for many 
 years written myself J. P., and being not 
 seldom applied to for specimens of my chi- 
 rography, a request to which I have some- 
 times over weakly assented, believing as I 
 do that nothing written of set purpose can 
 properly be called an autograph, but only 
 those unpremeditated sallies and lively run- 
 nings which betray the fireside Man iust^ 
 
2S6 
 
 THE BipLOW PAPERS. 
 
 of the hunted Notoriety douhling on his 
 pursuers. But it is time that I should be- 
 think me of St. Austin's prayer, libera me a 
 meipso, if I would arrive at the matter in 
 hand. 
 
 Moreover, I had yet another reason for 
 taking up the pen myself. I am informed 
 that the Atlantic Monthly is mainly in- 
 debted for its success to the contributions 
 and editorial supervision of Dr. Holmes, 
 whose excellent "Annals of America" oc- 
 cupy an honored place upon my shelves. 
 The journal itself I have never seen ; but if 
 this be so, it might seem that the recommen- 
 dation of a brother-clergyman (though par 
 magis qua/m similis) should carry a greater 
 weight. I suppose that you have a de- 
 partment for historical lucubrations, and 
 should be glad, if deemed desirable, to for- 
 ward for publication my " Collections for 
 the Antiquities of Jaalam," and my (now 
 happily complete) pedigree of the Wilbur 
 family from tisfons et origo, the Wild Boar 
 of Ardermes. Withdrawn from the active 
 duties of my profession by the settlement 
 of a colleague-pastor, the Eeverend Jedu- 
 thun Hitchcock, formerly of Brutus Four- 
 Comers, I might find time for further con- 
 tributions to general literature on similar 
 topicks. I have made large advances to- 
 wards a completer genealogy of Mrs. Wil- 
 bur's family, the Pilcoxes, not, if I know my- 
 self, from any idle vanity, but with the sole 
 desire of rendering myself useful in ra y day 
 and generation. J^ulla dies sine lineA. I 
 inclose a meteorological register, a list of 
 the births, deaths, and marriages, and a 
 few memoraiilia of longevity in Jaalam 
 East Parish for the last half-century. 
 "Though spared to the unusual period of 
 more than eighty years, I And no diminu- 
 tion of my faculties or abatement of my 
 natural vigor, except a scarcely sensible 
 decay of memory and a necessity of recur- 
 ring to younger eyesight or spectacles for 
 the finer print in Cruden. It would gratify 
 me to make some further provision for de- 
 clining years from the emoluments of my 
 literary labors. I had intended to effect 
 an insurance on my life, but was deterred 
 therefrom by a circular from one of the of- 
 fices, in which the sudden death of so large 
 a proportion of the insured was set forth 
 as an inducement, that it seemed to me 
 little less than a tempting of Providence. 
 J9eqae in suminA innpid lems esse senectus 
 potest, ne sapienti quidem. 
 
 Thus far concerning Mr. Biglow ; and so 
 much seemed needful (6rem« esse lahoro) 
 by way of preliminary, after a silence of 
 fourteen years. He greatly fears lest he 
 may in this essay have fallen below him- 
 self, well knowing that, if exercise be dan- 
 
 gerous on a full stomach, no less so is 
 writing on a full reputation. Beset as he 
 has been on all sides, he could not refrain, 
 and would only imprecate patience till he 
 shall again have "got the hang" (as he 
 calls it ) of an accomplishment long disused. 
 The letter of Mr. Sawin was received some 
 time in last June, and others have followed 
 which will in due season be submitted to 
 the publick. How largely his statements 
 are to be depended on, I more than merely 
 dubitate. He was always distinguished for 
 a tendency to exaggeration, — it might al- 
 most be qualified by a stronger term. For- 
 titer mentire, aliquid hceret, seemed to be 
 his favourite rule of rhetorick. That he 
 is actually where he says he is the post- 
 mark would seem to confirm ; that he was 
 received with the publick demonstrations 
 he describes would appear consonant with 
 what we know of the habits of those re- 
 gions ; but further than this I venture not 
 to decide. I have sometimes suspected a 
 vein of humor in him which leads him to 
 speak by contraries ; but since, in the un- 
 restrained intercourse of private life, I have 
 never observed in him any striking powers 
 of invention, I am the more willing to put 
 a certain qualified faith in the incidents and 
 the details of life and manners which give 
 to his narratives some portion of the inter- 
 est and entertainment which characterizes 
 a Century Sermon. 
 
 It may be expected of me that I should 
 say something to justify myself with the 
 world for a seeming inconsistency with mj 
 well-known principles in allowing my 
 youngest son to raise a company for the 
 war, a fact known to all through the me- 
 dium of the publick prints. I did reason' 
 with the young man, but expeUas naturam 
 fvjrc&, tamen usque recurrit. Having my- 
 self been a chaplain in 1812, I could the 
 less wonder that a man of war had sprung 
 from my loins. It was, indeed, grievous 
 to send my Benjamin, the child of my old 
 age ; but after the discomfiture of Manas- 
 sas, I with my own hands did buclde on 
 his armour, trusting in the great Com- 
 forter and Commander for strength accord- 
 ing to my need. For truly the memory 
 of a brave son dead in his shroud were 
 a greater staff of my declining years than 
 a living coward (if those may be said to 
 have lived who carry all of themselves 
 into the grave with them), though his 
 days might be long in the land, and he 
 should get much goods. It is not till our 
 earthen vessels are broken that we find 
 and truly possess the treasure that was 
 laid up in them. Migravi in animam 
 meam, I have sought refuge in my own 
 soul; nor would I be shamed by the 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPEES. 
 
 237 
 
 heathen comedian with his Neqiiam illud 
 verbiivi, bene vull, nisi benefacit. Daring 
 our darli days, I read constantly in the in- 
 spired boolc of Job, which I believe to con- 
 tain more food to maintain the fibre of the 
 soul for right living and high thinking 
 than all pagan literature together, though 
 I would by no means vilipend the study of 
 the classicks. There I read that Job said 
 in his despair, even as the fool saith in his 
 heart there is no God, — The *i„abernacles 
 of robbers prosper, and they that provoke 
 God are secure." {Job xii. 6.) But 1 
 sought farther till 1 found this Scripture 
 also, which I would have those perpend 
 who have striven to turn our Israel aside 
 to the worship of strange gods : — "If I 
 did despise the cause of my man-servant 
 or of my maid-servant when they contended 
 with me, what then shall I do when God 
 riseth up '( and when he visiteth, what 
 shall I answer him ? " {Job xxxi. 13, 14. ) 
 On this text I preached a discourse on the 
 last day of Fasting and Humiliation with 
 general acceptance, though there were not 
 wanting one or two Laodiceans who said 
 that I should have waited till the President 
 announced his policy. But let us hope 
 and pray, remembering this of Saint Greg- 
 ory, Vult Deus rogari, vult cogi, vult quA- 
 dam importuniiate vinci. 
 
 We had our first fall of snow on Friday 
 last. Frosts have been unusually back- 
 ward this fall. A singular circumstance 
 occurred in this town on the 20th October, 
 in the family of Deacon Pelatiah Tinkham. 
 On the previous evening, a few moments 
 before family prayers, 
 
 [The editors of the A tlantic find it ne- 
 cessary here to cut short the letter of their 
 valued correspondent, which seemed cal- 
 culated rather on the rates of longevity in 
 Jaalam than for less favored localities. 
 They have every encouragement to hope 
 that he will write again.] 
 With esteem and respect. 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 HoMEK Wilbur, A. M. 
 
 It 's some consid'ble of a spell sence I 
 
 hain't writ no letters, 
 An' ther' 's gret changes hez took place 
 
 in all polit'ole metters ; 
 Some canderdates air dead an' gone, an' 
 
 some hez ben defeated. 
 Which 'mounts to pooty much the same ; 
 
 fer it 's ben proved repeated 
 A betoh o' bread thet hain't riz once 
 
 ain't goin' to rise agin. 
 
 An' it 's jest money throwed away to 
 
 put the emptins in : 
 But thet 's wut folks wun't never larn ; 
 
 they dunno how to go, 
 Arter you want their room, no more 'u 
 
 a bullet-headed beau ; 
 Ther' 's oilers chaps a-hangin' roun' thet 
 
 can't see peatime 's past, 
 Mis'ble as roosters in a rain, heads 
 
 down an' tails half-mast : 
 It ain't disgraceful bein' beat, when a, 
 
 holl nation doos it. 
 But Chance is like an amherill, — it 
 
 don't take twice to lose it. 
 
 I spose you 're kin' o' cur'ous, now, to 
 
 know why 1 hain't writ. 
 Wal, I 've ben where a litt'ry taste 
 
 don't somehow seem to git 
 Th' encouragement a feller 'd think, 
 
 thet 's used to public schools. 
 An' where seoh things ez paper 'n' ink 
 
 air clean agin the rules : 
 A kind o' vicyvarsy house, built dreffle 
 
 strong an' stout. 
 So 's 't honest people can't get in, ner 
 
 t' other sort git out, 
 An' with the winders so contrived, 
 
 you 'd prob'ly like the view 
 Better alookin' in than out, though it 
 
 seems sing'Iar, tu ; 
 But then the landlord sets by ye, can't 
 
 bear ye out o' sight. 
 And locks ye up ez reg'lar ez an outside 
 
 door at night. 
 
 This world is awfle contrary : th* ropo 
 
 may stretch your neck 
 Thet uiebby kep' another chap fnim 
 
 washin' off a wreck ; 
 An' you may see the taters grow in one 
 
 poor feller's patch. 
 So small no self-respectin' hen thet val- 
 
 lied time 'ould scratch, 
 So small the rot can't find 'em out, an' 
 
 then agin, nex' door, 
 Ez big ez wut hogs dream on when 
 
 they 're 'most too fat to snore. 
 But groutin' ain't no kin' o' use ; an' ef 
 
 the fust throw fails, 
 Why, up an' try agin, thet 's all, — the 
 
 coppers ain't all tails ; 
 Though I hev seen 'em when I thought 
 
 they hed n't no more head 
 Than 'd sarve a nussin' Brigadier thet 
 
 gits some ink to shed. 
 
238 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 When I writ last, 1 'd ben turned loose 
 
 Ijy thet blamed nigger, Pomp, 
 Ferlorner than a musquash, ef you'd 
 
 took an' dreened his swamp : 
 But 1 ain't o' the meeohin' kind, thet 
 
 sets an' thinks fer weeks 
 The bottom 's out o' th' univarse ooz 
 
 their own giUpot leaks. 
 I hed to cross bayous an' criks, (wal, it 
 
 did beat all natur',) 
 Upon a kin' o' corderoy, fust log, then 
 
 alligator ; 
 Luck'ly, the critters warn't sharp-sot ; 
 
 I guess 't wuz overraled 
 They'd done their moruin's marketin' 
 
 an' gut their hunger cooled ; 
 Fer missionaries to the Creeks an' run- 
 aways are viewed 
 By them an' folks ez sent express to be 
 
 their reg'lar food ; 
 Wutever 't wuz, they laid an' snoozed 
 
 ez peacefully ez sinners, 
 Meek ez disgestin' deacons be at ordina- 
 tion dinners ; 
 Ef any on 'em turned an' snapped, I 
 
 let 'em kin' n' taste 
 My live-oak leg, an' so, ye see, ther' 
 
 warn't no gret o' waste ; 
 Fer they found out in quicker time than 
 
 ef they 'd ben to college 
 'T warn' t heartier food than though 't wnz 
 
 made out o' the tree o' knowledge. 
 But / tell you my other leg hed lamed 
 
 wut pizon-nettle meant, 
 An' var'ous other usefle things, afore I 
 
 reached a settlement. 
 An' all o' me thet wuz n't sore an' 
 
 s^din' prickles thru me 
 Wnz jest the leg I parted with in liokin' 
 
 Montezumy : 
 A useful limb it 's ben to me, an' more 
 
 of a support 
 Than wut the other hez ben, — coz I 
 
 dror my pension for 't. 
 
 Wal, I gut in at last where folks wuz 
 
 civerlized an' white, 
 Ez I diskivered to my cost afore 't warn't 
 
 hardly night ; 
 Fer 'z I wuz settin' in the bar a-takin' 
 
 sunthin' hot, 
 An' feelin' like a man agin, all over in 
 
 one spot, 
 A feller thet sot oppersite, arter a squint 
 
 at me, 
 Lap up an' drawed his peacemaker, an', 
 
 " Dash it, Sir," suz he. 
 
 " I 'm doubledashed ef you ain't him 
 
 thet stole my yaller chettle, 
 (You 're all the .stranger thet 's around,) 
 
 so now you 've gut to settle ; 
 It ain't no use to argerfy ner try to cut 
 
 up frisky, 
 I know ye ez I know the smell of ole 
 
 chain-lightnin' whiskey ; 
 We 're lor-abidin' folks down here, we '11 
 
 fix ye so 's 't a bar 
 Would n' tech ye with a ten-foot pole ; 
 
 (Jedge, you jest warm the tar ;) 
 You '11 think you 'd better ha' gut among 
 
 a tribe o' Mongrel Tartars, 
 'fore we 've done showin' how we raise 
 
 our Southun prize tar-martyrs ; 
 A moultin' fallen cherubim, ef he should 
 
 see ye, 'd snicker, 
 Thinkin' he warn't a suckemstance. 
 
 Come, genlemun, le' 's liquor ; 
 An', Gin'ral, when you 've mixed the 
 
 drinks an' chalked 'em up, tote 
 
 rouu' 
 An' see ef ther' 's a feather-bed (thet 'a 
 
 borryable) in town 
 We '11 try ye fair, ole Grafted-Leg, an' 
 
 ef the tar wun't stick, 
 Th' ain't not a juror here but wut '11 
 
 'quit ye double-quick." 
 To cut it short, I wun't say sweet, they 
 
 gi' me a good dip, 
 (They ain't jperfessin' Bahptists here,) 
 
 then give the bed a rip, — 
 The jury 'd sot, an' quicker 'n a flash 
 
 they hetched me out, a livin' 
 Extemp'ry mammoth turkey-chick fer a 
 
 Fejee Thanksgivin'. 
 Thet I felt some stuck up is wut it 's 
 
 nat'ral to suppose. 
 When poppylar enthusiasm hed fun- 
 
 nished me sech clo'es ; 
 (Ner 't ain't without edvantiges, this 
 
 kin' o' suit, ye see. 
 It 's water-proof, an' water 's wut I like 
 
 kep' out o' me ;) 
 But nut content with thet, they took a 
 
 kferridge from the fence 
 An' rid me roun' to see the place, en- 
 
 tirely free 'f expense, 
 With forty-'leven new kines o' sarse 
 
 without no charge acquainted me, 
 Gi' me three cheers, an' vowed thet I 
 
 wuz all their fahncy painted me ; 
 They treated me to all their eggs ; (they 
 
 keep 'em 1 should think, 
 Fer sech ovations, pooty long, for they 
 
 wuz mos' distiuc' ;) 
 
THE BIGLOW PATERS. 
 
 289 
 
 They starred me thick 'z the Milky-Way 
 
 with indiserim'nit cherity, 
 Fer wilt we call reception eggs air sun- 
 thin' of a rerity ; 
 Green ones is plentifle anough, skurce 
 
 wuth a nigger's getherin', 
 But your dead-ripe ones ranges high fer 
 
 treatin' Nothun bretherin ; 
 A spotteder, ringstreakeder child the' 
 
 warn't in Uncle Sam's 
 HoU farm, — a cross of striped pig an' 
 
 one o' Jacob's lambs ; 
 'T wuz Dannil in the lions' den, new an' 
 
 enlarged edition. 
 An' everythin' fust-rate o' 'ts kind ; the' 
 
 warn't no impersition. 
 People 's impulsiver down here than wut 
 
 our folks to home be, 
 An' kin' o' go it 'ith a resh in raisin' 
 
 Hail Columby : 
 Thet 's so : an' they swarmed out like 
 
 bees, for your real Southun men's 
 Time is n't o' much more account than 
 
 an ole settin' hen's ; 
 (They jest work semioccashnally, or else 
 
 don't work at all, 
 Au' so their time an' 'tention both air at 
 
 saci'ty's call. ) 
 Talk about hospatality! wut Nothun 
 
 town d' ye know 
 Would take a totle stranger up an' treat 
 
 him gratis so ? 
 You 'd better b'lieve ther' 's nothin' like 
 
 this spendin' days an' nights 
 Along 'ith a dependent race fer civerliz- 
 
 in' whites. 
 
 But this wuz all prelim'nary; it 's so 
 
 Gran' Jurors here 
 Fin' a true bill, a hendier way than 
 
 ourn, an' nut so dear ; 
 So arter this they sentenced me, to make 
 
 all tight 'n' snug, 
 Afore a reg'lar couit o' law, to ten years 
 
 in the Jug. 
 1 did n't make no gret defence : you 
 
 don't feel much like speakin', 
 When, ef you let your clamshells gape, 
 
 a quart o' tar will leak in : 
 1 hev hearn tell o' winged words, but 
 
 pint o' fact it tethers 
 The spoutin' gift to hev your words tu 
 
 thick sot on with feathers. 
 An' Choate ner Webster would n't ha' 
 
 made an A 1 kin' o' speech 
 Astride a Southun chestnut horse sharp- 
 er 'n a baby's screech. 
 
 Two year ago they ketched the thief, 'n' 
 
 seein' I wuz inneroent. 
 They jest uncorked an' le' me run, an' 
 
 in my stid the sinner sent 
 To see how /le liked pork 'n' pone flav- 
 ored with wa'nut saplin', 
 An' nary social priv'ledge but a one-hoss, 
 
 starn-wheel chaplin. 
 When I come out, the folks behaved 
 
 mos' gen'manly an' harnsome ; 
 They 'lowed it would n't be more n 
 
 right, ef I should cuss 'n' dam 
 
 some: 
 The Cunnle he apolergized; suz he, 
 
 " I '11 du wut 's right, 
 I '11 give ye settisfection now by shootin' 
 
 ye at sight. 
 An' give the nigger (when he 'a caught), 
 
 to pay him fer his trickin' 
 In gittiu' the wrong man took up, a 
 
 most H fired lickin', — 
 It 's jest the way with all on 'em, the 
 
 inconsistent critters. 
 They 're 'most enough to make a man 
 
 blaspheme his mornin' bitters ; 
 I '11 be your frien' thru thick an' thin 
 
 an' in all kines o' weathers. 
 An' all you '11 hev to pay fer 's jest th» 
 
 waste o' tar an' feathers : 
 A lady owned the bed, ye see, a widder, 
 
 tu. Miss Shennon ; 
 It wuz her mite ; we would ha' took 
 
 another, ef ther 'd ben one : 
 We don't make no charge for the ride 
 
 an' all the other fixins. 
 Le' 's liquor ; Gin'ral, you can chalk our 
 
 friend for all the mixins." 
 A meetin' then wuz called, where they 
 
 " Kesolved, Thet we respec' 
 B. S. Esquire for quallerties o heart an' 
 
 intelleo' 
 Peculiar to Columby's sile, an' not to no 
 
 one else's, 
 Thet makes Enripeah tyrans scringe in 
 
 all their gilded pel'ces. 
 An' doos gret honor to our race an' 
 
 Southun instltootions " : 
 (I give ye jest the substance o' the lead- 
 in' resolootions ;) 
 "Resolved, Thet we revere in him a 
 
 soger 'thout a flor, 
 A martyr to the princerples o' libbaty 
 
 an' lor : 
 Resolved, Thet other nations all, ef sot 
 
 'longside o' us. 
 For vartoo, laruin', chivverlry, ain't no- 
 ways wuth a cuss." 
 
240 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 They gut np a subscription, tu, tut no 
 
 gret come o' fhet ; 
 I 'xpect in cairiu' of it roun' they took a 
 
 leaky hat ; 
 Though Southun genelmun ain't slow at 
 
 puttin' down their name, 
 (When they can write,) fer in the eend 
 
 it comes to jes' the same. 
 Because, ye see, 't 's the fashion here to 
 
 sign an' not to think 
 A critter 'd be so sordid ez to ax 'em for 
 
 the chink : 
 I did n't call but jest on one, an' he 
 
 drawed toothpick on me. 
 An' reckoned he warn't goin' to stan' no 
 
 sech doggauned econ'my ; 
 So nothin' more wuz realized, 'ceptin' 
 
 the good-will shown, 
 Than ef 't had ben from fust to last a 
 
 reg'lar Cotton Loan. 
 It 's a good way,. though, come to think, 
 
 coz ye enjy the sense 
 O' lendin' lib'rally to the Lord, an' nary 
 
 red o' 'xpense : 
 Sence then 1 've gut my name up for a 
 
 gin'rous-hearted man 
 By jes' subscribin' right an' left on this 
 
 high-minded plan ; 
 I 've gin away my thousans so to every 
 
 Southun sort 
 0' missions, colleges, an' sech, ner ain't 
 
 no poorer for 't. 
 
 I warn't so bad off, arter all ; I need n't 
 
 hardly mention 
 That Guv'ment owed me quite a pile for 
 
 my arrears o' pension, — 
 I mean the poor, weak thing we hed: we 
 
 run a new one now, 
 Thet strings a feller with a claim up ta 
 
 the nighes' bough, 
 An' prectises the rights o' man, purtects 
 
 down-trodden debtors, 
 Ner wun't hev creditors about a- 
 
 scrougin' o' their betters : 
 Jeff's gut the last idees ther' is, pos- 
 
 crip', fourteenth edition. 
 He knows it takes some enterprise to 
 
 run an oppersition ; 
 Ourn 's the fust thru-by-daylight train, 
 
 with all ou'doors for deepot ; 
 Yourn goes so slow you 'd think 't wuz 
 
 drawed by a las' cent'ry teapot ; — 
 Wal, I gut all on 't paid in gold afore 
 
 our State seceded. 
 An' done wal, for Confed'rit bonds 
 
 warn't jest the cheese I needed : 
 
 Nutbutwut they 're ez good ez gold, but 
 
 then it 's hard a-breakin' on 'em. 
 An' ignorant folks is oilers sot an' wun't 
 
 git used to takin' on 'em ; 
 They 're wuth ez much ez wut they wuz 
 
 afore ole Mem'nger signed 'em. 
 An' go off middlin' wal for drinks, 
 
 when ther's 's a knife behind 'em ; 
 We du miss silver, jes' fer thet an' ridiu' 
 
 in a bus, 
 Now we 've shook off the desputs thet 
 
 wuz suckin' at our pus ; 
 An' it 'a because the South 's so rich ; 't 
 
 wuz nat'ral to expec' 
 Supplies o' change wuz jes' the things we 
 
 should n't recollec' ; 
 We 'd ough' to ha' thought aforehan', 
 
 though, o' thet good rule o' Crock- 
 ett's, 
 for 't 's tiresome cairin' cotton-bales an' 
 
 niggers in your pockets, 
 Ner 't ain't quite bendy to pass off one 
 
 o' your six-foot Guineas 
 An' git your halves an' quarters back in 
 
 gals an' pickaninnies : 
 Wal, 't ain't quite all a feller 'd ax, but 
 
 then ther' 's this to say. 
 It 's on'y jest among ourselves thet we 
 
 expec' to pay ; 
 Our system would ha' caird us thru in 
 
 any Bible cent'ry, 
 'fore this onscripterl plan come up o' 
 
 books by double entry ; 
 We go the patriarkle here out o' all 
 
 sight an' hearin', » 
 For Jacob warn't a suckemstance to 
 
 Jeff at financierin' ; 
 ffe never 'd thought o' borryin' from 
 
 Esau like all nater 
 An' then cornfisoatin' all debts to sech 
 
 a small pertater ; 
 There 's p'litickle econ'my, now, com- 
 bined 'ith morril beauty 
 Thet sayorifices privit eends (your in'- 
 
 my's, tu) to dooty ! 
 Wy, Jeff 'd ha' gin him five an' won his 
 
 eye-teeth 'fore he knowed it, 
 An', stid o' wastin' pottage, he 'd ha' eat 
 
 it up an' owed it. 
 But I wuz goin' on to say how 1 come 
 
 here to dwall ; — 
 'Nough said, thet, arter lookin' roun', 
 
 1 liked the place so wal. 
 Where niggers (loos a double good, with 
 
 us atop to stiddy 'era, 
 By bein' proofs o' proplieey an' suckle- 
 
 atin' medium, 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 241 
 
 Where a man 's snnthin' coz he 's white, 
 
 an' whiskey 's cheap ez fleas, 
 ^n' tlie financial pollercy jes' sooted my 
 
 idees, 
 Thet 1 friz down right where I wuz, 
 
 merried the Widder Shennon, 
 (Her thirds wuz part in cotton-land, 
 
 part in the curse o' Canaan,) 
 An' here I he ez lively ez a chipmunk 
 
 on a wall. 
 With nothin' to feel riled about much 
 
 later 'n Eddam's fall. 
 
 Ez fur ez human foresight goes, we 
 
 made an even trade : 
 She gut an overseer, an' I a fem'ly 
 
 ready-made. 
 The youngest on 'em 's 'mos' growed up, 
 
 rugged an' spry ez weazles, 
 So 's 't ther' 's no resk o' doctors' hills 
 
 fer hoopin'-cough an' measles. 
 Our farm's at Turkey- Buzzard Eoast, 
 
 Little Big Boosy River, 
 Wal located in all respex, — fer 't ain't 
 
 the chills 'n' fever 
 Thet makes my writin' seem to squirm ; 
 
 a Southuner 'd allow I 'd 
 Some call to shake, for I 've jest hed to 
 
 meller a new cowhide. 
 Miss S. is all 'f a lady ; th' aiu't no bet- 
 ter on Big Boosy 
 Ner one with more aceomplishmunts 
 
 'twixt here an' Tuscaloosy ; 
 She 's an F. F., the tallest kind, an' 
 
 prouder 'n the Gran' Turk, 
 An' never hed a relative thet done a 
 
 stroke o' work ; 
 Hern ain't a, scrimpin' fem'ly sech ez 
 
 you git up Down East, 
 Th' ain't a growed member on t but 
 
 owes his thousuns et the least : 
 She is some old ; but then agin ther' 's 
 
 drawbacks in my sheer : 
 Wut 's left o' me ain't more 'u enough 
 
 to make a Brigadier : 
 "Wust is, thet she hez tantrums ; she 's 
 
 like Seth Moody's gun 
 (Him thet wuz nicknamed frum his limp 
 
 Ole Dot an' Kerry One) ; 
 He 'd left her loaded up a spell, an' hed 
 
 to git her clear. 
 So he onhitched, — Jeerusalem ! the 
 
 middle o' last year 
 Wuz right nex' door compared to where 
 
 she kicked the critter tu 
 (Though jest where he brought up wuz 
 
 wut no human never knew) ; 
 
 His brother Asaph picked her up an' 
 
 tied her to a tree, 
 An' then she kicked an hour 'n' a half 
 
 afore she 'd let it be : 
 Wal, Miss S. doos hev cuttins-up an' 
 
 pourins-out o' vials. 
 But then she hez her widder's thirds, an' 
 
 all on us hez trials. 
 My objeo', though, in writin' now 
 
 wam't to allude to sech. 
 But to another suckemstance mors 
 
 dellykit to tech, — 
 I want thet you should grad'Uy break 
 
 my merriage to Jerushy, 
 An' there's a heap of argymunts thet's 
 
 emple to indooce ye : 
 Fust place. State's Prison, — wal, it 'a 
 
 true it warn't fer crime, o' course, 
 But then it 's jest the same fer her in 
 
 gittin' a disvorce ; 
 Nex' place, my State 's secedin' out hez 
 
 leg'Uy lef me free 
 To merry any one I please, pervidiu' 
 
 it 'a a she ; 
 Fin'Uy, I never wnn't come back, she 
 
 need n't hev no fear on 't. 
 But then it 's wal to fix things right fer 
 
 fear Miss S. should hear on 't ; 
 Lastly, I 've gut religion South, an' 
 
 Bushy she 's a pagan 
 Thet sets by th' graven imiges o' the 
 
 gi'et Nothun Dagon ; 
 (Now I hain't seen one in six munts, 
 
 for, sence our Treashry Loan, 
 Though yaller boys is thick anough, 
 
 eagles hez kind o' flown ;) 
 An' ef J wants a stronger pint than 
 
 them thet I hev stated, 
 Wy, she's an aliun in'my now, an' 
 
 I 've been cornfiscated, — 
 For sence we 've entered on th' estate o' 
 
 the late nayshnui eagle, 
 She hain't no kin' o' right but jes' wut 
 
 I allow ez legle : 
 Wut doos Secedin' mean, ef 't ain't thet 
 
 nat'rul rights hez riz, 'n' 
 Thet wut is mine 's my own, but wut 's 
 
 another man's ain't his'n ? 
 
 Besides, I could n't do no else ; Miss S. 
 
 suz she to me, 
 "You've sheered my bed," [thet's 
 
 when 1 paid my interdnction fee 
 To Southun rites,] "an' kep' your 
 
 sheer," [wal, I allow it sticked 
 So 's 't I wuz most six weeks in jail 
 
 afore I gut me picked,] 
 
242 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 " Ner never paid no demmiges ; but 
 
 thrt wun't do no harm, 
 PeiTidin' thet you '11 ondertake to over- 
 see the farm ; • 
 |My eldes' boy he 's so took up, wut 
 
 with the llingtail Hangers 
 An' settin' in the Jestice-Court for wel- 
 
 comin' o' strangers " ;) 
 [He sot on me;] "an' so, ef you'll jest 
 
 ondertake the care 
 Upon a mod'rit sellery, we'll up an' 
 
 call it square ; 
 Eut ef you can' I conclude,'' snz she, an' 
 
 give a kin' o' grin, 
 "Wy, the Gran' Jurymen, I 'xpect, '11 
 
 hev to set agin." 
 That 's the way metters stood at fust ; 
 
 now wut wuz I to du. 
 But jes' to make the best on 't an' off 
 
 coat an' buckle tu ? 
 Thor' ain't a livin' man thet finds an 
 
 income necessarier 
 Than me, — bimeby I '11 tell ye how I 
 
 fin'lly come to merry her. 
 
 She hed another motive, tu : I mention 
 
 of it here 
 T' encourage lads thet 's growin' up to 
 
 study 'n' persevere. 
 An' show 'em how much better 't pays 
 
 to mind their winter-schoolin' 
 Than to go off on benders 'n' sech, an' 
 
 waste their time in foolin' ; 
 Ef 't wam't for studyin' evenins, why, I 
 
 never 'd ha' ben here 
 An om'ment o' saciety, in my approprut 
 
 spear : 
 She wanted somebody, ye see, o' taste 
 
 an' cultivation, 
 To talk along o' jireachers when they 
 
 stopt to the plantation ; 
 For folks in Dixie th't read an' rite, 
 
 onless it is by jarks. 
 Is skurce ez wut they wuz among th' 
 
 origenle patriarchs ; 
 To fit a feller f wut they call the soshle 
 
 higherarchy. 
 All thet you 've gut to know is jes' be- 
 
 yund an evrage darky ; 
 Schoolin' 's wut they can't seem to stan', 
 
 they 're tu consarned high-pressure, 
 An' knowin' t' much Tnight spile a boy 
 
 for bein' a Secesher. 
 We hain't no settled preachin' here, ner 
 
 ministeril taxes ; 
 The min'ster's only settlement 's the 
 
 carpet-bag he packs his 
 
 Razor an' soap-brush intu, with hij 
 
 hymbook an' his Bible, — 
 But they du preach, 1 swan to man, it 's 
 
 pufkly indescrib'le ! 
 They go it like an Ericsson's ten-hoss- 
 
 power colerio ingine, 
 An' make Ole Split-Foot winch an' 
 
 squiim, for all he 's used to singein'; 
 Hawkins's whetstone ain't a pinch o' 
 
 primin' to the innards 
 To hearin' on 'em put free grace t' a lot 
 
 o' tough old sinhards ! 
 But I must eend this letter now : 'fore 
 
 long I '11 send a fresh un ; 
 I 've lots o' things to write about, per- 
 
 ticklerly Seceshun : 
 I 'm called off now to mission-work, to 
 
 let a leetle law in 
 To Cynthy's hide : an' so, till death, 
 Yourn, 
 
 BIEDOFREDUM SAWIN. 
 
 No. II. 
 
 MASON AND SLIDELL : A YANKEE 
 IDYLL. 
 
 TO THE EDITORS OP THE ATLA:«T10 
 MONTHLY. 
 
 Jaalam, Otli Jan., 1863. 
 
 Gentlemen, — I was highly gratified by 
 the insertion of a portion of my letter in 
 the last number of your valuable and en- 
 tertaining Miscellany, though in a type 
 which rendered its substance inaccessible 
 even to the beautiful new spectacles pre- 
 sented to me by a Committee of the Parish 
 on New Year's Day. I tnist that I was 
 able to bear your very considerable abridg- 
 ment of my lucubrations with a spirit be- 
 coming a Christian. My third granddaugh- 
 ter, Rebekah,agedfourteen years, andwhom 
 I have trained to read slowly and with 
 proper emphasis (a practice too much neg- 
 lected in our modem systems of educa- 
 tion), read aloud to me the excellent essay 
 \ipon " Old Age," the authour of which I 
 cannot help suspecting to be a young man 
 who has never yet known what it was to 
 have snow {canities morosa) upon his own 
 roof. Dissolve frigiis, large super focolig- 
 na 7'eponens, is a rule for the young, whos« 
 wood-pile is yet abundant for such cheerful 
 lenitives. A good life behind him is tin 
 best thing to -keep an old man's shoulders 
 from shivering at every breath of sorrow or 
 ill-fortune. But metlinks it were easiel 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 243 
 
 for an old man to feel the disadvantages of 
 youth than the advantages of age. Of these 
 latter I reckon one of the cliiefest to be 
 this : that \fe attach a less inordinate value 
 to our own productions, and, distrusting 
 daily more and more our o^vn wisdom (with 
 the conceit whereof at twenty we wrap our- 
 selves away from knowledge as with a gar- 
 ment), do reconcile ourselves wi ii the wis- 
 dom of God. I could have wished, indeed, 
 that room might have been made for the 
 residue of the anecdote relating to Deacon 
 Tinkhara, which would not only have grat- 
 ified a natural curiosity 'on the part of the 
 publick (as I have reason to know from 
 several letters of Inquiry already received), 
 but would also, as I tliink, have largely in- 
 creased the circulation of your Magazine in 
 this town. NihU humani alienwm, there 
 is a curiosity about the affairs of our neigh- 
 bors which is not only pardonable, but even 
 commendable. But I shall abide a more 
 fitting season. 
 
 As touching the following literary effort 
 of Esquire Biglow, much might be pronta- 
 bly said on the topick of Idyllick and Pas- 
 toral Poetry, and concerning the proper 
 distinctions to be made between them, from 
 Theocritus, the inventor of tlie former, to 
 Collins, the latest authour I know of who 
 has emulated the classicks in the latter 
 style. But in the time of a Civil War wor- 
 thy a Milton to defend and a Lucan to sing, 
 it may be reasonably doubted whether the 
 publick, never too studious of serious in- 
 struction, might not consider other objects 
 more deserving of present attention. Con- 
 cerning the title of Idyll, which Mr, Biglow 
 has adopted at my suggestion, it may not 
 be improper to animadvert, that the name 
 properly signifies a poem somewhat rustick 
 in phrase (for, though the learned are not 
 agreed as to the particular dialect employed 
 by Theocritus, they are universanimous 
 both as to its rusticity and its capacity of 
 rising now and then to the level of more 
 elevated sentiments and expressions), while 
 it is also descriptive of real scenery and 
 manners. Yet it must be admitted that the 
 production now in question (which here anl 
 tliere bears perhaps too plainly the marks 
 of my correcting band) does partake of the 
 nature of a Pastoral, inasmuch as the in- 
 terlocutorsrM;herein are purely imaginary 
 beings, and the whole is little better than 
 Kairvov o-Kia? ovap. The plot Was, as I be- 
 lieve, suggested by the " Twa Briggs " of 
 Robert Bums, a Scottish poet of the last 
 century, as that found its prototype in the 
 " Mutual Complaint of Plainstanes and 
 Causey " by Fergusson, though the metre 
 of this latter be different by a foot in each 
 Terse. Perhaps the Two Dogs of Cervantes 
 
 gave the first hint. I reminded my talented 
 voung parishioner and friend that Concord 
 liridge had long since yielded to the eda- 
 cious tooth of Time. But he answered me to 
 this effect : that there was no greater mis- 
 take of an authour than to suppose the reader 
 had no fancy of his own ; tliat, it once that 
 faculty was to be called into activity, it were 
 better to be in for the whole sheep than the 
 shoulder ; and that he knew Concord like 
 a book, — an expression questionable in 
 propriety, since tnere are few things with 
 which he is not more familiar than with 
 the printed page. In proof of what he af- 
 firmed, he showed me some verses which 
 with othei's he had stricken out as too much 
 delaying the action, but which I communi- 
 cate in this place because they rightly de- 
 fine "punkin-seed" (which Mr. Bartlett 
 would nave a kind of perch, — a creature 
 to which I have found a rod or pole not to 
 be so easily equivalent-in our inland waters 
 as in the books of arithmetic), and becausa 
 it conveys an eulogium on the worthy son 
 of an excellent father, with whose acquaint- 
 ance (eheu, ficgacea annil) I was formerly 
 honoured. 
 
 "But nowadays the Bridge ain't wut they 
 
 show. 
 So much ez Em'son, Hawthorne, an* Thoreau. 
 1 know the village, though ; was sent there 
 
 once 
 A-scliooIin", 'cause to home I played the 
 
 dunce ; 
 An' I 've ben senne a-viaitin' the Jedge, 
 Whose carding whispers with the river's edgp, 
 Where I 've sot mornin's lazy as the bream. 
 Whose on'y business is to head up-stream, 
 (We call 'em punkin-seed,) or else in chat 
 -Mong 'th the Jedge. who covers with his hat 
 More wit an' gumption an' shrewd Yankee 
 
 sense 
 Than there is mosses on an ole stone fence." 
 
 Concerning the subject-matter of the 
 verses, I have not the leisure at present to 
 write so fully as I could wish, my time be- 
 ing occupied with the preparation of a dis- 
 course for the forthcoming bi-oentenary 
 celebration of the first settlement of Jaa- 
 lam East Parish. It may gratify the pnb- 
 lick interest to mention the circumstance, 
 that my investigations to this end have 
 enabled me to verify the fact (of much his- 
 torick importance, and hitherto hotly de- 
 bated) that Shearjashub Tarbox was the 
 first child of white parentage bom in this 
 town, being named in his father's will 
 under date Augr.st 7th, or 9th, 1662. 
 It is well known that those who advocate 
 the claims of Mehetable Goings are unable 
 to find any trace of her existence prior to 
 October of that year. As respects the set- 
 tlement of the Mason and Slidell question, 
 Mr. Biglow has not incorrectly stated the 
 
244 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 popular lentiment, so far as I can judge 
 by Its expression in this locality. For 
 myself, I feel more sorrow than resent- 
 ment : for I am old enough to have heard 
 those talk of England -who still, even after 
 the unhappy estrangement, could not un- 
 school their lips from calling her the 
 Mother-Coimtry. But England has insisted 
 on ripping up old ■wounds, and has undone 
 the healing work of fifty years ; for nations 
 do not reason, they only feel, and the ^re- 
 tce injtinria formce rankles in their minds as 
 bitterly as in that of a woman. And be- 
 cause this is so, I feel the more satisfaction 
 that our Government has acted (as all Gov- 
 ernments should, standing as they do be- 
 tween the people and their passions) as 
 if it had arrived at years of discretion. 
 There are three short and simple words, 
 the hardest of all to pronounce in any lan- 
 guage (and I suspect they were no easier 
 before the confusion of tongues), but which 
 no man or nation that cannot utter can 
 claim to have arrived at manhood. Those 
 words are, I was vrrmig ; and I am proud 
 that, while England played the boy, our 
 rulers had strength enough from the Peo- 
 ple below and wisdom enough from God 
 above to quit themselves like men. 
 
 The sore points on both sides have been 
 skilfully exasperated by interested and 
 unscrupulous persons, who saw in a war 
 between the two countries the only hope 
 of profitable return for their investment in 
 Confederate stock, whether political or 
 financial. The always supercilious, often 
 insulting, and sometimes even brutal tone 
 of British journals and publick men has 
 certainly not tended to soothe whatever 
 resentment might exist in America. 
 
 " Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love. 
 But why did you kick me down stairs ? " 
 
 We have no reason to complain that 
 England, as a necessary consequence of 
 her clubs, has become a great society for 
 the minding of other people's business, 
 and we can smile good-naturedly when she 
 lectures other nations on the sins of arro- 
 gance and conceit ; but we may justly con- 
 sider it a breach of the political convenances 
 which are expected to regulate the inter- 
 course of one well-bred government with 
 another, when men holding places in the 
 ministry allow themselves to dictate our 
 domestic policy, to instruct us in our duty, 
 and to stigmatize as unholy a war for the 
 rescue of whatever a high-minded people 
 should hold most vital and most sacred. 
 Was it in good taste, that I may use the 
 mildest term, for Earl Bussell to expound 
 our own Constitution to President Lincoln, 
 
 or to make a new and fallacious appliciy 
 tion of an old phrase for our benefit, and 
 tell us that the Rebels were fighting for in- 
 dependence and we for empire ? As if all 
 wars for independence were by nature just 
 and deserving of sympathy, and all wars 
 for empire ignoble and worthy only of, 
 reprobation, or as if these easy phrases in 
 any way characterized this terrible strug- 
 gle, — terrible not so truly in any superfi- 
 cial sense, as from the essential and deadly( 
 enmity of the principles that underlie it. • 
 His Lordship's bit of borrowed rhetoric 
 would justify Smith O'Brien, Nana Sahib, 
 and the Maori chieftains, while it would 
 condemn nearly every war in which Eng- 
 land has ever been engaged. Was it so 
 very presiraiptuous in us to think that it 
 would be decorous in English statesmen 
 if they spared time enough to acquire some 
 kind of knowledge, though of the most 
 elementary kind, in regard to this country 
 and the questions at issue here, before they 
 pronounced so off-hand a judgment ? Or 
 is political information expected to come 
 Dogberry-fashion in England, like reading 
 and writing, by nature ? 
 
 And now all respectable England is won- 
 dering at our irritability, and sees a quite 
 satisfactory explanation of it in our na- 
 tional vanity. Suave mari magna, it is 
 pleasant, sitting in the easy-chairs of 
 Downing Street, to sprinkle pepper on the 
 raw wounds of a kindred people struggling 
 for life, and philosophical to find in self- 
 conceit the cause of our instinctive resent- 
 ment. Surely we were of all nations the 
 least liable to any temptation of vanity at 
 a time when the gravest anxiety and the 
 keenest sorrow were never absent from our 
 hearts. Nor is conceit the exclusive attri- 
 bute of any one nation. The earliest of 
 English travellers. Sir John Mandeville, 
 took a less provincial view of the matter 
 when he said, " For fro what partie of the 
 erthe that men duellen, other aboven or 
 beneathen, it semethe alweys to hem that 
 duellen that thei gon more righte than any 
 other folke." The English have always 
 nad their fair share of this amiable quality. 
 We may say of them still, as the authour of 
 the Lettres Cabalistiques said of thera 
 more than a century ago, " Ces demiers^ 
 disent naturellement gu'il n'y a qu'ewc qui 
 sdent estimables." And, as he also says, 
 "J'aimerois presque aidant tmriber entre 
 les mains d'un Inquisitev/r que d'un An- 
 fflois qui me fait sentir sans cesse conibitn 
 it s'estime plus que vioi^ et qui ne daigne 
 me parler que pour injurier mu Naticm et 
 pour m'ennuyer da recit des grandes quali- 
 Us de la sienne." Of this Bull we may 
 safely say with Horace, habet fasnvim hi 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 245 
 
 tomu. What we felt to be especially to- 
 Bulting was the quiet assumption that the 
 descendants of men who left the Old World 
 for the sake of principle, and who had made 
 the wilderness into a New World patterned 
 after an Idea, could not possibly be sus- 
 ceptible of a generous or lofty sentiment, 
 could have no feeling of nationality deeper 
 than that of a tradesman for his shop. 
 One would have thought, in listening to 
 England, that we were presumptuous in 
 fancying that we were a nation at all, or 
 had any other principle of union than that 
 of booths at a fair, where there is no higher 
 notion of government than the constable, 
 or better image of God than that stamped 
 upon the current coin. 
 
 It is time for Englishmen to consider 
 whether there was nothing in the spirit of 
 their press and of their leading public men 
 calculated to rouse a just indignation, and 
 to cause a permanent estrangement on 
 the part of any nation capable of self-re- 
 spect, and sensitively jealous, as ours then 
 Was, of foreign interference. Was there 
 aothing in the indecent haste with which 
 belligerent rights were conceded to the 
 Rebels, nothing in the abrupt tone assumed 
 in the Trent case, nothing in the fitting 
 out of Confederate privateers, that might 
 stir the blood of a people already over- 
 charged with doubt, suspicion, and terrible 
 responsibility ? The laity in any country 
 do not stop to consider points of law, but 
 they have an instinctive perception of 
 the animus that actuates the policy of a 
 foreign nation ; and in our own case they 
 remembered that the British authorities in 
 Canada did not wait till diplomacy could 
 send home to England for her slow oificial 
 tinder-box to fire the " Caroline." Add to 
 this, what every sensible American knew, 
 that the moral support of England was 
 equal to an army of two hundred thousand 
 men to the Rebels, while it insured us an- 
 other year or two of exhausting war. It 
 was not so much the spite of her words 
 (though the time might have been more 
 tastefully chosen) as the actual power for 
 evil in them that we felt as a deadly wrong. 
 Perhaps the most immediate and efficient 
 cause of mere irritation was the sudden 
 and imaccountable change of manner on the 
 other side of the water. Only six months 
 before, the Prince of Wales had come over 
 to call us cousins ; and everywhere it was 
 nothing but "our American brethren," 
 that great offshoot of British institutions 
 in the New World, so almost identical 
 with them in laws, language, and litera- 
 ture, — this last of the alliterative compli- 
 ments being so bitterly true, that perhaps 
 it will not be retracted even now. To this 
 
 outburst of long-repressed affection we re- 
 sponded with genuine warmth, if with 
 something of the awkwardness of a poor 
 relation bewildered with the sudden tight- 
 ening of the ties of consanguinity when it 
 is rumored that he has come into a largs 
 estate. Then came the Rebellion, and, 
 presto I a flaw in our titles was discovered, 
 the plate we were promised at the family 
 table is flung at our head, and we were 
 again the scum of creation, intolerably vul- 
 gar, at once cowaidly and overbearing, — 
 no relations of theirs, after all, but a dreggy 
 hybrid of the basest bloods of Europe. 
 Panurge was not quicker to call Friar Jonn 
 his former friend. I cannot help thinking 
 of Walter Mapes's jingling paraphrase of 
 Petronius, — 
 
 " Dummodo sim splendidis vestihus omatna, 
 Et multa familia sim circumvallatus, 
 Prudens sum et sapiens et morigeratus, 
 Et tuus nepos sum et tu meus cognatua,** — 
 
 which I may freely render thus : — 
 
 So long as I was prosperona, I'd dinners by 
 
 the dozen. 
 Was well-bred, witty, virtuous, and everybody's 
 
 cousin ; 
 If luck should turn, as well she may, her fancy 
 
 is so fiexiJe, 
 Will virtue, cousinshlp, and all return with 
 
 her from exile? 
 
 There was nothing in all this to exasper- 
 ate a philosopher much to make him smile 
 rather ; but the earth's surface is not chiefly 
 inhabited by philosophers, and I revive the 
 recollection of it now in perfect good-hu- 
 mour, merely by way of suggesting to our 
 ei-devant British cousins, that it would 
 have been easier for them to hold their 
 tongues than for us to keep our tempers 
 under the circumstances. 
 
 The English Cabinet made a blunder, 
 unquestionably, in taking it so hastily for 
 granted that the United States had fallen 
 forever from their position as a first-rate 
 power, and it was natural that they should 
 vent a little of their vexation on the peopla 
 whose inexplicable obstinacy in maintain- 
 ing freedom and order, and in resisting 
 degradation, was likely to convict them of 
 their mistake. But if bearing a grudge be 
 the sure mark of a small mind in the indi- 
 vidual, can it be a proof of high spirit in 
 a nation ? If the result of the present es- 
 trangement between the twocountries shall 
 be to make us more independent of British 
 twaddle (Ijidomito nee otira f evens sivpen^ 
 dia Tav/ro), so much the better ; but if it 
 is to make us insensible to the value of 
 British opinion in matters where it gives 
 as the judgment of an impartial and culti- 
 
246 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 vated outsider, if we are to shnt ourselves 
 out from the advantages of English culture, 
 the loss will be ours, and not theirs. Be- 
 cause the door of the old homestead has 
 been once slammed in our faces, shall we 
 in a huff reject all future advances of con- 
 ciliation, and out ourselves foolishly off 
 from any share in the humanizing influen- 
 ces of the place, witli its ineffable riches of 
 association, its heirlooms of immemorial 
 culture, its historic monuments, ours no 
 less than theirs, its noble gallery of ances- 
 tral portraits ? We have only to succeed, 
 and England will not only respect, but, for 
 the first time, begin to understand us. 
 And let us not, in our justifiable indigna- 
 tion at wanton insult, forget that England 
 is not the England only of snobs who dread 
 the democracy they do not comprehend, 
 but the England of history, of heroes, 
 statesmen, and poets, whose names are 
 dear, and their influence as salutary to us 
 as to her. 
 
 Let us strengthen the hands of those in 
 authority over us, and curb our own 
 tongues, remembering that General Wait 
 commonly proves in the end more than a 
 match for General Headlong, and that the 
 Good Book ascribes safety to a multitude, 
 indeed, but not to a mob, of counsellours. 
 •Let us remember and perpend the words 
 of Paulus Emilius to the people of Rome ; 
 that, "if they judged they could manage 
 the war to more advantage by any other, 
 he would willingly yield up his charge ; but 
 if they confided iii him, they were not to 
 make themselves his colleagues in his office, 
 or raise reports, or criticise his actions, 
 but, without talking, supply him with 
 means and assistance necessary to the car- 
 rying on of the war ; for, if they proposed 
 to com/mand their own commander, they 
 would render this expedition more ridicu- 
 lous than the former." (Vide Plutarchum 
 in Vitd P. E. ) Let us also not forget what 
 the same excellent authour says concern- 
 ing Perseus's fear of spending money, and 
 not permit the covetousness of Brother 
 Jonathan to be the good fortune of Jeffer- 
 son Davis. For my own part, till I am 
 ready to admit the Commander-in-Chief 
 to my pulpit, I shall abstain from plan- 
 ning his battles. If courage be the sword, 
 yet is patience the armour of a nation ; 
 iind in our desire for peace, let us never be 
 willing to surrender the Constitution be- 
 queathed us by fathers at least as wise as 
 ouriielves (even with Jefferson Davis to* 
 help us), and, with those degenerate Ro- 
 mans, tv.ta et presentia quam vetera et pe- 
 riculosa malle. 
 
 And not only should we bridle our own 
 tongues, but the pens of others, which are 
 
 swift to convey useful intelligence to tht 
 enemy. This is no new inconvenience; 
 for, under date, 3d June, 1745, General 
 Pepperell wrote thus to Governor Shirley 
 from Louisbourg : " What your Excel- 
 lency observes of the army's being made 
 acquainted with any plans proposed, un- 
 til ready to be put in execution, has always 
 been disagreeable to me, and I have given 
 many cautions relating to it. But when 
 your Excellency considers that our Coun- 
 cil of War consists of Ttwre than twenty 
 members, I am persuaded you will think it 
 impossible for me to hinder it, if any of 
 them will persist in communicating to in- 
 ferior officers and soldiers, what ought to 
 be kept secret. I am informed that the Bos- 
 ton newspapers are filled witli paragraphs 
 from private letters relating to the expe- 
 dition. Will your Excellency permit ma 
 to say I think it may be of ill consequence ? 
 Would it not be convenient, if your Excel- 
 lency should forbid the Printers* inserting 
 such news i " Verily, if tempora mutan^ 
 tur, we may question the et nos mutamv/t 
 in illis ; and if tongues be leaky, it will 
 need all hands at the pumps to .save the 
 Ship of State. Our history dotes and re- 
 peats itself. If Sassycus (rather than Al- 
 cibiades) find a parallel in Beauregard, so 
 Weakwash, as he is called by the brave 
 Lieutenant Lion Gardiner, need not seek 
 far among our own Sachems for his anti- 
 
 '%■ 
 
 ith respect. 
 Your ob* humble serv'. 
 
 Homer Wilbue, A. M. 
 
 I LOVE to start out arter night 's begun, 
 »An' all the chores about the farm are 
 
 done, 
 The critters milked an' foddered, gatea 
 
 shet fast, 
 Tools cleaned aginst to-morrer, supper 
 
 past, 
 An' Nancy darnin' by her ker'sene 
 
 lamp, — 
 I love, I say, to start upon a tramp, 
 To shake the kinkles out o' back an' 
 
 legs, 
 An' kind o' rack my life off from the 
 
 dregs 
 Thet 's apt to settle in the buttery-hutch 
 Of folks tliet foUer in one rut too much; 
 Hard work is good an' whelesonie, past 
 
 all doubt ; 
 But 't air/t so, ef the mind gits tucb 
 
 ered out. 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPKKS. 
 
 247 
 
 Now, tein' bom in Middlesex, you 
 
 know, 
 !rhere 's certin spots where I like best 
 
 to go : 
 The Concord road, for instance, (1, for 
 
 one. 
 Most gin'Uy oilers call it John Bull's 
 
 Ran,) 
 The field o' Lexin'ton where England 
 
 tried 
 The fastest colours thet she ever dyed. 
 An' Concord Bridge, thet Davis, when 
 
 he came. 
 Found was the bee-line track to heaven 
 
 an' fame, 
 Ez all roads be by natur', ef your soul 
 Don't sneak thru shun-pikes so 's to 
 
 save the toll. 
 
 They 're 'most too fur away, take too 
 
 much time 
 To visit ofen, ef it ain't in rhyme ; 
 But the' 's a walk thet 's hendier, a 
 
 sight. 
 An' suits me fust-rate of a winter's 
 
 night, — 
 I mean the round whale's-back o' Pros- 
 pect Hill. 
 1 love to Titer there while night grows 
 
 still. 
 An' in the twinklin' villages about. 
 Fust here, then there, the well-saved 
 
 lights goes out. 
 An' nary sound but watch-dogs' false 
 
 alarms, 
 Or muffled cock-crows from the drowsy 
 
 farms, 
 Where some wise rooster (men act jest 
 
 thet way) 
 Stands to 't thet moon-rise is the breSk 
 
 o' day ; 
 (So Mister Seward sticks a three-months' 
 
 pin 
 Where the war 'd oughto eend, then 
 
 tries agin ; 
 My gran'ther's rule was safer 'n 't is to 
 
 crow: 
 Don't never prophesy — onless ye know. ) 
 I love to muse there till it kind o' seems 
 Ez ef the world* went eddyiu' off in 
 
 dreams ; 
 The northwest wind thet twitches at my 
 
 baird 
 Blows out o' sturdier days not easy 
 
 scared, 
 An' the same moon thet this December 
 
 shines 
 
 Starts out the tents an' booths o' Put- 
 nam's lines ; 
 
 The rail-fen«e posts, acrost the hill thet 
 runs, 
 
 Turn ghosts o' sogers should'rin' ghosts 
 o' guns; 
 
 Ez wheels the sentiy, glints a flash o' 
 light. 
 
 Along the firelock won at Concord 
 , Fight, 
 
 An', 'twixt the silences, now fur, now 
 nigh. 
 
 Rings the sharp chellenge, hums the 
 low reply. 
 
 Ez I was settin' so, it wam't long sence, 
 Mixiu' the puffict with the present 
 
 tense, 
 I heerd two voices som'ers in the air. 
 Though, ef I was to die, I can't tell 
 
 where : 
 Voices I call 'em: 't was a kind o' 
 
 sough 
 Like pine-trees thet the wind 's ageth- 
 
 'rin' through ; 
 An', fact, I thought it was the wind a 
 
 spell, 
 Then some misdoubted, could n't fairly 
 
 tell, 
 Fust sure, then not, jest as you hold an 
 
 eel, 
 I knowed, an' did n't, — fin'Ily seemed 
 
 to feel 
 'T was Concord Bridge a talkin' off to 
 
 _ kill 
 With the Stone Spike thet 's druv thru 
 
 Bunker's Hill ; 
 Whether 't was so, or ef I on'y dreamed, 
 1 could n't say ; I tell it ez it seemed. 
 
 THE BRIDGE. 
 
 Wal, neighbor, tell us wut 's turned up 
 
 thet 's new ? 
 You 're younger 'n I be, — nigher Bos- 
 ton, tu: 
 An' down to Boston, ef you take their 
 
 showin', 
 Wut they don't know ain't hardly wuth 
 
 the knowin'. 
 There 's sv/nthin' goin' on, I know : las' 
 
 night 
 The British sogers killed in our gret 
 
 fight 
 (Nigh fifty year they hed n't stirred nor 
 
 spoke) 
 Made sech a coil you 'd tliought a dam 
 
 hed broke : 
 
248 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 ■Why, one he up an' beat a revellee 
 With his own crossbones on a holler 
 
 tree, 
 Till all the graveyards swarmed out like 
 
 a hive 
 With faces I hain't seen sence Seventy- 
 
 iive. 
 Wut is the news ? 'T ain't good, or 
 
 they 'd be cheerin'. 
 Speak slow an' clear, for I 'm some hard 
 
 o' hearin'. 
 
 THE MONIMENT. ' 
 
 I don't know hardly ef it 's good or 
 bad, — 
 
 THE BRIDGE. 
 
 At wust, it can't be wus than wut we 've 
 had. 
 
 THE MONIMENT. 
 
 You know them envys thet the Eebbles 
 
 sent, 
 An' Cap'n Wilkea he borried o' the 
 
 Trent? 
 
 THE BBIDGE. 
 
 Wut! they ha'n't hanged 'em? Then 
 
 their wits is gone! 
 Thet 's-the sure way to make a goose a 
 
 swan! 
 
 THE MONIMENT. 
 
 No: England she would hev 'em, Fee, 
 
 Faw, Fwml 
 (Ez though she hed n't fools enough to 
 
 home,) 
 So they 've returned 'em — 
 
 THE BRIDGE. 
 
 Hev they? Wal, by heaven, 
 Thet 's the wust news I 've heerd sence 
 
 Seventy-seven ! 
 By George, I meant to say, though I 
 
 declare 
 It 's 'most enough to make a deacon 
 
 swear. 
 
 THE MONIMENT. 
 
 Kow don't go off half-cock : folks never 
 
 gains 
 By usin' pepper-sarse instid o' brains. 
 Come, neighbor, you don't understan' — 
 
 THE BRIDGE. 
 
 How? Hey? 
 Kot understan ' ? Why, wut 's t» ben- 
 der, iiray? 
 
 Must I go huntin' round to find a chap 
 To tell me when my face hez hed a slapf 
 
 THE M'ONIMENT. 
 
 See here : the British they found out a 
 
 flaw 
 In Cap'n Wilkes's readin' o' the law : 
 (They maki. all laws, you know, an' so, 
 
 o' course. 
 It 's nateral they should understan' their 
 
 force :) 
 He 'd oughto ha' took the vessel into port. 
 An' hed her sot on by a reg'lar court j 
 She was a mail-ship, an' a steamer, tu, 
 An' thet, they say, hez changed the 
 
 pint o' view, 
 Coz the old practice, bein' meant for 
 
 sails, 
 Ef tried upon a steamer, kind o' fails ; 
 You may take out despatches, but yon 
 
 mus' n't 
 Take nary man — 
 
 THE BRIDGE. 
 
 You mean to say, you dus' n't! 
 Changed pint o' view ! No, no, — it 'a 
 
 overboard 
 With law an' gospel, when their ox is 
 
 gored ! 
 I tell ye, England's law, on sea an' land, 
 Hez oilers ben, "I've gut the hemiiest 
 
 hand." 
 Take nary man? Fine preachin' from 
 
 her lips ! 
 Why, she hez taken hunderds from our 
 
 ships. 
 An' would agin, an' swear she had a 
 
 right to, 
 Ef we wam't strong enough to be perlite 
 
 to. 
 Of all the sarse thet I can call to mind, 
 England doos make the most onpleasant 
 
 kind : 
 It 's you 're the sinner oilers, she 's the 
 
 saint ; 
 Wut 's good 's all English, all thet is n't 
 
 ain't ; 
 Wut profits her is oilers right an' just. 
 An' ef you don't read Soriptur so, you 
 
 must ; 
 She 's .praised herself ontil she fairly 
 
 thinks 
 There ain't no light in Natur when she 
 
 winks ; 
 Hain't she the Ten Comman'ments ia 
 
 her pus ? 
 
XHE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 249 
 
 Conld the world stir 'thont she went, ta, 
 
 ez nu9 'i 
 She ain't like other mortals, thet's a 
 
 fact : 
 She never stopped the habus-corpus act. 
 Nor specie payments, nor she never yet 
 Cut down tae int'rest on her public 
 
 debt; 
 She don't pnt down rebellions, lets 'em 
 
 breed. 
 An' 's oilers willin' Ireland should se- 
 cede; 
 She 's aJl thet 's honest, honnable, an' 
 
 fair, 
 An' when the vartoos died thoy made 
 
 her heir. 
 
 THE MONIMENT. 
 
 Wal, wal, two wrongs don't never make 
 
 a right ; 
 Ef we 're mistaken, own np, an' don't 
 
 fight: 
 For gracious' sake, ha'n't we enough to 
 
 dn 
 'thout gettin' up a fight with England, 
 
 tu'? 
 She thinks we 're rabble-rid — 
 
 THE BKIDGE. 
 
 An' so we can't 
 Distinguish 'twixt You ought n't an' 
 
 You sha' n'tt 
 She jedges by herself ; she 's no idear 
 How 't stiddies folks to give 'em their 
 
 fair sheer ; 
 The odds 'twixt her an' us is plain 's a 
 
 steeple, — 
 Her People 's turned to Mob, our Mob 's 
 
 turned People. 
 
 THE MONIMEKT. 
 
 She 's riled jes' now — 
 
 THE BRIDGE. 
 
 Plain proof her cause ain't strong, — 
 The one'thet fust gits mad 's 'most oilers 
 
 wrong. 
 Why, sence she helped in lickin' Nap the 
 
 Fust, 
 An' pricked a bubble jest agoin' to 
 
 bust, 
 With Eooshy, Prooshy, Austry, all as- 
 
 sistin', 
 Th' ain't nut a face but wut she 'a shook 
 
 her fist in. 
 
 Ez though she done it all, an' ten times 
 
 more, 
 An' nothin' never hed gut done afore. 
 Nor never could agin', 'thout she wuz 
 
 spliced 
 On to one eend an' gin th' old airth a 
 
 hoist. 
 She is some punkins, thet I wun't deny, 
 (For aiii't she some related to you 'n' 
 
 1?) 
 But there 's a few small intrists here 
 
 below 
 Outside the counter o' John Bull an' 
 
 Co, 
 An', though they can't conceit how 't 
 
 should be so, 
 I guess the Lord druv down Creation's 
 
 spiles 
 'thout no gret helpin' from the British 
 
 Isles, 
 An' could contrive to keep things pootj' 
 
 stiff 
 Ef they withdrawed from business in r 
 
 miff; 
 I ha' n't no patience with sech swellin' 
 
 fellers ez 
 Think God can't forge 'thout them t/ 
 
 blow the bellerses. 
 
 THE MONIMENT. 
 
 You 're oilers quick to set your Isck 
 
 aridge, 
 Though 't suits a tom-cat more 'a a 
 
 sober bridge : 
 Don't you git het : they thought the 
 
 thing was planned ; 
 They '11 cool off when they come to 
 
 understand. 
 
 THE BKIDGE. 
 
 Ef thet 's wut you expect, you '11 hev 
 to wait : 
 
 Folks never understand the folks they 
 hate : 
 
 She '11 fin' some other grievance jest ei 
 good, 
 
 'fore the month 's out, to git misunder- 
 stood. 
 
 England cool off ! She '11 do it, ef she 
 sees 
 
 She 's run her head into a swarm o^ 
 bees. 
 
 I ain't so prejudiced pz wut you spose •. 
 
 I hev thought England was the best 
 i ^het goes ; 
 
250 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPEES. 
 
 Eemember (no, you can't), when / was 
 
 reared, 
 God save the King was all the tune you 
 
 heerd : 
 But it 's enough to turn Wachuset roun' 
 This stumpin' fellers when you think 
 
 they 're down. 
 
 THE MONIMENT. 
 
 But, neighbor, ef they prove, their claim 
 
 at law. 
 The best way is to settle, an' not I'aw. 
 An' don't le' 's mutter 'bout the awfle 
 
 bricks 
 We '11 give 'em, ef we ketch 'em in a 
 
 fix : 
 That 'ere 's most frequently the kin' o' 
 
 talk 
 Of critters can't be kicked to toe the 
 
 chalk ; 
 Your "You'll see nex' time!" an' 
 
 " Look out bumby ! " 
 'Most oilers ends in eatin' umble-pie. 
 'T wun't pay to scringe to England ; 
 
 will it pay , 
 To fear that meaner bully, old "They 'U 
 
 say " ? 
 Suppose they du say : words are dreffle 
 
 bores, 
 But they ain't quite so bad ez seventy- 
 fours. 
 Wut England wants is jest a wedge to 
 
 fit 
 Where it '11 help to widen out our split ; 
 She 's found her wedge, an' 't ain't for 
 
 us to come 
 An' lend the beetle thet's to drive it 
 
 home. 
 For giowed-up folks like us 't would be 
 
 a scandle, 
 When we git sarsed, to fly right oif the 
 
 handle. 
 England ain't all bad, coz she thinks 
 
 us blind : 
 Ef she can't change her skin, she can 
 
 her mind ; 
 An' we shall see her change it double- 
 quick, 
 Soon ez we 've proved thet we 're a-goin' 
 
 to lick. 
 She an' Columby 's gut to be fas' friends : 
 For the world prospers by their privit 
 
 ends ; 
 T would put the clock back all o' fifty 
 
 years 
 Ef they should fall together by the ear* 
 
 THE BEIDGE. 
 
 I 'gree to thet ; she 's nigh us to wut 
 
 France is ; 
 But then she '11 hev to make the fust 
 
 advances ; 
 We 've gut pride, tu, an' gut it by good 
 
 rights. 
 An' ketch me stoopin' to pick up the 
 
 mites 
 0' condescension she '11 be lettin' fall 
 When she finds out we ain't dead arter 
 
 all! 
 I tell ye wut, it takes more 'n one good 
 
 week 
 Afore my nose forgits it 's hed a tweak. 
 
 THE MONIMENT. 
 
 She '11 come out right bumby, thet I '11 
 
 engage. 
 Soon ez she gits to seein' we 're of age ; 
 This talkin' down o' hers ain't wuth 
 
 a fuss ; 
 It 's nat'ral ez nut likin' 't is to us ; 
 Ef we 're agoin' to i)rove we he growed- 
 
 up, 
 'T wunt be by barkin' like a tarrier pup. 
 But tumin' to an' niakin' things ez 
 
 good 
 Ez wut we 're oilers braggin' that we 
 
 could ; 
 We 're boun' to be good friends, ah' so 
 
 we 'd oughto. 
 In spite of all the fools both sides the 
 
 water. 
 
 THE BBIDGB. 
 
 I b'lieve thet 's so ; but hearken in your 
 
 ear, — 
 I 'm older 'n you, — Peace wun't keep 
 
 house with Fear : 
 Ef you want peace, the thing you 've 
 
 gut to du 
 Is jes' to show you 're up to fightin', tu. 
 / recollect how sailors' rights was won, 
 Yard locked in yard, hot gun-lip kissin' 
 
 gun: 
 Why, afore thet, John Bull sot up thet 
 
 he 
 Hed gut a kind o' mortgage on the sea; 
 You 'd thought he held by Gran'ther 
 
 Adam's will, 
 An' ef you knuckle down, he '11 think 
 
 so still. 
 Better thet all our ships an' all their 
 
 crews 
 Should sink to rot in ocean's dreamless 
 
 ooze. 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 251 
 
 Each torn flag wavin' chellenge ez it 
 
 went, 
 An' each dumb gun a brave man's moni- 
 
 ment, 
 Than seek seoh peace ez only cowards 
 
 crave : 
 Give me the peace of dead men or of 
 
 brave ! 
 
 THE MONIMENT. 
 
 I say, ole boy, it ain't the Glorious 
 
 Fourth: 
 You 'd oughto lamed 'fore this wut talk 
 
 wuz worth. 
 It ain't our nose thet gits put out o' 
 
 jint; 
 It 's England thet gives up her dearest 
 
 pint. 
 We 've gut, I tell ye now, enough to du 
 In our own fem'ly fight, afore we 're 
 
 thru. 
 I hoped, las' spring, jest arter Sumter's 
 
 shame. 
 When every flag-staff flapped its teth- 
 ered flame, 
 An' all the people, startled from their 
 
 doubt. 
 Come must'rin' to the flag with sech a 
 
 shout, — 
 I hoped to see things settled 'fore this 
 
 fall, 
 The Kebbles licked, Jeff Davis hanged, 
 
 an' all ; 
 Then come Bull Eun, an' serice then 
 
 I 've ben waitin' ■ 
 Like boys in Jennooary thaw for skatin', 
 Kothin' to du but watch my shadder's 
 
 trace 
 Swing, like a ship at anchor, roun' my 
 
 base. 
 With daylight's flood an' ebb : it 's 
 
 gittin' slow. 
 An' I 'most think we 'd better let 'em go. 
 I tell ye wut, this war 's a-goin' to 
 
 cost — 
 
 THE BRIDGE. 
 
 An' I tell yo2i it wun't be money lost ; 
 Taxes milks dry, but, neighbor, you '11 
 
 allow 
 Thet havin' things onsettled ^iUa the 
 
 cow: 
 We 've gut to fix this thing for good an' 
 
 all; 
 It 's no use buildin' wut 's a-goin' to fall. 
 I 'm older 'n you, an' I 've seen things 
 
 an men, 
 
 An' my experunce, — tell ye wut it 'a 
 
 ben: 
 Folks thet worked thorough was the 
 
 ones thet thriv. 
 But bad work foUers ye ez long 'a ye 
 
 live; 
 You can't git red on 't ; jest ez sure ez 
 
 sin, I 
 
 It 's oilers askin' to be done agin : ' 
 
 Ef we should part, it would n't bo a 
 
 week 
 'Fore your soft-soddered peace would 
 
 spring aleak. 
 We 've turned our cuffs up, ^but, to put 
 
 her thru. 
 We must git mad an' off with jackets, 
 
 tu ; 
 'T wun't du to think thet killin' ain't 
 
 perlite, — 
 You ve gut to be in aimest, ef you 
 
 fight; 
 Why, two-thirds o' the Eebbles 'ould 
 
 cut dirt, 
 Ef they once thought thet Guv'ment 
 
 meant to hurt ; 
 An' I du wish our Gin'rals hed in mind 
 The folks in front more than the folks 
 
 behind ; 
 You wun't do much on til you think it 's 
 
 God, 
 An' not constitoounts, thet holds the 
 
 rod; 
 We want some more o' Gideon's sword, 
 
 1 jedge. 
 For proclamations ha'n't no gret of edge ; 
 There 's nothin' for a cancer but tLo 
 
 knife, 
 Onless you set by 't more than by your 
 
 life. 
 7've seen hard times ; I see a war begun 
 Thet folks thet love their bellies never 'd 
 
 won; 
 Pbaro's lean kine hung on for seven long 
 
 year; 
 But when 't was done, we did n't count 
 
 it dear. 
 Why, law an' order, honor, civil right, 
 Ef they ain't wuth it, wut is wuth a 
 
 fight? 
 I 'm older 'n you: the plough, the axe, 
 
 the mill. 
 All kin's o' lab^Pian' aU kin's o' skill. 
 Would be a rabblft in a wile-cat's claw, 
 Ef 't wam't for thet slow critter, 'stab- 
 
 lislied law ; 
 Onsettle thet, an' all the world goes 
 
 whiz, 
 
252 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 A screw 's gut loose in everythin' there 
 is: 
 
 Good buttresses once settled, don't you 
 fret 
 
 An' stir 'em; take a bridge's word for 
 thet! 
 
 Young folks are smart, but all ain't good 
 thet 's new ; 
 
 I guess the grau'thers they knowed sun- 
 thin', tu. 
 
 THE MONIMENT. 
 
 Amen to thet ! build sure in the begin- 
 
 nin': 
 An' then don't never tech the underpin- 
 
 nin': 
 Th' older a guv'ment is, the better 't 
 
 suits ; 
 Kew ones hunt folks's corns out like new 
 
 boots : 
 Change jes' for change, is like them big 
 
 hotels 
 Where they shift plates, an' let ye live 
 
 on smells. 
 
 THE BRIDGE. 
 
 Wal, don't give up afore the ship goes 
 
 down : 
 It 's a stiif gale, but Providence wun't 
 
 drown ; 
 An' God wun't leave us yit to sink or 
 
 swim, 
 Ef we don't fail to du wut's right by 
 
 Him. 
 This land o' oum, I tell ye, *s gut to be 
 A better country than man ever see. 
 I feel my speiit swellin' with a cry 
 Thet seems to say, "Break forth an' 
 
 prophesy ! " 
 O strange Hew World, thet yit wast 
 
 never young. 
 Whose youth from thee by gripin' need 
 
 was wrung, 
 Brown foundlin' o' the woods, whose 
 
 baby-bed 
 Was prowled roun' by the Injun's crack- 
 
 lln' tread, 
 An' who grew'st strong thru shifts an' 
 
 wants an' pains, 
 Nussed by stern men with empires in 
 
 their brains, 
 Who saw in vision their young Ishmel 
 
 strain 
 With each hard hand a vassal ocean's 
 
 mane, 
 Thou, skilled by Freedom an' by gret 
 
 events 
 
 To pitch new States ez Old- World men 
 
 pitch tents, 
 Thou, taught by Fate to know Jehovah's 
 
 plan 
 Thet man's devices can't unmake a man. 
 An' whose free latch-string never was 
 
 drawed in 
 Against the poorest child of Adam's 
 
 kin, — 
 The grave 's not dug where traitor 
 
 hands shall lay 
 In fearful haste thy murdered corse 
 
 away ! 
 I see — 
 
 Jest here some dogs begun to bark, 
 So thet I lost old Concord's last remark : 
 I listened long, but all I seemed to hear 
 Was dead leaves gossipin' on some birch- 
 trees near ; 
 But ez they hedn't no gret things to 
 
 An' sed 'era often, I come right away. 
 An', walkin' home'ards, jest to pass the 
 
 time, 
 I put some thoughts thet bothered me 
 
 in rhyme ; 
 I hain't hed time to faii'ly try 'em on, 
 But here they be — it 's 
 
 JONATHAN TO JOHN. 
 
 It don't seem hardly right, John, 
 When both my hands was full, 
 To stump me to a fight, John, — 
 Your cousin, tu, John Bull ! 
 Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess 
 We know it now," sez he, 
 " The lion's paw is all the law, 
 Acoordin' to J. B., 
 Thet 's fit for you an' me 1 " 
 
 You wonder why we 're hot, John t 
 
 Your mark wuz on the guns. 
 The neutral guns, thet shot, John, 
 Our brothers an' our sons : 
 Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess 
 There 's human blood," sez he, 
 "By fits an' starts, in Yankee hearts. 
 Though 't may surprise J. B. 
 More 'n it would you an' me." 
 
 Ef I turned mad dogs loose, John, 
 On your front-parlor stairs, 
 
 Would it jest meet your views, JohBj 
 To wait au' sue their heiis ! 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 253 
 
 Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, 
 1 on'y guess," sez he, 
 " Thet ef Vattel on his toes fell, 
 'T would kind o' rile J. B., 
 Ez wal ez you an' me 1 " 
 
 Who made the law thet hurts, John, 
 
 Heads I vnn, — ditto tails ? 
 " J. B." was on his shirts, John, 
 Onless my memory fails, 
 Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess 
 (I 'm good at thet)," sez he, 
 "Thet sauce for goose ain't jest the 
 juice 
 For ganders with J. B., 
 No more 'n with you or me !" 
 
 When your rights was our wrongs, 
 John, 
 You did n't stop for fuss, — 
 Britanny's trident prongs, John, 
 Was good 'nough law for us. 
 Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess. 
 Though physic 's good," sez he, 
 " It does n't foller thet he can swaller 
 Prescriptions signed 'J. B.,' 
 Put up hy you an' me ! " 
 
 We own the ocean, tu, John : 
 
 You mus' n' take it hard, 
 Ef we can't think with you, John. 
 
 It 's jest your own hack-yard. 
 Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, 
 
 Ef tkei 's his claim," sez he, 
 " The fencin'-stuff '11 cost enough 
 To hust up friend J. B., 
 Ez wal ez you an' me ! " 
 
 Why talk so drefSe hig, John, 
 
 Of honor when it meant 
 You did u't care a fig, John, 
 But jest for teti, per cent ! 
 Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess 
 He 's like the rest," sez he : 
 " When all is done, it 's number one 
 Thet 's nearest to J. B., 
 Ez wal ez t' you an' me ! " 
 
 We give the critters back, John, 
 
 Cos Abram thought 't was right ; 
 It wam't your bullyin' clack, John, 
 Provokiu' us to fight. 
 
 Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess 
 We 've a hard row," sez he, 
 " To hoe jest now ; but thet somehow, 
 May "happen to J. B., 
 Ez wal ez you an' me I " 
 
 We ain't so weak an' poor, John, 
 
 With twenty million people. 
 An' close to every door, John, 
 A school-house an' a steeple. 
 Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess. 
 It is a fact," sez he, 
 "The surest plan to make a Man 
 Is, think him so, J. B., 
 Ez much ez you or me I " 
 
 Our folks believe in Law, John ; 
 
 An' it 's for her sake, now. 
 They 've left the axe an' saw, John, 
 The amvU an' the plough. 
 
 Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, 
 Ef 't warnt for law," sez he, 
 " There 'd be one shindy from here to 
 Indy; 
 An' thet don't suit J. B. 
 (When 't ain't 'twixt you an' me I ) " 
 
 We know we 've got a cause, John, 
 
 Thet 's honest, just, an' true ; 
 We thought 't would win applause, John, 
 Ef nowheres else, from you. 
 Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess 
 His love of right," sez he, 
 "Hangs by a rotten fibre o' cotton : 
 There 's natur' in J. B., 
 Ez wal 'z in you an' me ! " 
 
 The South says, "Poor folks dovml' 
 John, 
 An' "All men up I " say we, — 
 White, yaller, black, an' brown, John : 
 Now which is your idee ? 
 Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, 
 John preaches wal," sez he ; 
 " But, sermon thru, an' come to du. 
 Why, there 's the old J. B. 
 A crowdin' you an' me ! " 
 
 Shall it be love, or hate, John ? 
 
 It 's you thet 's to decide ; 
 Ain 't yo/wr bonds held by Fate, John, 
 Like all the world's beside ? 
 Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess 
 Wise men forgive," sez he, 
 " But not forgit ; an' some time yit 
 Thet truth may strike J. B., 
 Ez wal ez you an' me ! " 
 
 God means to make this land, John, 
 
 Clear thru, from sea to sea. 
 Believe an' understand, John, 
 
 The wuth o' bein' free. 
 
254 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I giiess, 
 God's price is high," sez he ; 
 " But nothia' else than wnt He sella 
 Wears long, an' thet J. B. 
 May lam, like you an' me ! " 
 
 No. III. 
 
 BIRDOPREDUM SAWIK, ESQ., TO 
 MR. HOSEA BIGLOW. 
 
 With the following Letter frmn the Rbv- 
 
 EKEND HOMEK WiLBUB, A. M. 
 
 TO THE EDITORS OP THE ATLANTIC 
 MONTHLY. 
 
 Jaalam, 7th Feb., 1862. 
 Respected Friends, — If I know my- 
 self, — and surely a man can hardly be 
 supposed to have overpassed the limit of 
 fourscore years without attaining to some 
 proficiency in that most useful oranch of 
 learning (e ccelo descendit, says the pagan 
 poet), — I have no great smack of that 
 •weakness which would press upon the pub- 
 lick attention any matter pertaining to my 
 private afifairs. But since the following 
 letter of Mr. Sawin contains not only a di- 
 rect allusion to myself, but that in connec- 
 tion with a topick of interest to all those 
 engaged in the publick ministrations of the 
 sanctuary, I may be pardoned for touching 
 briefly thereupon. Mr. Sawin was never 
 a stated attendant xipon my preaching, — 
 never, as I believe, even an occasional one, 
 since the erection of the new house (where 
 we now worehip) in 1845. He did, indeed, 
 for a time, s ipply a not un<icceptable bass 
 in the choir; but, whether on some um- 
 brage (omnibus hoc vitium est ca/ntorihis) 
 taken against the bass-viol, then, and till 
 his decease in 1850(os<. 77,) under the charge 
 of Mr. Asaph Perley, or, as was reported 
 by others, on account of an imminent sub- 
 scription for a new bpU, he thenceforth ab- 
 sented himself from all outward and visible 
 communion. Yet he seems to have pre- 
 served (altll mente reposttim), as it were, 
 in the pickle of a mind soured by prejudice, 
 a lasting scunner, as he would call it, 
 against our staid and decent form of wor- 
 ship ; for I would rather in that wise in- 
 terpret his fling, than suppose that any 
 chance tares sown by my pulpit discourses 
 should survive so long, while good seed too 
 often fails to root itself. I humbly trust 
 that I have no personal feeling in the mat- 
 ter ; though I know that, if we soimd any 
 
 man deep enough, our lead shall bring up 
 the mud of human nature at last. The 
 Bretons believe in an evil spirit which they 
 call or chmi^kezik, whose ofBce it is to 
 make the congregation drowsy ; and though 
 I have never had reason to think that he 
 was specially busy among my ilock, yet 
 have I seen enough to make me sometimes 
 regret th^e hinged seats of the ancient meet- 
 ing-house, whose lively clatter, not unwill- 
 ingly intensified by boys beyond eyeshot 
 of the tithing-man, served at intervals as a 
 wholesome rlveil. It is true, I have num- 
 bered among my parishioners some who are 
 proof against the prophylactickfennel, nay, 
 whose gift of somnolence rivalled that of 
 the Cretan Rip Van Winkle, Epimenides, 
 and who, nevertheless, complained not so 
 much of the substance as of the length of 
 my (by them unheard) discourses. Soma 
 ingenious persons of a philosophick tur» 
 have assured us that our pulpits were set 
 too high, and that the soporifick tendency 
 increased with the ratio of the angle in 
 which the hearer's eye was constrained to 
 seek the preacher. This were a curious 
 topick for investigation. There can be no 
 doubt that some sermons are pitched too 
 high, and I remember many struggles with 
 the drowsy fiend in my youth. Happy 
 Saint Anthony of Padua, whose finny aco- 
 lytes, however they might profit, could 
 never murmur ! Qua/re frermieruMt gentes i 
 Who is he that can twice a week be in. 
 spired, or has eloquence (ut ita dicam] 
 always on tap? A good man, and, nezj 
 to David, a sacred poet (himself, haply, 
 not inexpert of evil in this particular.), 
 has said, — 
 
 " The worst speak something good : if all waul 
 sense, 
 God takes a text and preacbeth patience." 
 
 There are one or two other points in Mr, 
 Sawin's letter which I would also briefly 
 animadvert upon. And first, concerning 
 the claim he sets up to a certain superiori- 
 ty of blood and lineage in the people of oui 
 Southern States, now unhappily in rebel- 
 lion against lawful authority and their own 
 better interests. There is a sort of opin- 
 ions, anachronisms at once and anachor- 
 isms, foreign both to the age and the coun- 
 try, that maintain a feeble and buzzing 
 existence, scarce to be called life, like win- 
 ter flies, which in mild weather crawl out 
 from obscnre nooks and crannies to expati- 
 ate in the sun, and sometimes acquire vigor 
 enough to disturb with their enforced fa- 
 miliarity the studious hours of the scholar. 
 One of the most stupid and pertinacious 
 of these is the theory that the Southern 
 States were settled by a class of emigrantu 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 255 
 
 from the Old World socially superior to 
 those who founded the institutions of New 
 England. The Virginians especially lay 
 claim to this generosity of lineage, which 
 were of no possible account, were it not 
 for the fact that such superstitions are 
 sometimes not without their effect on the 
 course of human affairs. The early adven- 
 turers to Massachusetts at least paid their 
 passages ; no felons were ever shipped 
 thither ; and though it be true that many 
 deboshed younger brothers of what are 
 called good families may have sought ref- 
 uge in Virginia, it is equally certain that a 
 great part of the early deportations thither 
 were the sweepings of the Loudon streets 
 and the leavings of the London stews. It 
 was this my Lord Bacon had in mind when 
 he wrote : " It is a shameful and unblessed 
 thing to take the scum of people and wicked 
 condemned men to be the people with whom 
 you plant." That certain names are found 
 there is nothing to the purpose, for, even 
 had an alias been beyond the invention of 
 the knaves of that generation, it is known 
 that servants were often called by their 
 masters' names, as slaves are now. On 
 what the heralds call the spindle side, some, 
 at least, of the oldest Virginian families 
 are descended from matrons who were ex- 
 ported and sold for so many hogsheads of 
 tobacco the head. So notorious was this, 
 that it became one of the jokes of contem- 
 porary playwrights, not only that men 
 bankrupt in purse and character were ' ' food 
 for the Plantations" (and this before the 
 settlement of New England), but also that 
 any drab would suffice to wive such pitiful 
 adventurers. " Never choose a wife as if 
 you were going to Virginia," says Middle- 
 ton in one of his comedies. The mule is 
 apt to forget all but the equine side of his 
 pedigree. How early the counterfeit no- 
 bility of the Old Dominion became a topick 
 of ridicule in the Mother Country may be 
 learned from a play of Mrs. Behn's, found- 
 ed on the Rebellion of Bacon : for even 
 these kennels of literature may yield a fact 
 or two to pay the raking. Mrs. Flirt, the 
 keeper of a Virginia ordinary, calls herself 
 the daughter of a baronet "undone in the 
 late rebellion," — her father having in truth 
 teen a tailor, — and three of the Council, 
 ^suming to themselves an equal splendor 
 of origin, are shown to have been, one " a 
 t)roken exciseman who came over a poor 
 servant," another a tinker transported for 
 theft, and the third "a common pick- 
 pocket often flogged at the cart's tail." 
 The ancestry of South Carolina will as lit- 
 tle pass muster at the Herald's Visitation, 
 though I hold them to have been more rep- 
 Btable, inasmuch as many of them were 
 
 honest tradesmen and artisans, in some 
 measure exiles for conscience' sake, whq 
 would have smiled at the high-flying non- 
 sense of their descendants. Some of the 
 more respectable were Jews. The absurd, 
 ity of supposing a population of eight mil- 
 lions all sprung from gentle loins in the 
 course of a century and a half is too mani- 
 fest for confutation. But of what use to 
 discuss the matter ? An expert genealogist 
 will provide any solvent man with a genus 
 et proavos to order. My Lord Burleigh 
 used to say, with Aristotle and the Emperor 
 Frederick II. to back him, that" nobility was 
 ancient riches," whence also the Spanish 
 were wont to call their nobles ricos homhreSj 
 and the aristocracy of America are the de- 
 scendants of those who first became wealthy, 
 by whatever means. Petroleum will in this 
 wise be the source of much good blood among 
 our posterity. The aristocracy of the 
 South, such as it is, has the shallowest of 
 all foundations, for it is only skin-deep, — 
 the most odious of all, for, while affecting 
 to despise trade, it traces its origin to a 
 successful trafBck in men, women, and 
 children, and still draws its chief revenues 
 thence. And though, as Doctor Chamber- 
 layne consolingly says in his Present State 
 of England, "to become a Merchant of 
 Foreign Commerce, without serving any 
 Apprentisage, hath been allowed no dis- 
 paragement to a Gentleman bom, especial- 
 ly to a younger Brother," yet I conceive 
 that he would hardly have made a like ex- 
 ception in favour of the particular trade in 
 question. Oddly enough this trade reverses 
 tne ordinary standards of .social respecta- 
 bility no less than of morals, for the retail 
 and domestick is as creditable as the whole- 
 sale and foreign is degrading to him who 
 follows it. Are our morals, then, no better 
 than Tnores after all ? I do not believe that 
 such aristocracy as exists at the South (for 
 I hold with Marius, fortissimum quevique 
 generosissiTmcm) will be found an element 
 of anything like persistent strength in war, 
 — thinltmg the saying of Lord Bacon (whom 
 one quaintly called inductionis dominus et 
 Vendamii) as true as it is pithy, that "tlie 
 more gentlemen, ever the lower books of 
 subsidies. " It is odd enough as an histori- 
 cal precedent, that, while the fathers of 
 New England were laying deep hi religion, 
 education, and freedom the basis of a pol- 
 ity which has substantially outlasted any 
 then existing, the first M'ork of the founders 
 of Virginia, as may be seen in Wingfield's 
 Memorial, was conspiracy and rebellion, 
 — odder yet, as showing the changes which 
 are wrought by circumstance, that the first 
 insurrection in South Carolina was against 
 the aristocratical scheme of the Proprietary 
 
256 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 Government. I do not finfi that the outio- 
 ular aristocracy of the South has added 
 anything to the refinemsnts of civilization 
 except the carrying of bowie-knives and the 
 chewing of tobacco, — a high-toned South- 
 em gentleman being commonly not only 
 guawrumanous but quidruminant. 
 
 I confess that the present letter of Mr. 
 Sawin increases my donbts as to the sin- 
 cerity of the convictions which he pro- 
 fesses, and I am inclined to think that the 
 triumph of the legitimate Government, 
 sure sooner or later to take place, will find 
 him and a large majority of his newly 
 lidopted fellow-citizens (who hold with 
 Daedalus, the primal sitter-on-the-fence, 
 that medium tenere tntissimttm) original 
 Union men. The criticisms towards the 
 close of his letter on certain of our failings 
 sre worthy to be seriously perpended ; for 
 he is not, as I think, without a spice of 
 vulgar shrewdness. Pas est et cw hoste 
 doceri : there is no reckoning without your 
 host. As to the good-nature in us which 
 he seems to gird at, while I would not con- 
 Eeorate a chapel, as they have not scrupled 
 to do in France, to N6tre Da/me ae la 
 Baine (Our Lady of Hate), yet I cannot 
 forget that the corruption of good-nature 
 is the generation of laxity of principle. 
 Good-nature isournationalcharacteristick ; 
 and though it be, perhaps, nothing more 
 than a culpable weakness or cowardice, 
 when it leads us to put up tamely with 
 manifold impositions and breaches of im- 
 plied contracts, (as too frequently in our 
 publick conveyances,) it becomes a positive 
 crime, when it leads us to look unresent- 
 fuUy on peculation, and to regard treason 
 to the best Government that ever existed 
 as something with which a gentleman may 
 shake hands without soiling his fingers. 
 I do not think the gallows-tree the most 
 profitable member of our Sylva ; but, since 
 it continues to be planted, I would fain 
 see a Northern limb ingrafted on it, that it 
 may bear some other fruit than loyal Teu- 
 nesseeans. 
 
 A relick has recently been discovered on 
 the east bank of Bushy Brook in North 
 Jaalam, which I conceive to be an inscrip- 
 tion in Bunick characters relating to the 
 early expedition of the Northmen to this 
 continent. I shall make fuller investiga- 
 tions, and communicate the result iu due 
 season. 
 
 Bespectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 EoMEB Wilbur, A. M. 
 
 P. S. — I inclose a year's subscription 
 Vom Deacon Tinkham. 
 
 I HED it on my min' las' time, when I 
 
 to write ye started. 
 To tech the leadin' featurs o' my gittin' 
 
 me convarted ; 
 But, ez my letters hez to go cleam roun* 
 
 by way o' Cuby, 
 'T wun't seem no staler now than then, 
 
 by th' time it gits where you be. 
 You know up North, though sees ari 
 
 things air plenty ez you please, 
 Ther' wam't nut one on 'em thet come 
 
 jes' square with my idees : 
 They all on 'em wuz too much mixed 
 
 with Covenants o' Works, 
 An' would hev answered jest ez wal for 
 
 Afrikins an' Turks, 
 Fer where 's a Christian's privilege an' 
 
 his rewards ensuin', 
 Ef 't am' t perfessin' right an eend 
 
 'thout nary need o' doin' ? 
 I dessay they suit workin' -folks thet 
 
 ain't noways pertio'lar, 
 But nut your Southun gen'leman thet 
 
 keeps his parpendic'lar ; 
 I don't blame nary man thet casts his 
 
 lot along o' his folks, 
 But ef you cal'late to save me, 't must 
 
 be with folks thet is folks ; 
 CoVnants o' works go 'giust my grain, 
 
 but down here I 've found out 
 The true fus'-fem'ly A 1 plan, — here 'g 
 
 how it come about. 
 When I fus' sot up with Miss S., sez she 
 
 to me, sez she, 
 "Without you git religion, Sir, the 
 
 thing can't never be; 
 Nut but wut I respeck," sez she, " youi 
 
 intellectle part. 
 But you wun't noways du for me athout 
 
 a change o' heart : 
 Nothun religion works wal North, but 
 
 it 's ez soft ez spmoe, 
 Compared to ourn, for keepin' sound," 
 
 sez she, " upon the goose ; 
 A day's experunce 'd prove to ye, ez 
 
 easy 'z pull a trigger. 
 It takes the Southun pint o' view to 
 
 raise ten bales a nigger ; 
 You '11 fin' thet human natur'. South, 
 
 ain't wholesome more 'n skin-deep. 
 An' once 't a darkie 's took with it, he 
 
 wun't be wuth his keep." 
 " How shell I git it, Ma'am ? " sez I. 
 
 "Attend the nex' camp-meetin'," 
 Sez she, "an' it '11 come to ye ez chea; 
 
 ez onbleached sheetin'." 
 
THE BIGI.OW PAPERS. 
 
 25T 
 
 \^al, so I went along an' hearn most iiii 
 
 impressive sa^'mon 
 About besprinklin' Afrikynith fourth- 
 proof dew o' Harmon : 
 He did n't put no weakuin' in, but gin it 
 
 tu us not, 
 'Z ef he an' Satan 'd ben two bulls in 
 
 one five-acre lot : 
 1 don't purtend to foUer him, but give 
 
 ye jes' the heads ; 
 For pulpit ellerkence, you know, 'most 
 
 oilers kin' o' spreads. 
 Ham's seed wuz gin to us in chairge, an' 
 
 should n't we be li'ble 
 In Kingdom Come, ef we kep' back 
 
 their priv'lege in the Bible? 
 The cusses an' the promerses make one 
 
 gret chain, an' ef 
 You snake one link out here, one there, 
 
 how much on 't ud be lef ? 
 All things wuz gin to man for 's use, his 
 
 sarvice, an' delight ; 
 Ah' don't the Greek an' Hebrew words 
 
 thet mean a Man mean White ? 
 Ain't it belittlin' the Good Book in all 
 
 its proudes' featurs 
 To think 't wuz wrote for black an' 
 
 brown an' 'lasses-colored creaturs, 
 Thet could n' read it, ef they would, 
 
 nor ain't by lor allowed to. 
 But ough' to take wut we think suits 
 
 their naturs, an' be proud to 1 
 'Wam'-t it more prof table to bring your 
 
 raw materil thru 
 Where you can work it inta grace an' 
 
 inta cotton, tu, 
 Than sendin' missionaries out where 
 
 fevers might defeat 'em. 
 An' ef the butcher did n' call, their 
 
 p'rishioners might eat 'em? 
 An' then, agin, wut airthly use ? Nor 
 
 'twam't our fault, in so fur 
 Ez Yankee skippers would keep on a- 
 
 totin' on 'em over. 
 'T improved the whites by savin' 'em 
 
 from ary need o' wurkin'. 
 An' kep' the blacks from bein' lust thru 
 
 idleness an' shirkin' ; 
 We took to 'em ez nat'ral ez a barn-owl 
 
 doos to mice. 
 An' hed our hull time on our hands to 
 
 keep us out o' vice ; 
 It made us feel ez pop'lar ez a hen doos 
 
 with one chicken, 
 An' fill our place in Ifatur's scale by 
 
 glviu' 'em a lickin' : 
 
 For why should Csesar git his dues 
 
 more 'n Juno, Pomp, an' CufTy ? 
 It's justify in' Ham to spare a nigger 
 
 when he's stuffy. 
 Where 'd their soles go tu, like to knoW( 
 
 ef we should let 'em ketch 
 Freeknowledgism an' Fourierism as' 
 
 Speritoolism an' sech ? 
 When Satan sets himself to work to 
 
 raise liis very bes' muss. 
 He scatters roun' onscriptur'l views re- 
 latin' to Ones'mus. 
 You 'd ough' to seen, though, how his 
 
 facs an' argymunce an' figgers 
 Drawed tears o' real conviction from a 
 
 lot o' pen'tent niggers ! 
 It warn't like Wilbur's meetin', where 
 
 you 're shet up in a pew. 
 Your dickeys sorrin' off your ears, an* 
 
 bilin' to be thru ; 
 Ther' wuz a tent clost by thet hed a kag 
 
 o' sunthin' in it. 
 Where you could go, ef you wuz dry, 
 
 an' damp ye in a minute ; 
 An' ef you did dror off a spell, ther' 
 
 wuz n't no occasion 
 To lose the thread, because, ye see, he 
 
 bellered like all Bashan. 
 It 's dry work follerin' argymunce an' 
 
 so, 'twix' this an' thet, 
 I felt conviction weighin' down somehow 
 
 inside my hat ; 
 It growed an' growed like Jonah's gourd, 
 
 a kin' o' whirlin' ketched me, 
 Ontil I fin'lly clean gin out an' owned 
 
 up thet hed' fetched me ; 
 An' when nine tenths o' th' perrish 
 
 took to tumblin' roun' an' hoilerin', 
 I did n' fin' no gret in th' way o' turnin' 
 
 tu an' follerin*. 
 Soon ez Miss S. see thet, sez she, 
 
 " Thet 's wut I call wuth seein' ! 
 Thet 's actin' like a reas'nable an' in- 
 
 tellectle bein' ! " 
 An' so we fin'lly made it up, concluded 
 
 to hitch bosses, 
 An' here I be 'n my ellermunt among 
 
 creation's bosses ; 
 Arter I 'd drawed sech heaps o' blanks, 
 
 Fortin at last hez sent a prize. 
 An' chose me for a shinin' light o' mis- 
 sionary entaprise. 
 
 This leads me to another pint on which 
 
 I 've changed my plan 
 0' thinkin' so 's 't I might become a 
 
 straight-out Southun man. 
 
258 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 Miss S. (her maiden name wuz Higga, o' 
 
 the fus' fem'ly here) 
 On her Ma's side 's all Juggemot, on 
 
 Pa's all Cavileer, 
 An' sence I 've merried into her an' 
 
 stept into her shoes, 
 It ain't more'n nateral thet I should 
 
 modderfy my views : 
 I 've ben a-readin' in Debow ontil I 've 
 
 fairly gut 
 So 'nlightened thet I 'd full ez lives 
 
 hi? ben a Dook ez nut ; 
 An' when we 've laid ye all out stiff, an' 
 
 Jeff hez gut his crown. 
 An' comes to pick his nobles out, wwn't 
 
 this child be in town ! 
 "We'll hev an Age o' Chiwerlry sur- 
 
 passin' Mister Burke's, 
 "Where every fem'ly is fus'-best an' nary 
 
 white man works : 
 Our system 's seoh, the thing '11 root ez 
 
 easy ez a tater ; 
 For while your lords in furrin parts 
 
 ain't noways marked by natu'r'. 
 Nor sot apart from ornery folks in fea- 
 
 turs nor in figgers, 
 Ef ourn '11 keep their faces washed, you '11 
 
 know 'em from their niggers. 
 Ain't sech things wuth secedin' for, an' 
 
 gittin' red o' you 
 Thet waller in your low idees, an' will 
 
 tell all is blue? 
 Fact is, we air a diffrent race, an' I, 
 
 for one, don't see, 
 Sech havin' oilers ben the case, how 
 
 w' ever did agree. 
 It 's sunthin' thet you lab'rin'-folks up 
 
 North hed ough' to think on, 
 Thet Higgses can't bemean themselves 
 
 to rulin' by a Lincoln, — 
 Thet men, (an' guv'nors, tu,) thet hez 
 
 sech Normal names ez Pickens, 
 Accustomed to no kin' o' work, 'thout 
 
 't is to givin' lickins, 
 Can't masure votes with folks thet get 
 
 their livins from their farms. 
 An' prob'ly think thet Law 's ez good ez 
 
 hevin' coats o' arms. 
 Sence I 've ben here, I 've hired a chap 
 
 to look about for me 
 To git me a transplantable an' thrifty 
 
 fem'ly-tree. 
 An' he tells tm the Sawins is ez much 
 
 o' Normal blood 
 Ez Pickens an' the rest on 'em, an' older 
 , 'n Noah's flood. 
 
 Your Normal schools wun't turn y* 
 
 into Normals, for it 's clear, 
 Ef eddykatin' done the thing, they 'd 
 
 be some skurcer here. 
 Pickenses, Boggses, Pettuses, Magof- 
 
 fins, Letchers, Polks, — 
 Where can you scare up names like 
 
 them among your mudsill folks ? 
 Ther's nothin' to compare with em', 
 
 you 'd fin', ef you should glance. 
 Among the tip-top femerlies in Englan', 
 
 nor in France : 
 I 've heam from 'sponsible men whose 
 
 word wuz full ez good 's their note, 
 Men thet can run their face for drinks, 
 
 an' keep a Sunday coat. 
 That they wuz all on 'em come down, 
 
 an' come down pooty fur. 
 From folks thet, 'thout their crowns wuz 
 
 on, ou' doors would n' never stir. 
 Nor thet ther' wam't a Southun man 
 
 but wut wuz primyfashy 
 0' the bes' blood in Europe, yis, an' 
 
 Afriky an' Ashy : 
 Sech bein' the case, is 't likely we should 
 
 bend like cotton wickin'. 
 Or set down under anythin' so low-lived 
 
 ez a lickin' ? 
 More 'n this, — hain't we the literatoor 
 
 an science, tu, by gony ? 
 Hain't we them intellectle twins, them 
 
 giants, Simms an' Maury, 
 Each with full twice the ushle brains, 
 
 like nothin' thet I know, 
 'thout 't wuz a double-headed calf I see 
 
 once to a show ? 
 
 For all thet, I wam't jest at fust in favor 
 
 o' secedin' ; 
 I wuz for layin' low a spell to find out 
 
 where 't wuz leadin', 
 For hevin' South-Carliny try her hand 
 
 at seprituationin', 
 She takin resks an' findin' funds, an' 
 
 we oo-operationin', — 
 I mean a kin' o' hangin' roun' an' set- 
 tin' on the fence, 
 TiU Prov' dunce pinted how to jump an' 
 
 save the most expense ; 
 I recollected thet 'ere mine o' lead to 
 
 Shiraz Centre 
 Thet bust up Jabez Pettibone, an' didn't 
 
 want to ventur' 
 'Fore I wuz sartin wut come out ud pay 
 
 for wut went in. 
 For swappin' silver off for lead ain't tht 
 
 sure way to win ; 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 259 
 
 (An', fact, it doos look now ez tliongh — 
 
 but folks must live an' laru — 
 We should git lead, an' more 'n we 
 
 want, out o' the Old Consara ; 
 But when I see a man so wise an' honest 
 
 ez Buchanan 
 A-lettin' us hev all the forts an' all the 
 
 arms an' cannon, 
 Admittin' we wuz nat'lly right an' you 
 
 wuz nat'lly wrong, 
 Coz you wuz lab'rin' -folks an' we wuz 
 
 wut they call bong-iong, 
 An' coz there warn't no fight in ye 
 
 more 'n in a mashed potater. 
 While two o' its can't skurcely meet but 
 
 wut we fight by natur', 
 An' th' ain't a bar-room here would pay 
 
 for openin' on 't a night. 
 Without it giv the priverlege o' bein' 
 
 shot at sight. 
 Which proves we 're Natur's noblemen, 
 
 with whom it don't surprise 
 The British aristoxy should feel boun' 
 
 to sympathize, — 
 Seein' aU this, an' seein', tu, the thing 
 
 wuz strikin' roots 
 While Uncle Sam sot still in hopes thet 
 
 some one 'd bring his boots, 
 I thought th' ole Union's hoops wuz off, 
 
 an' let myself be sucked in 
 To rise a peg an' jine the crowd thet 
 
 went for reconstractin', — 
 Thet is to hev the pardnership under 
 
 th' ole name continner 
 Jest ez it wuz, we drorrin' pay, you 
 
 findin' bone an' sinner, — 
 On'y to put it in the bond, an' enter 't 
 
 in the journals, 
 Thet you 're the nat'ral rank an' file, 
 
 an' we the nat'ral kumels. 
 
 Now this I thought a fees'ble plan, thet 
 
 'ud work smooth ez grease, 
 Suitin' the Nineteenth Century an' 
 
 Upper Ten idees. 
 An' there I meant to stick, an' so did 
 
 most o' th' leaders, tu, 
 Coz we all thought the chance wuz good 
 
 o' puttin' on it thru ; 
 But Jeff he hit upon a way o' helpin' on 
 
 us forrard 
 By bein' unannermous, — a trick you 
 
 ain't quite up to, Norrard. 
 A Baldin hain't no more 'f a chance 
 
 with them new apple-corers 
 J^en folks's oppersition views aginst 
 ' the Ringtail lioarera ; 
 
 They '11 take 'em out on him 'bout east, 
 
 — one canter on a rail 
 Makes a man feel unannermous ez Jonah 
 
 in the whale ; 
 Or ef he's a slow-moulded cuss thet 
 
 can't seem quite t' 'gree, 
 He gits the noose by tellergraph upou 
 
 the nighes' tree : 
 Their mission-work with Afrikins he» 
 
 put 'em up, thet 's sartia. 
 To all the mos' across-lot ways o' 
 
 preachin' an' convartin' ; 
 I '11 bet my hat th' ain't nary priest, 
 
 nor all on em together, 
 Thet cairs conviction to the min' like 
 
 Keveren' Taran feather ; 
 Why, he sot up with me one night, an' 
 
 labored to sech purpose, 
 Thet (ez an owl by daylight 'mongst u 
 
 flock o' teazin' chirpers 
 Sees clearer 'n mud the wickedness c' 
 
 eatin' little birds) 
 I see my error an' agreed to shen i 
 
 arterwurds ; 
 An' 1 should say, (to jedge our folks bj 
 
 facs in my possession,) 
 Thet three 's Unannermous where one 's 
 
 a 'Eiginal Secession ; 
 So it 's a thing you fellers I( orth may 
 
 safely bet your chink on, 
 Thet we 're all water-proofed agin th' 
 
 nsurpin' teign o' Lincoln. 
 
 Jeff's S07M. He's gut another plan 
 
 thet hez pertic'lar merits, 
 In givin' things a oheerfle look an' stiff- 
 
 nin' loose-hung sperits ; 
 For while your million papers, wut with 
 
 lyin' an' discussin', 
 Keep folks's tempers all on eend a-fum- 
 
 in' an a-fussin', 
 A-wondrin' this an' guessin' thet, an' 
 
 dreadin' every night 
 The breechin' o' the Univarse '11 break 
 
 afore it 's light, 
 Our papers don't purtend to print on'y 
 
 wut Guv'ment choose. 
 An' thet insures us all to git the very 
 
 best o' noose : 
 Jeff hez it of all sorts an' kines, an' 
 
 sarves it out ez wanted. 
 So 's 't every man gits wut he likes an' 
 
 nobody ain't scanted ; 
 Sometimes it 's vict'ries (they 're 'bout 
 
 all ther' is that 's cheap down here,) 
 Sometimes it 's France an England tn 
 
 the jump to interfere. 
 
260 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPEKS. 
 
 Fact 13, the less the people know o' wut 
 
 ther' is a-doin', 
 The hendier 't is for Gnv'ment, sence it 
 
 henders trouble brewin' ; 
 An' nooze is like a shinplaster, — it 's 
 
 good, ef you believe it. 
 Or, wut 's all same, the other man thet 's 
 
 goin' to receive it : ' 
 Ef you 've a son in th' army, wy, it 's 
 
 comfortin' to hear 
 He '11 hev no gretter resk to run than 
 
 seein' th' in'my's rear, 
 Coz, ef an F. F. looks at 'em, they 
 
 oilers break an' run. 
 Or wilt right down ez debtors will thet 
 
 stumble on a dun, 
 (An' this, ef an'thin', proves thewuth o' 
 
 proper fem'ly pride. 
 Far sech mean shucks ez creditors are 
 
 all on Lincoln's side) ; 
 Ef I hev scrip thet wun't go off no 
 
 more 'n a Belgin rifle. 
 An' read thet it 's at par on 'Change, it 
 
 makes me feel deli'fle ; 
 It 's cheerin', tu, where every man mus' 
 
 fortify his bed, 
 To hear thet Freedoni 's the one thing 
 
 our darkies mos'ly dread. 
 An' thet experunoe, time'n' agin, to 
 
 Dixie's Land hez shown 
 Ther' 's nothin' like a powder-cask fer a 
 
 stiddy comer-stone ; • 
 Ain't it ez good ez nuts, when salt is 
 
 sellin' by the ounce 
 For its own weight in Treash'ry-bons, 
 
 (ef bought in small amounts,) 
 When even whiskey's gittin' skurce 
 
 an' sugar can't be found. 
 To know thet all the eUerments o' lux- 
 ury abound ? 
 An' don't it glorify sal' -pork, to come to 
 
 understand 
 It 's wut the Richmon' editors call fat- 
 ness o' the land ! 
 Nex' thing to knowin' you 're well off 
 
 is nut to know when y' ain't ; 
 An' ef Jeff says all 's goin' wal, who '11 
 
 ventur' t' say it ain't ? 
 
 This cairn the Constitooshun roun' ez 
 
 Jeff doos in his hat 
 la hendier a dreffle sight, an' comes 
 
 more kin' o' pat. 
 I tell ye wut, my jedgment is you 're 
 
 pooty sure to fail, 
 Ez long 'z the head keeps turnin' back 
 
 for counsel to the tail : 
 
 Th' advantiges of our consam for beirf 
 
 prompt air gret, 
 While, 'long o' Congress, you can't 
 
 strike, 'f you git an iron het ; 
 They bother roun' with argooin', an' va- 
 
 r'ous sorts o' foolin', 
 To make sure ef it 's leg'Uy het, an' all 
 
 the while it 's coolin', 
 So 's 't when you come to strike, it ain't 
 
 no gret to wish ye j'y on, 
 An' hurts the hammer 'z much or more 
 
 ez wut it doos the iron, 
 Jeff don't allow no jawin' -sprees for three 
 
 months at a stretch, 
 Knowin' the ears long speeches suits air 
 
 mostly made to metch ; 
 He jes' ropes in your tonguey chaps an' 
 
 reg'lar ten-inch bores 
 An' lets 'em play at Congress, ef they '11 
 
 du it with closed doors ; 
 So they ain't no more bothersome than 
 
 ef we' d took an' sunk 'em. 
 An' yit enj'y th' exclusive right to one 
 
 another's Buncombe 
 'thout doin' nobody no hurt, an' 'thout 
 
 its costin' nothin,' 
 Their pay bein' jes' Confedrit funds, 
 
 they flndin' keep an' clothin' ; 
 They taste the sweets o' public life, an' 
 
 plan their little jobs. 
 An' suck the Treash'ry, (no gret harm, 
 
 for it 's ez dry ez cobs,) 
 An' go thru all the motions jest ez safe 
 
 ez in a prison, 
 An' hev their business to themselves, 
 
 while Buregard hez hisn : 
 Ez long '?■ he gives the Hessians fits, 
 
 committers can't make bother 
 'bout whether 't 's done the legle way or 
 
 whether 't 's done the tother. 
 An' I tell you you 've gut to lam thet 
 
 War ain't one long teeter 
 Betwixt I wan' to an' 'T wtm't du, de. 
 
 batin' like a skeetur 
 Afore he lights, — all is, to give the 
 
 other side a millin'. 
 An' arter thet 's done, th' ain't no resk 
 
 but wut the lor '11 be willin' ; 
 No metter wut the guv'ment is, ez nigh 
 
 ez I can hit it, 
 A lickin' 's constitooshunal, pervidin' 
 
 We don't git it. 
 Jeff don't Stan' dilly-dallyin', rfore ha 
 
 takes a fort, 
 (With no one in,) to git the leave o' tkl 
 
 nex' Soopreme Court, 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 261 
 
 Kor don't want forty-'leven weeks o' 
 
 jawin' an' exponndin', 
 To prove a, nigger hez a right to save 
 
 him, ef he s drowndin' ; 
 Whereas ole Abe 'ud sink afore he 'd 
 
 let a darkie hoost him, 
 Ef Taney shouldn't come along an' 
 
 hed n't interdooced him. 
 It ain't your twenty millions thet'U 
 
 ever block Jeif s game, 
 But one Man thet wutf t let 'em jog jest 
 
 ez he 's takin' aim : 
 Your numbers they may strengthen ye 
 
 or weaken ye, ez 't heppens 
 They 're willin' to be helpm' hands or 
 
 wuss'n-nothin' cap'ns. 
 
 I 've chose my side, an' 't ain't no odds 
 
 ef I wuz drawed with magnets, 
 Or ef I thought it prudenter to jine the 
 
 I 've made my ch'ice, an' ciphered out, 
 
 from all I see an' heard, 
 Th' ole Constitooshuta never 'd git her 
 
 decks for action cleared. 
 Long 'z you elect for Congressmen poor 
 
 shotes thet want to go 
 Coz they can't seem to git their grub no 
 
 otherways than so. 
 An' let your bes' men stay to home coz 
 
 they wun't show ez talkera, 
 Nor can't be hired to fool ye an' sof - 
 
 soap ye at a caucus, — 
 Long 'z ye set by Eotashun more 'n ye 
 
 do by folks's merits, 
 Ez though expenince thriv by change o' 
 
 sile, like corn an' kerrits, — 
 Long 'z you allow a critter's "claims" 
 
 coz, spite o' shoves an' tippins. 
 He 's kep' his private pan jest where 't 
 would ketch mos' public drippins', — 
 Long 'z A. '11 turn tu an' grin' B.'s exe, 
 
 ef B. '11 help him giin' hisn, 
 (An' thet 's the main idee by which your 
 
 leadin' men hev risen,) — 
 Long 'z you let ary exe be groun','less 
 
 'tis to cut the weasan' 
 O' sneaks thet dunno till they 're told 
 
 wut is an' wut ain't Treason, — 
 Long 'z ye give out commissions to a lot 
 
 o' peddlin' drones 
 Thet trade in whiskey with their men 
 
 an' skin 'em to their bones, — 
 Long'z ye eift out "safe" canderdates 
 
 thet no one ain't afeard on 
 Coz they 're so thund'riu' eminent for 
 bein' never heard on, 
 
 An' hain't no record, ez it 'b called, for 
 
 folks to pick u. hole in, 
 Ez ef it hurt a man to hev a body with 
 
 a soul in. 
 An' it wuz ostentashun to be showin' 
 
 on 't about, 
 When half his feller-citizens contrive to 
 
 du without, — 
 Long 'z j'ou suppose your votes can turn 
 
 biled kehhi^e into brain, ■ 
 
 An' ary man thet 's pop'lar 's fit to drive 
 
 a lightnin' -train, — 
 Long 'z you believe democracy meant 
 
 I'm ez good ez you he, 
 An' that a feller from the ranks can't be 
 
 a knave or booby, — 
 Long 'z Congress seems purvided, lika 
 
 yer street-cars an' yer 'busses, 
 With oilers room for jes' one more o' 
 
 your spiled-in-bakin' cusses. 
 Dough 'thout the emptins of a soul, an' 
 
 yit with means about 'em 
 (Like essence-peddlers*) thet '11 make 
 
 folks long to be without 'em. 
 Jest heavy 'nough to turn a scale thet 's 
 
 doubtfle the wrong way. 
 An' make their nat'rai arsenal o' hein' 
 
 nasty pay, — 
 Long 'z them things last, (an' / don't 
 
 see no gret signs of improvin',) 
 I sha' n't up stakes, not hardly yit, nor 't 
 
 would n't pay for movin' ; 
 For, 'fore you lick us, it '11 he the 
 
 long'st day ever you see. 
 Youm, (ez I 'xpec' to be nex' spring,) 
 B., Makkiss o' Big Boost. 
 
 No. IV. 
 
 A MESSAGE OP JEFF DAVIS IN 
 SECRET SESSION. 
 
 Cmjeot'wrally reported ty H. Bioiow. 
 
 TO THE 
 
 EDITORS OP THE 
 MONTHLY. 
 
 ATLANTIO 
 
 Jaalam, 10th March, 1S62. 
 Gentlemen, — My leisure has been so 
 entirely occupied with the hitherto fruit- 
 less endeavour to decypher the Runick 
 inscription whose fortunate discovery I 
 mentioned iu my last communication, that 
 I have not found time to discuss, as I had 
 
 * A niHtic enphemiam for the American va- 
 riety of the Mephitis. H. W. 
 
262 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPEKS. 
 
 intended, the great problem of what we 
 are to do with slavery, — a topick on 
 which the publick mind in this place is at 
 present more than ever agitated. What 
 my wishes and hopes are I need not say, 
 hut for safe conclusions I do not conceive 
 that we are yet in possession of facts 
 enough on which to bottom them with 
 certainty. Acknowledging the hand of 
 Providence, as I do, in all events, I am 
 sometimes inclined to think that they are 
 wiser than we, and am willing to wait till 
 we have made this continent once more a 
 place where freemen can live in security 
 and honour, before assuming any further 
 responsibility. This is the view taken by 
 my neighbour Habakkuk Sloansure, Esq., 
 the president of our bank, wliose opinion 
 in the practical affairs of life has great 
 weight with me, as I have generally found 
 it to be justified by the event, and whose 
 counsel, had I followed it, would have 
 saved me from an imfortunate investment 
 of a considerable part of the painful 
 economies of half a century in the North- 
 west-Passage Tunnel. After a somewhat 
 animated discussion with this gentleman, 
 a few days since, I expanded, on the avdi 
 alteram partem principle, something which 
 he happened to say by way of illustration, 
 into the following fable. 
 
 FESTINA LENTE. 
 
 Once on a time there was a pool 
 Fringed all about with flag-leaves cool 
 And spotted with cow-lilies garish, 
 Of frogs and pouts the ancient parish. 
 Alders the creaking redwings sink on, 
 Tusjsocks that house blithe Bob o' Lincoln 
 Hedged round the uiiassailed seclusion, 
 Where muskrats piled their cells Carthusian ; 
 And many a moss-embroidered log. 
 The watering-place of summer ftog, 
 Slept and decayed with patient skilly 
 As watering-places somethnes will 
 
 Now in this Abbey of Theleme, 
 
 Which realized the fairest dream 
 
 That ever dozing bull-frog had. 
 
 Sunned on a half-sunk lily-pad, 
 
 There rose a party with a mission 
 
 To mend the poUiwogs' condition, 
 
 "Who notified the selectmen 
 
 To call a meeting there and then. 
 
 "Some kind of steps," they said, "are needed ; 
 
 They don't come on so fast as we did ; 
 
 Let 's dock their tails ; if tfiat don't make 'em 
 
 Frogs by brevet, the Old One take 'em 1 
 
 That boy, that came the other day 
 
 To dig some flag-root down this way, 
 
 Hia jack-knife left, and 't is a sign 
 
 That Heaven approves of our design : 
 
 •T were wicked not to urge the step on, 
 
 When Providence has sent the weapon." 
 
 Old croakers, deacons of the mire, 
 Ihat led the deep batrachiau choir. 
 
 Uk! XTki Caronk r with bass that mlgbt 
 Have left Lablache's out of sight. 
 Shook nobby heads, and said, " No go 1 
 You 'd better let 'em try to grow : 
 Old Doctor Time is slow, but still 
 He does know how to make a pllL" 
 
 But vain was all their hoarsest bass. 
 Their old experience out of place, 
 And spite of croaking and entreating. 
 The vote was carried in marsh-meeting. 
 
 '■ Lord knows," protest the polliwoga, 
 ** We 're anxious to be grown-up firogs ; 
 But don't push in to do the work 
 Of Nature till she prove a shirk ; 
 'T is not by jumps that she advances. 
 But wins her way by circumstances : j 
 Pray, wait awhile, until you know 
 We 're so contrived as not to grow ; 
 Let Nature take her own direction, 
 And she '11 absorb our imperfection ; 
 You might n't like 'em to appear with. 
 But we must have the things to steer with.* 
 
 "No," piped the party of reform, 
 " All great results are ta'en by storm ; 
 Fate holds her best gifts till we show 
 We 've strength to make her let them go ; 
 The Providence that works in history, 
 And seems to some folks such a mystery. 
 Does not creep slowly on incog.. 
 But moves by jumps, a mighty frog ; 
 No more reject the Age's chrism, 
 Your queues are an anachronism ; 
 No more the Future's promise mock. 
 But lay your tails upon the block. 
 Thankful that we the means have voted 
 To have you thus to frogs promoted." 
 
 The thing was done, the tails were cropped. 
 
 And home each philotadpole hopped. 
 
 In faith rewarded to exult, 
 
 And wait the beautiful result. 
 
 Too soon it came ; our pool, so long 
 
 The theme of patriot bull-frog's song, 
 
 Next day was reeking, lit to smother. 
 
 With heads and tails that missed each other, - 
 
 Here snoutless tails, there tailless snouts ; 
 
 The only gainers were the pouts. 
 
 From lower to the higher next. 
 Not to the top, is Nature's text ; 
 And embryo Good, to reach full stature. 
 Absorbs the Evil in its nature. 
 
 I think that nothing will ever give per 
 manent peace and security to this conti- 
 nent but the extirpation of Slavery there- 
 from, and that the occasion is nigh; but I 
 would do nothing hastily or vindictively, 
 nor presume to jog the elbow of Provi- 
 dence. No desperate measures for me till 
 we are sure that all others are hopeless, — 
 JUctere si nequeo superos, Ach&r&nta tjw- 
 veho. To make Emancipation a reform 
 instead of a revolution is worth a little 
 patience, that we may have the Border 
 States first, and then the non-slaToholdera 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 263 
 
 of the Cotton States, with us in princi- 
 ple, — a consummation that seems to be 
 nearer than many imagine. Fiat justitia, 
 mat caelum, is not to be taken in a literal 
 sense by statesmen, wliose problem is to 
 
 fet justice done with as little jar as possi- 
 le to existing orrler, which has at least so 
 much of heaven in it that it is not chaos. 
 Our first dutytoward our enslaved brother 
 is to educate him, whether he be white or 
 black. The first need of the free black is 
 to elevate himself according to the stand- 
 ard of this material generation. So soon 
 as the Ethiopian goes in his chariot, he 
 will find not only Apostles, but Chief 
 Priests and Scribes and Pharisees willing 
 to ride with him. 
 
 Nil habet Infelix paupertas durius in se 
 Quani quod ridicules liomiues facit 
 
 I rejoice in the President's late Message, 
 which at last proclaims the Government 
 on the side of freedom, justice, and sound 
 policy. 
 
 As I write, comes the news of our disas- 
 ter at Hampton Roads. I do not under- 
 Etand the supineness which, after fair 
 warning, leaves wood to an unequal con- 
 flict with iron. It is not enough merely 
 to have the right on our side, if we stick 
 to the old flint-lock of tradition. I have 
 observed in my parochial experience [liaud 
 ignarus mali) that the Devil is prompt to 
 adopt the latest inventions of destructive 
 wai'fare, and may thus take even such a 
 three-decker as Bishop Butler at an ad- 
 vantage. It is curious, that, as gunpowder 
 made armour useless on shore, so armour 
 is having its revenge by baffling its old 
 enemy at sea, — and that, while gunpow- 
 der robbed land warfare of nearly all its 
 picturesqueness to give even greater state- 
 liness and sublimity to a sea-Hght, armour 
 bids fair to degrade the latter into a 
 «quabble between two iron-shelled turtles. 
 
 Yours, with esteem and respect, 
 
 HOMEK Wilbur, A. M. 
 
 P. S. — I had wellnigh forgotten to say 
 that the object of this letter is to enclose 
 a communication from the gifted pen of 
 Mr. Biglow. 
 
 I I SENT you a messige, my friens, t' other 
 
 day, 
 
 To tell you I 'd nothin' pertiokler to 
 
 say: 
 t wuz the day our new nation gut kin' 
 
 o' stillborn. 
 
 So 't wuz my pleasant dooty t' acknowl- 
 edge the corn, 
 An' I see clearly then, ef I did n't be. 
 
 fore, 
 Thet the augur in inauguration means 
 
 bore. 
 I need n't tell you thet my messige wuz 
 
 written 
 To diffuse correc' notions in France an' 
 
 Gret Britten, 
 An' agin to impress on the poppylar 
 
 mind 
 The comfort an' wisdom o' goin' it 
 
 blind,— 
 To say thet I did n't abate not a hooter 
 0' my faith in a happy an' glorious 
 
 futur', 
 Ez rich in each soshle an' p'litickle 
 
 blessin' 
 Ez them thet we now hed the joy o' 
 
 possessin', 
 With a people united, an' longin' to 
 
 die 
 For wut we call their country, without 
 
 askin' why. 
 An' all the gret things we concluded to 
 
 slope for 
 Ez much within reach now ez ever — to 
 
 hope for. 
 We 've gut all the eUerments, this very 
 
 hour, 
 Thet make up a fus'-class, self-govem- 
 
 in' power: 
 We 've a war, an' a debt, an' a flag ; an' 
 
 ef this 
 Ain't to be inderpendunt, why, wut on 
 
 airth is ? 
 An' nothin' now tenders our takin' our 
 
 station 
 Ez the freest, enlightenedest, civerlized 
 
 nation. 
 Built up on our hran'-new politickle 
 
 thesis 
 Thet a GoVment's fust right is to tum- 
 ble to pieces, — 
 I say nothin' henders our takin' our 
 
 place 
 Ez the very fus'-best o' the whole hmnan 
 
 race, 
 A spittin' tobacker ez proud ez you 
 
 please 
 On Victory's bes' carpets, or loafin' at 
 
 ease 
 In the Tool'ries front-parlor, discussin' 
 
 affairs 
 With our heels on the backs o' Napo- 
 leon's new chairs, 
 
264 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 An' princes a-mixin' our cocktails an' 
 
 slings, — 
 Exeep', wal, excep' jest a very few 
 
 things, 
 Sech ez navies an' armies an' wherewith 
 
 to pay, 
 An' gittin' our sogers to run t' other 
 
 way. 
 An' not be too over-pertiokler in tryin' 
 To hunt up the very las' ditches to die 
 
 in. 
 
 Ther' are critters so hase tliet they want 
 
 it explained 
 Jes' wut is the totle amount thet we 've 
 
 gained, 
 Ez ef we could maysure stupenjious 
 
 events 
 By the low Yankee stan'ard o' dollars 
 
 an' cents : 
 They seem to forgit,thet, sence last year 
 
 revolved, 
 We 've succeeded in gittin' seceshed an' 
 
 dissolved, 
 An' thet no one can't hope to git thm 
 
 dissolootion 
 'thout some kin' o' strain on the hest 
 
 Constitootion. 
 Who asks for a prospec' more fiettrin' 
 
 an' bright. 
 When from here clean to Texas it 's all 
 
 one free fight ? 
 Hain't we rescued from Seward the gret 
 
 leadin' featurs 
 Thet makes it wuth while to be reasonin' 
 
 creaturs 1 
 Hain't we saved Habus Coppers, im- 
 proved it in fact, 
 By suspendin' the Unionists 'stid o' the 
 
 Act? 
 Ain't the laws free to all ? Where on 
 
 airth else d' ye see 
 Every freeman improvin' his own rope 
 
 an' tree ? 
 Ain't our piety sech (in our speeches an' 
 
 Ez t' astonish ourselves in the bes'-com- 
 
 posed pessiges. 
 An' to make folks thet knowed us in 
 
 th' ole state o' things 
 Think convarsion ez easy ez drinkin' 
 
 gin-slings ? 
 
 It 's ne'ssary to take a good confident 
 
 tone 
 With the public ; but here, jest amongst 
 
 US, I own 
 
 Things look hlacker 'n tlumder. Thrf 
 
 's no use denyin' 
 We 're clean out o' money, an' 'most out 
 
 o' lyin' ; 
 Two things a youngnation can't mennags 
 
 without, 
 Ef she wants to look wal. at her fust 
 
 comin' out ; 
 For the fust supplies physickle strength, 
 
 while the second 
 Gives a morril edvantage thet 's hard to 
 
 he reckoned : 
 For this latter I 'm willin' to du wut I 
 
 can ; 
 For the former you '11 hev to consult on 
 
 a plan, — 
 Though our fust want (an' this pint I 
 
 want your best views on) 
 Is plausible paper to print I. 0. U.s on. 
 Some gennlemen think it would cure all 
 
 our cankers 
 In the way o' finance, ef we jes' hanged 
 
 the bankers ; 
 An' I own the proposle 'ud square with 
 
 my views, 
 Ef their lives wuz n't all thet we 'd left 
 
 'em to lose. 
 Some say thet more confidence might ha 
 
 inspired, 
 Ef we voted our cities an' towns to he 
 
 fired, — 
 A plan thet 'ud suttenly tax our endur> 
 
 ance, 
 Coz 't would be our own bills we should 
 
 git for th' insurance ; 
 But cinders, no metter how sacred we 
 
 think 'em. 
 Might n't strike furrin minds ez good 
 
 sources of income, 
 Nor the people, perhaps, would n't like 
 
 the eclaw 
 0' bein' all turned into paytriots by 
 
 law. 
 Some want we should buy all the cotton 
 
 an' bum it, 
 On a pledge, when we 've gut thru the 
 
 war, to return it, — 
 Then to take the proceeds an' hold them 
 
 ez security 
 For an issue o' bonds to be met at ma- 
 turity 
 With an issue o' notes to be paid in hard 
 
 cash 
 On the fus' Monday foUerin' the 'tamal 
 
 Allsmash : 
 This hez a safe air, an', once hold o' the 
 
 gold, 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 265 
 
 'ud leave our vile plunderers out in the 
 
 cold, 
 An' might temp' John Bull, ef it wam't 
 
 for the dip he 
 Once gut from the banks o' my own 
 
 Some think we could make, hy arrangin' 
 
 the figgers, 
 A hendy home-currency out of our 
 
 niggers; 
 But it wun't du to lean much on ary 
 
 sech staff, 
 For they're gittin' tu current a'ready, 
 
 hy half. 
 
 One gennleman says, ef we lef our loan 
 
 out 
 Where Floyd could git hold on 't he 'd 
 
 take it, no doubt ; 
 But 't ain't jes' the takin, though 't hez 
 
 a good look, 
 We mus' git sunthin' out on it arter it 's 
 
 took. 
 An' we need now more 'n ever, with 
 
 sorrer I own, 
 Thet some one another should let us 
 
 a loan, 
 Sence a soger wun't fight, on'y jes' while 
 
 he draws his 
 Pay down on the nail, for the best of all 
 
 causes, 
 'thout askin' to know wut the quarrel 's 
 
 about, — 
 An' once come to thet, why, our game is 
 
 played out. 
 It 's ez true ez though I should n't never 
 
 hev said it, 
 Thet a hitch hez took place in our system 
 
 o' credit ; 
 I swear it 's aU right in my speeches an' 
 
 But ther' 's idees afloat, ez ther' is about 
 
 Folks wun't take a bond ez a basis to 
 
 trade on, 
 Without nosin' round to find out wut 
 
 it 's made on. 
 An' the thought more an' more thru, the 
 
 public min' crosses 
 Thet our Treshry hez gut 'mos' too many 
 
 dead bosses. 
 Wut 's called credit, you see, is some like 
 
 a balloon, 
 Thet looks while it 's up 'most ez ham- 
 some 'z a moon, 
 Bnt once git a leak in 't an' wut looked 
 
 80 grand 
 
 Caves righ' down in a jiffy ez flat ez your 
 
 hand. 
 Now the world is a dreflBe mean plac^ 
 
 for our sins. 
 Where ther' ollus is critters about with 
 
 long pins 
 A-prickm the bubbles we ' ve blowed with 
 
 sech care, 
 An' provin' ther' 's nothin' inside but 
 
 bad air : 
 They're all Stuart Millses, poir-white 
 
 trash, an' sneaks. 
 Without no more chiwerlry 'n Chootaws 
 
 or Creeks, 
 Who think a real gennleman's promise 
 
 to pay 
 Is meant to be took in trade's ornery 
 
 way: 
 Them fellers an' I could n' never agree ; 
 They 're the nateral foes o' the Southun 
 
 Idee ; 
 I 'd gladly take all of our other resks on 
 
 me 
 To be red o' this low-lived politikle 
 
 'con'my ! 
 
 Now a dastardly notion is gittin' about 
 Thet our bladder is bust an' the gas 
 
 oozin' out. 
 An' onless we can mennage in some way 
 
 to stop it, 
 Why, the thing 's a gone coon, an' we 
 
 might ez wal drop it. 
 Brag works wal at fust, but it ain't jes' 
 
 the thing 
 For a stiddy inves'ment the shiners to 
 
 bring. 
 An' votin' we're prosp'rous a hundred 
 
 times over 
 Wun't change bein' starved into livin' 
 
 on clover. 
 Manassas done sunthin' tow'rds drawin' 
 
 the wool 
 O'er the green, antislavery eyes o' John 
 
 Bull: 
 Oh, wam't it a godsend, jes' when sech 
 
 tight fixes 
 Wuz crowdin' us mournera, to throw 
 
 double-sixes ! 
 I wuz tempted to think, an' it wuz n't 
 
 no wonder, 
 Ther' wuz reelly a Providence, — over or 
 
 under, — 
 When, all packed for Nashville, I fust 
 
 ascertained 
 From the papers up North wut a victory 
 
 we 'd gained. 
 
266 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 't WU2 the time for diffusin' correo' views 
 
 abroad 
 Of our union an' strength an' relyin' on 
 
 God; 
 An', fact, when I 'd gut thru my fust 
 
 hig SMprise, 
 I much ez half b'lieved in my own tall- 
 est lies, 
 An' conveyed the idee thet the whole 
 
 Southun popperlace 
 Wuz Spartans all on the keen jump for 
 
 Thermopperlies, 
 Thet set on the Lincoluites' bombs till 
 
 they bust, 
 An' fight for the priv'lege n' dyin' the 
 
 fust; 
 But Roanoke, Bufort, Millspring, an' the 
 
 rest 
 Of our recent starn-foremost successes 
 
 out West, 
 Hain't left us a foot for our swelliu' to 
 
 stand on, — 
 We 've showed too much o' wut Buregard 
 
 calls abamion, 
 Jor all our Thermopperlies (an' it's a 
 
 marcy 
 We hain't hed no more) hev ben clean 
 
 vicy-varsy. 
 An' wut Spartans wuz lef when the bat- 
 tle wuz done 
 Wuz them thet wuz too unambitious to 
 
 run. 
 
 Oh, ef we hed on'y jes' gut Reecognition, 
 
 Things now would ha' ben in a ditferent 
 position ! 
 
 You 'd ha' hed all you wanted : the 
 paper blockade 
 
 Smashed up into toothpicks ; unlim- 
 ited trade 
 
 In the one thing thet 's needile, till nig- 
 gers, I swow, 
 
 Hed ben thicker 'n provisional shin- 
 plasters now ; 
 
 Quinine by the ton 'ginst the shakes 
 when they seize ye ; 
 
 Nice paper to coin into C. S. A. specie ; 
 
 The voice of the driver 'd be heerd in^^ur 
 land, 
 
 An' the univarse scringe, ef we lifted our 
 hand; 
 
 Would n't thet be some like a fuliillin' the 
 prophecies, 
 
 With all the fus' fem'lies in all the fust 
 offices ? 
 
 "t wuz a beautiful dream, an' all sorrer 
 is idle, — 
 
 But ef Lincoln wo^dd ha' hanged Mason 
 
 an' Slidell ! 
 For would n't the Yankees hev found 
 
 they 'd ketched Tartars, 
 Ef they'd raised two sech critters as 
 
 them into martyrs ? 
 Mason wuz F. F. V., though a cheap 
 
 card to win on. 
 But t' other was jes' New York trash to 
 
 begin on ; 
 They ain't o' no good in Euripean pel- 
 
 lices. 
 But think wut a help they 'd ha' ben on 
 
 their gallowses ! 
 They 'd ha' felt they wuz truly fulfiUin' 
 
 their mission, 
 An', oh, how dog-cheap we 'd ia' gut 
 
 Reecognition ! 
 
 But somehow another, wutever we 've 
 
 tried, 
 Though the the'ry 's fust-rate, the facs 
 
 ivun't coincide : 
 Facs are contrary 'z mules, an' ez hard 
 
 in the mouth. 
 An' they alius hev showed a mean spite 
 
 to the South. 
 Sech bein' the case, we hed best look 
 
 about 
 For some kin' o' way to slip our necks 
 
 out : 
 Le' 's vote our las' dollar, ef one can he 
 
 found, 
 (An', at any rate, votin' it hez a good 
 
 sound,) — 
 Le' 's swear thet to arms all our people 
 
 is flyin', 
 (The critters can't read, an' wun't know 
 
 how we 're lyin',) — 
 Thet Toombs is advancin' to sack Cin- 
 
 cinnater. 
 With a rovin' commission to pillage an' 
 
 slahter, — 
 Thet we 've throwed to the winds all re- 
 gard for wut 's lawfle, 
 An' gone in for sunthin' promiscu'sly 
 
 awfle. 
 Ye see, hitherto, it 's our own knaves 
 
 an' fools 
 Thet we 've used, (those for whetstones, 
 
 an' t' others ez tools,) 
 An' now our las' chance is in puttiu' to 
 
 test 
 The same kin' o' cattle up North an' out 
 
 West, — 
 Your Belmonts, Vallandighams, Woods- 
 
 es, an' sech. 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 267 
 
 Poor shotes thet yo couldn't persufjde 
 us to tech, 
 
 Not in emery times, though we 're will- 
 in' to feed 'em 
 
 With a nod now an' then, when we hap- 
 pen to need 'em ; 
 
 Why, for my part, I 'd ruther shake 
 hands with a nigger 
 
 Than with cusses that load an' don't 
 darst dror a trigger ; 
 
 They 're the wust wooden nutmegs the 
 Yankees produce, 
 
 Shaky everywheres else, an' jes' sound 
 on the goose ; 
 
 They ain't wuth a cuss, an' I set noth- 
 in' by 'em. 
 
 But we 're in sech a fix thet I s'pose we 
 mus' try 'em. 
 
 I — But, Gennlemen, here 's a de- 
 spatch jes' come in 
 
 Which shows thet the tide 's begun turn- 
 in' agin', — 
 
 Gret Cornfedrit success ! C'lumbus 
 eevacooated ! 
 
 I mus' run down an' hev the thing prop- 
 erly stated, 
 
 An' show wut a triumph it is, an' how 
 lucky 
 
 To fin'Uy git red o' thet cussed Ken- 
 tucky, — 
 
 An' how, sence Fort Donelson, winnin' 
 the day 
 
 Consists in triumphantly gittin' away. 
 
 No. V. 
 
 SPEECH OP HONOURABLE PRE- 
 SERVED DOE IN SECRET CAU- 
 CUS. 
 
 TO THE EDITORS OP THE ATLANTIC 
 MONTHLY. 
 
 Jaalau, 12th April, 1862. 
 Gentlemen, — As I cannot but hope 
 that the ultimate, if not speedy, success of 
 the national arms is now sufficiently ascer- 
 tained, sure as I am of the righteousness 
 of our cause and its consequent claim on 
 the blessing of God, (for I would not show 
 a faith inferior to that of the Pagan histo- 
 rian with his Facile evenit quod JDis cordi 
 est, ) it seems to me a suitable occasion to 
 withdraw our minds a moment from the 
 confusing din of battle to objects of peace- 
 ful and permanent interest. Let us not 
 
 neglect the monuments of preterite his- 
 tory because what shall be history is so 
 diligently making under our eyes. Craa 
 ingens iterabirmis cegwyr; to-morrow will 
 be time enough for that stormy sea ; to- 
 day let me engage the attention of your 
 readers with the Runick inscription to 
 whose fortunate discovery I have hereto- 
 fore alluded. Well may we say with the 
 poet, MvZta renascwntur qucejam cecidere. 
 And I would premise, that, although I 
 can no longer resist the evidence of my 
 own senses from the stone before me to 
 the ante-Columbian discovery of this con- 
 tinent by the Northmen, gens inclytissima, 
 as they are called in a Falermitan inscrip- 
 tion, written fortunately in a less debata- 
 ble character than that which I am abont 
 to decipher, yet I would by no means be 
 understood as wishing to vilipend the 
 merits of the great Genoese, whose name 
 will never be forgotten so long as the in- 
 spiring strains of "Hail Columbia" shall 
 continue to be heard. Though he must be 
 stripped also of whatever praise may be- 
 long to the experiment of the egg, which X 
 find proverbi^y attributed by Castilian 
 authors to a certain ^uanito or Jack, 
 (perhaps an offshoot of our giant-killing 
 mythus,) his name will still remain one of 
 the most illustrious of modem times. But 
 the impartial historian owes a duty like- 
 wise to obscure merit, and my solicitude 
 to render a tardy justice is perhaps quick- 
 ened by my having known tnose who, had 
 their own field of labour been less secluded, 
 might have fomid a readier acceptance 
 with the reading publick. I could give an 
 example, but I forbear : forsitan nostris 
 ex ossibus oritur ultor. 
 
 Touching Runick inscriptions, I find that 
 they maybe classed under three general 
 heads : 1°. Those which are understood 
 by the Danish Royal Society of Northern 
 Antiquaries, and Professor Rafn, their 
 Secretary; 2°. Those which are compre- 
 hensible only by Mr. Rafn ; and 3°. Those 
 which neither the Society, Mr. Rafn, nor 
 anybody else can be said in any definite 
 sense to understand, and which accord- 
 ingly oifer peculiar temptations to enucle- 
 ating sagacity. These last are naturally 
 deemed the most valuable by intelligent 
 antiquaries, and to this class the stone 
 now in my possession fortunately belongs. 
 Such give a picturesque variety to ancient 
 events, because susceptible oftentimes of 
 as many interpretations as there are indi- 
 vidual archaeologists ; and since facts are 
 only the pulp in which the Idea or event- 
 seed is softly imbedded till it ripen, it is 
 of little consequence what colour or fla- 
 vour we attribute to them, provided it be 
 
268 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 agreeable. Availing myself of the oblig- 
 ing assistance of Mr. Arphaxad Bowers, 
 an ingenious photographick artist, whose 
 house-on-wheels has now stood for three 
 years on our Meeting-House Green, with 
 the somewhat contradictory inscription, — 
 "mi/r motto is onwa/rd," — I have sent 
 accurate, copies of my treasure to many 
 learned men and societies, both native and 
 European. I may hereafter communicate 
 their different and {me jvdice) equally 
 erroneous solutions. I solicit also, Alessrs. 
 Editors, your own acceptance of the copy 
 herewith enclosed. I need only premise 
 further, that the stone itself is a goodly 
 block of metamorphick sandstone, and 
 that the Runes resemble very nearly the 
 omithichnites or fossil bird-tracks of Dr. 
 Hitchcock, but with less regularity or 
 apparent design than is displayed by those 
 remarkable geological monuments. These 
 are rather the non bene jimctarwm dis- 
 cordia semina rerun. Resolved to leave 
 no door open to cavil, I first of all at- 
 tempted the elucidation of this remarka- 
 ble example of lithick literature by the 
 ordinary modes, but with no adequate re- 
 turn for my labour. I then considered 
 myself amply justified in resorting to that 
 heroick treatment the felicity of wMch, as 
 applied by the great Bentley to Milton, 
 had long ago enlisted my admiration. In- 
 deed, I had already made up my mind, 
 that, in case good fortune should throw 
 any such invaluable record in my way, I 
 would proceed with it in the following 
 simple and satisfactory method. After a 
 cursory examination, merely sufficing for 
 an approximative estimate of its length, I 
 would write down a hypothetical inscrip- 
 tion based upon antecedent probabilities, 
 and then proceed to extract from the char- 
 acters engraven on the stone a meaning as 
 nearly as possible conformed to this a 
 priori product of my own ingenuity. The 
 result more than justified my hopes, inas- 
 much as the two inscriptions were made 
 without any great violence to tally in all 
 essential particulars. I then proceeded, 
 not without some anxiety, to my second 
 test, which was, to read the Runick letters 
 diagonally, and again with the same suc- 
 cess. With an excitement pardonable 
 imder the circumstances, yet tempered 
 with thankful humility, I now applied my 
 last and severest trial, my experimentvm, 
 crucis. I turned the stone, now doubly 
 precious in my eyes, with scrupulous ex- 
 actness upside down. The physical exer- 
 tion so far displaced my spectacles as to 
 derange for a moment the focus of vision. 
 i confess that it was with some tremulous- 
 Besa that I readjusted them npon my nose. 
 
 and prepared my mind to bear with calm< 
 ness any disappointment that might ensue. 
 But, albo dies notanda lapUlol what 
 was my delight to find that the change of 
 position had effected none in the sense ol 
 the writing, even by so much as a single 
 letter 1 I was now, and justly, as I think, 
 satisfied of the conscientious exactness of 
 my interpretation. It is as follows : -• 
 
 bjabna orimolfsson 
 first drank cloud-brotheb 
 through child-op-labd-amd- 
 water: 
 
 that is, drew smoke through a reed stem. 
 In other words, we have here a record of 
 the first smoking of the herb Nicotiana 
 Tabacum by an European on this conti- 
 nent. The probable results of this discov- 
 ery are so vast as to baffle conjecture. It 
 it be objected, that the smoking of a pipe 
 would hardly justify the setting up of a 
 memorial stone, I answer, that even now 
 the Moquis Indian, ere he takes his first 
 whiff, bows reverently toward the four 
 quarters of the sky in succession, and that 
 tne loftiest monuments have been reared 
 to perpetuate fame, which is the dream of 
 the shadow of smoke. The Saga, it will 
 be ^remembered, leaves this Bjama to a 
 fate something like that of Sir Humphrey 
 Gilbert, on board a sinking ship in the 
 " wormy sea," having generously given up 
 his place in the boat to a certain Ice- 
 lander. It is doubly pleasant, therefore, 
 to meet with this proof that the brave 
 old man arrived safely in^ Vinland, and 
 that his declining years were cheered by 
 the respectful attentions of the dusky 
 denizens of our then uninvaded forests. 
 Most of all was I gratified, however, in 
 thus linking forever the name of my na- 
 tive town with one of the most momentous 
 occurrences of modem times. Hitherto 
 Jaalam, though in soil, climate, and geo- 
 graphical position as highly qualified to 
 be the theatre of remarkable historical in- 
 cidents as any spot on the earth's surface, 
 has been, if 1 may say it without seeming 
 to question the wisdom of Providence, 
 almost maliciously neglected, as it might 
 appear, by occurrences of world-wide in- 
 terest in want of a situation. And in 
 matters of this nature it must be confessed 
 that adequate events are as necessary as 
 the vates sacer to record them. Jaalam 
 stood always modestly ready, but circum- 
 stances made no fitting response to hei 
 generous intentions. Now, however, sh* 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPEKS. 
 
 269 
 
 Besnmes her place on the historick roll. 
 I have hitherto been a zealous opponent 
 of the Circean herb, but I shall now re- 
 examine the question without bias. 
 
 I am aware that the Rev. Jonas Tutchel, 
 in a recent communication to the Bogus 
 Four Corners Weekly Meridian, has en- 
 deavored to show that this is the sepul- 
 chral inscription of Thorwald Eriksson, 
 who, as is well known, was slain in Vinland 
 by the natives. But I think he has been 
 misled by a preconceived theory, and can- 
 not but feel that he has thus made an un- 
 pacions return for my allowing him to 
 inspect the stone with the aid of my own 
 
 f lasses (he having by accident left liis at 
 ome) and in my own study. The heathen 
 ancients might have instructed this Chris- 
 tian minister in the rites of hospitality; 
 but much is to be pardoned to the spirit 
 of self-love. He must indeed be ingenious 
 who can make out the words her hiMir 
 from any characters in the inscription in 
 question, which, whatever else it may be, 
 is certainly not mortuary. And even should 
 the reverend gentleman succeed in persuad- 
 ing some fantastical wits of the soundness 
 of his views, I do not see what useful end 
 he will have gained. For if the English 
 Courts of Law nold the testimony of grave- 
 stones from the burial-grounds of Protes- 
 tant dissenters to be questionable, even 
 where it is essential in proving a descent, 
 1 cannot conceive that the epitaphial as- 
 sertions of heathens should be esteemed of 
 more authority by any man of orthodox 
 sentiments. 
 
 At this moment, happening to cast my 
 eyes upon the stone, whose characters a 
 transverse light from my southern window 
 brings out with singular distinctness, an- 
 other interpretation has occurred to me, 
 fromising even more interesting results. 
 hasten to close my letter in order to fol- 
 low at once the clew thus providentially 
 
 I inclose, as usual, a contribution from 
 Mr. Biglow, and remain. 
 Gentlemen, with esteem and respect, 
 Your Obedient Humble Servant, 
 
 Homer Wilbur, A. M. 
 
 I THANK ye, my friens, for the warmth 
 
 o' your greetiu' ; 
 Ther' 's few airthly blessins but wut 's 
 
 vain an' ileetin' ; 
 But ef ther' is one thet hain't no cracks 
 
 an' flaws. 
 An' is wuth goin' in for, it 's pop'lar 
 
 applause ; 
 
 It sends up the sperits ez lively ez 
 
 rockets, 
 Au' I feel it — wal, down to the eend o' 
 
 my pockets. 
 Jes' lonn' the people is Canaan in 
 
 view, 
 But it 's Canaan paid quarterly t' hev 
 
 'em love you ; 
 It 's a blessin thet 's breakin' out ollna 
 
 in fresh spots ; 
 It 's a-foUerin' Moses 'thout losin' the 
 
 flesh-pots. 
 But, Gennlemen, 'souse me, I ain't sech 
 
 a raw cus 
 Ez to go luggin' ellerkenoe into a cau- 
 cus, — 
 Thet is, into one where the call compre- 
 hends 
 Nut the People in person, hut on'y their 
 
 friends ; 
 I 'm so kin' o' used to convinciu' the 
 
 masses 
 Of th' edvantage o' bein' eelf-govemin' 
 
 asses, 
 I forgut thet we 're all o' the sort thet 
 
 pull wires 
 An' arrange for the public their wants 
 
 an' desires, 
 An' thet wut we hed met for wuz jes' to 
 
 agree 
 Wut the People's opinions in f utur' should 
 
 he. 
 
 Kow, to come to the nuh, we 've ben 
 all disappinted. 
 
 An' our leadin' idees are a kind o' dis- 
 jinted, — 
 
 Though, fur ez the nateral man could 
 discern, 
 
 Things ough' to ha' took most an opper- 
 site turn. 
 
 But The'ry is jes' like a train on the 
 rail, 
 
 Thet, weather or no, puts her thru with- 
 out fail. 
 
 While Fac' 's the ole stage thet gits 
 sloughed in the ruts. 
 
 An' hez to allow for your darned efs an' 
 buts. 
 
 An' so, nut intendin' no pers'nal reflec- 
 tions. 
 
 They don't — don't nut alius, thet is, — 
 make connections : 
 
 Sometimes, when it really doos seem 
 thet they 'd oughter 
 
 Combine jest ez kindly ez new mm an* 
 water, 
 
270 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 Both '11 be jest ez sot in their ways ez a 
 
 bagnet, 
 Ez otherwise-minded ez th' eenda of a 
 
 magnet, 
 An' folks like you 'n' me, thet ain't ept 
 
 to be sold, 
 Git somehow or 'nother left out in the 
 
 cold. 
 
 1 expected 'fore this, 'thout no gret of a 
 
 row, 
 Jeff D. would ha' ben where A. Lincoln 
 
 is now, 
 With Taney to say 't wuz all legle an' 
 
 fair, 
 An' a jury o' Deemocrats ready to 
 
 swear 
 Thet the ingin o' State gut throwed into 
 
 the ditch 
 By the fault o' the North in misplacin' 
 
 the switch. 
 Things wuz ripenin' fust-rate with 
 
 Buchanan to nuss 'em ; 
 But the People they would n't be Mex- 
 icans, 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 in- 
 clude 
 The bein' entitled to nut he sub- 
 dued? 
 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 p'Utikle 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 cer- 
 
 t'iu to win, — 
 An' I, for one, wun't trust the masses 
 agin : 
 
 For a people thet knows much ain't fii 
 
 to be free 
 In the self-cockin', back-action style o* 
 
 J. D. 
 
 I can't believe now but wut half on 't ia 
 
 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 seek 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 South- 
 
 uners ever 'ud show 
 Stams with pedigi'ees to 'em like theim 
 
 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 forbesirin' towards Southun 
 
 men; 
 We hed to go sheers in preservin' th» 
 
 bellance : 
 An' ez they seemed to feel they wuz 
 
 wastin' their tellents 
 'thout some un to kick, 't waru't more 
 
 'n proper, you know. 
 Each should funnish his part ; an' sencc 
 
 they found the toe, 
 An' we waz n't cherubs — wal, we found 
 
 the buffer, 
 For fear thet the Compromise System 
 
 should suffer. 
 
 I wun't say the plan hed n't onpleasant 
 
 featurs, — 
 For men are perverse an' onreasonin 
 
 creature. 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 271 
 
 An' forgit thet in this life 't ain't likely 
 
 to heppen 
 Their own privit fancy should oUus he 
 
 cappen, — 
 But it worked jest ez smooth ez the key 
 
 of a safe, 
 An' the gret Union hearins played free 
 
 from all chafe. 
 They warn't hard to suit, ef they hed 
 
 their own way. 
 An' we (thet is, some on us) made the 
 
 thing pay : 
 't wuz a fair give-an'-take out of Uncle 
 
 Sam's heap ; 
 Ef they took wut warn't theirn, wut we 
 
 give come ez cheap ; 
 The elect gut the offices down to tide- 
 waiter, 
 The people took skinnin' ez mild ez a 
 
 tater, 
 Seemed to choose who they wanted tu, 
 
 footed the bills, 
 An' felt kind o' 'z though they wuz 
 
 havin' their wills, 
 Which kep' 'em ez harmless an' cherile 
 
 ez crickets. 
 While all we invested wuz names on the 
 
 tickets : 
 Wal, ther' 's nothin', for folks fond o' 
 
 lih'ral consumption 
 Free o' charge, like democ'acy tempered 
 
 with gumption ! 
 
 Now warn't thet a system wuth pains in 
 
 presarvin'. 
 Where the people found jints an' their 
 
 frien's done the carvin', — 
 Where the many done all o' their think- 
 in' by proxy. 
 An' were proud on 't ez lon'^ ez 't wuz 
 
 christened Democ'cy, — 
 Where the few let us sap all o' Freedom's 
 
 foundations, 
 Ef you call it reformin' with prudence 
 
 an' patience. 
 An' were willin' Jeff's suake-egg should 
 
 hetch with the rest, 
 Ef you writ " Constitootional " over the 
 
 nest? 
 But it 'a all out o' kilter, ('t wuz too good 
 
 to last,) 
 An' all jes' by J. D.'s perceedin' too 
 
 fast; 
 Ef he 'd on'y hung on for a month or 
 
 two more. 
 Tie 'd ha' gut things fixed nicer 'n they 
 
 hed ben before : 
 
 Afore he drawed off an' lef all in confur 
 
 sion. 
 We wuz safely entrenched in the ol« 
 
 Constitootion, 
 With an outlyin', heavy-gun, casemated 
 
 fort 
 To rake all assailants, — I mean th' S. J. • 
 
 Court. 
 Now I never '11 acknowledge (nut ef you 
 
 should skin me) 
 't wuz wise to abandon sech works to the 
 
 in'my. 
 An' let him fin' out thet wut scared him 
 
 so long. 
 Our whole line of argyments, lookin' so 
 
 strong. 
 All our Scripturan' law, every the'ry 
 
 an' fac', 
 Wuz Quaker-guns daubed with Pro- 
 slavery black. 
 Why, ef the Republicans ever should 
 
 git 
 
 Andy Johnson or some one to lend 'em 
 the wit 
 
 An' the spunk jes' to mount Constitoo- 
 tion an' Court 
 
 With Columbiad guns, your real ekle- 
 rights sort. 
 
 Or drill out the spike from the ole Dec- 
 laration 
 
 Thet can kerry a solid shot clearn roun' 
 creation, 
 
 We 'd better take maysures for shettin' 
 up shop. 
 
 An' put off our stock by a vendoo or 
 swop. 
 
 Bat they wun't never dare tu ; you '11 
 
 see 'em in Edom 
 'fore they ventur' to go where their doc- 
 trines 'ud lead 'em : 
 They 've ben takin' our princerples np ez 
 
 we dropt 'em, 
 An' thought it wuz terrible 'cute to 
 
 adopt 'em ; 
 But they '11 fin' out 'fore long thet their 
 
 hope 's ben deceivin' 'em, 
 An' thet princerples ain't o' no good, ef 
 
 you b'lieve in 'em ; 
 It makes 'em tu stiff for a party to 
 
 use, 
 Where they 'd ough' to be easy 'z an ol« 
 
 pair o' shoes. 
 If we say 'n our pletform thet all men 
 
 are brothers. 
 We don't mean thet some folks ain't 
 
 more so 'n some others ; 
 
m^ 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 An' it 's wal understoocr thet we make a 
 
 selection, 
 An' thet brotherhood kin' o' subsides 
 
 arter 'lection. 
 The fust thing for sound politicians to 
 
 lam is, 
 Thet Truth, to dror kindly in all sorts 
 
 o' harness, 
 Mus' be kep' in the abstract, — for, come 
 
 to apply it, 
 You 're ept to hurt some folks's interists 
 
 by it. 
 Wal, these 'ere Republicans (some on 
 
 'em) ects 
 £z though glneral mexims 'ud suit 
 
 speshle facts ; 
 An' there 's where we '11 nick 'em, there 's 
 
 where they '11 be lost : 
 For applyin' your princerple 's wut makes 
 
 it cost, 
 An' folks don't want Fourth o' July t' 
 
 interfere 
 With the business-consams o' the rest o' 
 
 the year, 
 U more 'n they want Sunday to pry an' 
 
 to peek 
 Into wut they are doin' the rest o' the 
 
 week. 
 
 A ginooine statesman should be on his 
 
 guard, 
 Ef he must her beliefs, nut to b'lieve 'em 
 
 tu hard ; 
 For, ez sure ez he does, he '11 be blartin' 
 
 'em out 
 "thout regardiu' the natur' o' man more 
 
 'n a spout, 
 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 perceedin's 
 
 in print, 
 Nor pass resserlootions ez long ez your 
 
 arm 
 Thet may, ez things heppeu to turn, do 
 
 as harm ; 
 For when you 've done all your real 
 
 meanin' to smother, 
 The darned things '11 up an' mean sun- 
 thin' or 'nother. 
 Jeff 'son prob'ly meant wal with his "bom 
 
 free an' ekle," 
 Bnt 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, suckers on 't keep buddin' 
 
 forth 
 In the nat'Uy 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' 
 
 hy, 
 Coz it 's of ner by them than by gret 
 
 ones you '11 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 OM think, ez Jeff says, the wind- 
 bag 's gut pricked j 
 It '11 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 reconstractin' the national ba- 
 sis. 
 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 ful 
 
 an' wide. 
 Is the kin' o' thing / 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 — 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPEES. 
 
 273 
 
 (1 ain't speakin' now o' the righteous- 
 ness of it, 
 
 But tho p'litickle purchase it gives an' 
 the profit). 
 
 Things look pooty squally, it must be 
 
 allowed. 
 An' 1 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 cousarvative 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 unll 
 
 stick like sin :) 
 There 's Phillips, for instance, hez jes' 
 
 ketched a Tartar 
 In the Law-'n' -Order Party of ole Cin- 
 
 cinnater ; 
 An' the Compromise System ain't gone 
 
 out o' reach, 
 Long '? you keep the right limits on 
 
 freedom o' sjjeech. 
 'T wam'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 indis- 
 criminate. 
 Nor don't oUus wait the right objecs to 
 
 'liminate ; 
 But there is a variety on 'em, you '11 
 
 imd, 
 J«st ez usefle an' more, besides bein' 
 
 refined, — 
 I mean o' the sort thet are laid by the 
 
 dictionary, 
 Sech ez sophisms an' cant, thet '11 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 rest 
 
 Southun friends 
 Took the savor all out on 't for national 
 
 ends; 
 But I guess "Abolition " '11 work a spell 
 
 yit, 
 When the war 's done, an' so will " For- 
 
 give-au'-forgit." 
 Times mus' be pooty thoroughly out o' 
 
 all jint, 
 Ef we can't make a good constitootional 
 
 pint; 
 An' the good time '11 come to be grindin' 
 
 our exes. 
 When the war goes to seed in the nettle 
 
 o' texes : 
 Ef Jt)n'than don't sjuirm, with sech 
 
 helps to assist lum, 
 I give up my faith in the free-sufifrage 
 
 system ; 
 Democ'cy wun't be nut a mite inter- 
 
 estin', 
 Nor p'litikle capital much wuth in- 
 
 vestin' ; 
 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 '11 set down an' give thet 'ere bottle 
 
 For I 've spoke till I 'm dry ez a real 
 graven image. 
 
 No. VI. 
 
 SUNTHIN* IN THE PASTORAL LINE. 
 
 TO THE EDITORS OP THE ATLAHTIO 
 MONTHLY. 
 
 Jaalam, 17th May, 1862. 
 Gentlemen, — At the special request of 
 Mr. Biglow, I intended to inclose, together 
 with Ms 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, " Re- 
 member them that are in bonds, as bound 
 with them," Beb. xiii. 3. But I have not 
 
274 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 leisure sulf.cieni at present for the copy- 
 ing or them, even were I altogether satis- 
 fied "With the production as it stands. I 
 should prefer, 1 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 in selection of greater 
 magnitude than I had anticipated. What 
 passes without challenge in tlie fervour of 
 oral delivery, cannot always stand the 
 colder criticism of the closet. I am not 
 Bo great an enemy of Eloquence as my 
 friend Mr. Biglow would appear to be from 
 oome passages in his contribution for the 
 current month. I would not, indeed, 
 hastily suspect him of covertly glancing at 
 myself in his somewhat oaustick animad- 
 versions, albeit some of the phrases he 
 girds at are not entire strangers to my lips. 
 J. am a more hearty admirer of the Puri- 
 tans than seems now to be the fashion, and 
 believe, that, if they Hebraized a little too 
 much in their speech, they showed remark- 
 able practical sagacity as statesmen and 
 founders. But such phenomena as Puri- 
 tanism are the results rather of great relig- 
 ious than of 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. lie, missa est. 
 I am inclined to agree with Mr. Biglow 
 that we cannot settle the great political 
 questions which are now presenting them- 
 selves 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 practica- 
 ble 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. 
 
 With esteem and respect. 
 
 Your obedient servant. 
 
 Homer Wilbub. 
 
 Onoe git a smell o' miisk into a draw, 
 An' it clings hold like preoerdents in 
 
 law : 
 Your gra' ma'am put it there, — when, 
 
 goodness knows, — 
 To jes' this-worldify her Siinday-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 
 0' 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 'a '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 
 0' 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' sing-s, — 
 (Why, I 'd give more for one live bobo- 
 link 
 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 
 
 little city-gals, don't never go it 
 
 Blind on the word o' noospaper or poet 1 
 
 They 're apt to puff, an' May-day sel- 
 dom 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 cowhide 
 boots, 
 
 Tuggin' my foundered feet out by the 
 roots, 
 
 Hev seen ye come to iilng on April'! 
 hearse 
 
 Your mu.slin nosegays from the mil- 
 liner's, 
 
 Puzzlin' to find dry ground youi queea 
 to choose, 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 275 
 
 An' dance your throats sore in morocker 
 
 shoes : 
 1 've seen ye an' felt proud, thet, come 
 
 wut would, 
 Our Pilgrim stock wuz pethed 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, 
 Ef Dooty tells us thet the thing's to du. 
 An' kerry a hoUerday, ef we set out, 
 Ez stiddily ez though 't wuz a redoubt. 
 
 I, country -born an' bred, know where to 
 
 find 
 Some blooms thet make the season suit 
 
 the mind, 
 An' seem to metch the doubtin' blue- 
 bird'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 '11 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, 'uthout 
 
 more words 
 Toss the fields full o' blossoms, leaves, 
 
 an' birds : 
 Thet 's Northnn natur', slow an' apt to 
 
 doubt. 
 But when it doos git stirred, ther' 's no 
 
 gin-out ! 
 
 Fust come the blackbirds olatt'rin' in 
 tall trees. 
 
 An' settlin' things in windy Congresses, — 
 
 Queer politicians, though, for I '11 be 
 skmned 
 
 Ef all on 'em don't head aginst the wind. 
 
 'fore long the trees begin to show be- 
 lief, — 
 
 The maple crimsons to a coral-reef. 
 
 Then saflem swarms swing off from all 
 the willers 
 
 So plump they look like yaller caterpil- 
 laa, 
 
 Then gray hossches'nuts leetle hands 
 unfold 
 
 Softer 'n a baby's be at three days old : 
 
 Thet 's robin-redbreast'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, 
 TiU some fine momin' 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 Aperl into 
 
 June: 
 Then all comes crowdin' in ; afore you 
 
 think, 
 Yoimg 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 ; 
 Bed-cedars blossom tu, though few folks 
 
 know it. 
 An' look all dipt in sunshine like a poet ; 
 The lime-trees pUe their solid stacks o' 
 
 shade 
 An' drows'ly simmer with the bees' 
 
 sweet trade ; 
 In ellum-shrouds the flashin' hangbird 
 
 clings 
 An' for the summer vy'ge his hammock 
 
 All down the loose-walled lanes in 
 
 archin' bowers 
 The barb'ry'droops its strings o' golden 
 
 flowers, 
 Whose shrinkin' hearts the school-gals 
 
 love to try 
 With pins, — they '11 worry youm soj 
 
 boys, bimeby ! 
 But I don't love your cat'logue style, -•• 
 _ do you ? — 
 
276 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 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 quiv- 
 
 erin' wings, 
 Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair, 
 Euns 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 
 With a queer critter thet can't seem to 
 
 'gree 
 Along o' me like most folks, — Mister 
 
 Me. 
 Ther' 's times when I 'm unsoshle ez a 
 
 stone. 
 An' sort o' suffercate to be alone, — 
 I 'm crowded jes' to think thet folks are 
 
 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 to- 
 gether, 
 My natur' gits all goose-flesh, an' my sins 
 Come drizzUn' on my conscience sharp 
 
 ez pins : 
 ■Wal, et seoh 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'- 
 
 time: 
 Findin' my feelin's would n't noways 
 
 rhyme 
 With nobody's, but off the hendle flew 
 Ajx' took things from an east-wind pint 
 
 o' view, 
 I started off to lose me in the hUls 
 Where the pines be, up back o' 'Slab's 
 
 Mills: 
 
 Pines, ef you 're blue, are the best friends 
 
 1 know. 
 They mope an' sigh an' sheer your feel- 
 
 in's so, — 
 They hesh the ground beneath so, tu, 1 
 
 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 
 
 Lord knows wut : 
 Three-story lamia' '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 ABC, 
 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, tJiet 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 't 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 ; 
 I set down where I used to set, an' git 
 My boyhood back, an' better things with 
 
 it,— 
 Faith, Hope, an' suuthin', ef it isn'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 milk- 
 weed-down. 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 277 
 
 Now, 'fore I knowed, that Sabbath 
 
 artemoon 
 When 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 : 
 It 's thinkin' everythin' you ever knew, 
 Or ever heam, 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 wnn't ful 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" a the 
 
 wits, 
 So much a month, warn't givin' Natur' 
 
 iits, — 
 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, 
 TiU 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 suuthin' thet ain't jes' like either 
 
 single ; 
 An' when you cast off moorin's from 
 
 To-day, 
 An' down towards To-mon-er drift away. 
 The imiges thet tengle on the sti'eam 
 Make it new upside-down'ard world o' 
 
 dream : 
 Sometimes they seem like sunrise-streaks 
 
 an' warnin's 
 0' wut '11 be in Heaven on Sabbath- 
 
 momin'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, 
 
 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 beam some un stompin' up the 
 
 step. 
 An' lookin' round, ef two an' two make 
 
 four, 
 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 wvt, .'"sez I. — " Your gret-gret- 
 
 gret," sez he : 
 " You would n't ha' never ben here but 
 
 for me. 
 Two hundred an' three year ago this May 
 The ship I come in sailed up Boston Bay ; 
 I 'd been a cunule in our Civil War, — 
 But wut on airth hev you gut up one for ? 
 Coz we du things in England, 't ain'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 en- 
 dorse, — 
 't would prove, coz you wear spurs, you 
 
 kep' a horse : 
 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' qnickenin' 
 The chum would argoo skim-milk into 
 
 thickenin' ; 
 But skim-milk ain't a thing to chongt 
 
 its view 
 
278 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 O' wut it's meant for more 'n a smoky 
 
 flue. 
 But du pray tell me, 'fore we fnrder 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. 
 An' danced the tables till their legs wuz 
 
 g°"^' , . , ,. 
 
 In hopes o' larnin wut wuz gom on, 
 
 Sez he, "but mejuras lie so like all-split 
 
 Thet 1 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 't ain't gut rusty in the jints, 
 It 's safe to trust its say on certin ^nts : 
 It knows the wind's opinions to a T, 
 An' the wind settles wut the weather 'U 
 
 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 ! " 
 (£z 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 / wuz younger 'n wut you see me 
 
 now, — 
 Nothin' from Adam's fall to Huldy's 
 
 bonnet, 
 Thet I warn't full-cocked with my jedg- 
 ment on it ; 
 But now I 'm gittin' on in life, I find 
 It's <t 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, 
 fhe moral question 'b ollus plain 
 
 enough, — 
 It's jes' the human-natur' side thet's 
 
 tough; 
 Wut 's best to think may n't puzzle me 
 
 nor you, — 
 The pinch comes in decidin' wut to du; 
 Kf you read History, all runs smooth ez 
 
 grease, 
 
 Coz there the men ain't nothin' more 'a 
 
 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' Ag- 
 gers, — 
 They can't resist, nor warn't brought up 
 
 with niggers ; 
 But come to try your the'ry on, — why, 
 
 then 
 Your facts an' Aggers change to ign'ant 
 
 men 
 Actin' ez ugly — " — "Smite 'em hip 
 
 an' thigh ! " 
 Sez gran'ther, " and let every man-child 
 
 die! 
 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 twelve- 
 month 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. 
 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." 
 " Wal, milk-an' -water ain't the best o' 
 
 glue," 
 Sez he, "an' so you '11 find before you re 
 
 thru ; 
 Ef reshness venters sunthin', shilly- 
 
 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 : 
 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 BIQLOW PAPERS. 
 
 279 
 
 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' 
 I to fail : 
 The rettlesnake ain't dangerous in the 
 
 tail; 
 This 'ere rebellion 's nothin but the 
 
 rettle, — 
 You '11 stomp on thet an' think you 've 
 
 won the bettle ; 
 It 's Slavery thet 's the fangs an' thinkin' 
 
 head. 
 An' ef you want solvation, cresh it 
 
 dead, — 
 An' cresh it suddin, or you '11 lam by 
 
 waitin' 
 Thet Chance wun't stop to listen to de- 
 
 batin' ! " — 
 "God's truth ! " sez I, — " an' ef / 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' ; 
 God hates your sneakin' creturs thet 
 
 believe 
 He'll settle things they run away an' 
 
 leave ! " 
 He brought his foot down fercely, ez he 
 
 spoke. 
 An' give me seoh a startle thet I woke. 
 
 No. VII. 
 
 LATEST VIEWS OP MR. BIGLOW. 
 
 PRELIMINAEY 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 ao we 
 may venture to call him, though we never 
 enjoyed the high privilege of his personal 
 acquaintance) was in his eighty-fourth 
 year, having be^ bom June 12, 1779, at 
 
 Pigsgusset Precinct (now West Jerusha) 
 iu 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 appli- 
 cation 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 hynm, begin- 
 ning 'With clouds of care encompassed 
 round,' has been attributed in some collec- 
 tions to the late President Dwight, and it 
 is h.ardly 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 
 simimary 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 predeces- 
 sors in the pastoral office, and of eminent 
 clerical contemporaries ; 2d, An obitu- 
 ary of deceased, from the Punkin-Falls 
 "Weekly Parallel"; 3d, A list of hio 
 printed and manuscript productions and 
 of projected works ; 4th, Personal anec- 
 dotes and recollections, with specimens of 
 table-talk ; 5th, A tribute to his relict, 
 Mrs. Dorcas (Pilcox) Wilbur; 6th, A list 
 of gr,iduates lifted for different colleges by 
 Mr. Wilbur, with biographical memoranda 
 toucking the more distinguished ; 7th, 
 Concerning learned, charitable, and other 
 societies, of which Mr. Wilbur was a 
 member, and of those with which, had his 
 lite been prolonged, he would doubtless 
 have been associated, with a complete cat- 
 alogue of such Americans as have been 
 Fellows of the Royal Society ; 8th, A brief 
 summary of Mr. Wilbur's latest conclu- 
 sions concennng the Tenth Horn of the 
 Beast in its special application to recent 
 events for which the public, as Mr. Hitch- 
 
280 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 cook assures us, have been waiting with 
 feelings of lively anticipation ; 9tli, Mr. 
 Hitchcock's own views on the same topic ; 
 and, 10th, A brief essay on the impor- 
 tance of local histories. It will be appar- 
 ent that the duty of preparing Mr. Wil- 
 bur's biogi'aphy could not have fallen 
 Into more sympathetic hands. 
 
 In a private letter witli which the rev- 
 erend gentleman has since favored us, he 
 expresses the opinion that Mr. Wilbur's 
 life was shortened by onr 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. Hitch- 
 cock, on the very morning of the day he 
 died, " that, through the divine mercy, I 
 could always say, SuMmuTn- nee tnetuo 
 diem, nee opto. It has been my habit, as 
 you know, on every recurrence of this 
 blessed anniversai-y, to read Milton's 
 ' Hymn of the N.ativity ' till its sublime 
 harmonies so dilateil my soul and quick- 
 ened its spiritual sense that I seemed to 
 hear that other song which gave assurance 
 to the shepherds that tliere 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 mourufnl text, ' 1 came not to send 
 peace, but a sword,' and, did it not smack 
 of pagan presumptuonsness, could almost 
 wish 1 had never lived to see this day." 
 
 Mr. Hitchcock also informs us that his 
 friend "lies buried in the Jaalam grave- 
 yard, under a large red-cedar which he 
 specially admired. A neat and substan- 
 tial monument is to be erected over his 
 remains, with a Latin epitaph written by 
 himself ; for he was accustomed to say, 
 pleasantly, 'that there wfis at least one 
 occasion in a scholar's life when he might 
 show the advantages of a classical train- 
 ing.' " 
 
 ']?he following fragment of a letter ad- 
 dressed to us, and apparently intended to 
 accompany Mr. Biglow's contribution to 
 the present number, was foimd upon his 
 table after his decease. — Editors Atlam- 
 
 TIO MONTHLT.] 
 
 TO THE EDITORS OP THE ATLAHTIC 
 MONTHLY. 
 
 Jaai.am, 24th Dec, 1862. 
 Respected Sirs, — The infirm .state of 
 Wy bodily health would be a sufficient 
 apology for not taking up the pen at this 
 
 time, wholesome ai; I deem it for the mind 
 to apricate in the slielter of epistolary con- 
 fidence, were it not that a considerablCj I 
 might even say a large, number of individ- 
 uals in this parish expect from their pas- 
 tor some publiok expreiision of sentiment 
 at this crisis. Moreover, Qui tacitus mrdet 
 magis uritwr. In trying times like these, 
 the besetting sin of undisciplined minds is 
 to seek refuge from inexplicable realities 
 in the dangerous stimulant of angry par- 
 tisanship or the indolent narcotick of 
 vague and hopeful vaticination : fortu- 
 namque sxu> temperat arbitrio. Both by 
 reason of my age and ray natural temper- 
 ament, 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 seewrus, — 
 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. lara 
 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, did 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 
 fnll of the vexations and anxieties of house- 
 keeping. It may be true enough that mis- 
 cet luec illis, prohibetque Clotho fortUTUtm 
 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 Repub- 
 lick 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 tha 
 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 
 todefendwhiohitwasundertaken. 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 Goveimueut 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 281 
 
 We are not merely suppressing an enor- 
 mous riot, Imt contendingforthepossibility 
 of permanent order coexisting with demo- 
 cratical lickleness ; and while I would not 
 superstitiously venerate fomi to the sacri- 
 fice of substance, neither would I forget 
 that an adherence to precedent and pre- 
 scription can alone give that contimiity 
 and coherence under a democratical consti- 
 tution which are inherent in tlie person of 
 a despotick monarch and the selKshness of 
 an aristocratical 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 pro- 
 test from me against a certain extremeness 
 in his views, more pardonable in the poet 
 than in the philosopher. While I agiee with 
 him, that the only cure for rebellion is 
 suppression by force, yet I must animad- 
 vert 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 com- 
 promise of individual opinions, interests, 
 and even rights, no society would be pos- 
 sible. In medio tutissimua. For my own 
 part, I would gladly 
 
 Ef I a song or two could make 
 Like rockets druv by their own 
 bumin', 
 All leap an' light, to leave a wake 
 Men's hearts an' faces skyward 
 turnin' ! — 
 But, it strikes me, 't ain'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 ; 
 It 's gratis, (gals half-price,) but cheap 
 
 At no rate, ef it benders doin' ; 
 Ther' 's nothin' wuss, 'less 't is to set 
 
 A martyr-prem'um upon jawrin' : 
 Teapots git dangerous, ef you shet 
 
 Their lids down en 'em with Fort 
 Warren. 
 
 "Bout long enough it 's ben discussed 
 Who sot the magazine afire, 
 
 An' whether, ef Bob WicklilTe bust, 
 'T would scare us more or blow ua 
 higher. 
 
 D' ye s'pose the Gret Foreseer's plan 
 Wuz settled fer him in town-meetin' ? 
 
 Or thet ther' 'd ben no FaU o' Man, 
 £f Adam 'd on'y bit a sweetiu' ? 
 
 Oh, Jon'than, ef you want to bo 
 
 A nigged chap agin an' hearty, 
 Go fer wutever 'U hurt Jeff D., 
 
 Nut wut '11 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 '11 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 
 
 Siiuthin' pertickler wuz a-brewin'. 
 
 Ther' 's critters yit thet talk an' act 
 
 Fer wut they call Conciliation ; 
 They 'd hand a bufflo-drove a tract 
 
 When they wuz madder than all 
 Bashan. 
 Conciliate ? it jest means ie 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, 
 Ez 't would to make a sneakin' truce 
 
 Without no moral specie-basis : 
 Ef green-backs ain't nut jest the cheese, 
 
 ] guess ther' 's evils thet's extremer, — 
 Fer instance, — shinplaster idees 
 
 Like them put out by Gov'nor Sey- 
 mour. 
 
 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 I — but how 'd the grasp 
 
 With sech a chance ez thet wuz tally ? 
 Ther' warn't no meanin' in our clasp, — 
 
 Half this, half thet, all shilly-shallvj, 
 
282 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 More men ? More Man ! It 's there we 
 fail; 
 Weak plans grow weaker yit by 
 lengthen in : 
 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', 
 Scjuave-sot with thousan'-ton belief 
 In him an' us, ef earth went rockin' ! 
 
 Ole Hiok'ry would n'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 could n't see but jest one side, — 
 
 Ef his, 't wuz God's, an' thet wuz 
 plenty ; 
 An' so his " Forrardsl" multiplied 
 
 An army's fightiu' weight by twenty. 
 
 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 does kind o' stunt 
 
 The peth and sperit of a critter. 
 
 In six months where '11 the People be, 
 
 Ef leaders look on revolution 
 Ez though it wuz a cup o' tea, — 
 
 Jest social el'ments in solution ? 
 This weighin' things doos wal enough 
 
 Wlieu war cools down, an' comes to 
 writin' ; 
 But while it 's makin', the true stuif 
 
 Is pison-mad, pig-headed iightin'. 
 
 Pemoc'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 : 
 I tell ye one thing we might lam 
 
 From them smart critters, the Seced- 
 ers, — 
 Ef bein' right 's the fust consarn. 
 
 The 'fore-the-fust 's cast-iron leaders. 
 
 But 'pears to me I see some signs 
 That we 're a-goiu' to use our senses : 
 
 Jeff druv us into these hard lines. 
 An' ough' to bear his half th' ex- 
 penses ; 
 Slavery 's Secession's heart an' will, 
 South, North, East, West, where'er 
 you find it, 
 An' ef It drors into War's mill, 
 D' ye say them thunder-stones sha' q | 
 grind it? 
 
 D' ye s'pose, ef Jeff giv him a lick, 
 
 Ole Hick'ry 'd tried his head to sai'u 
 So 's 't would n't hurt thet ebony stick 
 
 Thet 's made our side see stars so of n-; 
 " No ! " he 'd ha' thundered, " On youi 
 knees. 
 
 An' own one flag, one road to glory I 
 Soft-heartedness, in times like these, 
 
 Shows sof ness in the upper story I " 
 
 An' why should we kick up a muss 
 
 About the Pres'dunt's proclamation J 
 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 '11 lose in vally 
 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 chanee 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, 
 
 No matter how you mould an' labot 
 '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 en« 
 suin' ; 
 But fact wun't noways wear the ring, 
 
 'Thout years o' settin' up an' wooin' : 
 Though, arter all. Time's dial-plate 
 
 Marks ceut'ries with the minute-fin" 
 ger, 
 Ap' Good can't never come tu late, 
 
 Though it doos seem to try an' lingen 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPEES. 
 
 283 
 
 An' come wnt will, T think it 's grand 
 
 Abe 's gut his will et last bloom-fur- 
 naced 
 In trial-flames till it '11 stand 
 
 The strain o' bein' in deadly earnest : 
 Thet 's wut we want, — we want to 
 I know 
 
 The folks on our side hez the bravery 
 To b'lieve ez hard, come weal, come woe, 
 
 In Freedom ez Jeff doos in Slaveiy. 
 
 Set the two forces foot to foot. 
 
 An' every man knows who '11 be win- 
 ner, 
 Whose faith in God hez ary root 
 
 Thet goes down deeper than his din- 
 ner: 
 Then 't will 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. 
 
 PBELmiNART NOTE. 
 
 Its the month of February, 1866, the 
 editors of the "Atlantic Monthly" re- 
 ceived from the Rev. Mr. Hitchcock of 
 Jaalam a letter enclosmg 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 prede- 
 cessor 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 prop- 
 erly 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 stand- 
 ing entertain opposing views. The young 
 man who was improved as a medium sub- 
 mitted himself to the experiment with 
 manifest reluctance, and is still unprepared 
 to believe in the authenticity of the mani- 
 festations. 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 oidinai-y 
 
 quadrupedal one, weighing about thirty 
 pounds, three feet seven inches and a half 
 m height, four feet square on the top, and 
 of beech or maple, 1 am not definitely pre- 
 pared to say which. It had once belonged 
 to my respected predecessor, and had been, 
 so far as I can learn iipon careful inquiry, 
 of perfectly regular and correct habits up 
 to the evening in question. On that occa- 
 sion 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 rap- 
 pings, 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 sur- 
 prised and pained by the wholly unex- 
 pected, and, so far as he was concerned, 
 unprecedented occurrence. At the earnest 
 solicitation, however, of several who hap- 
 pened to be present, he consented to go on 
 with the experiment, and with the assist- 
 ance of the alphabet commonly employed 
 in similar emergencies, the following com- 
 munication was obtained and written down 
 immediately by myself. Whether any, 
 and if so, how much weight should be at- 
 tached to it, I venture no decision. That 
 Dr. Wilbur had sometimes employed his 
 leisure in Latin versification I have ascer- 
 tained to be the case, though all that has 
 been discovered of tliat nature among his 
 papers consists of some fragmentary pas- 
 sages of a vension into hexameters of por- 
 tions of the Song of Solomon. These I had 
 communicated about a week or ten d^ys 
 previous [ly] to the young gentleman who 
 officiated as medium in the commimica- 
 tion afterwards received. I have thus, I be- 
 lieve, stated all the material facts that have 
 any elucidative bearing upon this myste- 
 rious occurrence." 
 
 So far Mr. Hitchcock, who seems per- 
 fectly master of Webster's imabridged 
 quarto, and whose flowing style leads him 
 into certain further 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 compara- 
 tive power of resistance in window-glass 
 to various solid substances, than in tha 
 more regular studies of the place. In an- 
 swer to a letter of inquiry, the professor of 
 Latin says, "There was no harm in the 
 boy that I know of beyond his loving mis- 
 chief more than Latin, nor can I think of 
 any spirits likely to possess him except 
 
284 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPEES. 
 
 those commonly called animal. He was 
 certainly not remarkable for his Latinity, 
 but I see nothing in the vei-ses 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 ear- 
 lier 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 pur- 
 porting to be by Scaliger, Bentley and 
 others, — among them the Esprit de Vol- 
 taire 1 These we have omitted as clearly 
 meant to be humorous and altogether fail- 
 ing therein. 
 
 Though entirely satisfied that the verses 
 are altogether unworthy of Mr. Wilbur, 
 who seems to have 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 gestce of this collec- 
 tion, and partly as a warning to their pu- 
 tative author which may keep him from 
 such indecorous pranks for the future. 
 
 KETTELOPOTOMACHIA. 
 
 P. Ovidii Nasonis carmen Iieroicum maca- 
 ronicum perplexametrura, inter Getaa getico 
 more eompostum, denuo per medium arden- 
 tispiritualem, adjuvante mens& diabolice ob- 
 sessfl, recuperatum, curftque Jo. Conradi 
 Schwarzii umbrie, allis necnon plurimis adju- 
 vantibus, restitutnm. 
 
 lilBER I. 
 
 PtTNCTORTTM gartetos colens et cellars 
 
 Quinque, 
 Gutteribua quEe et gandes sundayam 
 
 abstingere frontem, 
 Plerumque in.sidos solita fiuitare liquore 
 Tanglepedem quem homines appellant 
 
 Di quoque rotgut, 
 Pimpliidis, rubicundaque, Musa, 0, 
 
 bourbonolensque, 6 
 
 Fenianas rixas procul, alma, brogipo- 
 
 tentls 
 Patricii cyathos iterantis et horrida 
 
 bella, 
 Backos dum yirides viridis Brigitta re- 
 
 lulttit, 
 
 Llnquens, eximios celebrem, da, Viii 
 
 ginien.ses 
 Kowdes, prsecipue et Tb, heros alte, 
 
 Polarde ! l« 
 
 Insignes juvenesque, illo certamlne 
 
 lictos, 
 Colemane, Tylere, neo vos obliviona 
 
 relinquam. 
 
 Ampla aquilfe Invictse fausto est sub 
 
 tegmine terra, 
 Backyfev, ooiskeo pollens, ebenoqu« 
 
 bipede, 
 Socors pnesidum et altrix (denique 
 
 quidmminantium), 15 
 
 Duplefveorum uberrima ; illis et integre 
 
 cordi est 
 Deplere assidue et sine proprio incom- 
 mode iiscum ; 
 Nunc etiara placidum hoc opus in- 
 
 victique secuti, 
 Goosam aureos ni eggos voluissent im- 
 
 mo necare 
 Quae peperit, saltern ac de illis meliora 
 
 merentem. 20 
 
 Condidit hano Smithius Dux, Cap- 
 
 tinus inclytus ille 
 Regis Ulyssse instar, docti aroum in- 
 
 tendere longum ; 
 Condidit ille Johnsmith, Virginiamque 
 
 vocavit, 
 Settledit autem Jacobus rex, nomine 
 
 primus, 
 Bascalis implens ruptis, blagardisque 
 
 deboshtis, 25 
 
 Militibnsque ex Falstaffi legione fuga- 
 
 tis 
 Wenchisque illi quas poterant seducere 
 
 nuptas ; 
 Virgineum, ah, littus matronis talibus 
 
 impar I 
 Progenlem stirpe ex hoc non sine stig- 
 
 mate ducunt 
 Multi sese qui jaotant regum esse ne- 
 
 potes : 30 
 
 Hand omnes. Mater, genitos qnse nuper 
 
 habebas 
 Belle fortes, consilio cautos, virtute 
 
 decoros, 
 Jamque et habes, sparse si patrio in 
 
 sanguine virtus, 
 Mostrabisque iterum, antiquis sub astria 
 
 reducta ! 
 De iUis qui upkikitant, dicebam, mm- 
 
 pora tanta, 31 
 
 Letcheris et Floydis magnisque Extrj 
 
 ordine Billis; 
 
THK BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 285 
 
 Est his prisca fides juiare et breakers 
 
 wordum ; 
 Poppere fellerum a tergo, aut stickere 
 
 clam bowiknifo, 
 Hand sane facinus, dignum sed victrice 
 
 lauro ; 
 Larrupere et nigerum, factum prsestan- 
 
 tius \illo : 40 
 
 Ast chlamydem piciplumatam, Icariam, 
 
 flito et ineptam, 
 Yanko gratis induere, ilium et valido 
 
 railo 
 lusuper acri equitare docere est hospitio 
 
 uti. 
 Nescio an ille Polardus duplefveoribus 
 
 ortus, 
 Sed reputo potius de radice poorwite- 
 
 manorum ; 45 
 
 Fortuiti proles, ni fallor, Tylerus erat 
 Prcesidis, omniljus ab Whiggis nominatus 
 
 a poor cuss ; 
 Et nobilem tertium evincit venerabile 
 
 nomen. 
 Ast animosi omnes bellique ad tympana 
 
 ha ! ha ! 
 Vociferant Iseti, procul et si proelia, 
 
 sive 60 
 
 Hostem incautum atsito possint shoot- 
 
 ere salvi ; 
 Imperiiqne capaces, esset si stylus 
 
 agmen, 
 Pro dulci spoliabant et sine dangere fito. 
 Prae ceterisque Polardus : si Secessia 
 
 licta, 
 Se nunquam licturum jurat, res et un- 
 
 heardof, 65 
 
 Verbo hsesit, similisque audaci roosteri 
 
 invioto, 
 Dnnghilli solittis rex puUos whoppere 
 
 molles, 
 Grantum, hirelingos stripes quique et 
 
 splendida toUunt 
 Sidera, et Yankos, territum et omnem 
 
 sarauit orbem. 
 Usque dabant operam isti omnes, 
 
 noctesque diesque, CO 
 
 Samuelem demulgere avunculum, id 
 
 vero siccum ; 
 Uberibus sed ejus, et horum est culpa, 
 
 remotis, 
 Parvam domi vaccam, nee mora minima, 
 
 quserunt, 
 Lacticarentem autem et droppam vix 
 
 in die dantem ; 
 fieddite avunculi, et exclamabant, red- 
 
 dite pappam ! 65 
 
 Polko Tit consule, gemens, Billy im- 
 
 murmurat Extra ; 
 Echo respondit, thesaui'o ex vacuo, pap- 
 pam ! 
 Frustra explorant pooketa, ruber nara 
 
 repertum ; 
 Officia expulsi aspiciunt rapta, et Para- 
 
 disum 
 Occlusum, viiidesque haud illis nascers 
 
 backos ; 70 
 
 Stupent tunc oculis madidis spittantque 
 
 silenter. 
 Adhibere usu ast longc vires prorsus 
 
 inepti. 
 Si non ut qui grindeat axve trabemva 
 
 reuolvat, 
 Virginiara exoruciant totis nunc might- 
 
 ibu' matrem ; 
 Kon melius, puta, none panis dimid- 
 
 iumne est? 75 
 
 Eeadere ibi non posse est casus com- 
 moner uUo ; 
 Tanto intentius imprimere est opus ergo 
 
 statuta ; 
 Nemo propterea pejor, melior, sine 
 
 doubto, 
 Obtineat qui contractum, si et postea 
 
 rhino ; 
 Ergo Polardus, si qius, inexsuperabilis 
 
 heros, 80 
 
 Colemanus impavidus nondum, atque 
 
 in purpura natus 
 Tylerus iohanides celerisque in flito 
 
 Nathaniel, 
 Quisque optans digitos in tantum stick- 
 
 ere pium, 
 Adstant accincti imprimere aut pemim- 
 
 pere leges : 
 Qnales os miserum rabidi tres segre 
 
 molossi, 85 
 
 Quales aut dubinm textum atra in vesta 
 
 ministri. 
 Tales circumstabant nunc nostri inopes 
 
 hoc job. 
 Hisque Polardus voce canoro taUa 
 
 fatus : 
 Primum autem, veluti est mos, prseceps 
 
 quisque liquorat, 
 Quisque et Nicotianum ingens quid 
 
 inserit atrum, 90 
 
 Herodm nitidum decus et solamen avi- 
 
 tum, 
 Masticat ac simul altisonans, spittatque 
 
 profuse : 
 Quis de Virginia meruit prsestantiui 
 
 unqnam 1 
 Quis se pro patria curavit impigre tutumf 
 
286 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 Speechisqne articulisque bominum quis 
 
 fortior ullus, 9S 
 
 Ingcmiuans pennee lickos et vulnera 
 
 voois ? 
 Quisnam putidius (hie) sarsuit Yanki- 
 
 nimicos, 
 Ssepius aut dedit ultro datam et broke 
 
 Ms parolam ! 
 Mente inquassatus solidaqiie, tyranno 
 
 minante, 
 Homsonis (hie) hombis mcenia et alta 
 
 qnatente, 100 
 
 Sese promptum (hie) jaotans Yankos 
 
 lickere centum, 
 Atque ad lactam invietus non surrendi- 
 
 dit unquam ? 
 Ergo haud meddlite, posco, mique re- 
 
 linquite (hie) hoe job, 
 Si non — knifumque enormem mostrat 
 
 spittatque tremendus. 
 Dixerat : ast alii reliquorant et sine 
 
 pauso 105 
 
 Pluggos incumbunt maxillis, nterque 
 
 vieissim 
 Certamine innocuo valde madidam in- 
 
 quinat assem : 
 Tylerus autem, dumque liquorat aridus 
 
 hostis, 
 Mirum aspicit duplumqne bibeutem, 
 
 astante Lyseo ; 
 Aidens impavidusque edidit tamen im- 
 
 pia verba ; 110 
 
 Dnplum quaniTis te aspicio, esses atque 
 
 viginti, 
 Mendaeem dicerem totumque (hie) 
 
 thrasherem acerviim ; 
 Nempe et thrasham, doggonatus (hie) 
 
 sim nisi faxem; 
 Lambastabo omnes catawoinpositer-(hic) 
 
 que ehawam ! 
 Dixit et impulsus Eyeo ruitur bene ti- 
 
 tus, 115 
 
 Illi nam gravidum caput et laterem 
 
 habet in hatto. 
 Hunc inhiat titubansque Polardus, 
 
 optat et ilium 
 Stickere inermem, protegit autem rite 
 
 Lyseus, 
 Et pronos geminos, oculis dubitantibus, 
 
 heros 
 Cemit et irritus hostes, dumque excogi- 
 
 tat utrum 120 
 
 Primum inpitchere, corruit, inter utros- 
 
 que recumbit, 
 Hagno asino similis nimio sub pondere 
 
 quassus : 
 
 Colemanus hos mcestuR, triste ruminans* 
 
 que solamen, 
 Inspieit hieeaus, circnmspittat terque 
 
 cubantes ; 
 Funereisque his ritibus humidis inde 
 
 Solutis, 12) 
 
 Stemitur, invalidusque illis superineidit 
 
 infans ; 
 Hos sepelit somnua et snorunt comiso- 
 
 nantes, 
 Watehmanus inseios ast ealyboosodeinde 
 leponit. 
 
 No. IX. 
 
 [The Editors of the "Atlantic" hava 
 received so many letters of inquiry con- 
 cerning the literary remains of the late Mr. 
 Wilbur, mentioned by his colleague and 
 successor, Rev. Jedutnan Hitchcock, in a 
 communication from which we made some 
 extracts in our number for Febniary, 1863, 
 and have been so repeatedly urged to priut 
 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 ur- 
 gent 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 backa 
 of letters in an exoeedmgly cramped chi- 
 rography, — here a memorandum for a ser- 
 mon ; 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 modem 
 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 half- 
 way down with an entry that the brindle 
 cow had calved, — that any attempts at 
 selection seemed desperate. His only com- 
 plete work, "An Enquiry concerning the 
 Tenth Horn of the Beast," even in the ab- 
 stract 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 immedi- 
 ate concern to the general reader. Even 
 the Table-Talk, though doubtless origi- 
 nally highly interesting in the domestic 
 <!ircle, is so largely made up of theological 
 discussion and matters of local or preterite 
 interest, that we have found it hard to ex- 
 tract anything that would at all satisfy 
 expectation. But, in order to silence fun 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 287 
 
 ther inquiry, we subjoin a few passages as 
 illustratioQS of its general character. J 
 
 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 entertain- 
 ment in this life, on ;the endless variety of 
 seasons, of human character and fortune, 
 on the costliness of the hangings and fur- 
 niture 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, be- 
 cause 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 remem- 
 bered 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 dead-headed (ut 
 ita dicam) through life, and which, calling 
 itself trust in Providence, is in reality ask- 
 ing 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 squir- 
 rels 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 tne 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 them- 
 selves and their children ! 1 have seen 
 churches that seemed to me gamers of these 
 withered nuts, for it is wonderful how pro- 
 paic 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 in- 
 ward 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 revered 
 predecessor was, I would liumbly 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 warn- 
 ing 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 mo- 
 tives for always refusing his pulpit to those 
 itinerant professors of vicarious benevo- 
 lence 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 state- 
 ment 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 religious 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 reprehen- 
 sible 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. Sheariashub 
 Scriingour, 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) re- 
 mained 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 pro- 
 fessing Christians, which might be sus- 
 pected in the conclusion of the above para- 
 graph. — J. H.J 
 
 In lighter moods hewas not averse from 
 an innocent play upon words. Looking 
 up from his newspaper one morning as 1 
 entered his study he said, " When I read 
 a debate in Congress, I feel as if 1 were 
 
288 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPEES. 
 
 sitting at the feet of Zeno in the shadow 
 of the Portico." On my expressing a nat- 
 ural surprise, he added, smiling, "Why, 
 at such times the only view which honora- 
 ble members give me of what goes on in 
 the world is through their intercalumnia- 
 tions." 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 ra- 
 pier, it buckled on the more subtle blade of 
 etiquette wherewith to keep obtrusive vul- 
 
 farity at bay." In this connection, I may 
 e 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 pass- 
 ing allusion. It was during these heats, 
 long since happily allayed, that Mr. Wil- 
 bur remarked that " the Church had more 
 trouble in dealing with one «%eresiarch 
 than with twenty ^resiarchs," and that 
 the men's cojiscia recti, or certainty of be- 
 ing right, was nothing to the women's. 
 
 When I once asked his opinion of a po- 
 etical composition on which I had expended 
 ho 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 noth- 
 ing 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, water- 
 ing 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 unre- 
 ality, for I have observed in my intercourse 
 with the afflicted that the deepest grief in- 
 stinctively 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|. tn your own case, 
 my worthy young friend, what you have 
 written is merely a deliberate exercise, the 
 gymnastic of sentiment. For your excel- 
 lent maternal relative is still alive, and is 
 to take tea with me this evening, D. V. Be- 
 ware 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 bo 
 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 herverses more sincerely than 
 she did Phaon, and Petrarch his sonnets 
 better than Laura, who was indeed but his 
 poetical stalking-horse. After you shall 
 nave once heard that muffled rattle of the 
 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 ray eldest boy Homer busy 
 over the rain-water hogshead, in that child- 
 ish experiment at parthenogenesis, the 
 changing a horse-hair into a water-snake. 
 An immersion of six weeks showed no 
 change in the obstinate filament. Hera 
 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 com- 
 ing to life by being submerged in rhyma 
 than his hair by soaking in water! I 
 burned my elegy and took a course of Ed- 
 wards- on the Will. People do not make 
 poetry ; it is made out of them by a pro- 
 cess for which I do not find myself fitted. 
 Nevertheless, the writing of verses is a 
 good rhetorical exercitation, as teachingus 
 what to shun most carefully in prose. For 
 prose bewitched is like vrindow-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 kick-shaws cooked 
 up by theologians, it is apt to produce an 
 indigestion, nay, even 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 name- 
 less would have taken from this town a 
 recommendation for an office of trust sut^ 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPEKS. 
 
 289 
 
 Bcribed by the selectmen and all the voters 
 of both parties, ascribing to him as many 
 good qualities as if it had been his tomb- 
 stone. 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. 
 r would not refuse my name to modest 
 merit, but I would be as cautious as in sign- 
 ing 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 oertiticate 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 fa- 
 miliarity 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 at- 
 tention. 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 priv- 
 ileged to take the world by the button, 
 and a thing is weightier for Shakespeare's 
 'ittering it by the whole amount of his 
 personality. 
 
 It is singular how impatient men are 
 with overpraise of othei-s, how patient 
 vrith overpraise of themselves ; and yet the 
 one does them no injury, while the other 
 may be their ruin. 
 
 People are apt to confound mere alert- 
 ness 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 concen- 
 tration of every one of them in a sin- 
 gle focus, as in the alchemist over liis 
 alembic at the moment of expected pro- 
 jection. Attention is the stuff that mem- 
 ory is made of, and memory is accumu- 
 lated genius. 
 
 Do not look for the Millennium as im- 
 minent. 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 pri- 
 vate way, it becomes public and gregarious. 
 We flatter ourselves in the Pilgrim Fathers, 
 and the Virginian offshoot of a transported 
 convict swells witi the fancy of a cavalier 
 ancestry. Pride of birth, I have noticed, 
 takes two foi-ms. 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 pcsitive 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 bless- 
 ings, 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 shoiUd 
 put it out in her effort to draw nigh to it. 
 
 No. X. 
 
 MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR 
 OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. 
 
 Deak Sir, — Your letter come to han" , 
 
 Requestin' me to please be fuimy ; 
 But I ain't made upon a plan. 
 Thet knows wut 's comin', gall or 
 honey : 
 Ther' 's times the world doos 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. 
 
 Yon 're 'n want o' sunthin' light an' cute, 
 
 Kattlin' an' shrewd an' kin' o' jingle- 
 ish, 
 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 j 
 Then, 'fore I know it, my idees 
 
 Run helter-skelter into Yankee, 
 
290 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 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 
 selioolin' j 
 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 
 
 or 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, 
 An' then it helves my thoughts ez slick 
 Ez stret-grained hickory doos a 
 hetchet. 
 
 But when I can't, I can't, thet 's all. 
 
 For Natur' won't put up with guUin' ; 
 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 
 0' sense they pour an' resh ye on- 
 wards, 
 Like rivers when south-lyin' drifts 
 Feel thet th' old airth 's a-wheelin' 
 sunwards. 
 
 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 '11 slope afore you 've 
 mist 'em. 
 
 Kcthin' don't seem like wut it wuz ; 
 
 I can't see wut there is to hender. 
 An' yit my brains jes' go buzz, buzz. 
 
 Like bumblebees agin a winder ; 
 'lore 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 'b all one teeter, hopin', dreadin'. 
 
 Where's Peace? I start, some cleats 
 blown night. 
 When gaunt stone walls grow numb 
 an' number. 
 An', creakin' 'cross the snow-crus' white. 
 Walk the col' starlight into summer ; 
 Up grows the moon, an' swell by swell 
 Thru the pale pasturs silvers dimmer 
 Than the last smile thet strives to tell 
 0' love gone heavenward in its shimv 
 mer. 
 
 I hev ben 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, 
 Jes' coz they be so, seem to me 
 
 To rile me more with thoughts o' 
 battle. 
 
 In -doors 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'. 
 
 Snow-flakes come whisperin' on tha 
 pane 
 The charm makes blazin' logs so 
 
 But I can't hark to wut they 're say'n', 
 With Grant or Sherman oUers pres- 
 ent; 
 The chimbleys shudder In the gale, 
 Thet lulls, then suddin takes to flap* 
 pin' 
 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. 
 An' hear among their furry boughs 
 The baskin west-wind purr con- 
 tented. 
 While 'way o'erhead, ez sweet an' low 
 
 Ez distant bells thet ring for meetin', 
 The wedged wil' geese their buglel 
 blow. 
 Further an' further South retreatin'. 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPEE3. 
 
 291 
 
 Or up the slippsry knob I strain 
 
 yin" see a hundred hills like islan's 
 Lift their blue woods in broken chain 
 
 Out o' the sea o' snowy silence ; 
 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, 
 Can't set me goin' more 'n a dunce 
 
 Thet hain't no use for dreams an' 
 fancies. 
 
 Bat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street 
 
 I hear the drummers makiu' riot. 
 An' I set thinkin' o' the feet 
 
 Thet foUered once an' now are quiet, — 
 White feet ez snowdrops innercent, 
 
 Thet never knowed tne paths o' Satan, 
 Whose comiu' step ther 's ears thet 
 won't. 
 
 No, not lifelong, leave off awaitin'. 
 
 Why, hain't T held 'em on my knee ? 
 
 Did n'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 theim, keeps 
 climbin', 
 Ez long 'z it lives, in shinin' ways. 
 
 An' naif despise myself for rhymin'. 
 
 Wut's words to them whose faith an' 
 truth 
 
 On War's red techstone rang true 
 metal, ' 
 
 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 
 
 Tnet rived the Rebel line asunder ? 
 
 T ain't right to hev the young go fust. 
 All throbbin' full o' gifts an' graces, 
 
 Leavin' lil'e's paupers dry ez dust 
 To try an make b'lieve fill their 
 places : 
 
 Nothin' but tells ns 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 I 
 
 My eyes cloud up for rain ; my month 
 
 Will take to twitchin' roun' the oor« 
 ners; 
 I pity mothers, tu, down South, 
 
 For all they sot among the scomers : 
 I 'd sooner take my chance to stan' 
 
 At Jedgment where your meanestf 
 slave is. 
 Than at God's bar hoV up a han' 
 
 Ez drippin' red ez youm, Jeff Davis I 
 
 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 teat 
 water. 
 
 Come, while our conntry feels the lift 
 
 Of a gret instinct shoutin' forward^ 
 An' knows thet freedom ain't a gift 
 
 Thet tanies long in ban'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 t 
 
 No. XL 
 
 MR. HOSEA BIGLOW'S SPEECH IN 
 MARCH MEETING. 
 
 TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC 
 MONTHLY. 
 
 Jaalah, April 5, 1866. 
 My deak Sin, — 
 
 (an' noticin' by your kiver thet you 're 
 some dearer than wut yon wuz, I enclose 
 the deffrence) I dunno ez I know jest how 
 to interdroce this las' perdaction of m^ 
 raews, ez Parson Willber alius called 'em, 
 which is goin' to be the last an' stay tha 
 last ouless sunthin' pertikler sh'd interfear 
 which I don't expec ner I wun't yield tn 
 
292 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 ef it wuz ez pressin' ez a deppity SWriff. 
 Sence Mr. Wilbur's disease I hev n'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. Minnysteeiil natur is wal enough 
 an' a site better 'n most other kines I 
 know on, but the other sort sech as Wel- 
 bor hed wuz of the Lord's makin' an' nat- 
 erally more wondeifle an* sweet tastin' 
 leastways to me so fur as heerd from. He 
 used to interdooce 'em smooth ez ile 
 athout sayin' nothin' in pertiokler an' I 
 misdoubt he did n't set so much by the 
 sec'nd Ceres as wnt 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' bimt 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. Turn- 
 in' of it over 1 recclected 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 dar- 
 ters, though I most alius found it the best 
 plen to go in fust an' think afterwards an' 
 the gals likes it best tu. 1 dno as speechis 
 ever hez any argimunts to 'em, I never see 
 none thet hed an' I guess they never du 
 but tha must alius be a B'ginniu' to every- 
 thin' athout it is Etarnity so I '11 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. Be- 
 gins by talkin' about himself ; thet 's jest 
 natur an' most gin'ally alius pleasin', I 
 b'leeve 1 '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 oijunce by let- 
 tin' 'em gether from wut you kind of ex'- 
 dentally let drop thet they air about Bast, 
 A one, an' no mistalk, skave 'em up an' 
 take 'era as they rise. Spring interdooced 
 with a flew approput flours. Speach 
 finally begins witch nobuddy need n t feel 
 obolygated to read as 1 never read 'em an' 
 
 never shell this one ag'in. Subjick Btaited ; 
 expanded ; delayted ; extended. Pump 
 lively. Subjick staited ag'in so 's to avide 
 all mistaiks. Ginnle remarks ; contin- 
 ooed ; kerried on ; pushed furder ; kind o' 
 gin out. Subjick rc-staited; dielooted; 
 stirred up permiscoous. Pump ag'in. 
 Gits back to where he sot out. Can't 
 seem to stay thair. Ketches into Mr. Sea- 
 ward'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 re- 
 pleye. 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, eend- 
 ways, criss-cross, bevellin', noways. Gits 
 finally red on it. Concloods. Concloods 
 more. Reads some xtrax. Sees his sub- 
 jick a-nosin' round arter him ag'in. Tries 
 to avide it. Wun't du. il/t'sstates it. 
 Can't conjectur' no other plawsable way of 
 staytin' on it. Tries pump. No fx. Fine- 
 ly concloods to conclood. Yeels the flore. 
 
 You kin spall an' punctooate thet as 
 you please. I alius do, it kind of puts a 
 noo soot of close onto a word, thisere fun- 
 attick spellin' doos an' takes 'em out of 
 the prissen dress they wair in the Dixon- 
 ary. 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. " Noo- 
 mone hay," sez I, pooty bresk, for he wuz 
 alius hankerin' round in hayin'. "Naw- 
 thin' 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 rippliu' 
 like, for he lost a babe onct nigh about 
 her age, — " you 're a good lad ; but 't 
 ain't thet nuther," sez he. "Ef yon want 
 to know," sez he, "open your winder of a 
 momin' et ary season, and you '11 lam 
 thet the best of perfooms is jest fresh air, 
 fresh air," sez he, emphysizin', "athout 
 no mixtur. Thet 's wut / call natur in 
 writin', and it bathes my lungs and washes 
 'em sweet whenever I git a whiff on 't," 
 sez he. I offen think o' thet when I set 
 down to write, but the winders air so ept 
 to git stuck, an' breakiu' a pane cost! 
 sunthin'. 
 
 Yourn for the last time, 
 
 Nut to be continooed. 
 
 Rosea BiaLOW. 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 293 
 
 I don't much s'pose, liows'erer I should 
 
 plen it, 
 I coiUd 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 rather 
 
 hai-d! 
 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' 
 
 thiTi, 
 An' nothin' but the customer thet 's 
 
 new. 
 I sometimes think, the furder on I go, 
 Thet it gits harder to feel sure I know. 
 An' when 1 've settled my idees, I find 
 't warn't 1 sheered most in makin' up 
 
 my miud ; 
 't wuz this an' thet an' t' other thing 
 
 thet done it, 
 Sunthin' in th' air, I could n' seek nor 
 
 shun it. 
 Mos' folks go off so quick now in dis- 
 cussion, 
 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 ; 
 Wal, ef it 's so, I ain't agoin' to werrit. 
 For th' <Jle Queen's-armhezthispertickler 
 
 merit, — 
 It gives the mind a hahnsome wedth o' 
 
 margin 
 To kin' o' make its will afore dischargin' : 
 1 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 
 
 So 's 't all the country dreads me onct a 
 week. 
 
 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 under- 
 neath, 
 
 Comiu' 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 
 
 Beforehan' to his rows o' kebbige-heads, 
 (Ef 't war n't Demossenes, I guess 't wuz 
 
 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 'a 
 
 come an' past. 
 The kebbige-heads '11 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." 
 
 I 've alius foun' 'em, I allow, sence then 
 About ez good for talkin' to ez men ; 
 They '11 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'Uy 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, 
 I fin' 'em ready-planted in Mareh- 
 
 meetin'. 
 Warm ez a ly'ceum-audience in their 
 
 greetin'. 
 An' pleased to hear my spoutin' frum 
 
 the fence, — 
 Comin', ez 't doos, entirely free 'f ex- 
 pense. 
 This year I made the follerin' observa. 
 
 tions 
 Extrump'ry, like most other tri'ls rf 
 
 patience, 
 
294 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 An', no reporters liein' 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-con- 
 strictor, 
 1 '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 oijunces seem 'live in 
 
 print. 
 An', ez I hev t' report myself, I vum, 
 1 '11 put th' applauses where they 'd 
 
 augk' 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, 
 't would leave 'bout all tha' is wuth 
 
 talkin' to. 
 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'rU noses bloweij 
 
 "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. [Crieso' "Thet'ssor'J 
 
 I Apml 's come back ; the swellin' buds of 
 
 oak 
 Dim the fur hillsides with a purplish 
 
 smoke ; 
 The brooks are loose an', singing to be 
 
 seen, 
 (Like gals,) make all the hoUera soft an' 
 
 gi'een ; 
 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 uorth- 
 
 'ard wing, 
 An' th' ain't an acre, fur ez you can hear, 
 Can't by the music tell the time o' year ; 
 Sut thet white dove Carliny scared away, 
 
 Five year ago, jes' sech an Apml day ; 
 Peace, that we hoped 'onld come an' 
 
 build last year 
 An' coo by every housedoor, is n't 
 
 here, — 
 No, nor wun't never be, for all our jaw, 
 Till we 're ez brave in pol'tics ez in war ! 
 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 iu 
 
 steel ; 
 They run your soul thru an' you never 
 
 feel. 
 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 
 
 eet! 
 Thet kin' o' begnet 's wut we 're crossiu' 
 
 now. 
 An' no man, fit to nevvigate a scow, 
 'ould Stan' expeetin' help from Kingdom 
 
 Come, 
 While t' other side drav their cold iron 
 
 home. 
 
 My frien's, you never gethered from my 
 
 mouth. 
 No, nut one word ag'in the South ez 
 
 South, 
 Nor th' ain't a livin' man, white, brown, 
 
 nor black. 
 Gladder 'n wut I should be to take 'em 
 
 back ; 
 But all 1 ask of Uncle Sam is fust 
 To write up on his door, " No goods on 
 
 trust " ; 
 
 [Cries of " Thet 's the ticket ! "] 
 Give us cash down in ekle laws for all. 
 An' they '11 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, peaoefle, 
 
 strong ; 
 Make 'em Amerikin, an' they '11 begin 
 To love their country ez they loved theii 
 
 sin ; 
 Let 'em stay Southun, an' you 've kep* 
 
 a sore 
 Beady to fester ez it don* afora. 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 295 
 
 No mortle man can boast of perfio' vision, 
 But the one moleblin' thing is Inde- 
 cision, 
 An' th' ain't no futur' for the man nor f To make a man a Man an' let him be, 
 
 state 
 
 Thet out of j-u-s-t can't spell great. 
 Some folks 'ould call thet reddikle ; do 
 
 you? 
 'T was commonsense afore the war wuz 
 
 thru ; 
 Thet loaded all our guns an' made 'em 
 
 speak 
 So 's 't Europe beared 'em cleam 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 need n't 
 
 fear 
 The tallest airthquakes we can git up 
 
 here." 
 Some call 't insultin' to ask ary pledge, 
 An' say 't will only set their teeth on 
 
 But folks you 've jest licked, fur 'z I 
 
 ever see. 
 Are 'bout ez mad 'z they wal know how 
 
 to be ; 
 It 's better than the Eebs themselves 
 
 expected 
 'fore they see Uncle Sam wilt down 
 
 henpected ; 
 Be kind z you please, but fu.stly make 
 
 things fast, 
 For plain Truth 's all the kindness thet 
 
 % last ; 
 Ef treason is a crime, ez some folks say, 
 How could we punish it a milder way 
 Than sayin' to 'em, " Brethren, lookee 
 
 here. 
 We '11 jes' divide things with ye, sheet 
 
 an' sheer. 
 An sence both come o' pooty strong- 
 backed daddies. 
 You take the Darkies, ez we've took 
 
 the Paddies ; 
 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 wnt will, thet can't 
 
 be busted, 
 An' thet 's the old Amerikin idee. 
 
 [Gret applause.] 
 Ez for their I'yalty, don't take a goad 
 
 to't, 
 But I do' want to block their only road 
 
 to't 
 By lettin' 'em believe thet they can git 
 Mor 'n wut they lost, out of our little 
 
 wit: 
 I tell ye wut, 1 'm 'fraid we '11 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 '11 eccept her 'pologies in form : 
 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. " 0, wal, 't wuz jest hia 
 
 fun. " 
 " He tried to shoot our Uncle Samwell 
 
 dead." 
 " 'T wuz only tryin' a noo gun he hed." 
 " Wal, all we ask 's to hev it understood 
 You '11 take his gun away from him for 
 
 good; ■ / 
 
 We don't, wal, nut exac'ly, like his ' 
 
 . play. 
 Seein' he alius kin' o' shoots our way. 
 You kill your fatted calves to no good 
 
 eend, 
 'thout his fust sayin', 'Mother, I hev 
 sinned ! ' " 
 
 (" Amen I " frrnn Deao'n Greenleaf.] 
 
 The Pres'dunt he thinks thet the slick- 
 est plan 
 
 'ould be t' allow thet he 's our on'y 
 man. 
 
 An' thet we fit thru all thet dreffle war 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 Jes' for his private glory an' eclor ; 
 "Nobody ain't a Union man," sez he, 
 " 'thout he agrees, thru thick an' thin, 
 
 with me ; 
 War n't Andrew Jackson's 'nitials jes' 
 
 like mine? 
 An' ain't thet suuthin 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 would n' 
 
 care, if 
 The question now wuz techin' bank or 
 
 tariff, 
 But I conclude they 've 'bout made up 
 
 their mind 
 This ain't the fittest time to go it blind, 
 Nor these ain't metters thet with pol- 
 itics swings. 
 But goes 'way down amongst the roots 
 
 o' things ; 
 Coz Sumner talked o' whitewashin' one 
 
 day 
 Theywun'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 Co- 
 lumbus. 
 Did he set tu an' make it wut it is ? 
 Ef so, I guess the One-Man-power hez 
 
 riz. 
 f Did he put thru the rebbles, clear the 
 ' docket, 
 
 An' pay th' expenses out of his own 
 
 pocket ? 
 Ef thet 's the case, then everythiu' I 
 
 exes 
 Is t' hev him come an' pay my ennooal 
 
 texes. [Profound sensation.] 
 
 Was 't he thet shou'dered all them mil- 
 lion 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 ! 
 
 An' is the country goin' to knuckls 
 
 down 
 To hev Smith sort their letters 'stid o' 
 
 Brown ? 
 Who wuz the 'Nited States 'fore Bich- 
 
 mon' 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 senoe 
 
 then 
 To lam folks they must hendle fecta 
 
 like men ? 
 Ain't this the true p'int ? Did the Eebs 
 
 accep' 'em ? 
 Ef nut, whose fault is 't thet we hev n't 
 
 kep 'em? 
 War n'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 '11 be dis- 
 missed. 
 
 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 
 't would need Leviathan's whole skin 
 
 to settle : 
 I thought 't would take about a genera- 
 tion 
 'fore we could wal begin to be a nation. 
 But I allow I never did imegine 
 't would be our Pres'duut 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 'a only printer's 
 
 ink ; 
 I mus' confess I thank him for dis- 
 
 coverin' 
 The cums way in which the States an 
 
 sovereign ; 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 297 
 
 They ain't nut quite enough so to rebel, 
 But, when they fin' it 's costly to raise 
 
 h — , [A groan ft'om 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' raebby he 's correc', but I misdoubt ; 
 Ef they war n't out, then why, 'n the 
 
 name o' sin. 
 Make all this row 'bout lettin' of 'em 
 
 inl 
 In law, p'r'aps nut ; but there 's a dif- 
 
 furence, ruther. 
 Betwixt your mother-'n-law an' real 
 
 mother, [Derisive cheers.] 
 
 An' I, for one, shall wish they'd all 
 
 been som'eres, 
 Long 'z U. S. Texes are sech reg'lar 
 
 comers. 
 But, 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 ? 
 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, 
 't wun't bind 'em mor 'n the ribbin 
 
 roun' my het ; 
 I heared a fable once from Othniel 
 
 Stams, 
 That pints it slick ez weathercocks do 
 
 bams : 
 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 ; 
 But somehow, when the dogs hed gut 
 
 Their love o' mutton beat their love o' 
 
 sheep. 
 Till gradilly the shepherds come to see 
 
 Things war n'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' 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 ; 
 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 mur- 
 rain rot ye, 
 To keep us wastin' half oar time to watch 
 
 ye!" 
 But then the question come. How livo 
 
 together 
 'thout losin' sleep, nor nary yew nor 
 
 wether ? 
 Now there wuz some dogs (noways wuth 
 
 their keep) 
 That 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 ; 
 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 shep- 
 herd 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 soUd way, howe'er yon 
 
 puzzle : 
 TeU they 're convarted, let 'em wear a 
 
 muzzle." [Criep of " Bully for you 1 "] 
 
 I 've noticed thet each half-baked 
 
 scheme's abetters 
 Are in the hebbit o' producin' letters 
 Writ by all sorts o" never-heared-on 
 
 fellers, 
 'bout ez oridge'nal ez the wind in hel* 
 
 lera; 
 
298 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 I 've noticed, tu, it 's the tinack med'- 
 
 clne gits 
 (An' needs) the grettest heaps o' stiffy- 
 
 kits ; [Two apothekeries goes out.] 
 
 Now, sence I lef off creepin' on all fours, 
 T hain't ast no man to endorse my course ; 
 It 's full ez cheap to be your own endor- 
 ser. 
 An' ef I 've made a cup, I '11 fin' the 
 
 saucer ; 
 But I 've some letters here from t' other 
 
 side, 
 An' them 's the sort thet helps me to 
 
 decide ; 
 Tell me for wut the copper-comp'nies 
 
 hanker, 
 An' I '11 tell you jest where it 's safe to 
 
 anchor. [Faint h'ss.] 
 
 Fus'ly the Hon'ble B. 0. Sawin writes 
 Thet for a spell he could n' sleep o' 
 
 nights, 
 Puzzlin' which side wus preudentest to 
 
 pin to. 
 Which wuz th' ole homestead, which the 
 
 temp'ry leanto ; 
 Et fust he jedged 't would right-side-up 
 
 his pan 
 To come out ez a 'ridge'nal Union man, 
 "But now," he aez, " I ain't nut quite 
 
 so fresh ; 
 The winnin' horse is goin' to be Seeesh ; 
 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 hold an' read the foUerin' 
 
 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 oopper-sheathedan' copper-fastened 
 
 tu." 
 
 " These four years past it hez been tough 
 To say which side a feller went for ; 
 Guideposts all gone, roads muddy 'n' 
 
 rough, 
 An' nothin' duin' wut 't wuz meant for ; 
 Pickets a-firin' left an' right, 
 Both -sides a lettin' rip et sight, — 
 Life war n't wuth hardly payin' rent for. 
 
 " Columby gut her back up so. 
 
 It war n't no use a-tryin' to stop her, — 
 
 War's emptin's riled her very dough 
 An' made it rise an' act improper ; 
 't wuz full ez much ez I could du 
 To jes' lay low an' worry thru, 
 'thout hevin' to sell out my copper. 
 
 " Afore the war your mod'rit men 
 Conld set an' sun 'em on the fences, 
 Cyph'rin' the chances up, an' then 
 Jump off which way bes' paid expenses; 
 Sence, 't wus so resky ary way, 
 I did n't hardly darst to say 
 I 'greed with Paley's Evidences. 
 
 [Groan fh>m Deac'n G.J 
 
 " Ask Mac ef tryin' to set the fence 
 War n't like bein' rid upon a rail on 't, 
 Headin' your party with a sense 
 0' 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 cheeis for Grant and Sherman.] 
 
 "Come peace, I sposed thet folks 'ould 
 
 like 
 Their pol'ties done ag'in by proxy 
 Give their noo loves the bag an' strike 
 A fresh trade with their reg'lar doxy ; 
 But the drag 's broke, now slavery '» 
 
 gone. 
 An' there 's gret resk they '11 blimder on, 
 Ef they ain't stopped, to real Demoo'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 
 
 "No white man sets in airth's broad 
 
 aisle 
 Thet I ain't willin' t' own ez brother. 
 An' ef he 's heppened 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. 
 
 [Applauiej 
 
 "Wut is there lef I 'd like to know, 
 Ef 't ain't the difference o' coloi; 
 
THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 299" 
 
 To keep tip self-respec' an' show 
 The human natnr' 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, 
 "t wun'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 
 O' shape, nor color, nor condition. 
 
 [Continood applause.] 
 
 "So fur I 'd writ an' could n' jedge 
 Aboard wut boat 1 'd best take pessige, 
 My brains all mincemeat, 'thout no 
 
 Upon 'em more than tu a sessige. 
 But now it seems ez though I see 
 Sun thin' resemblin' an ideei 
 Sence Johnson's speech an' veto mes- 
 
 "I like the speech best, I confess. 
 The logic, preudence, an' good taste 
 
 on t, 
 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 
 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 Freesilei, 
 Is cute ez though an ingineer 
 Should claim th' old iron for his sheer 
 Coz 't was himself that bust the biler!" 
 [Gret laughter.! 
 
 Thet tells the story! Thet's wut we 
 
 shall git 
 By tryin' squirtguns on the bumin' Pit ; 
 For the day never comes when it '11 du 
 To kick oil Booty 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 ? war 
 
 n'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 ! 
 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 I" 
 
 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. 
 
 It's the las' time thet I shell e'er ad- 
 dress ye, 
 
 But you '11 soon fin' some new torment- 
 or : bless ye ! 
 
 [Tumult'ous applause and cries of '*Oo onl" 
 "Don't stop I "] 
 
NOTES. 
 
 T AH {ndebted to Mr. Frank Bevexl} Williams 
 for these Ulustrative notes. 
 
 FIRST SEBIBS. 
 
 This series of the Biglow Papers relates to the 
 Mexican War. It expresses the sentiment of 
 New England, and particularly of MsiBsachuBetts, 
 on that conflict, which in its aim and conduct 
 had little of honor for the American Republic. 
 The war was begun and prosecuted in the inter- 
 est of Southern elaveholders. It was essential 
 to the vitality of slavery that fresh fields should 
 constantly be opened to it. Agriculture was al- 
 most the sole industry in which slaves could be 
 profitably employed. That their labor should 
 be wasteful and careless to preserve the produc- 
 tive powers of the soil was inevitable. New 
 land was ever in demand, and the history of 
 slavery in the United States is one long series of 
 struggles for more territory. It was with this 
 end m view that a colony of roving, adventurous 
 Americans, settled in the thinly populated and 
 poorly governed region now known as Texas, re- 
 volted from the Mexican government and secured 
 admission to the Union, thus bringing on the 
 war with Mexico. The Northern Whigs had pro- 
 tested against annexation, but after the war be- 
 gan, their resistance grew more and more feeble. 
 In the vain effort to retain their large Southern 
 constituent, they sacrificed justice to expediency 
 and avoided an issue that would not be put 
 down. The story of the Mexican War is the 
 Btory of the gradual decline of the great Whig 
 party, and of the growth of that organization, 
 successively known as the Liberty, Free-Soil, 
 and Republican party, whose policy was the ex- 
 clusion of slavery from all new territory. One 
 more victory was granted to the Whigs in 1 848. 
 After that their strength failed rapidly. North- 
 em sentiment was being roused to a sense of 
 righteous indignation by Southern aggressions 
 and the fervid exhortations of Garrison and his 
 co-workers in the anti-slavery cause. Few, how- 
 ever, followed Garrison into disloyalty to the 
 Constitution. The greater number preferred to 
 stay in the Union and use such lat^ul political 
 means as were available for the restriction of 
 slavery. Their wisdom was demonstrated by 
 the election of Abraham Lincoln twelve years 
 after the Mexican War closed. 
 
 Page 173. '^ A cruetin SarjunV The act of 
 May 13, 1846, authorized President Polk to em- 
 
 Sloy the militia, and call out 50,000 volunteers, 
 : necessary. He immediately called for the full 
 
 number of volunteers, asking MasBachnsetts for 
 777 men. On May 26 Governor Briggs issued a 
 proclamation for the enrollment of the regiment. 
 As the President's call was merely a request and 
 not an order, man;^ Whigs and the Abolitionists 
 were for refusing it. The lAheraibr for June 5 
 severely censured the governor for complying, 
 and accused him of not carrying out the resolu- 
 tions of the last Whig Convention, which had 
 pledged the party " to present as fiim a front of 
 opposition to the institution as was consistent 
 with their allegiance to the Constitution." 
 
 Page 174. " Massachusetts . . . she V oAneeZm'. 
 . . . " An allusion to the governor's call for 
 troops (cf. note to p. 175) as well as to the vote 
 on the War Bill. On May 11, 1846, the Presi- 
 dent sent to the House of Representatives his 
 well-known message declaring the existence of 
 war brought on " by the act of Mexico," and 
 asking for a supply of $10,000,000. Of the seven 
 members from Massachusetts, all Whigs, two, 
 Robert C. Winthrop, of Boston, and Amos Ab- 
 bott, of Andover, voted for the bill. The Whiga 
 throughout the country, remembering the fate 
 of the party which had opposed the last war 
 with England, sanctioned the measure as neces- 
 saiy for the preservation of the army, then in 
 peril by the unauthorized acts of the President. 
 
 Page 175. *^Ha^nH they sold . . . env'ya 
 wHst" South Carolina, Louisiana, and several 
 other Southern States at an early date passed 
 acts to prevent free persons of color from enter- 
 ing their jurisdictions. These acts bore witb 
 particular severity upon colored seamen, who 
 were imprisoned, fined, or whipped, and often 
 sold into slavery. On the petition of the Massa- 
 chusetts Legislature, Governor Briggs, in 1844^ 
 appointed Mr. Samuel Hoar agent to Charleston, 
 and Mr. George Hubbard to New Orleans, to act 
 on behalf of oppressed colored citizens of the 
 Bay State. Mr. Hoar was expelled from South 
 Carolina by order of the legislature of that 
 State, and Mr. Hubbard was forced by threats 
 of violence to leave Louisiana. The obnoxiouB 
 acts remained in force until after the Civil War. 
 
 Page 175. " Go to work an.'' part.^'' Proposi* 
 tions to secede were not uncommon in New Eng^ 
 land at this time. The rights of the States had 
 been strongly asserted on the acquisition of 
 Louisiana in 1803, and on the admission of the 
 State of that name in 1812. Among the resolu- 
 tions of the Massachusetts Legislature adopted 
 in 1845, relative to the proposed annexation ot 
 Texas, was one declaring that " such an act ol 
 admission would have no binding force whatevel 
 on the people of Maaaachuaetta*" 
 
NOTES. 
 
 801 
 
 Jolin Quincy AdamB, in a dfacourBo beFore the 
 New York Historical Society, in isao, claimed a 
 right for the States " to part in frieudahip with 
 each other . . . when the fraternal spirit Bhall 
 give way," etc. The Garriaonian wiug of the 
 Abohtioniats notoriously advocated Becession. 
 There were several other inatanceeof an exprea- 
 eion of this sentiment, but for the moat part 
 they were not evoked by opposition to slavery. 
 
 Page 176. " Hoorawin^ in ole FunneU* The 
 Massachusetts regiment, though called for May 
 13, 1846, was not mustered into the United 
 Statea' service till late in January of the next 
 year. The ofiQcers, elected January 6, 1847, were 
 aa follows: Caleb Gushing, of Newburyport, 
 Colonel; Isaac H. Wright, of Roxbury, Lieuten- 
 ant-Colonel; Edward W. Abbott, of Andover, 
 Major. Shortly before the troopa embarked for 
 the South, on t'le evening of Saturday, January 
 23, 1847, a public meeting was held in laneuil 
 Hall, where an elegant sword was presented to 
 Mr. Wright by John A. Bolles, on behalf of the 
 Bubacribers. Mr. Bollea* speech on this occasion 
 ia the one referred to. 
 
 FaseVIG. ** Mister Bolles." Mr. John Augus- 
 tus Bollea waa tlie author of a prize eseay on a 
 Congi'ess of Nations^ published by the American 
 Peace Society, an essay on Usury and Usury 
 Laws^ aud of varioua articles in the North Amer- 
 ican Review and other periodicals. He was also 
 the first editor of the Boston Journal. In 1843 
 he was Secretary of State for Massachusetts. 
 
 Page 176. Mantoul. Mr. Robert Bantoul 
 (180&--1852), a prominent lawyer and a most ac- 
 complished gentleman, was at this time United 
 States District Attorney for Massachusetta. In 
 1851 he succeeded Webster in the Senate, but 
 remained there a short time only. He waa a 
 Bepreaentative in Congress from 1851 till his 
 death. Although a Democrat, Mr. Bantoul was 
 strongly opposed to slavery. 
 
 Page 176. "jlcAoHn' on 'cm." Mr. Rantoul 
 was an earnest advocate of the abolition of capi- 
 tal punishment. Public attention had recently 
 been called to his views by some letters to Gov- 
 ernor Brigga on the aubject, written in February, 
 1846. 
 
 Page 178. " Ca?c6." Caleb Cushinp, of New- 
 buryport, Colonel of the HasBachuaetts Regi- 
 ment of Volunteers, 
 
 Page 179. " Gubernatorial second.** Cf. note 
 to p. 173. 
 
 Page 180, ** Guvener B." George Nixon 
 Briggs was the Whig Governor of Maeaachusetts 
 from 1844 to 1851. The campaign referred to 
 here is that of 1847. Governor Briggs was re- 
 nominated by acclamation and supported by his 
 party with great enthusiasm. His opponent was 
 Caleb Gushing, then in Mexico, and raised by 
 President Polk to the rank of Brigadier-General. 
 Gushing waa defeated by a majority of 14,060. 
 
 Page 180. "JbAra P.Robinson." John Paul 
 Robinson (1799-1864) waa a resident of Lowell, a 
 lawyer of considerable ability, and a thorough 
 classical scholar. He represented Lowell in the 
 Btate J/egislature in 1829, 1830, 1831, 1833, a.nd 
 1842, and was Senator from Middlesex in 1836. 
 J/ftto in the gubernatorial contest of 1847 it was 
 nmored that Robinson, heretofore a zealous 
 Whig, and a delegate to the recent Springfield 
 Convention, had gone over to the Democratic 
 or, as it was then styled, the "Loco" camp. 
 Tike editor of the Boston Palladium wrote to 
 
 him to learn the truth, and Robinson replied in 
 an open letter avowing his intention to vote for 
 Gushing. 
 
 Page 180. ^^Gineral C." General Caleb 
 Gushing. Gf. note to p. 178. 
 
 Page 181. '* Our country, however bounded." 
 Mr. R. G. Winthrop, M. C., in a speech at Fan- 
 euil Hall, July 4, 1845, aaid in deprecation of ae- 
 cession : " Our country — bounded by the St. 
 John's and the Sabine, or however otherwiae 
 boimded or described, and be the measurements 
 more or leas — still our country — to be cher- 
 ished in all our hearts, to be defended by all our 
 hands." The sentiment waa at once taken up 
 aud used effectively by the "Cotton" Whige, 
 those who inclined to favor the Mexican War. 
 
 Page 182. ** The Liberator." The lAberaior 
 was William Lloyd Garrison's anti-Klavery pi.per, 
 pubhshed from 18:^1 to 1865. The " heresies " 
 of which Mr. Wilbur speaks were Garrison's ad- 
 vocacy of secession, hia well-known and eccen- 
 tric views on "no government," woman suf- 
 frage, etc. 
 
 Page 182. Scott. General W, Scott waa men- 
 tioned as a possible Whig candidate for the Pres- 
 idency in the summer of 1847, but waa soon 
 overshadowed by General Taylor. 
 
 Page 184. J. G. Palfrey. December 6, 1847, 
 Mr. R. C. Winthrop, of Boston, the Whig candi- 
 date for Speaker of the House in the TiiiLlieth 
 CongreBB, was elected after three ballots. Mr. 
 John Gorham Palfrey, elected a Whig member 
 from Boston, and Mr. Joahua Giddings, of Ohio, 
 refused to vote for Winthrop, and remained firm 
 to the last in spite of the intensity of public 
 opinion in their party. The election of a Whig 
 Speaker in a manner depended on their votes. 
 Had they supported Winthrop, he could have 
 been elected on the aecond ballot. At the third 
 he could not have been elected without them 
 had not Mr. Levin, a Native American member, 
 changed his vote, and Mr. Holmes, a Democrat 
 from South Carolina, left the hall. Mr, Palfrey 
 refused to vote for Mr. Winthrop because he 
 was assured the latter would not, through his 
 power over the committees, exert his influence 
 to arrest the war and obstruct the extension of 
 slavery into new territory. So bold and decided 
 a stand at so critical a time excited great indig- 
 nation for a time among the "Cotton" Wiiigs 
 of Boston. 
 
 Page 184. "Springfield Convention." This 
 convention was held September 29, 1847. The 
 aubatance of the resolutiona is given by Mr. Big- 
 low. 
 
 Page 187. " Monteery." Monterey, the capi- 
 tal of Nueva Leon, capitulated September 24, 
 1846, thus giving the United States' troops con- 
 trol over about two thirds of the territory and 
 one tenth of the population of Mexico. 
 
 Page 187. " Cherry Butter." August 20, 1847, 
 General Scott stormed the heights of Cheru- 
 busco, and completely routed the 30,000 Mexicans 
 stationed there under Santa Anna. Scott could 
 have entered the capital at once in triumph 
 had he not preferred to delay for peace negotia- 
 tions. 
 
 Page 187. " The Tooleries," The French Rev- 
 olution of 1848, which resulted in the deposi- 
 tion of Louis Philippe, waa at this time impend- 
 ing. 
 
 Page 188. ** The Post." The Boston Post,m 
 Democratic, or Loco newspaper. 
 
802 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 Page 188. " The Courier." The Boston Cou- 
 rier, iu which the Biglow Papers firat appeared, 
 was a "Conscience " Whig paper. 
 
 Page 189. ** Drayton and iSayres." In April, 
 1848, an attempt was made to abduct seventy- 
 fleven slaves from Washington in the schooner 
 Pearl, under the conduct of Captain Drayton 
 and Bayres, or Sayers, his mate. The slaves 
 were speedily recaptured and sold South, while 
 their brave defenders barely escaped with their 
 lives from an infuriated mob. The Abolitionists 
 In Congress determined to evoke from that body 
 some expression of sentiment on the subject. 
 On the 20th of April Senator Hale introduced a 
 resolution implying but not expressing sympathy 
 with the oppressed. It stirred the slaveholders 
 to unusual intemperance of language. Callioim 
 was "amazed that even the Senator from New 
 Hampshire had so little regard for the Constitu- 
 tion," and, forgetting his usual dignity, declared 
 he "would as soon argue with a maniac from 
 Bedlam " as with Mr. Hale. Mr. Foote, of Mis- 
 ifiasippi, was, perhaps, the most violent of all. 
 He denounced any attempt of Congress to legis- 
 late on the subject of slavery as "a nefarious 
 attempt to commit grand larceny.'* He charged 
 Mr. Hale with being "as guilty as if he had 
 committed highway robbery,*^ and went on to 
 say, "I invite him to visit Mississippi, and will 
 teU him beforehand, in all honesty, that he could 
 not go ten miles into the interior before he would 
 grace one of the tallest trees of the forest with 
 a rope around his neck, with the approbation of 
 aU honest and patriotic citizens; and that, if 
 necessary, I should myself assist in the opera- 
 tion." 
 
 Mr. Hale stood almost alone with bis resolu- 
 tion, which was soon arrested by an adjourn- 
 ment. A similar resolution failed in the House. 
 
 Drayton and Sayres were convicted by the Dis- 
 trict Court and sentenced to long terms of im- 
 prisonment. In 1862 Senator Sumner secured 
 for them im unconditional pardon from Presi- 
 dent Fillmore. 
 
 Page 190. Mr. Foote. Cf. note above. Mr. 
 Henry B. Foote was Senator from Mississippi 
 from 1847 to 1852. He was a member of the 
 Confederate Congress, and the author of The- 
 War of the Rebellion, and Personai Recollec- 
 tions of Public Men. 
 
 Page 190. Mangum. "W. P. Mangum (1792- 
 1861) was Senator from North Carolma from 
 1831 to 1837, and from 1841 to 1847. He was 
 President pro tern, of the Senate during Tyler's 
 administration, 1842-1845. 
 
 Page 190. Cass. Lewis Cass (1782-186G) was 
 Jackson's Secretary of War from 1831 to 1836, 
 Minister to France from 1836 to 1842, Senator 
 from Michigan from 1845 to 1848, and candidate 
 for the Presidency on the Democratic ticket in 
 1848. After his defeat by Taylor he was in 1849 
 returned to the Senate to fill out his unexpired 
 term. He was Buchanan's Secretary of State 
 until the famous message of December, 18G0, 
 when he resigned. 
 
 Page 190. Davis. Jefferson Davis, the Presi- 
 dent of the so-called Confederate States, was a 
 Senator from MisBissippi from 1847 to 1850. 
 
 Page 190. Hannegan. Edward A, Hannegan 
 was Senator from Indiana from 1843 to 1849. 
 He was afterwards Minister to Prussia. Died iu 
 1859. 
 
 Page 190. Jamagin. Spencer Jama^ repre- 
 
 sented the State of Tennessee In the Senate 
 from 1841 to 1847. He died in 1851. 
 
 Page 190. Atherton, Charles G. Atherton 
 (1804-1853) was Senator from New Hampshir« 
 from 1843 to 1849. 
 
 Page 191. Colquitt. W. T. Colquitt (1799- 
 1865) was Senator from Georgia, 1843-1849. 
 
 Page 191. Johnson, Beverdy Johnson wai 
 Senator from Maryhind, 1845-1849. 
 
 Page 191. Westcott. James D. Westcott, Ben^ 
 ator from Florida, 1845-1849. 
 
 Page 191. Lewis. Dixon H. Lewis represented 
 Alabama in the House of Representatives from 
 1829 to 1843, and in the Senate from 1844 till his 
 death in 1848. 
 
 Page 192. "-^ Payris." The revolution in Franca 
 was hailed with delight in the United States as a 
 triumph of freedom and popular government. 
 Iu Congress the event gave opportunity for much 
 sounding declamation, in which the Southern 
 members participated with as much enthusiasm as 
 those from the North. At the same time when the 
 Abolitionists sought to turn all this philosophy 
 to some more practical application nearer homei 
 the attempt was bitterly denounced at Washing- 
 ton and by the Democratic press generally. A 
 striking instance of this inconsistency is afforded 
 by a speech of Senator Foote. " The age of 
 tyrants and slavery," said he, in allusion to 
 France, " is drawing to a close. The happy 
 period to be signalized by the universal emanci- 
 pation of man from the fetters of civil oppres- 
 sion, and the recognition in all coimtries of the 
 great principles of popular sovereignty, equality, 
 and brotherhood, is at this moment visibly com- 
 mencing. " A few days later, when Mr. Mann, the 
 attorney for Drayton and Sayres, quoted these 
 very words in palliation of hia clients' offence, 
 he was peremptorily checked by the judge for 
 uttering " inflammatory " words tluit might 
 "endanger our institutions." 
 
 Page 194. Candidate fm- the Presidency. In 
 the campaign of 1848 the Whigs detemuned to 
 have substantially no platform or programme at 
 all, in order to retain the Southern element in 
 their party. Accordingly a colorless candidate 
 was selected in the person of General 2achary 
 Taylor, who, it was said, had never voted or 
 made any political confession of faith. He was 
 nominated as the "people's candidate," and 
 men of all parties were invited to support him. 
 He refused to pledge himself to any policy or 
 enter into any details, imless on some such ob- 
 solete issue as that of a National Bank. After 
 it became apparent that his followers were chiefly 
 Whigs, he declared himself a Whig also, " al- 
 though not an ultra one." He particularly 
 avoided compromising himself on the slavery 
 question. When, in the beginning of 1847, Mr. 
 J. W. Taylor, of the Cinckmati Signal, ques- 
 tioned him on the Wilmot Proviso, he answered 
 in such vague phrases thit the confused editor 
 interpreted them fii'st as favoring and finally as 
 opposing the measure. This declaration, to- 
 gether with the candidate's annoimcement that 
 he was a Whig, was taken in the North to mean 
 that he was opposed to the extension of slavery. 
 The fact that he was a Southerner and a slave* 
 holder was sufdcient to reassure the South. 
 
 Page 195. Pinto. Pseudonym of Mr. Charles 
 F. Briggs (1810-1877), the same who was after- 
 wards associated with Edgar A. Poe on Um 
 Broadway Review, 
 
NOTES. 
 
 303 
 
 ftige t95. "Thet darned Proviso.*^ Au- 
 gust 8, 1846, the Preuidenc addressed a message 
 to both Houses asking for $2,000,000 to couclude 
 a peace with Mexico aud Tecompemie her for her 
 proposed cession of territory, Oa the same day 
 McKay, of North Carolina, introduced a bill 
 into the lower House for this purpose. David 
 Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, a Democrat and a 
 zealous friend of annexation, moved as a proviso 
 that slavery should forever be excluded from the 
 new territory. The motion was suddenly and 
 unexpectedly carried by a vote of 83 to 51. It 
 did not come to a vote in the Senate, for John 
 Davis, of Massachusetts, talked it to death by a 
 long speech in its favor. Nevertheless it became 
 at once a burning question in both North and 
 South. The more pronounced anti-slavery men 
 of the former section tried to make it the politi- 
 cal test in the coming campaign. The refusal of 
 the Whig party to take up the question caused 
 large accessions to the old Liberty party, now 
 known as the Free-Soil, aud later to become the 
 Republican party. 
 
 Page 201. Faneuil Hall — Colonel WrigJU. 
 Cf. notes to p. 176. 
 
 Page 203. Ashland, etc. It hardly need be 
 said that Ashland was the home of Henry Clay ; 
 North Bend, of Harrison ; Marshfield, of Web- 
 ster ; Kinderhook, of Vau Buren ; aud Baton 
 Kouge, of General Taylor. 
 
 Page 204. ** Pkeladelphy nomemee." The 
 Philadelphia nozainee was General Zachary 
 Taylor. 
 
 Page 205, *' A Wig, hut without ftetn' uUry," 
 Cf. note to p. 194. 
 
 Page 205. ^^ MashfieV speech." The speech 
 here referred to is the one delivered by Webster 
 at Marshfleld, September 1, 1848. While he af- 
 firmed that the nomination of Taylor was **not 
 fit to be made," he nevertheless declared that ho 
 would vote for him, and advised his friends to 
 do the same, *' The sagacious, wise, and fai^ 
 seeing doctrine of availability," said he, " lay at 
 the root of the wtiole matter." 
 
 Page 205. Choate. Into none of his political 
 addresses did Bufus Ghoate throw so much of 
 his heart and soiil as into those which upheld the 
 failing policy of the Whig party from 1848 to 
 1852. 
 
 Page 205. Buffalo. On Augiist 9, 1848, the 
 convention contaiuing the consolidated elements 
 of constitutional opposition to the extension of 
 slavery met at Buffalo. The party, calling itself 
 the Free-Soil party now, declared its platform to 
 be " no more slave States and no more slave ter- 
 ritory." Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis 
 Adams were the candidates selected. Van Buren 
 was chosen because it was thought he might 
 attract Democratic votes. His opposition to the 
 extension of slavery was not very energetic. In 
 his letter accepting the nomination he com- 
 mended the convention for having taken no deci- 
 sive stand against slavery in the District of 
 Columbia. 
 
 Page 207, " To act agin the law." The slave- 
 holding States early legislated to forbid educa- 
 tion and free religious meetings to slaves and 
 free people of color. Stroud's Sketch of the 
 Slave Laws (Philadelphia, 1827) shows that the 
 principal acts of this character date from the pe- 
 riod between 1740 and 1770. This was long be- 
 fore the oldest anti-slavery societies were organ- 
 ised. Thus these laws cuiuot be represented as 
 
 having been the result of Impertinent and Intem- 
 perate agitation on the part oi! Northern Aboli- 
 tionists. They were frequently defended on this 
 ground in the heat of the anti-slavery conilict. 
 
 SECOND SERIES. 
 
 Page 240, The Cotton Loan, In 1861 a mag- 
 nificent scheme was devised for bolstering up the 
 Confederate government's credit. The planters 
 signed agreements subscribing a certain portion 
 of the next cotton and tobacco crop to the gov- 
 ernment. Using this as a basis for credit, the 
 fovernment issued bonds and placed about 
 15,000,000 in Europe, chiefly in England, A 
 much greater loan might have been negotiated 
 had it not suddenly appeared that the ^^ee- 
 ments made by the planters were almost worth* 
 less. By th» end of the year the plan was 
 quietly and completely abandoned. The Eng- 
 lish bondholders had the audacity to apply for 
 aid to the United States after the war. 
 
 Page 2^, Memminger^ Charles Gustavus 
 Memminger, although he had opposed nullifica- 
 tion, was one of the leaders in the secession 
 movement which began in liis own State, South 
 Carolina. On the foimation of the Confederate 
 government he was made Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury, Although not without experience in the 
 management of his State's finances, he showed 
 little skill in his new position. 
 
 Page 240. " Comfiscatin'' all debts.*^ After 
 the failure of the Produce Loan and one or two 
 other measures on a similarly grand scale, the 
 Confederate government resorted to simpler 
 means. Chief among these were the acts con- 
 fiscating the property of and all debts due to 
 alien enemies. No great number of reputable 
 persons in the South could resolve to compound 
 or wipe out debts involving their personal honor, 
 so the results of the scheme were meagre. 
 
 Page 242. Mason and Slidell. In the latter 
 part of 1861 President Davis undertook to send 
 agents or commissioners to England and France 
 to represent the Southern cause. The men 
 chosen were James M. Mason, of Virginia, and 
 John Slidell, of Louisiana. On the 12th of Octo- 
 ber they left Charleston, eluded the blockading 
 squadron, and landed at Havana, Thence they 
 embarked for St. Thomas on the British mail- 
 steamer Trent, On the way the Trent was 
 stopped by Captain Wilkes, of the American 
 man-of-war San Jacinto, and the Confederate 
 agents were transferred as prisoners to the latter 
 vessel. The British government at once pro- 
 claimed the act *' a great outrage," and sent a 
 peremptory demand for the release of the pris- 
 oners and reparation. At the same time, with- 
 out waiting for any explanation, it made exten- 
 sive preparations for hostilities. It seemed and 
 undoubtedly was expedient for the United States 
 to receive Lord Russell's demand as an admis- 
 sion that impressment of British seamen found 
 on board neutral vessels was unwarrantable. 
 Acting on the demand as an admission of the 
 principle so long contended for by the United 
 States. Mr. Seward disavowed the act of Wilkes 
 and released the commiBsioners. But it was held 
 then and htw since been stoutly maintained by 
 many jurists that the true principles of interna- 
 tional law will not justify a neutral vessel in 
 traosporting the agent of a belligerent on a 
 
304 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 hostile mission. On the analogy of despatches 
 they should be coutraband. The difficulty of 
 amicable settlement at that time, however, lay 
 not BO much in the point of law as in the in- 
 tensity of popular feeling on both sides of the 
 Atlantic. 
 
 Page 245. Belligerent rights. One month 
 after Sumter was attacked, on May 13, 1861, the 
 Queen issued a proclamation of neutrahty, ac- 
 cording belligerent rights to the Confederacy. 
 This was done even before Mr. Adams, the new 
 , xninistei: from the Lincoln administration, could 
 • reach England. Commercial interest cannot 
 , excuse so precipitate a recognition. It cannot 
 be regarded as anything but a deliberate expres- 
 ' ai^n of unfriendliness towards the United States. 
 It coldly contemplated the dissolution of the 
 Union, favored the establishment of an inde- 
 pendent slave-empire, and by Its moral support 
 strengthened the hands of the Kebellion and 
 prolonged the war. 
 
 Page 245. Confederate privateers. It is no- 
 torious that Confederate cruisers were built, 
 equipped, and even partially manned in England 
 in open disregard of the international law re- 
 specting neutrals. Mr. Adams protested con- 
 stantly and emphatically against this, but in 
 vain for the time. No notice was taken officially 
 of the matter until it was forced on the Brit- 
 ish government in 1864. The subsequent ne- 
 gotiations concerning the Alabama claims, the 
 Treaty of Washington in 1871, and the Geneva 
 award to the United States of some fifteen mil- 
 lion dollars, are too well known to require any 
 mention. 
 
 Page 245, The Caroline. In 1837 an insur- 
 rection broke out in Canada, and armed bodies 
 of men styling themselves "patriots'* were in 
 open rebellion against the government. In spite 
 of the President's message exhorting citizens of 
 the United States not to interfere, and in defi- 
 ance of the troops sent to Buffalo to carry out 
 his orders, numbers of sympathizers from New 
 York crossed the Niagara River and gave assist- 
 ance to the insurgents. The British authorities 
 would have been warranted in seizing the Amer- 
 ican vessel Carolitie, which was used to trans- 
 port citizens to the Canadian shore, had the 
 seizure been made in flagrante delicto^ or out of 
 our territorial waters. But in crossing to the 
 American side of the river and taking the offend- 
 ing vessel from her moorings these authorities 
 committed a grave breach of neutrality. After 
 five years of negotiation the English government 
 finally apologized and made reparation for the 
 injury. 
 
 Page 247. " Seward sticks a three-months'' 
 pin." Mr. "W. H. Seward, Lincoln's Secretary 
 of State, was at the outbreak of the Rebellion 
 an earnest advocate of conciliation. He seemed 
 to think tliat if war could be averted for a time 
 until the people of the seceding States perceived 
 the true intention of the administration to be 
 the preservation of the Union, not the promot- 
 ing of Abohtionism, the Southern movement 
 would fail. In this belief he frequently de- 
 clared that the trouble would all be over in sixty 
 days. 
 
 Page 251. JSuU Run. On the 21st of July, 
 1861, the Union troops under General McDowell 
 were completely routed by Beauregard at Bull 
 Bun In Virginia. The North was finally con- 
 vinoed that the South was equipped for and 
 
 determined on a desperate struggle, while tha 
 victory gave immense encouragement to the 
 insurgents. 
 
 Page 257. Onesimus. The "Scriptural" 
 view, according to the mind of Mr. Sawln, would 
 have been that of Jeremiah S. Black, who saw 
 in the case of Onesimus St. PauPs express ap* 
 proval of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. 
 
 Page 258. Debow. De Bow*8 Commerical 
 Review^ published in New Orleans, Louisiana, 
 was for some years before the war very bitter 
 against the North, its institutions, and its society 
 in general. 
 
 Page 258. Simms and Mawry. "William Gil- 
 more Simms, the South Carolina novelist and 
 poet, is here referred to. Matthew Fontaine 
 Maury, of Virginia, naval officer and hydro- 
 grapher, was a man of some scientific attain- 
 ments. He was the author of several works on 
 the physical geography of the sea, navigation, 
 and astronomy. Both men were bom in the 
 same year, 1806. 
 
 Page 259. "^mw o«' cannon^'* John B. 
 Floyd, while Secretary of War in Mr. Buchanan's 
 Cabinet, was detected in the act of stripping 
 Northern arsenals of arms and ammunition to 
 supply the South. He began this work as early 
 as December, 1859, and it is not known to what 
 extent he carried it. Pollard, a Southern histo- 
 rian, says the South entered the war with 150,000 
 small-arms of the most approved modem pat- 
 tern, all of which it owed to the government at 
 Washington. Floyd resigned because some forts 
 and posts in the South were not given up to the 
 rebels. 
 
 Page 259. ^^Adm.itti'eC we wus naVlhj right.''* 
 President Buchanan's message of the first Mon- 
 day of December, 1860, declared "the long- 
 continued and intemperate interference of the 
 Northern people with the question of slavery in 
 the Southern States " had at last produced its 
 natural effect ; disunion was impending, and if 
 those States could not obtain redress by consti- 
 tutional means, secession was justifiable and the 
 general government had no power to prevent it. 
 The effect these utterances had in spreading and 
 intensifying the spirit of secession is incalcu- 
 lable. 
 
 Page 259. ** On the jump to interfere." Dur- 
 ing the larger part of the war great apprehen- 
 sion of attempts on the part of foreign powers 
 to interfere prevailed in the Northern States. 
 With the exception of Russia and Denmark, all 
 Europe incHned toward the South. Our form 
 of government was not favored by them, and 
 they were not unwilling to see its failure demon- 
 strated by a complete disruption. For a long 
 time it was very generally beUeved that the 
 South would be victorious In the end. Had the 
 Confederacy at any time had a bright prospect 
 of success, it Is likely that England or France 
 might have offered to interfere. Indeed, the 
 success of the French scheme to set up a mili- 
 tary empire in Mexico in defiance of the Monroe 
 doctrine entirely depended on the contingency 
 of a victory for secession. Napoleon therefore 
 was urgent for mediation. The subject was 
 suggested several times by the French foreign 
 minister in his correspondence with Mr. Seward, 
 and was pressed on the British government by 
 France. 
 
 Page 262. The Border States, The Border 
 States, by the contiguity to the North and theix 
 
NOTES. 
 
 305 
 
 natnm nnfltnesa for a very profitable system of 
 slave-labor, were slow to take a definite staud. 
 President Lincoln^s policy was to proceed cau- 
 tiously at first, keep the slavery question in the 
 background, and enlist the sympathies of these 
 States by appeals to their attachment to the 
 Union. Although the people of Delaware, 
 Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri were pretty 
 evenly divided, the State governments were kept 
 from seceding. Without the support of the Re- 
 publican Congressmen from this section, Lin- 
 coln could not have carried out his abolition 
 policy. 
 
 Page 263. ffampton Roads. The battle of 
 Hampton Roads, at the entrance of Chesapeake 
 Bay in Virginia, is remarkable for the revolution 
 1^ naval warfare which it began. The utter 
 worthleaaness of wooden against armored ves- 
 sels was suddenly and convincingly demon- 
 strated. On the 8th of March, 18G2, the Confed- 
 erate armored ram Virginia, formerly Merrimac, 
 made terrible havoc among the old wooden 
 men-of-war stationed about Fortress Monroe. 
 But at nine o'clock that night the little Monitor 
 steamed into the Roads to the assistance of the 
 Bliattered Federal navy. The next day's battle 
 is one of the romances of war. Had Mr. Wil- 
 bur waited for the next Southern mail before 
 writing this letter, the Devil might have had less 
 credit given him. 
 
 Page 265, " Ji^om the banks o* my own Mas- 
 tisaippi," In the period from 1830 to 1840, the 
 sudden and healthy increase of immigration and 
 the flattering industrial prospect induced many 
 Western and Southern States to make lavish 
 expenditures for internal improvements. Their 
 credit was good and they borrowed too largely. 
 After the financial crisis of 1837, insolvency 
 stared them in the face. A number repudiated, 
 among whom Mississippi in particular was heav- 
 ily indebted. Her securities were largely held 
 in England. It added uothii^ to the credit of 
 the Confederacy that Jefferson Davis had been 
 an earnest advocate of repudiation. 
 
 Page 265. ManassctSj or Bull Run. Cf . note 
 to p. 251. 
 
 Page 266. Roanoke. The loss of Roanoke 
 Island, on the coast of North Carolina, Feb- 
 ruary 8, 1862, was a severe one to the South. 
 
 Page 266. "^w/ort." The finest harbor on 
 the Southern coast was that of Port Royal, 
 South Carolina, in the centre of the sea-island 
 cotton disfrict. This point the North fixed on 
 as the best for a base of operations, and on 
 October 29, 1861, a fleet of fifty vessels, includ- 
 ing thirty-three transports, was sent against it. 
 A fierce attack was begun on November 7, and 
 on the next day the two forts. Walker and Beau- 
 regard, capitulated. Without encountering fur- 
 ther opposition the Federal troops took posses- 
 sion of the town of Beaufort on an island in the 
 harbor. 
 
 Page 266. MiUspring. January 19, 1862, the 
 Confederates under Crittenden were defeated 
 with considerable loss at Millspring, Kentucky, 
 by Gteneral G. H. Thomas. 
 
 Page 266, **• Recognition.''^ Recognition of 
 independence by the European powers, partic- 
 ularly France and England, would of course 
 have been of the greatest value to the South. 
 It is said that Mr. Roebuck's motion in the 
 House of Commons to recognize the Confederate 
 States would have passed but for the timely 
 
 news of GettyBbtirg. Certainly if it had, Franc« 
 would not have been slow to follow. It is dif- 
 ficult to overestimate the disastrous effect sadii 
 events would have had on the Northern cause. 
 
 Page 266. Belmont. Mr. August Belmont, 
 of New York, Ohainnan of the Democratic Na- 
 tional Committee from 1860 to 1872, although 
 opposed to secession, still attributed the cause 
 and the responsibility for the continuance of the 
 war to the Republican Administration. He led 
 his party in clamoring for peace and concilia- 
 tion, especially in 186^ and bitterly opposed re- 
 construction. 
 
 Page 266, VtUlandigkam. Clement L. Val- 
 landigham, of Dayton, Ohio, was the most con- 
 spicuous and noisy one of the Peace Democrats 
 during the war. His treasonable and seditious 
 utterances finally led to his banishment to the 
 South in May, 1863. Thence he repaired to Can- 
 ada, where he remained while his p^ty made 
 him their candidate in the next gubernatorial 
 campaign, in which he was ignominiously de- 
 feated. 
 
 Page 266. Woodses. This refers to the bro- 
 thers Benjamin and Fernando Wood, prominent 
 Democrats of New York city. The former waa 
 editor of the Daily News and a Representative 
 in Congress. The latter was several times Mayor 
 of New York, and for twelve years a Represent- 
 ative in Congress. 
 
 Page 267. Coluimbus. After the fall of Fort 
 Donelson, Columbus, Kentucky, was no longer 
 tenable, and Beauregard ordered General Folk 
 to evacuate it. March 3, 1862, a scouting party 
 of Illinois troops, finding the post deserted, oc- 
 cupied it, and when Sherman approached the 
 next day he found the Union flag flying over the 
 town. 
 
 Page 267. Donelson. The capture of Fort 
 Donelson, in Tennessee, February 16, 1862, by 
 General Grant, was one of several Union suc- 
 cesses in the West, whose value waa almost en- 
 tirely neutralized by McClellan's dilatory con- 
 duct of the Army of the Potomac. General 
 John B. Floyd's precipitate retreat from the 
 fort as the Union forces approached was after- 
 wards represented in one of his official reports 
 as an heroic exploit. 
 
 Page 270. Taney. Roger B. Taney, of Mary- 
 land, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States from 1836 to 1864. He is chiefly 
 notable for the Dred Scott decision, in 1857, in 
 which he held that a negro was not a *^ person " 
 in the contemplation of the Constitution, and 
 hence "had no rights a white man was bound 
 to respect " ; that the Constitution recognized 
 property in slaves, and that this ownership was 
 as much entitled to protection in the Territories 
 as any other species of property. According to 
 this, all legislation by Congress on slavery, ex- 
 cept in its aid, was unconstitutional. 
 
 Page 270. Compromise System. Henry Clay 
 was the " great compromiser." The aim of his 
 life was the preservation of the Union even at 
 the cost of extending slave territory. The three 
 compromises for which he is famous were the 
 Missouri in 1820, the Tariff in 1833, and the Cali- 
 fornia or " Omnibus " Compromise in 1850, th A 
 most conspicuoiu feature of which was the Fugi- 
 tive Slave Law. 
 
 Page 271. "8. J. Court." At the beginning 
 of Lincoln's administration, five of the Supreme 
 Court Justices, an absolute majorily, were from 
 
806 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 the Botith, and had Always been State-rights 
 Pemocrats. 
 
 Page 273. " The Law-^n^-Order Party of ole 
 Cincinnater." In Cincinnati, on March 24, 1862, 
 Wendell Phillips, while attempting to deliver 
 one of hia lectures on slavery and the war, 
 v/^as attacked by a mob and very roughly han- 
 dled. 
 
 Page 281. Gov^nor Seymow. Horatio Sey- 
 mour (181Q-1886), of Utica, New York, was one 
 tf the most prominent and respected men in the 
 Democratic party, and a bitter opponent of Lin- 
 >oln. He had at this time been recently elected 
 lovemor of New York on a platform that de- 
 nounced almost every measure the government 
 •,ad found it necessary to adopt for the suppres- 
 sion of the Rebellion. His influence contributed 
 not a little to the encouraf^oment of that spirit 
 which inspired the Draft Eiot in the city of New 
 York in July, 1863. 
 
 Page 282. *^ Pres^dunt^s Proclamation." In 
 the autiunn of 1862 Mr. Lincoln saw that he 
 must either retreat or advance boldly against 
 slavery. He had already proceeded far enough 
 against it to rouse a dangerous hostility among 
 fTorthern Democrats, and yet not far enough to 
 Injure the institution or enlist the sympathy of 
 pronounced anti-shivery men. He determined 
 on decisive action. On September 22, 1SG2, he 
 issued a monitory proclamation givhig notice 
 that on the Arst day of the next year he would, 
 in the exercise of his war-power, emancipate aU 
 slaves of those States or parts of States in rebel- 
 lion, unless certain conditions were complied 
 with. This proclamation was at once violently 
 assailed by the Democrats, led by such men as 
 Seymour, and for a time the opposition threat- 
 ened disaster to the administration. The elec- 
 tions in the five leading free States — New York, 
 Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois — went 
 against the Republicans. But with the aid of 
 New England, the West, and, not least of all^ 
 the Border Slave States, the Preddent was as- 
 sured a majority of about twenty in the new 
 House to carry out his abolition policy. 
 
 Page 283. " Kettelopotomachia.^^ The In- 
 cident furnishing the occasion for this poem was 
 a Virginia duel, or rather a free fight. Mr. H. 
 R. Pollard, of the Richmond JSzaminer^ had 
 some difBculty with Messrs. Coleman and N. P. 
 I^ler, of the Enquirer^ concerning the public 
 printing. On Friday, January 5, 1866, all three 
 gentlemen met in the rotunda of the Virginia 
 Capitol, end proceeded to settle their dispute by 
 m appeid to revolvers. Six shots were fired, 
 )ut no damage resulted, except to a marble 
 itatue of Washington. 
 
 Page 284. "ie^cAeriJ." John Letcher (1813- 
 1884), a Virginia lawyer and pohtician, was aev- 
 tral times in Congress, and was Governor of his 
 Itate from 1860 to 1864. 
 
 Page 284. ''Ploydis." John B. Floyd (1805- 
 k863) was Gx>Teinor of Virginia from 1849 to 
 
 1852, Secretary of War in Buchonan^s Cabinet 
 and a brigadier in the Confederate service. 
 
 Pago 283. "Extra ordine BiUis." William 
 Smith, of King George County, Virginia, was 
 the proprietor of an old line of coaches running 
 through Virginia and the Garohnas. He was 
 called " Extra Billy " because he charged extra 
 for every package, large or small, which his pas- 
 senfrers carried. Mr. Smith himself, however, 
 attributed his nickname to his extra service to 
 the State. He was several times a Congressman, 
 twice Governor of Virginia, and a Confederate 
 Brigadier-General. 
 
 Page 295. Seward. Under the influence of 
 Mr. Seward, President Andrew Johnson devel- 
 oped a policy of reconstruction directly opposed 
 to the views of Congress and the mass of the 
 Republican party. He believed in punishing iu- 
 dividnals, If necessary, but that all the States 
 ought to be re-installed at once In the position 
 they had occupied in 1860. The guarantees 
 against disloyalty he proposed to exact from the 
 South were few and feeble. Congress, on the 
 other hand, determined to keep the subdued 
 States In a position somewhat resembling that of 
 territories and under military surveillance tmtil 
 It could be satisfied that four years^ war would 
 not be without good results. Its chief aim was 
 to secure the safety of the negro, who had been 
 freed by the thirteenth Amendment in Decem* 
 ber, 1865. These differences of plan led to a 
 protracted and bitter contest between the execu- 
 tive and legislative departments, culminating In 
 the unsuccessful attempt to impeach Johnson in 
 March, 1868. The Congressional policy was car- 
 ried out over the President's vetoes. Among 
 other conditions the Southern States were re* 
 quired to ratify the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 Amendments, giving citizenship and suffrage to 
 the blacks, before being qualified for readmission 
 to the Union. 
 
 Page 298. "Mae." General George B. Mb- 
 Clellan was one of the leaders of the Northern 
 Democracy during tho war, and the presidential 
 nominee against Lincoln In 1864, 
 
 Page 299. " Joknson''s speech an* veto mes- 
 sage." The Civil Rights Act of March, 1866, 
 had just been the occasion of an open rupture 
 between Congress and the President. The bill, 
 conferring extensive rights on freedmen, passed 
 both Houses, but was vetoed by Johnson. It 
 was quickly passed again over his veto. 
 
 Page 299, "A iemp^ry party can he hosed 
 on *t." Johnson's plan of reconstruction didt 
 Indeed, fumish the material for the next Demo- 
 cratic platform in the presidenti^ camp^gn of 
 1868. 
 
 Page 299. Tyler. John Tyler, who had been 
 chosen Vice-President In 1840, succeeded to the 
 Presidency on the death of Harrison one month 
 after the inauguration. He abandoned the policy 
 of the party that elected him, and provoked jusi 
 such a contest with it as Johnson cud. 
 
GLOSSARY. 
 
 Aetlly. aetuaily. 
 Air, are. 
 Airth, earth. 
 Airy, area. 
 Aree, area. 
 Arter, aJUr, 
 Ax, fisk. 
 
 Beller. hellow. 
 Bellowses, lungs. 
 Ben, been. 
 BUe. boil 
 
 Biiueby. by and by. 
 Blurt out, to speak bluntly. 
 Bust, burst. 
 
 Buster, a roistering blade ; used also us a gen- 
 eral superlative. 
 
 a 
 
 Gaird, carried. 
 
 Calm, carrying. 
 
 Caleb, a turncoat. 
 
 Cal'late, calculate. 
 
 Cass, a person with two lives. 
 
 Close, clothes. 
 
 Cockerel, a young cock. 
 
 Cocktail, a kind of drink; also, a/n <ymament 
 peculiar to soldiers. 
 
 Convention, a place where people are imposed 
 on; a juggler's show. 
 
 Goons, a cant term for a tww dejktnct party ; de- 
 rived, perhaps, from the fact of their being 
 commonly v/p a tree. , 
 
 Comwallls, asori of muster in masquerade ; sup- 
 posed to have had its origin soon after the 
 Revolution, and to commemorate the surren- 
 der of Lord Comwallis. It took the place of 
 the old Guy Fawkes procession. 
 
 Crooked stick, a perverse^froward person. 
 
 £!unnle, a coUmel. 
 
 Cus, a curse ; also, a pitiful feUovt. 
 
 Daren't, used indiscriminately, either in singu- 
 lar or plural number, for dare uot, dares not, 
 and dared not 
 
 Deacon off, to give the cue to; derived froma 
 custom, once universal, but now extinct, in 
 our New England Congregational churches. 
 An important part of the office of deacon way 
 
 to read aloud the hymns given out by th« 
 
 minister, one line at a time, the congregation 
 
 singing each line as soon as read. 
 Demmercrat, leadin', oTie in favor of extending 
 
 slavery; a free-trade lectwer maintainMi in 
 
 the eustom-hmise. 
 Desput, desperate. 
 Doos, does. 
 Dougliface, a contented lick-spittU ; a common 
 
 variety of Northern politician. 
 Dror, draw. 
 Du, do. 
 
 Duimo, dno. do not or does not know. 
 But^ dirt. 
 
 R 
 
 Eend. end. 
 
 m,if 
 
 Kmptins, yeast. 
 
 Env'y, erwoy. 
 
 Everlasting, an intensive, without reference to 
 
 duration. 
 Ev'y, every. 
 £z, as. 
 
 Fence, on the ; said of one who halts between 
 
 two opinions ; a trimmer. 
 Fer,./&r. 
 
 Ferfle, ferAil, fearful; also an intensive. 
 Fin', Jvnd. 
 Fish-skin, used in New England to clarify 
 
 coffee. 
 Fix, a di^culty, a n,onplus. 
 Foller, folly, tojbl^ow. 
 Forrerd, forward. 
 Frum, ,/Vom. 
 Fur, far. 
 Furder, farther. 
 Furrer, fwrrow. Metaphorically, to draw a 
 
 straight furrow is to live uprightly or deco> 
 
 rously. 
 Fust,;irrf, 
 
 Gin, gave. 
 
 Git, get. 
 
 Gret, great. 
 
 Grit, spirit, energy, pluck; 
 
 Grout, to sulk. 
 
 Grouty, crabbed, surly. 
 
 Gum, to impose on. 
 
 Gump, a foolish feUow, a dvUar4t 
 
 QuitffoU. 
 
308 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 Hed, ^ad. 
 
 Heem. hea/rd. 
 
 Helium, helm. 
 
 Hendy, hcmdy. 
 
 Bet, heated. 
 
 Hev, have. 
 
 Hez, has. 
 
 Hull, whole. 
 
 Holt, hold. 
 
 Huf, hoof. 
 
 Hull, whole. 
 
 Hum, hoTne. 
 
 Humbug, General Taylor'i antUlaAfery. 
 
 Hut, hiart. 
 
 Idno, / do not know. 
 
 In'my, eneftny. 
 
 lusines, ensigns; used to designate both the 
 
 officer who carries the standard, and the 
 
 standard itself. 
 Inter, intu, vtito. 
 
 Jedge, jiidge. 
 
 Jest, just. 
 
 Jine, join. 
 
 Jint, joint 
 
 3 auk, a fragment of amy solid subsIOTice. 
 
 Keer, care. 
 
 Kep', kept. 
 
 Killock, a small a/nchor. 
 
 Kin', kin' o', kinder, fciTuZ, klmi of. 
 
 Lawth, loath. 
 
 Less, let % let us. 
 
 Let daylight into, to shoot. 
 
 Let on, to hint, to confess, to own* 
 
 Lick, to beat, to overcome. 
 
 Lights, the bowels. 
 
 Lily-pads, leaves of the water'Uly, 
 
 Long-sweetening, molasses. 
 
 M. 
 
 Mash, TTUvrsh. 
 
 Mean, stingy, iU^naivred. 
 
 Mia\ mmd. 
 
 N. 
 
 Nimepunce. ninepence, twelve and a half cents. 
 Nowers, Tumfiere. 
 
 0. 
 
 Offen, often. 
 
 Ole, old. 
 
 Oilers, oUuz, always. 
 
 On, of; used before it or them, or at the end of 
 
 a sentence, as on% on'em, nut es ever J 
 
 heerdon. 
 On'y, only. 
 OBBuer. officer (seldom heard). 
 
 P. 
 
 Peaked, pointed. 
 
 Peek, to peep. ^ 
 
 Pickerel, tne pike, a fish. 
 
 Pint, point. 
 
 Pocket full of rocks, plenty ofmofMiit, 
 
 Pooty, pretty, 
 
 Pop'ler, conceited, popular. 
 
 Pus, purse. 
 
 Put out, troubled^ vexed. 
 
 Quarter, a quarter-doVar. 
 Queen's-arm, a vmsket. 
 
 Besh, rush. 
 
 Revelee, the r^eille. 
 
 Rile, to trouble. 
 
 Riled, angry; disturbed, as the sediment in ai^ 
 
 liquid. 
 Riz, risen. 
 
 Row, a long row to hoe, a diffi^ctUt task. 
 Rugged, robust 
 
 S. 
 
 Sarse, abuse, impertinena. 
 
 Sartin, certain. 
 
 Saxon, sacristan, sexton. 
 
 Scaliest, worst 
 
 Scringe, cringe. 
 
 Scrooge, to crowd. 
 
 Sech, such. 
 
 Set by, valued. 
 
 Shakes, great, of considerable consequtncL 
 
 Shappoes. chapeaux, eocked-fiats. 
 
 Sheer, share. 
 
 Shet, shut 
 
 Shut, shirt. 
 
 Skeered, scared. 
 
 Skeeter, mosquito. 
 
 Skooting, running, or moving swiftly. 
 
 Slarterin', slaughtering. 
 
 Slim, contempttble. 
 
 Snake, crawled like a snake ; but to snake any 
 
 one out is to track him to his hiding-place ; 
 
 to snake a thing out is to snatch it out. 
 Soffies, sofas. 
 Sogerin', soldiering; a barbarous amusement 
 
 common among men in the savage state. 
 Som'ers, somewh&re. 
 So'st, so as that. 
 Sot, set, obstinate, resolute. 
 Spiles, spoils ; objects of political ambition. 
 Spry, active. 
 Staddles, stout stakes driven into the aaU 
 
 marshes, on which the hay-ricks are set, and 
 
 thus raised out of the reach of high tides. 
 Streaked, un^omfortaMe, discomfited. 
 Suckle, circle. 
 Sutthin', something. 
 Suttin, certain. 
 
 Take on, to sorrow. 
 Talents, talons. 
 Taters. potatoet. 
 Tell, tiU. 
 
GLOSSARY. 
 
 809 
 
 Tetch, Umch. 
 
 Tetch tu. to he able ; used always after a nega- 
 tive in this sense. 
 
 Tollable, tolerable. 
 
 Toot, used derisively for playing on any wind 
 instrument. 
 
 Thru, through. 
 
 Thundering, a enphemism comtnon in New 
 England for the profane English expression 
 devilish. Perhaps derived tvom the belief, 
 comnion formerly, that thunder was caused 
 by the Prince of the Air. for some of whose 
 accoiuplishineuts consult Cotton Mather. 
 
 Tu, to, too ; commonly has this sound when 
 used emphatically, or at the end of a sen- 
 tence. At other times it has the sound of t 
 in tou^A, as, Ware ye goin' to f GoVn* ta Boa- 
 ion. 
 
 U. 
 
 Ugly, illrtempered, intraetable. 
 
 Uncle Sam, United States; the largest boaster 
 
 of liberty and owner of slaves. 
 Unrizzest, applied to dough or bread ; heavyt 
 
 most imrisen, or most iricapable o/risiiig. 
 
 V-spot, afive-doUar UU. 
 Vally, vaw4. 
 
 W. 
 
 Wake snakes, to get into trouble. 
 
 Wal, well ; spoken with great deliberation, and 
 sometimes with the a very much flattened, 
 sometimes (but more seldom) very much 
 broadened. 
 
 Wanuut, walnut ijivikory). 
 
 Ware, where. 
 
 Ware, were. 
 
 Whopper, am. uncortimonly large lie ; as, that 
 General Taylor is in favor of the Wilmot Pro- 
 viso. 
 
 Wig, Whig ; a party now dissolved. 
 
 Wuut, will iwt 
 
 Was, worse. 
 
 Wut, what. 
 
 Wuth, worth; as, Antislavery per/essions *fon 
 'lection aint vmth a Bwngtown eopper. 
 
 Wuz, was, sometimes were. 
 
 Taller, yellovf. 
 Yeller, yellow. 
 Yellers, a disease t^ peach-trees. 
 
 Z. 
 
 Zach, Ole, a second Washington, an antislavery 
 slamhoVder ; a hutnaiie buyer and seller qj 
 mm Olid women, a Christian hero gtnarally. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 A. wants his axe gioimd, 261. 
 
 X' B., information wanted concerning, 194. 
 
 &.brahaiu (Lincoln), his conatitutioual acruplesi 
 2G1. 
 
 A-buse, an, its usefulness, 272. 
 
 Adam, eldest son of, respected, 175 — his fall, 
 278 — how if be had bitten a sweet apple? 
 281. 
 
 Adam, Grandfather, forged will of, 250. 
 
 ^neas goes to hell, 202, 
 
 ^olus, a seller of money, as is supposed by 
 some, 202. 
 
 ^achylus, a saying of, 187, note. 
 
 Alligator, a decent one coujectuied to be, in 
 some Bort, humane, 207. 
 
 Allsmash, the eternal, 204. 
 
 Alphonso the Sixth of Portugal, tyrannical act 
 of, 208. 
 
 Ambrose, Saint, excellent (but rationalistic) 
 sentiment of, 182. 
 
 ** American Citizen," new compost so called, 
 202. 
 
 American Eagle, a source of inspiration, 185 — 
 hitherto wrongly claaaed, 189 — long bill of, 
 ib. 
 
 Americans bebrothered, 245. 
 
 Amos cited, 182. 
 
 Anakim, that they formerly existed, shown, 
 208. 
 
 Angels proTidentially speak French, 178 — con- 
 jectured to be skilled in all tongues, ib* 
 
 Anglo-Saxondom, its idea, what, 178. 
 
 Anglo-Saxon mask, 178. 
 
 Anglo-Saxon race, 177. 
 
 Anglo-Saxon verse, by whom carried to perfec- 
 tion, 176. 
 
 Anthony of Padua, Saint, happy in his hearers, 
 254. 
 
 Antiquaries, Royal Society of Northern, 267. 
 
 Atitonius, a speech of, 183 — by whom best re- 
 ported, ib. 
 
 Apocalypse, beast in, magnetic to theologians, 
 196. 
 
 Apollo, confessed mortal by his own oracle, 
 196. 
 
 ApoUyon, his tragedies popular, 194. 
 
 Appian, an Alexandrian, not equal to Shake- 
 speare as an orator, 183. 
 
 Applause, popular, the summum bonum, 269. 
 
 Ararat, Ignorance of foreign tongues is an, 188. 
 
 Ajrcadian background, 203. 
 
 Ar c*hou8kezik, an oril spirit, 254. 
 
 Ardennes, Wild Boar of, an ancestor of Rev. 
 Mr. Wilbur, 236. 
 
 Aristocracy, British, their natura! sympathies, 
 259. 
 
 Aristophanes, 181. 
 
 Arms, profession of, once esteemed eapedaQy 
 
 that of gentlemen, 176. 
 Arnold, 184. 
 Ashland, 203. 
 
 Astor, Jacob, a rich man, 199. 
 Astraea, nineteenth century forsaken hy^ 202. 
 Athenians, ancient, an institution of , 183. 
 Atherton, Senator, envies the loon, 190. 
 " Atlantic," editors of. See Neptune. 
 Atropos, a lady skilful with the scissors, 280. 
 Austin, Saint, profane wish of, 184, no^e — 
 
 prayer of, 236. 
 Austrian eagle split, 273. 
 Aye-aye, tbie, an African anim^, America sup* 
 
 posed to be settled by, 179. 
 
 B. 
 
 B., a Congressman, vide A. 
 
 Babel, probably the tirst Congress, 183 — a gab- 
 ble-mill, ib. 
 
 Baby, a low-priced one, 201. 
 
 Bacon, his rebellion, 256. 
 
 Bacon, Lord, quoted, 256. 
 
 Bagowind, Hon. Mr., whether to be damned, 
 191, 
 
 Balcom, Elder Joash Q., 2d, founds a Baptist 
 society in Jaalam, A. D. 1830, 287. 
 
 Baldwin apples, 208. 
 
 Baratarias, real or imaginary, which most plea- 
 sant, 202, 
 
 Barnum, a great natural curiosity recommended 
 to, 187. 
 
 Barrels, an inference from seeing, 208. 
 
 Bartlett, Mr., mistaken, 243. 
 
 BSton Rouge, 203 — strange peculiarities of la* 
 borers at, ih. 
 
 Baxter, R., a saying of, 182. 
 
 Bay, Mattysqumscot, 207. 
 
 Bay State, singular effect produced on military 
 officers by leaving it, 178. 
 
 Beast, in Apocalypse, a loadstone for whom, 
 196 — tenth horn of, applied to recent events, 
 279. 
 
 Beaufort, 266. 
 
 Beauregard (real name Toutant), 246, 260. 
 
 Beaver Brook, 291. 
 
 Beelzebub, his rigadoon, 191. 
 
 Behmen, his letters not letters, 196. 
 
 Behn, Mrs. Aphra, quoted, 255. 
 
 Bellers, a saloon-keeper, 204 — inhumanly re* 
 fuses credit to a presidential candidate, 205. 
 
 Belmont. See Woods. 
 
 Bentley, his heroic method with Milton, 268. 
 
 Bible, not composed for use of colored person^ 
 257. 
 
 Biglow, Ezeklel, his letter to Hon. J. T. Buck- 
 ingham, 173 — never heard of any one named 
 
INDEX. 
 
 311 
 
 Hundishea, ib. —nearly fourscore years old, 
 ib. — hia Auut Keziah, a notable aaying of, ib. 
 Biglow, Hosea, Esquire, excited by composi- 
 tion, 173 *- a poem by, ib.j 192 — his opiniou 
 of war, 174 — wonted at home by Nancy, 174 
 
 — recommends a forcible enlistment of war- 
 like editors, ib. — would not wonder, if gen- 
 erally agreed vdth, 175 — versifies letter of 
 Mr. Sawin, 176 — a letter from, 176,189 — 
 his opinion of Mr. Sawiii, 175 — does not deny 
 fun at Cornwallis, 176, note — his idea of 
 militia glory, 177, note — a. pun of, 377, note 
 
 — is uncertain in regard to people of Boston, 
 id. — had never heard of Mr. John F. Robin- 
 son, 173 — aliquid sufflaminandus^ ISO — his 
 poems attributed to a Mr. Lowell, 181 — is 
 unskilled in Latin, ib. — his poetry maligned 
 by some, 182 — his disLuterestedness, ib. — his 
 deep share in commou-weal, ib. — his claim 
 to the presidency, ib. — his mowing, ib. ~~ re- 
 sents being called Whig, ib. — opposed to 
 tariff, ib. — obstinate, ib. — infected with pe- 
 culiar notions, i6. — reports a speech, 183 — 
 emulates historians of antiquity, ib. — his 
 character sketched from a hostile point of 
 view, 188 — a request of his complied with, 
 191 — appointed at a public meotiug in Jaa- 
 1am, 195 — confesses ignorance, in one minute 
 particular, of propriety, ib, — his opinion of 
 cocked hats, ib. — letter to, ib. — called 
 "Dear Sir,'* by a general, ib. — probably re- 
 ceives same compliment from two hundred 
 and nine, ib. — picks his apples, 208 — his 
 crop of Baldwins conjecturally large, ib. — 
 his labors in writing autographs, 235 — visits 
 the Judge and has a pleasant time, 243 — 
 born in Middlesc: County, 247 — his favorite 
 walks, ib. — his gifted pen, 203 — bom and 
 bred in the country, 275 — feels his sap start 
 in spring, 276 — is at times unsocial, i6. — the 
 school-house where he learned his a b c, it. — 
 falls asleep, 277 — his ancestor a Cromwellian 
 colonel, ib. — finds it harder to make up his 
 mind as he grows older, 278 — wishes he could 
 write a song or two, 281 — liable to moods, 
 289 — loves nature and is loved in return, 
 290— describes some favorite haunts of his, 
 290, 291 — his slain kindred, 291 — his speech 
 in March meeting, 291 — does not reckon on 
 being sent to Congress, 293 — has no elo- 
 quence, ib, — his own reporter, 294 — never 
 abused the South, ib. — advises Uncle Sam, 
 ib. — ia not Boston-mad, 295 — bids farewell, 
 299. 
 
 Billings, Dea. Cephas, 176. 
 
 Billy., Extra, demagogus, 285. 
 
 Birch, virtue of, in instilling certain of the dead 
 languages, 201. 
 
 Bird of our country sings hosanna, 177. 
 
 Bjama Grimolf seen invents smoking, a68. 
 
 Blind, to go it, 200. 
 
 Blitz pulls ribbons from his mouth, 177. 
 
 Bluenose x^tatoes, smell of, eagerly desired, 
 177. 
 
 Bobolink, the, 276. 
 
 Bobtail obtains a cardlnaPs hat, 179. 
 
 Boggs, a Norman name, 258. 
 
 Bogus Four-Corners Weekly Meridian, 269. 
 
 Bollea, Mr. Secondary, author of prize peace 
 easay, 176 — presents sword to Lieutenant- 
 Colonel, ib. — a fluent orator, 177 — found to 
 be in error, ib. 
 
 Bonaparte, N., a usurper, 196. 
 
 Bonds, Confederate, their specie basis cutlery, 
 
 240 — when payable (attention, British btock- 
 
 holders 1), 264. 
 Boot-trees, productive, where, 201, 
 Boston, people of, supposed educated, 177| 
 
 note — has a good opinion of itself, 247. 
 Bowers, Mr. Arphaxad, an ingenious photo- 
 graphic artist, 268. 
 Brahmins, navel-contemplating, 194. 
 Brains, poor substitute lor, 248. 
 Bread-trees, 201. 
 
 Bream, their only business, 243. j 
 
 Brigadier-Generals in militia, devotion of, 183. I 
 Brigadiers, nursing ones, tendency in, to liters 
 
 ary composition, 237. 
 Brigitia, viridis, 284. 
 Britannia, her trident, 253. 
 Brotheriiood, subsides after election, 272. 
 Brown, Mr., engages in an unequal contest, 
 
 191. 
 Browne, Sir T., a pious and wise sentiment of, 
 
 cited and commended, 175. 
 Brutus Four-Corners, 236. 
 Buchanan, a wise and honest man, 259. 
 Buckiugliam, Eon. J. T., editor of tli«. Boston 
 
 Courier, letters to, 173, 175, 181, 189 — not 
 
 afraid, 176. 
 Buffalo, a plan hatched there, 205 — plaster, a 
 
 prophecy in regard to, 206. 
 Buffaloes, herd of, probable influence of tracts 
 
 upon, ^1. 
 Bull, John, prophetic allusion to, by Horace, 
 
 244 — his "Run," 247 — his mortgage, 250 — 
 
 unfortunate dip of, 2C5 — wool puUed over 
 
 his eyes, ib. 
 Buncombe, in the other world supposed, 183 — 
 
 mutual privilege in, 2G0. 
 Bimg, tlie eternal, thought to be loose, 174. 
 Bungtown Fencibles, dinner of, 179. 
 Burke, Mr., hia age of chivalry surpassed, 258. 
 Burleigh, Lord, quoted for something said la 
 
 Latin long before, 255. 
 Bums, Robert, a. Scottish poet, 243. 
 Bushy Brook, 256. 
 Butler, Bishop, 263. 
 Butter in Irish bogs, 201. 
 
 C, General, commended for parts, 180 — for 
 ubiquity, ih. — for consistency, ib. — for fidel- 
 ity, ib. — ia in favor of war, ib. — hia curiour 
 valuation of principle, ib. 
 
 Cabbage-heads, the, always in majority, 293. 
 
 Cabinet, English, makes a blunder, 245. 
 
 CiBsar, tribute to, 193 — his veni, vidi, vici^ 
 censured for undue prolixity, 197. ( 
 
 Cainites, sect of, supposed still extant, 175. 
 
 Caleb, a monopoly of his denied, 176 — curious 
 notions of, as to meaning of " shelter," 178 
 — his definition of Anglo-Saxon, ib. — charges 
 Mexicans (not with bayonets but) vrith im- 
 proprieties, ib. 
 
 Calhoun, Hon. J. C, his cow-bell curfew, light 
 of the nineteenth century to be extinguished 
 at sound of, 189 — cannot let go apron-string 
 of the Fast, ib. — his unsuccessful tilt at 
 Spirit of the Age, ib. —the Sir Kay of mod- 
 ern chivalry, ib. — his anchor m^de of a 
 crooked pin, ib, —mentioned, 189-191. 
 
812 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS, 
 
 CalybooauSj career^ 286. 
 Cambridge Platform, use discoTered for, 179. 
 Canaan in quarterly instalments, 269. 
 Canary IsUuids, 201. 
 
 Candidate, presidential, letter from, 195 — 
 smells a rat, ib. — against a bank, ib. — takes 
 a revolving position, 196 — opinion of pledges, 
 ib, — is a periwig, ib. — fronts south by north, 
 ' ib. — qualifications of, lessening, 197 — wood- 
 en leg (and head) useful to, 200. 
 I Cape Cod clergymen, what, 179 — Sabbath- 
 I breakers, perhaps, reproved by, ib. 
 Captains, choice of, important, 2&1. 
 Carolina, foolish act of, 294. 
 
 I Caroline, case of, 245. 
 Carpini, Father John de Piano, among the Tar- 
 tars, 208. 
 
 Cartier, Jacques, commendable zeal of, 208. 
 
 Cass, General, 190 — clearness of his merit, ib. 
 — limited popularity at "Bellers's," 204. 
 
 Castles, Spanish, comfortable accommodations 
 in, 202. 
 
 Cato, letters of, so callea, suspended naso 
 aduncoj 195. 
 
 C. D., fiiends of, can hear of him, 194, 
 
 Century, nineteenth, 259. 
 
 Chalk egg, we are proud of incubation of, 194. 
 
 Chamberlayne, Doctor, consolatory citation 
 from, 255. 
 
 Chance, an ap,othegm concerning, 237 — is im- 
 patient, 279. 
 
 <£)haplain, a one-horse, stem-wheeled variety of, 
 239. 
 
 Chappelow on Job, a copy of, lost, 192. 
 
 Charles 1., accident to his neck, 278. 
 
 Charles II., his restoration, how brought about, 
 278. 
 
 CherubuBco, news of, its effects on English roy- 
 alty, 187. 
 
 Chesterfield no letter-writer, 195. 
 
 Chief Magistrate, dancing esteemed sinful by, 
 179. 
 
 Children naturally apeak Hebrew, 175. 
 
 Chinartree, 201. 
 
 Chinese, whether they invented gunpowder be- 
 fore the Christian era not considered, 179. 
 
 Choate hired, 205. 
 
 Christ shuffled into Apocrypha, 179 — conjec- 
 tured to disapprove of slaughter and pillage, 
 180 — condemns a certain piece of barbarism, 
 191. 
 
 Christianity, profession of, plebeian, whether, 
 175. 
 
 Christian soldiers, perhaps inconsistent, wheth- 
 er, 183. 
 
 Cicero, 293 — an opinion of, disputed, 197. 
 
 Cilley, Ensign, author of nefarious sentiment, 
 170. 
 
 _ Cimex lectularkts^ 177. 
 
 |Gincinnati, old, law and order party of, 273. 
 
 ICincinnatus, a stock character iu modern com- 
 
 ' edy, 203. 
 
 Civilization, progress of, an aliaSf 192 — rides 
 upon a powder-cart, 195. 
 
 Clergymen, their ill husbandry, 192 — their 
 place in processions, 203 — some, cruelly 
 banished for the soundness of their lungs, 
 208. 
 
 Clotho, a Grecian lady, 280. 
 
 Cocked-hat, advantages of being knocked into, 
 195. 
 
 College of Cordiaids, a strange one, 179. 
 
 Colman, Dr. Benjamin, anecdote of, 183. 
 
 Colored folks, cui'ious national diversion of kic'tai 
 ing, 177. 
 
 Colquitt, a remark of, 190 — acquainted with 
 some principles of aerostation, ib. 
 
 Columbia, District of, its peculiar climatic ef- 
 fects, 184 — not certain that Martin is for 
 abolishing it, 205. 
 
 Golumbiads, the true fifteen-inch ones, 271. 
 
 Columbus, a Paul Pry of genius, 194 — will per- 
 haps be remembered, 267 — thought by somo 
 to have discovered America, 296. 
 
 Columby, 204. 
 
 Complete Letter-Writer, fatal gift of, 196. 
 
 Compostella, Saint James of, seen, 178. 
 
 Compromise system, the, illustrated, 270. 
 
 Conciliation, its meaning, 281. 
 
 Congress, singular consequence of getting into, 
 184 — a stumbling-block, 260. 
 
 Congressional debates found instructive, 188. 
 
 Constituents, useful for what,' 185. 
 
 Constitution trampled on, 189 — to stand upon, 
 what, 195. 
 
 Convention, what, 185. 
 
 Convention, Springfield, 184. 
 
 Coon, old, pleasure in skinning, 190. 
 
 Co-operation defined, 258. 
 
 Coppers, casie in picking up of, 199. 
 
 Copres, a monk, his excellent method of argu- 
 ing, 188. 
 
 Corduroy-road, a novel one, 238. 
 
 Corner-stone, patent safety, 260. 
 
 Cornwallis, a, 176 — acknowledged entertaining^ 
 ib. note. 
 
 Cotton loan, its imaginary nature, 240. 
 
 Cotton Mather, summoned as witness, 178. 
 
 Country, our, its boundaries more exactly de- 
 fined, 181 — right or wrong, nonsense about, 
 exposed, ib. — lawyers, sent providentially, 
 ib. — Earth's biggest, gets a soul, 283. 
 
 Courier, the Boston, an unsafe print, 188. 
 
 Court, General, farmers sometimes attain seats 
 in, 203. 
 
 Court, Supreme, 260. 
 
 Courts of law, English, their orthodoxy, 263. 
 
 Cousins, British, our d^devaniy 245. 
 
 Cowper, W., his letters commended, 195. 
 
 Credit defined, 265. 
 
 Creditors all on Lincoln's side, 2G0. 
 
 Creed, a safe kind of, 200. 
 
 Crockett, a good rule of, 240. 
 
 Cruden, Alexander, his Concordance, 236. 
 
 Crusade, first American, 178. 
 
 Cuneiform script recommended, 197. 
 
 Curiosity distinguishes man from brutes, 194. 
 
 Currency, Ethiopian, inconveniences of, 240. 
 
 Cynthia, her hide as a means of couversioDg 
 242. 
 
 D. 
 
 Bsedalus first taught men to sit on fences, 256. ^ 
 
 Daniel in the lion's den, 239. 
 
 Darkies dread freedom, 260. 
 
 Davis, Captain Isaac, finds out something to hii 
 advantage, 247. 
 
 Davis, Jelferson (a new species of martyr), has 
 the latest ideas on all subjects, 240 — supe* 
 rior in financiering to patriarch Jacob, ib. — 
 is 5ome, 259 — carries Constitution in his hat* 
 260 — knows how to deal with Aip Congress 
 ib. — astonished at his own piety, 264-^ 
 
INDEX. 
 
 313 
 
 packed up for Nashville, 2G5 — tempted to 
 believe his ovm lies, 2G6 — his suake egg, 271 
 — the blood on his hands, 291. 
 
 Davis, Mr., of Mississippi, & remark of his, 190. 
 
 Day and Martin, proverbially '* on hand," 17S. 
 
 Death rings down curtain, 194. 
 
 De Bow (a famous political economist), 258. 
 
 Delphi, oracle of, surpassed, 187, note — alluded 
 to, 196. 
 
 Democracy, false notion of, 2G1 — its privi- 
 leges, 282. 
 
 Demosthenes, 293. 
 
 Destiny, her accoimt, 187. 
 
 Devil, the, unskilled in certain Indian tongues, 
 178 — letters to and from, 195. 
 
 Dey of Tripoli, 189. 
 
 Didymus, a somewhat voluminous grammarian, 
 196. 
 
 Dighton rock character might be usefully em- 
 ployed in some emergencies, 197. 
 
 Dimitry Bruisgins, fresh supply of, 194. 
 
 Diogenes, his zeal for propagating certain vari- 
 ed of olive, 201. 
 
 Dioscuri, imps of the pit, 179. 
 
 District-Attorney, contemptible conduct of one, 
 189. 
 
 Ditchwater on brain, a too common ailing, 189. 
 
 Dixie, the land of, 260. 
 
 Doctor, the, a proverbial saying of, 178. 
 
 Doe, Hon. Preserved, speech of, 269-271. 
 
 Doughface, yeast-proof, 193. 
 
 Downing Street, 244. 
 
 Drayton, a martyr, 189 — north star, culpable 
 for aiding, whether, 191. 
 
 Dreams, something about, 277. 
 
 Dwight, President, a hymn unjustly attributed 
 to, 279. 
 
 D. Y., letter of, 195. 
 
 Sagle, national, the late, his estate administered 
 upon, 241. 
 
 Earth, Dame, a peep at her housekeeping, 189. 
 
 Eating words, habit of, convenient in time of 
 famine, 186. 
 
 Eavesdroppers, 194, 
 
 Echetlseus, 179. 
 
 Editor, his position, 191 — commanding pulpit 
 of, 192 — large congregation of, ib. — name 
 derived from what, ib. — fondness for mut- 
 ton, ib. — a pious one, his creed, ib. — a show- 
 man, 193 — in danger of sudden arrest, with- 
 out bail, 194. 
 
 Editors, certain ones who crow like cockerels, 
 174. 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan, 288. 
 
 Eggs, bad, the worst sort of, 273. 
 
 Egyptian darkness, phifd of,'UBe for, 197. 
 
 Eldorado, Mr. Sawin sets sail for, 201. 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, mistake of her ambassador, 
 183. 
 
 Emerson, 243. 
 
 Emiliusj Paulus, 246, 
 
 Empedocles, 194. 
 
 Employment, regular, a good thing, 199. 
 
 Enfield's Speaker, abuse of, 272. 
 
 England, late Mother- Country, her want of 
 tact, 244 — merits as a lecturer, ib. — her 
 real greatness not to be forgotten, 246 — not 
 contented (unwisely) with ber own stock of 
 
 fools, 248— natural maker of international 
 law, z6.— her theory thereof, i6.— makes a 
 particularly disagreeable kind of sarse, 248 
 — somewhat given to bullying, ifi. — has re- 
 spectable relations, 249 — ought to be Colum- 
 bia's friend, 250 — anxious to buy an ela- 
 .phant, 269. 
 
 Epaulets, perhaps no badge of saintship, 180. ' 
 
 Epimeuides, the Cretan Bip Van Wiukle, 254. 
 
 Episcopius, his marvellous oratory, 208. 
 
 Eric, king of Sweden, his cap, 202. 
 
 Ericsson, liis caloric engine, 242. 
 
 Eriksson, Thorwold, slain by natives, 269. 
 
 Essence-peddlers, 261. 
 
 Ethiopian, the, his first need, 263. 
 
 Evangelists, iron ones, 179. 
 
 Eyelids, a divine shield against authors, 188. 
 
 Ezekiel, text taken from, 191. 
 
 Ezekiel would make a poor fisure at a caucus^ 
 274. 
 
 Faber, Johannes, 289. 
 
 Factory-girls, expected rebellion of, 190. 
 
 Facts, their tmauiiability, 266 — compared to aa 
 old-fashioned stage-coach, 269. 
 
 Falsiaffii legio, 284. 
 
 Family-trees, fruit of jejune, 201 — a primitive 
 forest of, 270. 
 
 Faneuil Hall, a place where persons tap them- 
 selves for a species of hydrocephalus, 189 — 
 a bill of fare mendaciously advertised in, 201. 
 
 Father of country, his shoes, 203. 
 
 Female Papists, cut off in the midst of idolatry, 
 202. 
 
 Fenianorum rizas, 284. 
 
 Pergusson, his '* Mutual Complaint," &c., 243. 
 
 F. F., singular power of their looks, 260. 
 
 Fire, we all like to play with it, 189. 
 
 Fish, emblematic, but disregarded, where, 188. 
 
 Fitz, Miss Parthenia Almira, a sheresiarch, 
 288. 
 
 Flam, President, untrustworthy, 185. 
 
 Flirt, Mrs., 255. 
 
 FlirtiUa, elegy on death of, 288. 
 
 Floyd, a talung character, 265. 
 
 Floydus furdfery 284. 
 
 Fly-leaves, providential increase of, 188. 
 
 Fool, a cursed, his inalienable rights, 282, 
 
 Foote, Mr., his taste for field-sports, 190. 
 
 Fourier, a squinting toward, 188. 
 
 Fourth of July ought to know its place, 272. 
 
 Fourth of Julys, boiling, 184. 
 
 France, a strange dance begun in, 191 — about 
 to put her foot in it, 259. 
 
 Friar John, 245. 
 
 Fuller, Dr. Thomas, a wise saying of, 180. 
 
 Funnel, old, hurraing in, 176. 
 
 G. 
 
 Gabriel, his last trump, its pressing nature, 
 270. 
 
 Gardiner, Lieutenant Lion, 246. 
 
 Gawain, Sir, his amusements, 189. 
 
 Gay, S. H., Esquire, editor of National Anti- 
 slavery Standard, letter to, 194. 
 
 Geese, how infallibly to make swans of, 248. 
 
 Gentleman, high-toned Southern, scientifically 
 classed. 256, 
 
314 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 Getting up early, 174, t78. 
 
 &hoatB, some, presumed fidgety (but see Still- 
 ing's Pneumatology), 194. 
 
 Giauta formally stupid, 189. 
 
 Gideon, his sword needed, ^51. 
 
 Gift of tongues, distressinf? case of, 188. 
 
 Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 268. 
 
 Globe Theatre, cheap season-ticket to, 194. 
 
 Glory, a perquisite of officers, 199 — her ac- 
 count with B. Siiwin, Esq., 201. 
 
 Goatsnose, the celebrated, interview with, 197. 
 
 God, the only honest dealer, 254. 
 
 Goings, Mehetable, unfounded claim of, dis- 
 proved, 243. 
 
 Gomara has a vision, 178 — his relationship to 
 the Scarlet Woman, ib. 
 
 Governor, our excellent, 235. 
 
 Grandfather, Mr. Biglow's, safe advice of, 
 247. 
 
 Grandfathers, the, knew something, 252. 
 
 Grand jurors, Southern, their way of finding a 
 true bill, 239. 
 
 Granius dux, 285. 
 
 Gravestones, the evidence of Dissenting ones 
 held doubtful, 269. 
 
 Gray's letters are letters, 195. 
 
 Great horn spoon, sworn by, 190. 
 
 Greeks, ancient, whether they questioned can- 
 didates, 197. 
 
 Green Man, sign of, 182. 
 
 Habeas corpus, new mode of suspending it, 
 
 264. 
 Hail Columbia raised, 239. 
 Ham, sandwich, an orthodox (but peculiar) one, 
 
 191 — his seed, 257 — their privilege in the 
 
 Bible, ib. — immoriJ justification of, ib. 
 Hamlets, machine for making, 198. 
 Hammon, 187, note, 196. 
 Hampton Boads, disaster in, 263. 
 Hannegan, Mr., something said by, 190, 
 Harrison, General, how preserved, 196. 
 Hat, a leakyone, 240. 
 Hat-trees in full bearing, 201. 
 Hawkins, his whetstone, 242. 
 Hawkins, Sir John, stout, something be saw, 
 
 201. 
 Hawthorne, 243. 
 
 Hay-rick, electrical experiments with, 282. 
 Headlong, General, 246. 
 Hell, the opinion of some concerning, 277 — 
 
 breaks loose, 281. 
 Henry the Fourth of England, a Parliament of, 
 
 how named, 1S3. 
 Hens, self-respect attributed to, 237. 
 Herb, the Circean, 269. 
 Herbert, George, next to David, 254. 
 Hercules, his second labor probably what, 208. 
 Harmon, fourth-proof dew of, 257. 
 Herodotus, story from, 175. 
 Hesperides, an inference from, 202. 
 Hessians, native American soldiers, 260. 
 Hickory, Old, his method, 282. 
 Hif^gses, their natural aristocracy of feeling, 
 
 258. 
 Hitchcock, Doctor, 268. 
 Hitchcock, the Rev. Jeduthun, colleague of Mr. 
 
 Wilbur, 236 — lettpr from, containing notices 
 
 of Mr. Wilbur, 279 — ditto, enclosing maca- 
 
 ronic verses, 283 — teacher of high-schooL 
 289. 
 
 Hogs, their dreams, 237. 
 
 Holdeu, Mr. Shearjashub, Preceptor of Jaalam 
 Academy, 19G — his knowledge of Greek lim- 
 ited, U97 — a heresy of his, ib. — leaves a fund 
 to propagate it, ib. 
 
 Holiday, blind man's, 299. 
 
 HoUis, Ezra, goes to a Gomwallis, 176. 
 
 Hollow, why men providentially so constructed, 
 184. 
 
 Holmes, Dr., author of '* Annals of America," i 
 236. . I 
 
 Homer, a phrase of, cited, 192. 
 
 Homer, eldest son of Mr. Wilbur, 288. 
 
 Homers, democratic ones, plums left for, 186. 
 
 Hotels, big ones, humbugs, 252. 
 
 House, a strange one described, 237. 
 
 Howell, James, Esq., story told by, 183 — let- 
 ters of, commended, 195. 
 
 Huldah, her bonnet, 278. 
 
 Human rights out of order on the floor of Con- 
 gress, 189. 
 
 Humbug, ascription of praise to, 1°^ — gener- 
 ally believed in, ib. 
 
 Husbandry, mstance of bad, 180. 
 
 Icarius, Penelope^s father, 18i. 
 
 Icelander, a certain uncertain, 268. 
 
 Idea, the Southern, its natural foes, 266 — the 
 true American, 295. 
 
 Ideas, friction ones unsafe, 272. 
 
 Idyl defined, 243. 
 
 Indecision, mole-blind, 295. 
 
 Infants, prattliugs of, curious- observation con- 
 cerning, 175. 
 
 Information wanted (universally, but especially 
 at page), 194. 
 
 Ishmael, yoimg, 252. 
 
 J. 
 
 Jaalam, unjustly neglected by great events, 
 268. 
 
 Jaalam Centre, Anglo-Saxons unjustly suspect- 
 ed by the young ladies there, 178 — "Inde- 
 pendent Blunderbuss," strange conduct of 
 editor of, 191 — public meeting at, 195 — 
 meetintr-house ornamented with imaginary 
 clock, 202. 
 
 Jaalam, E^t Parish of, 236. | 
 
 Jaalam Point, lighthouse on, charge of, pro» 
 Bpectively offered to Mr. H. Blglow, 196. 
 
 Jacobus rex, 284. 
 
 Jakes, Captain, 207 — reproved for avarice, ib. ' 
 
 Jamaica, 294. 
 
 James the Fourth, of Scots, experiment by, 175. 
 
 Jamndn, Mr., his opinion of the completeneaa 
 of Northern education, 190. 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, well-meaning, but injudi- 
 cious, 272. 
 
 Jeremiah, liardly the best guide in modem iwl- 
 itics, 274. 
 
 Jerome, Saint, his list of sacred writers, 196. 
 
 Jenisha, ex-Mrs. Sawin, 241. 
 
 Job, Book of, 175— Chappelow on, 192. 
 
 Johnson, Andrew, ns he used to be, 271 *— as bB 
 is: Bse Arnold, Se-nedict. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 315 
 
 ^ohii:;An, M"r., oommuiilc»«es some Intelligence, 
 
 Jonah, the inevitable destiny of, 191 — probably 
 studied inteniHl economy of the cetacea, 194 
 — his gourd, 'Ibl — his unanimity in the whale, 
 259. ' 
 
 Jonathan to John, 292. 
 
 Jortm, Dr., cited, 183, 187, note. 
 
 Journals, British, their brutal tone, 244. 
 
 Juanito, 267. 
 
 Judea, everything not knovra there, 181 —not 
 identical with A. D.,278. 
 
 Judge, the, his garden, 243 — his hat covers 
 many things, ih. 
 
 Juvenal, a saying of, 187, note. 
 
 Kay, Sir, the, of modem chivalry, who, 189. 
 
 Key, brazen one, 189, 
 
 Keziah, Aunt, profound observation of, 173. 
 
 Kinderhook, 203. 
 
 Kingdom Come, march to, easy, 198, 
 
 Ktiuigsmark, Count, 175. 
 
 Lablache surpassed, 262. 
 Lacedismouians banish a great talker, 192. 
 liamb, Charles, his epistolary excellence, 195. 
 Latimer, Bishop, episcopizes Batan, 175. 
 Latin tongue, curious information concerning, 
 
 Launcelot, Sir, a trusser of giants formerly, 
 perhaps would find less sport therein now, 
 189. 
 
 Laura, exploited, 288. 
 
 Learning, three-story, 276. 
 
 Letcher, de let vieille roche^ 258. 
 
 Jjctcherus nebula, 284. 
 
 Letters classed, 195 — their shape, ib. — of can- 
 didates, 196 — often fatal, ib. 
 
 Lettres Cabalistiques, quoted, 244. 
 
 Lewis Philip, a scourger of young native Amer- 
 icans, 187 — commiserated (though not de- 
 serving it), ib. note. 
 
 Lexington, 247. 
 
 Liberator, a newspaper, condemned by impli- 
 cation, 182. 
 
 Liberty, unwholesome for men of certain com- 
 plexions, 192, 
 
 Licking, when constitutional, 260. 
 
 Lignum vitfe, a gift of this valuable wood pro- 
 posed, 178. 
 
 liincoln, too shrewd to hang Mason and Slidell, 
 266. 
 
 Literature, Southern, its abundance, 258. 
 
 Little Big Boosy River, 241. 
 
 LouginuB recommends swearing, 176, note (Fu- 
 I sell did same thing). 
 
 Long sweetening recommended, 198. 
 
 Lord, inexpensive way of lending to, 240. 
 
 Lords, Southern, prove pur sang by ablution, 
 258. 
 
 Lost arts, one sorrowfully added to list of, 
 208. 
 
 liouis the Eleventh of France, some odd trees 
 of his, 201. 
 
 ttowell, Mr. J. B., unaccountable silence of, 
 Ml. 
 
 Luther, Martin, hla first appearance as Euiopa, 
 
 LyaeuB, 286. 
 
 Lyttelton, Lord, his letters an imposition, 19& 
 
 Macrobli, their diplomacy, 197. 
 
 Magoffin, a name naturally noble, 258. 
 
 Mahomet, got nearer Sinai than some, 192. 
 
 Mahound, his filtliy gobbets, 178. 
 
 Mandeville, Sir John, quoted, 244. 
 
 Mangum, Mr., speaks to the point, 190. 
 
 Manichsean, a, excellently confuted, 188. 
 
 Man-trees, grow wliere, SiOl. 
 
 Maori chieftains, 245. 
 
 Mapes, Walter, quoted, 245 — paraphrased, iflu 
 
 Mares'-nests, finders of, benevolent, 194. 
 
 Marius, quoted, 255. 
 
 Marshfield, 203, 205. 
 ' Martin, Mr. Sawin used to vote for him, 205. 
 
 Mason and Dixon's line, slaves north of, 190. 
 
 Mason an F. F. V., 266. 
 
 Mason and Slidell, how they might have been 
 made at once useful and ornamental, 266. 
 
 Moss, the, its duty defined, 190. 
 
 Massachusetts on her knees, 174— something 
 mentioned in connection with, worthy the 
 attention of tailors, 184 — citizen of, bal^d, 
 boiled, and roasted (nefandum /), 200, 
 
 Masses, the, used as butter by some, 186, 
 
 Maury, an intellectual giant, twin birth vrith 
 Simms (which see), 258. 
 
 Mayday a humbug, 274. 
 
 M. C, an invertebrate animal, 187. 
 
 Me, Mister, a queer creature, 276. 
 
 Mechanics' Fair, reflections suggested at, 19Tf 
 
 Medi^nn ardentispiriiuale, 284. 
 
 Mediums, spiritual, dreadful liars, 278, 
 
 Memminger, old, 240. 
 
 Mentor, letters of, dreary, 195. 
 
 Mephistopheles at a nonplus, 191. 
 
 Mexican blood, its effect In raising price oC 
 
 cloth, 202. 
 Mexican polka, 179. 
 Mexicans charged with various breaches of eti* 
 
 quette, 178 — kind feelings beaten into them, 
 
 Mexico, no glory in overcoming, 185. 
 
 Middleton, Thomas, quoted, 255. 
 
 Military glory spoken disrespectfully of, ITTt 
 note — militia treated still worse, ib. 
 
 Milk-trees, growing still, 201. 
 
 Mill, Stuart, his low ideas, 265. 
 
 Mnieiuiiums apt to miscarry, 282. 
 
 Millspring, 266. ', 
 
 Mills for manufacturing gabble, how drlvef^ 
 188. 
 
 Mills, Josiah's, 276. 
 
 Milton, an unconscious plagian', 184, note — ft 
 Latin verse of, cited, 19^ — mi Eiip-lish poet, 
 268— his " Hymn of the Kativity," 280. 
 
 Missionaries, useful to aiiigaLor», 238 — culinary 
 liabilities of. 257. 
 
 Missions, a profitable kind of, 192. 
 
 Monarch, a pagan, probably not favored In phi- 
 losophical experiments, 175. 
 
 Money-treps, desirable, 201 — that they onoo 
 existed sliown to be variously probable, ib, 
 
 Montaigne, 289. 
 
316 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 Montaigne, a communicatiTe old Gascon, 104. 
 Monterey, battle of, its singular chromatic 
 
 effect on a species of two-Leaded eagle, 187. 
 Montezuma licked, 238. 
 Moody, Seth, his remarkable gun, 241 — his 
 
 brother Asaph, ib. 
 Moquis Indians, praiseworthy custom of, 2G8. 
 Moses, held up vainly as an example, 102 — 
 
 construed by Joe Smith, ib — (not, A. J. 
 
 Moses) prudent way of following, 269. 
 Muse invoked, 284. 
 Myths, how to interpret readily, 197. 
 
 Naboths, Popish ones, how distinguished, 179. 
 
 Kana Sahib, 244. 
 
 Nancy, presumably Mrs. Biglow, 246. 
 
 Napoleon III., his new chairs, 2U3. 
 
 Nation, rights of, proportionate to size, 178 — 
 youiig, its first needs, 2G4. 
 
 National pudding, its effect on the organs of 
 speech, a curious physiological fact, 179. 
 
 Negroes, their double usefulness, 240 — getting 
 too current, 2G5. 
 
 Nephelim, not yet extinct, 208. 
 
 New England overpoweringly honored, 186 — 
 wants no more speakers, ib. — done brown 
 by whom, ib. — her experience in beans be- 
 yond Cicero's, 197. 
 
 Newspaper, the, wondertul, 193 — a strolling 
 theatre, ib. -r thoughts suggested by tearing 
 wrapper of, 194— a vacant sheet, ib. — a 
 sheet in which a vision was let down, ib. — 
 wrapper to a bar of soap, ib. — a cheap im< 
 promptu platter, ib. 
 
 New World, apostrophe to, 252. 
 
 New York, letters from, commended, 195. 
 
 Next life, what, 192. 
 
 Nicotiana Tabacum, a weed, 268. 
 
 Niggers, 180 — area of abusing, extended, 185 — 
 Mr. Sawin's opinions of, 206. 
 
 Niuepence a day low for murder, 176. 
 
 No, a monosyllable, 179 — hard to utter, ib. 
 
 Noah enclosed letter in bottle, probably, 194. 
 
 Noblemen, Nature's, 259. 
 
 Nomas, Lapland, what, 202. 
 
 North, the, has no business, 190 — bristling, 
 crowded off roost, 196 — its mind naturally 
 unprincipled, 272. 
 
 North Band, geese inhumanly treated at, 196 — 
 mentioned, 203. 
 
 North star, a proposition to indict, 191. 
 
 Northern Sagon, 241. 
 
 Northmen, gens inclytissvma^ 267. 
 
 NStre Dame de la Haine, 256. 
 
 Now, its merits, 276. 
 VNowhere, marcb to, 277. 
 
 O'Brien, Smith, ?44. 
 
 Off ox, 195. 
 
 Officers, miraculous transformation in character 
 
 of, 178 — AngJo-Saxon, come very near being 
 
 anathematized, ib. 
 Old age, an advantage of, 243. 
 Old One, invoked, 262. 
 Onesimus mode to serve the cause of impiety, 
 
 257. 
 
 O'Phace, Increase D., Esq., speech of, 183. 
 Opinion, British, its worth to us, 245. 
 Opinions, certain ones compared to winter flies, 
 
 254. 
 Oracle of Fools, still respectfully consulted, 
 
 183. 
 Orion becomes commonplace, 104. 
 Orrery, Lord, his letters (lord V\ 195. 
 Ostracism, curious species of, 183. 
 Ovidii Nasonis, carmen supposititium^ 284. 
 
 P. 
 
 Palestine, 178. 
 Paley, his Evidences, 298. 
 Palfrey, Hon. J. G., 184, 186 (a worthy repre- 
 sentative of Massachusetts). 
 Pantagruel recommends a popular oracle, 
 
 183. 
 Panurge, 245 — his interview with Goatsnose, 
 
 197. 
 Paper, plausible-looking, wanted, 264. 
 Papists, female, slain by zealous Protestant 
 
 bomb-shell, 202. 
 Parallpomeuon, a man suspected of being, 
 
 196. 
 Paris, liberal principles safe as far away as, 
 
 192. 
 ParliaTnentum Indoctorum sitting in perma- 
 
 nence, 183. 
 Past, the, a good nurse, 189, 
 Patience, sister, quoted, 177. 
 Patriarchs, the, illiterate, 242. 
 PatriciuSf brogipotens, 284. 
 Faynims, their throats propagandistically cut, 
 
 178. 
 Penelope, her wise choice, 181. 
 People, soft enough, 192 — want correct ideaa^ 
 
 200 — the, decline to be Mexicanized, 270. 
 Pepin, King, 195. 
 Pepperell, General, quoted, 246. 
 Pequash Junction, 289. 
 Periwig, 196. 
 Perley, Mr. Asaph, has charge of bass-vio!; 
 
 254. 
 Perseus, King, his avarice, 246. 
 Persius, a pithy saying of, 186, note. 
 Pescara, Marquis, saying of, 175. 
 Peter, Saint, a letter of {post-mortem)^ 195. 
 Petrarch, exploited Laura, 288. 
 Petronius, 245. 
 
 Pettlbone, Jabez, bursts up, 258. 
 Pettus came over with WUhelmus Conqulstoi; 
 
 258. 
 Phaon, 288. 
 
 Pharaoh, his lean kine, 251. 
 Pharisees, opprobriously referred to, 192. 
 Philippe, Louis, in pear-jacket, 193. 
 Phillips, Wendell, catches a Tartar, 273. 
 Phlegyas quoted, 191. 
 Phrygian language, whether Adam spoke it^ 
 
 175. 
 Pickens, a Norman name, 258. 
 Pilcoxes, genealogy of, 236. 
 Pilgrim Father, apparition of, 277. 
 Pilgrims, the, 185. 
 Pillows, constitutional, 187. 
 Pine-trees, their sympathy, 276. 
 Pinto, Mr., some letters of his commended. 
 
 195. 
 Pisgah, im impromptu one, 202. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 817 
 
 Platforro, party, a convenient one, 200. 
 FiutOf supped with, liM — liis mau, 1*J6. 
 Pleiades, tiie, not euough esteemed, iu4. 
 Pliny, his letters not admired, 1UI>. 
 
 Plocmus, a story of, lad. 
 
 Plymouth Kocl£, Old, a Convention wrecked on, 
 185. 
 
 Poets apt to become sophisticated, 274. 
 
 Point Tribulation, Mr. Sawiu wrecked on, 201. 
 
 Poles, exile, whether crop of beans depends on, 
 177, note. 
 
 '^olk, nomen gentile, 258. 
 
 ^olk, President, synonymous with our country, 
 , 180 — censured, 185 — in danger of being 
 crushed, 186. 
 
 ^olka, Mexican, 179. 
 
 ^omp, a runaway slave, his nest, 206 — hypo- 
 critically groans like white man, ib. — blind 
 to Christian privileges, ib. — his society 
 valued at fifty dollars, i6. — his treachery, 
 207 — takes Mr. Sawin prisoner, ib. — cruelly 
 makes him work, ib. — puts himself illegally 
 under his tuition, ib. — dismisses him with 
 contumelious epithets, ib. — a negro, '2^. 
 
 Pontitical bull, a tamed one, 178. 
 
 Pope, his verse excellent, 175. 
 
 Pork, refractory in boiling, 178. 
 
 Portico, the, 288. 
 
 Portugal, Aiphonso the Sixth of, a monster, 
 208. 
 
 Post, Boston, 181 — shaken visibly, 182 — bad 
 guide-post, ib. — too swift, i&. — edited by a 
 colonel, ib. — who is presumed officially in 
 Mexico, ib. — referred to, 188. 
 
 Pot-hooks, death in, 197. 
 
 Power, a first-class, elements of, 263. 
 
 Preacher, an ornamental symbol, 192 — a 
 breeder of dogmas, ib. — earnestness of, im- 
 portant, 208. 
 
 Present, considered as an annalist, 192 — not 
 long wonderful, 194. 
 
 President, slaveholding natural to, 193 — must 
 be a Southern resident, 201 — must own a 
 nigger, ib. — the, his policy, 295 — his resem- 
 blance to Jackson, 296. 
 
 Princes mix cocktails, 264. 
 
 Principle, exposure spoils it, 184. 
 
 Principles, bad, when less harmful, 179 — when 
 useless, 271. 
 
 Professor, Latin, in College, 283— Sc^- 
 
 iger, 284. 
 
 Prophecies, fulfilment of, 266. 
 
 Prophecy, a notable one, 187, note. 
 
 Prospect Hill, 247. 
 
 Providence has a natural life-Ttreserver, 252. 
 
 Proviso, bitterly spoken of, 195. 
 
 Prudence, sister, her idiosyncratic t-eapot, 199. 
 
 PsammeticuB, an experiment of, 175. 
 
 Psyche, poor, 289. 
 
 Public opinion, a blind and drunkon guide, 179 
 — nudges Mr. "Wilbur's elbow, ib. — ticklers 
 of, 185. 
 
 Punkin Falls " Weekly Parallel," 279. 
 
 Putnam, General Israel, his lines. 247. 
 
 Pythagoras a bean-hater, why, 197. 
 
 Pythagoreans, fish reverenced by, why, 189. 
 
 Quid, ingens nicotianurrif 285. 
 Quixote, Don, 189. 
 
 Rafn, ProfMsor, 267. 
 
 Hag, one of sacred college, 179. 
 
 Rautoul, Mr., talks loudly, 176 — pious reason 
 
 for not eulieitiug, ib. 
 Becruiting sergeant, Devil supposed the first, 
 
 175. 
 Religion, Southern, its commercial advantages, 
 
 25ti. 
 Representatives' Chamber, 189. .' 
 
 Rhinotlusm, society for promoting, 194. | 
 
 Rhyme, whether natural not cou&idered, 175. 
 Rib, an infrangible oue, 198. 
 Richard the First of England, his Christian fer> 
 
 vor, 178. 
 Riches conjectured to have legs as well as wings, 
 
 191. 
 Ricos Hombres, 255. 
 KiugtHil Rangers, 242. 
 Roanoke Island, 266. 
 Robinson, Mr. John P., his opinions fully stated, 
 
 180, 181. 
 Rocks, pocket full of, 199. 
 Roosters in rainy weather, their misery, 237. 
 Rotation insures mediocrity and inexperience, 
 
 261. 
 Rough and ready, 204 — a wig, 21.5 — a kind of 
 
 scratch, ib. 
 Royal Society, American fellows of, 279. 
 Rum and water combine kindly, 269. 
 Runes resemble bird-tracks, 208. 
 Runic inscriptions, their ditt'ereut grades of un- 
 
 intelligibility and consequent value, 267. 
 Russell, Earl, is good euough to expound our 
 
 Constitution for us, 244. 
 Russian eaplo turns Prussian blue, 187. 
 Ryeusy Bacchi epittieion, 286. 
 
 S. 
 
 Sabbath, breach of, 168. 
 
 Sabellianism, one accused of, l^Q. 
 
 Sailors, their rights how won, 250. 
 
 Saltillo, unfavorable view of, 177. 
 
 Salt-river, in Mexican, what, 177. 
 
 Samuel, avunculus, 285. 
 
 Samuel, Uncle, 239 — riotous, 187 — yet has 
 qualities demanding reverence, 192 — a good 
 provider for his family, ib. — an exorbitant 
 bill of, 202 — makes some shrewd guesses, 
 252-254 — expects his boots, 259. 
 
 Sansculottes, draw their wine before drinking, 
 190. 
 
 Santa Anna, his expensive lefr, 200. 
 
 Sappho, some human nature in, 288. 
 
 Sassy Cus, an impudent Indian, 246. 
 
 Satan, never wants attorneys, 178 — an expert 
 talker by signs, ib. — a successful fisherman 
 with little or no bait, ib. — cunning fetch of, 
 179 — dislikes ridicule, 182 — ought not to 
 have credit of ancient oracles, 187, note — his 
 worst pitfall, 257. 
 
 Satirist, incident to certain dangers, 180. 
 
 Savages. Canadian, chance of redemption of- 
 fered to, 208. 
 
 Sawin, B., Esquire, his letter not written in 
 verse, 175 — a native of Jaalaui, ib. — not 
 regular attendant on Rev. Mr. Wilbur's 
 praachinjj, 176 — a fool, ib. — his statements 
 trustworthy, ib. — his ornithological tastes* 
 
318 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 <6. — letter from, 175, 197, 203 —hie curious 
 discovery in regard to bayonets, 17li — dis- 
 plays proper family pride, ib. — modestly 
 confesses himBelf less wise than tlia Qaeeu 
 of Sheba, 177 — the old Adam iu, peeps out, 
 178 — amUes emeritus, 197 — is made text for 
 asermou, ib, — loses a leg, 198 — an eye, i6. 
 
 — left band, ib. — four fingers of right hand, 
 ib. — has six or more ribs broken, ib. — a rib 
 
 t of his infrangible, i&. — allows a certain 
 amount of preterite greenness in himself, ib. 
 
 — his share of spoil limited, 199 — his opin- 
 ion of Mexican climate, ib. — acquires prop- 
 erty of a certain sort, ib. — his experience of 
 glory, 200 — stands sentry, and puns there- 
 upon, ib. — undergoes martyrdom iu some of 
 its most painful forms, ib. — enters the can- 
 didating business, ib. — modestly states the 
 (avail)^bilities which qualify him for high po- 
 litical station, 200, 201 — has no principles, 
 200 — a peaceman, ib. — unpledged, ib. — has 
 no objections to owning peculiar property, but 
 would not like to monopolize the truth, 201 
 
 — his account with glory, ib. — a selfish mo- 
 tive hinted in, ib. — sails lor Eldorado^ ib. — 
 shipwrecked on a metaphorical promontory, 
 ib. — parallel between, and Rev. Mr. Wilbur 
 (not Plutarchian), 202 — conjectured to have 
 bathed in river Selemnua, 203 — loves plough 
 wisely, but not too well, ib. — a foreign mis- 
 sion probably expected by, ib. — unanimous- 
 ly nominated for presidency, ib. — his coun- 
 try's father-in-law, 204 — nobly emulates 
 Gincinnatus, ib, — is not a crooked stick, ib. 
 — advises hia adherents, ib. — views of, on 
 present state of politics, 203-205 — popular 
 enthusiasm for, at Bcllers's, aud its disagree- 
 able consequences, 204 — inhuman treatment 
 of, by Bellers, 205 — his opinion of the two 
 parties, ib. — agrees with Mr. Webster, ib. — 
 his antialavery zeal» ib. — bis proper self- 
 respect, 206 — his unaffected piety, ib.—hia 
 not intemperate temperance, ib. — a thrilling 
 adventure of, 206, 207— his prudence and 
 economy, 206 — bound to Captain Jakes, but 
 regains his freedom, 207 — is taken prisoner, 
 ib. — ignominiously treated, ib. — his conwe- 
 quent resolution, ib. 
 
 Bawln, Honorable B. O'F., a vein of humor sus- 
 pected in, 236 — gets into an enchanted cas- 
 tle, 237 — finds a wooden lop better in some 
 respects than a living one, 238 — takes some- 
 thing hot, ib. — hia experience of Southern 
 hospitality, 238,239 — waterproof internally, 
 238 — sentenced to ten years' Imprisonment, 
 239-^ his liberal-hand edness, 240 — gets bis 
 arrears of pen.sion, ib. — marries the Widow 
 Shannon, 241 — confiscated, ib. — fintis in 
 himself a natural necessity of income, 242 — 
 his missionary zeal, ib. — never a stated at- 
 tendant on Mr. Wilbur's preaching, 254 — 
 sang bass in choir, ib. — prudently avoided 
 contribution toward bell, ib. — abhors a cov- 
 enant of works, 256 — if saved at all, must hn 
 saved genteelly, ib. — reports a sermon, 253 
 
 — experiences religion, ib. — would consent 
 to a dukedom, 258 — converted to unanimity, 
 259 — sound views of, 260 — makes himself 
 an extempore marquia, 261 — extract of letter 
 from, 298, 299— his opinion of Paddies, 298 — 
 of Johnson, 299. 
 
 Bayres, a martyr, 189. 
 
 Scaliger, saying of, 180. 
 
 Hcarubceus pUulariuSf 177. 
 
 ticutt, Geuei-ui, his claims to the piesidenoy , 18!^ 
 
 Scrimgour, Rev. Shearjashub, 287- 
 
 Bcythiaua, their diplomacy commended, 197. 
 
 Sea, the wormy, 2bS. 
 
 Seamen, colored, sold, 175. 
 Secessia licta^ 2a5. 
 
 Secession, its legal nature defined, 241- 
 
 Secret, a great military, 274. 
 
 Selemnua, a sort of Lethean river, 203. 
 
 Senate, debate in, made readable, 189. 
 
 Seneca, saying of, 179 — another, 187, no/e— ' 
 overrated by a saint (but see Lord Bohng- 
 broke's opinion of, in a letter to Dean Svrift), 
 195 — his letters not commended, ib. — a son 
 of Rev. Mr. Wilbur, 202 — quoted, 280, 281. 
 
 Serbouian bog of literature, 188. 
 
 Sermons, some pitched too high, 254. 
 
 Seward, Mister, the late, his gift of prophecy, 
 247 — needs stiffening, 295 — misunderbtands 
 parable of fatted calf, ib. 
 
 Sextons, demand for, 177 — heroic official de- 
 votion of one, 208. 
 
 Seymour, Governor, 281. 
 
 Shakespeare, 289 —a good reporter, 183. 
 
 Shaking fever, coi&idered as an employment, 
 199. 
 
 Sham, President, honest, 185. 
 
 Shannon, Mrs,, a widow, 239 — her family and 
 accomplishments, 241 — has tantrums, ib. — 
 her religious views, 256 — her notions of a 
 moral and intellectual being, 257 — her maiden 
 name, 258 — lier blue blood, ib. 
 
 Sheba, Queen of, 177. 
 
 Sheep, none of Rev. Mr. Wilbur's tiumed wolvek. 
 175. 
 
 Shem, Scriptural curse of, 207. 
 
 Shiraz Centre, lead-mine at, 258. 
 
 Shirley, Governor, 246. 
 
 Shoddy, poor covering for outer or inner man, 
 278. 
 
 Shot at sight, privilege of being, 259. 
 
 Show, natural to love it, 177, note. 
 
 Silver spoon born iu Democracy's mouth, what. 
 186. 
 
 Sin, wilderness of, modern, what, 192. 
 
 Sinai Buffers outrages, 192. 
 
 Skim-milk has its ovni opinions, 277. 
 
 Skin, hole in, strange taste of some for, 199. 
 
 Skippers, Yankee, busy in the slave-trade, 257. 
 
 Simms, an intellectual giant, twin-birth with 
 Maury (which see). 258. 
 
 Slaughter, whether God strengthen us for, 179L 
 
 Slaughterers and soldiers compared, 203. 
 
 Slaughtering nowadays is slaughtering, 203. 
 
 Slavery, of no color, 174 — comer-stone of lib- 
 erty, 3 88 — also keystone, 190 — last crumb of 
 Eden, 191 — a Jonab, ib. — an institution, 196 
 — a private State concern, 206. 
 
 Slidell, New York trash, 206. 
 
 Sloanshure, Habakkuk, Esquire, President cl 
 Jaalam Bank, 262. 
 
 Smith, Joe, used as a translation, 192. 
 
 Smith, John, an interesting character, 194. 
 
 Smith, Mr., fears entertained for, 191 — dined 
 with, 194. 
 
 Smith. N. B., his magnanimity, 193. 
 
 Smithius dvx, 204. 
 
 Soandeo, Mr., the great, defines his poBitioi% 
 192. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 319 
 
 Soft-heartednesB misplaced Is BOft-headednesB. 
 
 282. 
 
 Sol, the fisherman^ 177 — soundness of respira- 
 tory orgnns, hypotbetioally attributed to, ib. 
 
 Soldiers, British, ghosts of, insubordinate, 247. 
 
 Solomon, Song of, portions oi it done into Latin 
 verse by Mr. "Wilbur, 283. 
 
 Solon, a snyiug of, 179. 
 
 Soul, injurious properties of, 261. 
 
 South, tlie, its natural eloqueuce, 272 — facts 
 have a mean spite against, 2(>G. 
 
 South Carolina, futile attempt to anchor, 189 — 
 her pedigrees, 255. 
 
 Southern men, their imperfect notions of labor, 
 239 — of subscriptions, 240 — too high-pres- 
 sure, 242 — prima facie noble, 258. 
 
 Spauish, to walk, what, 178. 
 
 Speech-making, an abuse of gift of speech, 188. 
 
 Spirit-rapping does not repay the spirits en- 
 gaged in it, 278. 
 
 Split-Foot, Old, made to squirm, 242, 
 
 Spring, described, 274, 275. 
 
 Star, north, subject to indictment, whether, 
 191. 
 
 Statesman, a genuine, defined, 272. 
 
 Stearna, Othniel, fable by, 297. 
 
 Stone Spike, the, 247. 
 
 Store, cheap cash, a wicked fraud, 202. 
 
 Strong, Governor Caleb, a patriot, 18J 
 
 Style, the catalogue, 275. 
 
 Sumter, shame of, 251. 
 
 Sunday should mind its own business, 272. 
 
 Swearing commended as a figure of speech, 176, 
 note. 
 
 Swett, Jethro C, his fall, 292. 
 
 Swift, Peau, threadbare saying of, 182. 
 
 T. 
 
 Tag, elevated to the Cardinalate, 179, 
 
 Taney, C. J., 261. 
 
 Tarandfeather, Rev. Mr., 259. 
 
 Tarbox, Shearjashub, tirst white child bom in 
 
 Jaalam, 243. 
 Tartars, Mongrel, 238. 
 Taxes, direct, advantages of, 202, 
 Taylor, General, greased by Mr. Choate, 205. 
 Taylor zeal, its origin, 204. 
 Teapots, how made dangerous, 281. 
 Ten, the upper, 259. 
 
 Tesepboue, banished for long-windednese, 188. 
 Thacker, Rev. Preserved, D. D,, 279. 
 Thanks get lodged, 199. 
 Thanksgiving, Faejee, 238. 
 Thaumaturgus, Saint Gregory, letter of, to the 
 
 Devil, 195. 
 Theleme, Abbey of, 262. 
 Theocritus, the inventor of idyllic poetry, 243. 
 Theory, defined, 269. 
 Thermopyles, too many, 266. 
 *' They '11 say," a notable bully, 250. 
 Thirty-nine articles might be made serviceable, 
 
 179. 
 Thor, a foolish attempt of, 189. 
 Thoreau, 243. 
 
 Thoughts, live ones characterized, 290. 
 Thumb, General Thomas, a valuable meraber of 
 
 society, 187. 
 Thunder supposed in easy circumstances, 198. 
 Thynne, Mr., murdered, 175. 
 TibuUuB, 280. 
 
 Time, an Innocent pemunaRe to swear by, 176, 
 
 iwte — a scene-shifter, 194. 
 Tiukiinni, Deacou Pelatiah, story concerning, 
 
 not told, 237 — alluded to, 243 — does a very 
 
 sensible thing, 256. 
 Toius, peeping, 194. 
 Toombs, a doleful sound from, 2G6. 
 Trees, various kinds of extraordinary ones, 201. 
 Trowbridge, William, mariner, adventure of, 
 
 179. 
 Truth and falsehood start from same point, 180 
 
 — truth invulnerable to satire, ib. — compared 
 
 to a river, 183 — of lietiou sometimes truer 
 
 than fact, ib. — told plainly, pa!>sim. 
 Tuileries, exciting scene at, 187 — front parlor 
 
 of, 233. 
 Tully, a saying of, 184, note. 
 Tunnel, northwest-passage, a poor iuvestmont^ 
 
 262. 
 Turkey-Buzzard Boost, 241, 
 Tuscaloosa, 241. 
 
 Tutchel, Bev. Jonas, a Sadducee, 269. 
 Tweedledee, gospel according to, 192, 
 Tweedledum, great principles of, 192. 
 Tylerus,jurenisinsignis,'ZdA — porphyrogenUttSf 
 
 285 —Jo/iannidesj Jlito celansj 286 — ben^ 
 
 titus^ ib. 
 Tyrants, European, how made to tremble, 239. 
 
 U. 
 
 Ulysaes, husband of Penelope, 181 — borrowe 
 
 money, 202 (for full particulars of, see Homer 
 
 and Dante) — rex^ 284. 
 XJuanimity, new ways of producing, 259. 
 Union, its hoops oil', 259 — its good old meanlug, 
 
 270. 
 Uuiverse, its breeching, 259. 
 University, triennial catalogue of, 182. 
 Us, nobody to be compared with, 239, and see 
 
 Worldi passim. 
 
 Van Buren fails of gaining Mr. Sawin*s confi- 
 dence, 206 — his son John reproved, ib. 
 
 Van, Old, plan to set up, 205. 
 
 Yattel, as likely to fall on your toes as on mine, 
 253. 
 
 "Venetians invented something once, 202. 
 
 Vices, cardinal, sacred conclave of, 179. 
 
 Victoria, Queen, her natural terror, 187— her 
 best carpets, 263. 
 
 Vinland, 268. 
 
 Virgin, the, letter of, to Magistrates of Messina, 
 195. 
 
 Virginia^ descHptn, 284, 285. 
 
 Virginians, their false heraldry, 255. 
 
 Voltaire, espHt rfe, 284. 
 
 Vratz, Captain, a Pomeranian, singular Vl0V?8 
 of, 175. 
 
 W. 
 
 Wachuset, Mountain, 250. 
 
 Wait, General, 240. 
 
 Wales, Prince of, calls Brother Jonathan con- 
 savgiiineus noster, 245 — but had not, appar- 
 ently, consulted the Garter King at Anns, ib, 
 
 Walpole, Horace, classed, 194 — his letters 
 praised, 195. 
 
820 
 
 THE BIGLOW PAPERS. 
 
 Waltham Plain, Gomwallis at, 176. 
 
 Walton, punctilious in his iutercourse with 
 fishes, 179. 
 
 War, abstract, horrid, 195 — its hoppers, grist 
 of, what, 199. 
 
 Warren, Fort, 281. 
 
 Warton, Thomas, a story of, 183. 
 
 Washington, charge hrought against, 204. 
 
 Washington, city of, climatic iuiiueuce of, on 
 coats, 184 — mentioned, 189 — grand jury of, 
 ' 191. 
 
 iWashingtons, two hatched at a time by im- 
 
 I proved machine, 204. 
 
 I WatchmaniLS noctivagus, 286. 
 
 ' Water, Taunton, proverbially weak, 206, 
 
 Water-trees, 201. 
 
 We, 276. 
 
 Weakwash, a name fatally tjrpical, 246. 
 
 Webster, his unabridged quarto, its deleterious- 
 ness, 2S3. 
 
 Webster, some sentiments of, commended by 
 Mr. Sawin, 205. 
 
 Westcott, Mr., his horror, 191. 
 
 Whig party has a large throat, 182 — bat 4uery 
 as to swallov/ing spurs, 205. 
 
 White-house, 19G. 
 
 Wicklilfe, Robert, consequences of his bursting, 
 281. 
 
 Wife-trees, 201. 
 
 Wilbur, Mrs. Dorcas (Filcox), an invariable 
 rule of, 182 — her profile, 183 — tribute to, 
 279. 
 
 Wilbur, Rev. Homer, A. M,, consulted, 173 — 
 his instructions to his flock, 175 — a proposi- 
 tion of his for Protestant bomb-ehells, 179 — 
 his elbow nudged, ib. — his notions of satire, 
 ib. — some opinions of his quoted -vith ap- 
 parent approval by Mr. Biglow, 180 — geo- 
 graphical speculations of, 181 — a justice of 
 the peace, ib. — a letter of, ib. — a Latin pun 
 of, ib. — runs s^ainst a post without injury, 
 182 — does not seek notoriety (whatever some 
 malignants may affirm), ib. — fits youths for 
 college, ib. — a chaplain during late war with 
 England, 183 — a shrewd observation of, ib. 
 — some curious speculations of, 188, 189 — 
 his martello-tower, 188 — forgets he is not in 
 pulpit, 191, 197 — extracts from sermon of, 
 191, 193 — interested in John Smith, 194 — 
 his views concerning present state of letters, 
 194, 195 — a stratagem of, 196 — ventures two 
 hundred and fourth interpretation of 'Benat 
 in Apocalypse, ib. — christens Hon. B. Sawin, 
 then an infant, 197 — an addition to our sylva 
 proposed by, 201 — curious and instructive 
 ^ adventure of , 202 — his account with an im- 
 . iiutural uucle ib. — liis uncomfortable imagi- 
 
 nation, 203 — speculations concenilng Cla 
 
 ciunatua, ib. — confesses digreasive tendency 
 of mind, 208 — goes to work on sermon (not 
 without fear that his readers vrill dub him 
 with a reproachful epitliet like that with 
 which Isaac AUerton, a Mayflower man, re< 
 venges himself on a delinquent debtor of his, 
 calling him iu liis will, and thus holding him 
 up to posterity, as "John Peterson, Thb 
 Boee"), ib. — his modesty, 235 — disclaims 
 sole authorship of Mr. Biglovv's writings, ib, 
 — his low opinion of prepensive autographs, 
 ib. — a, chaplain in 1812, 236 — cites a heathen 
 comedian, 237 — his fondness for the Book 
 of Job, ib. — preaches a Fast-Day discourse, 
 ib. — is prevented from narrating a singular 
 occurrence, ib. — is presented with a pair of 
 new spectacles, 242 — his church services in- 
 decorously Sketched by Mr. Sawin, 257 — 
 hopes to decipher a Runic inscription, 261 — 
 a fable by, 262 — deciphers Runic inscription, 
 267-269 — his method therein, 268 — is ready 
 to reconsider his opinion of tobacco, 269 — 
 his opinion of the Puritans, 274 — his death, 
 279 — born in Pigsgusaet, ib. — letter of Rev. 
 Mr. Hitchcock concerning, 279, 280 — fond 
 of Milton's Christmas hymn, 280 — his monu- 
 ment (proposed), ib. — his epitaph, ifi. — his 
 last letter, 280, 281 — his supposed disem- 
 bodied spirit, 283— table belonging to, i6.— 
 sometimes wrote Latin verses, ib. — his table- 
 talk, 287-289 — his prejudices, 287 — against 
 Baptists, ib. — his sweet nature, 292 — his 
 views of style, ib. — a story of his, 293. 
 
 Wild bore, a vernacular one, how to escape, 
 188. 
 
 Wilkes, Captain, borrows rashly, 248. 
 
 Wind, the, a good Samaritan, 197. 
 
 Wingfield, bis " Memorial," 255. 
 
 Wooden leg, remarkable for sobriety, 198-« 
 never eats puddirg, ib. 
 
 Woods, the. See Belmont. 
 
 Works, covenants of, condemned, 256. 
 
 World, this, its unhappy temper, 237. 
 
 Wright, Colonel, providentially rescued, 177. 
 
 Writing dangerous to reputation, 236, 
 
 Wrong, abstract, safe to oppose, 185. 
 
 Yankees, their worst wooden nutmegs, 267. 
 
 Zack, Old, 201 
 
THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. OOTT. 
 
 1850. 
 
THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT. 
 
 PART r. 
 
 SHOWING HOW HE BUILT HIS HOUSE 
 AND HIS WIFE MOVED INTO IT. 
 
 My worthy friend, A. Gordon Knott, 
 
 From business snug withdrawn. 
 Was much contented with a lot 
 That would contain a Tudor cot 
 Twixt twelve feet square of garden-plot. 
 And twelve feet more of lawn. 
 
 He had laid business on the shelf 
 
 To give his taste expansion. 
 And, since no man, retired with pelf. 
 
 The building mania can shun, 
 Knott, being middle-aged himself, 
 Besolved to build (unhappy elf!) 
 
 A mediaeval mansion. 
 
 He called an architect in counsel ; 
 
 "I want," said he, "a— you know 
 what, 
 
 (You are a builder, I am Knott,) 
 
 A thing complete from chimney-pot 
 Down to the very grounsel ; 
 
 Here 's a half-acre of good land ; 
 
 Just have it nicely mapped and 
 planned 
 And make your workmen drive on ; 
 
 Meadow there is, and upland too. 
 
 And I should like a water-view, 
 D' you think you could contrive one ? 
 
 (Perhaps the pump and trough would 
 do. 
 
 If painted a judicious blue ?) 
 
 The woodland I 've attended to " ; 
 
 [He meant three pines stuck up 
 askew, 
 Two dead ones and a live one.] 
 
 "A pocket-full of rocks 'twould take 
 To build a house "f freestone, 
 
 Bnt then it is not hard to make 
 
 What nowadays is tJie stone ; _ 
 The cunning painter in a trice 
 Your house's outside petrifies, 
 And people think it very gneise 
 
 Without inquiring deeper ; 
 My money never shall be thrown 
 Away on such a deal of stone, 
 
 When stone of deal is cheaper." 
 
 And so the greenest of antiques 
 
 Was reared for Knott to dwell in : 
 The architect worked hard for weeks 
 In venting all his private peaks 
 Upon the roof, whose crop of leaks 
 
 Had satisfied Fluellen ; 
 Whatever anybody had 
 Out of the common, good or bad, 
 
 Knott had it all worked well in ; _ 
 A donjon-keep, where clothes might 
 
 dry, 
 A porter's lodge that was a sty, 
 A campanile slim and high. 
 
 Too small to hang a bell in ; 
 All up and down and here and there. 
 With Lord-knows-whats of round and 
 
 square 
 Stuck on at random everywhere, — 
 It was a house to make one stare. 
 
 All comers and »11 gables ; 
 Like dogs let loose upon a bear, 
 Ten emulous styles staboyed with care, 
 The whole among them seemed to tear. 
 And all the oddities to spare 
 
 Were set upon the stables. 
 
 Knott was delighted with a pile 
 Approved by fashion's leaders : 
 
 (Only he made the buUder smile. 
 
 By asking every little while. 
 
 Why that was called the Twodoor styl^ 
 Which certainly had three doois ?) 
 
 Yet better for this luckless man 
 
 If he had put a downright ban 
 
S24 
 
 THE TTNHAPPT LOT OF MK. KNOTT. 
 
 Upon the thing in limine ; 
 VoT, though to quit affairs his plan. 
 Ere many days, poor Knott began 
 Perforce accepting draughts, that ran 
 
 All ways — except up chimney ; 
 The house, though painted stone to 
 
 mock, 
 With nice white lines round every 
 block. 
 
 Some trepidation stood in, 
 When tempests (with petrific shock. 
 So to speak,) made it really rock. 
 
 Though not a whit less wooden ; 
 And painted stone, howe'er well done. 
 Will not take in the prodigal sun 
 Whose beams are never quite at one 
 
 With our terrestrial lumber ; 
 So the wood shrank around the knots. 
 And gaped in disconcerting spots. 
 And there were lots of dots and rots 
 
 And crannies without number. 
 Wherethrough, as you may well pre- 
 sume. 
 The wind, like water through a flume. 
 
 Came rushing in ecstatic. 
 Leaving, in all three floors, no room 
 
 That was not a rheumatic ; 
 And, what with points and squares and 
 rounds 
 
 Grown shaky on their poises, 
 The house at nights was full of pounds. 
 Thumps, bumps, creaks, scratchings, 
 
 raps — till — " Zounds !" 
 Cried Knott, "this goes beyond all 
 
 bounds ; 
 I do not deal in tongues and sounds. 
 Nor have I let my house and grounds 
 
 To a family of Noyeses ! " 
 
 But, though Knott's house was full of 
 airs, 
 
 Se had but one, — a daughter ; 
 And, as he owned much stocks and 
 
 shares. 
 Many who wished to render theirs 
 Such vain, unsatisfying cares. 
 And needed wives to sew their tears. 
 
 In matrimony sought her ; 
 They vowed her gold they wanted not, 
 
 Their faith would never falter. 
 They longed to tie this single Knott 
 
 In the Hymeneal halter ; 
 So daily at the door they rang. 
 
 Cards for the belle delivering. 
 Or in the choir at her they sang. 
 Achieving suoh a rapturous twang 
 
 As set her nerves ashivering. 
 
 Kow Knott had quite made up his mind 
 
 That Colonel Jones should nave her ; 
 No beauty he, but oft we find 
 Sweet kernels 'neath a roughish rind. 
 So hoped his Jenny 'd be resigned 
 
 And make no more palaver ; 
 Glanced at the fact that love was blind« 
 That girls were ratherish inclined 
 
 To pet their little crosses. 
 Then nosologically defined 
 The rate at which the system pined 
 In those unfortunates who dined 
 Upon that metaphoric kind 
 
 Of dish — their own proboscis. 
 
 But she, with many tears and moans. 
 
 Besought him not to mock her. 
 Said 't was too much for flesh and bonea 
 To marry mortgages and loans. 
 That fathers' hearts were stocks and 
 
 stones. 
 And that she 'd go, when Mrs. Jones, 
 
 To Davy Jones's locker ; 
 Then gave her head a little toss 
 That said as plain as ever was, 
 If men are always at a loss 
 
 Mere womankind to bridle — 
 To try the thing on woman cross 
 
 Were fifty times as idle ; 
 For she a strict resolve had made 
 
 And registered in private. 
 That either she would die a maid. 
 Or else be Mrs. Doctor Slade, 
 
 If woman could- contrive it ; 
 And, though the wedding-day was set, 
 
 Jenny was more so, rather. 
 Declaring, in a pretty pet. 
 That, howsoe'er they spread their net^ 
 She would out-Jennyral them yet, 
 
 The colonel and her father. 
 
 Just at this time the Public's eyes 
 
 Were keenly on the watch, a stir 
 Beginning slowly to arise 
 About those questions and replies. 
 Those raps that unwrapped mysteries 
 
 So rapidly at Rochester, 
 And Knott, already nervous grown 
 By lying much awake alone, 
 And listening, sometimes to a moan, 
 
 And sometimes to a clatter. 
 Whene'er the wind at night would roust 
 The gingerbread-work on his house. 
 Or when some hasty-tempered mouse, 
 Behind the plastering, made a towiM 
 
 About a family matter. 
 Began to wonder if his wife, 
 
THE UNHAPPY LOT OF ME. KNOTT. 
 
 325 
 
 A paTalj-tic half her life, 
 
 Which made it more surprising. 
 Might not to rule him from her urn. 
 Have taken a peripatetic turn 
 
 For want of exorcising. 
 
 This thought, once nestled in his head, 
 Erelong contagious grew, and spread 
 Infecting all his mind with dread, 
 Cntil at last he lay in bed 
 And heard his wife, with well-known 
 
 tread. 
 Entering the kitchen through the shed, 
 
 (Or was 't his fancy, mocking ?) 
 Opening the pantry, cutting bread. 
 And then (she 'd been some ten years 
 dead) 
 
 Closets and drawers unlocking ; 
 Or, in his room (his breath grew thick) 
 He lieard the long-familiar click 
 Of slender needles flying quick. 
 
 As if she knit a stocking ; 
 For whom V — he prayed that years might 
 flit 
 
 With pains rheumatic shooting, 
 Before those ghostly things she knit 
 Upon his unfleshed sole might fit, 
 He did not fancy it a bit. 
 
 To stand upon that footing ; 
 At other times, his frightened hairs 
 
 Above the bedclothes trusting. 
 He heard her, full of household cares, 
 (No dream entrapped in supper's snares, 
 The foal of horrible nightmares. 
 But broad awake, as he declares,) 
 Go bustling up and down the stairs. 
 Or setting back last evening's chairs, 
 
 Or with the poker thmsting 
 The raked- up sea -coal's hardened 
 
 crust — 
 And — what ! impossible ! it must ! 
 He knew she had returned to dust, 
 And yet could scarce his senses trust, 
 Hearing her as she poked and fussed 
 
 About the parlor, dusting 1 
 
 Night after night he strove to sleep 
 And take his ease in spite of it ; 
 But still his flesh would chill and creep, 
 And, though two night-lamps he might 
 keep, 
 He could not so make light of it. 
 At last, quite desperate, he goes 
 And tells his neighbors all his woes. 
 
 Which did but their amount enhance ; 
 They made such mockery of his fears 
 Chat soon his days were of all jeers. 
 
 His nights of the rueful countenance ; 
 " I thought most folks," one neighbor 
 
 said, 
 "Gave up the ghost when they were 
 
 dead ? " 
 Another gravely shook his head. 
 
 Adding, " From all we hear, it 's 
 Quite plain poor Knott is going mad-^ 
 For how can he at once be sad 
 
 And think he 's full of spirits ?" 
 A third declared he knew a knife 
 
 Would cut this Knott much quicker, 
 " The surest way to end all strife. 
 And lay the spirit of a wife, 
 
 Is just to take and lick her ! " 
 A temperance maa caught up the word, 
 "Ah, yes," he groaned, "I 've always 
 heard 
 
 Our poor friend somewhat slanted 
 Tow'rd taking liquor overmuch ; 
 I fear these spirits may be Dutch, 
 (A sort of gins, or something such,) 
 
 With which his house is haunted ; 
 I see the thing as clear as light, — 
 If Knott would give up gettmg tight, 
 
 Naught farther would be wanted " : 
 So all his neighbors stood aloof 
 And, that the spirits 'neath his roof 
 Were not entirely up to proof. 
 
 Unanimously granted, 
 
 Knott knew that cockn and sprites wei« 
 
 foes. 
 And so bought up, Heaven only knows 
 How many, for he wanted crows 
 To give ghosts caws, as I suppose. 
 
 To think that day was breaking ; 
 Moreover what he called his park. 
 He turned into a kind of ark 
 For dogs, because a little bark 
 Is a good tonic in the dark. 
 
 If one is given to waking ; 
 But things went on from bad to worse. 
 His curs were nothing but a curse. 
 
 And, what was still more shocking. 
 Foul ghosts of living fowl made scoff 
 And would not think of going off 
 
 In spite of all his cockmg. 
 Shanghais, Bucks-counties, Dominiquei^ 
 Malays (that did n't lay for weeks,) 
 
 Polanders, Bantams, Dorkings, 
 (Waiving the cost, no trifling ill. 
 Since each brought in his little bill,) 
 By day or night were never still. 
 But every thought of rest would kill 
 
 With cacklings and with qnorkings j 
 Henry the Eighth of wives got free 
 
S26 
 
 THE UNHAPPY LOT 01 ME. KNOTT. 
 
 By a way he had of axing ; 
 But poor Knott's Tudor henery 
 Was not so fortunate, and he 
 
 Still found his trouble waxing ; 
 As for the dogs, the rows they made, 
 And how they howled, snarled, barked 
 and bayed, 
 
 Beyond all human knowledge is ; 
 All night, as wide awake as gnats, 
 The tei-riers rumpused after rats. 
 Or, just for practice, taught their brats 
 To worry cast-off shoes and hats, 
 The bull-dogs settled private spats, 
 All chased imaginary cats, 
 Or raved behind the fence's slats 
 At real ones, or, from their mats. 
 With friends, miles off, held pleasant 
 
 chats. 
 Or, like some folks in white cravats, 
 Contemptuous of sharps and flats, 
 
 Sat up and sang dogsologies. 
 Meanwhile the cats set up a squall. 
 And, safe upon the garden-wall, 
 
 All night kept cat-a- walling. 
 As if the feline race were all, 
 In one wild cataleptic sprawl, 
 
 Into love's tortures ffuling. 
 
 PART It 
 
 SHOWING WHAT IS MEANT BY A FLOW 
 OF SPIKITS. 
 
 Ax first the ghosts were somewhat 
 
 shy, 
 Coming when none but Knott was nigh. 
 And people said 't was all their eye, 
 (Or rather his) a flam, the sly 
 
 Digestion's machination : 
 Some recommended a wet sheet. 
 Some a nice broth of pounded peat, 
 Some a cold flat-iron to the feet, 
 Some a decoction of lamb's-bleat, 
 Some a southwesterly grain of wheat ; 
 Meat was by some pronounced unmeet, 
 Others thought fish most indiscreet, 
 And that 't was worse than all to eat 
 Of vegetables, sour or sweet, 
 (Except, perhaps, the skin of beet,) 
 
 In such a concatenation : 
 One quack his button gently plucks 
 And murmurs, " Biliary ducks ! " 
 
 Says Knott, " I never ate one" ; 
 But all, though brimming full of wrath, 
 Homoeo, Alio, Hydropath, 
 Concurred in this — that t' other's path 
 
 To death's door was the straight one 
 
 Still, spite of medical advice. 
 
 The ghosts came thicker, and a spioe 
 
 Of mischief grew apparent ; 
 Nor did they only come at night. 
 But seemed to fancy broad daylight, 
 Till Knott, in horror and affright. 
 
 His unoffending hair^rent ; 
 Whene'er with handkerchief on lap^ 
 He made his elbow-chair a trap. 
 To catch an after-dinner nap, 
 The spirits, always on the tap. 
 Would make a sudden rap, rap, roft 
 The half-spun cord of sleep to snap, 
 (And what is life without its nap 
 But threadbareness and mere mishap 1) 
 As 't were with a percussion cap 
 
 The trouble's climax capping ; 
 It seemed a party dried and grim 
 Of mummies had come to visit him. 
 Each getting off from every limb 
 
 Its multitudinous wrapping ; 
 Scratchings sometimes the walls ran 
 
 round, 
 The merest penny-weights of sound ; 
 Sometimes 't was only by the pound 
 
 They carried on their dealing, 
 A thumping 'neath the parlor floor. 
 Thump-bump-thump-bumping o'er and 
 
 o'er, 
 As if the vegetables in store 
 (Quiet and orderly before) 
 
 Were all together peeling ; 
 You would have thought the thing was 
 
 done 
 By the spirit of some son of a gun, 
 
 And that a forty-two-pounder, 
 Or that the ghost which made sncK 
 
 sounds 
 Could be none other than John Pounds, 
 
 Of Ragged Schools the founder. 
 Through three gradations of affright, 
 The awful noises reached their height ; 
 
 At first they knocked noctumally. 
 Then, for some reason, changing quite, 
 (As mourners, after six months' flight. 
 Turn suddenly from dark to light,) 
 
 Began to knock diumally. 
 And last, combining all their stocks, 
 
 (Scotland was ne'er so full of Knox,) 
 Into one Chaos (father of Nox,) 
 Node pluit — they showered knocks, 
 
 And knocked, knocked, knocked, 
 eternally ; 
 Ever upon the go, like buoys, 
 (Wooden sea-urchins,) all Knott's joy% 
 They turned to troubles and a noise 
 
 That preyed on him internally. 
 
THE UNHAPPY LOT OP MR. KNOTT, 
 
 827 
 
 Boon they grew wider in their scope ; 
 Whenever Knott a door would ope, 
 It would ope not, or else elope 
 And fly back (curbless as a trope 
 Once started down a stanza's slope 
 By a bard that gave it too much rope — ) 
 
 Like a clap of thunder slamming ; 
 And, when kind Jenny brought his hat, 
 (She always, when he walked, did that,) 
 just as upon his head it sat. 
 Submitting to his settling pat. 
 Some unseen hand would jam it flat. 
 Or give it such a furious bat 
 
 That eyes and nose went cramming 
 tip out of sight, and consequently, 
 &s when in life it paddled free. 
 
 His beaver caused much damning ; 
 If these things seem o'er-strained to 
 
 be. 
 Bead the account of Doctor Dee, 
 "T is in our college library ; 
 Bead Wesley's circumstantial plea. 
 And Mrs. Crowe, more like a bee. 
 Sucking the nightshade's honeyed fee. 
 And Stilling's Pneumatology ; 
 Consult Soot, Glanvil, grave Wie- 
 rus, and both Mathers ; further see, 
 Webster, Casaubon, James First's trea- 
 tise, a right royal Q. E. D. 
 Writ with the moon in perigee, 
 Bodin de la Demonomanie — 
 (Accent that last line gingerly) 
 All full of learning as the sea 
 Of flshes, and all disagree. 
 Save in Sathanas apage I 
 Or, what will surely put a flea 
 In unbelieving ears — with glee. 
 Out of a paper (sent to me 
 By some friend who forgot to P... 
 A...Y... — I use cryptography 
 Lest I his vengeful pen should dree — 
 HjsP...O...S...T...A...G...E...) 
 
 Things to the same effect I cut. 
 About the tantrums of a ghost, 
 Not more than three weeks since, at 
 most. 
 
 Near Stratford, in Connecticut. 
 
 Knotf s Upas daily spread its roots, 
 Sent up on all sides livelier shoots. 
 And bore more pestilential fruits ; 
 The ghosts behaved like downright 
 
 brutes, 
 They snipped holes in his Sunday suits. 
 Practised all night on octave flutes, 
 Putpeas (not peace) into his boots, 
 Wnereof grew corns in season. 
 
 They scotched his sheets, and, what waa 
 
 worse. 
 Stuck his silk nightcap full of burrs. 
 Till he, in language plain and terse, 
 (But much unlike a Bible verse,) 
 Swore he should lose his reason. 
 
 The tables took to spinning, too. 
 Perpetual yams, and arm-cliairs grew 
 
 To prophets and apostles ; 
 One footstool vowed that only he 
 Of law and gospel held the key. 
 That teachers of whate'er degree 
 To whom opinion bows the knee 
 Wern't fit to teach Truth's a b c. 
 And were (the whole lot) to a T 
 
 Mere fogies all and fossils ; 
 A teapoy, late the property 
 
 Of Knox's Aunt Keziah, 
 (Whom Jenny most irreverently 
 Had nicknamed her aunt-tipathy) 
 With tips emphatic claimed to be 
 
 The prophet Jeremiah ; 
 The tins upon the kitchen -wall. 
 Turned tlntinnabulators all. 
 And things that used to come at call 
 
 For simple household services 
 Began to hop and whirl and prance. 
 Fit to put out of countenance 
 The Commis and Grisettes of France 
 
 Or Turkey's dancing Dervises. 
 
 Of course such doings, far and wide, 
 With rumors filled the country-side. 
 And (as it is our nation's pride 
 To think a Truth not verified 
 Till with majorities allied) 
 Parties sprung up, affirmed, denied. 
 And candidates with questions plied. 
 Who, like the circus-riders, tried 
 At once both hobbies to bestride. 
 And each with his opponent vied 
 
 In being inexplicit. 
 Earnest inquirers multiplied ; 
 Folks, whose tenth cousins lately died. 
 Wrote letters long, and Knott replied ; 
 All who could either walk or ride 
 Gathered to wonder or deride. 
 
 And paid the house a visit ; 
 Horses were to his pine-trees tied, 
 Mourners in every comer sighed, 
 Widows brought children there that 
 
 cried, 
 Swarms of lean Seekers, eager-eyed, 
 (People Knott never could abide,) 
 Into each hole and cranny pried 
 With strings of questions cut and dried 
 
828 
 
 THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MB. KNOTT. 
 
 From the Devout Inquirer's Guide, 
 For the wise spirits to decide — 
 
 As, for example, is it 
 True that the damned are fried or boiled ? 
 Was the Earth's axis gi'eased or oiled ? 
 "Who cleaned the moon when it was 
 
 soiled ? 
 How baldness might be cured or foiled ? 
 
 How heal diseased potatoes ? 
 Did spirits have the sense of smell ? 
 "Where would departed spinstera dwell ? 
 If the late Zenas Smith were well ? 
 If Earth were solid or a shell ? 
 Were spirits fond of Doctor Fell ? 
 IHd the bull toll Cock-Robin's knell ? 
 What remedy would bugs expel '! 
 If Paine's invention were a sell ? 
 Did spirits by Webster's system spell ? 
 Was it a sin to be a belle ? 
 Did dancing sentence folks to hell ? 
 If so, then where most torture fell — 
 
 On little toes or great toes ? 
 If life's true seat were in the brain ? 
 Did Ensign mean to marry Jane ? 
 By whom, in fact, was Morgan slain ? 
 Could matter ever suffer pain ? 
 What would take out a cherry-stain ? 
 Who picked the pocket of Seth Crane, 
 Of Waldo precinct, State of Maine ? 
 Was Su- John Franklin sought in vain ? 
 Did primitive Christians ever train ? 
 What was the family-name of Cain ? 
 Them spoons, were they by Betty ta'en ? 
 Would earth-worm poultice cure a 
 
 sprain ? 
 Was Socrates so dreadful plain ? 
 What teamster guided Charles's wain? 
 Was Uncle Ethan mad or sane. 
 And could his will in force remain ? 
 If not, what counsel to retain ? 
 Did Le Sage steal Gil Bias from Spain 1 
 Was Junius writ by Thomas Paine ? 
 Were ducks discomforted by rain ? 
 How did Britannia rule the main? 
 Was Jonas coming back again ? 
 Was vital truth upon the wane ? 
 Did ghosts, to scare folks, drag a chain ? 
 Who was our Huldah's chosen swain ? 
 Did none have teeth pulled without 
 payin'. 
 
 Ere ether was invented ? 
 Whether mankind would not agree,' 
 If the universe were tuned in C ? 
 What was it ailed Lucindy's knee ? 
 Whether folks eat folks in Feejee ' 
 Whether his name would end with T ? 
 11 Saturn's rings were two or three, 
 
 And what bump in Phrenology 
 
 They truly represented ? 
 These problems dark, wherein they 
 
 groped. 
 Wherewith man's reason vainly coped. 
 Now that the spirit-world was oped, 
 In all humility they hoped 
 
 Would be resolved instanter; 
 Each of the miscellaneous rout 
 Brought his, or her, own little doubt, 
 And wished to pump the spirits out, 
 Through his or her own private spout, 
 
 Into his or her decanter. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 WHEREIN IT IS SHOWK THAT THB 
 MOST ARDENT SPIRITS ARE MORB 
 ORNAMENTAL THAN USEFUL. 
 
 Many a speculating wight 
 Came by express-trains, day and night. 
 To see if Knott would " sell his right," 
 Meaning to make the ghosts a sight — 
 What they called a "meenaygerie" ; 
 One threatened, if he would not " trade," 
 His run of custom to invade, 
 (He could not these sharp folks persuade 
 That he was not, in some way, paid,) 
 ' And stamp him as a plagiary, 
 By coming down, at one fell swoop. 
 With THE OEIGINAL knocking 
 
 TROUPE, 
 
 Come recently from Hades, 
 Who (for a quarter-dollar heard) 
 Would ne'er rap out a hasty word 
 Whence any blame might be incurred 
 
 From the most fastidious ladles ; 
 The late lamented Jesse Soule 
 To stir the ghosts up with a pola 
 And be director of the whole, 
 
 Who was engaged the rather , 
 For the rare merits he 'd combine. 
 Having been in the spirit line. 
 Which trade he only did resign, , 
 With general applause, to shine. 
 Awful in mail of cotton iine. 
 
 As ghost of Hamlet's father I 
 Another a fair plan reveals 
 Never yet hit on, which, he feels. 
 To Knott's religious sense appeals — 
 " We '11 have your house set up on 
 wheels, 
 
 A speculation pious ; 
 For music, we can shortly find 
 A barrel-organ that will grind 
 Psalm-tunes, — an instrument designod 
 
THE UNHAPPY LOT OF ME. KNOTT. 
 
 829 
 
 For the New England tour — refined 
 From secular drosses, and inclined 
 To an unworldly turn, (combined 
 
 With no sectarian bias ;) 
 Then, trayelling by stages slow. 
 Under the style of Knott & Co., 
 1 would accompany the show 
 As moral lecturer, the foe 
 Of Rationalism ; while you could throw 
 The rappings in, and make them go 
 Strict Puritan principles, you know, 
 <How do you make 'em ? with your toe ?) 
 And the receipts which thence might flow, 
 
 We could divide between us ; 
 ^till more attractions to combine. 
 Beside these services of mine, 
 I wUl throw in a very fine 
 yt would do nicely for a sign) 
 
 Original Titian's Venus." 
 A^nother offered handsome fees 
 If Knott would get Demosthenes 
 /Nay, his mere knuckles, for more ease) 
 To rap a few short sentences ; 
 Or if, for want of proper keys. 
 
 His Greek might make confusion, 
 Then just to get a rap from Burke, 
 To recommend a little work 
 
 On Public Elocution. 
 Meanwhile, the spirits made replies 
 To all the reverent wJiais and whys, 
 Resolving doubts of every size, 
 And giving seekers grave and wise, 
 Who came to know their destinies, 
 
 A rap-turous reception ; 
 When unbelievers void of grace 
 Came to investigate the place, 
 (Creatures of Sadducistic race. 
 With grovelling intellects and base,) 
 They conld not find the slightest trace 
 
 To indicate deception ; 
 Indeed, it is declared by some 
 That spirits (of this sort) are glum, 
 Almost, or wholly, deaf and dumb. 
 And (out of self-respect) quite mum 
 To sceptic natures cold and numb. 
 Who of this kind of Kingdom Come 
 
 Have not a just conception : 
 True, there were people who demurred 
 That, though the raps no doubt were heard 
 
 Both under them and o'er them, 
 Yet, somehow, when a search they made, 
 rhey found Miss Jenny sore afraid. 
 Or Jenny's lover. Doctor Slade, 
 Equally awe-struck and dismayed. 
 Or Deborah, the chamber-maid. 
 Whose terrors not to be gainsaid, 
 In laughs hysteric were displayed, 
 
 Was always there before them ; 
 This had its due effect with some 
 Who straight departed, muttering, Hum I 
 
 Transparent hoax ! and Gammon ! 
 But these were few : believing souls 
 Came, day by day, in larger shoals. 
 As the ancients to the windy holes 
 'Neath Delphi's tripod brought their 
 doles. 
 
 Or to the shrine of Ammon. 
 
 The spirits seemed exceeding tame, 
 Call whom you fancied, and he came ; 
 The shades august of eldest fame 
 
 You summoned with an awful ease ; 
 As grosser spirits gurgled out 
 From chair and table with a spout. 
 In Auerbach's cellar once, to flout 
 The senses of the rabble rout. 
 Where'er the gimlet twirled about 
 
 Of cunning Mephistopheles, 
 So did these spirits seem in store. 
 Behind the wainscot or the door, 
 Ready to thriU the being's core 
 Of every enterprising bore 
 
 With their astounding glamour ; 
 Whatever ghost one wished to hear 
 By strange coincidence, was near 
 To make the past or future clear 
 
 (Sometimes in shocking grammar) 
 By raps and taps, now there, now here — > 
 It seemed as if the spirit queer 
 Of some departed auctioneer 
 Were doomed to practise by the year 
 
 With the spirit of his hammer : 
 Whate'er you asked was answered, yet 
 One could not very deeply get 
 Into the obliging spirits' debt. 
 Because they used the alphabet 
 
 In all communications. 
 And new revealings (though sublime) 
 Rapped out, one letter at a time, 
 
 With boggles, hesitations. 
 Stoppings, beginnings o'er a^ain. 
 And getting matters into tram, 
 Could hardly overload the brain 
 
 With too excessive rations, 
 Since just to ask if two and two 
 Really make four ? or. How cC yedof 
 And get the fit replies thereto 
 In the tramundane rat-tat-too, 
 
 Might ask a whole day's patience. 
 
 'T was strange ('mongst other things) t« 
 
 find 
 In what odd sets the ghosts combined, 
 Happy forthwith to thump any 
 
330 
 
 THE UNHAPPY LOT OF ME. KNOTT. 
 
 Piece of intelligence inspired, 
 
 The truth whereof had been inquired 
 
 By some one of the company ; 
 For instance, Fielding, Mirabeau, 
 Orator Henley, Cicero, 
 Paley, John Zisca, Marivaux, 
 Melancthon, Robertson, Junot, 
 Scaliger, Chesterfield, Rousseau, 
 Hakluyt, Boccaccio, South, De Foe, 
 Diaz, Josephus, Richard Roe, 
 Odin, Arminius, Charles le gros, 
 Tiresias, the late James Crow, 
 Casabianca, Grose, Prideaux, 
 Old Grimes, Young NoiTal, Swift, Bris- 
 
 sot, 
 Maimonides, the Chevalier D'O, 
 Socrates, Fenelon, Job, Stow, 
 The inventor of Elixir pro, 
 Euripides, Spinoza, Foe, 
 Confucius, Hiram Smith, and Fo, 
 Came (as it seemed, somewhat de trap) 
 "With a disembodied Esquimaux, 
 To say that it was so and so. 
 
 With Franklin's expedition ; 
 One testified to ice and snow. 
 One that the mercury was low. 
 One that his progress was quite slow, 
 One that he much desired to go. 
 One that the cook had frozen his toe, 
 (Dissented from by Dandolo, 
 Wordsworth, Cynaegirus, Boileau, 
 La Hontau, and Sir Thomas Roe,) 
 One saw twelve white bears in a row, 
 One saw eleven and a crow. 
 With other things we could not know 
 (Of great statistic value, though,) 
 
 By our mere mortal vision. 
 
 Sometimes the spirits made mistakes. 
 And seemed to play at ducks and drakes 
 With bold inquiry's heaviest stakes 
 
 In science or in mystery ; 
 They knew so little (and that wrong) 
 Yet rapped it out so bold and strong. 
 One would have said the unnumbered 
 throng 
 
 Had been Professors of History ; 
 What made it odder was, that those 
 Who, you would naturally suppose, 
 Could solve a question, if they chose. 
 As easily as count their toes, 
 
 Were just the ones that blundered ; 
 One day, Ulysses happening down, 
 A reader of Sir Thomas Browne 
 
 And who (with hiin) had wondered 
 What song it was the Sirens sang, 
 Asked the shrewd Ithacan — bangt bang I 
 
 With this response the chamber rang, 
 
 " I guess it was Old Hundred." 
 And Franklin, being asked to name 
 The reason why the lightning came, 
 Replied, " Because it thundered." 
 
 On one sole point the ghosts agreed, 
 One fearful point, than which, indeed. 
 
 Nothing could seem absurder ; 
 Poor Colonel Jones they all abused, 
 And finally downright accused 
 
 The poor old man of murder ; 
 'T was thus ; by dreadful raps was showa 
 Some spirit's longing to make known 
 A bloody fact, which he alone 
 Was privy to, (such ghosts more prone 
 
 In Earth's affairs to meddle are ;) 
 Who are you ? with awe-stricken looks. 
 All ask : his airy knuckles he crooks. 
 And raps, " I was Eliab Snooks, 
 
 That used to be a pedler ; 
 Some on ye still "are on my books 1 " 
 Whereat, to inconspicuous nooks, 
 (More fearing this than common spooks,) 
 
 Shrank each indebted meddler ; 
 Further the vengeful ghost declared 
 That while his earthly life was spared. 
 About the country he had fared, 
 
 A duly licensed follower 
 Of that much-wandering trade that wins 
 Slow profit from the sale of tins 
 
 And various kinds of hollow-ware ; 
 That Colonel Jones enticed him in, 
 Pretending that he wanted tin, 
 There slew him with a rolling-pin, 
 Hid him in a potato-bin. 
 
 And (the same night) him ferried 
 Across Great Pond to t' other shore, 
 And there, on land of Widow Moore, 
 Just where you turn to Larkin's store, 
 
 Under a rock him buried ; 
 Some friends (who happened to be by) 
 He called upon to testify 
 That what he said was not a lis. 
 
 And that he did not stir this- 
 Foul matter, out of any spite 
 But from a simple love of right ; — 
 
 Which statements the Nine Worthies, 
 Rabbi Akiba, Charlemagne, 
 Seth, CoUey Gibber, General Wayne, 
 Cambyses, Tasso, Tubal-Cain, 
 The owner of a castle in Spain, 
 Jehanghire, and the Widow of Nain, 
 (The friends aforesaid,) made more plain 
 
 And by loud raps attested ; 
 To the same purport testified 
 Plato, John Wilkes, and Colonel Pride 
 
THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT. 
 
 831^ 
 
 ^Pto knew said Snooks 'before he died, 
 
 Had in his wares invested, 
 Thought him entitled to belief 
 And freely could concur, in brief, 
 
 In everything the rest did. 
 
 Eliab this occasion seized, 
 (Distinctly here the spirit sneezed,) 
 To say that he should ne'er be eased 
 Till Jenny married whom she pleased, 
 
 Free from all checks and urgin's, 
 (This spirit dropt his final g's) 
 And that, unless Knott quickly sees 
 This done, the spirits to appease, 
 They would come back his life to tease, 
 As thick as mites in ancient cheese. 
 And let his house on an endless lease 
 To the ghosts (terrific rappers these 
 And veritable Eumenides) 
 
 Of the Eleven Thousand Virgins I 
 
 Knott was perplexed and shook his head. 
 He did not wish his child to wed 
 
 With a suspected murderer, 
 (For, true or false, the rumor spread,) 
 But as for this roiled life he led, 
 "Itwould not answer," so he said, 
 • "To have it go no furderer." 
 At last, scarce knowing what it meant. 
 Reluctantly he gave consent 
 That Jenny, since 't was evident 
 That she wmM follow her own bent. 
 
 Should make her own election ; 
 For that appeared the only way 
 These frightful noises to allay 
 Which had already turned him gray 
 
 And plunged him in dejection. 
 
 Accordingly, this artless maid 
 
 Her father's ordinance obeyed. 
 
 And, all in whitest crape arrayed, 
 
 (Miss Pulsifer the dresses made 
 
 And wishes here the fact displayed 
 
 That she still carries on the trade. 
 
 The third door south from Bagg's Arcade,) 
 
 A very faint "I do " essayed 
 
 And gave her hand to Hiram Slade, 
 
 From which time forth, the ghosts were 
 
 laid, 
 And ne'er gave trouble after ; 
 But the Selectmen, be it known, 
 Dug underneath the aforesaid stone, 
 Where the poor pedler's corpse was 
 
 thrown, 
 And found thereunder a jaw-bone. 
 Though, when the crowner sat thereon. 
 He nothing hatched, except alone 
 
 Successive broods of laughter; 
 It was a frail and dingy thing. 
 In which a grinder or two did cling, 
 
 In color like molasses, 
 Which surgeons, calledfrom far andwid^ 
 Upon the horror to decide. 
 
 Having put on their glasses. 
 Reported thus — "To judge by looks. 
 These bones, by some queer hooks or 
 
 crooks, 
 My,y have belonged to Mr. Snooks^ 
 But, as men deepest-read in books 
 
 Are perfectly aware, bones, 
 If buried fifty years or so. 
 Lose their identity and grow 
 
 From human bones to bare bones." 
 
 Still, if to Jaalam yoa go down. 
 You '11 find two parties in the town. 
 One headed by Benaiah Brown, 
 
 And one by Perez Tinkham ; 
 The first believe the ghosts all through 
 And vow that they shall never rue 
 The happy chance by which they knew 
 That people in Jupiter are blue. 
 And very fond of Irish stew, 
 Two curious facts which Prince Lee Boo 
 Rapped clearly to a chosen few — 
 
 Whereas the others think 'em 
 A trick got up by Doctor Slade 
 With Deborah the chamber-maid 
 
 And that sly cretur Jinny. 
 That all the revelations wise. 
 At which the Brownites made big eyes. 
 Might have been given by Jared Keyes,] 
 
 A natural fool and ninny. 
 And, last week, did n't Eliab Snooks 
 Come back with never better looks. 
 As sharp as new-bought mackerel hook^ 
 
 And bright as a new pin, eh ! 
 Good Parson Wilbur, too, avers 
 (Though to be mixed in parish stirs 
 Is worse than handling chestnut-burrs) 
 That no case to his mind occurs 
 Where spirits ever did converse. 
 Save in a kind of guttural Erse, 
 
 (So say the best authorities ;) 
 And that a charge by raps conveyed 
 Should be most scrupulously weighed 
 
 And searched into, before it is 
 Made public, since it may give pain 
 That cannot soon be cured again. 
 And one word may infix a stain 
 
 Which ten cannot gloss over. 
 Though speaking for his private par^ 
 He is rejoiced with all his heart 
 
 Miss Knott missed not her lover. 
 
U2 
 
 AN OEIENTAL APOLOGUB. 
 
 AN ORIENTAL APOLOaUE. 
 
 Somewhere in India, upon a time, 
 (Read it not Injah, or you spoil the 
 verse,) 
 There dwelt two saints whose privi- 
 lege suhlime 
 It was to sit and watch the world grow 
 worse, 
 Their only care (in that delicious 
 clime) 
 At proper intervals to pray and curse ; 
 Fracrit the dialect each prudent 
 
 brother 
 Used for himself, Damnonian for the 
 other. 
 
 One half th» time of each was spent 
 
 in praying 
 For blessings on his own unworthy 
 
 head, 
 The other half in fearfully portraying 
 Where certain folks would go when they 
 
 were dead ; 
 This system of exchanges — there's 
 
 no saying 
 To what more solid barter 't would have 
 
 led. 
 But that a river, vext with boils and 
 
 swellings 
 At rainy times, kept peace between 
 
 their dwellings. 
 
 So they two played at wordy battle- 
 dore 
 And kept a curse forever in the air, 
 Flying this way or that from shore 
 to shore; 
 Nor other labor did this holy pair. 
 Clothed and supported from the lavish 
 store 
 Which crowds lanigerous brought with 
 daily care ; 
 
 They toiled not neither did they spin; 
 
 their bias 
 Was tow'rd the harder task of being 
 
 pious. 
 
 Each from his hut rushed six score 
 times a day. 
 Like a great canon of the Church full- 
 rammed 
 With cartridge theologic, (so to say,) 
 Touched himself off, and then, recoiling, 
 slammed 
 His hovel's door behind him in a way 
 That to his foe said plainly, — you 'U 
 be damned ; 
 And so like Potts and Wainwright, 
 
 shrill and strong 
 The two D — D'd each other all day 
 long. 
 
 One was a damcing Dervise, a tio- 
 hammedan. 
 The other was a Hindoo, a gymnoso- 
 phist ; 
 One kept his whatd'yecallit and his 
 Bamadan, 
 Laughing to scorn the sacred rites and 
 laws of his 
 Transfluvial rival, who, in turn, called 
 Ahmed an 
 Old top, and, as a clincher, shook across 
 a list 
 With nails six inches long, yet lifted 
 
 not 
 His eyes from off his navel's mystic 
 knot. 
 
 " Who whirls not round six thousand 
 times an liour 
 Will go," screamed Ahmed, "to the 
 evil place ; 
 
AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE. 
 
 833 
 
 May he eat dirt, and may the dog and 
 
 Giaour 
 Defile the graves of him and all his 
 
 race; 
 Allah loves faithful souls and gives 
 
 them power 
 To spin till they are purple in the face ; 
 Some folks get you know what, but 
 
 he that pure is 
 Earns Paradise and ninety thousand 
 
 honries." 
 
 VII. 
 
 "Upon the silver mountain, South 
 by East, 
 Sits Brahma fed upon the sacred bean ; 
 He loves those men whose nails are 
 still increased. 
 Who all their lives keep ugly, foul, and 
 lean ; 
 'T is of his grace that not a bird or 
 beast 
 Adorned with claws like mine was ever 
 seen ; 
 The suns and stars are Brahma's 
 
 thoughts divine 
 Even as these trees I seem to see are 
 mine." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 "Thou seem'st to see, indeed ! " 
 roared Ahmed back ; 
 " Were I but once across this plaguy 
 stream, 
 With a stout sapling in my hand, one 
 whack 
 On those lank ribs would rid thee of 
 that dream i 
 Thy Brahma-blasphemy is ipecac 
 To my soul's stomach ; couldst thou 
 grasp the scheme 
 Of true redemption, thou wouldst 
 
 know that Deity 
 Whirls by a kind of blessed sponta- 
 neity. 
 
 IX. 
 
 " And this it is which keeps our earth 
 here going 
 With all the stars." — "0, vile! but 
 there's a place 
 Prepared for such ; to think of Brah- 
 ma throwing 
 Worlds like a juggler's balls up into 
 Space ! 
 Why, not so much as a smooth lotos 
 blowing 
 Is e'er allowed that silence to eflace 
 
 Which broods round Brahma, and 
 
 our earth, 't is known, 
 Rests on a tortoise, moveless as thia 
 
 stone." 
 
 X. 
 
 So they kept up their banning amoe- 
 bsean, 
 When suddenly came floating down the 
 stream 
 A youth whose face like an incarnate 
 psean 
 Glowed, 't was so full of grandeur and 
 of gleam ; 
 "If there be gods, then, doubtless, 
 this must be one," 
 Thought both at once, and then began 
 to scream, 
 "Surely, whate'er immortals know, 
 
 thou kuowest. 
 Decide between us twain before thou 
 goest ! " 
 
 XI. 
 
 The youth was drifting in a slim ca- 
 noe 
 Most like a huge white waterlily's petal, 
 But neither of our theologians knew 
 Whereof 't was made ; whether of heav- 
 enly metal 
 Seldseen, or of u vast pearl split in 
 two 
 And hollowed, was a point they could 
 not settle ; 
 'T was good debate-seed, though, and 
 
 bore large fruit 
 In after years of many a tart dispute. 
 
 There were no wings upon the stran> 
 
 ger's shoulders 
 And yet he seemed so capable of rising 
 That, had he soared like thistledown, 
 
 beholders 
 Had thought the circumstance noways 
 
 surprising ; 
 Enough that he remained, and, when 
 
 the scolders 
 Hailed him as umpire in their vocal 
 
 prize-ring. 
 The painter of his boat he Ughtly 
 
 threw 
 Around a lotos-stem, and brought hei 
 
 to. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The strange youth had a look as 11 
 he might 
 
834 
 
 AN OEIENTAL APOLOGUE. 
 
 Have trod far planets where the atmos- 
 phere 
 (Of nobler temper) steeps the face 
 with light, 
 Just as our skins are tanned and freck- 
 led here ; 
 His air was that of a cosmopolite 
 In the wide universe from sphere to 
 sphere ; 
 Perhaps he was (his face had such 
 
 grave beauty) 
 An officer of Saturn's guards off duty. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Both saints began to unfold their tales 
 at once, 
 Both wished their tales, like simial 
 ones, prehensile, 
 That they might seize his ear ; fool I 
 knave I and d/wnce I 
 Flew zigzag back and forth, like strokes 
 of pencil 
 In a child's fingers ; voluble as duns. 
 They jabbered like the stones on that 
 immense hill 
 In 'the Arabian Nights ; until the 
 
 stranger 
 Began to think his ear-drums in some 
 danger. 
 
 XV. 
 
 In general those who nothing have to 
 say 
 Contrive to spend the longest time in 
 doing it ; 
 They turn and vary it in every way, 
 Hashing it, stewing it, mincing it, ra- 
 gouting it ; 
 Sometimes they keep it purposely at 
 bay, 
 Then let it slip to be again pursuing it ; 
 They drone it, groan it, whisper it 
 
 and shout it, 
 Befute it, flout it, swear to 't, prove 
 it, doubt it. 
 
 Our saints had practised for some 
 thirty years ; 
 Their talk, beginning with a single stem, 
 Spread like a banyan, sending down 
 live piers, 
 Colonies of digression, and, in them, 
 Germs of yet new dispersion ; once 
 by the ears. 
 They could convey damnation in a hem, 
 
 And blow the pinch of premise-prim* 
 
 ing off 
 Long syllogistic batteries, with « 
 
 cough. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Each had a theory that the human 
 ear 
 A providential tunnel was, which led 
 To a huge vacuum (and surely here 
 They showed some knowledge of the 
 general head). 
 For cant to be decanted through, a 
 mere 
 Auricular canal or mill-race fed 
 AU day and night, in sunshine and in 
 
 shower. 
 From their vast heads of milk-and- 
 water-power. 
 
 The present being a peculiar case. 
 Each with unwonted zeal the other 
 
 scouted. 
 Put his spurred hobby through its 
 
 every pace. 
 Pished, pshawed, poohed, horribled, 
 
 bahed, jeered, sneered, flouted, 
 Sniffed, nunsensed, inMeled, fudged, 
 
 with his face 
 Looked scorn too nicely shaded to he 
 
 shouted. 
 And, with each inch of person and of 
 
 vesture, 
 Contrived to hint some most disdain- 
 ful gesture. 
 
 At length, when their breath's end 
 was come about. 
 And both could, now and then, just 
 gasp " impostor 1 " 
 Holding their heads thrust mena- 
 cingly out. 
 As staggering cocks keep up their fight- 
 ing posture. 
 The stranger smiled and said, " Be- 
 yond a doubt 
 'T is fortunate, my friends, that you 
 have lost your 
 United parts of speech, or it had been 
 Impossible for me to get between. 
 
 " Produce ! says Nature, - 
 you produced ? 
 
 -whathav* 
 
AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE. 
 
 835 
 
 A. new strait-waistcoat for the human 
 mind; 
 Are you not limhed, nerved, jointed, 
 arteried, juiced, 
 As other men ? yet, faithless to your 
 kind. 
 Bather like noxious insects you are 
 used 
 To puncture life's fair fruit, beneath the 
 rind 
 Laying your creed-eggs whence in 
 
 time there spring 
 Consumers new to eat and buzz and 
 sting. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 "Work! you have no conception 
 
 how 't will sweeten 
 Your views of Life and Nature, God 
 
 and Man ; 
 Had you been forced to earn what you 
 
 have eaten. 
 Your heaven had shown a less dyspep- 
 tic plan ; 
 At present your whole function is to 
 
 eat ten 
 And talk ten times as rapidly as you 
 
 can ; 
 Were your shape true to cosmogonie 
 
 laws, 
 You would be nothing but « pair of 
 
 jaws. 
 
 " Of all the useless beings in creation 
 The earth could spare most easily you 
 bakers 
 Of little clay gods, formed in shape 
 and fashion 
 Precisely in the image of their makers ; 
 Why, it would almost move a, saint 
 to passion, 
 To see these blind and deaf, the hourly 
 breakers 
 Of God's own image in their brother 
 
 men. 
 Set themselves up to tell the how, 
 where, when, 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 " Of God's existence ; one's diges- 
 tion 's worse — 
 So makes a god of vengeance and of 
 blood ; 
 Another, — but no matter, they re- 
 verse 
 
 Creation's plan, out of their own vile 
 
 mud 
 Fat up a god, and bum, drown, hang, 
 
 or curse 
 Whoever worships not ; each keeps his 
 
 stud 
 Of texts which wait with saddle on 
 
 and bridle 
 To bunt hown atheists to their ugly 
 
 idoL 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 " This, I perceive, has been your oc- 
 cupation ; 
 You should have been more usefully 
 employed ; 
 
 All men are bound to earn their daily 
 ration. 
 Where States make not that primal con. 
 tract void 
 
 By cramps and limits ; simple devas- 
 tation 
 Is the worm's task, and what he haa 
 destroyed 
 
 His monument ; creating is man's 
 work 
 
 And that, too, something more than 
 mist and murk." 
 
 So having said, the youth was seen no 
 more. 
 And straightway our sage Brahmin, the 
 
 Cried, "That was aimed at thee, thou 
 
 endless bore. 
 Idle and useless as the growth of moss 
 
 over 
 A rotting tree-trunk ! " "I would 
 
 square that score 
 Full soon," replied the Dervise, " could 
 
 I cross over 
 And catch thee by the beard. Thy 
 
 nails I 'd trim 
 And make thee work, as was advised 
 
 by him." 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 "Work? Am I not at work from 
 mom till night 
 Sounding the deeps of oracles umbilical 
 Which for man's guidance never come 
 to light. 
 With all their various aptitudes, until 
 I call ?" 
 "And I, do I not twirl from left t* 
 right 
 
335 
 
 AN ORIENTAL APOLOGtJE. 
 
 For conscience' sake ? Is that no work? 
 Thou siUj^ gull, 
 
 He had thee in his eye ; 't was Ga- 
 briel 
 
 Sent to reward my faith, I know bim 
 well." 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 "'Twas Vishnu, thou vile whirli- 
 gig ! " and so 
 The good old quarrel was hegun anew ; 
 One would have sworn the sky was 
 black as sloe. 
 Had but the other dared to call it blue ; 
 If or were ths followers who fed them 
 slow 
 To treat each other with their curses, 
 too, 
 Each hating t' other (moves it tears or 
 
 laughter ?) 
 Because he thought him sure of hell 
 hereafter. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 At last some genius built a bridge of 
 boats 
 Over the stream, and Ahmed's zealots 
 filed 
 Across, upon a mission to (cut throats 
 And) spread religion pure and undefiled ; 
 They sowed the propagandist's wild- 
 est oats. 
 Catting off all, down to the smallest 
 child, 
 And came baxik, giving thanks for 
 
 such fat mercies, 
 To find their harvest gone past prayers 
 or curses. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 All gone except their saint's religious 
 
 Which he kept up with more than com- 
 mon liourish ; 
 But these, however satisfying crops 
 For the inner man, were not enough to 
 nourish 
 The body politic, Which quickly drops 
 Beserve in such sad junctures, and turns 
 currish ; 
 So Ahmed soon got cursed for all the 
 
 famine 
 Where'er the popular voice could edge 
 a damn in. 
 
 At first he pledged a miracle quite 
 boldly, 
 And, for a day or two, they growled and 
 waited ; 
 But, finding that this kind of manna 
 coldly 
 Sat on their stomachs, they erelong be- 
 rated 
 The saint for still persisting in that 
 old lie, 
 Till soon the whole machine of saintship 
 grated, 
 Kan slow, creaked, stopped, and, 
 
 wishing him in Tophet, 
 They gathered strength enough to 
 stone the prophet. 
 
 Some stronger ones contrived (by 
 eating leather, 
 Their weaker friends, and one thing or 
 another) 
 The winter mouths of scarcity to 
 weather ; 
 Among these was the latesainf s younger 
 brother, 
 Who, in the spring, collecting them 
 together, 
 Persuaded them that Ahmed's holy 
 pother 
 Had wrought in their behalf, and that 
 
 the place 
 Of Saint should he continued to his 
 race. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Accordingly, 'twas settled on the 
 spot 
 That Allah favored that jjeculiar breed ; 
 Beside, as all were satisfied, 't would 
 not 
 Be quite respectable to have the need 
 
 Of public spiritual food forgot ; 
 And so the tribe, with proper forms, de« 
 creed 
 That he, and, failing him, his next of 
 
 kin. 
 Forever for the people's iiood should 
 spin. 
 
FKAGMKNTS OF AN UNFINISHED PO£M. 
 
 33T 
 
 FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED POEM. 
 
 I AH a man of forty, sirs, a native of 
 
 East Haddam, 
 And hare some reason to surmise that I 
 
 descend from Adam ; 
 But what 'a my pedigree to you t That 
 
 I will sooa unravel ; 
 I've sucked my Haddam-Eden dry, 
 
 therefore desire to travel, 
 And, as a natural consequence, presume 
 
 I need n't say, 
 I wish to write. some letters home and 
 
 have those letters p — 
 [I spare the word suggestive of those 
 
 grim Next Morns that mount 
 Clump, clump, the stairways of the brain 
 
 with — " Sir, my small account," 
 And, after every good we gain — Love, 
 
 Fame, Wealth, Wisdom — still. 
 As punctual as a cuckoo clock, hold up 
 
 their little bill, 
 The garfons in our Cafd of Life, by 
 
 dreaming us forgot — 
 Sitting, like Homer's heroes, full and 
 
 musing God knows what, — 
 Till they say, bowing, S'il vous plait, 
 
 voila, Messieurs, la note .'] 
 I would not hint at this so soon, but in 
 
 our callous day, 
 The tollman Debt, who drops his bar 
 
 across the world's highway. 
 Great Csesar in mid-march would stop, if 
 
 Csesar could not pay ; 
 Pilgriming 's dearer than it was : men 
 
 cannot travel now 
 3cot-f ree from 1 )an to Beersheba upon a 
 
 simple vow ; 
 )Nay, as long back as Bess's time, when 
 I Walsiugham went over 
 
 Ambassador to Cousin France, at Can- 
 terbury and Dover 
 He was so fleeced by innkeepers that, ere 
 
 he quitted land, 
 Ho wrote to the Prime Minister to take 
 
 the knaves in hand. 
 
 If I with staff and scallop-shell should 
 
 try mjr way to win. 
 Would Bonifaces quarrel as to who 
 
 should take me in ? 
 Or would my pilgrim's progress end 
 
 where Bunyan started his on. 
 And my grand tour be round and round 
 
 the back-yard of a prison ? 
 I give you here a saying deep and there> 
 
 fore, haply true ; 
 'Tis out of Merlin's prophecies, but 
 
 quite as good as new : 
 €it question hoatb for men ant) meate; 
 
 lonse to^aQE? pt iieginne 
 %stf in a not^teH, tatber ga^e Ipe^ in a 
 
 fast of tmne. 
 But, though men may not travel now, as 
 
 in the Middle Ages, 
 With self-sustaining retinues of littla 
 
 gilt-edged pages. 
 Yet one may manage pleasantly, wher- 
 e'er he likes to roam, 
 By sending his small pages (at so much 
 
 per small page) home ; 
 And if a staff and scallop-shell won't 
 
 serve so well as then. 
 Our outlay is about as small — just pa- 
 per, ink, and pen. 
 Be thankful ! Humbugs never die, mora 
 
 than the wandering Jew ; 
 Bankrupt, they pnbli!<h their own deaths, 
 
 slink for a while from view. 
 Then take an alias, change the sign, and 
 
 the old trade renew; 
 Indeed, 't is wondrous how each Age, 
 
 though laughing at the Fast, 
 Insists on having its tight shoe made on 
 
 the same old last ; 
 How it is sure its system would break up 
 
 at once without 
 The bunion which it will believe heredi- 
 tary gout ; 
 How it takes all its swans for geese, nay, 
 
 stranger yet and sadder, 
 
S38 
 
 FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED POEM. 
 
 Sees in its treadmill's fruitless jog a 
 
 heavenward Jacob'a-ladder, 
 Shouts, Lo, the Shining Heights are 
 
 reached ! One moment more aspire ! 
 Trots into cramps its poor, dear legs, 
 
 gets never an inch the higher. 
 And, like the others, ends with pipe and 
 
 mug beside the fire. 
 There, 'tween each doze, it whiffs and 
 
 sips and watches with a sneer 
 The green recruits that trudge and sweat 
 
 where it had swinked whilere. 
 And sighs to think this soon spent zeal 
 
 should be in simple truth 
 The only interval between old Fogy hood 
 
 and Youth: 
 "Well," thus it muses, "well, what 
 
 odds ? 'T is not for us to warn ; 
 'T will he the same when we are dead, 
 
 and was ere we were born ; 
 Without the Treadmill, too, how grind 
 
 our store of winter's corn ? 
 Had we no stock, nor twelve per cent. 
 
 received from Treadmill shares. 
 We might . . . but these poor devils at 
 
 last will get our easy-chairs. 
 High aims and hopes have great rewards, 
 
 they, too, serene and snug. 
 Shall one day have their soothing pipe 
 
 and their enlivening mug ; 
 From Adam, empty-handed Youth hath 
 
 always heard the hum 
 Of Good Times Coming, and will hear 
 
 until the last day come ; 
 Tonng ears hear forward, old ones back, 
 
 and, while the earth rolls on, 
 Full-handed Eld shall hear recede the 
 
 steps of Good Times Gone ; 
 Ah what a cackle we set up whene'er an 
 
 egg was laid ! 
 Cack-cack-cack-cackle ! rang around, the 
 
 scratch for worms was stayed, 
 Cut-cut-ca^dak-cut 1 from this egg the 
 
 coming cock shall stalk ! 
 The great New Era dawns, the age of 
 
 Deeds and not of Talk I 
 And every stupid hen of us hugged close 
 
 his egg of chalk. 
 Thought, — sure, I feel life stir within, 
 
 each day with greater strength, 
 When, lo, the chick I from former chicks 
 
 he differed not a jot, 
 But grew and crew and scratched and 
 
 went, like those before, to pot ! " 
 So muse the dim Emeriti, and, mournful 
 
 though it be, 
 I must confess a kindred thought hath 
 
 sometimes come to me, 
 
 Who, though but just of forty turned, 
 
 have heard the rumorous fame 
 Of nine and ninety Coming Men, all -• 
 
 coming till they came. 
 Pure Mephistopheles all this ? the vulgai 
 
 nature ]eers? 
 Good friend, while I was writing it, my 
 
 eyes were dim with tears ; 
 Thrice happy he who cannot see, or wha 
 
 his eyes can shut. 
 Life's deepest sorrow is contained in that 
 
 small word there — Bat I 
 
 We're pretty nearly crazy here witlj 
 
 change and go ahead. 
 With flinging our caught bird away for 
 
 two i' th' bush instead, 
 With butting 'gainst the wall which we 
 
 declare snxUl be a portal, 
 And questioning Deeps that never yet 
 
 have oped their lips to mortal ; 
 We're growing pale and hollow-eyed, 
 
 and out of all condition. 
 With mediums and prophetic chairs, and 
 
 crickets with a mission, 
 (The most astounding oracles since Ba- 
 laam's donkey spoke, — 
 'T would seem our furniture was all of 
 
 Dodonean oak.) 
 Make but the public laugh, be sura 
 
 't will take you to he somebody ; 
 'Twill wrench its button from your 
 
 clutch, my densely earnest glum 
 
 body; 
 'Tis good, this noble earnestness, good 
 
 in its place, hut why 
 Make great Achilles' shield the pan to 
 
 bake a penny pie ? 
 Why, when we have a kitchen-range, in- 
 sist that we shall stop. 
 And bore clear down to central fires to 
 
 broil our daily chop ? 
 Excalibur and Dnrandart are swords of 
 
 price, but then 
 Why draw them sternly when you wish 
 
 to trim your nails or pen ? 
 Small gulf between the ape and man; 
 
 you bridge it with your staff ; 
 But it will be impassable until the ape 
 
 can laugh ; — 
 No, no, be common now and then, be sett 
 
 sible, be funny. 
 And, as Siberians bait their traps for 
 
 bears with pots of honey. 
 From which, ere they '11 withdraw theil 
 
 snouts, they '11 suffer many a dub 
 
 lick. 
 
FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED POEM. 
 
 839 
 
 Bo bait your moral fignre-of-fonra to 
 
 cfltch the Olson public. 
 Look how the dead leaves melt their 
 
 way down through deep -drifted 
 
 snow; 
 They take the sun-warmth down with 
 
 them — pearls could not conquer 
 
 80 ; 
 There is a moral here, you see ; if you 
 
 would preach, you must 
 ,Steep all your truths in sunshine would 
 
 you have them pierce the crust ; 
 Brave Jeremiah, you are grand and ter- 
 rible, a sign 
 And wonder, but were never quite a pop- 
 ular divine ; 
 Fancy the figure you would cut among 
 
 the nuts and wine ! 
 I, on occasion, too, could preach, but 
 
 hold it wiser far 
 To give the public sermons it will take 
 
 with its cigar, 
 And morals fugitive, and vague as are 
 
 these smoke-wreaths light 
 In which ... I trace ... a ... let me 
 
 see — bless me ! 't is out of sight. 
 
 There are some goodish things at sea; 
 
 for instance, one can feel 
 A grandeur in the silent man forever at 
 
 the wheel, 
 That bit of two-leeged intellect, that 
 
 particle of drill, 
 Who the huge floundering hulk inspires 
 
 with reason, brain, and will. 
 And makes the ship, though skies are 
 
 black and headwinds whistle loud. 
 Obey her conscience there which feels 
 
 the loadstar through the cloud ; 
 And when by lusty western gales the 
 
 full-sailed barque is hurled 
 Towards the great moon which, setting 
 
 on the silent underworld. 
 Bounds luridly up to look on ours, and 
 
 shoots a broadening line, 
 Of palpitant light from crest to crest 
 
 across the ridgy brine, 
 Theu from the bows look back and feel 
 
 a thrill that never stales, 
 In that full-bosomed, swan-white pomp 
 
 of onward-yearning sails ; 
 Ah, when dear cousin Bull laments that 
 
 you can't make a poem. 
 Take him aboard a clipper-ship, young 
 
 Jonathan, and show him 
 A work of art that in its grace and gran- 
 deur may compare 
 
 With any thing that any race has fash*' 
 
 ioned any where ; 
 'T is not a statue, grumbles John ; nay, if 
 
 you come to that, 
 We think of Hyde Park Corner, and 
 
 concede you beat us flat 
 With your equestrian statue to a Nose 
 
 and a Cocked-hat ; 
 But 't is not a cathedral ; well, e'en that 
 
 we will allow, 
 Both statues and cathedrals are anachro- 
 nistic now ; 
 Your minsters, coz, the monuments of 
 
 men who conquered you. 
 You 'd sell a bargain, if we 'd take the 
 
 deans and chapters too ; 
 Ko ; mortal men build nowadays, as al- 
 ways heretofore. 
 Good temples to the gods which they in 
 
 very truth adore ; 
 The shepherds of this Broker Age, with 
 
 all their willing flocks, 
 Although they bow to stones no 3iore, 
 
 do bend the knee to stocks. 
 And churches can't be beautiful though 
 
 crowded, floor and gallery. 
 If people worship preacher, and if 
 
 preacher worship salary ; 
 'Tis well to look things in the face, »he 
 
 god o' the modern universe, 
 Hermes, cares naught for halls of art 
 
 and libraries of puny verse. 
 If they don't sell, he notes them thus 
 
 upon his ledger — say, per 
 Contra to a loss of so mucli stone, best 
 
 Russia duck and paper ; 
 And, after all, about this Art men talk a 
 
 deal of fudge. 
 Each nation has its path marked out, 
 
 from which it must not budge ; 
 The Bomaus had as little art as Noah in 
 
 his ark, 
 Yet somehow on this globe contrived to 
 
 make an epic mark ; 
 Religion, painting, sculpture, song, — for 
 
 these they ran up jolly ticks 
 With Greece and Egypt, but they were 
 
 great artists in their politics. 
 And if we make no minsters, John, nor 
 
 epics, yet the Fates 
 Are not entirely deaf to men who can 
 
 build ships and states ; 
 The arts are never pioneers, but men 
 
 have strength and health 
 Who, called on suddenly, can improvise 
 
 a commonwealth. 
 Nay, can more easily go on and framt 
 
 them by the dozen. 
 
840 
 
 FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED POEM. 
 
 Than you can make a dinner-speech, 
 
 dear sympathizing cousin : 
 And, though onr restless Jonathan have 
 
 not your graver bent, sure he 
 Does represent this hand-to-mouth, pert, 
 
 rapid, nineteenth century ; 
 This is the Age of Scramble ; men move 
 
 faster than they did 
 When they pried up the imperial Past's 
 
 deep-dusted cofiSn-lid, 
 Searching for scrolls of precedent; the 
 
 wire-leashed lightning now 
 Beplaces Delphos — men don't leave the 
 
 steamer for the scow ; 
 What public, were they new to-day, 
 
 would ever sto) ■ to read 
 The Siad, the Shane neh, or the Nibe- 
 
 lungenliedl 
 
 Their public ''s gone, the artist Greek, tht 
 
 lettered Shah, the hairy Graf — 
 Folio and plesiosaur sleep well ; we weary 
 
 o'er a paragraph ; 
 The mind moves planet-like no more, it 
 
 fizzes, cracks, and bustles ; 
 From end to end with journals dry the 
 
 land o'ershadowed rustles, 
 As with dead leaves a winter-beech, and, 
 
 with their breath-roused jars 
 Amused, we care not if they hide the 
 
 eternal skies and stars ; 
 Down to the general level of the Board 
 
 of Brokers sinking. 
 The Age takes in the newspapers, or, to 
 
 say sooth nnshrinking. 
 The newspapers take in the Age, and 
 
 stocks do all the thinking. 
 
UNDEE THE WILLOWS, 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER POEMS. 
 
UNDER THE WILLOWS. 
 
 TO CHABLES ELIOT NORTON. 
 AGEO 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 ! 't is 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. 
 
 "0 dream-ship-builder ! where are they 
 
 . all, 
 
 Your grand three-deckers, deep-chested 
 and tall. 
 
 That should crush the waves under can- 
 vas 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, tifi tho 
 
 old hope glows 
 In the fanciful flame, as I toast my toes. 
 
 Instead of a fleet of bipad-browed ships. 
 To send a child's armada of chips ! 
 Instead of the great guns, tier on tier, 
 A freight of pebbles and grass-blades 
 
 sere ! 
 "Well, maybe more love wiCh the less 
 
 gift goes," 
 I growl, as, half moody, I toast my toes. 
 
 UNDER THE WILLOWS. 
 
 FBANE-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 iD^ 
 
 wait, 
 Makes many a feint, peeps forth, draws 
 
 coyly back. 
 Then, from some southern ambush in,' 
 
 the sky, 
 With one great gush of blossom storm* 
 
 the world. 
 A week ago the sparrow was divine ; 
 The bluebird, shifting his light load of 
 
 song 
 From post to post along the cheerless 
 
 fence. 
 Was as a rhymer ere the poet come ; 
 But now, rapture ! sunshine winged 
 
 and voiced, 
 
344 
 
 UNDER THE WILLOWS. 
 
 i 
 
 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 1 Dear June I Now God ie 
 
 praised for June. 
 
 May is a pious fraud of the almailslo, 
 A ghastly patody of real Spritig 
 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 hut turn his hdui'glass 
 
 round, 
 A»id Winter suddenly, like crazy Lear, 
 Eeels back, and brings the dead May in 
 
 his arms, 
 Her budding breasts and waB dislustred 
 
 front 
 "With frosty streaks and drifts of his 
 
 white beard 
 All Overblown. Theil, walfmly walled 
 
 with books, 
 While my wood-fire supplies the sun's 
 
 defect, 
 Whispeiing old forest-sagas in its 
 
 direaims, 
 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 spring-time, ne'er 
 
 denied 
 In-doors by venial Chaucer, whose fresh 
 
 woods 
 Throb thick with merle and mavis all 
 
 the year. 
 
 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 hraze the horizon's western rim, or 
 
 Motionless, with heaped canvas drooping 
 
 idly. 
 Like a dim fleet by starving men be- 
 
 Conjectured half, and half descried 
 
 afar. 
 Helpless of wind, and seeming to slip 
 
 back 
 Adown the smooth curve of the oily 
 
 But June is full of invitations sweet. 
 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 cheriy, drest for bridal, at my pane 
 Brushes, then listens. Will he comef 
 
 The bee, 
 AU 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 
 That forages all climes to line its cells. 
 Ranging both worlds on lightest wings 
 
 of wish. 
 Will not distil the juices it has sueked 
 To the sweet substance of pellucidJ 
 
 thought, 
 Except for him who hath the secret 
 
 learned 
 To mix his blood with sunshine, and to 
 
 take , 
 
 The winds into his pulses. Husn I 
 
 't is he ! 
 My oriole, my glance of summer fire. 
 Is come at last, and, ever on the watch. 
 Twitches the pack-thread I had lightly 
 
 wound 
 About the bough to help his housekeep- 
 ing, — 
 Twitctes and scouts hy 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, hof ffemie, ho/ he whistles as 
 
 the twine 
 Slackens its hold ; once more, rww I and 
 
 a fleish 
 'Lightens across the Sunlight to the elm 
 
UNDER THE WILLOWS. 
 
 345 
 
 Where his mate dansles at her cup of 
 
 felt. 
 Nor all his booty is the thread ; he trails 
 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 1 in June am midway to helieve 
 A tree among my far progenitors, 
 Such sympathy is mine with all the 
 
 race. 
 Such mutual recognition vaguely sweet 
 There is hetween us. Surely there are 
 
 times 
 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 wel- 
 comes me 
 Within his tent as if I were a bird. 
 Or other free companion of the earth. 
 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. 
 
 I know not by what grace, — for in the 
 I blood 
 
 Of our New World subduers lingers yet 
 Hereditary feud with trees, they being 
 (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 
 
 marshf 
 
 Their roots, like molten metal cooled ia 
 
 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 
 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 aoom from the British oak 
 'Neath which slim fairies tripping 
 
 wrought those rings 
 Of gi'eenest emerald, wherewith fireside 
 
 life 
 Did with the invisible spirit of Nature 
 
 wed. 
 Was ever planted' here ! No darnel 
 
 fancy 
 Might choice one useful blade in Puri- 
 tan fields ; 
 With horn and hoof the good old Devil 
 
 came. 
 The Tiitch's broomstick was not contra* 
 
 band. 
 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 
 AH beautiful beliefs. And sueh was 
 
 that, — 
 By solitary shepherd first surmised 
 Under Thessalian oaks, loved by some 
 
 maid 
 Of royal stirp, that silent came and van- 
 ished. 
 As near her nest the hermit thrush, nor 
 
 dared 
 Confess a mortal name, — that faith 
 
 which gave 
 A Hamadryad to each tree ; and I 
 Will hold it true that in this willow 
 
 dwells 
 The open-handed spirit, frank and 
 
 bUthe, 
 
846 
 
 UNDilR THE WILLOWS. 
 
 Of ancient Hospitality, long since, 
 With ceremonious thrift, bowed out of 
 doors. 
 
 In June 't is good to lie beneath a 
 
 tree 
 While the blithe season comforts every 
 
 sense. 
 Steeps all the brain in rest, and heals 
 
 the heart. 
 Brimming it o'er with sweetness una- 
 wares. 
 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 firiends ! The writing of those 
 
 words has borne 
 My fancy backward to the gracious past. 
 The generous past, when all was pos- 
 sible, 
 For all was then untried ; the years be- 
 tween 
 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. 
 £ach 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 ; 
 
 I 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, 
 reeling the warm earth like a thing 
 1 alive, 
 And gathering virtue in at every pore , 
 
 Till it possessed me wholly, and thought 
 
 ceased, 
 Or was transfused in something to which 
 
 thought 
 Is coarse and dull of sense. Myself -was 
 
 lost. 
 Gone from me like an ache, and what 
 
 remained 
 Became 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 be- 
 low; 
 Or else, sublimed to purer ecstasy, 
 Dilated in the broad blue over aU. 
 I was the wind that dappled the lush 
 
 The tide that crept with coolness to its 
 
 roots. 
 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 
 
 tay. 
 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. 
 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 
 
 Eippled with western winds, the dusty 
 Tramp, 
 
 Seeing the treeless causey bum beyond, 
 
 Halts to unroll his bundle of strange 
 food 
 
 And munch an unearned meal. I can- 
 not help 
 
 Liking this creature, lavish Summer"* 
 bedesman, 
 
 Who from the almshouse steals when 
 nights grow warm. 
 
rNDKP. THE WILLOWS. 
 
 347 
 
 Himiself 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. 
 1 bait him with my match-box and my 
 
 pouch, 
 Nor grudge the uncostly sympathy of 
 
 smoke, 
 His equal now, divinely unemployed. 
 Some smack of Eobin 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 deli- 
 cate fan. 
 Winnow the heat from out his dank 
 
 gray hair, — 
 A grimy Ulysses, a much-wandered man. 
 Whose feet are known to all the popu- 
 lous 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, 
 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 vis- 
 itors. 
 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 winged horses and Aladdin's lamps, 
 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'ertumed box theii table. 
 Oft 
 
 The shrilling girls sit here between 
 school hours. 
 
 And play at WTiat 's my thought likef 
 while the boys. 
 
 With whom the age chivalric ever bides, 
 
 Pricked on by knightly spur of female 
 eyes. 
 
 Climb high to swing and sTiout on peril- 
 ous boughs, 
 
 Or, from the willow's armory equipped 
 
 With musket dumb, green banner, edge- 
 less sword, 
 
 Make good the rampart of their tree- 
 redoubt 
 
 'Gainst eager British storming from be- 
 low. 
 
 And keep alive the tale of Bunker*! 
 Hill. 
 
 Here, too, the men that mend our vil- 
 lage ways, 
 
 Yexing 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 
 
 With famous teams, and add large esti- 
 mates. 
 
 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 micro- 
 cosm 
 
 Image the larger world ; for wheresoe'er 
 
 Ten men are gathered, the observant eye 
 
 Will find mankind in little, as the stars 
 
 Glide up and set, and all the heavenj 
 revolve 
 
 In the small welkin of a drop of dew. 
 
848 
 
 TTNDEE THE WILLOWS. 
 
 I love to enter pleasure by a postern, 
 Not the broad popular gate that gulps 
 
 the mob; 
 To find my theatres in roadside nooks, 
 VThere men are actors, and suspect it 
 
 not; 
 Where Nature all nnconscious works 
 
 her will, 
 And every passion moves with easy 
 
 gait. 
 Unhampered by the buskin or the tram. 
 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 0, half heavenly, earthly half, my 
 
 soul. 
 Canst thou from those late ecstasies 
 
 descend. 
 Thy lips still wet with the miratfulous 
 
 wine 
 That transubstantiates all thy baser stuff 
 To such divinity that soul and senge. 
 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 hailing for a better, holding it 
 Good as was ever any in the world. 
 My days as good and full of miracle, 
 I pluck my nutriment from any bush, 
 Fmding out poison as the first men 
 
 By tasting and then suffering, if I must. 
 
 Sometimes my bush bums, and some- 
 times it is 
 
 A leafless wilding shivering by the wall ; 
 
 But I have known when winter bar- 
 berries 
 
 Pricked the effeminate palate with sur- 
 prise 
 
 Of savor whose mere harshness seemed 
 divine. 
 
 0,. benediction of the higher mood 
 And human-kindness of the lower t {at 
 
 both 
 I will be grateful while I live, nor queg-- 
 
 tion 
 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. 
 jThey tell us we have fallen on prosy 
 
 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 
 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 natur« 
 
 lasts, 
 And man the best of nature, there shal] 
 
 be 
 Somewhere contentment for these humaii 
 
 hearts. 
 Some freshness, some unused material 
 For wonder and for song. I lose mysell 
 In other ways where solemn guide-posts 
 
 say. 
 This way to Knowledge, This way to 
 
 Sepose, 
 But here, here only, I am ne'er be> 
 
 trayed. 
 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, of 
 
 how 
 fe make medicinal the wayside weed 1 
 
DABA. 
 
 849 
 
 I know that Bimshine, 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, 
 Bepeats the image unimpaired of God. 
 
 We, who hy shipwreck only find the 
 
 shores 
 Of divine wisdom, can but kneel at 
 
 first; 
 Can but exult to feel beneath our feet, 
 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 there- 
 _ in; 
 
 Tet for a space we love to wonder here 
 Among the shells and sea-weed of the 
 
 beach. 
 
 Bo mused I once within my willow-tent 
 One brave June morning, when the 
 
 bluff northwest. 
 Thrusting aside a dank and snufSing 
 
 day 
 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 south- 
 ward curve 
 Ran crinkling sunniness, like Helen's 
 
 hair 
 Glimpsed in Elysium, insubstantial 
 
 gold; 
 From blossom-clouded orchards, far 
 
 away 
 The bobolink tinkled-, the deep mead- 
 ows flowed 
 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. 
 
 DABA. 
 
 When Persia's sceptre trembled in a 
 
 hand 
 Wilted with harem-heats, and all the 
 
 land 
 Was hovered over by those vulture ills 
 That snnff 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 
 
 speU 
 Secure and quiet as a guarded fold ; 
 Then, gathering strength by slow and 
 
 wise degrees 
 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 shep- 
 herd'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 
 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 marisb 
 
 minds. 
 
350 
 
 THE FIRST SNOW-FALL. 
 
 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, 
 Somo yellow drops, more rich than all 
 
 the rest, 
 Vent to the filling of his private cup. 
 
 For proof, they said, that, wheresoe'er 
 
 he went, 
 A cheat, 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 't was opened, all his tent 
 
 was known 
 To glow and lighten with heaped jewels' 
 
 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, 
 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 treas- 
 ure-chest ! " 
 
 T was done ; and only a worn shepherd's 
 vest 
 
 Was found therein. Some blushed and 
 hung the head ; 
 
 Kot Dara ; open as the sky's blue roof 
 
 He stood, and " 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 nide vestments ever 
 
 clad 
 Still to the unstained past kept true and 
 
 leal. 
 Still an 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, 1 could not lose my 
 
 way." 
 Strange dew in royal eyes grew round 
 
 and bright. 
 And strained the throbbing lids ; before 
 
 't was night 
 Two added provinces blest Dara's sway. 
 
 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 elmrtree 
 Was ridged inch deep with pearl. 
 
 From sheds new-roofed with Carrara 
 Came Chanticleer's muffled crow, J 
 
 The stiff rails softened to swan's-down, 
 And stiU fluttered down the snow. 
 
 I stood and watched by the window 
 The noiseless work of the sky. 
 
 And the sudden flurries of snow-birds. 
 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. 
 
THE SINGING LEAVES. 
 
 351 
 
 And again to the child I whispered, 
 " The snow tliat husheth all, 
 
 Darling, the merciful Father 
 Alone can make it fall ! " 
 
 Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed 
 her; 
 And she, kissing hack, could not 
 know 
 That my kiss was given to her sister, 
 Folded close under deepening snow. 
 
 THE StNGING LEAVES. 
 
 A BALLAD. 
 
 "What fairings will ye that I bring ? " 
 Said'the King to his daughters three ; 
 
 "For 1 to Vanity Fair am boun. 
 Now say what shall they be ? " 
 
 Then up and spake the eldest daughter. 
 
 That lady tall and grand : 
 " 0, bring me pearls and diamonds great, 
 
 And gold rings for my hand." 
 
 Thereafter spake the second daughter. 
 That was both white and red : 
 
 " For me bring silks that will stand 
 alone, 
 And a gold comb for my head. " 
 
 Then came the turn of the least daugh- 
 ter. 
 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.'" 
 
 Then the brow of the King swelled 
 crimson 
 
 With a flush of angiy scorn : 
 " Well have ye spoken, my two eldest, 
 
 And chosen as ye were bom ; 
 
 " But she, like a thing of peasant race. 
 
 That is happy binding the sheaves" ; 
 
 Thui he saw her dead mother in her 
 
 face, 
 
 And said, "Thou shalt have thy 
 
 leaves." 
 
 Ho mounted and rode three days and 
 nights 
 Till he came to Vanity Fair, 
 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, 
 " 0, if you have ever a Singing Lsaf, 
 
 1 pray you give it me ! " 
 
 But the trees all kept their counsel. 
 And never a word said they, 
 
 Only there sighed from the pine-tope 
 A music of seas far away. 
 
 Only the pattering aspen 
 Made a sound of growing rain, 
 
 That fell ever faster and faster. 
 Then faltered to silence again. 
 
 " 0, where shall I find a little foot-pag« 
 That would win both hose and shoon, 
 
 And wiU 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 : 
 " 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 ; 
 'T will be my dog, he thought, and saidi 
 
 "My faith I plight to thee." 
 
 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." 
 
 As the King rode in at his castle-gate, 
 A maiden to meet him ran, 
 
852 SEA-WEED. — THE FINMNG OF THE LYKK. 
 
 she laughed 
 
 And " Weloome, father ! 
 and cried 
 Together, the Princess Anne. 
 
 " Lo, here the Singing Leaves," quoth 
 he, 
 
 " And woe, but they cost me dear ! " 
 She took the packet, and the smile 
 
 Deepened down beneath the tear. 
 
 It deepened down till it reached her 
 neart. 
 
 And then gushed up again. 
 And lighted her tears as the sudden sun 
 
 Transfigures the .summer rain. 
 
 And the first Leai; when it was opened, 
 Sang : " I am Walter the page. 
 
 And the songs 1 sing'neath thy window 
 Are my omy heritage." 
 
 And the second Leaf sang : " But in the 
 land 
 
 That is neither on earth or 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 1" 
 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. 
 
 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. 
 1851. 
 
 SEA-WEED. 
 
 Not always unimpeded can I pray. 
 Nor, pitying saint, thine intercession 
 
 claim ; 
 loo 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 1 less patience have than Thou, 
 
 who know 
 That Thou revisit'st all who wait for 
 
 thee, 
 Nor only fill'st the unsounded deepi 
 
 below, 
 But dost refresh with punctual overflow 
 The rifts where unregarded mosses be ? 
 
 The drooping sea-weed hears, in night 
 abyssed, 
 
 Far and more far the wave's receding 
 
 I 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 Lab- 
 rador, 
 
 By love divine on one sweet errand 
 rolled. 
 
 And, though Thy healing waters far 
 
 withdraw, 
 1, 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. 
 1854. 
 
 THE FINDINQ OF THE LYBE. 
 
 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-drift> 
 
 dry 
 Cheap burial might provide it. 
 
NEW-YEAR'S EVE. 1850. — AL FRESCO. 
 
 353 
 
 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 ! " 
 
 Po 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. 
 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-YEAK'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 grcvitation, 
 
 Yet by one Sun is every orbit bent. 
 
 FOR AN ATJTOGEAPH. 
 
 Though old the thought and oft ex-i 
 
 prest, 
 'T is his at last who says it best, — 
 I '11 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 ! 
 
 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 
 I need ye not, for I to-day 
 Will make one long sweet verse of play. 
 
354 
 
 MASACCIO. 
 
 Snap, chord of manhood's tenser 
 
 strain ! 
 To-day I will be a boy again ; 
 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 catbird croons in the lilac-bush ! 
 Through the dim arbor, himself more 
 
 dim. 
 Silently hops the hermit-thrush, 
 The withered leaves keei) dumb for him ; 
 The irreverent buccaneering bee 
 Hath stormed and rifled the nunnery 
 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 
 The blue Adriatic overhead. 
 Shadows with his palatial mass 
 T'^'.e deep canals of flowing grass. 
 
 unestranged birds and bees I 
 face of Nature always true I 
 never-unsympathizmg trees ! 
 never- rejecting roof of blue, 
 Whose rash disherison never falls 
 On us unthinking prodigals, 
 Yet who convlctest all our ill. 
 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 breeze and sun. 
 
 Upon these elm-arched solitudes 
 No hum of neighbor toil intrudes j 
 Tlire 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 ; 
 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 
 
 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, 
 Nor had the wit to wreck before 
 On this enchanted island's shore, 
 Whither the current of the sea. 
 With wiser drift, persuaded me ? 
 
 0, might we but of such rare days 
 Build up the spirit's dwelling-place 1 
 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. 
 Alas ! though such felicity 
 In our vext yvorld 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, 
 Tom from the consecration deep 
 Of some fallen nunnery's mossy sleep, 
 So, from the ruins of this day 
 Crumbling in golden dust away. 
 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 takt 
 Their dwelling here for memory's sake. 
 
 MASACCIO. 
 
 IN THE BRANCAOCI CHAPEL. 
 
 He came to Florence long ago. 
 
 And painted here these walls, that shoM 
 
 For Eaphael 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; 
 
WITHOUT AND WITHIK. — GODMINSTEB CHIMES. 
 
 355 
 
 •'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 
 Bemote 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 
 "Sew pathways to the commonplace. 
 
 Henceforth, when rings the health to 
 
 those 
 Who live in story and in song, 
 nameless dead, that now repose 
 Safe in Oblivion's chambers strong, 
 One cup of recognition true 
 Shall sUently be drained to you ! 
 
 WITHOUT ASD 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. 
 
 Flattening his nose against the pane. 
 He envies me my brilliant lot, 
 
 Breathes on his aching fists in vain. 
 And dooms me to a place more hot. 
 
 He sees me in to supper go, 
 A silken wonder by my side. 
 
 Bare arms, bare shoulders, and a row 
 Of flounces, for the door too wide. 
 
 He thinks how happy is my arm 
 'Keath its white-gloved and jewelled 
 I load ; 
 
 And wishes me some dreadful harm, 
 Hearing the merry corks explode. 
 
 Meanwhile I inly curse the bore 
 Of hunting still the same old coon. 
 
 And envy him, outside the door. 
 
 In golden quiets of the moon. i 
 
 The winter wind is not so cold | 
 
 As the bright smile he sees me win. 
 
 Nor the host s oldest wine so old 
 As our poor gabble sour and thin. 
 
 I envy him the ungyved prance 
 
 With which his freezing feet he warms, 
 
 And drag my lady's-ehains and dance 
 The galley-slave of di-eary forms. 
 
 0, could he have my share of din. 
 And I his quiet I — past a doubt 
 
 'T would still be one man bored within. 
 And just another bored without. 
 
 Nay, when, once paid my mortal fee. 
 Some idler on my headstone grim 
 
 Traces the moss-blurred name, will he 
 Think me the happier, or I him ? 
 
 OODMmSTER CHIUES. 
 
 WRITTEN IN AID OP A CHIMB OP BELIS 
 FOR CHRIST CHURCH, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 GODMINSTER? Is it Fancy's play I 
 
 I know not, but the word 
 Sings in my heart, nor can I say 
 
 Whether 't was dreamed or heard ; 
 Yet fragrant in my mind it clings 
 
 As blossoms after rain. 
 And builds of half-remembered thingi 
 
 This vision in my brain. 
 
 ■Through aisles of long-drawn centuries 
 
 My spirit walks in thought, 
 And to that symbol lifts its eyes 
 
 Which God's own pity wrought ; 
 From Calvary shines the altar's gleam. 
 
 The Church's East is there. 
 The Ages one great minster seem. 
 
 That throbs with praise and prayer. 
 
 And all the way from Calvary down 
 
 The carven pavement shows 
 Their graves who won the martym 
 crown 
 
 And safe in God repose ; 
 The saints of many a warring creed 
 
 Who now in heaven have learned 
 
356 
 
 THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. 
 
 That all paths to the Father lead 
 Where Self the feet have spumed. 
 
 A.nd, as the mystic aisles I pace, 
 
 By aureoled workmen built, 
 Lives ending at the Cross I trace 
 
 Alike through grace and guilt ; 
 One Mary bathes the blessed feet 
 
 With ointment from her eyes, 
 With spikenard one, and both are sweet, 
 
 For both are sacriiioe. 
 
 Moravian hymn and Roman chant 
 
 In one devotion blend. 
 To speak the soul's eternal want 
 
 Of Him, the inmost friend ; 
 One prayer soars cleansed with martyr 
 fire, 
 
 One choked with sinner's tears, 
 In heaven both meet in one desire, 
 
 And God one music hears. 
 
 Whilst thus I dream, the bells clash out 
 
 Upon the Sabbath air, 
 Each seems a hostile faith to shout, 
 
 A selfish form of prayer ; 
 My dream is shattered, yet who knows 
 
 But in that heaven so near 
 These discords find harmonious close 
 
 In God's atoning ear ? 
 
 O chime of sweet Saint Charity, 
 
 Peal soon that Easter morn 
 When Christ for all shall risen be. 
 
 And in all hearts new-born ! 
 That Pentecost when utterance clear 
 
 To all men shall be given, 
 When all shall say My Brother here. 
 
 And hear My Son in heaven ! 
 
 THE PARTING OF THE WATS. 
 
 Who hath not been a poet ? Who hath 
 
 not. 
 With life's new quiver full of winged 
 
 years. 
 Shot at a venture, and then, following 
 
 on, 
 Stood doubtful at the Parting of the 
 
 Ways? 
 
 There once I stood in dream, and as I 
 
 Looking this way and that, came forth 
 to me 
 
 The figure of a woman vriled, that said, 
 "My name is Duty, tmu and follow 
 
 me" ; 
 Something there was that chilled me in 
 
 her voice ; 
 I felt Youth's hand grow slack and cold 
 
 in mine. 
 As if to be withdrawn, and I exclaimed: 
 " 0, leave the hot wild heart within my 
 
 breast ! 
 Duty comes soon enough, too soon comes 
 
 Death ; 
 This slippery globe of life whirls of itself. 
 Hasting our youth away into the dark ; 
 These senses, quivering with electric 
 
 heats, 
 Too soon will show, like nests on wintry 
 
 boughs 
 Obtrusive emptiness, too palpable wreck, 
 Which whistling north-winds line with 
 
 downy snow 
 Sometimes, or fringe with foliaged rime, 
 
 in vain. 
 Thither the singing birds no more re- 
 turn." 
 
 Then glowed to me a maiden from the 
 
 left, 
 With bosom half disclosed, and naked 
 
 arms 
 More white and undulant than necks of 
 
 swans ; 
 And all before her steps an influence ran 
 Warm as the whispering South that 
 
 opens buds 
 And swells the laggard sails of Northern 
 
 May. 
 "I am called Pleasure, come with me!" 
 
 she said, 
 Then laughed, and shook out simshine 
 
 from her hair. 
 Nor only that, but, so it seemed, shook 
 
 out 
 All memory too, and all the moonlit 
 
 past. 
 Old loves, old aspirations, and old 
 
 dreams. 
 More beautiful for being old and gone. 
 
 So we two went together ; downward 
 
 sloped 
 The path through yellow meads, or so I 
 
 dreamed, 
 Yellow with sunshine and young green, 
 
 but I 
 Saw naught nor heard, shut up in on* 
 
 close joy; 
 
THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. 
 
 357 
 
 I only felt the hand within my own, 
 Transmuting all my blood to golden fire, 
 Dissolving all my brain in throbbing 
 mist. 
 
 Suddenly shrank the hand ; suddenly 
 
 burst 
 A cry that split the torpor of my brain, 
 And as the first sharp thrust of lightning 
 
 loosens 
 From the heaped cloud its rain, loosened 
 
 my sense : 
 " Save me ! " it thrilled ; " 0, hide me ! 
 
 there is Death ! 
 Death the divider, the unmerciful, 
 That digs his pitfalls under Love and 
 
 Youth V 
 
 And covers Beauty up in the cold 
 
 gi'ound ; 
 Horrible Death ! bringer of endless dark ; 
 Let him not see me ! hide me in thy 
 
 breast ! " 
 Thereat I strove to clasp her, but my 
 
 arms 
 Met only what slipped crumbling down, 
 
 and fell, 
 A handful of gray ashes, at my feet. 
 
 I would have fled, I would have followed 
 
 back 
 That pleasant path we came, but all was 
 
 changed ; 
 Rocky the way, abrupt, and hard to find ; 
 Yet I toiled on, and, toiling on, I 
 
 thought, 
 " That way lies Youth, and Wisdom, 
 
 and all Good ; 
 For only by unlearning Wisdom comes 
 And climbing backward to diviner 
 
 Youth ; 
 What the world teaches profits to the 
 
 world. 
 What the soul teaches profits to the soul. 
 Which then first stands erect with God- 
 ward face. 
 When she lets fall her pack of withered 
 
 facts. 
 The gleanings of the outward eye and 
 
 ear. 
 And looks and listens with her finer 
 
 sense ; 
 Nor Truth nor Knowledge cometh from 
 
 without." 
 
 After long weary days I stood again 
 And waited at the Parting of the Ways j 
 Again the figure of a woman veiled 
 
 Stood forth and beckoned, imd I followed 
 
 now : 
 Down to no bower of roses led the 
 
 But through the streets of towns where 
 
 chattering Cold 
 Hewed wood for fires whose glow was 
 
 owned and fenced. 
 Where Nakedness wove garments of 
 
 warm wool 
 Not for itself ; — or through the fields it 
 
 led 
 Where Hunger reaped the unattainable 
 
 grain, 
 Where Idleness enforced saw idle lands, 
 Leagues of unpeopled soil, the common 
 
 earth. 
 Walled round with paper against God 
 
 and Man. 
 " I cannot look," I groaned, "at only 
 
 these ; 
 The heart grows hardened with perpet- 
 ual wont, 
 And palters with a feigned necessity, 
 Bargaining with itself to be content ; 
 Let me behold thy face." 
 
 The Form replied ; 
 " Men follow Duty, never overtake ; 
 Duty nor lifts her veil nor looks behind. " 
 But, as she spake, a loosened lock of 
 
 hair 
 Slipped from beneath her hood, and I, 
 
 who looked 
 To see it gray and thin, saw amplest 
 
 gold; 
 Not that dull metal dug from sordid 
 
 earth, 
 But such as the retiring sunset flood 
 Leaves heaped on bays and capes of 
 
 island cloud, 
 " Guide divine," I prayed, " although 
 
 not yet 
 I may repair the virtue which I feel 
 Gone out at touch of untuned things 
 
 and foul 
 With draughts of Beauty, yet declare 
 
 how soon ! " 
 
 " Faithless and faint of heart," the voice 
 
 returned, 
 " Thou see'st no beauty save thou make 
 
 it first ; 
 Man, Woman, Nature, each is but a 
 
 glass 
 Where the soul sees the image of her< 
 
 self. 
 Visible echoes, ofisprings of herself. 
 
858 
 
 ALADDIN. 
 
 -AN INVITATION. 
 
 But, since thou ueed'st assurance of how 
 
 soon, 
 Wait till that angel comes who opens 
 
 all, 
 The reconciler, he who lifts the veil. 
 The reuniter, the rest-bringer, Death." 
 
 I waited, and methonght he came ; but 
 
 how. 
 Or in what shape, I doubted, for no 
 
 sign, 
 By touch or mark, he gave me as he 
 
 Only I knew a lily that I held 
 
 Snapt short below the head and shriv- 
 elled up ; 
 
 Then turned my Guide and looked at 
 me unveiled, 
 
 And I beheld no face of matron stem. 
 
 But that enchantment I had followed 
 erst. 
 
 Only more fair, more clear to eye and 
 brain, 
 
 Heightened and chastened by a house- 
 hold charm ; 
 
 She smiled, and " Which is fairer," said 
 her eyes, 
 
 " The hag's unreal Florimel or mine 1 " 
 
 ALADDIN. 
 
 When I was a beggarly boy. 
 
 And lived in a cellar damp, 
 I had not a friend nor a toy. 
 
 But I had Aladdin's Iam,p ; 
 When I could not sleep for the cold, 
 
 I had fire enough in my brain. 
 And builded, with roofs of gold, 
 
 My beautiful castles in Spain ! 
 
 Since then I have toiled day and night, 
 
 I have money and power good store, 
 But I 'd give all my lamps of silver 
 bright. 
 
 For the one that is mine no more ; 
 Take, Fortune, whatever you choose, 
 
 You gave, and may snatch again ; 
 I have nothing 't would pain me to lose, 
 
 For I own no more castles in Spain ! 
 
 AN INVITATION. 
 
 TO J. r. H. 
 
 Nike years have slipt like hour-glass 
 
 sand 
 From life's still-emptying globe away, 
 
 Since last, dear friend, I clasped your 
 
 hand. 
 And stood upon the impoverished land. 
 Watching the steamer down the bay. 
 
 I held the token which you gave, 
 While slowly the smoke-pennon curled 
 O'er the vague rim 'tween sky and wave. 
 And shut the distance like a grave. 
 Leaving me in the colder world. 
 
 The old worn world of hurry and heat. 
 The young, fresh world of thought and 
 
 scope. 
 While you, where beckoning billow* 
 
 fleet 
 Climb far sky-beaches still and sweet, 
 Sauk waveiing down the ocean-slope. 
 
 You sought the new world in the old, 
 I found the old world iu the new, ; 
 All that our human hearts can hold. 
 The inward world of deathless mould. 
 The same that Father Adam knew. 
 
 He needs no ship to cross the tide, 
 Who, in the lives about him, sees 
 Fair window-prospects opening wide 
 O'er history's fields on every side, 
 To Ind and Egypt, Eome and Greece. 
 
 Whatever moulds of various brain 
 E er shaped the world to weal or woe. 
 Whatever empires' wax and wane. 
 To him that hath not eyes in vain, 
 Our village-microcosm can show. 
 
 Come back our ancient walks to tread. 
 Dear haunts of lost or scattered friend^ 
 Old Harvard's scholar-factories red, 
 Where song and smoke and laughter 
 
 The nights to proctor-haunted ends. 
 
 Constant are all our former loves, "j f 
 Unchanged the icehouse-girdled pond. 
 Its hemlock glooms, its shadowy coves. 
 Where floats the coot and never moves. 
 Its slopes of long-tamed green beyond. 
 
 Our old familiars are not laid. 
 Though snapt our wands and sunk our 
 
 books ; 
 They beckon, not to be gainsaid. 
 Where, round broad meads that mo (ren 
 
 wade, 
 The Charles his steel-blue sickle crocks 
 
THE NOMADES. 
 
 859 
 
 Where, as the clondbergs eastward blow, 
 From glow to gloom the hillsides shift 
 Their plumps of orchard-trees arow, 
 Their lakes of rye that wave and flow, 
 Their snowy whiteweed's summer drift. 
 
 There have we watched the West unfurl 
 
 A cloud Byzantium newly bom, 
 
 With ilickering spires and domes of 
 
 pearl, 
 And vapory surfs that crowd and curl 
 Into the sunset's Golden Horn. 
 
 There, as the flaming Occident 
 Burned slowly down to ashes gray. 
 Night pitched o'erhead her silent tent. 
 And glimmering gold fromHespersprent 
 Upon the darkened river lay, 
 
 Where a twin sky but just before 
 Deepened, anddoubleswallows skimmed, 
 And, from a visionary shore, 
 Hiuig visioned trees, that more and 
 
 more 
 Grew dusk as those above were dimmed. 
 
 Then eastward saw we slowly giov^ 
 Clear-edged the lines of roof and spire. 
 While great elm-raasses blacken slow, 
 And linden-ricks their round heads 
 
 show 
 Against a flush of widening fire. 
 
 Doubtful at first and far away. 
 
 The moon-flood creeps more wide and 
 
 wide ; 
 Up a ridged beach of cloudy gray, 
 Curved round the east as round a bay. 
 It slips and spreads its gradual tide. 
 
 Then suddenly, in hirid mood. 
 
 The moon looms large o'er town and 
 
 field 
 As ujion Ad^m, red like blood, 
 'Tween him and Eden's happy wood. 
 Glared the commissioned angel's shield. 
 
 Or let us seek the seaside, there 
 To wander idly as we list, 
 Whether, on rocky headlands bare. 
 Sharp cedar-horns, like breakers, tear 
 The trailing fringes of gray mist, 
 
 Or whether, under skies full flown, 
 The brightening surfs, with foamy din, 
 Their breeze-caught forelocks backward 
 blown, 
 
 Against the beach's yellow zone, 
 Curl slow, and plunge forever in. 
 
 And, as we watch those canvas towers 
 That lean along the horizon's rim, 
 "Sail on," I'll say; "may sunniest 
 
 hours 
 Convoy you from this land of ours, 
 Since from my side you bear not him 1 " 
 
 For years thrice three, wise Horace said, 
 A poem rare let silence bind ; 
 And love may ripen in the shade, 
 Like ours, for nine long seasons laid 
 In deepest arches of the mind. 
 
 Come back ! Not ours the Old World's 
 
 good. 
 The Old Worid's ill, thank God, not 
 
 ours ; 
 But here, far better understood, 
 The days enforce our native mood, 
 And challenge all our manlier power"; 
 
 Kindlier to me the place of birth 
 That first my tottering footsteps trod ; 
 There may be fairer spots of earth, 
 But all their glories are not worth 
 The virtue in the native sod. 
 
 Thence climbs an influence more benign 
 Through pulse and nerve, through heart 
 
 and brain ; 
 Sacred to me those fibres fine 
 That first clasped earth. 0, ne'er be 
 
 mine 
 The alien sun and alien rain I 
 
 These nourish not like homelier glows 
 Or waterings of familiar skies. 
 And nature fairer blooms bestows 
 On the heaped hush of wintry snows, 
 In pastures dear to childhood's eyes^ 
 
 f 
 Than where Italian earth receives 
 The partial sunshine's ampler boons, 
 Where vines carve friezes 'neath th* 
 
 eaves, 
 And, in dark firmaments of leaves. 
 The orange lifts its golden moons. 
 
 THE NOMADES. 
 
 What Nature makes in any mood 
 To me is warranted for good, 
 Though long before I learned to see 
 She did not set us moral theses, 
 
360 
 
 SELF-STUDY. 
 
 And scorned to have her sweet caprices 
 Strait-waistcoated in you or me. 
 
 1, who take root and firmly cling. 
 Thought fixedness the only thing; 
 Why ITature made the butterflies, 
 (Those dreams of wings that float and 
 
 hover 
 At noon the slumberous poppies over,) 
 Was something hidden from mine eyes, 
 
 Till once, upon a rock's brown bosom. 
 Bright as a thorny cactus-blossom, 
 I saw a butterfly at rest ; 
 Then first of both I felt the beauty ; 
 The airy whim, the grim-set duty, 
 Each from the other took its best. 
 
 Clearer it grew than winter sky 
 That Nature still had reasons why ; 
 And, shifting sudden as a breeze, 
 My fancy found no satisfaction. 
 No antithetic sweet attraction, 
 So great as in the Nomades. 
 
 Scythians, with Nature not at strife. 
 Light Arabs of our complex life. 
 They build no houses, plant no mills 
 To utilize Time's sliding river, 
 Content that it flow waste forever. 
 If they, like it, may have their wills. 
 
 An hour they pitch their shifting tents 
 In thoughts, in feelings, and events ; 
 Beneath the palm-trees, on the grass. 
 They sing, they dance, make love, and 
 
 chatter. 
 Vex the grim temples with their clatter. 
 And make Truth's fount their looking- 
 glass. 
 
 A picnic life ; from love to love. 
 From faith to faith they lightly move. 
 And yet, hard-eyed philosopher. 
 The flightiest maid that ever hovered 
 To me your thought-webs fine discov- 
 ered, 
 No lens to see them through like her. 
 
 So witchingly her finger-tips 
 To Wisdom, as away she trips, 
 She kisses, waves such sweet farewells 
 To Duty, as she laughs " To-morrow ! " 
 That both from that mad contrast bor- 
 row 
 _A perfectness found nowhere else. 
 
 The beach-bird on its pearly verge 
 Follows and flies the whispering surge. 
 While, iu his tent, the rock-stayed shell 
 Awaits the flood's star-timed vibrations, 
 And both, the flutter and the patience, 
 The sauntering poet loves them well. 
 
 Fulfil so much of God's decree 
 As works its problem out in thee. 
 Nor dream that in thy breast alone 
 The conscience of the changeful seasons. 
 The Will that in the planets reasons 
 With space-wide logic, has its throne. 
 
 Thy virtue makes not vice of mine. 
 Unlike, but none the less divine ; 
 Thy toil adorns, not chides, my play; 
 Nature of sameness is so chary. 
 With such wild whim the freakish fairy 
 Picks presents for the christening-day. 
 
 SELT-STtTDY. 
 
 A PEESENCB both by night and day, 
 That made my life seem just begun. 
 Yet scarce a presence, rather say 
 The warning aureole of one. 
 
 And yet I felt it everywhere ; 
 Walked I the woodland's aisles along. 
 It seemed to brush me with its hair ; 
 Bathed I, I heard a mermaid's song. 
 
 How sweet it was ! A buttercup 
 Could hold for me a day's delight, 
 A bird could lift my fancy up 
 To ether free from cloud or blight. 
 
 Who was the nymph ? Nay, I will see, 
 Methought, and I will know her near ; 
 If such, divined, her charm can be. 
 Seen and possessed, how triply dear ! 
 
 So every magic art I tried. 
 And spells as numberless as sand. 
 Until, one evening, by my side 
 I saw her glowing fulness stand. 
 
 I turned to clasp her, but "Farewell," 
 Parting she sighed, "we meet no more; 
 Not by my hand the curtain fell 
 That leaves you conscious, wise, and 
 poor. 
 
 " Since you have found me out, I go; 
 Another lover I must find. 
 Content his happiness to know. 
 Nor strive its secret to unwind." 
 
PICTUEES FEOM APPLEDOEE. 
 
 861 
 
 FICTtrRES FROM APPLEDORE. 
 
 A HEAP of bare and splintery crags 
 Tumbled about by lightning and frost, 
 With rifts and chasms and storm- 
 bleached jags, 
 That wait and growl for a ship to be 
 
 lost; 
 No island, but rather the skeleton 
 Of a wrecked and vengeance-smitten 
 
 one, 
 "Where, aeons ago, with half-shut eye, 
 The sluggish saurian crawled to die, 
 Gasping under titanic ferns ; 
 Eibs of rock that seaward jut. 
 Granite shoulders and boulders and 
 
 Bound which, though the winds in 
 
 heaven be shut, 
 The nightmared ocean murmurs and 
 
 yearns, 
 Welters, and swashes, and tosses, and 
 
 turns, 
 And the dreary black sea- weed lolls and 
 
 Only rock from shore to shore. 
 
 Only a moan through the bleak clefts 
 
 blown, 
 With sobs in the rifts where the coarse 
 
 kelp shifts. 
 Falling and lifting, tossing and drifting. 
 And under all a deep, dull roar, 
 Dying and swelling, forevermore, — 
 Kock and moan and roar alone. 
 And the dread of some nameless thing 
 
 unknown, 
 These make Appledore. 
 
 These make Appledore by night : 
 Then there are monsters left and right ; 
 Every rock is a different monster ; 
 All you have read of, fancied, dreamed. 
 When you waked at night because you 
 
 screamed. 
 There they lie for half a mile. 
 Jumbled together in a pile, 
 And (though you know they never once 
 
 stir). 
 If you look long, they seem to be 
 
 moving 
 Just as plainly as plain can be. 
 Crushing and crowding, wading and 
 
 shoving 
 Out into the awful sea, 
 Where you can hear them snort and 
 
 spout 
 
 With pauses between, as if they were 
 
 listening. 
 Then tumult anon when the surf breaks 
 
 glistening 
 In the blackness where they wallow 
 
 about. 
 
 All this you would scarcely comprehend, 
 
 Should you see the isle on a sunny day ; 
 
 Then it is simple enough in its way, — 
 
 Two rocky bulges, one at each end. 
 
 With a smaller bulge and a hollow be- 
 tween ; 
 
 Patches of whortleberry and bay ; 
 
 Accidents of open green. 
 
 Sprinkled with loose slabs square and 
 gray. 
 
 Like graveyards for ages deserted ; a few 
 
 Unsocial thistles ; an elder or two, 
 
 Foamed over with blossoms white as 
 spray ; 
 
 And on the whole island never a tree 
 
 Save a score of sumachs, high as your 
 knee. 
 
 That crouch in hollows where they may, 
 
 (The cellars where once stood a village, 
 men say,) 
 
 Huddling for warmth, and never grew 
 
 Tall enough for a peep at the sea ; 
 
 A general dazzle of open blue ; 
 
 A breeze always blowing and playing 
 rat-tat 
 
 With the bow of the ribbon roimd your 
 hat; 
 
 A score of sheep that do nothing but 
 stare 
 
 Up or down at you everywhere ; 
 
 Three or four cattle that chew the cud 
 
 Lying about in a listless despair ; 
 
 A medrick that makes you look over- 
 head 
 
 With short, sharp scream, as he sights 
 his prey. 
 
 And, dropping straight and swift as 
 lead. 
 
 Splits the water with sudden thud ; — 
 
 This is Appledore by day. 
 
 A common island, you will say; 
 But stay a moment : only climb 
 Up to the highest rock of the isle. 
 Stand there alone for a little while. 
 And with gentle approaches it grows 
 
 sublime. 
 Dilating slowly as you win 
 A sensu from the silence to take it in. 
 
862 
 
 PICTURES TROM APPLEDOKE. 
 
 Bo \Tide the loneness, so lucid the air, 
 The granite beneath you so savagely 
 
 bare, 
 YoM well might think you were looking 
 
 down 
 From some sky-silenced mountain's 
 
 crown, 
 Wlipse waist-belt of pines is wont to tear 
 Locks of wool from the topmost cloud. 
 Only be sure you go alone. 
 For Grandeur is inaccessibly proud. 
 And never yet has backward thrown 
 Her Veil to feed the stare of a crowd ; 
 To more than one was never shown 
 That avpful front, nor is it fit 
 That she, Cothurnus-shod, stand bowed 
 Until the self-approving pit 
 Enjoy the gust of its own wit 
 In babbliijg plaudits cheaply loud ; 
 She hides her mountains and her sea 
 From the harriers of scenery, 
 Who hunt down sunsets, and huddle 
 
 and bay. 
 Mouthing and mumbling the dying day. 
 
 Trust me, 't is something to be cast 
 Face to face with one's Self at last. 
 To be taken out of the fuss and strife. 
 The endless clatter of plate and knife. 
 The bore of books and the bofes of the 
 
 street. 
 From the singular mess we agrcie to call 
 
 Life, 
 Where that is best which the most fools 
 
 vote is, 
 And planted firm on bnte's own two 
 
 feet 
 So nigh to the great warm heart of God, 
 You almost seem to feel it beat 
 Down from the sUnahine and up from 
 
 the sod; 
 To be compelled, as it were, to iiotice 
 7 All the beautiful changes and chanees 
 , Through which the landscape flits and 
 
 glances. 
 And to see how the face of common day 
 Is written all over with tender histories. 
 When you study it that intenser way 
 In which a lover looks at his mistress. 
 
 Till now you dreamed not what could 
 
 be done 
 With a bit of rock and a ray of sun ; 
 But look, how fade the lights and shades 
 Of keen bare edge and crevice deep ! 
 How doubtfully it fades and fades, 
 And glows again, yon craggy steeps 
 
 O'er which, through color's dreamiest 
 
 grades, 
 The musing sunbeams pause and creep ! 
 Now pink it blooms, now glimmers gray. 
 Now shadows to a filmy blue. 
 Tries one, tries all, and will not stay, 
 But flits from opal hue to hue, 
 And runs through every tenderest range 
 Of change that seems not to be change, 
 So rare the sweep, so nice the art. 
 That lays no stress on any part. 
 But shifts and lingers and persuades ; 
 So soft that sun-brush in the west. 
 That asks no costlier pigments' aids. 
 But mingling knobs, flaws, angles, dhits. 
 Indifferent of worst or best, 
 Enchants the cliSs with wraiths and 
 
 hints 
 And gracious preludings of tints, 
 Where all seems fixed, yet all evades, 
 And indefinably pervades 
 Perpetual movement with perpetual rest ! 
 
 Away northeast is Boone Island light ; 
 You might mistake it for a ship. 
 Only it stands too plumb upright, 
 And like the others does not slip 
 Behind the sea's unsteady brink ; 
 Though, if a cloud-shade chance to dip 
 Upon it a moment, 't will suddenly sink. 
 Levelled and lost in the darkened main, 
 Till the sun builds it suddenly up again. 
 As if with a rub of Aladdin's lamp. 
 On the mainland you see a misty camp 
 Of mountains pitched tumultuously : 
 That one looming so long and large 
 Is Saddleback, and that point you see 
 Over yon low and rounded marge. 
 Like the boss of a sleeping giant's targe 
 Laid over his breast, is Ossipee ; 
 That shadow there may be Kearsarge ; 
 That must be Great Haystack; I lovB 
 
 these names. 
 Wherewith the lonely farmer tames 
 Nature to mute companionship 
 With his own mind's domestic mood, 
 And strives the surly world to clip 
 In the arms of familiar habitude. 
 'T is well he could not contrive to make 
 A Saxon of Agamentious : 
 He glowers there to the north of us. 
 Wrapt in his blanket of blue haze, 
 Unconvertibly savage, and scorns to 
 
 take 
 The white man's baptism oi his ways. 
 
PICTURES FROM APPLEDOEE. 
 
 868 
 
 Him first 6n shore the coaster divines 
 Tlirough the early gray, and sees him 
 
 shake 
 The morning mist from his scalp-lock 
 
 of pines ; 
 Him first the skipper makes out in the 
 
 west, 
 Ere the earliest sunstreak shoots trem- 
 ulous, 
 Flashing with orange the palpitant lines 
 Of mutable billow, crest after crest, 
 And murmurs Agamenticiis/ 
 As if it were the name of a saint. 
 But is that a mountain playing olond. 
 Or a cloud playing mountain, just there, 
 
 so faint? 
 Look along over the low right shoulder 
 Of Agamenticus into that crowd 
 Of brassy thunderheads behind it ; 
 Now you have caught it, but, ere you 
 
 are older 
 By half an hour, you will lose it and 
 
 find it 
 A score of times ; while you look 't is 
 
 gone. 
 And, just as you 've given it up, anon 
 It is there again, till your wea^ eyes 
 Fancy they see it waver and rise, 
 With its brother clouds; it is Agio- 
 
 chook, 
 There if you seek not, and gone if you 
 
 look. 
 Ninety miles off as the eagle flies. 
 
 But mountains make not all the shore 
 The mainland shows to Appledore ; 
 Eight miles the heaving water spreads 
 To a long low coast with beaches and 
 
 heads 
 That run through unimapned mazes, 
 As the lights and shades and magical 
 
 hazes 
 Put them away or bring them near, 
 Shimmering, sketched out for thirty 
 
 miles 
 Between two capes that waver like 
 
 threads. 
 And sink in the ocean, and reappear, 
 Crumbled and melted to little isles, 
 "With filmy trees, that seem the mere 
 Half-fancies of drowsy atmosphere ; 
 And see the beach there, where it is 
 Flat as a threshing-floor, beaten and 
 
 With the flashing flails of weariless 
 
 seas. 
 How it lifts and looms to a precipice, 
 
 O'er whose square front, a dream, no 
 
 more. 
 
 The steepened sand-stripes seem to ^our, 
 A murmurless vision of cataract ; 
 You almost fancy you hear a roar. 
 Fitful and faint from the distance wan- 
 dering ; 
 But 'tis only the blind old ocean maun- 
 dering. 
 Baking the shingle to and fro. 
 Aimlessly clutching and letting go 
 The kelp-haired sedges of Appledore, 
 Slipping down with a sleepy forgetting. 
 And anon his ponderous shouldersetting, 
 With a deep, noai'se pant against Apple- 
 dore. 
 
 rv. 
 
 Eastward as far as the eye can see. 
 Still eastward, eastward, endlessly, 
 The sparkle and tremor of purple sea 
 That rises before you, a flickering hill, 
 On and on to the shut of the sky. 
 And beyond, you fancy it sloping until 
 The same multitudinous throb and thrill 
 That vibrate under your dizzy eye 
 In ripples of orange and pink are sent 
 Where the poppied sails doze on the 
 
 yard. 
 And the clumsy junk and proa lie 
 Sunk deep with precious woods and 
 
 nard. 
 Mid the palmy isles of the Orienti 
 Those leaning towers of clouded white 
 On the farthest brink of doubtful ocean. 
 That shorten and shorten out of sight, 
 Yet seem on the selfsame spot to stay. 
 Receding with a motionless motion, 
 Fading to dubious films of gray, 
 Lost, dimly found, then vanished 
 
 wholly, 
 Will rise again, the great world under. 
 First films, then towers, then high- 
 heaped clouds. 
 Whose Hearing outlines sharpen slowly 
 Into tall ships with cobweb shrouds. 
 That fill long Mongol eyes with wonder. 
 Crushing the violet wave to spray 
 Past some low headland of Cathay ;-— 
 What was that sigh which seemed M 
 
 near, 
 Chilling your fancy to the core f 
 'T is only the sad old sea yon hear. 
 That seems to seek forevermore 
 Something it cannot find, and so, 
 Sighing, seeks on, and tells its woe 
 To the pitiless breakers of Appledore. 
 
864 
 
 PICTURES FEOM APPLEDOEE. 
 
 How looks Appledore in a stonn ? 
 I have seen it when its crags seemed 
 
 frantic. 
 Butting against the mad Atlantic, 
 When surge on surge would heap enorme, 
 CUifs of emerald topped with snow, 
 That lifted and lifted, and then' let go 
 A great white avalanche of thunder, 
 
 A giinding, hlinding, deafening ire 
 Monadnock might have trembled under ; 
 Andtheisland, whose rook-rootspierce 
 
 below 
 To where they are wanned with the 
 central fire. 
 You could feel its granite fibres racked, 
 As it seemed to plunge with a shudder 
 
 and thrill 
 Eight at the breast of the swooping 
 hill, 
 And to rise again snorting a cataract 
 Of rage-froth from every cranny and 
 
 While the sea drew its breath in hoarse 
 and deep, 
 And the next vast breaker curled its 
 
 Gathering itself for a mightier leap. 
 
 N^orth, east, and south there are reefs 
 and breakers 
 You would never dream of in smooth 
 weather. 
 That toss and gore the sea for acres. 
 Bellowing and gnashing and snarling 
 together ; 
 Look northward, where Duck Island lies, 
 And over its crown you will see arise, 
 Against a background of slaty skies, 
 A row of pillars still and white. 
 That glimmer, and then are gone from 
 sight. 
 As if the moon should suddenly kiss. 
 While you crossed the gusty desert by 
 night. 
 The long colonnades of Persepolis ; 
 Look southward for White Island light, 
 The lantern stands ninety feet o'er the 
 tide; 
 'Pheve is first a half-mile of tumult and 
 
 fight. 
 Of dash and roar and tumble and fright. 
 And surging bewilderment wild and 
 wide. 
 Where the breakers struggle left and 
 right. 
 
 Then a mile or more of rushing sea, 
 And then the lighthouse slim and lone; 
 And whenever the weight of ocean ia 
 
 thrown 
 FuU and fair on White Island head, 
 
 A great mist-jotuu you will see 
 
 Lifting himself up sUently 
 High and huge o'er the lighthouse top. 
 With hands of wavering spray outspread. 
 
 Groping after the little tower. 
 
 That seems to shrink and shorten and 
 cower, 
 Till the monster's aims of a sudden drop. 
 
 And silently and fruitlessly 
 
 He sinks back into the sea. 
 
 You, meanwhile, where drenched you 
 stand, 
 Awaken once more to the rush and 
 roar, 
 And on the rock-point tighten your 
 
 hand. 
 As you turn and see a valley deep. 
 
 That was not there a moment before. 
 Suck rattling down between you and a 
 heap 
 Of toppling billow, whose instant fall 
 Must sink the whole island once foi 
 all, 
 Or watch the silenter, stealthier seas 
 Feeling their way to you more and 
 more ; 
 If they once should clutch you high as 
 
 the knees. 
 They would whirl you down like a sprig 
 
 of kelp. 
 Beyond all reach of hope or help ; — 
 And such in a storm is Appledore. 
 
 'T is the sight of a lifetime to behold 
 The great shorn sun as you see it now. 
 Across eight miles of undulant gold 
 That widens landward, weltered and 
 
 rolled, 
 With freaks of shadow and crimson 
 
 stains ; 
 To see the solid mountain brow 
 As it notches the disk, and gains and 
 
 gains 
 Until there comes, you soarceknowwhen, 
 A tremble of fire o'er the parted lips 
 Of cloud and mountain, which vanishes ; 
 
 then 
 From the body of day the sun-soti] 
 
THE WIND-HAKP. 
 
 865 
 
 And the face of earth darkens ; but now 
 
 the strips 
 Of western vapor, straight and thin, 
 From which the horizon's swervings win 
 A grace of contrast, take fire and burn 
 Like splinters of touchwood, whose 
 
 edges a mould 
 Of ashes o'erfeathers ; northward turn 
 For an instant, and let your eye grow 
 
 cold 
 On Agamentieus, and when once more 
 You look, 't is as if the land-breeze, 
 
 growing, 
 From the smouldering brands the film 
 
 were blowing. 
 And brightening them down to the very 
 
 core ; 
 Yet they momently cool and dampen 
 
 and deaden, 
 The crimson turns golden, the gold turns 
 
 leaden, 
 Hardening into one black bar 
 O'er which, from the hollow heaven afar, 
 Shoots a splinter of light like diamond. 
 Half seen, half fancied ; by and by 
 Beyond whatever is most beyond 
 In the uttermost waste of desert sky, 
 Grows a star ; 
 
 And over it, visible spirit of dew, — 
 Ah, stir not, speak not, hold your 
 
 breath, 
 Or surely the miracle vanisheth, — 
 The new moon, tranced in unspeakable 
 
 blue! 
 No frail illusion ; this were true, 
 Rather, to call it the canoe 
 Hollowed out of a single pearl, 
 That floats us from the Present's whirl 
 Back to those beings which were ours. 
 When wishes were winged things like 
 
 powers ! 
 Call it not light, that mystery tender. 
 Which broods upon the brooding ocean. 
 That flush of eostasied surrender 
 To indefinable emotion, 
 That glory, mellower than a mist 
 Of pearl dissolved with amethyst. 
 Which rims Square Rock, like what 
 
 they paint 
 Of mitigated heavenly splendor 
 Round the stem forehead of a Saint ! 
 
 No more a vision, reddened, largened. 
 The moon dips toward hermountain nest, 
 And, fringing it with palest argent. 
 Slow sheathes herself behind the mar- 
 gent 
 
 Of that long cloud-bar in the West, 
 Whose nether edge, erelong, you see 
 The silvery clirism in turn anoint, 
 And then the tiniest rosy point 
 Touched doubtfully and timidly 
 Into the dark blue's chilly strip. 
 As some mute, wondering thing below, 
 Awakened by the thrilling glow. 
 Might, looking up, see Dian dip 
 One lucent foot's delaying tip 
 In Latmian fountains long ago. 
 
 Knew you what silence was before ? 
 Here is no startle of dreaming bird 
 That sings in his sleep, or strives to 
 
 sing; 
 Here is no sough of branches stirred. 
 Nor noise of any living thing. 
 Such as one hears by lught on shore ; 
 Only, now and then, a sigh. 
 With fickle intervals between. 
 Sometimes far, and sometimes nigh. 
 Such as Andromeda might have heard, 
 And fancied the huge sea-beast unseen 
 Turning in sleep ; it is the sea 
 That welters and wavers uneasily 
 Round the lonely reefs of Appledore. 
 
 THE WIND-HAKP. 
 
 I TEEASUEE in Secret some long, fin* 
 hair 
 Of teuderest brown, but so inwardly 
 golden 
 I half used to fancy the sunshine there, 
 So shy, so shifting, so waywardly rare. 
 Was only caught for the moment an^ 
 holden 
 While I could say Dearest ! and kiss it, 
 
 and then 
 In pity let go to the summer again. 
 
 I twisted this magic in gossamer strings 
 
 Over a wind-harp's Delphian hollow •, 
 
 Then called to the idle breeze that 
 
 swings 
 All day in the pine-tops, and clings, and 
 
 sings 
 Mid the musical leaves, and said, "0, 
 
 follow 
 The will of those tears that deepen my 
 
 words, 
 And fly to my window to waken these 
 
 chords." 
 
866 
 
 AOT WIEDEESEHEN. — PALINODE. 
 
 So they trembled to life, and, doubt- 
 fully 
 Feeling their way to my sense, sang, 
 "Say whether 
 
 They sit all day by the greenwood tree, 
 
 The lover and loved, as it wont to 
 be. 
 When we — " But grief conquered, 
 and all together 
 
 They swelled such weird murmur as 
 haunts a shore 
 
 Of some planet dispeopled, — " Never- 
 more ! " 
 
 Then from deep in the past, as seemed 
 
 to me, 
 The strings gathered sorrow and sang 
 
 forsaken, 
 " One lover still waits 'neath the green- 
 wood tree. 
 But 't is dark," and they shuddered, 
 
 "where lieth she 
 Dark and cold! Forever must one 
 
 be taken 1 " 
 But I groaned, "O harp of aU ruth 
 
 bereft. 
 This Scripture is sadder, — ' the other 
 
 left' I" 
 
 There murmured, as if one strove to 
 
 And tears came instead ; then the sad 
 tones wandered 
 
 And faltered among the uncertain chords 
 
 In a troubled doubt between sorrow and 
 words ; 
 At last with themselves they ques- 
 tioned and pondered, 
 
 " Hereafter ? — who knoweth t" and so 
 they sighed 
 
 Down the long steps that lead to silence 
 and died. 
 
 ATTF WIEDEBSEHENI 
 
 The little gate was reached at last. 
 Half hid in lilacs down the lane ; 
 She pushed it wide, and, as she past, 
 A wistful look she backward cast. 
 And said, — " Auf wiedersehent" 
 
 With hand on latch, a vision white 
 
 Lingered reluctant, and again 
 Half doubting if she did aright. 
 
 Soft as the dews that fell that night. 
 She said, — " Auf wiedersehen I" 
 
 The lamp's clear gleam flits up the stair ; 
 
 I linger in delicious pain ; 
 Ah, in that chamber, whose rich air 
 To breathe in thought I scarcely dare. 
 
 Thinks she, — "Auf uiiedersehen /"I 
 
 'T is thirteen years ; once more I preaa 
 
 The turf that silences the lane ; 
 I hear the rustle of her dress, 
 I smell the lilacs, and — ah, yes, 
 I hear " Auf utiedersehen/" 
 
 Sweet piece of bashful maiden art ! 
 
 The English words had seemed too 
 fain. 
 But these — they drew us heart to heart, 
 Yet held us tenderly apart ; 
 
 She said, " Auf imedersehen I " 
 
 FAT.mODE. 
 
 AUTUMN. 
 
 Stili, thirteen years : 't is autumn now 
 On field and hill, in heart and brain ; 
 
 The naked trees at evening sough ; 
 
 The leaf to the forsaken bough 
 Sighs not, — " Aufwiedersehen I " 
 
 Two watched yon oriole's pendent dome, 
 That now is void, and dank with rain. 
 
 And one, — 0, hope more frail than 
 foam ! 
 
 The bird to his desertcrl home 
 Sings not, — " Aufwiedersehen I " 
 
 The loath gate swings with rusty creak ; 
 
 Once, parting there, we played at 
 pain; 
 There came a parting, when the weak 
 And fading lips essayed to speak 
 
 Vainly, — " Auf uiiedersehen ! " 
 
 Somewhere is comfort, somewhere faith. 
 
 Though thou in outer dark remain ; 
 One sweet sad voice ennobles death. 
 And still, for eighteen centuries saith 
 Softly, "Aufwiedersehen !" 
 
 If earth another grave must bear. 
 
 Yet heaven hath won a sweeter strail^ 
 And something whispers my despair. 
 That, from an orient chamber there. 
 Floats down, " Auf uiiedersehen I " 
 
AFTER THE BURIAL.^ THE DEAD HOUSE. 
 
 36T 
 
 APTER THE BXTRIAL. 
 
 Ths, faith is a goodly anchor ; 
 When skies are sweet as a psalm, 
 At the bows it lolls so stalwart, 
 In its bluff, broad-shouldered calm. 
 
 And when over breakers to leeward 
 The tattered surges are hurled. 
 It may keep our head to the tempest. 
 With its grip on the base of the world. 
 
 But, after the shipwreck, tell me 
 What help in its iron thews. 
 Still true to the broken hawser, 
 Deep down among sea-weed and ooze ? 
 
 In the breaking gulfs of sorrow, 
 When the helpless feet stretch out 
 And find in the deeps of darkness 
 Ho footing so solid as doubt, 
 
 Then better one spar of Memory, 
 One broken plank of the Past, 
 That our human heart may cling to, 
 Though hopeless of shore at last I 
 
 To the spirit its splendid conjectures, 
 To the flesh its sweet despair. 
 Its tears o'er the thin-worn locket 
 With its anguish of deathless hair I 
 
 Immortal ? I feel it and know it. 
 Who doubts it of such as she ? 
 But that is the pang's very secret, — 
 Immortal away from me. 
 
 There's a narrow ridge in the grave- 
 yard 
 Would scarce stay a child in his race. 
 But to me and my thought it is wider 
 Than the star-sown vague of Space. 
 
 Your logic, my friend, is perfbct, 
 Your moral most drearily true ; 
 But, since the earth clashed on her 
 
 coffin, 
 I keep hearing that, and not you. 
 
 Console if you will, I can bear it ; 
 'T is a well-meant alms of breath ; 
 But not all the preaching since Adam 
 Has made Death other than Death. 
 
 It is pagan ; but wait till you feel it, — 
 That jar of our earth, that dull shock 
 When the ploughshare of deeper pas- 
 sion 
 Tears down to our primitive rock. 
 
 Communion in spirit I Forgive me. 
 But 1, who am earthy and weak. 
 Would give all my incomes from dream" 
 
 land 
 For a touch of her hand on my cheek. 
 
 That little shoe in the comer. 
 So worn and wrinkled and brown, 
 With its emptiness confutes yon. 
 And argues your wisdom down. 
 
 THE DEAD HOUSE. 
 
 Here once my step was quickened. 
 Here beckoned the opening door, 
 
 And welcome thrilled from the tluesh- 
 old 
 To the foot it had known before. 
 
 A glow came forth to meet me 
 From the flame that laughed in the 
 grate. 
 
 And shadows adance on the ceiling. 
 Danced blither with mine for a mate. 
 
 "I claim you, old friend," yawned the 
 arm-chair, 
 "This comer, you know, is your 
 seat " ; 
 " Rest your slippers on me," beamed the 
 fender, 
 " I brighten at touch of your feet." 
 
 " We know the practised finger," 
 Said the books, "that seems lika 
 brain " ; 
 
 And the shy page rustled the secret 
 It had kept till I came again. 
 
 Sang the pillow, "My down once quiv- 
 ered 
 
 On nightingales' throats that flew 
 Through moonlit gardens of Hafiz 
 
 To gather quaint dreams for you." 
 
 Ah me, where the Past sowed heart's" 
 ease, 
 
 The Present plucks rue for us men 1 
 I come back : that scar unhealing 
 
 Was not in the churchyard then. 
 
 But, I think, the house is unaltered, 
 
 I will go and beg to look 
 At the rooms that were once familiar 
 
 To my life as its bed to a brook. 
 
368 
 
 A MOOD. — THE VOYAGE TO VINLAND. 
 
 Unaltered 1 Alas for the sameness 
 That makes the change but more ! 
 
 T is a dead man I see in the mirrors, 
 'T is his tread that chills the floor ! 
 
 To learn such a simple lesson, 
 Need I go to Paris and Rome, 
 
 That the many make the household, 
 Bat only one the home ? 
 
 'T was just a womanly presence, 
 
 An influence unexprest. 
 But a rose she had worn, on Tuy giave- 
 sod 
 
 Were more than long life with the rest ! 
 
 T was a smile, 't was a garment's rustle, 
 'T was nothing that I can phrase. 
 
 But the whole dumb dwelling grew 
 conseious, 
 And put on her looks and ways. 
 
 Were it mine I would close the shutters, 
 Like lids when the life is fled. 
 
 And the funeral fire should wind it. 
 This corpse of a home that is dead. 
 
 For it died that autumn morning 
 When she, its soul, was borne 
 
 To lie all dark on the hillside 
 That looks over woodland and com. 
 
 A MOOD. 
 
 I GO to the ridge in the forest 
 I haunted in days gone by, 
 But thou, Memory, pourest 
 No magical drop in mine eye. 
 Nor the gleam of the secret restorest 
 That hath faded from earth and sky : 
 A Presence autumnal and sober 
 Invests every rock and tree. 
 And the aureole of October 
 Lights the maples, but darkens me. 
 
 Pine in the distance. 
 
 Patient through sun or rain. 
 
 Meeting with graceful persistence. 
 
 With yielding but rooted resistance, 
 
 The northwind's wrench aad strain. 
 
 No memory of past existence 
 
 Brings thee pain ; 
 
 Right for the zenith heading. 
 
 Friendly with heat or cold, 
 
 Fhine anus to the influence spreading 
 
 Of the heavens, just from of old. 
 
 Thou only aspirest the more, 
 Unregretful tlie old leaves sheddingf 
 That fringed thee with music before. 
 And deeper thy roots embedding 
 In the grace and the beauty of yore ; 
 Thou sigh'st not, "Alas, I am older, 
 The green of last summer is sear ! " 
 But loftier, hopefuUer, bolder, 
 Winuest broader horizons each year. 
 
 To me 't is not cheer thou art singing: 
 
 There 's a sound of the sea, 
 
 mournful tree. 
 
 In thy boughs forever oUnging, 
 
 And the far-ofl' roar 
 
 Of waves on the shore 
 
 A shattered vessel flinging. 
 
 As thou musest still of the ocean 
 
 On which thou must float at last. 
 
 And seem'st to foreknow 
 
 The shipwreck's woe 
 
 And the sailor wrenched from the broken 
 
 mast. 
 Do I, in this vague emotion. 
 This sadness that wiU not pass, 
 Though the air throb with wings, 
 And the field laughs and sings. 
 Do I forebode, alas ! 
 The ship-building longer and wearier, 
 The voyage's struggle and strife, 
 And then the darker and drearier 
 Wreck of a broken life ! 
 
 THE VOYAGE TO VINLAND. 
 I. 
 
 bioen's beckoners. 
 Now Bibm, the son of Heriulf, had ill 
 
 Because the heart within him seethed 
 with blood 
 
 That would not be allayed with any toil, 
 
 Whether of war or hunting or the oar, 
 
 But was anhungered for some joy un- 
 tried : 
 
 For the brain grew not weary with the 
 limbs, 
 
 But, while they slept, still hammered 
 like a Troll, 
 
 Building all night a bridge of solid 
 dream 
 
 Between him and some purpose of hi« 
 soul, 
 
THE VOYAGE TO VINLAND. 
 
 369 
 
 Or will to find » purpose. With the 
 
 dawn 
 The sleep-kid timbers, crumhled to soft 
 
 mist, 
 Denied all foothold. But the dream 
 
 remained, 
 And every night with yellow-bearded 
 
 kings 
 His sleep was haunted, — mighty men 
 
 of old. 
 Once young as he, now ancient like the 
 
 gods. 
 And safe as stars in all men's memo- 
 ries. 
 Strange sagas read he in their sea-blue 
 
 eyes 
 Cold as the sea, grandly compassionless ; 
 Like life, they made him eager and then 
 
 mocked. 
 Nay, broad awake, they would not let 
 
 him be; 
 They shaped themselves gigantic in the 
 
 mist. 
 They rose far-beckoning in the lamps of 
 
 heaven. 
 They whispered invitation in the winds, 
 And breath came from them, mightier 
 
 than the wind. 
 To strain the lagging sails of his resolve, 
 TUl that grew passion which before was 
 
 wish. 
 And youth seemed all too costly to be 
 
 staked 
 On the soiled cards wherewith men 
 
 played their game. 
 Letting Time pocket up the larger life. 
 Lost with base gain of raiment, food, 
 
 and roof. 
 "What helpeth lightness of the feet?" 
 
 they said, 
 "Oblivion runs with swifter foot than 
 
 they; 
 Or strength of sinew ? New men come 
 
 as strong, 
 And those sleep nameless ; or renown in 
 
 war? 
 Swords grave no name on the long- 
 
 - memoried i^ock 
 But moss shall hide it ; they alone who 
 
 wring 
 Some secret purpose from the unwilling 
 
 gods 
 Survive in song for yet a little while 
 To vex, like us, the dreams of later 
 
 men. 
 Ourselves a dream, and dreamlike all we 
 
 did." 
 
 n. 
 
 thokwald's lay. 
 
 So Bibrn went comfortless but for his 
 thought, 
 
 And by his thought the more discom- 
 forted, 
 
 Till Eric Thurlson kept his Yule-tide 
 
 And thither came he, called among the ' 
 
 rest, ; 
 
 Silent, lone-minded, a church-door to 
 
 mirth : 
 But, ere deep draughts forbade such 
 
 serious song 
 As the grave Skald might chant nor 
 
 after blush. 
 Then Eric looked at Thorwald where he 
 
 sat 
 Mute as a cloud amid the stormy hall, 
 And said : "0 Skald, sing now an olden 
 
 song. 
 Such as our fathers heard who led great 
 
 lives ; 
 And, as the bravest on a shield is borne 
 Along the waving host that shouts him 
 
 king, 
 So rode their thrones upon the throng- 
 ing seas ! " 
 Then the old man arose ; white-haired 
 
 he stood. 
 White -bearded, and with eyes that 
 
 looked afar 
 From their still region of perpetual snow. 
 Beyond the little smokes and stirs of 
 
 men : 
 His head was bowed with gathered 
 
 flakes of years. 
 As winter bends the sea-foreboding pine. 
 But something triumphed in his brow 
 
 and eye. 
 Which whoso saw it could not see and 
 
 crouch : 
 Loud rang the emptied beakers as he 
 
 mused. 
 Brooding his eyried thoughts ; then, as 
 
 an eagle 
 Circles smooth-winged above the wind- 
 vexed woods, 
 So wheeled his soul into the air of song 
 High o'er the stormy hall ; and thus he 
 
 sang: 
 "The fletcher for his arrow-shaft picks 
 
 out 
 Wood closest -grained, long -seasoned, 
 
 straight as light ; 
 And from a quiver full of such as these 
 
370 
 
 THE VOYAGE TO VINLAN0. 
 
 The wary bowman, matched against his 
 
 peers, 
 Long doubting, singles yet once more 
 
 the best. 
 Who is it needs such flawless shafts as 
 
 Fate? 
 ■What archer of his aiTOWs is so choice, 
 Or hits the white so surely ? They are 
 
 men. 
 The chosen of her qniver; nor for her 
 Will every reed suffice, or cross-grained 
 
 stick 
 At random from life's vulgar fagot 
 
 plucked ; 
 Such answer household ends; but she 
 
 will have 
 Souls straight and clear, of toughest 
 
 fibre, sound 
 Down to the heart of heart ; from these 
 
 she strips 
 All needless stuff, all sapwood ; seasons 
 
 them; 
 From circumstance untoward feathers 
 
 plucks 
 Crampled and cheap ; and barbs with 
 
 iron will : 
 The hour that passes is her quiver-boy : 
 When she draws bow, 't is not across 
 
 the wind, 
 Nor 'gainst the sun her haste-snatched 
 
 arrow sings, 
 For sun and wind have plighted faith 
 
 to her : 
 Ere men have heard the sinew twang, 
 
 behold 
 In the butt's heart her trembling mes- 
 senger ! 
 
 "The song is old and simple that I 
 
 sing; 
 But old and simple are despised as 
 
 cheap. 
 Though hardest to achieve of human 
 
 things : 
 Good were the days of yore, wheft men 
 
 were tried 
 By ring of shields, as now by ring of 
 
 words ; 
 But while the gods are left, and hearts 
 
 of men. 
 And wide-doored ocean, still the days 
 
 are good. 
 Still o'er the earth hastes Opportunity, 
 Seeking the hardy soul that seeks for 
 
 her. 
 Be not abroad, nor deaf with household 
 
 cares 
 
 That chatter loudest as they mean the 
 
 least ; 
 Swift- willed is thrice- willed ; late means 
 
 nevermore ; 
 Impatient is her foot, nor turns again." 
 He ceased; upon his bosom sank his 
 
 beard 
 Sadly, as one who oft had seen her pass 
 Nor stayed her : and forthwith the 
 
 frothy tide 
 Of interrupted wassail roared along ; 
 Kut Biorn, the son of Heriulf, sat apart 
 Mu-sing, and, with his eyes upon the fire, 
 Saw shapes of arrows, lost as soon as seen. 
 "A ship," he muttered, "is a winged 
 
 bridge 
 That leadeth every way to man's desire, 
 And ocean the wide gate to manful 
 
 luck"; 
 And then with that resolve his heart 
 
 was bent. 
 Which, like a humming shaft, through 
 
 many a stripe 
 Of day and night, across the unpath- 
 
 wayed seas 
 Shot the brave prow that cut on Vin- 
 
 land sands 
 The first rune in the Saga of the West. 
 
 III. 
 
 GtTDKIDA'S PROPHECT. 
 
 Four weeks they sailed, a speck in sky- 
 shut seas. 
 Life, where was never life that knew 
 
 itself. 
 But tumbled lubber-like in blowing 
 
 whales ; 
 Thought, where the like had never been 
 
 before 
 Since Thought primeval brooded the 
 
 abyss ; 
 Alone as men were never in the world. 
 They saw the icy foundlings of the sea, 
 White cliffs of silence, beautifiil by day, 
 Or looming, sudden-perilous, at night 
 In monstrous hush ; or sometimes in the 
 
 dark 
 The waves broke ominous with paly 
 
 gleams 
 Crushed by the prow in sparkles of cold 
 
 fire. 
 Then came green stripes of sea that 
 
 promised land 
 But brought it not, and on the thirtietb 
 
 day 
 
THE VOYAGE TO VIHLAND. 
 
 371 
 
 Low in the "West were wooded shores 
 like cloud. 
 
 They shouted as men shout with sud- 
 den hope ; 
 
 But Biom was silent, such strange loss 
 there is 
 
 Between the dream's fulfilment and the 
 dream, 
 
 Such sad abatement in the goal attained. 
 
 Then Gudrida, that was a prophetess, 
 
 Rapt with strange influence from At- 
 lantis, sang: 
 
 Her words : the vision was the dream- 
 ing shore's. 
 
 Looms there the New Land : 
 Locked in the shadow 
 Long the gods shut it, 
 Niggards of newness 
 They, the o'er-old. 
 
 Little it looks there. 
 Slim as a cloud-streak ; 
 It shall fold peoples 
 Even as a shepherd 
 Foldeth his flock. 
 
 Silent it sleeps now ; 
 Great ships shall seek it, 
 Swarming as salmon ; 
 Noise of its numbers 
 Two seas shall hear. 
 
 , Man from the Northland, 
 Man from the Southland, 
 Haste empty-handed ; 
 No more than manhood 
 Bring they, and hands. 
 
 Dark hair and fair hair, 
 Eed blood and blue blood. 
 There shall be mingled ; 
 Force of the ferment 
 Makes the New Man. 
 
 Pick of all kindreds. 
 King's blood shall theirs be, 
 Shoots of the eldest 
 Stock upon Midgard, 
 Sons of the poor. 
 
 Them waits the New Land; 
 They shall subdue it. 
 Leaving their sons' sons 
 Space for the body, 
 Space for the souL 
 
 Leaving their sons' sons 
 All things save song-craft, 
 Plant long in growing. 
 Thrusting its tap-root 
 Deep in the Gone. 
 
 Here men shall grow up 
 Strong from self-helping ; 
 Eyes for the present 
 Bring they as eagles'. 
 Blind to the Past. 
 
 They shall make over 
 Creed, law, and custom; 
 Driving-men, doughty 
 Builders of empire, 
 Buildei-3 of men. 
 
 Here is no singer ; 
 What should they sing off 
 They, the unresting? 
 Labor is ugly. 
 Loathsome is change. 
 
 These the old gods hate. 
 Dwellers in dream-land. 
 Drinking delusion 
 Out of the empty 
 Skull of the Past. 
 
 Thfese hate the old gods. 
 Waning against them j 
 Fatal to Odin, 
 Here the wolf Fenrir 
 Lieth in wail. 
 
 Here the gods' Twilight 
 Gathers, earth -gulfing ; 
 Blackness of battle, 
 Fierce till the Old World 
 Flare up in fire. 
 
 Doubt not, my Northmen ; 
 Fate loves the fearless ; 
 Fools, when their roof-tree 
 Falls, think it doomsday ; 
 Firm stands the sky. 
 
 Over the ruin 
 See I the promise ; 
 Crisp waves the cornfield. 
 Peace-walled, the homestead 
 Waits open-doored. 
 
 There lies the New Land ; 
 Yours to behold it. 
 Not to possess it ; 
 Slowly Fate's perfect 
 Fulness shall come. 
 
872 
 
 MAHMOOD THE IMAGE-BREAKEE. 
 
 Then from your strong loins 
 Seed shall be scattered, 
 Men to the marrow. 
 Wilderness tamers, 
 Walkers of waves. 3 
 
 Jealous, the old gods 
 Shut it in shadow; 
 Wisely they ward it. 
 Egg of the serpent. 
 Bane to them all. 
 
 Stronger and sweeter 
 Kew gods shall seek it 
 Fill it with man-folk 
 Wise for the future. 
 Wise from the past 
 
 Here all is all men's, 
 Save only Wisdom ; 
 King he that wins her ; 
 Him hail they helmsman. 
 Highest of heart. 
 
 Might makes no master 
 Here any longer ; 
 Sword is not swayer ; 
 Here e'en the gods are 
 Selfish no more. 
 
 Walking the New Earth, 
 Lo, a divine One 
 Greets all men godlike, 
 Calls them his kindred. 
 He, the Divine. 
 
 Is it Thor's hammer 
 Bays in his right hand ? 
 Weaponless walks he ; 
 It is the White Christ, 
 Stronger than Thor. 
 
 Here shall a realm rise 
 Mighty in manhood ; 
 Justice and Mercy 
 Here set a stronghold 
 Safe without spear. 
 
 Weak was the Old World, 
 Wearily war-fenced ; 
 Out of its ashes, 
 Strong as the morning, 
 Springeth the New. 
 
 Beauty of promise. 
 Promise of beauty. 
 
 Safe in the silence 
 Sleep thou, till cometh 
 Light to thy lids ! 
 
 Thee shall awaken 
 Flame from the furnace, 
 Bath of all brave ones. 
 Cleanser of conscience. 
 Welder of wiU. 
 
 Lowly shall love thee, 
 Thee, open-handed! 
 Stalwart shall shield thee. 
 Thee, worth their best blood, 
 Waif of the West! 
 
 Then shall come singers. 
 Singing no swan-song. 
 Birth-carols, rather, 
 Meet for the man child 
 Mighty of bone. 
 
 MAHMOOD THE IMAGE-BKRAKIIC. 
 
 Old events have modem meanings; 
 
 only that survives 
 Of past history which finds kindred in 
 
 all hearts and lives. 
 
 Mahmood once, the idol-breaker, spread- 
 er of the Faith, 
 
 Was at Sumnat tempted sorely, as the 
 legend saith. 
 
 In the great pagoda's centre, monstrous 
 
 and abhorred, 
 Granite on a throne of granite, sat the 
 
 temple's lord. 
 
 Mahmood paused a moment, silenced by 
 
 the silent face 
 That, with eyes of stone unwavering, 
 
 awed the ancient place. 
 
 Then the Brahmins knelt before him, 
 
 by his doubt made bold, 
 Pledging for their idol's ransom countless 
 
 gems and gold. 
 
 Gold was yellow dirt to Mahmood, but 
 
 of precious use, 
 Since from it the roots of power suck a 
 
 potent juice. 
 
INVITA MINEKVA. — THE FOUNTADT OF YOUTH. 
 
 873 
 
 *• 'Were yon stone alone in question, this 
 
 would please me well," 
 Mahmood said ; "but, with the block 
 
 there, I my truth must sell. 
 
 " "Wealth and rule slip down with For- 
 tune, as her wheel turns round ; 
 
 He who keeps his faith, he only cannot 
 be discrowned. 
 
 "Little were a change of station, loss 
 
 of life or crown, 
 But the wreck were past retrieving if the 
 
 Man fell down. 
 
 So his iron mace he lifted, smote with 
 
 might and main. 
 And the idol, on the pavement tumbling, 
 
 burst in twain. 
 
 Luck obeys the downright striker ; from 
 
 the hollow core, 
 Fifty times the Brahmins' ofiTer deluged 
 
 all the floor. 
 
 mVITA MINEEVA. 
 
 The Bardling came where by a river 
 grew 
 
 The pennoned reeds, that, as the west- 
 wind blew. 
 
 Gleamed and sighed plaintively, as if 
 they knew 
 
 What music slept enchanted in each 
 stem. 
 
 Till Pan should choose some happy one 
 of them. 
 
 And with wise lips enlife it through and 
 through. 
 
 The Bardling thought, " A pipe is all I 
 
 need ; 
 Once I have sought me out a clear, 
 
 smooth reed. 
 And shaped it to my fancy, I proceed 
 To breathe such strains as, yonder mid 
 
 the rocks. 
 The strange youth blows, that tends 
 
 Admetus' flocks. 
 And all the maidens shall to me pay 
 
 heed." 
 
 The summer day he spent in questfiil 
 
 round, 
 And many a reed he marred, but never 
 
 found 
 
 A conjuring-spell to free the imprisoned 
 
 sound ; 
 At last his vainly wearied limbs he laid 
 Beneath asacred laurel's flickering shade, 
 And sleep about his brain her cobweb 
 
 wound. 
 
 Then strode the mighty Mother through 
 
 his dreams. 
 Saying: "The reeds along a thousand 
 
 streams 
 Are mine, and who is he that plots and 
 
 schemes 
 To snare the melodies wherewith my 
 
 breath 
 Sounds through the double pipes of Life 
 
 and Death, 
 Atoning what to men mad discord 
 
 seems ? 
 
 "He seeks not me, but I seek oft in 
 
 vain 
 For him who shall my voiceful reeds 
 
 constrain. 
 And make them utter their melodious 
 
 pain ; 
 He flies the immortal gift, for well he 
 
 knows 
 His life of life must with its overflows 
 Flood the unthankful pipe, nor come 
 
 again. 
 
 "Thou fool, who dost my harmless 
 
 subjects wrong, 
 'T is not the singer's wish that makes 
 
 the song : 
 The rhythmic beauty wanders dumb, 
 
 how long. 
 Nor stoops to any daintiest instrument, 
 Till, found its mated lips, their sweet 
 
 consent 
 Makes mortal breath than Time and 
 
 Fate more strong." 
 
 THE FOTTNTAIN OF YOUTH. 
 
 I. 
 
 'T IS a woodland enchanted ! 
 By no sadder spirit 
 Than blackbirds and thrushes, 
 That whistle to cheer it 
 All day in the bushes, 
 This woodland is haunted ; 
 
 And in a small clearings 
 
374 
 
 THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 
 
 Beyond sight or hearing 
 
 Of human annoyance, 
 
 The little fount gushes. 
 
 First smoothly, then dashes 
 
 And gurgles and flashes. 
 
 To the maples and ashes 
 
 Confiding its joyanoe ; 
 
 Unconscious confiding. 
 
 Then, silent and glossy, 
 
 Slips winding and hiding 
 
 Through alder-stems mossy. 
 
 Through gossamer roots 
 
 Fine as nerves, 
 
 That tremble, as shoots 
 
 Through their magnetized curves 
 
 The allurement delicious 
 
 Of the water's capricious 
 
 Thrills, gushes, and swerves. 
 
 'Tis a woodland enchanted ! 
 I am writing no fiction ; 
 And this fount, its sole daughter. 
 To the woodland was granted 
 To pour holy water 
 And win benediction ; 
 In summer-noon flushes. 
 When all the wood hushes, 
 Blue dragon-flies knitting 
 To and fro in the sun, 
 With sidelong jerk flitting 
 Sink down on the rushes. 
 And, motionless sitting, 
 Hear it bubble and run, 
 Hear its low inward sinking, 
 With level wings swinging 
 On green tasselled rushes. 
 To dream in the sun. 
 
 III. 
 
 'T is a woodland enchanted ! 
 The great August noonlight, 
 Tnrough myriad rifts slanted. 
 Leaf and bole thickly sprinkles 
 With flickering gold ; 
 There, in warm August gloaming, 
 With quick, silent brightenings. 
 From meadow-lands roaming. 
 The firefly twinkles 
 His fitful heat-lightnings ; 
 There the magical moonlight 
 With meek, saintly glory 
 Steeps summit and wold ; 
 There whippoorwills plain in the soli- 
 tudes hoary 
 
 With lone cries that wandw 
 
 Now hither, now yonder. 
 
 Like souls doomed of old 
 
 To a mild purgatory ; 
 
 But through noonlight and moonlighll 
 
 The little fount tinkles 
 
 Its silver saints' -bells, 
 
 That no sprite ill-boding 
 
 May make his abode in 
 
 Those innocent dells. 
 
 'T is a woodland enchanted ! 
 When the phebe scarce whistles 
 Once an hour to his fellow. 
 And, where red lilies flaunted, 
 Balloons from the thistles 
 Tell summer's disasters, 
 The butterflies yellow. 
 As caught in an eddy 
 Of air's silent ocean, 
 Sink, waver, and steady 
 O'er goats'-beard and astera, 
 Like souls of dead flowers. 
 With aimless emotion 
 Still lingering unready 
 To leave their old bowers ; 
 And the fount is no dumber, 
 But still gleams and flashes, 
 And gurgles and plashes. 
 To the measure of summer j 
 The butterflies hear it, 
 And spell-bound are holden. 
 Still balancing near it 
 O'er the goats'-beard so golden. 
 
 'T is a woodland enchanted! 
 A vast silver willow, 
 I know not how planted, 
 (This wood is enchanted. 
 And full of surprises,) 1 
 
 Stands stemming a billow, 
 A motionless billow 
 Of ankle-deep mosses ; 
 Two great roots it crosses 
 To make a round basin. 
 And there the Fount rises ; 
 Ah, too pure a mirror 
 For one sick of error 
 To see his sad face in 1 
 No dew-drop is stiller 
 In its lupin-leaf .setting 
 Than this water moss-bounded; 
 But a tiny sand-pillar 
 
THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 
 
 875 
 
 From the bottom keeps jetting, 
 And mermaid ne'er sounded 
 Through the wreaths of a shell, 
 Down amid crimson dulses 
 In some dell of the ocean, 
 A melody sweeter 
 Than the delicate pulses, 
 The soft, noiseless metre, 
 'I'he pause and the swell 
 Of that musical motion ; 
 I recall it, not see it ; 
 C'ould vision be clearer 1 
 Half I 'm fain to draw nearer. 
 Half tempted to flee it ; 
 The sleepiug Fast wake not. 
 Beware I 
 
 One forward step take not, 
 Ah I break not 
 That quietude rare I 
 By my step uiiaffrlghted 
 A thrush hops before it. 
 And o'er it 
 
 A birch hangs delighted, 
 Dipping, dipping, dipping its tremu- 
 lous hair ; 
 Pure as the fountain, once 
 I came to the place, 
 (How dare I draw nearer?) 
 I bent o'er its mirror, 
 And saw a child's face 
 Mid locks of bright gold in it ; 
 Yes, pure as this fountain once,— 
 Since, how much error ! 
 Too holy a mirror 
 For the man to behold in it 
 His harsh, bearded countenance 1 
 
 'T is a woodland enchanted I 
 
 Ah, fly unreturning ! 
 
 Yet stay ; — 
 
 ■T is a woodland enchanted, 
 
 Where wonderful chances 
 
 Have sway ; 
 
 Luck flees from the cold one 
 
 But leaps to the bold one 
 
 Half-way ; 
 
 Why should I be daunted ? 
 
 Still the smooth mirror glances. 
 
 Still the amber sand dances. 
 
 One look, — then away 1 
 
 magical glass 1 
 
 Canst keep in thy bosom 
 
 Shades of leaf and of blossom 
 
 When summer days pass. 
 
 So that when thy wave hardens 
 
 It shapes as it pleases, 
 
 Unharmed by the breezes. 
 
 Its fine hanging gardens "i 
 
 Hast those in thy keeping, 
 
 And canst not uncover, 
 
 Enchantedly sleeping. 
 
 The old shade of thy lover ? 
 
 It is there ! I have found it ! 
 
 He wakes, the long sleeper ! 
 
 The pool is grown deeper. 
 
 The sand dance is ending, 
 
 The while floor sinks, blending 
 
 With skies that below me 
 
 Are deepening and bending. 
 
 And a child's face alone 
 
 That seems not to know me. 
 
 With hair that fades golden 
 
 In the heaven-glow round it, 
 
 Looks up at my own : 
 
 Ah, glimpse through the poital 
 
 That leads to the throne. 
 
 That opes the child's olden 
 
 Regions Elysian ! 
 
 Ah, too holy vision 
 
 For thy skirts to be holden 
 
 By soiled hand of mortal 1 
 
 It wavers, it scatters, 
 
 'Tis gone past recalling I 
 
 A tear's sudden falling 
 
 The magic cup shatters, 
 
 Breaks the spell of the waters. 
 
 And the sand cone once more. 
 
 With a ceaseless renewing. 
 
 Its dance is pursuing 
 
 On the silvery floor. 
 
 O'er and o'er, 
 
 With a noiseless and ceaseless renewing 
 
 'T is a woodland enchanted 1 
 If you ask me, Where is it f 
 I can but make answer, 
 " "r is past my disclosing ; '' 
 Not to choice is it granted 
 By sure paths to visit 
 The still pool enclosing 
 Its blithe little dancer ; 
 But in some day, the rarest 
 Of many Septembers, 
 When the pulses of air rest. 
 And all things lie dreaming 
 In drowsy haze steaming 
 From the wood's glowing embers^ 
 Then, sometimes, unheeding, 
 And asking not whither, 
 By a sweet inward leading 
 
876 
 
 YUSSOUF. — THE DAEKENED MIND. 
 
 My feet are drawn thither, 
 
 And, looking with awe in the magical 
 
 mirror, 
 I see through my tears. 
 Half doubtful of seeing, 
 The face unperverted, 
 The warm golden heing 
 Of a child of five years ; 
 And spite of the mists and the error. 
 And the days overcast, 
 Can feel that I walk undeserted, 
 But forever attended 
 By the glad heavens that bended 
 O'er the innocent past ; 
 Toward fancy or truth 
 Doth the sweet vision win me ? 
 Dare I think that I cast 
 In the fountain of youth 
 The fleeting reflection 
 Of some bygone perfection 
 That still lingers in me 1 
 
 TTTSSOtTP. 
 
 A STEANGEE Came one night to Yus- 
 
 souf 's tent, 
 Saying, "Behold one outcast and in 
 
 dread, 
 Against whose life the bow of power is 
 
 bent. 
 Who flies, and hath not where to lay 
 
 his head ; 
 I come to thee for shelter and for food, 
 To Yussouf, called through all our tribes 
 'The Good."' 
 
 "This tent is mine," said Yussouf, "but 
 
 no more 
 Than it is God's ; come in, and be at 
 
 peace ; 
 Freely shalt thou partake of all my 
 
 store 
 As I of His who buildeth over these 
 Our tents his glorious roof of night and 
 
 day. 
 And at whose door none ever yet heard 
 
 Nay." 
 
 So Yussouf entertained his guest that 
 
 night, 
 And, waking him ere day, said : "Here 
 
 is gold ; 
 My swiftest horse is saddled for thy 
 
 flight ; 
 Depart before the prying day grow 
 
 bold." 
 
 As one lamp lights aiLother, nor gnma 
 
 less, 
 So nobleness enkindleth nobleness. 
 
 That inward light the stranger's face 
 
 made grand. 
 Which shines from all self-conquest; 
 
 kneeling low. 
 He bowed his forehead upon Yussouf 's 
 
 hand. 
 Sobbing : "0 Sheik, I cannot leave thee 
 
 so; 
 I will repay thee ; all this thou hast 
 
 done 
 Unto that Ibrahim who slew thy son I " 
 
 "Take thrice the gold," said Yussouf, 
 
 "for with thee 
 Into the desert^ never to return, 
 My one black thought shall ride away 
 
 from me ; 
 Firat-bom, for whom by day and night 
 
 I yearn, 
 Balanced and just are all of God's de< 
 
 crees ; 
 Thou art avenged, my first-born, sleep 
 
 in peace I " 
 
 THE DARKENED MIND. 
 
 The fire is burning clear and blithely, 
 Pleasantly whistles the winter wind ; 
 We are about thee, thy friends and kin- 
 dred. 
 On us all flickers the firelight kind ; 
 There thou sittest in thy wonted comer 
 Lone and awful in thy darkened mind. 
 
 There thou sittest ; now and then thou 
 
 meanest ; 
 Thou dost talk with what we cannot see, 
 Lookest at us with an eye so doubtful. 
 It doth put us very far from thee ; 
 There thou sittest ; we would fain be 
 
 nigh thee. 
 But we know that it can never be. 
 
 We can touch thee, still we are no 
 
 nearer ; 
 Gather round thee, still thou art alone ; 
 The wide chasm of reason is between us ; 
 Thou confutest kindness with a moan ; 
 We can speak to thee, and thou canst 
 
 answer. 
 Like two prisoners through a wall of 
 
 stone. 
 
WHAT KABBI JEHOSHA SAID. — A WINTEK-EVEKING HYMN. 377 
 
 Hardest heart would call it very awful 
 When thou look'st at us and seest — 0, 
 
 what? 
 If we move away, thou sittest gazing 
 With those vague eyes at the selfsame 
 
 spot, 
 And thou mutterest, thy hands thou 
 
 wringest, 
 Seeing something, — us thou seest not. 
 
 Strange it is that, in this open bright- 
 ness. 
 
 Thou shouldst sit in such a narrow cell ; 
 
 Strange it is that thou shouldst be so 
 lonesome 
 
 Where those are who love thee all so 
 well; 
 
 l^ot so much of thee is left among us 
 
 As the hum outliving the hushed bell. 
 
 WHAT RABBI JEHOSHA SAID. 
 
 Rabbi Jehosha used to say 
 That God made angels every day, 
 Perfect as Michael and the rest 
 First brooded in creation's nest, 
 Whose only office was to cry 
 Hosarma I once, and then to die ; 
 Or rather, with Life's essence blent. 
 To be led home from banishment. 
 
 Eabbi Jehosha had the skill 
 
 To know that Heaven is in God's will ; 
 
 And doing that, though for a space 
 
 One heart-beat long, may win a grace 
 
 As full of grandeur and of glow 
 
 As Princes of the Chariot know. 
 
 'T were glorious, no doubt, to be 
 One of the strong-winged Hierarchy, 
 To burn with Seraphs, or to shine 
 With Cherubs, deathlessly divine ; 
 Yet I, perhaps, poor earthly clod. 
 Could 1 forget myself in God, 
 Could I but find my nature's clew 
 Simply as birds and blossoms do. 
 And but for one rapt moment know 
 'T is Heaven must come, not we must go, 
 Should win my place as near the throne 
 As the pearl-angel of its zone, 
 And God would listen mid the throng 
 For my one breath of perfect song, 
 That, in its simple human way. 
 Bald all the Host of Heaven could say. 
 
 ALL-SADJTS. 
 
 One feast, of holy days the crest, 
 I, though no Churchman, love to 
 
 All-Saints, — the unknown good thai 
 rest 
 In God's still memory folded deep ; 
 The bravely dumb that did their deed, 
 And scorned to blot it with a name, 
 Men of the plain heroic breed. 
 That loved Heaven's silence more than 
 fame. 
 
 Such lived not in the past alone, 
 
 But thread to-day the unheeding 
 street. 
 And stairs to Sin and Famine known 
 
 Sing with the welcome of their feet ; 
 The den they enter grows a shrine, 
 
 The grimy sash an oriel bums. 
 Their cup of water warms like wine, 
 
 Their speech is filled from heavenly 
 
 About their brows to me appears 
 
 An aureole traced in tenderest light, 
 The rainbow-gleam of smiles through 
 tears 
 
 In dying eyes, by them made bright. 
 Of souls that shivered on the edge 
 
 Of that chill ford repassed no more, 
 And in their mercy felt the pledge 
 
 And sweetness of the farther shore. 
 
 A WINTER-EVENrNG HYMN TO MY 
 FIBK 
 
 Beauty on my hearth-stone blazing I 
 To-night the triple Zoroaster 
 Shall my prophet be and master : 
 To-night will I pure Magian be. 
 Hymns to thy sole honor raising. 
 While thou leapest fast and faster. 
 Wild with self-delighted glee, 
 Or sink'st low and glowest faintly 
 As an aureole still and saintly, 
 Keeping cadence to my praising 
 Thee ! still thee ! and only thee 1 
 
 Elfish daughter of Apollo ! 
 
 Thee, from thy father stolen and hoond 
 
878 
 
 A WINTEE-EVENING HYMN TO MY FIRE. 
 
 To serve in Vulqan's clangorous smithy 
 
 Prometheus (primal Yankee) found, 
 
 And, when he had tampered with thee, 
 
 (Too confiding little maid !) 
 
 In a reed's precarious hollow 
 
 To our frozen earth conveyed : 
 
 For he swore I know not what ; 
 
 Endless ease should he thy lot, 
 
 Pleasure that should riever falter. 
 
 Lifelong play, and not a duty 
 
 Save to hover o'er the altar. 
 
 Vision of celestial beauty. 
 
 Fed with precious woods and spices ; 
 
 Then, perfidious ! having got 
 
 Thee in the net of his devices. 
 
 Sold thee into endless slavery, 
 
 Made thee a drudge to boil the pot. 
 
 Thee, Helios' daughter, who dost bear 
 
 His likeness in thy golden hair ; 
 
 Thee, by nature wild and wavery, 
 
 Palpitating, evanescent 
 
 As the shade of Dian's crescent. 
 
 Life, motion, gladness, everywhere t 
 
 111. 
 
 Fathom deep men bury thee 
 In the furnace dark and still, 
 There, with dreariest mockery. 
 Making thee eat, against thy will. 
 Blackest Pennsylvanian stone ; 
 But thou dost avenge thy doom. 
 For, from out thy catacomb. 
 Day and night thy wrath is blown 
 In a withering simoom. 
 And, adown that cavern drear, 
 Thy black pitfall in the floor, 
 Staggers the lusty antique cheer. 
 Despairing, and is seen no more I 
 
 Elfish I may rightly name thee ; 
 We enslave, but cannot tame thee ; 
 With fierce snatches, now and then. 
 Thou pluckest at thy right again, 
 And thy down-trod instincts savage 
 To stealthy insurrection creep, 
 Wliile thy wittol masters sleep, 
 And burst in undiscertiing ravage : 
 Then how thou shak'st thy bacchant 
 
 locks ! 
 "While brazen pulses, far and near, 
 Throb thick and thicker, wild with fear 
 And dread conjecture, till the drear 
 Disordered clangor every steeple rocks ! 
 
 But when we make a friend of thee, 
 And admit thee to the hall 
 On our nights of festival. 
 Then, Cinderella, who could see 
 In thee the kitchen's stunted thrall ? 
 Once more a Princess lithe and tall. 
 Thou dancest with a whispering tread. 
 While the bright marvel of thy head 
 In crinkling gold floats all abroad, 
 And gloriously dost vindicate 
 The legend of thy lineage great, 
 Earth-exiled daughter of the Pythian 
 
 god! 
 Kow in the ample chimney-place. 
 To honor thy acknowledged race. 
 We crown thee high with laurel good. 
 Thy shining father's sacred wood. 
 Which, guessing thy ancestral right. 
 Sparkles and snaps its dumb delight. 
 And, at thy touch, poor outcast one, 
 Feels through its gladdened fibres go 
 The tingle and thrill and vassal glow 
 Of instincts loyal to the sun. 
 
 VI. 
 
 thou of home the guardian Lar, 
 And, when our earth hath wandered far 
 Into the cold, and deep snow covers 
 The walks of our New England lovers. 
 Their sweet secluded evening-star ! 
 'T was with thy rays the English Muse 
 Ripened her mild domestic hues ; 
 'T was by thy flicker that she conned 
 The fireside wisdom that enrings 
 With light from heaven familiar things ; 
 By thee she found the homely faith 
 In whose mild eyes thy comfort stay'th. 
 When Death, extinguishing his torch, 
 Gropes for the latch-string in the porch ; 
 The love that wanders not beyond 
 His earliest nest, but sits and sings 
 While children smooth his patient 
 
 wings ; 
 Therefore with thee I love to read 
 Our brave old poets : at thy touch how 
 
 stirs 
 Life in the withered words ! how swift 
 
 recede 
 Time's shadows ! and how glows again 
 Through its dead mass the incandescent 
 
 verse. 
 As when upon the anvils of the brain 
 It glittering lay, cyclopically wrought 
 By the fast-throbbing hammers of th« 
 
 poet's thought ! 
 
fancy's casuistry. 
 
 879 
 
 Thou munnurest, too, divinely stirred, 
 
 The aspirations unattained. 
 
 The rhythms so rathe and delicate, 
 
 They bent and strained 
 
 And broke, beneath the sombre weight 
 
 Of any airiest mortal word. 
 
 What warm protection dost thou bend 
 Bound curtained talk of friend with 
 
 friend, 
 "While the gray snow-storm, held aloof. 
 To softest outline rounds the roof. 
 Or the rude North with baffled strain 
 Shoulders the frost-starred window-pane ! 
 Now the kind nymph to Bacchus born 
 By Morpheus' daughter, she that seems 
 Gifted upon her natal morn 
 By him with fire, by her with dreams, 
 Nicotia, dearer to the Muse 
 Than all the grape's bewildering juice, 
 "We worship, unforbid of thee ; 
 And, as her incense floats and curls 
 In airy spires and wayward whirls, 
 Or poises on its tremulous stalk 
 A flower of frailest revery, 
 So winds and loiters, idly free. 
 The current of unguided talk. 
 Now laughter-ripped, and now caught 
 In smooth, dark pools of deeper thought. 
 Meanwhile thou mellowest every word, 
 A sweetly unobtrusive third ; 
 For thou hast magic beyond wine, 
 To unlock natures each to each ; 
 The unspoken thought thou canst 
 
 divine ; 
 Thou fiU'st the pauses of the speech 
 With whispers that to dream-land reach 
 And frozen fancy-springs unchain 
 In Arctic outskirts of the brain ; 
 Sun of all inmost confidences. 
 To thy rays doth the heart unclose 
 Its formal calyx of pretences. 
 That close against rude day's offences. 
 And open its shy midnight rose ! 
 
 Thou boldest not the master key 
 "With which thy Sire sets free the mystic 
 
 Of Past and Future : not for common 
 
 fates 
 Do they wide open fling. 
 And, with a far-heard ring. 
 Swing back their willing valves melo- 
 
 mously ; 
 
 Only to ceremonial days. 
 
 And great processions of imperial song 
 
 That set the world at gaze, 
 
 Doth such high privilege belong : 
 
 But thou a postern-door canst ope 
 
 To humbler chambers of the selfsame 
 
 palace 
 Where Memory lodges, and her sister 
 
 Hope, 
 Whose being is but as a crystal chalice 
 Which, with her various mood, the 
 
 elder fills 
 Of joy or sorrow. 
 So coloring as she wills 
 With hues of yesterday the unconacioua 
 
 morrow. 
 
 Thou sinkest, and my fancy sinks with 
 
 thee : 
 For thee I took the idle shell. 
 And struck the unused chords again, 
 But they are gone who listened well •, 
 Some are in heaven, and all are far from 
 
 me : 
 Even as I sing, it turns to pain, 
 And with vain tears my eyelids throb 
 
 and swell : 
 Enough ; I come not of the race 
 That hawk their sorrows in the market- 
 place. 
 Earth stops the ears I best had loved t« 
 
 please ; 
 Then break, ye untuned chords, or rust 
 
 in peace ! 
 As if a white-haired actor should come 
 
 back 
 Some midnight to the theatre void and 
 
 black, 
 And there rehearse his youth's gi-eat 
 
 part 
 Mid thin applauses of the ghosts, 
 So seems it now : ye crowd upon my 
 
 heart, 
 And I bow down in silence, shadowy 
 
 hosts ! 
 
 FANCY'S CASmSTKY. 
 
 How struggles with the tempest's swells 
 That warning of tumultuous bells I 
 The fire is loose ! and frantic knells 
 
 Throb fast and faster. 
 As tower to tower confusedly tells 
 
 News of disaster. 
 
380 
 
 TO MR. JOHN BAETLETT. 
 
 But on my far-off solitude 
 No harsh alarums can intrude ; 
 The terror comes to me subdued 
 
 And charmed by distance, 
 To deepen the habitual mood 
 
 Of my existence. 
 
 Are those, I muse, the Easter chimes ? 
 And listen, weaving careless rhymes 
 While the loud city's griefs and crimes 
 
 Pay gentle allegiance 
 To the fine quiet that sublimes 
 
 These dreamy regions. 
 
 And when the storm o'erwhelms the 
 
 shore, 
 I watch entranced as, o'er and o'er, 
 The light revolves amid the roar 
 
 So still and saintly, 
 Now large and near, now more and 
 more 
 Withdrawing faintly. 
 
 This, too, despairing sailors see 
 Flash out the breakers 'neath their lee 
 In sudden snow, then liugeringly 
 
 Wane tow'rd eclipse. 
 While through the dark the shuddering 
 sea 
 
 Gropes for the ships. 
 
 And is it right, this mood of mind 
 That thus, m revery enshrined, 
 Can in the world mere topics find 
 
 For musing stricture. 
 Seeing the life of humankind 
 
 Only as picture ? 
 
 The events in line of battle go ; 
 In vain for me their trumpets blow 
 As unto him that lieth low 
 
 In death's dark arches, 
 And through the sod hears throbbing 
 slow 
 
 The mulSed marches. 
 
 Duty, am I dead to thee 
 In this my cloistered ecstasy, 
 In this lone shallop on the sea 
 
 That drifts tow'rd Silence ? 
 And are those visioned shores I see 
 
 But sirens' isl^ids ? 
 
 My Dante frowns with lip-looked mien, 
 As who would say, " 'T is those, I ween, 
 Whom lifelong armor-chafe makes lean 
 That win the laurel " : 
 
 But where is Truth ! What does it 
 mean. 
 The world-old quarrel ? 
 
 Such questionings are idle air : 
 Leave what to do and what to spare 
 To the inspiring moment's care, 
 
 Nor ask for i)ayment 
 Of fame or gold, but just to wear 
 
 Unspotted raiment. 
 
 TO MR. JOHN BAETLETT, 
 
 WHO HAD SENT MB A SEVBN-POUNB 
 TEOUT. 
 
 Fit for an Abbot of Theleme, 
 
 For the whole Cardinals' College, or 
 The Pope himself to see in dream 
 Before his lenten vision gleam, 
 
 He lies there, the sogdologer ! 
 
 His precious flanks with stars besprent, 
 
 Worthy to swim in Castaly ! 
 The friend by whom such gifts are sent, 
 For him shall bumpers full be spent. 
 His health 1 be Luck his fast ally ! 
 
 I see him trace the wayward brook 
 
 Amid the forest mysteries. 
 Where at their shades shy aspens look, 
 Or where, with many a gurgling crook. 
 It croons its woodland histories. 
 
 I see leaf-shade and sun-ileck lend 
 
 Their tremulous, sweet vicissitude 
 To smooth, dark pool, to crinkling 
 
 bend, — 
 (0, stew him, Ann, as 't were your 
 friend, 
 With amorous solicitude !) 
 
 I see him step with caution due. 
 
 Soft as if shod with moccasins, I 
 Grave as in church, for who plies you. 
 Sweet craft, is safe as in a pew 
 
 From all our common stock o' sina 
 
 The unerring fly I see him cast. 
 
 That as a rose-leaf falls as soft, 
 A flash ! a whirl ! he has him fast 1 
 We tyros, how that struggle last 
 Confuses and appalls us oft. 
 
 Unfluttered he ; calm as the sky 
 Looks on our tragi-comedies, 
 
ODE TO HAPPINESS. 
 
 381' 
 
 This way and that he lets him fly, 
 A sunbeam-shuttle, then to die 
 
 Lands him, with cool aplomb, at 
 ease. 
 
 The friend who gave our board such gust, 
 
 Life's care may he o'erstep it half. 
 And, when Death hooks him, as he must. 
 He '11 do it handsomely, I trust. 
 
 And John H write his epitaph ! 
 
 O, bom beneath the Fishes' sign, 
 
 Of constellations happiest. 
 May he somewhere with Walton dine. 
 May Horace send him Massic wine, 
 And Burns Scotch drink, the nap- 
 piest 1 
 
 And when they come his deeds to weigh, 
 
 And how he used the talents his, 
 One trout-scale in the scales he '11 lay 
 (If trout had scales), and 't will outsway 
 The wrong side of the balances. 
 
 ODE TO HAPPINESS. 
 
 Spirit, that rarely comest now 
 And only to contrast my gloom, 
 Like rainbow-feathered birds that 
 bloom 
 A moment on some autumn bough 
 That, with the spurn of their farewell. 
 Sheds its last leaves, — thou once didst 
 dwell 
 "With me year-long, and make intense 
 To boyhood's wisely vacant days 
 Their fleet but all-sufficing grace 
 Of trustful inexperience, 
 "While soul could still transfigure sense. 
 And thrill, as with love's first caress. 
 At life's mere unexpectedness. 
 
 Days when my blood would leap and 
 run 
 As full of sunshine as a breeze. 
 Or spray tossed up by Summer seas 
 That doubts if it be sea or sun ! 
 Days that flew swiftly like the band 
 ■ That played in Grecian games at strife. 
 And passed from eager hand to hand 
 The onward-dancing torch of life ! 
 
 Wing-footed ! thou abid'st with him 
 "Who asks it not ; but he who hath 
 "Watched o'er the waves thy waning 
 path. 
 
 Shall nevermore behold leturning 
 
 Thy high-heaped canvas shoreward 
 
 yearning ! 
 Thou first reveal'st to us thy face 
 Turned o'er the shoulder's parting grace, 
 A moment glimpsed, then seen no 
 more, — 
 Thou whose swift footsteps we can trace 
 Away from every mortal door. 
 
 Nymph of the unretuming feet, 
 How may I win thee back ? But no, 
 I do thee wrong to call thee so ; 
 'T is I am changed, not thou art fleet : < 
 The man thy presence feels again, 
 Not in the blood, but in the brain. 
 Spirit, that lov'st the upper air 
 Serene and passionless and rare. 
 
 Such as on mountain heights we find 
 And wide-viewed uplands of tha 
 mind ; 
 Or such as scorns to coil and sing 
 Round any but the eagle's wing 
 Of souls that with long upward beat 
 Have won an undisturbed reti'eat 
 "Where, poised like winged victories. 
 They mirror in relentless eyes 
 The life broad-basking 'neath their 
 feet, — 
 Man ever with his Now at strife, 
 Pained with first gasps of earthly air, 
 Then praying Death the last to spare, 
 Still fearful of the ampler life. 
 
 Not unto them dost thou consent 
 Who, passionless, can lead at ease 
 
 A life of unalloyed content 
 A life like that of land-locked seas. 
 
 Who feel no elemental gush 
 
 Of tidal forces, no fierce rush 
 Of storm deep-grasping scarcely spent 
 'Twixt continent and continent. 
 
 Such quiet souls have never known 
 Thy truer inspiration, thou 
 Who lov'st to feel upon thy brow 
 
 Spray from the plunging vessel thrown 
 Grazing the tusked lee shore, the cliff 
 
 That o'er the abrupt gorge holds itR 
 breath, 
 Where the frail hair-breadth of an if 
 
 Is all that sunders life and death : 
 
 These, too, are cared-for, and round these 
 
 Bends her mild crook thy sister Peace ; 
 These in unvexed dependence lie, 
 Each 'neath his strip of household sky ; 
 
 O'er these clouds wander, and the blue 
 
 Hangs motionless the whole day 
 through ; 
 
882 
 
 VILLA FRANCA. 
 
 Stars riae for them, and moona grow 
 large 
 And lessen in such tranquil wise 
 As joys and sorrows do that rise 
 
 Within their nature's sheltered marge ; 
 Their hours into each other flit 
 
 Like the leaf-shadows of the vine 
 And fig-tree under which they sit, 
 
 And their still lives to heaven incline 
 With an unconscious habitude, 
 
 Unhistoried as smokes that rise 
 From happy hearths and sight elude 
 
 In kindred blue of morning skies. 
 
 Wayward I when once we feel thy lack, 
 'T is worse than vain to woo thee back ! 
 
 Yet there is one who seems to be 
 Thine elder sister, in whose eyes 
 A faint far northern light will rise 
 
 Sometimes, and bring a dream of thee ; 
 She is not that for which youth hoped, 
 
 But she hath blessings all her own, 
 Thoughts pure as lilies newly oped. 
 
 And faith to sorrow given alone : 
 Almost I deem that it is thou 
 Come back with graver matron brow. 
 
 With deepened eyes and bated breath, 
 
 Like one that somewhere hath met 
 Death, 
 But " No," she answers, " I am she 
 Whom the gods love, Tranquillity : 
 
 That other whom you seek forlorn 
 
 Half earthly was ; but I am born 
 Of the immortals, and our race 
 Wears still some sadness on its face : 
 
 He wins me late, but keeps me long, 
 Who, dowered with every gift of passion. 
 In that fierce flame can forge and 
 fashion 
 
 Of sin and self the anchor strong ; 
 Can thence compel the driving force 
 Of daily life's mechanic course, 
 Nor less the nobler energies 
 Of needful toil and culture wise ; 
 Whose soul is worth the tempter's lure 
 Who can renounce, and yet endure. 
 To him I come, not lightly wooed, 
 But won by silent fortitude." 
 
 VILLA FRANCA. 
 1859. 
 
 Wait a little : do ive not wait ? 
 Louis Napoleon is not Fate, 
 Francis Joseph is not Time ; 
 
 There 's One hath swifter feet than 
 
 Crime ; 
 Cannon-parliaments settle naught ; 
 Venice is Austria's, — whose is Thoughtl 
 Minie is good, but, spite of change, 
 Gutenberg's gun has the longest range. 
 Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 
 Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropcs, sever 1 
 In the shadow, year out, year in. 
 The silent headsman waits forever. 
 
 Wait, we say : our years are long ; 
 
 Men are weak, but Man is strong ; 
 
 Since the stars first curved their rings, 
 
 We have looked on many things ; 
 
 Great wars come and great wars go, 
 
 Wolf-tracks light on polar snow ; 
 
 We shall see him come and gone, 
 
 This second-hand Napoleon. 
 Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 
 Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever I 
 In the shadow, year out, year in. 
 The silent headsman waits forever. 
 
 We saw the elder Corsican, 
 And Clotho muttered as she span. 
 While crowned lackeys bore the train, 
 Of the pinchbeck Charlemagne : 
 " Sister, stint not length of thread ! 
 Sister, stay the scissors dread ! 
 On Saint Helen's granite bleak, 
 Hark, the viUture whets his beak ! " 
 Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 
 Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever I 
 In the shadow, year out, year in,' 
 The silent headsman waits forever. 
 
 The Bonapartes, we know their bees 
 That wade in honey red to the knees ; 
 Their patent reaper, its sheaves sleep 
 
 sound 
 In dreamless gamers underground : 
 We know false glory's spendthrift race 
 Pawning nations for feathers and lace ; 
 It may be short, it may be long, 
 "'Tis reckoning-day!" sneers unpaid 
 Wrong. 
 Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 
 Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sevei I 
 In the shadow, year out, year in, 
 The silent headsman waits forever. 
 
 The Cock that wears the Eagle's skin 
 Can promise what he ne'er could win ; 
 Slavery reaped for fine words sown, 
 
THE MINER. — GOLD EGG. 
 
 883 
 
 System for all, and rights for none, 
 Despots atop, a wild clan below, 
 Sucu is the Gaul from long ago ; 
 Wash the black from the Mhiop's face. 
 Wash the past out of man or race ! 
 
 Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 
 
 Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 
 
 In the shadow, year out, year in, 
 
 The silent headsman waits forever. 
 
 'Neath Gregory's throne a spider swings, 
 And snares the people for the kings ; 
 " Luther is dead ; old quarrels pass ; 
 The stake's black scars are healed with 
 
 grass"'; 
 So dreamers prate ; did man e'er live 
 Saw priest or woman yet forgive ? 
 But Luther's broom is left, and eyes 
 Peep o'er their creeds to where it lies. 
 
 Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 
 
 Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 
 
 In the shadow, year out, year in, 
 
 The silent headsman waits forever. 
 
 Smooth sails the ship of either realm. 
 Kaiser and Jesuit at the helm ; 
 We look down the depths, and mark 
 Silent workers in the dark 
 Building slow the sharp-tusked reefs. 
 Old instincts hardening to new beliefs ; 
 Patience a little ; learn to wait ; 
 Hours are long on the clock of Fate. 
 
 Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 
 
 Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 
 
 Darkness is strong, and so is Sin, 
 
 But surely God endures forever ! 
 
 THE MINER. 
 
 Down mid the tangled roots of things 
 That coil about the central fire, 
 
 I seek for that which giveth wings 
 To stoop, not soar, to my desire. 
 
 Sometimes I hear, as 't were a sigh, 
 The sea's deep yearning far above, 
 
 " Thou hast the secret not," I cry, 
 " In deeper deeps is hid my Love." 
 
 They think I burrow from the sun, 
 In darkness, all alone, and weak ; 
 
 Such loss were gain if He were won, 
 For 't is the sun's own Sun I seek. 
 
 "The earth," they murmur, "is tha 
 tomb 
 
 That vainly sought his life to prisons 
 Why grovel longer in the gloom ? 
 
 He IS not here ; he hath arisen.'' 
 
 More life for me where he hath lain 
 Hidden while ye believed him dead. 
 
 Than in cathedrals cold and vain, 
 BuUt on loose sands of It is said. 
 
 My search is for the living gold ; 
 
 Him I desire who dwells recluse, 
 And not his image worn and old. 
 
 Day-servant of our sordid use. 
 
 If him I find not, yet I find 
 The ancient joy of cell and church. 
 
 The glimpse, the surety undefined. 
 The unquenched ardor of the search. 
 
 Happier to chase a flying goal 
 
 Than to sit counting laurelled gains. 
 
 To guess the Soul within the soul 
 Than to be lord of what remains. 
 
 Hide still, best Good, in subtile wise, 
 Beyond my nature's utmost scope ; 
 
 Be ever absent from mine eyes 
 To be twice present in my hope 1 
 
 GOLD EGG: A DREAM-FAlfTAST. 
 
 HOW A STUDENT IN SEAEOH OP THE 
 BEAUTIFUL FELL ASLEEP IN DRES- 
 DEN OVER HERR PROFESSOR DOCTOR 
 VISCHER's WISSENSCHAFT DBS SCHO- 
 NEN, AND WHAT CAME THEREOF. 
 
 I SWAM with undulation soft, 
 
 Adrift on Vischer's ocean. 
 And, from my cockboat up aloft. 
 Sent down my mental plummet oft 
 
 In hope to reach a notion. 
 
 But from the metaphysic sea 
 No bottom was forthcoming, 
 
 And all the while (how drearily !) 
 
 In one eternal note of B 
 My German stove kept humming. 
 
 "What 's Beauty?" mused I ; "is it 
 told 
 By synthesis S analysis } 
 
884 
 
 GOLD EGG. 
 
 Hare yon not made us lead of gold ? 
 To feed your crucible, not sold 
 Oui' temple's sacred chalices ? " 
 
 Then o*er my senses came a change ; 
 
 My book seemed all traditions, 
 Old legends of profoundest range, 
 Diablery, and stories strange 
 
 Of goblins, elves, magicians. 
 
 Old gods in modem saints I found, 
 Old creeds in strange disguises ; 
 I thought them safely underground. 
 And here they were, all safe and sound. 
 Without a sign of phthisis. 
 
 Truth was, my outward eyes were closed, 
 
 Although I did not know it ; 
 Deep into dream-land I had dozed, 
 And so was happily transposed 
 From proser into poet. 
 
 So what I read took flesh and blood, 
 
 And turned to living creatures : 
 The words were but the dingy bud 
 That bloomed, like Adam, from the mud. 
 To human forms and features. 
 
 I saw how Zeus was lodged once more 
 
 By Baucis and Philemon ; 
 The text said, " Not alone of yore, 
 But every day, at every door. 
 
 Knocks still the masking Demon." 
 
 Daimon 't was printed in the book 
 
 And, as I read it slowly, 
 The letters stirred and changed, and 
 
 took 
 Jove's stature, the Olympian look 
 
 Of painless melancholy. 
 
 He paused upon the threshold worn : 
 " With coin I cannot pay you ; 
 
 Yet would I fain make some return ; 
 
 The gift for cheapness do not spurn. 
 Accept this hen, I pray you. 
 
 " Plain feathers wears my Hemera, 
 
 And has from ages olden ; 
 She makes her nest in common hay, 
 And yet, of all the bii-ds that lay. 
 
 Her eggs alone are golden." 
 
 He turned, and could no more be seen ; 
 Old Baucis stared a moment. 
 
 Then tossed poor Partlet on the green. 
 And with a tone, half jest, half spleen, 
 Thus made her housewife's com> 
 ment: 
 
 " The stranger had a queerish face. 
 
 His smile was hardly pleasant. 
 And, though he meant it for a grace. 
 Yet this old hen of barnyard race 
 Was but a stingy present. 
 
 " She 's quite too old for laying eggs. 
 
 Nay, even to make a soup of ; 
 One only needs to see her legs, — 
 You might as well boil down the pegs 
 I made the brood-hen's coop of ! 
 
 " Some eighteen score of such do 1 
 
 Eaise every year, her sisters ; 
 Go, in the woods your fortunes try. 
 All day for one poor earthworm pry. 
 And scratch your toes to blisters ! " 
 
 Philemon found the rede was good. 
 And, turning on the poor hen, 
 
 He clapt his hands, and stamped, and 
 shooed. 
 
 Hunting the exile tow'rd the wood. 
 To house with snipe and moor-hen. 
 
 A poet saw and cried : " Hold ! hold ! 
 
 What are you doing, madman ? 
 Spurn you more wealth than can bs 
 
 told, 
 The fowl that lays the eggs of gold. 
 
 Because she 's plainly clad, man ? " 
 
 To him Philemon: "I '11 not balk 
 
 Thy will with any shackle ; 
 Wilt add a burden to thy walk? 
 There ! take her without further talk ; 
 
 You 're both but fit to cackle ! " 
 
 But scarce the poet touched the bird, 
 
 It swelled to stature regal; 
 And when her cloud-wide wings she 
 
 stirred, 
 A whisper as of doom was heard, 
 
 'T was Jove's bolt-bearing eagle. 
 
 As when from far-off cloud-bergs springi 
 
 A crag, and, hurtling under, 
 From cliff to cliff the rumor flings, 
 So she from flight-foreboding wings 
 Shook out a murmurous thunder. 
 
A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO A FRIEND. 
 
 385 
 
 She gripped the poet to her breast, 
 
 And ever, upward soaring, 
 Earth seemed a new moon in the west, 
 And then one light among the rest 
 
 Where squadrons lie at mooring. 
 
 How tell to what heaven-hallowed seat 
 
 The eagle bent his courses ? 
 The waves that on its bases beat, 
 The gales that round it weave and fleet. 
 
 Are life's creative forces. 
 
 Here was the bird's primeval nest. 
 
 High on a promontory 
 Star-pharosed, where she talces her rest 
 To brood new seons 'neath her breast. 
 
 The future's unfledged glory. 
 
 1 know not how, but I was there 
 
 All feeling, hearing, seeing ; 
 It was not wind that stirred my hair 
 But living breath, the essence rare 
 Of unembodied being. 
 
 And in the nest an egg of gold 
 Lay soft in self-made lustre. 
 Gazing whereon, what depths untold 
 Within, what marvels manifold. 
 Seemed silently to muster 1 
 
 Daily such splendors to confront 
 
 Is still to me and you sent ? 
 It glowed as when Saint Peter's front. 
 Illumed, forgets its stony wont. 
 And seems to throb translucent. 
 
 One saw therein the life of man, 
 
 (Or so the poet found it,) 
 The yolk and white, conceive who can. 
 Were the glad earth, that, floating, span 
 
 In the ^ad heaven around it. 
 
 I knew this as one knows in dream. 
 
 Where no effects to causes 
 Are chained as in our work-day scheme, 
 And then was wakened by a scream 
 
 That seemed to come from Baucis. 
 
 '•Bless Zeus!" she cried, "I 'm safe 
 below ! " 
 
 First pale, then red as coral ; 
 And I, still drowsy, pondered slow, 
 And seemed to find, but hardly know, 
 
 Something like this for moral. 
 
 Each day the world is bom anew 
 For him who takes it rightly; 
 
 Not fresher that which Adam knew, 
 Not sweeter that whoso moonlit dew 
 Entranced Arcadia nightly. 
 
 Rightly ? That 's simply : 't is to see 
 Some substance casts these shadows 
 Which we call Life and Histoiy, 
 That aimless seem to chase and flee 
 Like wind-gleams over meadows. 
 
 Simply ? That 's nobly : 't is to know 
 
 That God may still be met with. 
 Nor groweth old, nor doth bestow 
 These senses fine, this brain aglow. 
 To grovel and forget with. 
 
 Beauty, Herr Doctor, tnist in me. 
 
 No chemistry will win you ; 
 Chairs still rises from the sea : 
 If you can't find her, might it be 
 Because you seek within you ? 
 
 A FA MTT.TAP . EPISTLE TO A FEIENtt 
 
 Alike I hate to be your debtor, 
 Or write a mere perfunctory letter ; 
 For letters, so it seems to me. 
 Our careless quintessence should be. 
 Our real nature's truant play 
 When Consciousness looks t' other way 
 Not drop by drop, with watchful skill, 
 Gathered in Art's deliberate still, 
 But life's insensible completeness 
 Got as the ripe grape gets its sweetness 
 As if it had a way to fuse 
 The golden sunlight into juice. 
 Hop3ess my mental pump I try ; 
 The boxes hiss, the tube is diy ; 
 As those petroleum wells that spout 
 Awhile like M. C.'s, then give out. 
 My spring, once full as Arethusa, 
 Is a mere bore as dry 's Creusa ; 
 And yet you ask me why I 'm glum. 
 And why my graver Muse is dumb. 
 Ah me ! I 've reasons manifold 
 Condensed in one, — 1 'm getting old! 
 
 When life, once past its fortieth year, 
 Wheels up its evening hemisphere, 
 The mind's own shadow, which the boy 
 Saw onward point to hope and joy, 
 Shifts round, irrevocably set 
 Tow'rd morning's loss and vain regre^ 
 And, argue with it as we will. 
 The clock is unconverted stilL 
 
886 
 
 A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO A FRIEND. 
 
 " But count the gains," I hear you say, 
 " Which far the seeming loss outweigh ; 
 Friendships built iirm 'gainst iiood and 
 
 wind 
 On rock-foundations of the mind ; 
 Knowledge instead of scheming hope ; 
 For wild adventure, settled scope ; 
 Talents, from surface-ore profuse, 
 Tempered and edged to tools for use ; 
 Judgment, for passion's headlong whirls ; 
 Old sorrows crystalled into pearls ; 
 Losses by patience turned to gains, 
 Possessions now, that once were pains ; 
 Joy's blossom gone, as go it must, 
 To ripen seeds of faith and trust ; 
 Why heed a snow-flake on the roof 
 If fire within keep Age aloof 
 Though blundering north-winds push 
 
 and strain 
 With palms benumbed against the pane ?" 
 
 My dear old Friend, you 're very wise ; 
 
 We always are with others' eyes, 
 
 And see so clear ! (our neighbor's deck 
 
 on) 
 What reef the idiot 's sure to wreck on ; 
 Folks when they learn how life has 
 
 quizzed 'em 
 Are fain to make a shift with Wisdom, 
 And, finding she nor breaks nor bends. 
 Give her a letter to their friends. 
 Draw passion's torrent whoso will 
 Through sluices smooth to turn a mill. 
 And, taking solid toll of grist, 
 Forget the rainbow in the mist, 
 The exulting leap, the aimless haste 
 Scattered in iridescent waste ; 
 Prefer who likes the sure esteem 
 To cheated youth's midsummer dream. 
 When every friend was more than 
 
 Damon, 
 Each quicksand safe to build a fame on ; 
 Believe that prudence snug excels 
 Youth's gross of verdant spectacles. 
 Through which earth's withered stubble 
 
 seen 
 Looks autumn-proof as painted green, — 
 1 side with Moses 'gainst the masses. 
 Take you the drudge, give me the 
 
 glasses ! 
 And, for your talents shaped with prac- 
 tice. 
 Convince me first that such the fact is ; 
 Let whoso likes be beat, poor fool. 
 On life's hard stithy to a tool, 
 Be whoso will a ploughshare made, 
 Ijet me remain a jolly blade ! 
 
 What 's Knowledge, with her stocks and 
 
 lands. 
 To gay Conjecture's yellow strands ? 
 What 's watching her slow flocks in- 
 crease 
 To ventures for the golden fleece ? 
 What her deep ships, safe under lee, 
 To youth's light craft, that drinks the 
 
 sea, 
 For Flying Islands making sail. 
 And failing where 't is gain to fail ? , 
 Ah me ! Expereince (so we 're told), 
 Time's crucible, turns lead to gold ; 
 Yet what 's experience won but dross, 
 Cloud-gold transmuted to our loss ? 
 What but base coin the best event 
 To the untried experiment ? 
 
 'T was an old couple, says the poet. 
 That lodged the gods and did not knov 
 
 it; 
 Youth sees and knows them as they 
 
 were 
 Before Olympus' top was bare ; 
 From Swampscot's flats his eye divine 
 Sees Venus rocking on the brine, 
 With lucent limbs, that somehow scat- 
 ter a 
 Charm that turns Doll to Cleopatra ; 
 Bacchus (that now is scarce induced 
 To give Eld's lagging blood a boost). 
 With cymbals' clang and pards to diaw 
 
 him. 
 Divine as Ariadne saw him. 
 Storms through Youth's pulse with all 
 
 his train 
 And wins new Indies in his brain ; 
 Apollo (with the old a trope, 
 A sort of finer Mister Pope), 
 Apollo — but the Muse forbids ; 
 At his approach cast down thy lida, 
 And think it joy enough to hear 
 Far oS' his arrows singing clear ; 
 He knows enough who silent knows 
 The quiver chiming as he goes ; 
 He tells too much who e'er betrays 
 The shining Archet's secret ways. 
 
 Dear Friend, you 're right and I am 
 
 wrong ; 
 My quibbles are not worth a song, 
 And I sophistically tease 
 My fancy sad to tricks like these. 
 I could not cheat you if I would ; 
 You know me and my jesting mood. 
 Mere surface-foam, for pride concealing 
 The purpose of my deeper feeling. 
 
AN BMBEE PICTURE. 
 
 88r 
 
 1 have not spilt one drop of joy 
 Poured in the senses of the boy, 
 Kor Nature fails my walks to bless 
 With all her golden inwardness ; 
 And as blind nestlings, unafraid. 
 Stretch up wide-mouthed to every shade 
 By which their downy dream is stirred. 
 Taking it for the mother-bird. 
 So, when God's shadow, which is light, 
 Unheralded, by day or night. 
 My wakening instincts falls across, 
 Silent as sunbeams over moss. 
 In my heart's nest half-conscious things 
 Stir with a helpless sense of wings. 
 Lift themselves up, and tremble long 
 With premonitions sweet of song. 
 
 Be patient, and perhaps (who knows ?) 
 These may be winged one day like 
 
 those ; 
 If thrushes, close-embowered to sing. 
 Pierced through with June's delicious 
 
 sting ; 
 If swallows, their half-hour to run 
 Star-breasted in the setting sun. 
 At first they 're but the unfledged proem. 
 Or songless schedule of a poem ; 
 When from the shell they re hardly dry 
 If some folks thrust them forth, must I ? 
 
 But let me end with a comparison 
 Never yet hit upon by e'er a son 
 Of our American Apollo, 
 (And there 's where I shall beat them 
 
 hollow. 
 If he indeed 's no courtly St. John, 
 But, as West said, a Mohawk Injun.) 
 A poem 's like a cruise for whales ; 
 Through untried seas the hunter sails. 
 His prow dividing waters known 
 To the blue iceberg's hulk alone ; 
 At last, on farthest edge of day. 
 He marks the smoky puff of spray ; 
 Then with bent oars the shallop flies 
 To where the basking quarry lies ; 
 Then the excitement of the strife. 
 The crimsoned waves, — ah, this is life ! 
 
 But, the dead plunder once secured 
 And safe beside the vessel moored. 
 All that had stirred the blood before 
 Is so much blubber, nothing more, 
 (I mean no piin, nor image so 
 Mere sentimental verse, you know,) 
 And all is tedium, smoke, and soil, 
 In ti'ying out the noisome oil. 
 
 Yes, this is life I And so the bard 
 Through briny deserts, never scarred 
 Since Noah's keel, a subject seeks. 
 And lies upon the watch for weeks ; 
 That once harpooned and helpless lying; 
 What follows is but weary tiying. 
 
 Now I 've a notion, if a poet 
 
 Beat up for themes, his verse will show 
 
 it; 
 I wait for subjects that hunt me. 
 By day or night won't let me be, 
 And hang about me like a curse. 
 Till they have made me into verse, 
 From line to line my fingers tease 
 Beyond my knowledge, as the bees 
 Build no new cell till those before 
 With limpid summer-sweet run o'er ; 
 Then, if I neither sing nor shine. 
 Is it the subject's fault, or mine? 
 
 AN EMBER PICTDEE. 
 
 How strange are the freaks of memory I 
 The lessons of life we forget. 
 
 While a trifle, a trick of color. 
 In the wonderful web is set, — 
 
 Set by some mordant of fancy. 
 And, spite of the wear and tear 
 
 Of time or distance or trouble, 
 Insists on its right to be there, 
 
 A chance had brought us together ; 
 
 Our talk was of matters-of-course ; 
 We were nothing, one to the other. 
 
 But a short half-hour's resource. 
 
 We spoke of French acting and actora; 
 
 And their easy, natural way : 
 Of the weather, for it was raining 
 
 As we drove home from the play. 
 
 We debated the social nothings 
 We bore ourselves so to discuss ; 
 
 The thunderous rumors of battle 
 Were silent the while for us. 
 
 Arrived at her door, we left her 
 With a drippingly hurried adieu. 
 
 And our wheels went crunching tba 
 gravel 
 Of the oak-darkened avenue. 
 
 As we drove away through the shadow, 
 I The candle she held in the door 
 
388 
 
 TO H. W. li. 
 
 From rain-vamiahod tree-trunk to tree- 
 trunk 
 Flashed fainter, and flashed no 
 more ; — 
 
 Flashed fainter, then wholly faded 
 Before we had passed the wood ; 
 
 But the light of the face hehind it 
 Went with me and stayed for good. 
 
 The vision of scarce a moment. 
 And hardly marked at the time, 
 
 It comes unbidden to haunt me. 
 Like a scrap of ballad-rhyme. 
 
 Had she beauty ? Well, not what they 
 call so ; 
 
 You may find a thousand as fair; 
 And yet there 's her face in my memory 
 
 With no special claim to be there. 
 
 As I sit sometimes in the twilight. 
 And call back to life in the coals 
 
 Old faces and hopes and fancies 
 Long buried, (good rest to their 
 souls !) 
 
 Her face shines out in the embers ; 
 
 I see her holding the light, 
 And hear the crunch of the gravel 
 
 And the sweep of the rain that night. 
 
 'T is a face that can never grow older. 
 That never can part with its gleam, 
 
 'T is a gracious possession forever. 
 For is it not all a dream ? 
 
 TO H. W. L., 
 
 ON HIS BIRTHDAY, 27TH FEBETTART, 
 1867. 
 
 I NEED not praise the sweetness of his 
 
 song, 
 Where limpid verse to limpid verse 
 
 succeeds 
 Smooth as our Charles, when, fearing 
 
 lest he wrong 
 The new moon's mirrored skiff, he slides 
 
 along. 
 Full without noise, and whispers in 
 
 his reeds. 
 
 With loving breath of all the winds his 
 name 
 Is blown about the world, but to his 
 friends 
 
 A sweeter secret hides behind his fame. 
 And Love steals shyly through the loud 
 
 acclaim 
 To murmur a Ood bless you/ and thei« 
 
 ends. 
 
 As I muse backward up the checkered 
 years 
 Wherein so much was given, so much 
 was lost, 
 Blessings in both kinds, such as cheapen 
 
 tears, — 
 But hush ! this is not for profaner ears ; 
 Let them drink molten pearls nor 
 dream the cost. 
 
 Some suck up poison from a sorrow's 
 
 core. 
 As naught but nightshade grew upon 
 
 earth's ground ; 
 Love turned all his to heart's-ease, and 
 
 the more 
 Fate tried his bastions, she but forced a 
 
 door 
 Leading to sweeter manhood and more 
 
 sound. 
 
 Even as a wind-waved fountain's sway- 
 ing shade 
 Seems of mixed race, a gray wraith 
 shot with sun. 
 
 So through his trial faith translucent 
 rayed 
 
 Till darkness, half disnatured so, be- 
 trayed 
 A heart of sunshine that would fain 
 o'errun. 
 
 Surely if skill in song the shears may 
 stay 
 And of its purpose cheat the charmed 
 
 If our poor life be lengthened by a lay, 
 He shall not go, although his presenct 
 
 may, 
 And the next age in praise shall 
 
 double this. 
 
 Long days be his, and each as lusty- 
 sweet 
 As gracious natures find his song to 
 be ; 
 May Age steal on with softly-cadenoed 
 
 feet 
 Falling in music, as for hira were meet 
 Whose choicest verse is harsher-tonsti 
 than he 1 
 
THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY. — IN THE TWILIGHT. 889 
 
 THE NIOHTINOALE IN THE STDDT. 
 
 " Come forth ! " my catbird calls 'to me, 
 " And hear me sing a cavatina 
 
 That, in this old familiar tree. 
 Shall hang a garden of Aloina. 
 
 j "These buttercups shall brim with wine 
 ' Beyond all Lesbian juice or Massic ; 
 May not New England be divine ? 
 I My ode to ripening summer classic ? 
 
 " Or, if to me you will not hark, 
 By Beaver Brook a thrush is ringing 
 
 Till all the alder-coverts dark 
 
 Seem sunshine-dapplisd with his sing- 
 ing. 
 
 " Come out beneath the unmastered sky, 
 With its emancipating spaces, 
 
 And learn to siag as well as I, 
 Without premeditated graces. 
 
 "What boot your many-volumed gains. 
 Those withered leaves forever turning. 
 
 To win, at best, for all your pains, 
 A nature mummy- wrapt in learning ? 
 
 " The leaves wherein true wisdom lies 
 On living trees the sun are drinking ; 
 
 Those white clouds, drowsing through 
 the skies, 
 Grew not so beautiful by thinking. 
 
 " ' Come out ! ' with me the oriole cries. 
 Escape the demon that pursues you ! 
 
 And, hark, the cuckoo weatherwise, 
 Still hiding farther onward, wooes 
 you." 
 
 " Alas, dear friend, that, all my days. 
 Has poured from that syringa thicket 
 
 The quaintly discontinuous lays 
 To which I hold a season-ticket, 
 
 " A season-ticket cheaply bought 
 With a dessert of pilfered berries. 
 
 And who so oft my soul hast caught 
 With morn and evening voluntaries, 
 
 " Deem me not faithless, if all day 
 Among my dusty books I linger, 
 
 No pipe, like thee, for June to play 
 With fancy-led, half-conscious &iger. 
 
 " A bird is singing in my brain 
 And bubbling o er with mingled fan- 
 cies. 
 
 Gay, tragic, rapt, right heart of Sfiain 
 Fed with the sap of old romancu. 
 
 " I ask no ampler skies than those 
 His magic music rears above me, 
 
 No falser friends, no truer foes, — 
 And does not Dofia Clara love me? 
 
 " Cloaked shapes, a twanging of guitars, 
 A rush of feet, and rapiers clashing. 
 
 Then silence deep with breathless stars, 
 And overhead a white hand ilashing. 
 
 " music of all moods and climes. 
 Vengeful, forgiving, sensuous, saintly, 
 
 Where still, between the Christian 
 chimes, 
 The moorish cymbal tinkles faintly I 
 
 " life borne lightly in the hand, 
 For friend or foe with grace Castilian I 
 
 valley safe in Fancy's land, 
 Not tramped to mud yet by the mil- 
 lion! 
 
 " Bird of to-day, thy songs are stale 
 To his, my singer of all weathers. 
 
 My Calderon, my nightingale. 
 My Arab soul in Spanish feathers. 
 
 "Ah, friend, these singers dead so long, 
 And still, God knows, in purgatory. 
 
 Give its best sweetness to all song. 
 To Nature's self her better glory." 
 
 IN' THE TWTLIQHT. 
 
 Men say the sullen instrument. 
 That, from the Master's bow. 
 With pangs of joy or woe. 
 Feels music's soul through every flbra 
 sent. 
 Whispers the ravished strings 
 More than he knew or meant ; 
 Old summers in its memoiy glow ; 
 The secrets of the wind it sings; 
 It hears the April-loosened springs; 
 And mixes with its mood 
 All it dreamed when it stood 
 In the murmurous pine-wood 
 Long ago 1 
 
 The magical moonlight then 
 Steeped every bough and cone; 
 
890 
 
 THE FOOT-PATH. 
 
 The roar of the brook in the glen 
 
 Came dim from the distance blown ; 
 The wind through its glooms sang low, 
 And it swayed to and fro 
 With delight as it stood, 
 In the wonderful wood, 
 Long ago ! 
 
 ray life, have we not had seasons 
 That only said. Live and rejoice ? 
 That asked not for causes and reasons. 
 
 But made us all feeling and voice ? 
 When we went with the winds in their 
 blowing. 
 When Nature and we were peers. 
 And we seemed to share in the flowing 
 Of the inexhaustible years ? 
 Have we not from the earth drawn 
 
 juices 
 Too fine for earth's sordid uses ? 
 Have I heard, have I seen 
 
 All I feel, all I know? 
 Doth my heart overween f 
 Or could it have been 
 Long ago ? 
 
 Sometimes a breath floats by me. 
 An odor from Dreamland sent. 
 That makes the ghost seem nigh me 
 Of a splendor that came and went. 
 Of a life lived somewhere, I know not 
 
 In what diviner sphere. 
 Of memories that stay not and go not, 
 like music heard once by an ear 
 That cannot forget or reclaim it, 
 A something so shy, it would shame 
 it 
 To make it a show, 
 A something too vague, could I 
 name it, 
 1 For others to know, 
 
 X As if I had lived it or dreamed it, 
 ' As if I had acted or schemed it, 
 Long ago ! 
 
 And yet, could I live it over. 
 
 This life that stirs in my brain, 
 Could I be both maiden and lover. 
 Moon and tide, bee and clover, 
 
 As I seem to have been, once again. 
 Could I but speak it and show it. 
 This pleasure more sharp than pain, 
 That baffles and lures me so, 
 The world should once more have a poet, 
 Such as it had 
 N In the ages glad. 
 Long ago I 
 
 THE FOOT-PATH. 
 
 It mounts athwart the windy hill 
 Through sallow slopes of upland baT% 
 
 And Fancy climbs with foot-fall stiU 
 Its narrowing curves that end in air. 
 
 By day, a warmer-hearted blue 
 
 Stoops softly to that topmost swell ; 
 
 Its thread-like windings seem a clew 
 To gracious climes where all is welL 
 
 By night, far yonder, I surmise 
 An ampler world than clips my ken, 
 
 Where the great stars of happier skies 
 Commingle nobler fates of men. 
 
 I look and long, then haste me home. 
 Still master of my secret rare ; 
 
 Once tried, the path would end in Rome^ 
 But now it leads me everywhere. 
 
 Forever to the new it guides. 
 From former good, old overmuch ; 
 
 What Nature for her poets hides, 
 'T is wiser to divine than clutch. 
 
 The bird I list hath never come 
 Within the scope of mortal ear ; 
 
 My prying step would make him dum1\ 
 And the fair tree, his shelter, sear. 
 
 Behind the hill, behind the sky. 
 Behind my inmost thought, he sings; 
 
 No feet avail ; to hear it nigh. 
 The song itself must lend the wings. 
 
 Sing on, sweet bird, close hid, and raise 
 Those angel stairways in my brain. 
 
 That climb from these low-vaulted days 
 To spacious sunshines far from pain. 
 
 Sing when thou wilt, enchantment fleet, 
 I leave thy covert haunt untrod, 
 
 And envy Science not her feat 
 To make a twice-told tale of God. 
 
 They said the fairies tript no more, 
 And long ago that Pan was dead ; 
 
 'T was but that fools preferred to bore 
 Earth's rind inch-deep for truth in. 
 stead. 
 
 Pan leaps and pipes all summer long, 
 The fairies dance each full-moonel 
 night. 
 
 Would we but doff our lenses strong, 
 And trust our wiser eyes' delight. 
 
THE FOOT-PATH. 
 
 391 
 
 City of Elf-land, just without 
 Our seeing, marvel ever new. 
 
 Glimpsed in fair weather, a sweet douht 
 Sketched-in, mirage-like, on the blue. 
 
 I build thee in yon sunset cloud. 
 Whose edge allures to climb the 
 height ; 
 I hear thy drowned bells, inly-loud, 
 From still pools dusk with dreams of 
 night. 
 
 Thy gates are shut to hardiest will, 
 Thy countersigu of long-lost speech, — 
 
 Those fountained courts, those chambers 
 still. 
 Fronting Time's far East, who shall 
 reach? 
 
 I know not, and will never pry. 
 But trust our human heart for all ; 
 
 Wonders that from the seeker fly 
 Into an open sense may fall. 
 
 Hide in thine own soul, and surprise 
 The password of the unwary elves ; 
 
 Seek it, thou canst not bribe their spies ; 
 Unsought, they whisper it themselves. 
 
POEMS OF THE WAE. 
 
 TEE WASHEES OF THE SHE0X7D. 
 
 OOTOBEK, 1861. 
 
 Along a river-side, I know not where, 
 1 walked one night in mystery of dream ; 
 A chill creeps curdling yet beneath my 
 
 hair, 
 To think what chanced me hy the pallid 
 
 gleam 
 Of a moon-wraith that waned through 
 
 haunted air. 
 
 Pale fireflies pulsed within the meadow- 
 mist 
 
 Their halos, wavering thistledowns of 
 light ; 
 
 The loon, that seemed to mock some 
 goblin tryst, 
 
 Laughed ; and the echoes, huddling in 
 affright. 
 
 Like Odin's hounds, fled baying down 
 the night. 
 
 Then all was silent, till there smote my 
 
 ear 
 A movement in the stream that checked 
 
 my breath : 
 "Was it the slow plash of a wading deer ? 
 But something said, "This water is of 
 
 Death ! 
 The Sistei's wash a shroud, — ill thing 
 
 to hear ! " 
 
 I, looking then, beheld the ancient 
 Three 
 
 Known to the Greek's and to the North- 
 man's creed. 
 
 That sit in shadow of the mystic Tree, 
 
 Still crooning, as they weave their end- 
 less brede, 
 
 One song: '"Time was, Time is, and 
 Time shall be." 
 
 No wrinkled crones were they, as I had 
 
 deemed. 
 But fair as yesterday, to-day, to-morrow, 
 To mourner, lover, poet, ever seemed ; 
 Something too high for joy, too deep for 
 
 sorrow. 
 Thrilled in their tones, and from theii 
 
 faces gleamed. 
 
 "Still men and nations reap as they 
 
 have strawn," 
 So sang they, working at their task the 
 
 while ; 
 "The fatal raiment must be cleansed ere 
 
 dawn : 
 For Austria ? Italy ? the Sea-Queen's 
 
 isle? 
 O'er what quenched grandeur must our 
 
 shroud be drawn S 
 
 " Or is it for a younger, fairer corse. 
 That gathered States like children round 
 
 his knees, 
 That tamed the wave to be his posting- 
 horse. 
 Feller of forests, linker of the seas, 
 Bridge-builder, hammerer, youngest son 
 of Thor's ? 
 
 " What make we, murmur'st thou ? and 
 
 what are we ? 
 When empii-es must be wound, we bring 
 
 the shroud, 
 The time-old web of the implacable 
 
 Three : 
 Is it too coarse for him, the young and 
 
 proud ? 
 Earth's mightiest deigned to wear it, — 
 
 why not he ? 
 
 " Is there no hope I " I mOaned, " so 
 
 strong, so fair ! 
 Otir Fowler whose proud bird would 
 
 brook erewhile 
 
THE WASHERS OF THE SHROUD. 
 
 893 
 
 No riyal's swoop in all our western air ! 
 Gather the ravens, then, in funeral file 
 For him, life's morn yet golden in his 
 hair? 
 
 " Leave me not hopeless, ye unpitying 
 dames ! 
 
 1 see, half seeing. Tell me, ye who 
 scanned 
 
 The stars. Earth's elders, still must no- 
 blest aims 
 
 Be traced upon oblivious ocean-sands ? 
 
 Must Hesper join the wailing ghosts of 
 names ? " 
 
 "When grass-blades stiffen with red 
 
 battle-dew. 
 Ye deem we choose the victor and the 
 
 slain : 
 Say, choose we them that shall be leal 
 
 and true 
 To the heart's longing, the high faith of 
 
 brain ? 
 Yet there the victory lies, if ye but 
 
 knew. 
 
 "Three roots bear up Dominion: 
 
 Knowledge, Will, — 
 These twain are strong, but stronger yet 
 
 the third, — 
 Obedience, — 't is the gi'eat tap-root that 
 
 still. 
 Knit round the rock of Duty, is not 
 
 stirred, 
 Though Heaven-loosed tempests spend 
 
 their utmost skill. 
 
 " Is the doom sealed for Hesper ? 'T is 
 
 not we 
 Denounce it, but the Law before all 
 
 time : 
 The brave makes danger opportunity ; 
 The waverer, paltering with the chance 
 
 sublime. 
 Dwarfs it to peril : which shall Hesper 
 
 be? 
 
 " Hath he let vultures climb his eagle's 
 
 seat 
 To make Jove's bolts purveyors of their 
 
 maw? 
 Hath he the ManVs plaudits found more 
 
 sweet 
 Than Wisdom ? held Opinion's wind for 
 
 Law? 
 Then let him hearken for the doomstei's 
 
 feet I 
 
 "Bough are the steps, slow-hewn in 
 
 , flintiest rock, 
 States climb to power by ; slippery those 
 
 with gold 
 Down which they stumble to eternal 
 
 mock ; 
 No chafferer's hand shall long the scep« 
 
 tre hold, 
 Who, given a Fate to shape, would sell 
 
 the block. 
 
 " We sing old Sagas, songs of weal and 
 
 woe. 
 Mystic because too cheaply understood ; 
 Dark sayings are not ours ; men hear 
 
 and know, 
 See Evil weak, see strength alone in 
 
 Good, 
 Yet hope to stem God's fire with walls of 
 
 tow. 
 
 " Time Was unlocks the riddle of Time 
 
 Is, 
 That offers choice of glory or of gloom ; 
 The solver makes Time Shall Be surely 
 
 his. 
 But hasten. Sisters ! for wen now the 
 
 tomb 
 Grates its slow hinge and calls from the 
 
 "But not for him," I cried, "not yet 
 
 for him. 
 Whose large horizon, westering, star by 
 
 star 
 Wins from the void to where on Ocean's 
 
 rim 
 The sunset shuts the world with golden 
 
 bar. 
 Not yet his thews shall fail, his eye grow 
 
 dim! 
 
 ' ' His shall be larger manhood, saved 
 
 for those 
 That walk unblenching through the 
 
 trial-fires ; 
 Not suffering, but faint heart, is worst 
 
 of woes. 
 And he no base-bom son of craven sires. 
 Whose eye need blench confronted with 
 
 his foes. 
 
 " Tears may be ours, but proud, for those 
 
 who win 
 Death's royal purple in the foeman's 
 
 lines; 
 
894 
 
 TWO SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF BLONDEL. 
 
 Peace, too, brings tears ; and mid the 
 
 battle-din, 
 The wiser ear some text of God divines. 
 For the sheathed blade may rust with 
 
 darker sin. 
 
 " God, give us peace ! not such as lulls 
 to sleep, 
 
 But sword on thigh, and brow with pur- 
 pose knit ! 
 
 And let our Ship of State to harbor 
 sweep. 
 
 Her ports all up, her battle-lanterns lit. 
 
 And her leashed thunders gathering for 
 their leap ! " 
 
 So cried I with clenched hands and pas- 
 sionate pain, 
 
 Thinking of dear ones by Potomac's side ; 
 
 Again the loon laughed mocking, and 
 again 
 
 The echoes bayed far down the night 
 and died. 
 
 While waking I recalled my wandering 
 brain. 
 
 TWO SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF 
 BLONDEL. 
 
 Autumn, 1863. 
 
 Scene I. — Ntwr a castle in GerrrumA). 
 
 "S WBKE no hard task, perchance, to win 
 
 The popular laurel for my song ; 
 'T were only to comply with sin, 
 
 And own the crown, though snatched 
 by wrong : 
 Bather Truth's chaplet let me wear, 
 
 Though sharp as death its thorns may 
 sting ; 
 Loyal to Loyalty, I bear 
 
 No badge but of my rightful king. 
 
 Patient by town and tower I wait, 
 
 Or o'er the blustering moorland go ; 
 I buy no praise at cheaper rate, 
 
 Or what faint hearts may fancy so ; 
 For me, no joy in lady's bower. 
 
 Or hall, or tourney, will I sing, 
 Till the slow stars wheel round the hour 
 
 That crowns my hero and my king. 
 
 While all the land runs red with strife, 
 And wealth is won by pedler-crimes, 
 Let who will find content in life 
 
 And tinkle in unmanly rhymes; 
 I wait and seek ; through dark and 
 light. 
 
 Safe in my heart my hope I bring, 
 Till I once more my faith may plight . 
 
 To him my whole soul owns her king. 
 
 When power is filched by drone and 
 dolt. 
 And, with caught breath and flashing 
 eye. 
 Her knuckles whitening round the bolt. 
 
 Vengeance leans eager from the sky, 
 While this and that the people guess. 
 
 And to the skirts of praters cling, 
 AVbo court the crowd they should com- 
 press, 
 I turn in scorn to seek my king. 
 
 Shut in what tower of darkling chance 
 
 Or dungeon of a narrow doom, 
 Dream'st thou of battle-axe and lance 
 That for the Gross make crashing 
 room ? 
 Come ! with hushed breath the battle 
 waits 
 In the wild van thy mace's swing ; 
 While doubters parley with their fates. 
 Make thou thine own and ours, my 
 king! 
 
 0, strong to keep upright the old. 
 
 And wise to buttress with the new. 
 Prudent, as only are the bold. 
 
 Clear-eyed, as only are the true. 
 To foes beni^, to friendship stern. 
 
 Intent to imp Law's broken wing. 
 Who would not die, if death might earn 
 
 The right to kiss thy hand, my king < 
 
 Scene II. — An Inn nmr the Clidteau 
 of Chains. 
 
 Well, the whole thing is over, and here 
 I sit 
 With one arm in a sling and a milk- 
 score of gashes, 
 And this flagon of Cyprus must e'en 
 warm my wit. 
 Since what 's left of youth's flame is a 
 head flecked yrith ashes. 
 I remember I sat in this very same 
 inn, — 
 1 was young then, and one young man 
 thought I was handsome, — 
 
MEMORIiE POSITUM. 
 
 395 
 
 I had found oat what prison King 
 Bichard was in, 
 And was spurring for England to push 
 on the ransom. 
 
 How I scorned the dull souls that sat 
 guzzling around 
 And knew not my secret nor recked 
 my derision ! 
 Let the world sink or swim, John or 
 Richard be crowned, 
 All one, so the beer-tax got lenient 
 revision. 
 How little 1 dreamed, as I tramped up 
 and down. 
 That granting our wish one of Fate's 
 saddest jokes is ! 
 1 had mine with a vengeance, — my 
 king got his crown, 
 And made his whole business to break 
 other folks's. 
 
 I might as well join in the safe old turn, 
 turn: 
 A hero 's an excellent loadstar, — but, 
 bless ye. 
 What infinite odds 'twixt a hero to come 
 And your only too palpable hero in esse I 
 Precisely the odds (such examples are 
 rife) 
 'Twixt the poem conceived and the 
 rhyme we make show of, 
 Twixt the boy's morning dream and the 
 wake-up of life, 
 'Twixt the Blondel God meant and a 
 Blondel I know of I 
 
 But the world 's better off, I 'm con- 
 vinced of it now, 
 Than if heroes, like buns, could be 
 bought for a penny 
 To regard all mankind as their haltered 
 milch-cow. 
 And just care for themselves. Well, 
 God cares for the many ; 
 For somehow the poor old Earth blun- 
 ders along. 
 Each son of hers adding his mite of 
 unfitness, 
 And, choosing the sure way of coming 
 out wrong. 
 Gets to port as the next generation 
 will witness. 
 
 You think her old ribs have come all 
 crashing through, 
 If a whisk of Fate's broom snap your 
 cobweb asunder ; 
 
 But her rivets were clinched by a wiser 
 than you. 
 And our sms cannot push the Lord's 
 right hand from under. 
 Better one honest man who can wait for 
 God's mind 
 In our poor shifting scene here though 
 heroes were plenty ! 
 Better one bite, at forty, of Truth's bitter 
 rind. 
 Than the hot wine that gushed from 
 the vintage of twenty ! 
 
 I see it all now : when I wanted a king, 
 'T was the kingship that failed in 
 myself I was seeking, — 
 'T is so much less easy to do than to 
 sing, 
 So much simpler to reign by a proxy 
 than he king ! 
 Yes, I think I (2o see : after all 'g said 
 and sung, 
 Take this one rule of life and you 
 never will rue it, — 
 'Tis but do your own duty and hold 
 your own tongue 
 And Blondel were royal himself, if ha 
 knew it I 
 
 MEMORI^ POSirUM. 
 
 B. O. SBAW 
 
 I. 
 
 Beneath the trees, 
 My lifelong friends in this dear spot. 
 Sad now for eyes that see them not, 
 I hear the autumnal breeze 
 Wake the dry leaves to sigh for gladness 
 
 gone. 
 Whispering vague omens of oblivion. 
 
 Hear, 'restless as the seas, 
 Time's grim feet rustling through the 
 
 withered grace 
 Of many a spreading realm and strong- 
 stemmed race. 
 Even as my own through these. 
 
 Why make we moan 
 
 For loss that doth enrich us yet 
 
 With upward yearnings of regret ? 
 
 Bleaker than unmossed stone 
 
 Our lives were but for this immortal gain 
 
 Of unstilled longing and inspiring pain I 
 
896 
 
 MEMOKIiE POSITITM. 
 
 As thrills of long-hushed tone 
 Live in the viol, so our souls grow fine 
 With keen vibrations from the touch 
 divine 
 
 Of noble natures gone. 
 
 'T were indiscreet 
 To vex the shy and sacred grief 
 With harsh obtrusions of relief ; 
 Yet, Verse, with noiseless feet, 
 Go whisper : " This death hath far 
 
 choicer ends 
 Than slowly to impearl in hearts of 
 friends ; 
 These obsequies 't is meet 
 Not to seclude in closets of the heart. 
 But, church-like, with wide doorways, 
 to impart 
 Even to the heedless street." 
 
 Brave, good, and true, 
 I see him stand before me now. 
 And read again on that young brow, 
 Where every hope was new. 
 How sweet were life ! Yet, by the mouth 
 
 firm-set. 
 And look made up for Duty's utmost 
 debt, 
 I could divine he knew 
 That death within the sulphurous hos- 
 tile lines, 
 In the mere wreck of nobly-pitched 
 
 But the high soul hums on to light men'i 
 feet _ 
 
 I Where death for noble ends makes dying 
 
 \_ sweet ; 
 
 His life her crescent's span 
 
 Orbs full with share in their undarken- 
 ing days 
 
 Who ever climbed the battailous steepa 
 of praise 
 Since valor's praise began. 
 
 His life's expense 
 Hath won him coetemal youth 
 With the immaculate prime of Truth ; 
 
 While we, who make pretence 
 At Uving on, and wake and eat and 
 
 Plucks heart's-ease, and not rue. 
 
 Happy their end 
 Who vanish down life's evening stream 
 Placid as swans that drift in dream 
 Bound the next river-bend ! 
 Happy long life, with honor at the 
 
 close. 
 Friends' painless tears, the softened 
 thought of foes ! 
 And yet, like him, to spend 
 All at a gush, keeping our first faith 
 
 sure 
 from mid-life's doubt and eld's content- 
 ment poor. 
 What more could Fortune send? 
 
 Eight in the van. 
 On the red rampart's slippery swell. 
 With heart that beat a charge, he fell 
 
 Foeward, as fits a man ; 
 
 And life's stale trick by repetition keep, 
 
 Our fickle permanence 
 (A poor leaf-shadow on a brook, whose 
 
 play 
 Of busy idlesse ceases with our day) 
 
 Is the mere cheat of sense. 
 
 We bide our chance. 
 Unhappy, and make terms with Fate 
 A little more to let us wait ; 
 
 He leads for aye the advance, f-_^ 
 
 Hope's forlorn-hopes that plant thei| 
 
 desperate good i 
 
 'or nobler Earths and days of manlier! 
 
 mood ; ^-^so-l 
 
 Our wall of circumstance 
 
 Cleared at a bound, he flashes o'er the 
 
 fight, 
 A saintly shape of fame, to cheer the 
 right 
 And steel each wavering glance. 
 
 I write of one, 
 While with dim eyes 1 think of three ; 
 Who weeps not others fair and brave 
 as he ? 
 Ah, when the fight is won. 
 Dear Land, whom triflers now make bold 
 
 to scorn, 
 (Thee I from whose forehead Earth awaits 
 her morn,) 
 How nobler shall the eun 
 Flame in thy sky, how braver breathe 
 
 thy air. 
 That thou hred'st children who for thee 
 could dare 
 And die as thine have done I 
 
ON BOAKD THE '76, 
 ON BOARD THE 76. 
 
 WRITTEN FOR MR. BRYANt's SEVEN- 
 TIETH BIRTHDAY. 
 
 NOVSMBEK S, IS64. 
 
 Our ship lay tumbling in an angry sea, 
 Her rudder gone, her mainmast o'er 
 the side ; 
 Her scuppers, from the waves' clutch 
 staggering free. 
 Trailed threads of priceless crimson 
 through the tide ; 
 SaUs, shrouds, and spars with pirate 
 cannon torn, 
 "We lay, awaiting morn. 
 
 Awaiting morn, such mom as mocks 
 despair ; 
 And she that bare the promise of the 
 world 
 Within her sides, now hopeless, helm- 
 less, bare, 
 At random o'er the wildering waters 
 hurled ; 
 The reek of battle drifting slow alee 
 Not sullener than we. 
 
 Mom came at last to peer into our woe. 
 When lo, a sail ! Now surely help 
 was nigh ; 
 The red cross flames aloft, Christ's 
 pledge ; but no. 
 Her black guns grinning hate, she 
 rushes by 
 And hails us : — " Gains the leak ! Ay, 
 so we thought ! 
 Sink, then, with cursts fraught ! " 
 
 I leaned against my gun still angry-hot. 
 And my lids tingled with the tears 
 held back ; 
 This scorn methought was crueller than 
 shot: 
 The manly death-grip in the battle- 
 wrack, 
 Yard-arm to yard-arm, were more friendly 
 far 
 Than such fear-smothered war. 
 
 There our foe wallowed, like a wounded 
 
 brute 
 The fiercer for his hurt. What now 
 
 were best ? 
 Onoe more tug bravely at the peril's 
 
 root. 
 
 397 
 Or 
 
 Though death came with it ? 
 evade the test 
 If right or wrong in this God's world of 
 ours 
 Be leagued with mightier powers 1 
 
 Some, faintly loyal, felt their pulses ha 
 With the slow beat that doubts and 
 then despairs ; | 
 
 Some, caitiff, would have stmck the 
 starry flag 
 That knits us with our past, and 
 makes us heirs 
 Of deeds high-hearted as were ever done 
 'Neath the all-seeing sun. 
 
 But there was one, the Singer of our 
 crew. 
 Upon whose head Age waved his 
 peaceful sign. 
 But whose red heart's-blood no surren- 
 der knew; 
 And couchant under brows of massive 
 line. 
 The eyes, like guns beneath a parapet, - 
 Watched, charged with lightnings 
 yet. 
 
 The voices of the hills did his obey ; 
 The torrents flashed and tumbled in 
 his song ; 
 He brought our native fields from far 
 away. 
 Or set us 'mid the innumerable throng 
 Of dateless woods, or where we heard the 
 calm 
 Old homestead's evening psalm. 
 
 But now he sang of faith to things 
 unseen. 
 Of freedom's birthright given to us in 
 trust; 
 And words of doughty cheer he spoke 
 between. 
 That made all earthly fortune seem as 
 dust. 
 Matched with that duty, old as Time 
 and new. 
 Of being brave and true. 
 
 We, listening, leamed what makes the 
 
 might of words, — 
 Manhood to back them, constant as 
 
 a star; 
 His voice rammed home our cannon, 
 
 edged our swords. 
 
898 
 
 COMMEMOKATION ODE. 
 
 And sent our boarders [shouting; 
 shroud and spar 
 Heard him and stiffened ; the sails heard, 
 and wooed 
 The winds with loftier mood. 
 
 In our dark hours he manned our guns 
 again ; 
 Eemanned ourselves from his own 
 manhood's stores ; 
 Pride, honor, country, throbbed through 
 all his strain ; 
 And shall we praise ? God's praise 
 was his before ; 
 And on our futile laurels he looks down. 
 Himself our bravest crown. 
 
 ODE BECITED AT THE HARVARD 
 COMMEMOKATION. 
 
 July 21, 1865. 
 
 n 
 
 Weak-winged is song. 
 
 Nor aims at that clear-ethered height 
 
 Whither the brave deed climbs for light : 
 
 We seem to do them wrong, 
 Bringing our robin's-leaf to deck their 
 
 hearse 
 Who in warm lifeiblood wrote their 
 
 nobler verse, ~1 
 Our trivial song toTionor those who 
 
 come 
 With ears attuned to strenuous trump 
 
 and drum. 
 And shaped in squadron-strophes their 
 
 desire. 
 Live battle-odes whose lines were steel 
 
 and fire : 
 Yet sometimes feathered words are 
 
 strong, 
 A gracious memory to buoy up and save 
 From Lethe's dreamless ooze, the com- 
 mon grave 
 Of the unventurous throng. 
 
 To-day our Reverend Mother welcomes 
 back 
 Her wisest Scholars, those who under- 
 stood 
 The deeper teaching of her mystic tome. 
 And offered their fresh lives to make 
 it good : 
 
 No lore of Greece or Some, 
 TSo science peddling with the names of 
 
 things. 
 Or reading stars to find inglorious fates. 
 
 Can lift our life with wings 
 Far from Death's idle gulf that for the 
 many waits. 
 And lengthen out our dates 
 With that clear fame whose memory sings 
 In manly hearts to come, and nerves 
 
 them and dilates : 
 Nor such thy teaching. Mother of us all I 
 Not such the trumpet-call 
 Of thy diviner mood. 
 That could thy sons entice 
 From happy homes and toils, the fruit- 
 ful nest 
 Of those half-virtues which the world 
 calls best, 
 Into War's tumult rude ; 
 But rather far that stern device 
 The sponsors chose that round thy cradle 
 stood 
 In the dim, nnventured wood. 
 The Veritas that lurks beneath 
 The letter's unprolific sheath. 
 Life of whate'er makes life worth 
 living. 
 Seed-grain of high emprise, immortal 
 food. 
 One heavenly thing whereof earth hath 
 the giving. 
 
 III. 
 
 Many loved Truth, and lavished life's 
 best oil 
 Amid the dust of books to find her. 
 Content at last, for guerdon of their toil, 
 With the cast mantle she hath left 
 behind her. 
 Many in sad faith sought for her, 
 Many with crossed hands sighed foi 
 
 her ; 
 But these, our brothers, fought for 
 
 her 
 At life 's dear peril wrought for her. 
 So loved her that they died for her, 
 Tasting the raptured fleetness 
 Of her divine completeness : 
 Their higher instinct knew 
 Those love her best who to themselvei 
 
 are true. 
 And what they dare to dream of, dare to 
 do; 
 They followed her and found her 
 Where all may hope to find. 
 
COMMEMORATION ODE. 
 
 399 
 
 Kot in the ashes of the burnt-out mind, 
 But beautiful, with danger's sweetness 
 round her. 
 Where faith made whole with deed 
 Breathes its awakening breath 
 Into the lifeless creed. 
 They saw her plumed and mailed, 
 With sweet, stern face unveiled. 
 And aU-repaying eyes, look proud on 
 them in death. 
 
 Our slender life runs rippling by, and 
 glides 
 Into the silent hollow of the past ; 
 
 What is there that abides 
 To make the next age better for the 
 last? 
 Is earth too poor to give us 
 Something to live for here that shall 
 outlive us? 
 Some more substantial boon 
 Thau such as flows and ebbs with For- 
 tune's fickle moon ? 
 The little that we see 
 From doubt is never free ; 
 The little that we do 
 Is but half-nobly true ; 
 With our laborious hiving 
 What men call treasure, and the gods 
 call dross, 
 Life seems a jest of Fate's contriving. 
 Only secure in every one's conniving, 
 A long account of nothings paid with 
 
 loss. 
 Where we poor puppets, jerked by un- 
 seen wires, 
 After our little hour of strut and rave. 
 With all our pasteboard passions and 
 
 desires. 
 Loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal 
 fires, 
 Are tossed pell-mell together in the 
 
 grave. 
 But stay ! no age was e'er degenerate. 
 Unless men held it at too cheap a rate. 
 For in our likeness still we shape our 
 fate. 
 Ah, there is something here 
 TTnfathomed by the cynic's sneer. 
 Something that gives our feeble light 
 A high immunity from Night, 
 Something that leaps life's narrow bars 
 To claim its birthright with the hosts of 
 heaven ; 
 A seed of sunshine that can leaven 
 
 Our earthy dulness with the beams of 
 stars. 
 And glorify our clay 
 With light from fountains elder than 
 the Day ; 
 A conscience more divine than we, 
 A gladness fed with secret tears, 
 A vexing, forward-reaching sense 
 Of some more noble permanence ; 
 A light across the sea. 
 Which haunts the soul and will not 
 let it be. 
 Still beaconing from the heights of un- 
 degenerate years. 
 
 Whither leads the path 
 To ampler fates that leads ! 
 Not down through flowery 
 
 meads. 
 To reap an aftermath 
 Of youth's vainglorious weeds. 
 But up the steep, amid the wrath 
 And shock of deadly-hostile creedsj^ 
 Where the world's best hope an(\ 
 stay 
 By battle's flashes gropes a desperate 
 
 way. 
 And every turf the fierce foot clings to 
 bleeds. 
 Peace hath her not ignoble wreath. 
 Ere yet the sharp, decisive word 
 Light the black lips of cannon, and the 
 sword 
 Dreams in its easeful sheath ; 
 But some day the live coal behind tha 
 thought. 
 Whether from Baal's stone ob- 
 scene. 
 Or from the shrine serene 
 Of God's pure altar brought. 
 Bursts up in flame ; the war of tongue 
 
 and pen 
 Learns with what deadly purpose it was 
 
 fraught. 
 And, helpless in the fiery passion caught, 
 Shakes all the pillared state with shocK 
 
 of men : 
 Some day the soft Ideal that we wooed 
 Confronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued. 
 And cries reproachful : "Was it, then, 
 
 my praise. 
 And not myself was loved? Prove now 
 
 thy truth ; 
 I claim of thee the promise of thy youth ; 
 
400 
 
 COMMEMOKATION ODE. 
 
 Give me thy life, or cower in empty 
 
 phrase, 
 The victim of thy genius, not its 
 mate!" 
 Life may be given in many ways, 
 And loyalty to Truth be sealed 
 As bravely in the closet as the field. 
 So bountiful is Fate ; 
 But then to stand beside her. 
 When craven churls deride her, 
 To front a lie in arms and not to 
 yield. 
 This shows, methinks, God's plan 
 And measure of a stalwart man, 
 Limbed like the old heroic breeds. 
 Who stands self-poised on man- 
 hood's solid earth, 
 Not forced to frame excuses for his 
 birth, 
 Fed from within with all the strength he 
 needs. 
 
 Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, 
 
 Whom late the Nation he had led. 
 With ashes on her head. 
 Wept with the passion of an angry grief; 
 Forgive me, if from present things I 
 
 turn 
 To speak what in my heart will beat and 
 
 bum. 
 And hang my wreath on his world-hon- 
 ored urn. 
 Nature, they say, doth dote, 
 And cannot make a man 
 Save on some worn-out plan, 
 Eepeating us by rote : 
 For him her Ola- World moulds aside she 
 threw, 
 And, choosing sweet clay from the 
 breast 
 Of the unexhausted West, 
 With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, 
 Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, 
 and true." 
 How beautiful to see 
 Once more a shepherd of mankind in- 
 deed. 
 Who loved his charge, but never loved 
 
 to lead ; 
 One whose meek flock the people joyed 
 to be, 
 Not lured by any cheat of birth. 
 But by his clear-grained human 
 worth, 
 And brave old wisdom of sincerity ! 
 
 They knew that outward grace ii 
 
 dust ; 
 They could not choose but trust 
 In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering 
 skiU, 
 And supple-tempered will 
 That bent like perfect steel to spring 
 again and thrust. 
 His was no lonely mountain-peak 
 
 of mind, 
 Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy 
 
 bars, 
 A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors 
 
 blind; 
 Broad prairie rather, genial, level- 
 lined. 
 Fruitful and friendly for all human 
 kind. 
 Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of 
 loftiest stars. 
 Nothing of Europe here, 
 Or, then, of Europe fronting momward 
 still, 
 Ere any names of Serf and Peer 
 Could Nature's equal scheme de- 
 face 
 And thwart her genial will ; 
 Here was =• type of the true elder 
 race. 
 And one of Plutarch's men talked with 
 us face to face. 
 I praise him not ; it were too late ; 
 And some innative weakness there must 
 
 be 
 In him who condescends to victory 
 Such as the Present gives, and cannot 
 wait. 
 Safe in himself as in a fate. 
 So always firmly he : 
 He knew to bide his time, 
 And can his fame abide, 
 Still patient in his simple faith sub- 
 lime, 
 Till the wise years decide. 
 Great captains, with their guns and 
 drums, 
 Disturb our judgment for the hour. 
 But at last .silence comes ; 
 These all are gone, and, standing like 
 
 a tower, 
 Our children shall behold his fame. 
 The kindly-earnest, brave, foresee- 
 ing man. 
 Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not 
 blame, 
 New birth of our new soil, the first 
 American. 
 
COMMEMORATION ODK. 
 
 401 
 
 Long as man's hope insatiate can 
 
 discern 
 Or only guess some more inspiring 
 
 goal 
 Outside of Self, enduring as the 
 
 pole, 
 Along whose course the flying axles 
 
 bum 
 Of spirits bravely-pitched, earth's 
 
 manlier brood ; 
 Long as below we cannot find 
 The meed that stills the inexorable 
 
 mind ; 
 So long this faith to some ideal Good, 
 Under whatever mortal names it 
 
 masks. 
 Freedom, Law, Country, this ethereal 
 
 mood 
 That thanks the Fates for their severer 
 
 tasks. 
 Feeling its challenged pulses leap, 
 "While others skulk in subterfuges 
 
 cheap, 
 And, set in Danger's van, has all the 
 
 boon it asks. 
 Shall win man's praise and woman's 
 
 love. 
 Shall be a wisdom that we set above 
 All other skills and gifts to culture dear, 
 A virtue round whose forehead we in- 
 
 wreathe 
 Laurels that with a living passion 
 
 breathe 
 When other crowns grow, while we twine 
 
 them, sear. 
 What brings us thronging these high 
 
 rites to pay. 
 And seal these hours the noblest of our 
 
 year. 
 Save that our brothers found this bet- 
 ter way ? 
 
 We sit here in the Promised Land 
 That flows with Freedom's honey and 
 
 milk; 
 But 't was they won it, sword in hand, 
 Making the nettle danger soft for us as 
 
 silk. 
 We welcome back our bravest and our 
 
 best ; — 
 Ah me ! not all ! some come not with 
 
 the rest, 
 MHio went forth brave and bright as any 
 
 here ! I 
 
 I strive to mix some gladness with my 
 strain, 
 But the sad strings complain, 
 And will not please the ear : 
 I sweep them for a paean, but they wane 
 
 Again and yet again 
 Into a dirge, and die away, in pain. 
 In these brave ranks I only see the gaps, 
 Thinking of dear ones whom the dumb 
 
 turf wraps. 
 Dark to the triumph which they died to 
 gain: 
 Fitlier may otliers greet the living, 
 For me the past is unforgiving ; 
 I with uncovered head 
 Salute the sacred dead, 
 Who went, and who return not. — Say 
 
 not so ! 
 'T is not the grapes of Canaan that repay. 
 But the high faith that failed not by 
 
 the way ; 
 Virtue treads paths that end not in the 
 
 grave; 
 No ban of endless night exiles the brave ; 
 
 And to the saner mind 
 We rather seem the dead that stayed 
 
 behind. 
 Blow, trumpets, all your exultations 
 
 blow ! 
 For never shall their aureoled presence 
 
 lack : 
 I see them muster in a gleaming row, 
 With ever-youthful brows that nobler 
 
 show; 
 We find in our dull road their shining 
 track; 
 In every nobler mood 
 We feel the orient of their spirit glow. 
 Part of our life's unalterable good. 
 Of all our saintlier aspiration ; 
 
 They come ta-ansfigured back, 
 Secure from change in their high-hearted 
 
 ways, 
 Beautiful evermore, and with the rays 
 Of mom on their white Shields of Ex* 
 pectation ! 
 
 But is there hope to save 
 Even this ethereal essence from the 
 
 grave ? 
 What ever 'scaped Oblivion's subtle 
 wrong 
 Save a few clarion names, or golden 
 threads of song? 
 Before my musing eye 
 
402 
 
 COMMEMOEATION ODE. 
 
 The mighty ones of old sweep by, 
 Disvoiced now and insabstantial 
 
 things, 
 As noisy once as we } poor ghosts of 
 
 kings, 
 Shadows of empire vholly gone to 
 
 dust, 
 And many races, nameless long ago, 
 To darkness driven by that imperious 
 
 gust 
 Of ever-rushing Time that here doth 
 
 blow : 
 visionary world, condition strange, 
 Where naught abiding is but only 
 
 Change, 
 Where the deep-bolted stars themselves 
 
 still shift and range ! 
 Shall we to more continuance make 
 
 pretence ? 
 Renown builds tombs ; a life-estate is 
 
 Wit; 
 And, bit by bit, 
 The cunning years steal all from us but 
 
 woe ; 
 Leaves are we, whose decays no har- 
 vest sow. 
 But, when we vanish hence. 
 Shall they lie forceless in the dark 
 
 below. 
 Save to make green their little length 
 
 of sods, 
 Or deepen pansies for a year or two. 
 Who now to us are shining-sweet as 
 
 gods ? 
 Was dying all they had the skill to do ? 
 That were not fruitless : but the Soul 
 
 resents 
 Such short-lived service, as if blind 
 
 events 
 Ruled without her, or earth could so 
 
 endure ; 
 She claims a inore divine investiture 
 I Of longer tenure than Fame's airy 
 
 rents ; 
 Whate'er she touches doth her nature 
 
 share ; 
 Her inspiration haunts the ennobled 
 
 air, 
 Gives eyes to mountains blind. 
 Ears to the deaf earth, voices to the 
 
 wind. 
 And her clear trump sings succor 
 
 everywhere 
 By lonely bivouacs to the wakeful 
 
 mind ; 
 ^I'oT soul inherits aJl that soul could 
 
 dare: 
 
 Yea, Manhood hath a wider span 
 And larger privilege of life than man. 
 The single deed, the private sacrifice, 
 So radiant now through proudly-hid« 
 
 den tears. 
 Is covered up erelong from mortal eyes 
 With thoughtless drift of the decidu- 
 ous years ; 
 But that high privilege that makes all 
 
 men peers. 
 That leap of heart whereby a people 
 rise 
 tTp to a noble anger's height, 
 And, flamed on by the Fates, not sluink, 
 but grow more bright, 
 That swift validity in noble veins. 
 Of choosing danger and disdaining 
 shame. 
 Of being set on flame 
 By the pure fire that flies all contact 
 base. 
 But wraps its chosen vrith angelic might, 
 These are imperishable gains, 
 Sure as the sun, medicinal as light, 
 These hold great futures in their lusty 
 reins 
 And certify to earth a new imperial race. 
 
 X. 
 
 Who now shall sneer ? 
 Who dare again to say we trace 
 Our lines to a plebeian race ? 
 Roundhead and Cavalier ! 
 Dumb are those names erewhile in battle 
 
 loud; 
 Dream-footed as the shadow of a cloud, 
 
 They flit across the ear : 
 That is best blood that hath most iron 
 
 in 't. 
 To edge resolve with, pouring without 
 stint 
 For what makes manhood dear. 
 Tell us not of Plantagenets, 
 Hapsburgs, andGuelfs, whosethin blooda 
 
 crawl 
 Down from some victor in a border- 
 brawl ! 
 How poor their outworn coronets, 
 Matched with one leaf of that plain civic 
 
 wreath 
 Our brave for honor's blazon shall be. 
 queath. 
 Through whosedesert a rescued Nation 
 sets 
 Her heel on treason, and the trumpet 
 hears 
 
COMMEMORATION ODE. 
 
 403 
 
 Bhout victory, tingling Europe's sullen 
 ears 
 With vain resentments and more vain 
 legrets I 
 
 XI. 
 
 Not in anger, not in pride, 
 Pure from passion's mixture rude 
 Ever to base earth allied, 
 But with far-heard gratitude. 
 Still withheart and voice renewed. 
 To heroes living and dear martyrs 
 dead. 
 The strain should close that consecrates 
 our brave. 
 Lift the heart and lift the head ! 
 Lofty be its mood and grave, 
 Not without a martial ring, 
 Not without a prouder tread 
 And a peal of exultation : 
 Little right has he to sing 
 Through whose heart in such an 
 
 hour 
 Beats no march of conscious 
 
 power. 
 Sweeps no tumult of elation 1 
 'T is no Man we celebrate. 
 By his country's victories great, 
 A hero half, and half the whim of 
 Fate, 
 But the pith and marrow of a 
 
 Nation 
 Drawing force from all her men. 
 Highest, humblest, weakest, all. 
 For her time of need, and then 
 Pulsing it again through them. 
 Till the basest can no longer cower. 
 Feeling his soul spring up divinely tall. 
 Touched but in passing by her mantle- 
 hem. 
 Come back, then, noble pride, for 't is 
 her dower ! 
 How could poet ever tower. 
 If his passions, hopes, and fears, 
 If his triumphs and his tears. 
 Kept not measure with his peo- 
 ple? 
 Boom, cannon, boom to all the winds 
 
 and waves ! 
 Clash out, glad bells, from every rock- 
 ing steeple ! 
 Banners, adance with triumph, bend 
 your staves! 
 AndVrom every mountain-peak 
 Let beacon-fir^, to answering beacon 
 speak, , , 
 
 Katahdin tell Monadnock, White- 
 
 face he. 
 And so leap on in light from sea to sea, 
 Till the glad news be sent 
 Across a Kindling continent, 
 Making earth feel more firm and air 
 
 breathe braver: 
 " Be proud I for she is saved, and all 
 
 have helped to save her I 
 She that lifts up the manhood of 
 
 the poor. 
 She of the open soul and open door, 
 With room about her hearth for all 
 
 mankind ! 
 The tire is dreadful in her eyes no 
 
 more; 
 From her bold front the helm she 
 
 doth unbind. 
 Sends all her handmaid armies back 
 
 to spin, 
 And bids her navies, that so lately 
 
 hurled 
 Their crashing battle, hold their 
 
 thunders in. 
 Swimming like birds of calm along 
 
 the unharmful shore. 
 No challenge sends she to the elder 
 
 world, 
 That looked askance and hated ; a 
 
 light scorn 
 Plays o'er her mouth, as round hel 
 
 mighty knees 
 She calls her children back, and 
 
 waits the mom 
 Of nobler day, enthroned between her 
 
 subject seas." 
 
 low down, dear Land, for thou hast 
 
 found release ! 
 Thy God, in these distempered days, 
 Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of 
 His ways. 
 And through thine enemies hath wrought 
 thy peace ! 
 Bow down in prayer and praise ! 
 No poorest in thy borders but may now 
 Lift to the juster skies a man's enfran- 
 chised brow. 
 Beautiful*! my Country ! ours once 
 
 more ! 
 Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled 
 
 hair 
 O'er such sweetbrows as never other 
 wore, ~J I 
 
 And lettitg thy set lips, ' 
 
404 
 
 L'ENVOI. 
 
 Freed from wrath's pale eclipse, 
 The rosy edges of their smile lay bare, 
 What words divine of lover or of poet 
 Could tell our love and make thee know 
 
 it, 
 Among the Nations bright beyond com^ 
 
 pare? 
 
 What were our lives 'without 
 
 thee? 
 What all our lives to save thee ! 
 We reok not what we gave thee ; 
 We will not dare to doubt thee, 
 But ask whatever else, and we will 
 dare I 
 
 L'ENVOI. 
 
 TO THE MUSE. 
 
 Whither ? Albeit I follow fast. 
 
 In all life's circuit I but find, 
 Not where thou art, but where thou 
 wast, 
 
 Sweet beckoner, more fleet than wind ! 
 I haunt the pine-dark solitudes, 
 
 With soft brown silence carpeted, 
 And plot to snare thee in the woods : 
 
 Peace I o'ertake, but thou art fled ! 
 I find the rock where thou didst rest, 
 The moss thy skimming foot hath yrest ; 
 
 All Nature with thy parting thrills. 
 Like branches after birds new-flown ; 
 
 Thy passage hill and hollow fills 
 With hints of virtue not their own ; 
 In dimples still the water slips 
 Where thou hast dipt thy finger-tips ; 
 
 Just, just beyond, forever bum 
 
 Gleams of a grace without return; 
 
 Upon thy shade I plant my foot. 
 And through my frame strange raptures 
 
 shoot ; 
 All of thee but thyself I grasp ; 
 
 I seem to fold thy luring shape, 
 And vague air to my bosom clasp, 
 
 Thou lithe, perpetual Escape I 
 
 One mask and then another drops. 
 And thou art secret as before : 
 Sometimes with flooded ear I list, 
 And hear thee, wondrouj organist. 
 From mighty continental stops 
 A thunder of new music pour ; 
 Through pipes of earth and air and stone 
 Thy inspiration deep is blown ; 
 Through mountains, forests, open downs, 
 Lakes, railroads, pr^ries, states, and 
 towns, 
 
 Thy gathering fugue goes rolling on 
 From Maine to utmost Oregon ; 
 The factory-wheels in cadence hum. 
 From brawling parties concords come ; 
 All this I hear, or seem to hear. 
 But when, enchanted, I draw near 
 To mate with words the various theme, 
 Life seems a whiff' of kitchen steam. 
 History an organ-grinder's thrum. 
 
 For thou hast slipt from it and me 
 And all thine organ-pipes left dumb. 
 
 Most mutable Perversity ! 
 
 Not weary yet, I still must seek. 
 And hope for luck next day, next week ; 
 I go to see the great man ride, 
 Shiplike, the swelling human tide 
 That floods to bear him into port, 
 Trophied from Senate-hall and Court ; 
 Thy magnetism, I feel it there, i 
 
 Thy rhythmic presence fleet and rare, 
 Making the Mob a moment fine 
 With glimpses of their own Divine, 
 As in their demigod they see 
 
 Their cramped ideal soaring free ; 
 'T was thou didst bear the fire about, 
 
 That, like the springing of a mine 
 Sent up to heaven the street-long shout} 
 Full well I know that thou wast here. 
 It was thy breath that brushed my ear; 
 But vainly in the stress and whirl 
 I dive for thee, the moment's pearl. 
 
 Through every shape thou well canst 
 
 run, 
 Proteus, 'twixt rise and set of sun. 
 Well pleased with logger-campi i> 
 
 Maine 
 
TO THE MUSE. 
 
 405 
 
 As where Milan's pale Duomci lies 
 A. stranded glacier on the plain, 
 Its peaks and pinnacles of ice 
 Melted in many a quaint device, 
 And sees, above the city's din, 
 Afar its silent Alpine kin : 
 1 track thee over carpets deep 
 To wealth's and beauty's inmost keep ; 
 Across the sand of bar-room Hoors 
 Mid the stale reek of boosing boors ; 
 Where drowse the hay-field's fragrant 
 
 heats, 
 Or the flail-heart of Autumn beats ; 
 I dog thee through the market's throngs 
 To where the sea with myriad tongues 
 Laps the green edges of the pier. 
 And the tall ships that eastward steer, 
 Curtsy their farewells to the town. 
 O'er the curved distance lessening down ; 
 I follow allwhere for thy sake. 
 Touch thy robe's hem, but ne'er o'ertake. 
 Find where, scarce yet unmoving, lies, 
 Warm from thy Umbs, thy last disguise ; 
 But thou another shape hast donned. 
 And lurest still just, just beyond I 
 
 But here a voice, I know not whence, 
 Thrills clearly through my inward sense, 
 Saying : " See where she sits at home 
 While thou in search of her dost roam I 
 All summer long her ancient wheel 
 
 Whirls humming by the open door, 
 Or, when the hickory's social zeal 
 
 Sets the wide chimney in a roar. 
 Close-nestled by the tinkling hearth, 
 It modulates the household mirth 
 With that sweet serious undertone 
 Of duty, music all her own ; 
 Still as of old she sits and spins 
 Our hopes, our sorrows, and our sins; 
 With equal care she twines the fates 
 Of cottages and mighty states ; 
 She spins the earth, the air, the sea. 
 The maiden's unschooled fancy free. 
 
 The boy's first love, the man's first griet 
 The budding and the fall o' the leaf; 
 The piping west-wind's snowy care 
 For her their cloudy fleeces spare, 
 Or from the thorns of evil times 
 She can glean wool to twist her rhymes ; 
 Morning and noon and eve supply 
 To her their fairest tints for dye. 
 But ever through her twirling thread 
 There spires one line of wannest red, 
 Tinged from the homestead's genial 
 
 heart. 
 The stamp and warrant of her art ; 
 With this Time's sickle she outwears. 
 And blunts the Sisters' baffled shears. 
 
 " Harass her not : thy heat and stir 
 But greater coyness breed in her ; 
 Yet thou mayst find, ere Age's frost, 
 Thy long apprenticeship not lost. 
 Learning at last that Stygian Fate 
 Unbends to him that knows to wait. 
 The Muse is womanish, nor deigns 
 Her love to him that pules and plains ; 
 With proud, averted face she stands 
 To him that wooes with empty hands. 
 Make thyself free of Manhood's guild ; 
 Pull down thy barns and greater build ; 
 The wood, the mountain, and the plain 
 Wave breast-deep.with the poet's grain ; 
 Pluck thou the sunset's fruit of gold. 
 Glean from the heavens and ocean old ; 
 From fireside lon^ and trampling street 
 Let thy life gamer daily wheat ; 
 The epic of a man rehearse. 
 Be something better than thy verse ; 
 Make thyself rich, and then the Muse 
 Shall court thy precious interviews. 
 Shall take thy head upon her knee. 
 And such enchantment lilt to thee. 
 That thou shalt hear the life-blood flow 
 From farthest stars to grass-blades low. 
 And find the Listener's science stiU 
 Transcends the Singer's deepest skill 1 " 
 
To 
 MR. JAMES T. FIELDS. 
 
 Mt dear Fields : 
 
 Dr. Johnson's sturdy self-respect led him to invent the Bookseller as a 
 substitute for the Patron. My relations with you have enabled me to dis- 
 cover how pleasantly the Friend may replace the Bookseller. Let me 
 record my sense of many thoughtful services by associating your namu 
 with a poem which owes its appearance in this form to your partiality. 
 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 J. R. LOWELL. 
 Caubridoe, November S9, 1869. 
 
THE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 Fak through the memory shines a happy 
 
 day, 
 Cloudlesg of care, down-shod to every 
 
 sense, 
 And simply perfect from its own resource, 
 As to a bee the new campanula's 
 Illuminate seclusion swung in air. 
 Such days are not the prey of setting 
 
 suns, 
 Nor ever blurred with mist of after- 
 thought .; 
 Like words made magical by poets dead, 
 Wherein the music of all meaning is 
 The sense hath garnered or the soul di- 
 vined, 
 They mingle with our life's ethereal part, 
 Sweetening and gathering sweetness ever- 
 more, 
 By beauty's franchise disenthi'alled of 
 time. 
 
 I can recall, nay, they are present still. 
 Parts of myself, the perfume of my mind. 
 Days that seem farther off than Homer's 
 
 now 
 Ere yet the child had loudened to theboy. 
 And I, recluse from playmates, found 
 
 perforce 
 Companionship in things that not denied 
 1 Nor granted wholly ; as is Nature's 
 } wont, 
 
 'who, safe in unconteminate reserve. 
 Lets us mistake our longing for her love. 
 And mocks with various echo of our- 
 selves. 
 
 These first sweet frauds upon our con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 That blend the sensual with its imaged 
 world. 
 
 These virginal cognitions, gifts of mom, 
 
 Ere life grow noisy, and slower-footed 
 thought 
 
 Can overtake the rapture of the sense, 
 To thrust between ourselves and what 
 
 we feel. 
 Have something in them secretly divine. 
 Vainly the eye, once schooled to serve 
 
 the brain. 
 With pains deliberate studies to renew 
 The ideal vision : second-thoughts are 
 
 prose ; 
 For beauty's acme hath a term as brief 
 As the wave's poise before it break in 
 
 psarl. 
 Our own breath dims the mirror of the 
 
 sense, 
 Looking too long and closely : at a flash 
 We snatch the essential grace of mean- 
 ing out. 
 And that first passion beggars all be- 
 hind. 
 Heirs of a tamer transport prepossessed. 
 Who, seeing once, has truly seen again 
 The gray vague of unsympathizing sea 
 That dragged his Fancy from her moor- 
 ings back 
 To shores inhospitable of eldest time, 
 Till blank foreboding of ea?th-gendered 
 
 powers, 
 Pitiless seignories in the elements. 
 Omnipotences blind that darkling smite, f 
 Misgave him, and repaganized the ,• 
 
 world ? 
 Yet, by some subtler touch of sympathy, , 
 These primal apprehensions, dimly 
 
 stirred. 
 Perplex the eye with pictures from with- 
 
 in. 
 This hath made poets dream of lives fore- 
 gone 
 In worlds fantastical, more fair than ours ; 
 So Memory cheats us, glimpsing half- 
 revealed. 
 Even as I vrrite she tries her wonted 
 spell 
 
408 
 
 THE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 In that continuous redbreast boding 
 rain : 
 
 The bird I hear sings not from yonder 
 elm ; 
 
 But the flown ecstasy my childhood 
 heard 
 
 Is vocal in my mind, renewed by him, 
 
 Haply made sweeter by the accumulate 
 thrill 
 
 That threads my undivided life and 
 steals 
 
 A pathos from the years and graves be- 
 tween. 
 
 I know not how it is with other men. 
 
 Whom I but guess, deciphering myself ; 
 
 For me, once felt is so felt nevermore. 
 
 The fleeting relish at sensation's brim 
 
 Had in it the best ferment of the wine. 
 
 One spring I knew as never any since : 
 
 All night the surges of the warm south- 
 west 
 
 Boomed intermittent through the wal- 
 lowing elms, 
 
 And brought a morning from the Gulf 
 adrift. 
 
 Omnipotent with SQnshine, whose quick 
 charm 
 
 Startled with crocuses the sullen turf 
 
 And wiled the bluebird to his whiff of 
 song: 
 
 One summer hour abides, what time I 
 perched. 
 
 Dappled with noonday, under simmer- 
 ing leaves. 
 
 And pulled the pulpy oxhearts, while 
 aloof 
 
 An oriole clattered and the robins 
 shrilled, 
 
 Denouncing me an alien and a thief : 
 
 One morn of autumn lords it o'er the 
 rest, 
 
 When in the lane 1 watched the ash- 
 leaves fall. 
 
 Balancing softly earthward without 
 , wind, 
 
 Or twirling with directer impulse down 
 
 On those fallen yesterday, now barbed 
 with frost, 
 
 While I grew pensive with the pensive 
 year : 
 
 And once I learned how marvellous 
 winter was. 
 
 When past the fence-rails, downy-gray 
 with rime, 
 
 I creaked adventurous o'er the spangled 
 crust 
 
 That made familiar fields seem far and 
 
 strange 
 As those stark wastes that whiten end- 
 
 In ghastly solitude about the pole. 
 And gleam relentless to the unsetting 
 
 sun : 
 Instant the candid chambers of my brain 
 Were painted with these sovran images ; 
 And later visions seem but copies pale 
 From those unfading frescos of the past, 
 Which I, young savage, in my age of 
 
 flint, 
 Gazed at, and dimly felt a power in me 
 Parted from Nature by the joy in her 
 That doubtfully revealed me to myself. 
 Thenceforward I must stand outside the 
 
 gate ; 
 And paradise was paradise the more, 
 Known once and barred against satiety. 
 
 What we call Nature, all outside our- 
 selves, 
 Is but our own conceit of what we see. 
 Our own reaction upon what we feel ; 
 The world 's a woman to our shifting 
 
 mood. 
 Feeling with us, or making due pretence ; 
 And therefore we the more persuade our- 
 selves 
 To make all things our thought's con- 
 federates. 
 Conniving with us in whate'er we dream. 
 So when our Fancy seeks analogies, 
 Though she have hidden what she after 
 
 finds, 
 She loves to cheat herself with feigned 
 
 surprise. 
 I find my own complexion everywhere : 
 No rose, I doubt, was ever, like the 
 
 first, 
 A marvel to the bush it dawned upon. 
 The rapture of its life made visible. 
 The mystery of its yearning realized, 
 As the first babe to the first woman 
 
 bom ; 
 No falcon ever felt delight of wings 
 As when, an eyas, from the stolid cliff 
 Loosing himself, he followed his high 
 
 heart 
 To swim on sunshine, masterless as 
 
 wind ; 
 And I believe the brown earth takes 
 
 delight 
 In the new snowdrop looking back at 
 
 her, 
 To think that by some vernal alchemy 
 
TKB CATHKDKAL. 
 
 4ty3 
 
 It conld transmute her darkness into 
 
 pearl ; 
 What is the biixom peony after that, 
 With its coarse constancy of hoyden 
 
 blush ? 
 What the full summer to that wonder 
 
 new ? 
 
 But, if in nothing else, in us there is 
 A sense fastidious hardly reconciled 
 To the poor makeshifts of life's scenery, 
 Where the same slide must double all its 
 
 parts. 
 Shoved in for Tarsus and hitched back 
 
 for Tyre. 
 I blame not in the soul this daintiness, 
 Basher of surfeit than a humming-bird. 
 In things indifferent by sense purveyed ; 
 It argues her an immortality 
 And dateless incomes of experience. 
 This unthrift housekeeping that will not 
 
 brook 
 A dish warmed-over at the feast of life, 
 And finds Twice stale, served with what- 
 ever sauce. 
 Nor matters much how it may go with 
 
 me 
 Who dwell in Grub Street and am proud 
 
 to drudge 
 Where men, my betters, wet their crust 
 
 with tears : 
 Use can make sweet the peach's shady 
 
 side. 
 That only by reflection tastes of sun. 
 
 But she, my Princess, who will some- 
 times deign 
 
 My garret to illumine till the walls. 
 
 Narrow and dingy, scrawled with hack- 
 neyed thought 
 
 (Poor Richard slowly elbowing Plato 
 out), 
 
 Dilate and drape themselves with tapes- 
 tries 
 
 Nausikaa might have stooped o'er, while, 
 between. 
 
 Mirrors, efiaced in their own clearness, 
 send 
 
 Her only image on through deepening 
 
 Music where none is, and a keener pang 
 Of exquisite surmise outleaping 
 
 thought, — 
 Her will I pamper in her luxury : 
 No crumpled rose-leaf of too careless 
 
 choice 
 Shall bring a northern nightmare to her 
 
 dreams. 
 Vexing with sense of exile ; hers shall 
 
 be 
 The invitiate firstlings of experience. 
 Vibrations felt but once and felt life- 
 long : 
 0, more than half-way turn that Grecian 
 
 front 
 Upon me, while with self-rebuke I spell. 
 On the plain fillet that confines thy hair 
 In conscious bounds of seeming uncon- 
 
 straint. 
 The Naught in overplus, thy race's 
 
 " ■ I 
 
 With endless repercussion of delight, — 
 Bringer of life, witching each sense to 
 
 soul. 
 That sometimes almost gives me to 
 
 believe 
 1 might have been a poet, gives at least 
 A brain desaxonized, an ear that makes 
 
 One feast for her I secretly designed 
 In that Old World so strangely beautiful 
 To us the disinherited of eld, — 
 A day at Chartres, with no soul beside 
 To roil with pedant prate my joy serene 
 And make the minster shy of confidence. 
 I went, and, with the Saxon's pious care. 
 First ordered dinner at the pea-green 
 
 inn, 
 The flies and I its only customers. 
 Eluding these, I loitered through the 
 
 town. 
 With hope to take my minster unawares 
 In its grave solitude of memory. 
 A pretty burgh, and such as Fancy loves 
 For bygone grandeurs, faintly rumorous 
 
 now 
 Upon the mind's horizon, as of storm 
 Brooding its dreamy thunders far aloof, 
 That mingle with our mood, but not 
 
 disturb. 
 Its once grim bulwarks, tamed to lovers' 
 
 walks. 
 Look down unwatchfnl on the sliding 
 
 Eure, 
 Whose listless leisure suits the quiet 
 
 place. 
 Lisping among his shallows homelike 
 
 sounds 
 At Concord and by Bankside heard be- 
 fore. 
 Chance led me to a public pleasure- 
 ground, 
 Where I grew kindly with the meny 
 groups, 
 
410 
 
 THE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 And Wessed the Frenchman for his sim- 
 ple art 
 
 Of being domestic in the light of day. 
 
 Hia language has no word, we growl, for 
 Home ; 
 
 But he can find a fireside in the sun. 
 
 Play with his child, make love, and 
 shriek his mind, 
 
 By throngs of strangers undisprivacied. 
 
 He makes his life a public gallery, 
 
 N or feels himself till what he feels comes 
 back 
 
 In manifold reflection from without ; 
 
 While we, each pore alert with con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 Hide our best selves as we had stolen 
 them, 
 
 And each bystander a detective were, 
 
 Keen-eyed for every chink of undisguise. 
 
 So, musing o'er the problem which was 
 
 best, — 
 A life wide-windowed, shining all abroad, 
 Or curtains drawn to shield from sight 
 
 profane 
 The rites we pay to the mysterions Ij — 
 With outward senses furloughed and 
 
 head bowed 
 I followed some fine instinct in my feet. 
 Till, to unbend me from the loom of 
 
 thought, 
 Looking up suddenly, I found mine eyes 
 Confronted with the minster's vast re- 
 pose. 
 Silent and gray as forest-leaguered cliff 
 Left inland by the ocean's slow retreat. 
 That hears afar the breeze-borne rote 
 
 and longs, 
 Bemembering shocks of surf that clomb 
 
 and fell, 
 Spume-slidingdown the baffled decuman, 
 I It rose before me, patiently remote 
 I From the great tides of life it breasted 
 , once. 
 
 Hearing the noise of men as in a dream. 
 I stood before the triple northern port. 
 Where dedicated shapes of saints and 
 
 kings. 
 Stern faces bleared with immemorial 
 
 watch. 
 Looked down benignly grave and seemed 
 
 to say, 
 ¥e come and go incesswnt ; we reina-in 
 Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past ; 
 Be reverent, ye who flit and are forgot, 
 Qffaiih, so nobly realixed as this. 
 
 I seem to have heard it said by learned 
 
 folk 
 Who drench you with sesthetios till you 
 
 feel 
 As if all beauty were a ghastly bore, 
 The faucet to let loose a wash of words. 
 That Gothic is not Grecian, therefore 
 
 worse ; 
 But, being convinced by much experi- 
 ment 
 How little inventiveness there is in man. 
 Grave copier of copies, I give thanks 
 For a new relish, careless to inquire 
 My pleasure's pedigree, if so it please, 
 Nobly, I mean, nor renegade to art. 
 The Grecian gluts me with its perfect- 
 
 ness, 
 Unanswerable as Euclid, self-contained. 
 The one thing finished in this hasty 
 
 world. 
 Forever finished, though the barbarous 
 
 pit. 
 Fanatical on hearsay, stamp and shout 
 As if a miracle could be encored. 
 But ah ! this other, this that never ends. 
 Still climbing, luring fancy still to climb, 
 As full of morals half-divined as life. 
 Graceful, grotesque, with ever new sur- 
 prise 
 Of hazardous caprices sure to please. 
 Heavy as nightmare, aiiy-light as fern, 
 Imagination's very self in stone ! 
 With one long sigh of infinite release 
 From pedantries past, present, or to- 
 come, 
 I looked, and owned myself a happy 
 
 Goth. 
 Your blood is mine, ye architects of 
 
 dream. 
 Builders of aspiration incomplete, 
 So more consummate, souls self-confl- 
 
 dent. 
 Who felt your own thought worthy of 
 
 record 
 In monumental pomp ! No Grecian drop 
 Rebukes these veins that leap with kin- 
 dred thrill. 
 After long exile, to the mother-tongue. 
 
 Ovid in Pontus, puling for his Rome 
 Of men invirile and disnatured dames 
 That poison sucked from the Attic 
 
 bloom decayed. 
 Shrank with a shudder from the blue- 
 
 eyed race 
 Whose force rough-handed should re> 
 
 new the world, 
 
THE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 411 
 
 And from the dregs of Bomnlua express 
 Such wine as Dante poured, or he who 
 
 blew 
 Boland's vain blast, or sang the Cam- 
 
 peador 
 In verse that clanks like armor in the 
 
 charge, 
 Homeric juice, though brimmed in Odin's 
 
 horn. 
 And they could build, if not the col- 
 umned fane 
 That from the height gleamed seaward 
 
 many-hued, 
 Something more friendly with their 
 
 ruder skies : 
 The gray spire, molten now in driving 
 
 mist, 
 Now lulled with the incommunicable 
 
 blue ; 
 The carvings touched to meaning new 
 
 with snow. 
 Or commented with fleeting grace of 
 
 shade ; 
 The statues, motley as man's memory, 
 Partial as that, so mixed of true and 
 
 false. 
 History and legend meeting with a kiss 
 Across this bound-mark where their 
 
 realms confine; 
 The painted windows, freaking gloom 
 
 with glow. 
 Dusking the sunshine which they seem 
 
 to cheer, 
 Meet symbol of the senses and the soul. 
 And the whole pile, grim with the 
 
 Northman's thought 
 Of life and death, and doom, life's equal 
 
 These were before me : and I 
 
 abashed. 
 Child of an age that lectures, not creates, 
 Plastering our swallow-nests on the aw- 
 ful Past, 
 And twittering round the work of larger 
 
 men. 
 As we had builded what we but deface. 
 Far up the great bells wallowed in de- 
 light, 
 Tossing their clangors o'er the heedless 
 
 town. 
 To call the worshippers who never came, 
 Or women mostly, in loath twos and 
 
 threes. 
 { entered, reverent of whatever shrine 
 Guards piety and solace for my kind 
 Or gives the soul a moment's truce of 
 God, _» 
 
 And shared decorous in the ancient rite 
 My sterner fathers held idolatrous. 
 The service over, I was tranced in 
 
 thought : 
 Solemn the deepening vaults, and most 
 
 to me. 
 Fresh from the fragile realm of deal and 
 
 paint. 
 Or brick mock-pious with a marble 
 
 front ; 
 Solemn the lift of high-embowered roof. 
 The clustered stems that spread in 
 
 boughs disleaved, 
 Through which the organ blew a dream 
 
 of storm, 
 Though not more potent to sublime 
 
 with awe 
 And shut the heart up in tranquillity, 
 Than aisles to me familiar that o'eb 
 
 arch 
 The conscious silences of brooding 
 
 woods, 
 Centurial shadows, cloisters of the elk : 
 Yet here was sense of undefined regret. 
 Irreparable loss, uncertain what : 
 Was all this gi'andeur but anachro- 
 nism, — 
 A shell divorced of its informing life. 
 Where the priest housed him like a 
 
 hermit-crab, 
 An alien to that faith of elder days 
 That gathered round it this fair shape 
 
 of stone? 
 Is old Religion but a spectre now, 
 Haunting the solitude of darkened 
 
 minds. 
 Mocked out of memory by the sceptic 
 
 day? 
 Is there no comer safe from peeping 
 
 Doubt, 
 Since Gutenberg made thought cosmop- 
 olite 
 And stretched electric threads from 
 
 mind to mind? 
 Nay, did Faith build this wonder? or 
 
 did Fear, 
 That makes a fetish and misnames it 
 
 God 
 (Blockish or metaphysic, matters not). 
 Contrive this coop to shut its tyrant in. 
 Appeased with playthings, that he might 
 
 not harm ? 
 
 I turned and saw a beldame on her 
 
 knees ; 
 With eyes astray, she told mechanic 
 
 beads 
 
412 
 
 THE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 Before some ghriiie of saintly woman- 
 hood, 
 Bribed intercessor with the far-oflf Judge : 
 Such my first thought, by kindlier soon 
 
 rebuked. 
 Pleading for whatsoever touches life 
 With upward impulse : be He nowhere 
 
 else, 
 God is in all that liberates and lifts. 
 In all that humbles, sweetens, and con- 
 soles : 
 'Blessed the natures shored on every side 
 With landmarks of hereditary thought I 
 Thrice happy they that wander not life- 
 long 
 Beyond near succor of the household 
 
 faith. 
 The guarded fold that shelters, not con- 
 fines ! 
 Their steps find patience in familiar 
 
 Printed with hope by loved feet gone 
 
 before 
 Of parent, child, or lover, glorified 
 By simple magic of dividing Time. 
 My lids were moistened as the woman 
 
 . knelt, 
 And — was it will, or some vibration 
 
 faint 
 Of sacred Nature, deeper than the 
 
 will? — 
 My heart occultly felt itself in hers, 
 Through mutual intercession gently 
 
 leagued. 
 
 Or was it not mere sympathy of brain ? 
 
 A sweetness intellectually conceived 
 
 In simpler creeds to me impossible ? 
 
 A juggle of that pity for ourselves 
 
 In .others, which puts on such pretty 
 masks 
 
 And snares self-love with bait of charity 1 
 
 Something of all it might be, or of none : 
 
 Yet for a moment I was snatched away 
 
 And had the evidence of things not seen ; 
 
 For one rapt moment ; then it all came 
 back, 
 
 This age that blots out life with question- 
 marks. 
 
 This nineteenth century with its knife 
 and glass 
 
 That make thought physical, and thrust 
 far off 
 
 The Heaven, so neighborly with man of 
 old, 
 
 To voids sparse-sown with alienated 
 
 ,^ stars. 
 
 'T is irrecoverable, that ancient faith. 
 Homely and wholesome, suited to ths 
 
 time. 
 With rod or candy for chUd-mlnded 
 
 men : , 
 
 No theologio tube, with lens on lens 
 Of syllogism transparent, brings it 
 
 near, — 
 At best resolving some new nebula. 
 Or blurring some fixed-star of hope to 
 
 mist. 
 Science was Faith once; Faith were 
 
 Science now, 
 Would she but lay her bow and arrows by 
 And arm her with the weapons of the 
 
 time. 
 Nothing that keeps thought out is safe 
 
 from thought. 
 For there 's no virgin-fort but self- 
 respect. 
 And Truth defensive hath lost hold on 
 
 God. 
 Shall we treat Him as if He were a child 
 That knew not His own purpose 1 nor 
 
 dare trust 
 The Rock of Ages to th«ir chemic tests, 
 Lest some day the all-sustainiug baie 
 
 divine 
 Should fail from under us, dissolved in 
 
 gas? 
 The armed eye that with a glance dis- 
 cerns 
 In a dry blood-speck between ox and 
 
 man. 
 Stares helpless at this miracle called life. 
 This shaping potency behind the egg. 
 This circulation swift of deity. 
 Where suns and systems inconspicuous 
 
 float 
 As the poor blood-disks in our mortal 
 
 veins. 
 Each age must worship its own thought 
 
 of God, 
 More or less earthy, clarifying still 
 With subsidence continuous of the dregs ; 
 Nor saint nor sage could fix immutably 
 The fluent image of the unstable Best, 
 Still changing in their very hands that 
 
 wrought : 
 To-day's eternal truth To-morrow proved 
 Frail as frost-landscapes on a vrindow- 
 
 pane. 
 Meanwhile Thou smiledst, inaccessible. 
 At Thought's own substance made a cage 
 
 for Thought, 
 And Truth locked fast with her own 
 
 master-key ; 
 
THE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 413 
 
 Nor didst Thoii reck what image man 
 
 might make 
 Of his own shadow on the flowing world ; 
 The climbing instinct was enough for 
 
 Thee. 
 Or wast Thou, then, an ebbing tide that 
 
 left 
 Strewn with dead miracle those eldest 
 
 shores, 
 For men to dry, and dryly lecture on, 
 Thyself thenceforth incapable of flood ? 
 Idle who hopes with prophets to be 
 
 snatched 
 By virtue in their mantles left below ; 
 Shall the soul live on other men's report, 
 Herself a pleasing fable of herself ? 
 Man cannot be God's outlaw if he would, 
 Nor so abscond him in the caves of 
 
 But Nature still shall search some crev- 
 ice out 
 With messages of splendor from that 
 
 Source 
 Which, dive he, soar he, baffles still and 
 
 lures. 
 This life were brutish did we not some- 
 times 
 Have intimation clear of wider scope, 
 Hints of occasion infinite, to keep 
 The soul alert with noble discontent 
 And onward yearnings of unstilled de- 
 sire ; 
 Fruitless, except we now and then di- 
 vined 
 A mystery of Purpose, gleaming through 
 The secular confusions of the world. 
 Whose will we darkly accomplish, doing 
 
 ours. 
 No man can think nor in himself per- 
 ceive. 
 Sometimes at waking, in the street 
 
 sometimes. 
 Or on the hillside, always unforewamed, 
 A grace of bei^g, finer than himself. 
 That beckons and is gone, — a larger 
 
 life 
 Upon his own impinging, with swift 
 
 glimpse 
 Of spacious circles luminous with mind. 
 To which the ethereal substance of his 
 
 own 
 Seems but gross cloud to make that 
 
 visible. 
 Touched to a sudden glory round the 
 
 edge. 
 Who that hath known these visitations 
 fleet 
 
 Would strive to make them trite and 
 ritual 1 
 
 I, that still pray at mornins and at eve, 
 
 Loving those roots that feed us from the 
 past. 
 
 And prizing more than Plato things I 
 learned 
 
 At that best academe, a mother's knee, 
 
 Thrice in my life perhaps have truly 
 prayed, 
 
 Thrice, stirred below my conscious self, 
 have felt 
 
 That perfect disenthralment which is 
 God; 
 
 Nor know I which to hold worst 
 enemy, — 
 
 Him who on speculation's windy waste 
 
 Would turn me loose, stript of the rai- 
 ment warm 
 
 By Faith contrived against our naked- 
 ness. 
 
 Or him who, cruel-kind, would fain 
 obscure. 
 
 With painted saints and paraphrase of 
 God, 
 
 The soul's east-window of dirine sur- 
 prise. 
 
 Where others worship I but look and 
 
 i°°s; , , , 
 
 For, though not recreant to my fathers 
 
 faith. 
 Its forms to me are weariness, and most 
 That drony vacuum of compulsory 
 
 prayer. 
 Still pumping phrases for the Ineffable, 
 Though all the valves of memory gasp 
 
 and wheeze. 
 Words that have drawn transcendent 
 
 meanings up 
 From the best passion of all bygone 
 
 time. 
 Steeped through with tears of triumph 
 
 and remorse. 
 Sweet with all sainthood, cleanSed in 
 
 martyr-fires. 
 Can they, so consecrate and so inspired. 
 By repetition wane to vexing wind ? 
 Alas ! we cannot draw habitual breath 
 In the thin air of life's supremer heights, 
 We cannot make each meal a sacrament. 
 Nor with our tailors be disbodied souls, — 
 We men, too conscious of earth's comedy. 
 Who see two sides, with our posed selves 
 
 debate. 
 And only for great stakes can be sub" 
 
 lime I 
 Let us he thankful when, as I do here. 
 
414 
 
 THE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 We can read Bethel on a pile of stones, 
 And, seeing where God has been, trust 
 in Him. 
 
 Brave Peter Fischer there in Nuremberg, 
 Moulding Saint Sebald's miracles in 
 
 bronze, 
 Put saint and stander-by in that quaint 
 
 garb 
 Familiar to him in his daily walk. 
 Not doubting God could grant a miracle 
 Then and in Nuremberg, if so He would ; 
 But never artist for three hundred years 
 Hath dared the contradiction ludicrous 
 Of supernatural in modern clothes. 
 Perhaps the deeper faith that is to come 
 Will see God rather in the strenuous 
 
 doubt. 
 Than in the creed held as an infant's 
 
 hand 
 Holds purposeless whatsois placed there- 
 
 Say it is drift, not progress, none the 
 
 less, 
 With the old sextant of- the fathers' 
 
 creed. 
 We shape our courses by new-risen stars, 
 And, still lip-loyal to what once was 
 
 truth, 
 Smuggle new meanings under ancient 
 
 names. 
 Unconscious perverts of the Jesuit, Time. 
 Change is the mask that all Continuance 
 
 wears 
 To keep us youngsters harmlessly 
 
 amused ; 
 Meanwhile some ailing or more watchful 
 
 child. 
 Sitting apart, sees the old eyes gleam 
 
 out, 
 Stem, and yet soft with humorous pity 
 
 too. 
 Whilere, men burnt men for a doubtful 
 
 point, 
 As if the mind were quenchable with 
 
 fire, 
 And Faith danced round them with her 
 
 war-paint on. 
 Devoutly savage as an Iroquois ; 
 Now Calvin and Servetus at one board 
 Snuff in grave sympathy a milder roaist, 
 And o'ertheir claret settle Comte unread. 
 Fagot and stake were desperately sin- 
 cere : 
 Our cooler martyrdoms are done in types j 
 
 And flames that shine in controversial 
 
 eyes 
 Bum out no brains but his who kindlei 
 
 them. 
 This is no age to get cathedrals built : 
 Did God, then, wait for one in Bethle- 
 
 hem ? 
 Worst is not yet : lo, where his coming 
 
 looms, 
 Of Earth's anarchic children latest bom. 
 Democracy, a Titan who hath learned 
 To laugh at Jove's old-fashioned thun- 
 
 derbolts, — 
 Could he not also forge them, if ha 
 
 would ? 
 He, better skilled, with solvents merci- 
 less, -, 
 Loosened in air and borne on every wind. 
 Saps unperceived : the calm Olympian 
 
 height 
 Of ancient order feels its bases yield, 
 And pale gods glance for help to gods as 
 
 pale. 
 What will be left of good or worshipful, 
 Of spiritual secrets, mysteries, 
 Of fair religion's guarded heritage, 
 Heirlooms of soul, passed downward un- 
 
 profaned 
 From eldest Ind? This Western giant 
 
 coarse. 
 Scorning refinements which he lacks 
 
 himself. 
 Loves not nor heeds the ancestral hie- 
 
 itircliies. 
 Each rank dependent on the next above 
 In orderly gradation fixed as fate. 
 King by mere manhood, nor allowing 
 
 aught 
 Of holier unction than the sweat of toil ; 
 In his own strength sufficient ; called to 
 
 solve. 
 On the rough edges of society, 
 Problems long sacred to the choicer few. 
 And improvise what elsewhere men re- 
 ceive 
 As gifts of deity ; tough foundling reared 
 Where every man 's his own Melchise- 
 
 dek. 
 How make him reverent of a King of 
 
 kings ? 
 Or Judge self-made, executor of laws 
 By him not first discussed and voted on? 
 For him no tree of knowledge is forbid, 
 Or .sweeter if forbid. How save th« 
 
 ark. 
 Or holy of holies, unprofaned a day 
 From his unscrupulous curiosity 
 
THE CATHEDBAL. 
 
 415 
 
 That handles ererything as if to buy, 
 
 Tossing aside what fabrics delicate 
 
 Suit not the rough-and-tumble of his 
 ways? 
 
 What hope for those fine-nerved humani- 
 ties 
 
 That made earth gracious once with 
 gentler arts, 
 
 Now the rude hands have caught the 
 trick of thought 
 
 And claim an equal suffrage with the 
 brain? 
 
 The born disciple of an elder time, 
 
 (To me suflScient, friendlier than the 
 
 new,) 
 Who in my blood feel motions of the 
 
 Past, 
 I thank benignant nature most for 
 
 this, — 
 A force of sympathy, or call it lack 
 Of character firm-planted, loosing me 
 From the pent chamber of habitual 
 
 self 
 To dwell enlarged in alien modes of 
 
 thought. 
 Haply distasteful, wholesomer for that, 
 And through imagination to possess. 
 As they were mine, the lives of other 
 
 men. 
 This growth original of virgin soil, 
 By fascination felt in opposites. 
 Pleases and shocks, entices and per- 
 turbs. 
 In this brown-fisted rough, this shirt- 
 sleeved Cid, 
 This backwoods Charlemagne of empires 
 
 new. 
 Whose blundering heel instinctively 
 
 finds out 
 The goutier foot of speechless dignities, 
 Who, meeting Caesar's self, would slap 
 
 his back. 
 Call him " Old Horse," and challenge to 
 
 a drink, 
 My lungs draw braver air, my breast 
 
 dilates 
 With ampler manhood, and I front both 
 
 worlds, 
 Of sense and spirit, as my natural fiefs, 
 To shape and then reshape them as I 
 
 will. 
 It was the first man's charter; why not 
 
 mine? 
 How forfeit? when deposed in other 
 
 hands? 
 
 Thou shudder'st, Ovid? Dost in him 
 
 forebode 
 A new avatar of the large-limbed Goth, 
 To break, or seem to break, tradition's 
 
 clew. 
 And chase to dreamland back thy gods 
 
 dethroned? 
 I think man's soul dwells nearer to the 
 
 east. 
 Nearer to morning's fountains than the 
 
 sun; 
 Herself the source whence all tradition 
 
 sprang. 
 Herself at once both labyrinth and clew. 
 The miracle fades out of history, 
 But faith and wonder and the primal 
 
 earth 
 Are bom into the world with every child. 
 Shall this self-maker with the prying 
 
 eyes. 
 This creature disenchanted of respect 
 By the New World's new fiend, Publicity, 
 Whose testing thumb leaves everywhere 
 
 its smutch. 
 Not one day feel within himself the need 
 Of loyalty to better than himself. 
 That .-ihall ennoble him with the upward 
 
 look? 
 Shall he not catch the Voice that wan- 
 ders earth. 
 With spiritual summons, dreamed or 
 
 heard, 
 As sometimes, just ere sleep seals up the 
 
 sense. 
 We hear our mother call from deeps of 
 
 Time, 
 And, waking, find it vision, — none the 
 
 less 
 The benediction bides, old skies return, 
 And that unreal thing, pre-eminent. 
 Makes air and dream of all we see and 
 
 feel? 
 Shall he divine no strength unmade of 
 
 votes. 
 Inward, impregnable, found soon as 
 
 sought, 
 Not cognizable of sense, o'er sense su- 
 preme ? 
 Klse were he desolate as none before. 
 His holy places may not be of stone. 
 Nor made with hands, yet fairer far than 
 
 aught 
 By artist feigned or pious ardor reared. 
 Fit altars for who guards inviolate 
 God's chosen seat, the sacred form of 
 
 man. 
 
416 
 
 THE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 Doubtless his church will be no hospital 
 Tor superannuate forms and mumping 
 
 shams, 
 No parlor where men issue policies 
 Of life-assurance on the Eternal Mind, 
 Nor his religion but an ambulance 
 To fetch life's wounded and malinger- 
 ers in. 
 Scorned by the strong; yet he, uncon- 
 (' scious heir 
 
 f To the influence sweet of Athens and of 
 
 Home, 
 ], And old Judaea's gift of secret fire, 
 f Spite of himself shall surely learn to 
 * know 
 
 And worship some ideal of himself. 
 Some divine thing, large-hearted, broth- 
 erly, 
 Not nice in trifles, a soft creditor, 
 Pleased with his world, and hating only 
 
 cant. 
 And, if his Church be doubtful, it is 
 
 sure 
 That, in a world, made for whatever else. 
 Not made for mere enjoyment, in a 
 
 world 
 Of toil but half-requited, or, at best, 
 Paid in some futile currency of breath, 
 A world of incompleteness, sorrow swift 
 And consolation laggard, whatsoe'er 
 The form of building or the creed pro- 
 fessed. 
 The Cross, bold type of shame to hom- 
 age turned. 
 Of an unfinished life that sways the 
 
 world, 
 Shall tower as sovereign emblem over 
 all. 
 
 The kobold Thought moves with us 
 
 when we shift 
 Our dwelling to escape him ; perched 
 
 aloft 
 On the first load of household-stufif he 
 
 went; 
 For, where the mind goes, goes old fur- 
 niture. 
 I, who to Chartres came to feed my eye 
 And give to Fancy one clear holiday, 
 Scarce saw the minster for the thoughts 
 
 it stirred 
 Buzzing o'er past and future with vain 
 
 quest. 
 Here once there stood a homely wooden 
 
 church, 
 Which slow devotion nobly changed for 
 
 this 
 
 That echoes vaguely to my modem 
 
 steps. 
 By suffrage universal it was built, 
 As practised then, for aU the country 
 
 came 
 From far as Kouen, to give votes for 
 
 God, 
 Each vote a block of stone securely laid 
 Obedient to the master's deep-mused 
 
 plan. 
 Will what our ballots rear, responsible 
 To no grave forethought, stand so long 
 
 as this? 
 Delight like this the eye of after days 
 Brightening with pride that here, at 
 
 least, were men 
 Who meant and did the noblest thing 
 
 they knew? 
 Can our religion cope with deeds like 
 
 this? 
 We, too, build Gothic contract-shams, 
 
 because 
 Our deacons have discovered that it pays. 
 And pews sell better under vaulted roofs 
 Of plaster painted like an Indian squaw. 
 Shall not that Western Goth, of whom 
 
 we spoke. 
 So fiercely practical, so keen of eye. 
 Find out, some day, that nothing pays 
 
 but God, 
 Served whether on the smoke-shut bat- 
 tle-field, 
 In work obscure done honestly, or vote 
 For truth unpopular, or faith maintained 
 To ruinous convictions, or good deeds 
 Wrought for good's sake, mindless of 
 
 heaven or hell? 
 Shall he not learn that all prosperity. 
 Whose bases stretch not deeper than the 
 
 sense. 
 Is but a trick of this world's atmosphere, 
 A desert-bom mirage of spire and dome, 
 Or fiind too late, the Past's long lesson 
 
 missed. 
 That dust the prophets shake from off 
 
 their feet 
 Grows heavy to drag down both towei 
 
 and wall ? 
 I know not ; but, sustained by sure 
 
 belief 
 That man still rises level with the height 
 Of noblest opportunities, or makes 
 Such, if the time supply not, I can wait. 
 I gaze round on the windows, pride of 
 
 France, 
 Each the bright gift of some mechania 
 
 guild. 
 
THE CATHEDRAL. 
 
 417 
 
 Who loved their city and thought gold 
 
 well spent 
 To make her beautiful with piety ; 
 1 pause, transfigured by some stripe of 
 
 bloom, 
 And my mind throngs with shining 
 
 auguries, 
 Circle on circlt, bright as seraphim. 
 With golden trumpets, silent, that await 
 The signal to blow news of good to men. 
 
 Then the revulsion came that always 
 
 comes 
 After these dizzy elations of the mind : 
 And with a passionate pang of doubt I 
 
 cried, 
 " monntain-bom, sweet with snow- 
 filtered air 
 From uncontaminate wells of ether drawn 
 And never-broken secrecies of sky. 
 Freedom, with anguish won, misprized 
 
 tUl lost. 
 They keep thee not who from thy sacred 
 
 eyes 
 Catch the consuming lust of sensual 
 
 good 
 And the brute's license of unfettered 
 
 will. 
 Far from the popular shout and venal 
 
 breath , 
 Of Cleon blowing the mob's baser mind 
 To bubbles of wiud-piloted conceit, 
 Thou shrinkest, gathering up thy skirts, 
 
 to hide 
 In fortresses of solitary thought 
 And private virtue strong in self-re- 
 straint. 
 Must we too forfeit thee misunderstood. 
 Content with names, nor inly wise to 
 
 know 
 That best things perish of their own ex- 
 cess, 
 And quality o'er-driven becomes defect ! 
 Nay, is it thou indeed that we have 
 
 Or rather such illusion as of old 
 Through Athens glided menadlike and 
 
 Rome, 
 A shape of vapor, mother of vain dreams 
 And mutinous traditions, specious plea 
 Of the glaived tyrant and long-memoried 
 
 priest ? " 
 
 1 walked forth saddened ; for all thought 
 
 is sad, 
 And leaves a bitterish savor in the 
 
 brain, 
 
 Tonic, it may be, not delectable, 
 And turned, reluctant, for a parting look 
 At those old weather-pitted images 
 Of bygone struggle, now so sternly calm. 
 About their shoulders sparrows had 
 
 built nests. 
 And fluttered, chirping, from gray perch 
 
 to perch, 
 Kow on a mitre poising, now a crown. 
 Irreverently happy. While 1 thought 
 How confident they were, what, careless 
 
 hearts 
 Flew on those lightsome wings and 
 
 shared the sun, 
 A larger shadow crossed ; and looking 
 
 up, 
 I saw where, nesting in the hoary towers, 
 The sparrow-hawk slid forth on noise- 
 less air. 
 With sidelong head that watched the 
 
 joy below. 
 Grim Norman baron o'er this clan of 
 
 Kelts. 
 Enduring Nature, force conservative, 
 Indifferent to our noisy whims! Men 
 
 prate 
 Of all heads to an equal grade cashiered 
 On level with the dullest, and expect 
 (Sick of no worse distemper than them- 
 selves) 
 A wondrous cure-all in equality ; 
 They reason that To-morrow must ho 
 
 wise 
 Because To-day was not, nor Yesterday, 
 As if good days were shapen of them- 
 selves. 
 Not of the very lifeblood of men's souls ; 
 Meanwhile, long-sufiering, imperturb- 
 able, 
 Thou quietly complet'st thy syllogism, 
 And from the premise sparrow here below 
 Draw'st sure conclusion of the hawk 
 
 above. 
 Pleased with the soft-billed songster, 
 
 pleased no less 
 With the fierce beak of natures aquiline. 
 
 Thou beautiful Old Time, now hid away 
 
 In the Past's valley of Avilion, 
 
 Haply, like Arthur, till thy wound he 
 
 healed. 
 Then to reclaim the sword and crown 
 
 again ! 
 Thrice beautiful to us ; perchance less 
 
 fair 
 To who possessed thee, as a mountain 
 
418 
 
 THE CATHEDBAL. 
 
 To dwellers round its bases but a heap 
 Of barren obstacle that lairs the storm 
 And the avalanche's silent bolt holds 
 
 back 
 Leashed with a hair, — meanwhile some 
 
 far-off clown, 
 Hereditary delver of the plain. 
 Sees it an unmoved vision of repose. 
 Nest of the morning, and conjectures 
 
 there 
 The dance of streams to idle shepherds' 
 
 pipes. 
 And fairer habitations softly hung 
 On breezy slopes, or hid in valleys cool, 
 For happier men. No mortal ever 
 
 dreams 
 That the scant isthmus he encamps upon 
 Between two oceans, one, the Stoi-my, 
 
 And one, the Peaceful, yet to venture on, 
 Has been that future whereto prophets 
 
 yearned 
 For the fulfilment of Earth's cheated 
 
 hope, 
 Shall be that past which nerveless poets 
 
 moan 
 As the lost opportunity of song. 
 
 Power, more near my life than life 
 itself 
 
 (Or what seems life to ns in sense im- 
 mured), 
 
 Even as the roots, shut in the darksome 
 earth« 
 
 Share in the tree-top's joyance, and 
 
 conceive 
 Of sunshine and wide air and winged 
 
 things 
 By sympathy of nature, so do I 
 Have evidence of Thee so far above. 
 Yet in and of me ! Rather Thou the 
 
 root 
 Invisibly sustaining, hid in light. 
 Not darkness, or in darkness made by 
 
 us. 
 If sometimes I must hear good men 
 
 debate 
 Of other witness of Thyself than Thou, 
 As if there needed any help of ours 
 To nurse Thy flickering fife, that else 
 
 must cease. 
 Blown out, as 't were a candle, by men's 
 
 breath. 
 My soul shall not be taken in their snare. 
 To change her inward surety for their 
 
 doubt 
 Muffled from sight in formal robes of 
 
 proof : 
 While she can only feel herself through 
 
 Thee, 
 I fear not Thy withdrawal ; more I fear. 
 Seeing, to know Thee not, hoodwinked 
 
 with dreams 
 Of signs and wonders, while, unnoticed. 
 
 Thou, 
 Walking Thy garden, still, commun'st 
 
 with men. 
 Missed in the conunonplace of miracle. 
 
THEEE MEMORIAL POEMS. 
 
" CoBclenza ftiacA 
 O della propria o dell' altrai vergogna 
 For aentii^ la tua parola brusca?' 
 
 If I let fall a word of titter mirth 
 
 When public shames more shameful pardon won. 
 
 Some have misjudged me, and my service done, 
 
 If small, yet faithful, deemed of little worth : 
 
 Through veins that drew their life from Western earth 
 
 Two hundred years and more my blood hath run 
 
 In no polluted course from sire to son ; 
 
 And thus was I predestined ere my birth 
 
 To love the soil wherewith my fibres own 
 
 Instinctive sympathies ; yet love it so 
 
 As honor would, nor lightly to dethrone 
 
 Judgment, the stamp of manhood, nor forego 
 
 The sou's right to a mother dearer grown 
 
 With growing knowledge and more chaste than snow. 
 
THEEE MEMORIAL POEMS. 
 
 TO 
 E. L. GODKIN, 
 
 IK COBCIAL ACENOWLEDGMENI OF HIS EUtNENT SEBTICX 
 
 m HEIGHTENING AND PUBIETING THE TONE 
 
 OF OBE POLITICAI. THOUGHT, 
 
 (Cbe^e (C{icee pocmd 
 
 ABB DEDICATED. 
 
 *«* Readers, it is hoped, 'will remember that, by his Ode at the Harvari! Conv 
 tnemoration, the author had precluded himself from many of the natural outlets 
 of thought and feeling common to such occasions as are celebrated in thes* 
 poems. 
 
 ODE 
 
 BEAD AT THE ONE HUNDREDTH ANNI- 
 VEKSART OP THE FIGHT AT CONCORD 
 BRIDGE. 
 
 l»rH Apbil, 1876. 
 
 I. 
 
 Who Cometh over the hills. 
 Her garments with morning sweet, 
 The dance of a thousand rills 
 Making music before her feet ? 
 Her presence freshens the air ; 
 Sunshine steals light from her face ; 
 The leaden footstep of Care 
 Leaps to the tune of her pace, 
 Fairness of all that is fair, 
 Grace at the heart of all grace, 
 Sweetener of hut and of hall, 
 Bringer of life out of naught. 
 Freedom, 0, fairest of all 
 The daughters of Time and Thought ! 
 
 She Cometh, cometh to-day : 
 Hark 1 hear ye not her tread, 
 Sending a thrill through your clay, 
 tJnder the sod there, ye dead, 
 Her nurslings and champions ? 
 Do ye not hear, as she comes. 
 The bay of the deep-mouthed guns, 
 
 The gathering rote of the dmms ? 
 The bells that called ye to prayer, 
 How wildly they clamor on her. 
 Crying, "She cometh ! prepare 
 Her to praise and her to honor, 
 That a hundred years ago 
 Scattered here in blood and tears 
 Potent seeds wherefrom should grow 
 Gladness for a hundred years ! " 
 
 III. 
 Tell me, young men, have ye seen 
 Creature of diviner mien 
 For true hearts to long and cry for, 
 Manly hearts to live and die for ? 
 What hath she that others want f 
 Brows that all endearments haun^ 
 Eyes that make it sweet to dare. 
 Smiles that cheer ontimely death 
 Looks that fortify despair, 
 Tones more brave than trumpet's bieatll^ 
 Tell me, maidens, have ye known 
 Household charm more sweetly rare, 
 Grace of woman ampler blown, 
 Modesty more debonair. 
 Younger heart with wit full grown f 
 O for an hour of my prime. 
 The pulse of my hotter years. 
 That I might praise her in rhyme 
 Would tingle your eyelids to tears. 
 Our sweetness, our 8tren|(th, and onr stai; 
 
422 
 
 THREE MEMORIAL POEMS. 
 
 Our hope, our joy, and our trust. 
 Who lifted us out of the dust, 
 And made us whatever we are 1 
 
 Whiter than moonshine upon snow 
 Her raiment is, but round the hem 
 Crimson stained ; and, as to and fro 
 Her sandals flash, we see on them, 
 And on her instep veined with blue, 
 Flecks of crimson, on those fair feet. 
 High-arched, Diana-like, and fleet. 
 Fit for no grosser stain than dew : 
 0, call them rather chrisms than stains. 
 Sacred and from heroic veins ! 
 For, in the glory-guarded pass, 
 Her haughty and far-shining head 
 She bowed to shrive Leonidas 
 With his imperishable dead ; 
 Her, too, Morgarten saw. 
 Where the Swiss lion fleshed his icy paw; 
 She followed Cromwell's quenchless star 
 Where the grim Puritan tread 
 Shook Marston, Naseby, and Dunbar : 
 Yea, on her feet are dearer dyes 
 Yet fresh, nor looked on with untearful 
 eyes. 
 
 V. 
 Our fathers found her in the woods 
 Where Nature meditates and broods. 
 The deeds of unexampled things 
 Which Time to consummation brings 
 Through life and death and man's un- 
 stable moods ; 
 They met her here, not recognized, 
 A sylvan huntress clothed in furs, 
 To whose chaste wants her bow sufficed, 
 Nor dreamed what destinies were hers : 
 She taught them bee-like to create 
 Their simpler forms of Church and State; 
 She taught them to endue 
 
 I The past with other functions than it 
 
 °j knew, 
 
 •' And turn in channels strange the uncer- 
 tain stream of Fate ; 
 Better than all, she fenced them in their 
 
 ■' need 
 
 With iron-handed Duty's sternest creed, 
 'Gainst Self's lean wolf that ravens word 
 and deed. 
 
 Why cometh she hither to-day 
 To this low village of the plain 
 Far from the Present's loud highway, 
 From Trade's cool heart and seething 
 biaiut 
 
 Why cometh she ? She was not far away. 
 Since the soul touched it, not in vain. 
 With pathos of immortal gain, 
 'T is here her fondest memories stay. 
 She loves yon pine-bemurmured ridge 
 Where now our broad-browed poet sleeps 
 Dear to both Englands ; near him he 
 Who wore the ring of Canace ; 
 But most her heart to rapture leaps 
 Where stood that era-pai-tine bridge, 
 O'er which, with footfall still as dew. 
 The Old Time passed into the New ; 
 Where, as your stealthy river creeps. 
 He whispers to his listening weeds 
 Tales of sublimest homespun deeds. 
 Here English law and English thought 
 'Gainst the self-will of England fou^t ; 
 And here were men (coequal with their 
 
 fate). 
 Who did great things, unconscious they 
 
 were great. 
 They dreamed not what a die was cast 
 With that first answering shot ; what 
 
 then? 
 There was their duty ; they were men 
 Schooled the soul's inward gospel to obey. 
 Though leading to the lion's den. 
 They felt the habit-hallowed world give 
 
 way 
 Beneath their lives, and on went they. 
 Unhappy who was last. 
 When Buttrick gave the word. 
 That awful idol of the unchallenged Past, 
 Strong in their love, and in their lineagt 
 
 strong. 
 Fell crashing : if they heard it not, 
 Yet the earth heard. 
 Nor ever hath forgot. 
 As on from startled throne to throne. 
 Where Superstition sate or conscioug 
 
 Wrong, 
 A shudder ran of some di-ead birth un- 
 known. 
 Thrice venerable spot 1 
 Eiver more fateful than the Eubicon ! 
 O'er those red planks, to snatch her dia- 
 dem, 
 Man's Hope, star-girdled, sprang with 
 
 them. 
 And over ways untried the feet of Doom 
 strode on. 
 
 Think you these felt no charms 
 
 In their gray homesteads and embowered 
 
 farms 1 
 In household faces waiting at the door 
 
ODE READ AT CONCORD. 
 
 423 
 
 Their evening step should lighten up no 
 
 more! 
 In fields their boyish feet had known ? 
 In trees their fathers' hands had set, 
 And which with them had grown, 
 Widening each year their leafy coronet ? 
 Telt they no pang of passioBate regret 
 For those unsolid goods that seem so 
 
 much our own ? 
 These tilings are dear to every man that 
 
 lives, 
 And life prized more for what it lends 
 
 than gives. 
 Yea, many a tie, through iteration sweet. 
 Strove to detain their fatal feet ; 
 And yet the enduring half they chose, 
 Whose choice decides a man life's slave 
 
 or king, 
 The invisible things of God before the 
 
 seen and known : 
 Therefore their memory inspiration blows 
 With echoes gathering on from zone to 
 
 zone ; 
 For manhood is the one immortal thing 
 Beneath Time's changeful sky. 
 And, where it lightened once, from age 
 
 to age. 
 Men come to learn, in grateful pilgrim- 
 age, 
 That length of days is knowing when to 
 
 die. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 What marvellous change of things and 
 
 men ! 
 She, a world- wandering orphan then, 
 So mighty now ! Those are her streams 
 That whirl the myriad, myriad wheels 
 Of all that does, and all that dreams. 
 Of all that thinks, and all that feels. 
 Through spaces stretched from sea to sea ; 
 By idle tongues and busy brains, 
 By who doth right, and who refrains. 
 Hers are our losses and our gains ; 
 Our maker and our victim she. 
 
 Maiden half mortal, half divine, 
 
 We triumphed in thy coming ; to the 
 brinks 
 
 Our hearts were filled with pride's tu- 
 multuous wine ; 
 
 Better to-day who rather feels than 
 thinks. 
 
 Yet will some graver thoughts intrude. 
 
 And cares of sterner mood ; 
 
 They won thee : who shall keep thee ? 
 From the deeps 
 
 Where discrowned empires o'er their 
 ruins brood, 
 
 And many a thwarted hope wrings its 
 weak hands and weep, 
 
 I hear the voice as of a mighty wind 
 
 From all heaven's caverns rushing un- 
 confined, 
 
 "I, Freedom, dwell with Knowledge: 
 I abide 
 
 With men whom dust of faction cannot 
 blind 
 
 To the slow tracings of the Eternal 
 Mind; 
 
 With men by culture trained and for- 
 tified. 
 
 Who bitter duty to sweet lusts prefer, 
 
 Fearless to counsel and obey. 
 
 Conscience my sceptre is, and law my 
 sword, 
 
 Not to be drawn in passion or in play. 
 
 But terrible to punish and deter ; 
 
 Implacable as God's word. 
 
 Like it, a shepherd's crook to them that 
 blindly err. 
 
 Your firm-pulsed sires, my martyrs and 
 my saints. 
 
 Offshoots of that one stock whose patient 
 sense 
 
 Hath known to mingle flux with per- 
 manence, 
 
 Bated my chaste denials and restraints 
 
 Above the moment's dear-paid para- 
 dise : 
 
 Beware lest, shifting with Time's gradual 
 creep. 
 
 The light that guided shine into your 
 eyes. 
 
 The envious Powers of ill nor wink nor 
 sleep : 
 
 Be therefore timely wise. 
 
 Nor laugh when this one steals, and that 
 one lies. 
 
 As if your luck could cheat those sleep- 
 
 Till the deaf Fury comes your house to 
 
 sweep ! " 
 I hear the voice, and unafFrighted bow ; 
 Ye shall not be prophetic now. 
 Heralds of ill, that darkening fly 
 Between my vision and the rainbowed 
 
 sky, 
 Or on the left your hoarse forebodings 
 
 croak 
 From many a blasted bough 
 On Yggdrasil's storm-sinewed oak, 
 That once was green, Hope of the West, 
 
 as thou : 
 
424 
 
 THREE MEMOEIAL POEMS. 
 
 Yet pardon if I tremble while I boast ; 
 For 1 have loved aa those who pardon 
 most, 
 
 X. 
 
 Away, ungrateful doubt, away ! 
 At least she is our own to-day. 
 Break into rapture, my song, 
 Verses, leap forth in the sun, 
 Bearing the joyance along 
 Like a train of fire as ye run ! 
 Pause not for choosing of words. 
 Let them but blossom and sing 
 Blithe as the orchards and birds 
 With the new coming of spring ! 
 Dance in your jollity, bells ; 
 Shout, cannon ; cease not, ye drums ; 
 Answer, ye hillside and dells ; 
 Bow, all ye people ! She comes, 
 Badiant, calm-fronted, as when 
 She hallowed that April day. 
 Stay with us ! Yes, thou shalt stay, 
 Softener and strengthener of men. 
 Freedom, not won by the vain, 
 Not to be courted in play, 
 Not to be kept without pain. 
 Stay with us ! Yes, thou wilt stay, 
 Handmaid and mistress of all, 
 Kindler of deed and of thought, 
 Thou that to hut and to hall 
 Equal deliverance brought ! 
 Souls of her martyrs, draw near. 
 Touch our dull lips with your lire. 
 That we may praise without fear 
 Her our delight, our desire. 
 Our faith's inextinguishable star. 
 Our hope, our remembrance, our trust, 
 Our preseni:, our past, our to be. 
 Who will mingle her life with our dust 
 And makes us deserve to be free ! 
 
 trUDEE THE OLD ELM. 
 
 POEM EBAD AT OAMBKIDGB ON THE 
 HUNDREDTH ANNIVEKSART OP WASH- 
 INGTON'S TAKING COMMAND OF THE 
 AMERICAN ARMY, 3D *UIV, 1775. 
 
 L 
 
 1. 
 
 Words pass as wind, but where great 
 
 deeds were done 
 A power abides transfused from sire to 
 
 son : 
 The boy feels deeper meanings thrill his 
 
 ear. 
 
 That tingling through his pulse life-long 
 
 shall run. 
 With sure impulsion to keep honor clear. 
 When, pointing down, his father whis- 
 pers, " Here, 
 Here, where we stand, stood he, tho 
 
 purely ©reat. 
 Whose soul no siren passion could un- 
 
 sphere, 
 Then nameless, now a power and mixed 
 
 with fate." 
 Historic town, thou boldest sacred dust. 
 Once known to men as pious, learned, 
 
 just, 
 And one memorial pile that dares to last ; 
 But Memory greets with reverential kiss 
 No spot in all thy circuit sweet as this. 
 Touched by that modest glory as it past. 
 O'er which yon elm hath piously dis- 
 played 
 These hundred years its monumental 
 shade. 
 
 2. 
 Of our swift passage through this scenery 
 Of life and death, more durable than we. 
 What landmark so congenial as a tree 
 Kepeating its green legend every spring, 
 And, with a yearly ring, 
 Recording the fair seasons as they flee. 
 Type of our brief but still-renewed 
 
 mortality ? 
 We fall as leaves : the immortal trunk 
 
 remains, 
 Builded with costly juice of hearts and 
 
 brains 
 Gone to the mould now, whither all that 
 
 be 
 Vanish retumless, yet are procreant still 
 In human lives to come of good or ill, 
 And feed unseen the roots of Destiny. 
 
 11. 
 
 Men's monuments, grown old, forget 
 
 their names 
 They should eternize, but the place 
 Where shining souls have passed imbibes 
 
 a grace 
 Beyond mere earth ; some sweetness o£ 
 
 their fames 
 Leaves in the soil its unextinguished 
 
 ti'ace, 
 Pungent, pathetic, sad with nobler aimi^ 
 That penetrates our lives and heightena 
 
 them or shames. 
 
TJNDEK THE OLD ELM. 
 
 425 
 
 This insubstantial world and fleet 
 Seems solid for a moment when we stand 
 On dust ennobled by heroic feet 
 Once mighty to sustain a tottering land, 
 And mighty still such burthen to upbear, 
 Nor doomed to tread the path of things 
 
 that merely were : 
 Our sense, refined with virtue of the spot, 
 Across the mists of Lethe's sleepy sti'eam 
 Recalls him, the sole chief without a 
 
 blot, 
 No more a pallid image and a dream. 
 But as he dwelt with men decorously 
 
 supreme. 
 
 2. 
 Our grosser minds need this terrestrial 
 
 hint 
 To raise long-buried days from tombs of 
 
 print : 
 "Here stood he," softly we repeat. 
 And lo, the statue shrined and still 
 In that gray minster-front we call the 
 
 Past, 
 Feels in its frozen veins our pulses thrill, 
 Breathes living air and mocks at Death's 
 
 deceit. 
 It warms, it stirs, comes down to us at 
 
 last. 
 Its features human with familiar light, 
 A man, beyond the historian's art to kill. 
 Or sculptor's to efface with patient chisel- 
 blight. 
 
 3. 
 Sure the dumb earth hath memory, nor 
 
 for naught 
 Was Fancy given, on whose enchanted 
 
 loom 
 Present and Past commingle, fruit and 
 
 bloom 
 Of one fair bough, inseparably wrought 
 Into the seamless tapestry of thought. 
 So charmed, with undeluded eye we see 
 In history's fragmentary tale 
 Bright clews of continuity, 
 Learn that high natures over Time pre- 
 vail. 
 And feel oiirselves a link in that entail 
 That binds aU ages past with all that 
 
 are to be. 
 
 III. 
 
 1. 
 
 Beneath our consecrated elm 
 A century ago he stood. 
 Famed vaguely for that old fight in the 
 wood 
 
 Whose red surge sought, but could not 
 
 overwhelm 
 The life foredoomed to wield our rough- 
 hewn helm : — 
 From colleges, where now the gown 
 To arms had yielded, from the town, 
 Our rude self-summoned levies iiocked 
 
 to see 
 The new-come chiefs and wonder which 
 
 was he. 
 Ho need to question long ; close-lipped 
 
 and tall. 
 Long trained in murder-brooding forests 
 
 lone 
 To bridle others' clamors and his own, 
 Firmly erect, he towered above them 
 
 aU, 
 The incarnate discipline that was to 
 
 free 
 With iron curb that armed democracy. 
 
 2. 
 
 A motley rout was that which came to 
 
 stare. 
 In raiment tanned by years of sun and 
 
 storm. 
 Of every shape that was not uniform. 
 Dotted with regimentals here and there ; 
 An array all of captains, used to pray 
 And stiff in fight, but serious drill's 
 
 despair, 
 Skilled to debate their orders, not 
 
 obey; 
 Deacons were there, selectmen, men of 
 
 note 
 In half-tamed hamlets ambushed round 
 
 with woods, 
 Eeady to settle Freewill by a vote. 
 But largely liberal to its private moods ; 
 Prompt to assert by manners, voice, or 
 
 pen, 
 Or ruder arms, their rights as English- 
 men, 
 Nor much fastidious as to how and 
 
 when : 
 Yet seasoned stuff and fittest to create 
 A thought-staid army or a lasting 
 
 state: 
 Haughty they said he was, at first; 
 
 severe ; 
 But owned, as all men own, the steady 
 
 hand 
 Upon the bridle, patient to command. 
 Prized, as all prize, the justice pure 
 
 from fear, 
 And learned to honor first, then lore 
 
 him, then revere. 
 
426 
 
 THREE MEMORIAL POEMS. 
 
 Such power there is in clear-eyed self- 
 restraint 
 And purpose clean as light from every 
 
 selfish taint. 
 
 3. 
 Musing beneath the legendary tree, 
 The years between furl off : I seem to 
 
 see 
 The sun-flecks, shaken the stirred foliage 
 
 through. 
 Dapple with gold hia sober buff and 
 
 blue 
 And weave prophetic aureoles round the 
 
 head 
 That shines our beacon now nor darkens 
 
 with the dead. » 
 0, man of silent mood, 
 A stranger among strangers then, 
 How art thou since renowned the Great, 
 
 the Good, 
 Familiar as the day in all the homes of 
 
 men ! 
 The winged years, that winnow praise 
 
 and blame, 
 Blow many names out : they but fan to 
 
 flame 
 The self -renewing splendors of thy fame. 
 
 IV. 
 
 How many subtlest influences unite. 
 With spiritual touch of joy or pain. 
 Invisible as air and soft as light. 
 To body forth that image of the brain 
 We call our Country, visionary shape. 
 Loved more than woman, fuller of fire 
 
 than wine. 
 Whose charm can none define. 
 Nor any, though he flee it, can escape ! 
 All party-colored threads the weaver 
 
 Time 
 Sets in his web, now trivial, now sub- 
 lime. 
 All memories, all forebodings, hopes and 
 
 fears. 
 Mountain and river, forest, prairie, sea, 
 A hill, a rock, a homestead, field, or tree. 
 The casual gleanings of uureekoned 
 
 years, 
 Take goddess-shape at last and there is 
 
 She, 
 Old at our birth, new as the springing 
 
 hours, 
 Shrine of our weakness, fortress of our 
 
 Dowers. 
 
 Consoler, kindler, peerless mid her peers, 
 A force that 'neath our conscious being 
 
 stirs, 
 A life to give ours permanence, when we 
 Are borne to mingle our poor earth with 
 
 hers. 
 And all this glowing world goes with us 
 
 on our biers. 
 
 Nations are long results, by ruder ways , 
 
 Gathering the might that warrants 
 length of days ; 
 
 They may be pieced of half-reluctant 
 shares 
 
 Welded by hammer-strokes of broad- 
 brained kings. 
 
 Or from a doughty people grow, the 
 heirs 
 
 Of wise traditions widening cautious 
 rings; 
 
 At best they are computable things, 
 
 A strength behind us making us feel 
 bold 
 
 In right, or, as may chance, in wrong ; 
 
 Whose force by figures may be summed 
 and told. 
 
 So many soldiers, ships, and dollars 
 strong. 
 
 And we but drops that bear compulsory 
 part 
 
 In the dumb throb of a mechanic heart ; 
 
 But Country is a shape of each man's 
 mind 
 
 Sacred from definition, unconfined 
 
 By the cramped walls where daily drudg- 
 eries grind ; 
 
 An inward vision, yet an outward birth 
 
 Of sweet familiar heaven and earth ; 
 
 A brooding Presence that stirs motions 
 bUnd 
 
 Of wings within our embryo being's shell 
 
 That wait but her completer spell 
 
 To make us eagle-natured, fit to dare 
 
 Life's nobler spaces and untarnished air. 
 
 3. 
 
 You, who hold dear this self-conceived 
 
 ideal, 
 Whose faith and works alone can make 
 
 it real. 
 Bring all your fairest gifts to deck her 
 
 shrine 
 Who lifts our lives away from Thine and 
 
 Mine 
 And feeds the lamp of manhood mora 
 
 diviue 
 
UNDER THE OLD ELM, 
 
 427 
 
 With fragrant oils of quenchless con- 
 stancy. 
 When all have done their utmost, surely 
 
 he 
 Hath given the hest who gives a charac- 
 ter 
 Erect and constant, which nor any shock 
 Of loosened elements, nor the forceful 
 
 sea 
 Of flowing or of ebhing fates, can stir 
 From its deep bases in the living rock 
 Of ancient manhood's sweet security : 
 And this he gave, serenely far from pride 
 As baseness, boon with prosperous 
 
 stars allied, 
 Part of what nobler seed shall in our 
 loins abide, 
 
 4. 
 
 No bond of men as common pride so 
 strong. 
 
 In names time-filtered for the lips of 
 song. 
 
 Still operant, with the primal Forces 
 bound 
 
 Whose currents, on their spiritual round. 
 
 Transfuse our mortal will nor are gain- 
 said: 
 
 These are their arsenals, these the ex- 
 haustless mines 
 
 That give a constant heart in great de- 
 
 These are the stuff whereof such dreams 
 
 are made 
 As make heroic men : thus surely he 
 Still holds in place the massy blocks he 
 
 laid 
 'Neath our new frame, enforcing soberly 
 The self-control that makes and keeps a 
 
 people free. 
 
 V. 
 1. 
 
 O, FOE a drop of that Cornelian ink 
 Which gave Agricola dateless length 
 
 of days. 
 To celebrate him fitly, neither swerve 
 To phrase unkempt, nor pass discretion's 
 
 brink. 
 With him so statue-like in sad reserve, 
 So diffident to claim, so forward to de- 
 serve ! 
 Nor need I shun due influence of his 
 
 fame 
 'Who, mortal among mortals, seemed as 
 now 
 
 The equestrian shape withunimpassioned 
 
 brow, 
 That paces silent on through vistas of 
 
 acclaim. 
 
 2. 
 
 What figure more immovably august 
 Than that gi'ave strength so patient and 
 
 so pure, 
 Calm in good fortune, when it wavered, 
 
 sure, 
 That mind serene, impenetrably just, 
 Modelled on classic lines so simple they 
 
 endure ? 
 That soul so softly radiant and so white 
 The track it left seems less of fire than 
 
 light, 
 Cold but to such as love distemperature ? 
 And if pure light, as some deem, be the 
 
 force 
 That drives rejoicing planets on their 
 
 course, 
 Why for his power benign seek an im- 
 
 purer source ? 
 His was the true enthusiasm that bums 
 
 long, 
 Domestically bright, 
 Fed from itself and shy of human sight, 
 The hidden force that makes a lifetime 
 
 strong, 
 And not the short-lived fuel of a song. 
 Passionless, say you ? What is passion 
 
 for 
 But to sublime our natures and control 
 To front heroic toils with late return. 
 Or none, or such as shames the con- 
 queror ? 
 That fire was fed with substance of the 
 
 soul 
 And not with holiday stubble, that could 
 
 burn, 
 Unpraised of men who after bonfires run, 
 Throughseven slow years of unadvaniing 
 
 war. 
 Equal when fields were lost or fields were 
 
 won, 
 With breath of popular applause or 
 
 blame. 
 Nor fanned nor damped, nuquenchably 
 
 the same. 
 Too inward to be reached by flaws of idle 
 
 fame. 
 
 3. 
 
 Soldier and statesman, rarest unison ; 
 High-poised example of great duties done 
 Simply as breathing, a world's honors 
 worn 
 
428 
 
 THREE MEMORIAL POEMS, 
 
 As life's indifferent gifts to .all men bom ; 
 Dumb for himself, unless it were to God, 
 But for his barefoot soldiers eloquent, 
 Tramping the snow to coral where they 
 
 trod. 
 Held by his awe in hollow-eyed content ; 
 Modest, yet firm as Nature's self ; un- 
 
 blamed 
 Save by the men his nobler temper 
 
 shamed ; 
 Never seduced through show of present 
 
 By other than unsetting lights to steer 
 New-trimmed in Heaven, nor than his 
 
 steadfast mood 
 More steadfast, far from rashness as from 
 
 fear ; 
 fiigid, but with himself first, grasping 
 
 still 
 In swerveless poise the wave-beat helm 
 
 of will ; 
 Not honored then or now because he 
 
 wooed 
 "Hhe popular voice, bat that he still with- 
 stood ; 
 Broad-minded, higher-souled, there is 
 
 but one 
 Who was all this and ours, and all men's, 
 
 — Washington. 
 
 4. 
 
 Minds strong by fits, irregularly great, 
 That flash and darken Juke revolving 
 
 lights. 
 Catch more the vulgar eye unschooled 
 
 to wait 
 On the long curve of patient days and 
 
 nights 
 Bounding a whole life to the circle fair 
 Of orbed fulfilment ; and this balanced 
 
 soul, 
 So simple in its grandeur, coldly bare 
 Of draperies theatric, standing there 
 In perfect symmetry of self-control, 
 Seems not so great at first, but greater 
 
 grows 
 Still as we look, and by experience learn 
 How grand this quiet is, how nobly 
 
 stem 
 The discipline that wrought through 
 
 lifelong throes 
 That energetic passion of repose. 
 
 A nature too decorous and severe, 
 ^Too self-respectful in its griefs and joys, 
 
 For ardent girls and boys 
 
 Who find no genius in a mind so clear 
 
 That its grave depths seem obvious and 
 
 near, 
 Nor a soul great that made so littl* 
 
 noise. 
 They feel no force in that calm-cadenced 
 
 phrase, 
 The habitual full-dress of his well-bred 
 
 mind. 
 That seems to pace the minuet's courtly 
 
 maze 
 And tell of ampler leisures, roomier 
 
 length of days. 
 His firm-based brain, to self so little 
 
 kind 
 That no tumultuary blood could blind. 
 Formed to control men, not amaze, 
 Looms not like those that borrow height 
 
 ^of haze : 
 It was a world of statelier movement 
 
 then 
 Than this we fret in, he a denizen 
 Of that ideal Borne that made a man foi 
 
 men. 
 
 VI. 
 1. 
 
 The longer on this earth we live 
 
 And weigh the various qualities of men, 
 
 Seeing how most are fugitive, 
 
 Or fitful gifts, at best, of now and then, 
 
 Wind-wavered corpse-lights, daughters 
 
 of the fen. 
 The more we feel the high stem-featured 
 
 beauty 
 Of plain devotedness to duty. 
 Steadfast and still, nor paid with mortal 
 
 praise, 
 But finding amplest recompense 
 For life's ungarlauded expense 
 In work done squarely and unwasted 
 
 days. 
 For this we lionor him, that he could 
 
 know 
 How sweet the service and how free 
 Of her, God's eldest daughter here be> 
 
 low, 
 And choose in meanest raiment which 
 
 was she. 
 
 2. 
 
 Placid completeness, life without a fall 
 From faith or highest aims, truth's 
 
 breachless wall. 
 Surely if any fame can bear the touch. 
 
UNDER THE OLD ELM. 
 
 429 
 
 Hia will aay " Here 1 " at the last trum- 
 pet's call, 
 
 The unexpressive man whose life ex- 
 pressed so much. 
 
 VII. 
 
 1. 
 Never to see a nation bom 
 Hath been given to mortal man, 
 Unless to those who, on that summer 
 
 mom. 
 Gazed silent when the great Virginian 
 Unsheathed the sword whose fatal flash 
 Shot union through the incoherent clash 
 Of our loose atoms, crystallizing them 
 Around a single will's unpliant stem, 
 And making purpose of emotion rash. 
 Out of that scabbard sprang, as from its 
 
 womb, 
 Nebulous at first but hardening to a 
 
 star, 
 Through mutual share of sunburst and 
 
 of gloom, 
 The common faith that made us what 
 
 That lifted blade transformed our jan- 
 gling clans, 
 
 Till then provincial, to Americans, 
 
 And made a unity of wildering plans ; 
 
 Here was the doom fixed : here is marked 
 the date 
 
 VHien this New "World awoke to man's 
 estate. 
 
 Burnt its last ship and ceased to look 
 behind : 
 
 Nor thoughtless was the choice ; no love 
 or hate 
 
 Could from its poise move that deliber- 
 ate mind, 
 
 "Weighing between too early and too late 
 
 Those pitfalls of the man refused by 
 Fate: 
 
 His was the impartial vision of the 
 great 
 
 "Who see not as they wish, but as they 
 find. 
 
 He saw the dangers of defeat, nor less 
 
 The incomputable perils of success ; 
 
 The sacred past thrown by, an empty 
 rind ; 
 
 The future, cloud-land, snare of prophets 
 blind ; 
 
 The waste of war, the ignominy of peace ; 
 
 On either hand a sullen rear of woes. 
 
 "Whose garnered lightnings none could 
 
 guess, 
 Piling its thunder-heads and muttering 
 
 " Cease 1 " 
 Yet drew not back his hand, but gravely 
 
 chose 
 The seeming-desperate task whence our 
 
 new nation rose. 
 
 3. 
 
 A noble choice and of immortal seed I 
 Nor deem that acts heroic wait on 
 
 chance 
 Or easy were as in a boy's romance ; 
 The man's whole life preludes the single 
 
 deed 
 That shall decide if his inheritance 
 Be with the sifted few of matchless 
 
 breed. 
 Our race's sap and sustenance, 
 Or with the unmotived herd that only 
 
 sleep and feed. 
 Choice seems a thing indifferent ; thus 
 
 or so, 
 "What matters it ? The Fates with mock- 
 ing face 
 Look on inexorable, nor seem to know 
 Where the lot lurks that gives life's 
 
 foremost place. 
 Yet Duty's leaden casket holds it still. 
 And but two ways are offered to our 
 
 will, 
 Toil with rare triumph, ease with safe 
 
 disgrace. 
 The problem still for us and all of hu- 
 man race. 
 He chose, as men choose, where most 
 
 danger showed. 
 Nor ever faltered 'neath the load 
 Of petty cares, that gall great hearts the 
 
 most. 
 But kept right on the strenuous up-hill 
 
 road. 
 Strong to the end, above complaint or 
 
 boast : 
 The popular tempest on his rock-mailed 
 
 coast 
 "Wasted its wind-borne spray. 
 The noisy marvel of a day ; 
 His soul sate still in its unstormed abodei 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Virginia gave us this imperial man 
 Cast in the massive mould 
 Of those high-statnied ages old 
 
430 
 
 THREE MEMORIAL POEMS.' 
 
 Which into grander forms our mortal 
 
 metal ran ; 
 She gave U3 this unhlemished gentle- 
 man : 
 What shall we give her back but love 
 
 and praise 
 As in the dear old unestranged days 
 Before the inevitable wrong began ? 
 Mother of States and undiminished men, 
 Thou gavest us a country, giving him, 
 And we owe alway what we owed thee 
 
 then ; 
 The boon thou wouldst have snatched 
 
 from us agen 
 Shines as before with no abatement dim. 
 A great man's memory is the only 
 
 thing 
 With influence to outlast the present 
 
 whim 
 And bind us as when here he knit our 
 
 golden ring. 
 All of him that was subject to the 
 
 hours 
 Lies in thy soil and makes it part of 
 
 ours : 
 Across more recent graves, 
 Where unresentful Nature waves 
 Her pennons o'er the shot-ploughed sod, 
 Proclaiming the sweet Truce of God, 
 We from this consecrated plain stretch 
 
 out 
 Our hands as free from afterthought or 
 
 doubt 
 As here the united Worth 
 Poured her embrowned manhood forth 
 In welcome of our savior and thy son. 
 Through battle we have better learned 
 
 thy worth. 
 The long-breathed valor and undaunted 
 
 will, 
 Which, like his own, the day's disaster 
 
 done, 
 Could, safe in manhood, suffer and be 
 
 still. 
 Both thine and ours the victory hardly 
 
 won ; 
 If ever with distempered voice or pen 
 We have misdeemed thee, here we take 
 
 it back. 
 And for the dead of both don common 
 
 black. 
 Be to us evermore as thou wast then. 
 As we forget thou hast not always 
 
 been, 
 Mother of States and unpolluted men, 
 Virginia, fitly named from England's 
 ' ^ manly queen 1 
 
 AN ODE 
 
 POa THE FOUKTH OF JULY, 18MI 
 
 I. 
 
 1. 
 
 Entranced I saw a vision in the cloud 
 That loitered dreaming in yon sunset sky, 
 Full of fair shapes, half creatures of the 
 
 eye. 
 Half chance-evoked by the wind'sfantasy 
 In golden mist, an ever-shifting crowd : 
 There, mid unreal forms that came and 
 
 went 
 In air-span robes, of evanescent dye, 
 A woman's semblance shone pre-emi- 
 
 neut ; 
 Kot armed like Pallas, not like Hera 
 
 proud. 
 But, as on household diligence intent. 
 Beside her visionary wheel she bent 
 Like Arete or Bertha, nor than they 
 Less queenly in her port : about hep 
 
 knee 
 Glad children clustered confident in play : 
 Placid her pose, the calm of energy ; 
 And over her broad brow in many « 
 
 round 
 (That loosened would have gilt her gar- 
 ment's hem). 
 Succinct, as toil prescribes, the hair was 
 
 wound 
 In lustrous coils, a natural diadem. 
 The cloud changed shape, obsequious to 
 
 the whim 
 Of some transmuting influence felt in 
 
 me. 
 And, looking now, a wolf I seemed to see 
 Limned in that vapor, gaunt and hun- 
 ger-bold. 
 Threatening her charge : resolve in every 
 
 limb. 
 Erect she flamed in mail of sun-wove 
 
 gold, 
 Penthesilea's self for battle dight ; 
 One arm uplifted braced a flickering 
 
 spear. 
 And one her adamantine shield made 
 
 light ; 
 Her face, helm-shadowed, grew a thing 
 
 to fear, 
 And her fierce eyes, by danger challenged, 
 
 took 
 Her trident-sceptred mother's dauntlesg 
 
 look. 
 "I know thee now, goddess-bora I" 
 
 I cried. 
 
AN ODE FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1S76. 
 
 481 
 
 And turned with loftier brow and firmer 
 Btride ; 
 
 For in that spectral cloud-work I had 
 seen 
 
 Her image, bodied forth by loye and 
 pride. 
 
 The fearless, the benign, the mother- 
 eyed, 
 
 The fairer world'stoil-consecrated queen. 
 
 2. 
 
 What shape by exile dreamed elates the 
 mind 
 
 Like hers whose hand, a fortress of the 
 poor, 
 
 No blood in vengeance spilt, though law- 
 ful, stains ? 
 
 Who never turned a suppliant from her 
 door? 
 
 Whose conquests are the gains of all 
 mankind ? 
 
 To-day her thanks shall fly on every 
 wind, 
 
 Unstinted, unrebuked, from shore to 
 shore, 
 
 One love, one hope, and not a doubt be- 
 hind ! 
 
 Cannon to cannon shall repeat her praise. 
 
 Banner to banner flap it forth in flame ; 
 
 Her children shall rise up to bless her 
 name, 
 
 And wish her harmless length of days, 
 
 The mighty mother of a mighty brood. 
 
 Blessed in all tongues and dear to every 
 blood, 
 
 The beautiful, the strong, and, best of 
 all, the good ! 
 
 Seven years long was the bow 
 Of battle bent, and the heightening 
 Storm-heaps convulsed with the throe 
 Of their uneontainable lightning ; 
 Seven years long heard the sea 
 Crash of navies and wave-borne thunder ; 
 Then drifted the cloud-raclc a-Iee, 
 And new stars were seen, a world's 
 
 wonder ; 
 Each by her sisters made bright, 
 All binding all to their stations, 
 Cluster of manifold light 
 Startling the old constellations : 
 Men looked up and grew pale : 
 Was it a comet or star, 
 Omen of blessing or bale, 
 Hung o'er the ocean afar ? 
 
 Stormy the day of her birth : 
 Was she not born of the strong, ' 
 She, the last ripeness of earth. 
 Beautiful, prophesied long ? 
 Stormy the days of her prime: 
 Hers are the pulses that beat 
 Higher for perils sublime, 
 Making them fawn at her feet. 
 Was she not born of the strong 1 
 Was she not bom of the wise ? 
 Daring and counsel belong 
 Of right to her confident eyes : 
 Human and motherly they. 
 Careless of station or race : 
 Hearken ! her children to-day 
 Shout for the joy of her face. 
 
 II. 
 
 No praises of the past are hers, 
 
 No fanes by hallowing time caressed. 
 
 No broken areh that ministers 
 
 To Time's sad instinct In the breast : 
 
 She has not gathered from the years 
 
 Grandeur of tragedies and tears, 
 
 Nor from long leisure the unrest 
 
 That finds repose in foi-ms of classlo 
 
 grace : 
 These may delight the coming race 
 Who haply shall not count it to our 
 
 crime 
 That we who fain would sing are here 
 
 before our time. 
 She also hath her monuments ; 
 Not such as stand deerepitly resigned 
 To ruin-mark the path of dead events 
 That left no seed of better days be. 
 
 hind. 
 The tourist's pensioners that show their 
 
 seal's 
 And maunder of forgotten wars ; 
 She builds not on the ground, but in the 
 
 mind, 
 Her open-hearted palaces 
 For larger-thoughted men with heaven 
 
 and earth at ease : 
 Her march the plump mow marks, the 
 
 sleepless wheel, 
 The golden sheaf, the self-swayed com- 
 monweal ; 
 The happy homesteads hid in orchard 
 
 trees 
 Whose sacrificial smokes through peace- 
 ful air 
 
432 
 
 THREE MEMOHIAL POEMS. 
 
 Rise lost in heaven, the household's 
 
 silent prayer ; 
 What architect hath bettered these ? 
 With softened eye the westward ti'aveller 
 
 sees 
 A thousand miles of neighbors side by 
 
 side, 
 Holding by toil-won titles fresh from 
 
 God 
 The lands no serf or seigneur ever trod. 
 With manhood latent in the very sod, 
 Where the long billow of the wheat- 
 field's tide 
 Flows to the sky across the prairie wide, 
 A sweeter vision than the castled Bhine, 
 Kindly with thoughts of Iluth and Bible- 
 days benign. 
 
 2. 
 -ancient commonwealths, that we 
 
 revere 
 Haply because we could not know you 
 
 near, 
 Your deeds like statues down the aisles 
 
 of Time 
 Shine peerless in memorial calm sublime, 
 And Athens is a trump, t still, and 
 
 Rome ; 
 Yet which of your achievements is not 
 
 foam 
 Weighed with this one of hers (below 
 
 you far 
 In fame, and bom beneath a milder star), 
 That to Earth's orphans, far as curves 
 
 the dome. 
 Of death-deaf sky, the bounteous West 
 
 means home. 
 With dear precedency of natural ties 
 That stretch from roof to roof and make 
 
 men gently wise ? 
 And if the nobler passions wane. 
 Distorted to base use, if the near goal 
 Of insubstantial gain 
 Tempt from the proper race-course of 
 
 the soul 
 That crowns their patient breath 
 Whose feet, song-sandaled, are too fleet 
 
 for Death, 
 Yet may she claim one privilege urbane 
 And haply first upon the civic roll. 
 That none can breathe her air nor grow 
 
 humane. 
 
 3. 
 O, better far the briefest hour 
 Of Athens self-consumed, whose plastic 
 
 power 
 Hid Beauty safe from Death in words 
 
 or stone ; 
 
 Of Rome, fair quarry where those < 
 crowd 
 
 Whose fulgurous vans about the world 
 had blown 
 
 Triumphant storm and seeds of polity ; 
 
 Of Venice, fading o'er her shipless sea, 
 
 Last iridescence of a sunset cloud ; 
 
 Than this inert prosperity. 
 
 This bovine comfort in the sense alone ! 
 
 Yet art came slowly even to such aa 
 those, 
 
 Whom no past genius cheated of their 
 own 
 
 With prudence of o'ermastering prece- 
 dent ; 
 
 Petal by petal spreads the perfect rose, 
 
 Secure of the divine event ; 
 
 And only children rend the bud halfc 
 blown 
 
 To forestall Nature in hercalm intent : 
 
 Time hath a quiver full of purposes 
 
 Which miss not of their aim, to us un- 
 known. 
 
 And brings about the impossible with 
 ease : 
 
 Haply for us the ideal dawn shall break 
 
 From where in legend-tinted line 
 
 The peaks of Hellas drink the morning's 
 wine. 
 
 To tremble on our lids with mystic 
 sign 
 
 Till the drowsed ichor in our veins 
 
 And set our pulse in tune with moods 
 
 divine : 
 Long the day lingered in its sea-&inged 
 
 nest. 
 Then touched the Tuscan hills with 
 
 golden lance 
 And paused ; then on to Spain and 
 
 France 
 The splendor flew, and Albion's misty 
 
 crest : 
 Shall Ocean bar him from his destined 
 
 West» 
 Or are we, then, arrived too late. 
 Doomed with the rest to grope discon- 
 solate, 
 Foreclosed of Beauty Ijy our modem 
 
 date! 
 
 IIL 
 1. 
 
 Poets, as their heads grow gray. 
 Look from too far behind the eyei^ 
 Too long-experienced to be wise 
 
AN ODE FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1876. 
 
 483 
 
 In guileless youth's diviner way ; 
 Life sings not now, but prophesies ; 
 Time's shadows they no more behold, 
 But, under them, the riddle old 
 That mocks, hewUders, and defies : 
 In childhood.'s face the seed of shame, 
 In the green tree an ambushed flame, 
 In Phosphor a vaunt-guard of Night, 
 They, though against their will, di- 
 vine, 
 And dread the care-dispeUing wine 
 Stored from the Muse's vintage bright, 
 By age imbued with second-sight. 
 From Faith's own eyelids there peeps 
 
 out, 
 Even as they look, the leer of doubt ; 
 The festal wreath their fancy loads 
 "With care that whispers and forebodes : 
 Nor this our triumph-day can blunt 
 Hegsera's goads. 
 
 2. 
 
 Murmur of many voices in the air 
 Denounces us degenerate, 
 Unfaithful guardians of a noble fate. 
 And prompts indifference or despair : 
 Is this the country that we dreamed in 
 
 youth, 
 Where wisdom and not numbers should 
 
 have weight, 
 Seed-field of simpler manners, braver 
 
 truth, 
 Where shams should cease to dominate 
 In household, church, and state ? 
 Is this Atlantis ? This the unpoisoned 
 
 soil, 
 Sea-whelmed for ages and recovered late. 
 Where parasitic greed no more should 
 
 coil 
 Bound Freedom's stem to bend awry 
 
 and blight 
 What grew so fair, sole plant of love and 
 
 U^ht? 
 Who sit where once in crowned seclu- 
 sion sate 
 The long-proved athletes of debate 
 Trained from their youth, as none thinks 
 
 needful now ? 
 Is this debating-club where boys dis- 
 pute. 
 And wrangle o'er their stolen fruit, 
 The Senate, erewhile cloister of the 
 
 few. 
 Where Clay once flashed and Webster's 
 
 cloudy brow 
 Brooded those bolts of thought that all 
 
 the horizon knew ? 
 
 S. 
 
 0, as this pensive moonlight blur* my 
 
 pines. 
 Here while I sit and meditate these lines. 
 To gray-green dreams of what they are 
 
 by day, 
 So would some light, not reason's sharp- 
 edged ray. 
 Trance me in moonshine as before the 
 
 flight 
 Of years had won me this unwelcome 
 
 right 
 To see things as they are, or shall be 
 
 soon. 
 In the frank prose of undissembling 
 
 noon 1 
 
 i. 
 
 Back to my breast, ungrateful sigh I 
 
 Whoever fails, whoever errs. 
 
 The penalty be ours, not hers ! 
 
 The present still seems vulgar, seen too 
 
 nigh ; 
 The golden age is still the age that's 
 
 past : 
 I a.sk no drowsy opiate 
 To dull my vision of that only state 
 Founded on faith in man, and therefore 
 
 sure to last. 
 For, 0, my country, touched by thee. 
 The gray hairs gather back their gold ; 
 Thy thought sets all my pulses free ; 
 The heart refuses to be old ; 
 The love is all that I can see. 
 Not to thy natal-day belong 
 Time's pnident doubt or age's wrong, 
 But gifts of gratitude and song : 
 Unsummoned crowd the thankful worda, 
 As sap in spring-time floods the tree. 
 Foreboding the return of birds. 
 For all that thou hast been to me I 
 
 IV. 
 
 Flawless his heart and tempered to 
 
 the core 
 Who, beckoned by the forward-leaning 
 
 wave. 
 First left behind him the firm-footed 
 
 shore, 
 And, urged by every nerve of sail and oar. 
 Steered for the Unknown which gods to 
 
 mortals gave. 
 Of thought and action the mysterioua 
 
 door. 
 
434 
 
 THREE MEMORIAL POEMS. 
 
 Bugbear of fools, tt summons to the 
 
 brave : 
 Strength found he in the unsympathiz- 
 
 ing sun, 
 And strange stars from beneath the 
 
 horizon won, 
 And the dumb ocean pitilessly grave : 
 High-hearted surely he ; 
 But bolder they who first off-cast 
 Their moorings from the habitable Past 
 And ventured chartless on the sea 
 Of storm-engendering Liberty : 
 For all earth's width of waters is a 
 
 span, 
 And their convulsed existence mere re- 
 pose. 
 Matched with the unstable heart of man. 
 Shoreless in wants, mist-girt in all it 
 
 knows. 
 Open to every wind of sect or clan, 
 And sudden-passionate in ebbs and flows. 
 
 They steered by stars the elder shipmen 
 knew. 
 
 And laid their courses where the cur- 
 rents draw 
 
 Of ancient wisdom channelled deep in 
 law. 
 
 The undaunted few 
 
 Who changed the Old World for the 
 New, 
 
 And more devoutly prized 
 
 Than all perfection theorized 
 
 The more imperfect that had roots and 
 grew. 
 
 They founded deep and well. 
 
 Those danger-chosen chiefs of men 
 
 Who still believed in Heaven and Hell, 
 
 Nor hoped to find a spell. 
 
 In some fine flourish of a pen. 
 
 To make a better man 
 
 Than long-considering Nature will or 
 can. 
 
 Secure against his own mistakes. 
 Content with what life gives or takes, 
 And acting still on some fore-ordered 
 
 plan, 
 A cog of iron in an iron wheel. 
 Too nicely poised to think or feel. 
 Dumb motor in aclock-like commonweal. 
 They wasted not their brain in schemes 
 Of what man might be in swne bubble- 
 sphere, 
 As if he must be other than he seems 
 Because he was not what he should be 
 
 here. 
 Postponing Time's slow proof to petu- 
 lant dreams : 
 Yet herein they were great 
 Beyond the incredulous lawgivers of yore, 
 And wiser than the wisdom of the shelf, 
 That they conceived a deeper-rooted 
 
 state. 
 Of hardier growth, alive from rind to 
 
 core. 
 By making man sole sponsor of himself. 
 
 3. 
 
 God of our fathers. Thou who wast. 
 Art, and shalt be when those eye-wise 
 
 who flout 
 Thy secret presence shall be lost 
 In the great light that dazzles them to 
 
 doubt. 
 We, sprung from loins of stalwart men 
 Whose strength was in their trust 
 That Thou wouldst make thy dwelling 
 
 in their dust 
 And walk with them a fellow-citizen 
 Who buUd a city of the just. 
 We, who believe Life's bases rest 
 Beyond the probe of chemic test. 
 Still, like our fathers, feel Thee near. 
 Sure that, while lasts the immutablt 
 
 decree, 
 The land to Human Nature deal 
 Shall not be unbeloved of Thee. 
 
HEARTSEASE AND RUE 
 
Along the wayside where we pass bloom few 
 Gap plants of heartsease, more of saddening Ttttf 
 So life is mingled; so should poems he 
 Thai apeak a conscious word to you and rm. 
 
t FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 AGASSIZ. 
 
 Come 
 IHoestI egli etbe f non riv' egli ancora? 
 Nan fieie gU oochi suoi lo dolce lome2 
 
 I. 1. 
 
 Tbb electric neiTe, whose instantaneous 
 
 thriU 
 Makes next-door gossips of the antip- 
 odes. 
 Confutes poor Hope's last fallacy of 
 
 ease, — 
 The distance that divided her from ill : 
 Earth sentient seems again as when of 
 old 
 
 The homy foot of Pan 
 Stamped, and the conscious horror ran 
 Beneath men's feet through all her 
 
 fibres cold : 
 Space's blue walls are mined ; we feel the 
 
 throe 
 Prom nnderground of our night-mantled 
 foe: 
 The flame-winged feet 
 Of Trade's new Mercury, that dry-shod 
 
 run 
 Through briny abysses dreamless of the 
 sun, 
 Are mercilessly fleet, 
 And at a bound annihilate 
 Ocean's prerogative of short reprieve ; 
 
 Surely ill news might wait, 
 And man be patient of delay to grieve : 
 Letters have sympathies 
 And tell-tale faces that reveal, 
 To senses finer than the eyes. 
 Their errand's purport ere we break the 
 
 seal; 
 They wind a sorrow round with circum- 
 stance 
 To stay its feet, nor all unwarned dis- 
 place 
 
 The veil that darkened from our sidelong 
 glance 
 The inexorable face : 
 But now Fate stuns as with a mace; 
 The savage of the skies, that men have 
 caught 
 And some scant nse of languags 
 taught. 
 
 Tells only what he must, — 
 The steel-cold fact in one laconic thrust. 
 
 So thought I, as, with vague, mechanic 
 eyes, 
 
 I scanned the festering news we half de- 
 spise 
 Yet scramble for no less, 
 
 And read of public scandal, privata 
 fraud. 
 
 Crime flaunting scot-free while the mob 
 applaud, 
 
 OfiBce made vile to bribe unworthiness. 
 And all the unwholesome mess 
 
 The Land of Honest Abraham serves of 
 late 
 To teach the Old World how to 
 wait. 
 When suddenly, 
 
 As happens if the brain, from over- 
 weight 
 
 Of blood, infect the eye, 
 
 Three tiny words grew lurid as I read. 
 
 And reeled commingling; Agatsiz it 
 dead. 
 
 As when, beneath the street's familiar 
 jar. 
 
 An earthquake's alien omen rumbles far, 
 
 Men listeu and forebode, I hung my 
 head, 
 And strove the present to recall. 
 
 As if the blow that stunned werei yet to 
 fall. 
 
438 
 
 AGASSIZ. 
 
 TTprooted is our mountain oak. 
 That promised long security of shade 
 Aud brooding-place for many a winged 
 thought ; 
 Not by Time's softly-cadenced stroke 
 With pauses of relenting pity stayed, 
 But ere a root seemed sapt, a bough de- 
 cayed, 
 From sudden ambush by the whirlwind 
 
 caught 
 And in his broad maturity betrayed 1 
 
 Well might I, as of old, appeal to you, 
 O mountains woods and streams, 
 To help us mourn him, for ye loved him 
 too; 
 But simpler moods befit our modern 
 themes. 
 And no less perfect birth of nature can, 
 Though they yearn tow'rd him, sympa- 
 thize with man, 
 Save as dumb fellow-prisoners through a 
 wall; 
 Answer ye rather to my call. 
 Strong poets of a more unconscious day, 
 When Nature spake nor sought nice rea- 
 sons why, 
 Too much for softer arts forgotten since 
 That teach our forthright tongue to lisp 
 
 and mince. 
 And drown in music the heart's bitter 
 
 cry! 
 Lead me some steps in your directer 
 
 way, 
 Teach me those words that strike a solid 
 root 
 Within the ears of men ; 
 Te chiefly, virile both to think and feel. 
 Deep-chested Chapman and firm-footed 
 
 Ben,— 
 For he was masculine from head to heel. 
 Nay, let himself stand undiminished by 
 With those clear parts of him that will 
 
 not die. 
 Himself from out the recent dark I claim 
 To hear, and, if I flatter him, to blame ; 
 To show himself, as still I seem to see, 
 A mortal, built upon the antique plan. 
 Brimful of lusty blood as ever ran. 
 And taking life as simply as a tree I 
 To claim my foiled good-bye let him ap- 
 pear, 
 lArge-limbed and human ns I saw him 
 ' Bear, 
 
 Loosed from the stiffening uniform of 
 
 fame: 
 And let me treat him largely : I should 
 
 fear, 
 (If with too prying lens I chanced to err, 
 Mistaking catalogue for character,) 
 His wise forefinger raised in smiling 
 
 blame. 
 Nor would I scant him with judicial 
 
 breath 
 And turn mere critic in an epitaph; 
 I choose the wheat, incurious of the chaS 
 That swells fame living, chokes it after 
 
 death. 
 And would but memorize the shining 
 
 half 
 Of his large namre that was turned to 
 
 me: 
 Fain had I joined with those that hon- 
 ored him 
 With eyes that darkened because his 
 
 were dim, 
 And now been silent: but it might not 
 
 be. 
 
 n. 1. 
 
 In some the genius is a thing apart, 
 A pillared hermit of the brain. 
 Hoarding with incommunicable art 
 Its intellectnal gain ; 
 Man's web of circumstance and fate 
 They from their perch of self ob- 
 serve. 
 Indifferent as the figures on a slate 
 
 Are to the planet's sun-swung curva 
 Whose brignt returns they calculate ; 
 Their nice adjustment, part to part, 
 Were shaken from its serviceable mood 
 By unpremeditated stirs of heart 
 
 Or jar of human neighborhood : 
 Some find their natural selves, and only 
 
 then, 
 In furloughs of divine escape from men, 
 And when, by that brief ecstasy left 
 bare, 
 Driven by some instinct of desire, 
 They wander worldward, 'tis to blink 
 
 and stare. 
 Like wild things of the wood about a 
 
 fire. 
 Dazed by the social glow they cannot 
 share ; 
 His nature brooked no lonely lair, 
 But basked and bourgeoned in copart 
 
 nery. 
 Companionship, and open - windowed 
 glee: 
 
A6ASSIZ. 
 
 439 
 
 He knew, for he had tried, 
 Those speculative heights that lure 
 The unpractised foot, impatieut of a 
 
 guide, 
 Tow'rd ether too attenuately pure 
 For sweet UDConscions breath, though 
 
 dear to pride. 
 But better loved the foothold sure 
 Of paths that wind hy old abodes of men 
 Who hope at last the churchyard's peace 
 
 secure, 
 And follow time-worn rules, that them 
 
 suffice, 
 Learned from their sires, traditionally 
 
 wise. 
 Careful of honest custom's how and 
 
 when; 
 His mind, too brave to look on Truth 
 
 askance, 
 Ko more those habitudes of faith could 
 
 share. 
 But, tinged with sweetness of the old 
 
 Swiss manse, 
 Lingered around them still and fain 
 
 would spare. 
 Patient to spy a sullen egg for weeks, 
 The enigma of creation to surprise. 
 His truer instinct sought the life that 
 
 speaks 
 Without a mystery from kindly eyes ; 
 In no self-spun cocoon of prudence 
 
 wound. 
 He by the touch of men was best in- 
 spired. 
 And caught his native greatness at re- 
 bound 
 From generosities itself had fired ; 
 Then how the heat through every fibre 
 
 ran. 
 Felt in the gathering presence of the 
 
 man. 
 While the apt word and gesture came 
 
 unhid ! 
 Virtues and faults it to one metal 
 
 wrought. 
 Fined all his blood to thought, 
 And ran the molten man in all he said 
 
 or did. 
 All Tally's rules and all Qnintilian's too 
 He by the light of listening faces knew, 
 And his rapt audience ^1 unconscious 
 
 lent 
 Their own roused force to make him elo- 
 quent ; 
 Persuasion fondled in his look and tone ; 
 Our speech (with strangers prudish) he 
 
 could bring 
 
 To find new charm in accents not her 
 
 own; 
 Her coy constraints and icy hindrances 
 Melted upon his lips to natural ease, 
 As a brook's fetters swell the dance of 
 
 spring. 
 Nor yet all sweetness : not in vain he 
 
 wore, 
 Nor in the sheath of ceremony, controlled 
 By velvet courtesy or caution colC, 
 That sword of honest anger prized of old. 
 
 But, with two-handed wrath. 
 If baseness or pretension crossed his 
 
 Struck once nor neeaed to strike 
 more. 
 
 2. 
 
 His magic was not far to seek, — 
 He was so human ! Whether strong or 
 
 weak, 
 Far from his kind he neither sank nor 
 
 soared. 
 But sate an equal guest at every board : 
 No beggar ever felt him coudescend. 
 No prince presume ; for still himself he 
 
 bare 
 At manhood's simple level, and where'er 
 He met a stranger, there he left a friend. 
 How large an aspect ! nobly unsevere. 
 With freshness round him of Olympian 
 
 cheer, 
 Like visits of those earthly gods he 
 
 came ; 
 His look, wherever its good-fortune fell, 
 Doubled the feast without a miracle. 
 And on the hearthstone danced a happier 
 
 flame ; 
 Philemon's crabbed vintage grow be- 
 nign; 
 Amphitryon's gold-jnice humanized to 
 
 wine. 
 
 ni. 1. 
 
 The garrulous memories 
 Gather again from all their far-flown 
 
 nooks, 
 Singly at first, and then by twos and 
 
 threes. 
 Then in a throng innumerable, as the 
 
 rooks 
 
 Thicken their twilight files 
 Tow'rd Tintern's gray repose of roofless 
 
 aisles : 
 Once more I see him at the table's head 
 When Saturday her monthly banquet 
 
 spread 
 
440 
 
 AGASSIZ. 
 
 To scholars, poets, wits, 
 All choice, some famous, loving things, 
 
 not names. 
 And 80 without a twinge at others' 
 
 fames ; 
 Such company as wisest moods befits, 
 Yet with no pedant blindness to the 
 
 worth 
 
 Of undeliberate mirth, 
 Natures benignly mixed of aii and 
 
 earth. 
 Now with the stars and now with equal 
 
 zest 
 Tiacing the eccentric oihit of a jest. 
 
 I see in vision the warm-lighted hall, 
 The living and the dead I see again, 
 And but my chair is empty ; 'mid them 
 
 all 
 'T is I that seem the dead : they all re- 
 main 
 Immortal, changeless creatures of the 
 
 brain : 
 Wellnigh I doubt which world is real 
 
 most. 
 Of sense or spirit, to the truly sane ; 
 In this abstraction it were light to deem 
 Myself the figment of some stronger 
 
 dream ; 
 They are the real things, and I the ghost 
 That glide unhindered through the solid 
 
 door. 
 Vainly for recognition seek from chair 
 
 to chair. 
 And strive to speak and am but futile 
 
 air, 
 As truly most of us are little more. 
 
 Him most I see whom we most dearly 
 miss, 
 
 The latest parted thence. 
 His features poised in genial armistic* 
 And armed neutrality of self-defence 
 Beneath the forehead's walled preemi- 
 nence. 
 While Tyrn, plucking facts with careless 
 
 reach, 
 Settles off-hand oui human how and 
 
 whence ; 
 The long-trained veteran scarcely win- 
 cing hears 
 The infallible strateey of volunteers 
 Making through Nature's walls its easy 
 breach, 
 
 And seems to learn where he alone sonld 
 
 teach. 
 Ample and ruddy, the board's end he fills 
 As he our fireside were, our light and 
 
 heat. 
 Centre where minds diverse and various 
 
 skills 
 Find their warm nook and stretch un- 
 hampered feet ; 
 I see the firm benignity of face. 
 Wide-smiling champaign, without tame- 
 
 ness sweet. 
 The mass Teutonic toned to Gallic grace, 
 The eyes whose sunshine runs before the 
 
 lips 
 While Holmes's rockets curve their long 
 
 ellipse. 
 And burst in seeds of fire that burst 
 
 again 
 To drop in scintillating rain. 
 
 There too the face half-rustic, half- 
 divine. 
 Self-poised, sagacious, freaked with 
 
 humor fine, 
 Of him who taught us not to mow 
 
 and mope 
 About our fancied selves, but seek 
 
 our scope 
 In Nature's world and Man's, nor fade 
 
 to hollow trope. 
 Content with our New World and 
 
 timely bold 
 To challenge the o'ermastery of the 
 
 Old; 
 Listening with eyes averse I see hini. 
 
 sit 
 Pricked with the cider of the Judge's 
 
 wit 
 (Ripe-hearted homebrew, fresh and 
 
 fresh again). 
 While the wise nose's firm-built 
 
 aquiline 
 Curves sharper to restrain 
 The merriment whose most unrnly 
 
 moods 
 Pass not the dumb laugh learned in 
 
 listening woods 
 
 Of silence-shedding pine : 
 Hard by is he whose art s consoling 
 
 spell 
 Hath given both worlds a whifi of 
 
 asphodel. 
 His look still vernal 'mid the wint^ 
 
AGASSIZ. 
 
 441 
 
 Of petals that rememter, not fore- 
 tell, 
 The paler primrose of a second spring. 
 
 And more there are : but other forms 
 
 arise 
 And seen as clear, albeit with dimmer 
 
 eyes : 
 First he from sympathy still held apart 
 By shrinking over-eagerness of heart, 
 Cloud charged with searching fire, 
 
 whose shadow's sweep 
 Heightened mean things with sense of 
 
 brooding ill. 
 And steeped in doom familiar field and 
 
 hill,— 
 New England's poet, soul reserved and 
 
 deep, 
 November nature with a name of May, 
 Whom high o'er Concord plains we 
 
 laid to sleep, 
 While the orchards mocked us in their 
 
 white array 
 And building robins wondered at our 
 
 tears. 
 Snatched in his prime, the shape au- 
 gust 
 That should have stood unbent 'neath 
 
 fourscore years. 
 The noble head, the eyes of furtive 
 
 trust. 
 All gone to speechless dust. 
 And he our passing guest. 
 Shy nature, too, and stung with life's 
 
 unrest, 
 Whom we too briefly had but eould 
 
 not hold, 
 Who brought ripe Oxford's culture to 
 
 our board. 
 The Past's incalculable hoard, 
 Mellowed by scutcheoned panes in 
 
 cloisters old, 
 Seclusions ivy-hushed, and pavements 
 
 sweet 
 With immemorial lisp of musing feet ; 
 Young head time-tonsured smoother 
 
 than a friar's, 
 Boy face, but grave with answerless 
 
 desires, 
 Poet in all that poets have of best, 
 But foiled with liddies dark and 
 
 cloudy aims, 
 
 Who now hath found sure rest, 
 Not by still Isis or historic Thames, 
 Nor by the Charles he tried to love 
 
 with me. 
 
 But, not misplaced, by Amols hal- 
 lowed biim. 
 
 Nor scorned by Santa Croce's neigh- 
 boring fames, 
 Haply not mindless, wheresoe'er he 
 be, 
 
 Of violets that to-day I scattered over 
 him. 
 He, too, is there. 
 
 After the good centurion fitly named, 
 
 Whom learning dulled not, nor con- 
 vention tamed. 
 
 Shaking with burly mirth his hyaciu- 
 thine hair, 
 
 Our hearty Grecian of Homeric ways, 
 Still found the surer friend where least 
 he hoped the praise. 
 
 Yea truly, as the sallowing years 
 
 Fall from us faster, like frost-loosened, 
 leaves 
 
 Pushed by the misty touch of shorten- 
 ing days. 
 And that unwakened winter nears, 
 
 'T is the void chair our surest guest 
 receives, 
 
 'T is lips long cold that give the warm- 
 est kiss, 
 
 'T is the lost voice comes oftenest to 
 our ears ; 
 
 We count our rosary by the beads we 
 miss: 
 To me, at least, it seemeth so. 
 
 An exile in the land once found divine. 
 While my starved fire bums low. 
 
 And homeless winds at the loose case- 
 ment whine 
 
 Shrill ditties of the snow-roofed Apen- 
 nine. 
 
 rv. 1. 
 
 Now forth into the darkness all are 
 
 gone. 
 But memory, still nnsated, follows on, 
 Ketracing step by step our homeward 
 
 walk. 
 With many a laugh among our serious 
 
 talk. 
 Across the bridge where, on the dim. 
 
 pling tide. 
 The long red streamers from the win, 
 
 dows glide. 
 Or the dim western moon 
 Bocks her skiff's image on the broad 
 
 lagoon. 
 
442 
 
 A6ASSIZ. 
 
 And Boston shows a soft Venetian 
 side 
 
 In that Arcadian light when roof and 
 tree. 
 
 Hard prose by daylight, dream in 
 Italy ; 
 
 Or haply in the sky's cold chambers 
 wide 
 
 Shivered the winter stars, while all be- 
 low, 
 
 As if an end were come of human ill. 
 
 The world was wrapt in innocence of 
 snow 
 
 And the cast-iron bay was blind and 
 still ; 
 
 These were our poetry; in him per- 
 haps 
 
 Science had barred the gate that lets 
 in dream, 
 
 And he would rather count the perch 
 and bream 
 
 Than with the current's idle fancy 
 
 And yet he had the poet's open eye 
 That takes a frank delight in all it 
 
 sees, 
 Nor was earth voiceless, nor the mystic 
 
 sky, 
 To him the life-long friend of fields 
 
 and trees : 
 Then came the proae of the suburban 
 
 street. 
 Its silence deepened by our echoing 
 
 feet. 
 And converse such as rambling haz- 
 ard finds ; 
 Thon he who many cities knew and 
 
 many minds, 
 Aad men once world-noised, now mere 
 
 Ossian forms 
 Of misty memory, bade them live anew 
 As when they shared earth's manifold 
 
 delight. 
 In shape, in gait, in voice, in gesture 
 
 true. 
 And, with an accent heightening as he 
 
 warms. 
 Would stop forgetful of the shortening 
 
 ni<;ht, 
 Drop my confining arm, and pour pro- 
 fuse 
 Much worldly wisdom kept for others' 
 
 use. 
 Not for his own, for he was rash and 
 
 free. 
 His purse or knowledj^e all men's, like 
 
 the sea. 
 
 Still can I hear his voice's shrilling 
 might 
 
 (With pauses broken, while the fitful 
 spark 
 
 He blew more hotly rounded on the 
 dark 
 
 To hint his features with a Bembrandt 
 light) 
 
 Call Oken back, or Humboldt, or La- 
 marck, 
 
 Or Cuvier's taller shade, and many 
 more 
 
 Whom he had seen, or knew from oth- 
 ers' sight. 
 
 And make chem men to me as ne'er 
 before : 
 
 Not seldom, as the undeadened fibre 
 stirred 
 
 Of noble friendships knit beyond the 
 sea, 
 
 German or French thrust by the lag- 
 ging word, 
 
 For a good leash of mother-tongnea 
 had he. 
 
 At last, arrived at where our paths di- 
 vide, 
 
 " Good night ! " and, ere the distance 
 grew too wide, 
 
 " Good night ! " again ; and now with 
 cheated ear 
 
 I half hear his who mine shall never 
 hear. 
 
 Sometimes it seemed as if New Eng- 
 land air 
 
 For his large lungs too parsimonious 
 were, 
 
 As if those empty rooms of dogma 
 drear 
 
 Where the ghost shivers of a faith aus- 
 tere 
 Connting the horns o'er of the Beast, 
 
 Still scaring those whose faith in it is 
 least. 
 
 As if those snaps o' th' moral atmoSi 
 phere 
 
 That sharpen all the needles of the 
 East, 
 Had been to him like death. 
 
 Accustomed to draw Europe's freer 
 breath 
 In a more stable element ; 
 
 Nay, even our landscape, half the yeal 
 morose, 
 
 Our practical horizon grimly pent, 
 
 Uur air, sincere of ceremonious baza, 
 
AGASSIZ. 
 
 443 
 
 ' ]Poic!iig hard outlines mercilessly 
 close, 
 Our social monotone of level days, 
 Might vaake oui best seam banish- 
 ment ; 
 
 But it was nothing so ; 
 
 Haply his instinct might divine. 
 
 Beneath oar drift of puritanic snow, 
 
 The marvel sensitive and fine 
 Of sanguinaria over-rash to blow 
 And trust its shyness to an air mar 
 
 lign; 
 Well might he prize truth's warranty 
 
 and pledge 
 £a the grim outcrop of our granite 
 
 «dt;e. 
 Or Hebrew fervor flashing forth at 
 
 need 
 In the gaunt sons of Calvin's iron 
 
 breed, 
 As prompt to give as skilled to wio 
 
 and keep ; 
 But, though such intuitions might not 
 
 cheer. 
 Yet life was good to him, and, there or 
 here. 
 With that sufficing joy, the day was 
 never cheap ; 
 Thereto his mind was its own ample 
 
 sphere, 
 And, like those buildings great that 
 
 through the year 
 Carry one temperature, his nature large 
 , Made its own climate, nor could any 
 marge 
 Traced by convention stay him from 
 
 his bent : 
 He had a habitude of mountain air ; 
 He brought wide outlook where he 
 went, 
 [ And could on sunny nplands dwell 
 Of prospect sweeter than the pastures 
 fair 
 High-hung of viny Neufch&tel j 
 Nor, surely, did he miss 
 Some pale, imaginary bliss 
 Of earlier sights whose inner landscape 
 still was Swiss. 
 
 V. 1. 
 
 I cannot think he wished so soon to 
 
 die 
 With all his senses full of eager heat. 
 And rosy years that stood expectant by 
 To buckle the winged sandals on their 
 
 feet; 
 
 He that was friends with earth, and 
 
 all her sweec 
 Took with both hands unsparingly. 
 Truly this life is precious to the root. 
 And good the feel of grass beneath the 
 
 foot; 
 To lie in buttercups and clover-bloom. 
 
 Tenants in common with the bees, 
 And watch the white clouds drUt 
 
 through gulfs of trees. 
 Is better than long waiting in the 
 
 tomb; 
 Only once more to feel the coming 
 
 spring 
 As the birds feel it when it bids them 
 sing, 
 Only once more to see the moon 
 Through leaf-fringed abbey-arches of 
 the elms 
 Curve her mild sickle in the West 
 Sweet with the breath of hay-cocks, 
 
 were a boon 
 Worth any promise of soothsayer 
 
 realms 
 Or casual hope of being elsewhere 
 blest ; 
 To take December by the beard 
 And crush the creaking snow with 
 
 springy foot. 
 While overhead the North's dumb 
 
 streamers shoot, 
 Till Winter fawn upon the check en- 
 deared, 
 Then the long evening-ends 
 Lingered by cosy chimney-nooks, 
 With high companionship of books 
 Or slippered talk of friends 
 And sweet habitual looks, 
 Is better than to stop the ears with 
 
 dust: 
 Too soon the spectre comes to sav, " Thou 
 must I " 
 
 When toil -crooked hands are crost 
 upon the breast. 
 They comfort us with sense of rest ; 
 They must be glad to lie forever still; 
 Their work is ended with their 
 day; 
 Another fills their room ; 't is the World's 
 ancient way. 
 Whether for good or ill ; 
 Bnt the deft spinners of the brain. 
 Who love each added day and find it 
 gain. 
 Them overtakes the doom 
 
444 
 
 AGASSIZ. 
 
 To snap the balf-grown flower npon 
 
 the loom 
 (Trophy that was to be of life-long 
 
 pain), 
 The thread no other skill can ever 
 
 knit again. 
 'T was so with him, for he was glad 
 
 to live, 
 'T was doubly so, for he left work 
 
 begun ; 
 Could not this eagerness of Fate for- 
 give 
 Till all the allotted flax were spun f 
 It matters not; for, go at niglit or 
 
 noon, 
 A friend, whene'er he dies, has died 
 
 too soon. 
 And, once we hear the hopeless He is 
 
 dead, 
 So far as flesh hath knowledge, all is 
 
 said. 
 
 VI. 1. 
 
 I seem to see the black procession go : 
 That crawling prose of death too well 
 
 I know. 
 The vulgar paraphrase of glorious 
 
 woe; 
 I see it wind through that unsightly 
 
 grove, 
 [ Once beautiful, hut long defaced 
 
 With granite permanence of cockney 
 : taste 
 
 And all those grim disfigurements we 
 
 love : 
 There, then, we leave him : Him 1 
 
 such costly waste 
 Nature rebels at : and it is not true 
 Of those most precious parts of him we 
 
 knew: 
 Could we be conscioas but as dreamers 
 
 be, 
 'T were sweet to leave this shifting life 
 
 of tents 
 Sunk in the changeless calm of Deity ; 
 Nay, to be mingled with the elements. 
 The fellow-servant of creative powers. 
 Partaker in the solemn year's events. 
 To share the work of busy-fingered 
 
 hours. 
 To be night's silent almoner of dew. 
 To rise a°;ain in plants and breathe 
 
 and grow, 
 To stream as tides the ocean caverns 
 
 through. 
 Or with the rapture of great winds to 
 
 blow 
 
 About earth's shaken eoignes, yttn 
 not a fate 
 To leave ns all-disconsolate ; 
 Even endless slumber in the sweetening 
 sod 
 Of charitable earth 
 That takes out all our mortal stains. 
 And makes us cleanlier neighbors of 
 the clod, 
 Methinks were better worth 
 Than the poor fruit of must men's wake* 
 ful pains. 
 The heart's insatiable ache : 
 But such was not his faith, 
 Nor mine : it may be he had trod 
 Outside the plain old path of God thus 
 spake, 
 But God to him was very God, 
 And not a visionary wraith 
 Skulking in murky corners of the 
 miud. 
 And he was sure to be 
 Somehow, somewhere, imperishable as 
 
 He, 
 Not with His essence mystically com- 
 bined. 
 As some high spirits long, but whole and 
 free, 
 A perfected and conscious Agassiz. 
 And such 1 figure him : the wise of old 
 Welcome and own him of their peaceful 
 fold, 
 Not truly with the gnild enrolled 
 Of him who seeking inward guessed 
 Diviner riddles than the rest. 
 And groping in the darks of thought 
 Touched the Great Hand and knew it 
 
 not ; 
 ' Kather he shares the daily light. 
 From reason's charier fountains won, 
 Of bis great chief, the slow-paced Stagy- 
 rite, 
 And Cuvier clasps once more his long- 
 lost son. 
 
 2. 
 
 The shape erect is prone : forever stilled 
 The winning tongue ; the forehead's high- 
 piled heap, 
 A cairn which every science helped to 
 
 build, 
 Unvalued will its golden secrets keep : 
 He knows at last if Life or Death be 
 
 best : 
 Wherever he be flown, whatever vest 
 The being hath put on which lately 
 here 
 
TO HOLMES. 
 
 445 
 
 So many-friended was, so fall of cheer 
 To make meu feel the Seeker's noble 
 
 zest. 
 We have not lost him all; he is not 
 
 gone 
 To the dumb herd of them that wholly 
 
 die; 
 The beauty of bis better self lives on 
 In minds he touched with fire, in many 
 
 an eye 
 He trained to Truth's exact severity ; 
 He was a Teacher : why be grieved for 
 
 him 
 Whose living word still stimulates the 
 
 air? 
 In endless file shall loving scholars come 
 The glow of his transmitted touch to 
 
 share. 
 And trace his features with an eye less 
 
 dim 
 Than ours whose sense familiar wont 
 
 makes numb. 
 
 f LOBXNCI, IiALT, February, 1871. 
 
 TO HOLMES 
 ON HIS 8EVENTT-PIFTH BIETHDAT. 
 
 Deas Wendell, why need count the 
 years 
 
 Since first your genius made me thrill. 
 If what moved then to smiles or tears, 
 
 Or both contending, move me still f 
 
 What has the Calendar to do 
 
 With poets 1 What Time's fruitless 
 tooth 
 With gay immortals such as you 
 
 Whose years but emphasize your 
 youth ? 
 
 One air gave both their lease of breath ; 
 
 The same paths lured our boyish feet ; 
 One earth will hold us safe in death. 
 
 With dast of saints and scholars sweet. 
 
 Our legends from one source were 
 drawn, 
 
 I scarce distinguish yours from mine. 
 And don't we make the Gentiles yawn 
 
 With " You remembers ? " o'er our 
 
 If I, with too senescent air. 
 Invade your elder memory's pale, 
 
 You snub me with a pitying " Where 
 Were you in the September Gale ? " 
 
 Both stared entranced at Lafayette, 
 Saw Jackson dubbed with LL. D. 
 
 What Cambridge saw not strikes us yet 
 As scarcely worth one's while to see. 
 
 Ten years my senior, when my name 
 In Harvard's entrance-book was writ, 
 
 Her halls still echoed with the fame 
 Uf you, her poet and her wit. 
 
 'T is fifty years from then to now : 
 But your Last Leaf renews its green. 
 
 Though, for the laurels on your brow 
 (So thick they crowd), 't is hardly 
 seen. 
 
 The oriole's fledglings fifty times 
 
 Have flown from onr familiar elms ; ; 
 
 As many poets with their rhymes j 
 
 Oblivion's darkling dust o'erwbelms. 
 
 The birds are hushed, the poets gone 
 Where no harsh critic's lash can 
 reach, 
 
 And still your winged brood sing on 
 To all who love our English speech. 
 
 Nay, let the foolish records be 
 
 'rhat make believe you 're seventy- 
 five; 
 Yon 're the old Wendell still to me, — 
 
 And that 's the youngest man alive. 
 
 The gjray-blue eyes, I see them still. 
 The gallant front with brown o'er- 
 hung, 
 The shape alert, the wit at will. 
 The phrase that stuck, but nevet 
 stnng. 
 
 You keep your youth as yon Scotch firs^ 
 Whose gaunt line my horizon hems. 
 
 Though twilight all the lowland blurs. 
 Hold sunset in their ruddy stems. 
 
 You with the elders ? Yes, 't is true. 
 But in no sadly literal sense. 
 
 With elders *nd coevals too. 
 Whose verb admits no preterite tensa 
 
 Master alike in speech and song 
 Of fame's great antiseptic — Style, 
 
 You with the classic few belong 
 Who tempered wisdom with a smile. 
 
446 OMAR KHAYYAm. — AUSTIN DOBSON. — C. F. BRADFORD. 
 
 Outlive us all ! Who else like yon 
 Could sift the seedcorn from our chaff, 
 
 And make us with the pen we knew 
 Deathless at least in epitaph 1 
 
 WoLUSiON, Angtat 29, 1834. 
 
 IN A COPT OF OMAE KHATTAm. 
 
 These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs 
 
 were bred. 
 Each softly lucent as a rounded moon ; 
 The diver Omar plucked them from iheir 
 
 bed, 
 Fitzgerald strung them on an English 
 
 thread. 
 
 I'it rosary for a queen, in shape and 
 
 hue. 
 When Contemplation tells her pensive 
 
 beads 
 Of mortal thoughts, forever old and 
 
 new. 
 Fit for a queen 1 Why, surely then for 
 
 you! 
 
 The moral ? Where Doubt's eddies toss 
 
 and twirl 
 Faith's slender shallop till her footing 
 
 reel. 
 Plunge : if yon find not peace beneath 
 
 the whirl, 
 Groping, you may like Omar grasp a 
 
 pearl. 
 
 ON RECEIVINS A COPT OF MR. 
 AUSTIN DOBSON'S "OLD WOELD 
 lETLLS." 
 
 I. 
 
 At length arrived, yonr book T take 
 To read in for the author's sake ; 
 Too gray for new sensations grown, 
 Can charm to Art or Nature known 
 This torpor from my senses shake ? 
 
 Hush! my parched ears what runnels 
 
 slake ? 
 Is a thrush gurgling from the brake 1 
 Has Spring, on all the breezes blown, 
 At length arrived 1 
 
 Long may you live such songs to make. 
 And I to listen while you wake, 
 With skill of late disused, each tone 
 Of the Lesboum barbiton, 
 
 At mastery, through long finger-ache. 
 At length arrived. 
 
 As I read on, what changes steal 
 
 O'er me and through, from head to 
 
 heel? 
 A rapier thrusts coat-skirt aside. 
 My rough Tweeds bloom to silken 
 
 pride, — 
 Who was it laughed ? Yonr hand, Dick 
 
 Steele ! 
 
 Down vistas long of dipt charmilk 
 Watteau as Pierrot leads the reel ; 
 Tabor and pipe the dancers guide 
 As I read on. 
 
 While in and out the verses wheel 
 The wind-caught robes trim feet reveal, 
 Lithe ankles that to music glide. 
 But chastely and by chance descried ; 
 Art ? Nature ? Which do I most feel 
 As I read on 1 
 
 TO C. F. BBADFORD 
 
 ON THE GIFT OF A MEERSCHAUM FIFE. 
 
 The pipe came safe, and welcome too. 
 
 As anything must be from you ; 
 
 A meerschaum pure, 't would float as 
 
 light 
 As she the girls call Amphitrite. 
 Mixture divine of foam and clay. 
 From both it stole the best away : 
 Its foam is such as crowns the glow 
 Of beakers brimmed by Veuve Clicquot j 
 Its clay is but congested lymph 
 Jove chose to make some choicer nymph ; 
 And here combined, — why, this must 
 
 be 
 The birth of some enchanted sea. 
 Shaped to immortal form, the type 
 And very Venus of a pipe. 
 
 When high I heap it with the weed 
 From Lethe wharf, whose potent seed 
 Nicotia, big from Bacchns, bore 
 And cast upon Virginia's shore, 
 I '11 think, — So fill the fairer bowl 
 And wise alembic of thy soul, 
 With herbs far-sought that shall distil. 
 Not fumes to slacken thought and wil^ 
 But bracing essences that nerve 
 To wait, to dare, to strive, to serve. 
 
BANKSIDE. 
 
 447 
 
 When curlB the smoke in eddies soft, 
 And hangs a shifting dream aloft, 
 That gives and takes, though chance- 
 
 The impress of the dreamer's mind, 
 I '11 think, — So let the vapors bred 
 By Passion, in the heart or head. 
 Pass off and upward into space. 
 Waving farewells of tenderest grace, 
 Bememhered in some happier time, 
 To blend their beauty with my rhyme. 
 
 While slowly o'er its candid bowl 
 'The color deepens (as the soul 
 That bums in mortals leaves its trace 
 Of bale or beanty on the face), 
 I '11 think, — So let the essence rare 
 Of years consuming make me fair; 
 So, 'gainst the ills of life profuse. 
 Steep me in some narcotic juice ; 
 And if my soul must part with all 
 That whiteness which we greenness call. 
 Smooth back, O Fortune, halt thy frown, 
 And make me beautifully brown ! 
 
 Bream-forger, I refill thy cup 
 
 With reverie's wasteful pittance up. 
 
 And while the fire burns slow away, 
 
 Hiding itself in ashes gray, 
 
 I '11 think, — As inward Youth retreats. 
 
 Compelled to spare his wasting heats. 
 
 When Life's Ash -Wednesday comes 
 
 about, 
 And my head 's gray with fires burnt 
 
 out. 
 While stays one spark to light the eye, 
 With the last flash of memory, 
 T will leap to welcome G. F. B., 
 Who sent my favorite pipe to me. 
 
 BANKSIDE. 
 
 (HOMI: of EDMUND QUIITCT.) 
 
 BiSHAU, May 21, 1877. 
 
 I. 
 
 I CHEiSTENED you in happier days, 
 
 before 
 These gray forebodings on my brow were 
 
 seen; 
 You are still lovely in your new-leaved 
 
 green; 
 The brimming river soothes his grassy 
 
 shore ; 
 
 The bridge is there ; the rock witlr 
 
 lichens hoar ; 
 And the same shadows on the watei 
 
 lean. 
 Outlasting us. How many graves be< 
 
 tween 
 That day and this ! How many shadow* 
 
 more 
 Darken my heart, their substance from 
 
 these eyes 
 Hidden forever ! So our world is made 
 Of life and death commingled ; and the 
 
 sighs 
 Outweigh the smiles, in equal balance 
 
 laid: 
 What compensation? None, save that 
 
 the AUwise 
 So schools us to love things that cannot 
 
 fade. 
 
 n. 
 
 Thank God, he saw you last in pomp of 
 May, 
 
 Ere any leaf had felt the year's regret ; 
 
 Your latest image in his memory set 
 
 Was fair as when your landscape's 
 peaceful sway 
 
 Charmed dearer eyes with his to make 
 delay 
 
 On Hope's long prospect, — as if They 
 forget 
 
 The happy. They, the unspeakable 
 Three, whose debt, 
 
 Like the hawk's shadow, blots our 
 brightest day : 
 
 Better it is that ye should look so fair, 
 
 Slopes that he loved, and ever-murmur- 
 ing pines 
 
 That make a music out of silent air. 
 
 And bloom-heaped orchard-trees in pros- 
 perous lines ; 
 
 In you the heart some sweeter hints di- 
 vines. 
 
 And wiser, than in winter's dull despair. 
 
 Old Friend, farewell ! Your kindly door 
 
 again 
 I enter, but the master's hand in mine 
 No more clasps welcome, and the tem> 
 
 perate wine. 
 That cheered our long nights, other lips 
 
 must stain : 
 All is unchanged, but I expect in vain 
 The face alert, the manners free ani 
 
 fine. 
 
448 
 
 JOSEPH WINLOCK. — SONKET. — JEFFRIES WYMAN. 
 
 The seventy years bome lightly as the 
 pine 
 
 Wears its first down of snow in green 
 disdain : 
 
 Much did he, and much well ; yet most 
 of all 
 
 I prized his skill in leisure and the ease 
 
 Of a life flowing full without a plan ; 
 
 For most are idly busy ; him I call 
 
 Thrice fortunate who knew himself to 
 please. 
 
 Learned in those arts that make a gentle- 
 man. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Nor dnem he lived unto himself alone ; 
 Bis was the public spirit of his sire. 
 And in those eyes, soft with domestic fire, 
 A quenchless light of fiercer temper shone 
 What time about the world our shame 
 
 was blown 
 On every wind ; his soul would not con- 
 spire 
 With selfish men to soothe the mob's 
 
 desire, 
 Veiling with garlands Moloch's bloody 
 
 stone ; 
 The high-bred instincts of a better day 
 Ruled in his blood, when to be citizen 
 Rang Romdn yet, and a Free People's 
 
 sway 
 Was not the exchequer of impoverished 
 
 men. 
 Nor statesmanship with loaded votes to 
 
 Nor public office a tramps' boosing-ken. 
 
 JOSEPH WINLOCK. 
 
 Dud June 11, 1876, 
 
 SHTSOuland stalwart, man of patient will 
 Through years one hair's-breadth on our 
 
 Dark to gain. 
 Who, from the stars he studied not in vain, 
 Had learned their secret to be strong 
 
 and still, 
 Careless of fames that earth's tin trum- 
 pets fill ; 
 Born under Leo, broad of build and brain, 
 While others slept, he watched in that 
 
 hushed fane 
 Of Science, only witness of his skill : 
 Sudden as falls a shooting-star he fell. 
 But inextinguishable his luminous trace 
 In mind and heart of all that knew him 
 weU. 
 
 Happy man's doom ! To him the Fates 
 
 were known 
 Of orbs dim hovering on the skirts of 
 
 space, 
 Unprescient, through God's mercy, of hia 
 
 own! 
 
 SONNET. 
 TO FANKT ALEZANDEB, 
 
 TJiTCOiTSCious as the sunshine, simply 
 
 sweet 
 And generous as that, thou dost not close 
 Thyself in art, as life were but a rose 
 To rumple bee-like with luxurious feet ; 
 Thy higher mind therein finds sure 
 
 retreat. 
 But not from care of common hopes and 
 
 woes; 
 Thee the dark chamber, thee the un- 
 friended, knows. 
 Although no babbling crowds thy praise 
 
 repeat : 
 Consummate artist, who life's landscape 
 
 bleak 
 Hast brimmed with sun to many a 
 
 clouded eye, 
 Touched to a brighter hue the beggar's 
 
 cheek, 
 Hung over orphaned lives a gracious sky, 
 And traced for eyes, that else would 
 
 vainly seek. 
 Fair pictures of an angel drawing nigh 1 
 FloaiNOS, 1873. 
 
 JErFEIES WTMAN. 
 
 Died Siftekbeb 4, 1874. 
 
 The wisest man could ask no more of Fats 
 Than to be simple, modest, manly, true, 
 Safe from the Many, honored by the 
 
 Few; 
 To count as naught in World, or Chnrch, 
 
 or State, 
 But inwardly in secret to be great ; 
 To feel mysterious Nature ever new ; 
 To touch, if not to grasp, her endless 
 
 clue. 
 And learn by each discovery how to wait. 
 He widened knowledge and escaped the 
 
 praise ; 
 He wisely taught, because more wise to 
 
 learn ; 
 He toiled for Science, not to draw men's 
 
TO A FRIEND. — WITH AN ARMCHAIR. 
 
 ' E. G. DE B. 
 
 449 
 
 Bnt for her lore of self-denial stern. 
 That such a man could spring from our 
 
 decays 
 Fans the soul's nobler faith until it burn. 
 
 TO A FMEND 
 
 WHO GAVE ME A GROnP OF WEEDS 
 AND GRASSES, AFTER A DKAWING OF 
 DfjREK. 
 
 Teue as the sun's own work, but more 
 
 refined, 
 It tells of love behind the artist's eye, 
 Of sweet companionships with earth and 
 
 sky, 
 Ani summers stored, the sunshine of the 
 
 mind. 
 What peace ! Sure, ere you breathe, 
 
 the fickle wind 
 Will break its truce and bend that grass- 
 plume high, 
 Scarcely yet quiet from the gilded fly 
 That flits a more luxurious perch to find. 
 Thanks for a pleasure that can never 
 ,5 pall, 
 
 A serene moment, deftly caught and kept 
 To make immortal summer on my wall. 
 Had he who drew Such gladness ever 
 
 wept? 
 Ask rather could he else have seen at all, 
 Or grown in Nature's mysteries an 
 
 adept ? 
 
 WITH AS AEMCHAIB. 
 
 About the oak that framed this chair, of 
 old 
 
 The seasons danced their round ; de- 
 lighted wings 
 
 Brought music to its boughs ; shy wood- 
 land things 
 
 Shared its broad roof, 'neath whose green 
 glooms grown bold, 
 
 Lovers, more shy than they, their secret 
 told; 
 
 The resurrection of a thousand springs 
 
 Swelled in its veins, and dim imaginings 
 
 Teased them, perchance, of life more 
 manifold. 
 
 Such shall it know when its proud arms 
 enclose 
 
 My Lady Goshawk, musing here ai- rest, 
 
 Careless of him who into exile goes, 
 
 Yet, while his gift by those fair limbs ia 
 
 prest. 
 Through some fine sympathy of nature 
 
 knows 
 That, seas between us, she is still his 
 
 guest. 
 
 2. 
 
 Yet sometimes, let me dream, the con- 
 scious wood 
 
 A momentary vision may renew 
 
 Of him who counts it treasure that he 
 knew. 
 
 Though but in passing, such a priceless 
 good. 
 
 And, like an elder brother, felt his 
 mood 
 
 Uplifted by the spell that kept her true, 
 
 Amid her lightsome compeers, to the 
 few 
 
 That wear the crown of serious woman- 
 hood : 
 
 Were he so happy, think of him as one 
 
 Who in the Louvre or Pitti feels hia 
 soul 
 
 Eapt by some dead face which, till then 
 unseen. 
 
 Moves like a memory and, till life oat- 
 run. 
 
 Is vexed with vague misgiving, past con- 
 trol. 
 
 Of nameless loss and thwarted might- 
 have-been. 
 
 £. G. CE B. 
 
 Why should 3 seek her spell to decom- 
 pose 
 Or to its sonrce each rill of influence 
 
 trace 
 That feeds the brimming river of her 
 
 grace ? 
 The petals numbered but degrade to 
 
 prose 
 Summer's triumphant poem of the rose : 
 Enough for me to watch the wavering 
 
 chase, 
 Like wind o'er grass, of moods across 
 
 her face, 
 Fiiirest in motion, fairer in repose. 
 Steeped in her sunshine, let me, while I 
 
 may. 
 Partake the bounty : ample 't is for me 
 That her mirth cheats my temples of 
 
 their gray, 
 Her charm makes years long spent seem 
 
 yet to be. 
 
450 
 
 BON VOYAGE. — TO MISS D. T. 
 
 Wit, goodness, grace, swift flash from 
 
 grave to gay, — 
 All these are good, but better far is she. 
 
 BON VOYAGE! 
 
 Ship, olest to bear such freight across the 
 blue. 
 
 May stormless stars control thy horo- 
 scope ; 
 
 In keel and hull, in every spar and rope. 
 
 Be night and day to thy dear office true ! 
 
 Ocean, men's path and their divider too. 
 
 No fairer shrine of memory and hope 
 
 To the underworld adown thy westering 
 slope 
 
 E'er vanished, or whom such regrets 
 pursue : 
 
 Smooth all thy surges as when Jove to 
 Crete 
 
 Swam with less costly burthen, and pre- 
 pare 
 
 A pathway meet for her home-coming 
 soon 
 
 With golden undulations such as greet 
 
 The printless summer - sandals of the 
 moon 
 
 And tempt the Nautilus his cruise to 
 dare! 
 
 TO WHITTIEE. 
 ON HIS SEVENTT-EirTH BIKTHDAT. 
 
 New England's poet, rich in love as 
 
 years. 
 Her hills and valleys praise thee, her 
 
 swift brooks 
 Dance in thy verse ; to her grave sylvan 
 
 nooks 
 Thy steps allure us, which the wood- 
 thrush hears 
 As maids their lovers', and no treason 
 
 fears ; 
 Through thee her Merriraacs and Agio- 
 
 chooks 
 And many a name uncouth win gracious 
 
 looks. 
 Sweetly familiar to both Englands' ears : 
 Peaceful by birthright as a virgin lake, 
 The lily's anchorage, which no eyes 
 
 behold 
 Save those of stars, yet for thy brother's 
 
 sake 
 That lay in bonds, thou blewst a blast as 
 
 bold 
 
 As that wherewith the heart of Roland 
 
 brake. 
 Ear heard across the New World and tha 
 
 Old. 
 
 ON AN AUTUMN SKETCH OF H. Gv 
 WILD. 
 
 Thanks to the artist, ever on my wall 
 The sunset stays: that hill in glory 
 
 rolled. 
 Those trees and clouds in crimson and 
 
 in gold, 
 Bum on, nor cool . when evening's 
 
 shadows fall. 
 Not round these splendors Midnight 
 
 wraps her pall ; 
 These leaves the flush of Autumn's vin- 
 tage hold 
 In Winter's spite, nor can the Northwind 
 
 bold 
 Deface my chapel's western window 
 
 small : 
 On one, ah me ! October struck his frost. 
 But not repaid him with those Tyriaa 
 
 hues ; i 
 
 His naked boughs but tell him what is 
 
 lost, 
 And parting comforts of the sun refuse : 
 His heaven is bare, — ah, were its hollow 
 
 crost 
 Even with a cloud whose light were yet 
 
 to lose ! 
 
 April, 1854. 
 
 TO MISS D. T. 
 
 ON HER GIVING ME A DRAWING OF 
 
 LITTLE SIBEET ABAB8. 
 
 As, cleansed of Tiber's and Oblivion's 
 
 slime. 
 Glow Farnesina's vaults with shapet 
 
 again 
 That dreamed some exiled artist fron, 
 
 his pain 
 Back to his Athens and the Muse's 
 
 clime, 
 So these world-orphaned waifs of Wan* 
 
 and Crime, 
 Purged by Art's absolution from tha 
 
 stain 
 Of the polluting city-flood, regain 
 Ideal grace secure from taint of time. 
 An Attic frieze you give, a pictui«j 
 
 song; 
 
AUCASSIN AND NICOLETE. — TO GEOKGE WILLIAM COETIS. 451 
 
 For as with words the poet paints, for 
 
 you 
 The happy pencil at its labor sings, 
 Stealing his privilege, nor does him 
 
 wrong. 
 Beneath the false discovering the trae, 
 And Beauty's best in unregarded things. 
 
 WITH A COPY OF AUCASSIN AND 
 mCOLETE. 
 
 liEATES fit to have been poor Juliet's 
 
 cradle-rhyme, 
 With gladness of a heart long quenched 
 
 in mould 
 They vibrate still, a nest not yet grown 
 
 cold 
 From its fledged burthen. The numb 
 
 hand of time 
 Vainly his glass turns; here is endless 
 
 prime ; 
 Here lips their roses keep and locks their 
 
 gold; 
 Here Love in pristine innocency bold 
 Speaks what our grosser conscience 
 
 makes a crime. 
 Because it tells the dream that all have 
 
 known 
 Once in their lives, and to life's end the 
 
 few; 
 Because its seeds o'er Memory's desert 
 
 blown 
 Spring up in heartsease such as Eden 
 
 knew; 
 Because it hath a beauty all its own, 
 Dear Friend, I plucked this herb of grace 
 
 for you. 
 
 ON PLANTING A TREE AT IN- 
 VEKABAY. 
 
 Who does his duty is a question 
 Too complex to be solved by me. 
 But he, I venture the suggestion, 
 Does part of his that plants a tree. 
 
 For after he is dead and buried. 
 And epitaphed, and well forgot. 
 Nay, even his shade by Charon ferried 
 To — let us not inquire to what. 
 
 His deed, its author long outliving. 
 By Nature's mother-care increased, 
 Shall stand, his verdant almoner, giv- 
 ing 
 A kindly dole to man and beast. 
 
 The wayfarer, at noon reposing, 
 Shall bless its shadow on the grass. 
 Or sheep beneath it huddle, dozing 
 Until the ihundergust o'erpass. 
 
 The owl, belated in his plundering. 
 Shall here await the friendly night, 
 Blinking whene'er he wakes, and viovr 
 
 dering 
 What fool it was invented light. 
 
 Hither the busy birds shall flutter. 
 With the light timber for their nests. 
 And, pausing from their labor, uiter 
 The morning sunshine in their breasts. 
 
 What though kis memory shall have 
 
 vanished, 
 Since the good deed he did survives? 
 It is not wholly to be banished 
 Thus to be part of many lives. 
 
 Grow, then, my foster - child, and 
 
 strengthen. 
 Bough over bough, a murmurous pile, 
 And as your stately stem bhall lengthen. 
 So may the statelier of Argyll 1 
 
 1880. 
 
 AN EPISTLE TO GEOBGE WILLIAM 
 CUETIS. 
 
 " De prodome, 
 Des qu'n a'atome a grant bonte 
 Ja n'iert tot dit ne tot conte, 
 Que leingue ne puet pas retraire 
 Taut d'euor com prodom set faire." 
 
 Grestiek de Troibs, 
 Li Romans dou Chevalier au Lyon^ 784-788. 
 
 1874. 
 
 CuETis, whose Wit, with Fancy arm in 
 
 arm, 
 Masks half its muscle in its skill to 
 
 charm. 
 And who so gently can the Wrong expose 
 As sometimes to make converts, never 
 
 foes. 
 Or only such as good men must expect. 
 Knaves sore with conscience of their owe 
 
 defect, 
 I come with mild remonstrance. Ere I 
 
 start, 
 A kindlier errand internipts my heart. 
 And I must utter, though it vex yont 
 
 ears. 
 The love, the honor, felt so many years. 
 
452 
 
 TO GEOKGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 
 
 Curtis, skilled equally with voice and 
 
 pen 
 To stir the hearts or mould the minds 
 
 of men, — 
 That voice whose music, for I 've heard 
 
 you sing 
 Sweet as Casella, can with passion ring, 
 That pen whose rapid ease ne'er trips 
 
 with haste, 
 Nor scrapes nor sputters, pointed with 
 
 good taste, 
 First Steele's, then Goldsmith's, next it 
 
 came to you, 
 Whom Thackeray rated best of all our 
 
 crew, — 
 Had letters kept you, every wreath were 
 
 yours ; 
 Had the World tempted, all its chariest 
 
 doors 
 Hiid swung on flattered hinges to admit 
 Such high-bred manners, such good-na- 
 tured wit; 
 At courts, in senates, who so fit to 
 
 serve ? 
 And both invited, but you would not 
 
 swerve, 
 All meaner prizes waiving that you 
 
 might 
 In civic duty spend your heat and light, 
 Unpaid, untrammelled, with a sweet 
 
 disdain 
 Refusing posts men grovel to attain. 
 Good Man all own you ; what is left me, 
 
 then, 
 To heighten praise with but Good 
 
 Citizen f 
 
 But why this praise to make you blush 
 
 and stare. 
 And give a backache to your Easy- 
 Chair 1 
 Old Crestien rightly says no language 
 
 can 
 Express the worth of a true Gentleman, 
 And I agree; but other thoughts deride 
 My first intent, and lure my pen aside. 
 Thinking of you, I see my fireUght glow 
 On other faces, loved from long ago. 
 Dear to us both, and all these loves 
 
 combine 
 With this I send and crowd in every 
 
 line; 
 Fortune with me was in such generous 
 
 mood 
 That all my friends were yours, and all 
 
 were good ; 
 Three generations come where one I call, 
 
 And the fair grandame, youngest ol 
 them all. 
 
 In her own Florida who found and sips 
 
 The fount that fled from Tonce's long- 
 ing lips. 
 
 How bright they rise and wreathe my 
 hearthstone round. 
 
 Divine my thoughts, reply without a 
 sound. 
 
 And with them many a shape that mem- 
 ory sees. 
 
 As dear as they, but crowned with au- 
 reoles these I 
 
 What wonder if, with protest in my 
 thought, 
 
 Arrived, I find 't was only love I 
 brought 1 
 
 I came with protest; Memory barred the 
 road 
 
 Till I repaid you halt the debt I owed. 
 
 No, 't was not to bring laurels that I 
 
 came. 
 Nor would you wish it, daily seeing 
 
 fame, 
 (Or our cheap substitute, unknown of 
 
 yore,) 
 Dumped like a, load of coal at every 
 
 door, 
 Mime and lietsera getting equal weight 
 With him whose toils heroic saved the 
 
 State. 
 But praise can harm not who so calmly 
 
 met 
 Slander's worst word, nor treasured up 
 
 the debt, 
 Knowing, what all experience serves to 
 
 show, 
 No mud can soil us but the mud we 
 
 throw. 
 You have heard harsher voices and 
 
 more loud. 
 As all must, not sworn liegemen of the 
 
 crowd. 
 And far aloof your silent mind could 
 
 keep 
 As when, in heavens with winter-mid- 
 night deep, 
 Tlie perfect moon hangs thoughtful, nor 
 
 can know 
 What hounds her lucent calm drives mad 
 
 below. 
 
 But to my business, while you rub your 
 
 eyes 
 And wonder how you ever thought mg 
 
 wise. 
 
TO GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 
 
 458 
 
 Dear friand and old, they say you shako 
 your head 
 
 And wish some bitter words of mine un- 
 said : 
 
 I wish they might be, — there we are 
 agreed ; 
 
 I hate to speak, still more what makes 
 the need ; 
 
 But I muse utter what the voice withic 
 
 Dictates, for acquiescence dumb were sin ; 
 
 I blurt ungrateful truths, if so they be, 
 
 That none may need to say them after me. 
 
 'T were my felicity could I attain 
 
 The temperate zeal that balances your 
 brain ; 
 
 But nature still o'erleaps reflection's 
 plan, 
 
 And one must do his service as he can. 
 
 Think you it were not pleasanter to 
 
 Smooth words that leave unflushed the 
 brow and cheek ? 
 
 T6 sit, well-dined, with cynic smile, un- 
 seen 
 
 In private box, spectator of the scene 
 
 Where men the comedy of life reliearse. 
 
 Idly to judge which better and which 
 worse 
 
 Each hireling actor spoiled his worth- 
 less part t 
 
 Were it not sweeter with a careless heart, 
 
 In happy (ominuue with the untaiuted 
 brooks, 
 
 To dream all day, or, walled with silent 
 books, 
 
 To hear nor heed the World's unmeaning 
 noise. 
 
 Safe in my fortress stored with lifelong 
 joys? 
 
 I love too well the pleasures of retreat 
 
 Safe from the crowd and cloistered from 
 the street ; . 
 
 The fire that whispers its domestic joy, 
 
 Flickering on walls that knew me still a 
 boy. 
 
 And knew my saintly father ; the full 
 days, 
 
 Not careworn from the world's soul- 
 squandering ways. 
 
 Calm days that loiter with snow-silent 
 tread, 
 
 Nor break my commune with the undy- 
 ing dead ; 
 
 Truants of Time, to-morrow like to-day, 
 
 That come unbid, and ciaimless glide 
 away 
 
 By shelves that sun them iu the indole 
 
 gent Past, 
 Where Spanish castles, even, were builf 
 
 to last. 
 Where saint and sage their silent vigil 
 
 keep. 
 And wrong hath ceased or sung itself to 
 
 Dear were my walks, too, gathering fra- 
 grant store 
 
 Of Mother Nature's simple-minded lore : 
 
 I learned all weather-signs of day or 
 night; 
 
 No bird hut I could name him by his 
 flight. 
 
 No distant tree but by his shape was 
 known. 
 
 Or, near at hand, by leaf or bark alone. 
 
 This learning won by loving looks I 
 hived 
 
 As sweeter lore than all from books de- 
 rived. 
 
 I know the charm of hillside, field, and 
 wood. 
 
 Of lake and stream, and the sky's downy 
 brood, 
 
 Of roads sequestered rimmed with sallow 
 sod, 
 
 But friends with hardback, aster, golden- 
 rod, 
 
 Or succory keeping summer long its trust 
 
 Of heaveu-blue fleckless from the eddy- 
 ing dust: 
 
 These were my earliest friends, and latest 
 too. 
 
 Still unestranged, whatever fate may do. 
 
 For years I had these treasures, knew 
 their worth. 
 
 Estate most real man can have on earth. 
 
 I sank too deep in this soft-stuffed repose 
 
 That hears but rumors of earth's wrongs 
 and woes ; 
 
 Too well these Capuas could my muscles 
 waste, 
 
 Not void of toils, but toils of choice and 
 taste ; 
 
 .These still had kept me could I but have 
 quelled 
 
 The Puritan drop that in my veins re- 
 beUed. 
 
 But tjiere were times when silent were 
 my books 
 
 As jailers are, and gave me sullen looks, 
 
 When verses palled, and even the wood- 
 land path. 
 
 By innocent contrast, fed my heart with 
 wrath. 
 
454 
 
 TO GEORGE WILLUM CURTIS. 
 
 And I mnst twist my little gift of words 
 Into a scourge of rough aud knotted 
 
 cords 
 Unmusical, that whistle as they swing 
 To leave on slj.ameles3 backs their purple 
 
 sting. 
 
 How slow Time comes ! Gone, who so 
 
 swift as he ? 
 Add t)ut a year, 't is half a century 
 Since the slave's stifled moaning broke 
 
 my sleep, 
 Heard 'gainst my will in that seclusion 
 
 deep, 
 Baply heard louder for the silence there. 
 And so my fancied safeguard made my 
 
 snare. 
 A-fter that moan had sharpened to a 
 
 cry. 
 And the cloud, hand-broad then, heaped 
 
 all our sky 
 With its stored vengeance, and such 
 
 thunders stirred 
 As heaven's and earth's remotest cham- 
 bers heard, 
 T looked to see an ampler atmosphere 
 By that electric passion-gust blown clear. 
 I looked for this ; consider what I see — 
 But I forbear, 't would please nor you 
 
 nor me 
 To check the items in the bitter list 
 Of all I counted on and all I mist. 
 Only three instances I choose from all. 
 And each enougrh to stir a pigeon's gall : 
 Office a fund for ballot-brokers made 
 To pay the drudges of their gainful 
 
 trade ; 
 Our cities tanght what conquered cities 
 
 feel 
 By sediles chosen that they might safely 
 
 steal; 
 And gold, however got, a title fair 
 To such respect as only gold can bear. 
 I seem to see this ; how shall I gainsay 
 What all our journals tell me every 
 
 day? 
 Poured our young martyrs their high- 
 hearted blood 
 That we might trample to congenial 
 
 mud 
 The soil with such a legacy sublimed t 
 Alethinks an angry scorn is here well- 
 timed : 
 Where find retreat 1 How keep reproach 
 
 at bay t 
 Where'er I turn some scandal fools the 
 way. 
 
 Dear friend, if any nan I wished to 
 
 please, 
 'T were surely you whose humor's honied 
 
 ease 
 Flows flecked with gold of thought, 
 
 whose generous mind 
 Sees Paradise regained by all mankind, 
 Whose brave example still to vanward 
 
 shines. 
 Checks the retreat, and spurs our lagging 
 
 lines. 
 Was I too bitter 1 Who his phrase can 
 
 choose 
 That sees the life-blood of his dearest 
 
 ooze? 
 I loved my Country so as only they 
 Who love a mother fit to die for may ; 
 I loved her old renown, her stainless 
 
 fame, — 
 What better proof than that I loathed 
 
 her shame ? 
 That many blamed me could not irk ma 
 
 long. 
 But, if you doubted, must I not be 
 
 wrong ? 
 'T is not for me to answer : this I know, 
 That man or race so prosperously low 
 Sunk in success that wrath they cannot 
 
 feel, 
 Shall taste the spurn of parting Fortune's 
 
 heel ; 
 For never land long lease of empire won 
 Whose sons sate silent when base deeds 
 
 were done. 
 
 POSTSCEIPT, 1887. 
 
 Curtis, so wrote I thirteen years ago. 
 Tost it unfinished by, and left it so ; 
 Found lately, I have pieced it out, or 
 
 tried, 
 Since time for callid juncture was denied. 
 Some of the verses pleased me, it is true, 
 And still were pertinent, — those honor- 
 ing you. 
 These now I offer: take them, if yon 
 
 will, 
 Like the old hand-grasp, when at Shady 
 
 Hill 
 We met, or Staten Island, in the days 
 When life was its own spur, nor needed 
 
 praise. 
 If once you thought me rash, no longet 
 
 fear; 
 Past my next milestone waits my sevei^ 
 
 tieth year. 
 
TO GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 
 
 455 
 
 I monnt no longer when the trumpets 
 
 call ; 
 My battle-harness idles on the wall, 
 The spider's cattle, camping-ground of 
 
 dust, 
 Hot without dihts, and all in front, I 
 
 trust. 
 Shivering sometimes it calls me as it 
 
 hears 
 Afar the charge's tramp and clash of 
 
 spears ; 
 But 'tis such murmur only as might be 
 The sea-shell's lust tradiiion of the sea. 
 That makes me muse and wonder 
 
 Where ? and When ? 
 While from my cliff I watch the waves 
 
 of men 
 That climb to break midway their seem- 
 ing gain, 
 And think it triumph if they shake their 
 
 chain. 
 Little I ask of Fate ; will she refuse 
 Some days of reconcilement with the 
 
 Muse? 
 I take my reed again and blow it free 
 Of dusty silence, murmuring, " Sing to 
 
 me ! " 
 And, as its stops my carious touch re- 
 tries, 
 The stir of earlier instincts I surprise, — 
 Instincts, if less imperious, yet more 
 
 strong, 
 And happy in the toil that ends with 
 
 song. 
 
 Home am I come : not, as I hoped might 
 be, 
 
 To the old haunts, too full of ghosts for 
 me, 
 
 But to the olden dreams that time en- 
 dears, 
 
 And the loved books that younger grow 
 with years ; 
 
 To country rambles, timing with my 
 tread 
 
 Some happier verse tnat caiola in my 
 
 head. 
 Yet all with sense of something vainly 
 
 mist. 
 Of something lost, but when I never 
 
 wist. 
 How empty seems to me the populous 
 
 street, 
 One figure gone I daily loved to meet,— 
 The clear, sweet singer with the crown 
 
 of snow 
 Not whiter than the thoughts that housed 
 
 below 1 
 And, ah, what absence feel I at my side, 
 Like Ijante when he missed bis laurelled 
 
 guide. 
 What sense of diminution in the air 
 Once so inspiring, Emerson not there ! 
 But life is sweet, though all that makea 
 
 it sweet 
 Lessen like sound of friends' departing 
 
 feet. 
 And Death is beautiful as feet of friend 
 Coming with welcome at our journey's 
 
 end; 
 For me Fate gave, whate'er she else de- 
 nied, 
 A nature sloping to the sonthern side ; 
 I thank her for it, though when clouds 
 
 arise 
 Such natures double-darken gloomy skies. 
 I muse upon the margin of the sea. 
 Our common pathway to the new To Be, 
 Watching the sails, that lessen more and 
 
 more. 
 Of good and beautiful embarked before ; 
 With bits of wreck I patch the boat shall 
 
 bear 
 Me to that unexhausted Otherwhere, 
 Whose friendly-peopled shore I some- 
 times see. 
 By soft mirage nplifted, beckon me. 
 Nor sadly hear, as lower sinks the sun. 
 My moorings to the past snap one by^ 
 
 one. 
 
11. SENTIMENT. 
 
 ENDTMION. 
 MTSTIOAL COMMENT ON TITIAN's 
 
 "sacred and pbofanb love." 
 
 Mr day began not till the twilight fell, 
 And, lo, in ether from heaven's sweetest 
 
 well, 
 The New Moon swam divinely isolate 
 In maiden silence, she that makes my 
 
 fate 
 Haply not knowing it, or only so 
 As I the secrets of my sheep may know ; 
 Nor ask I more, entirely blest if she. 
 In letting me adore, ennoble me 
 To height of what the Gods meant mak- 
 ing man, 
 As only she and her beat beauty can. 
 Mine be the love that in itself can find 
 Seed of white thoughts, the lilies of the 
 
 mind. 
 Seed of that glad surrender of the will 
 That finds in service self's true purpose 
 
 still ; 
 liOve that in outward fairness sees the 
 
 tent 
 Pitched for an inmate far more excel- 
 lent ; 
 Love with a light irradiate to the core, 
 Iiit at her lamp, but fed from inborn 
 
 store ; 
 Love thrice-requited with the single joy 
 Of an immaculate vision naught could 
 
 cloy, 
 Dearer because, so high beyond my 
 
 scope. 
 My life grew rich with her, unbribed by 
 
 hope 
 Of other guerdon save to think she knew 
 One grateful votary paid her all her 
 
 due; 
 Happy if she, high-radiant there, resigned 
 
 To his sure trust her image in his mind. 
 O fairer even than Peace is when shd 
 
 comes 
 Hushing War's tumult, and retreating 
 
 drums 
 Fade to a murmur like the sough of bees 
 Hidden among the noon-stilled linden- 
 trees, 
 Bringer of quiet, thou that canst allay 
 The dust and din and travail of the day, 
 Strewer of Silence, Giver of the dew 
 That doth our pastures and our souls re- 
 new. 
 Still dwell remote, still on thy shoreless 
 
 sea 
 Float unattained in silent empery, 
 Still light my thoughts, nor listen tc a 
 
 prayer 
 Would make thee less imperishably fair! 
 
 11. 
 
 Can, then, my twofold nature find coQi 
 
 tent 
 In vain conceits of airy blandishment ? 
 Ask I no more f Since yesterday I tasJt 
 My storm -strewn thoughts to teU ma 
 
 what I ask : 
 Faint premonitions of mutation strange 
 Steal o'er my perfect orb, and, with tha 
 
 change. 
 Myself am changed ; the shadow of my 
 
 earth 
 Darkens the disc of that celestial worth 
 Which only yesterday could still suffice 
 Upwards to waft my thoughts in sacri- 
 fice; 
 My heightened fancy with its touches 
 
 warm 
 Moulds to a woman's that ideal form ; 
 Nor yet a woman's wholly, but divine 
 With awe her purer essence bied iq 
 
 mine. 
 
ENDYMION. 
 
 4ST 
 
 Was It long broodiug on their own sur- 
 mise, 
 Which, of the ejes engendered, fools the 
 
 eyes, 
 Oi have I seen through that translucent 
 
 air 
 A Presence shaped in its seclusions bare. 
 My Goddess looking on me from above 
 As look our russet maidens when they 
 
 love. 
 But high-uplifted o'er our human heat 
 And passion-paths too rough for her 
 pearl feet ? 
 
 Slowly the Shape took outline as I gazed 
 At her full-orbed or crescent, tifl, be- 
 
 dazed 
 With wonder-working light that subtly 
 
 wrought 
 My brain to its own substance, steeping 
 
 thought 
 In trances such as poppies give, I saw 
 Things shut from vision by sight's sober 
 
 law. 
 Amorphous, changeful, but defined at 
 
 last 
 Into the peerless Shape mine eyes hold 
 
 fast. 
 This, too, at first I worshipt : soon, like 
 
 wine, 
 Her eyes, in mine poured, frenzy-philtred 
 
 mine ; 
 Passion put Worship's priestly raiment 
 
 on 
 And to the woman knelt, the Goddess 
 
 gone. 
 Was I, then, more than mortal made ? or 
 
 she 
 Less than divine that she might mate 
 
 with me 1 
 If mortal merely, could my nature cone 
 With such o'ermastery of maddening 
 
 hope? 
 If Goddess, could she feel the blissful 
 
 woe 
 That women in their self - surrender 
 
 know 't 
 
 Long she abode aloof there in hei 
 heaven, 
 
 Far as the grape-bunch of the Pleiad 
 seven 
 
 Beyond my madness' utmost leap ; but 
 here 
 
 Mine eyes have feigned of late her rap- 
 ture near, ■ - 
 
 Moulded of mind-mist that broad day 
 dispels. 
 
 Here in these shadowy woods and brook- 
 lulled dells. 
 
 Have no heaven-habitants e'er felt a void 
 In hearts sublimed with ichor unal- 
 loyed ? 
 E'er longed to mingle with a mortal fata 
 Intense with pathos of its briefer date t 
 Could she partake, and live^ our human 
 
 stains ? 
 Even with the thought there tingles 
 
 through my veins 
 Sense of unwarned renewal ; I, the (lead, 
 Receive and house again the ardor fled. 
 As once Alcestis ; to the ruddy brim 
 Feel masculine virtue flooding every limb. 
 And life, like Spring returning, brings 
 
 the key 
 That sets my senses from their winter 
 
 free. 
 Dancing like naked fauns too glad for 
 
 shame. 
 Her passion, purified '^o palest flame. 
 Can It thus kindle ? Is her purpose this f 
 I will not argne, lest 1 lose a bliss 
 That makes me dream Tithonus' fortune 
 
 mine, 
 (Or what of it was palpably divine 
 Ere came the fruitlessly immortal gift ; ) 
 I cannot curb my hope s imperious drift 
 That wings with fire my dull mortality ; 
 Though fancy-forged, 't is all T. feel or see. 
 
 IV. 
 
 My Goddess sinks ; round Latmos' dark- 
 ening brow 
 Trembles the parting of her presence 
 
 now. 
 Faint as the perfume left upon the grass 
 By her limbs' pressure Qr her feet that 
 
 pass 
 By me conjectured, but conjecturpd so 
 As things 1 touch far fainter substance 
 
 show. 
 Was it mine eyes' imposture I have spen 
 Flit with the moonbeams on from shade 
 
 to sheen 
 Through the wood-openings? Nay, I 
 
 see her now 
 Out of her heaven new-lighted, from her 
 
 brow 
 The hair breeze - scattered, like loose 
 
 mists that blow 
 Across her crescent, goldening as they 
 
 go. 
 
458 
 
 ENDYMION. 
 
 High-k!rtled for the chase, and what was 
 
 showu. 
 Of maiden londuie, like the rose half- 
 blown. 
 If dream, turn real ! If a vision, stay ! 
 Take mortal shape, my philtre's spell 
 
 obey I 
 If hags compel thee from thy secret sky 
 With gruesome incantations, why not I, 
 Whose only ma^jic is that I distil 
 A potion, blent of passion, thonght, and 
 
 will. 
 Deeper in reach, in force of fate more 
 
 rich. 
 Than e'er was juice wrung by Thessalian 
 
 witch 
 From moon-enchanted herbs, — a potion 
 
 brewed 
 Of my best life in each diviner mood ? 
 Myself the elixir am, myself the bowl 
 Seething and mantling with my soul of 
 
 soul. 
 Taste and be humanized : what though 
 
 the cup. 
 With thy lips frenzied, shatter ? Brink 
 
 it up ! 
 If but these arms may clasp, o'erquited so. 
 My world, thy heaven, all life means I 
 
 shall know. 
 
 Sure she hath heard my prayer and 
 
 granted half, 
 As Gods do who at mortal madness laugh. 
 Yet if life's solid things illusion seem. 
 Why may not substance wear the mask 
 
 of dream ? 
 In sleep she comes ; she visits me in 
 
 dreams, 
 And, as her image in a thousand streams. 
 So in my veins, that her obey, she sees, 
 Floating and flaming there, her images 
 Bear to my little world's remotest zone 
 Glad messages of her, and her alone. 
 Wiih silence-sandalled Sleep she comes 
 
 to me, 
 (But softer-footed, sweeter-browed, than 
 
 she,) 
 In motion gracious as a seagull's wing. 
 And all her bright limbs, moving, seem 
 
 to sing. 
 Let me believe so, then, if so I may 
 With the night's bounty feed my beg- 
 gared day. 
 In dreams I see her lay the goddess down 
 With bow and quiver, and her crescent- 
 crown 
 
 Flicker and fade away to dull eclipse 
 As down to mine she deigns her longeck 
 
 for lips ; 
 And as her neck my happy arms en- 
 fold. 
 Flooded and lustred witb her loosened 
 
 gold. 
 She whispers words each sweeter than a 
 
 kiss: 
 Then, wakened with the shock of sudden 
 
 bliss. 
 My arms are empty, my awakener fled, 
 And, silent in the silent sky o'erhead. 
 But coldly as on ice-plated snow, she 
 
 gleams, 
 Herself the mother and the child of 
 
 dreams. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Gone is the time when phantasms conld 
 appease 
 
 My quest phantasmal and bring cheated 
 ease; 
 
 When, if she glorified my dreams, I felt 
 
 Through all my limbs a change immortal 
 melt 
 
 At touch of hers illuminate with soult 
 
 Not long could I be stilled with Fancy's 
 dole ; 
 
 Too soon the mortal mixture in me 
 caught 
 
 Red fire from her celestial fame, and 
 fought 
 
 For tyrannous control in all my veins : 
 
 My fool's prayer was accepted ; what re- 
 mains ? 
 
 Or was It some eidolon merely, sent 
 
 By her who rules the shades in banish- 
 ment, 
 
 To mock me with her semblance ? Were 
 it thus, 
 
 How 'scape I shame, whose will was 
 traitorous 1 
 
 What shall compensate an ideal dimmed 1 
 
 How blanch again my statue virgin* 
 limbed. 
 
 Soiled with the incense-smoke her chosen 
 priest 
 
 Fonred more profusely as within de- 
 creased 
 
 The fire unearthly, fed with coals from 
 far 
 
 Within the soul's shrine ? Could my 
 fallen star 
 
 Be set in heaven again by prayers and 
 tears 
 
 Ani quenchless sacrifice of all my yeari^ 
 
ENDTMION. — THE BLACK PEEACHER. 
 
 459 
 
 How would the victim to the flamen 
 
 leap, 
 And life for life's redemption paid hold 
 
 cheap 1 
 
 Bnt what resource when she herself de- 
 scends 
 
 From her blue throne, and o'er her vas- 
 sal bends 
 
 That shape thrice-deified by love, those 
 eyes 
 
 "Wherein the Lethe of all others lies ? 
 
 When my white queen of heaven's re- 
 moteness tires, 
 
 Berself against her other self conspires, 
 
 Takes woman's nature, walks in mortal 
 ways, 
 
 And finds in my remorse her beauty's 
 praise ? 
 
 Yet all would I renounce to dream again 
 
 The dream in dreams fulfilled that i^ide 
 my pain. 
 
 My noble pain that heightened all my 
 yeai'S 
 
 With crowns to win and prowess-breed- 
 ing tears ; 
 
 Nay, would that dream renounce once 
 more to see 
 
 Her from her sky there looking down at 
 me! 
 
 vn. 
 
 Goddess, reclimb thy heaven, and be 
 
 once more 
 An inaccessibie splendor to adore, 
 A faith, a hope of such transcendent 
 
 worth 
 As bred ennobling discontent with earth ; 
 Give back the longing, back the elated 
 
 mood 
 That, fed with thee, spurned every 
 
 meaner good ; 
 Give even the spur of impotent despair 
 That, without hope, still bade aspire and 
 
 dare; 
 Give back the need to worship, that still 
 
 pours 
 Down to the soul the virtue it jidores ! 
 
 Nay, brightest and most beautiful, deem 
 
 naught 
 These frantic words, the reckless wind 
 
 of thought ; 
 Still stoop, still grant, — I live but in 
 
 thy will ; 
 Be what thou wilt, but be a woman still ! 
 Vainly I cried, nor could myself believe 
 
 That what I prayed for I would fain re- 
 ceive. 
 
 My moon is set ; my vision set with her ; 
 
 No more can worship vain my pulses 
 stir. 
 
 Goddess Triform, I own thy triple spell. 
 
 My heaven's queen, — queen, too, of my 
 earth and hell ! 
 
 THE BLACK PEEACHER. 
 A BBETON LEGEND. 
 
 At Camac in Brittany, close on the bay. 
 
 They show you a church, or rather the 
 gray 
 
 Bibs of a dead one, left there to bleach 
 
 With the wreck lying near on the crest 
 of the beach. 
 
 Roofless and splintered with thunder- 
 stone, 
 
 'Mid lichen - blurred gravestones all 
 alone ; 
 
 'T is the kind of ruin strange sights to 
 see 
 
 That may have their teaching for you 
 and me. 
 
 Something like this, then, my guide had 
 to tell. 
 
 Perched on a saint cracked across when 
 he fell ; 
 
 But since I might chance give his mean- 
 ing a wrench. 
 
 He talking his patois and I English- 
 French, 
 
 I '11 pnt what he told me, preserving the 
 tone. 
 
 In a rhymed prose that makes it half his, 
 half my own. 
 
 An abbey-church stood here, once on a 
 
 lime. 
 Built as a death -bed atonement for 
 
 crime : 
 'T was for somebody's sins, I know not 
 
 whose ; 
 But sinners are plenty, and you can 
 
 choose. 
 Though a cloister now of the dusk- 
 winged bat, 
 'T was rich enough once, and the 
 
 brothers grew fat. 
 Looser in girdle and purpler in jowl. 
 Singing good rest to the founder's lost 
 
 soul. 
 
460 
 
 THE BLACK PREACHER. 
 
 But one day came Northmen, and lithe 
 
 tongues of Are 
 Lapped up the chapter-house, licked off 
 
 the spire. 
 And left ail a rubbish-heap, black and 
 
 dreary, 
 Where only the wind sings miserere. 
 
 JNo priest has kneeled since at the altar's 
 
 foot. 
 Whose crannies are searched by the 
 
 nightshade's root, 
 Nor sound of service is ever heard. 
 Except from throat of the unclean bird. 
 Hooting to unussoilcd shapes as they 
 
 pass 
 In midnights unholy his witches' mass, 
 Or shouting " Ho ! ho ! " from the belfry 
 
 high 
 As the Devil's sabbath-train whirls by. 
 
 But once a year, on the eve of All-Souls, 
 Through these arches dishallowed the 
 
 organ rolls, 
 Fingers long fleshless the bell-ropes 
 
 work, 
 The chimes peal muffled with sea-mists 
 
 mirk. 
 The skeleton windows are traced anew 
 On the baleful flicker of corpse-lights 
 
 b!ue. 
 And the ghosts must come, so the legend 
 
 saith. 
 To a preaching of Reverend Doctor 
 
 Death. 
 
 Abbots, monks, barons, and ladies fair 
 Hear the dull summons and gather 
 
 there : 
 No rustle of silk now, no clink of mail, 
 Nor ever a one greets his church-mate 
 
 pale ; 
 No knight whispers love in the chate- 
 laine's ear, 
 His next-door neighbor this five hundred 
 
 year ; 
 No monk has a sleek benedicite 
 For the great lord shadowy now as he," 
 Nor needeth any to hold his hreath. 
 Lest he lose the least word of Doctor 
 Death. 
 
 He chooses his text in the Book Divine, 
 Tenth verse of the Preacher in chapter 
 
 nine : — 
 ••'Whatsoever thy hand shall find thee 
 
 to do, 
 
 That do with thy whole might, or thou 
 
 shalt rue ; 
 For no man is wealthy, or wise, or 
 
 brave, 
 In that quencher of might -he's and 
 
 would-be's, the grave.' 
 Bid by the Bridegroom, ' To-morrow," 
 
 ye said. 
 And To-morrow was digging a trench 
 
 for your bed ; 
 Ye said, ' God can wait ; let us finish our 
 
 wine ; ' 
 Ye had wearied Him, fools, and that 
 
 last knock was mine ! " 
 
 But I can't pretend to give you the 
 
 sermon. 
 Or say if the tongue were French, Latin, 
 
 or German ; 
 Whatever he pleached in, I give you my 
 
 word 
 The meaning was easy to all that heard ; 
 Famous preachers there have been and 
 
 be, 
 But never was one so convincing as he ; 
 So blunt was never a begging friar, 
 No Jesuit's tongue so barbed with fire, 
 Cameronian never, nor Methodist, 
 Wrung gall out of Scripture with such a 
 
 twist. 
 
 And would you know who his hearers 
 
 must be ? 
 I tell you just what my guide told me : 
 Excellent teaching men have, day and 
 
 night, 
 From two earnest friars, a black and a 
 
 white. 
 The Dominican Death and the Carmelit» 
 
 Life; 
 And between these two there is never 
 
 strife. 
 For each has his separate office and 
 
 station, 
 And each his own work in the congrega- 
 tion; 
 Whoso to the while brother deafens hia 
 
 ears, 
 And cannot be wrought on by blessings 
 
 or tears, 
 Awake in his coffin must wait and wait, 
 In that blackness of darkness that means 
 
 too late. 
 And come once a year, when the ghost. 
 
 bell tolls, 
 As till Doomsday it shall on the eve ot 
 
 All-Souls, 
 
ARCADIA HEDIVIVA. 
 
 461 
 
 To hear Doctor Death, whose words 
 
 smart with the brino 
 Of the Preacher, the tenth verse of 
 
 chapter nine. 
 
 AECADIA EEDIVIVA. 
 
 I, WALKING the familiar street, 
 
 Wliile a crammed horse-car jingled 
 through it, 
 
 Was lifted from my prosy feet 
 And iu Arcadia ere 1 kuew it. 
 
 Fresh sward for prave! soothed my tread, 
 And shepherd's pipes my ear de- 
 lifjhted ; 
 
 The riddle may be lightly read : 
 1 met two lovers newly plighted. 
 
 They murmured by iu happy care, 
 New plans for paradise devising, 
 
 Ju.st as the moon, with pensive stare, 
 O er Mistress Craigie's pines was 
 rising. 
 
 Astarte, known nieh threescore years. 
 Me to no speechless rapture urges ; 
 
 Them in Elysium she enspheres. 
 
 Queen, from of old, of thaumaturges. 
 
 The r.ailings put forth bud and bloom. 
 The house-fronts all witl\ niyrtUs twine 
 
 them. 
 And light-winged Loves in every room 
 Make nests, aud then with kisses line 
 them. 
 
 O sweetness of untasted life ! 
 
 O dream, its own supreme fulfilment! 
 O hours with all illusion rife. 
 
 As ere the heart divined what ill 
 meant ! 
 
 " Et ego," sighed I to myself. 
 
 And strove some vain regrets to bridle, 
 " Though now laid dusty on the shelf. 
 
 Was hero once of such an idyl ! 
 
 "An idyl ever newly sweet. 
 
 Although since Adam's day recited. 
 Whose measures time them to Love's 
 feet, 
 
 Whose sense is every ill requited." 
 
 Maiden, if I may counsel, drain 
 
 > Each drop of this enchanted season, 
 
 For even our honeymoons must wane, 
 Convicted of green cheese by Reason. 
 
 And none will seem so safe from change, 
 Nor in such skies benignant hovijr. 
 
 As this, beneath whose witchery strange 
 You tread on rose-leaves with your 
 lover. 
 
 The glass unfilled all tastes can fit, 
 As round its brim Conjecture dances ; 
 
 For not Mephisto's self hath wit 
 To draw such vintages as Fancy's. 
 
 When our pulse beats its minor key, 
 When play-time halves and school.- 
 time doubles. 
 Age fills the cup with serious tea. 
 
 Which once Dame Clicquot starred 
 with bubbles. 
 
 "Fie, Mr. Graybeard ! Is this wise? 
 
 Is this the moral of a poet. 
 Who, when the plant of Eden dies. 
 
 Is privileged once more to sow it ■? 
 
 " That herb of clay-disdaining root. 
 From stars secreting what it feeds on. 
 
 Is burnt-out passion's slag and soot 
 Fit soil to strew its dainty seeds on ? 
 
 " Pray, why, if in Arcadia once. 
 Need one so soon forget the way there ? 
 
 Or why, once there, be such a dunce 
 As not contentedly to stay there 1 " 
 
 Dear child, 't was but a sorry jest. 
 And from my heart I hate the cynic 
 
 Who makes the Book of Life a nest 
 For comments staler than rabbinic. 
 
 If Love his simple spell b.ut keep, 
 Life with ideal eyes to flatter. 
 
 The Grail itself were crockery cheap 
 To Every-day's communion-platter. 
 
 One Darby is to me well known, 
 
 Who, as the hearth between them 
 hlazes. 
 
 Sees the old moonlight shine on Joan, 
 And float her youthward in its hazes. 
 
 He rubs his spectacles, he stares, — 
 'T is the same face that witched him 
 early ! 
 
 He gropes for his remaining hairs, — 
 Is this a fleece that feels so curly t 
 
462 
 
 THE NEST. — A YOUTHFUL EXPERIMENT. 
 
 " Good heaTens ! but now 't was winter 
 
 And 1 of years had more than plenty ; 
 The almanac 's a fool ! 'T is May ! 
 Hang family Bibles ! I am twenty ! 
 
 " Come, Joan, your arm ; we '11 walk the 
 room — 
 The lane, I mean — do you remem- 
 ber? 
 How confident the roses bloom. 
 As if it ne'er could be December ! 
 
 " Nor more it shall, while in your eyes 
 My heart its summer heat recovers. 
 
 And you, howe'er your mirror lies, 
 Knd your old beauty in your lover's." 
 
 THE NEST. 
 
 When oaken woods with buds are pink, 
 And nBW-come birds each morning 
 sing. 
 
 When fickle May on Summer's brink 
 Pauses, and knows not which to fling. 
 
 Whether fresh bud and bloom again, 
 
 Or hoar-frost silvering hill and plain. 
 
 Then from the honeysuckle gray 
 The oriole with experienced quest 
 
 Twitches the fibrous bark away. 
 The cordage of his hammock-nest. 
 
 Cheering his labor with a note 
 
 Bich as the orange of his throat. 
 
 High o'er the loud and dusty road 
 The soft gray cup in safety swings. 
 
 To brim ere August with its load 
 Of downy breasts and throbbing 
 wings. 
 
 O'er which the friendly elm-tree heaves 
 
 An emerald roof with sculptured eaves. 
 
 Below, the noisy World drags by 
 In the old way, because it must, 
 
 The bride with heartbreak in her eye. 
 The mourner following hated dust ; 
 
 Thy duty, winged flame of Spring, 
 
 Is but to love, and fly, and sing. 
 
 Oh, happy life, to soar and sway 
 Above the liie by mortals led. 
 
 Singing the merry months away. 
 Master, not slave of daily bread. 
 
 And, when the Autumn comes, to flee 
 Wherever sunshine beckons thee I 
 
 PAHNODB. — DECEMBBK. 
 
 Like some lorn abbey now, the wood 
 Stands roofless in the bitter air ; 
 
 In ruins on its floor is strewed 
 The carven foliage quaint and rare, 
 
 And homeless winds complain along 
 
 The columned chuir once thrilled witk 
 song. 
 
 And thou, dear nest, whence joy and 
 praise 
 The thankful oriole used to pour, 
 Swing'st empty while the north winds 
 chase 
 Their snowy swarms from Labrador : 
 But, loyal to the happy past, 
 I love thee still for what thou wast. 
 
 Ah, when the Summer graces flee 
 
 From other nests more dear than thoo. 
 
 And, where June crowded once, 1 see 
 Only bare trunk and disleaved bough; 
 
 When springs of life that gleamed and 
 gushed 
 
 Bun chilled, and slower, and are hushed; 
 
 When our own branches, naked long, 
 The vacant nests of Spring betray, 
 
 Nurseries of passion, love, and song 
 That vanished as our year grew gray; 
 
 When Life drones o'er a tale twice told 
 
 O'er embers pleading with the cold, — 
 
 I '11 trust, that, like the birds of Spring, 
 Our good goes not without repair, 
 
 But only flies to soar and sing 
 Far off in some diviner air, 
 
 Where we shall find it in the calms 
 
 Of that fair garden 'neath the palms. 
 
 A YOUTHFTTL EXPERIMENT IN ENG- 
 LISH HEXAMETEKS. 
 
 IMPRESSIONS OF HOMISR. 
 
 Sometimes come pauses of calm, when 
 
 the rapt bard, holding his heart 
 
 hack. 
 Over his deep mind muses, as when o'ef 
 
 awestricken ocean 
 Poises a heapt cloud luridly, ripening 
 
 the gale and the thunder; 
 
BIRTHDAY VERSES. — ESTRANGEMENT. — PHCEBE. 
 
 468 
 
 Slow rolls onward the verse with a long 
 swell heaving and swinging, 
 
 Seeming to wait till, gradually wid'ning 
 from far-off horizons. 
 
 Piling the deeps up, heaping the glad- 
 hearted surges before it, 
 
 Gathers the thought as a strong wind 
 darkening and cresting tlie tumult. 
 
 Then every pause, every heave, each 
 trough iu the waves, has its mean- 
 ing; 
 
 Full-sailed, forth like a tall ship steadies 
 the theme, and around it, 
 
 Leaping beside it in glad strength, run- 
 ning in wild glee beyond it 
 
 Harmonies billow exulting and floating 
 the soul where it lists them, 
 
 Swaying the listener's fantasy hither and 
 thither like driftweed. 
 
 BIETHDAT VESSES. 
 
 ■WBITTEN IN A CHILD'S ALBtTM. 
 
 'T WAS sung of old in hut and hall 
 How once a king in evil hour 
 Hung musing o'er his castle wall. 
 And, lost in idle dreams, let fall 
 Into the sea his ring of power. 
 
 Then, let him sorrow as he mijiht. 
 And pledge his daughter and his throne 
 To who restored the jewel bright. 
 The broken spell wonld ne'er unite; 
 The grim old ocean held its own. 
 
 Those awful powers on man that wait, 
 On man, the beggar or the king. 
 To hovel bare or hall of state 
 A magic ring that masters fate 
 With each succeeding birthday bring. 
 
 Therein are set four jewels rare : 
 Pearl winter, summer's ruby blaze. 
 Spring's emerald, and, than all more fair, 
 Fall's pensive opal, doomed to bear 
 A heart of fire bedreamed with haze. 
 
 To him tbe simple spell who knows 
 The spirits of the ring to sway. 
 Fresh power with every sunrise flows, 
 And royal pursuivants are those 
 That fly his mandates to obey. 
 
 Bnt he that with a slackened will 
 Dreams of things past or things to be. 
 
 From him the charm is slipping still, 
 And drops, ere he suspect the ill, 
 Into the inexorable sea. 
 
 ESTEANGEMENT. 
 
 The path from me to you that led, 
 Untrodden long, with grass is grown,* 
 
 Mute carpet that his lieges spread 
 Before the Prince Oblivion 
 
 When he goes visiting the dead. 
 
 And who are they bnt who forget ? 
 
 You, who my coming could surmise 
 Ere any hint of me as yet 
 
 Warned other ears and other eyes. 
 See the path blurred without regret. 
 
 But when I trace its windings sweet 
 With saddened steps, at every spot 
 
 That feels the memory in my feet. 
 Each grass-blade turns forget-me-not. 
 
 Where murmuring bees your nama 
 repeat. 
 
 FHCEBE. 
 
 Fke pales in Heaven the morning star, 
 A bird, the loneliest of its kind. 
 Hears Dawn's faint footfall from afar 
 While all its mates are dumb and blind. 
 
 It is a wee sad-colored thing. 
 As shy and secret as a maid. 
 That, ere in choir tbe robins ring. 
 Pipes its own name like one afraid. 
 
 It seems pain-prompted to repeat 
 The story of some ancient ill. 
 But Phcebel Phabel sadly sweet 
 Is all it says, and then is still. 
 
 It calls and listens. Earth and sky. 
 Hushed by the pathos of its fate. 
 Listen : no whisper of reply 
 Comes from its doom-dissevered matet 
 
 Phoebf. ! it calls and calls again. 
 And Ovid, could he but have heard. 
 Had hung a legendary pain 
 About the memory of the bird ; 
 
 A pain articulate so long 
 In penance of some mouldered crime 
 Whose ghost still flies the Furies' thong 
 Down the waste solitades of time. 
 
464 
 
 DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE. — THE RECALL. — ABSENCE. 
 
 Wait of the young World's wonder- 
 hour, 
 When gods found mortal maidens fair, 
 And will malign was joined with power 
 Love's kindly laws to overbear. 
 
 Like Progne, did it feel the stress 
 And coil of the prevailing words 
 Close round its being, and compress 
 Man's ampler nature to a bird's? 
 
 ! One only memory left of all 
 
 The motley crowd of vanished scenes, 
 
 ; Hers, and vain impulse to recall 
 By repetition what it means. 
 
 Phcebe ! is all it has to say 
 In plaintive cadence o'er and o'er, 
 Like children that have lost their way. 
 And know their names, but nothing 
 more. 
 
 Is it a tjrpe, since Nature's Lyre 
 Vibrates to every note in man, 
 Of that insatiable desire. 
 Meant to be so since life began 7 
 
 1, in strange lands at gray of dawn. 
 Wakeful, have heard that f j uitless plaint 
 Through Memory's chambers deep with. 
 
 drawn 
 Benew its iterations faint. 
 
 So nigh ! yet from remotest years 
 It summons back its magic, rife 
 With longings unappeased, and tears 
 Drawn from the very source of life. 
 
 DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE. 
 
 How was I worthy so divine a loss. 
 Deepening my midnights, kindling all 
 my morns'? 
 Why waste such precious wood to make 
 my cross, 
 Such far-sought roses for my crown of 
 ^ thorns 'i 
 
 And when she came, how earned I such 
 a gift ■; 
 Why spend on me, a poor earth-delv- 
 ing mole, 
 
 The fireside sweetnesses, the heavenward 
 lift, 
 
 ' The hourly mercy, of a woman's 
 soul? 
 
 Ah, did we know to give her all her 
 right. 
 What wonders even in our poor clay 
 were done ! 
 It is not Woman leaves us to our night. 
 But our brute earth that grovels from 
 her sun. 
 
 Our nobler cultured fields and gracious 
 domeii 
 We whirl too oft from her who still 
 shines on 
 To light in vain our caves and clefts, the 
 homes 
 Of night-bird instincts pained till she 
 be gone. 
 
 Still must this body starve our souls with 
 shade ; 
 But when Death makes us what we 
 were before, 
 Then shall her sunshine all oui depths 
 invade. 
 And not a shadow stain heaven's crys. 
 tal floor. 
 
 THE EECALL. 
 
 OoME back before the birds are flown. 
 Before the leaves desert the tree, 
 And, through the lonely alleys blown. 
 Whisper their vain regrets to me 
 Who drive before a blast more rude, 
 The plaything of my gusty mood. 
 In vain pursuing and pursued 1 
 
 Nay, come although the boughs be bare. 
 Though snowflakes fledge the summer'a 
 
 nest. 
 And in some far Ausonian air 
 The thrush, your minstrel, warm his 
 
 breast. 
 Come, sunshine's treasurer, and bring 
 To doubting flowers their faith in spring. 
 To birds and me the need to sing 1 
 
 ABSEXCE. 
 
 Sleep is Death's image, — poets tell us 
 
 so ; 
 But Absence is the bitter self of Death. 
 And, you away. Life's lips their red 
 
 forego. 
 Parched in an air unfreshened by yool 
 
 breath. 
 
MONNA LISA. — THE OPTIMIST. — BURNING OLD LETTERS. 465 
 
 Light of those eyes that made the light 
 
 of mine, 
 Where shiue you ? On what happier 
 
 fields and flowers f 
 Heayen's lamps renew their lustre less 
 
 divine, 
 Bat only serve to count my darkened 
 
 hours. 
 
 If with your presence went your image 
 
 too. 
 That brain-bom ghost my path would 
 
 never cross 
 Which meets me now where'er I once 
 
 met you. 
 Then vanishes, to multiply my loss. 
 
 UONNA LISA. 
 
 She gave me all that woman can, 
 Nor her soul's nunnery forego, 
 A confidence that man to man 
 Without remorse can never show. 
 
 Bare art, that can the sense refine 
 Till not a pulse rebellious stirs, 
 And, since she never can be mine, 
 Makes it seem sweeter to be hers ! 
 
 THE OPTIMIST. 
 
 TmtBIo from London's noise and smoke, 
 
 Here I find air and quiet too : 
 
 Air filtered through the beech and 
 
 oak. 
 Quiet by nothing harsher broke 
 Than wood-dove's meditative coo. 
 
 The Truce of God is here ; the breeze 
 Sighs as men sigh relieved from care, 
 Or tilts as lightly in the trees 
 As might a robin : all is ease. 
 With pledge of ampler ease to spare. 
 
 Time, leaning on his scythe, forgets 
 To turn the hourglass in bis hand. 
 And all life's petty cares and frets. 
 Its teasing hopes and weak regrets. 
 Are still as that oblivious sand. 
 
 Bepose fills all the generous space 
 Of undulant plain; the rook and crow 
 Hush ; 't is as if a silent grace. 
 By Nature murmured, calmed the face 
 Of Heaven above and Earth below. 
 
 From past and future toils I rest. 
 One Sabbath pacifies my year ; 
 I am the halcyon, this my nest ; 
 And all is safely for the best 
 While the World's- there and I am 
 here. 
 
 So I turn tory for the nonce. 
 And think the radical a bore. 
 Who cannot see, thick-witted dunce, 
 That what was good for people once 
 Must be as good forevermore. 
 
 Sun, sink no deepeir down the sky ; 
 Earth, never change this summer mood', 
 Breeze, loiter thus forever by. 
 Stir the dead leaf or let it lie : 
 Since I am happy, all is good. 
 
 MiDDLETON, August, 1884. 
 
 ON BTTBNING SOME OLD LETTERS. 
 
 With what odorous woods and spices 
 Spared for royal sacrifices, 
 With what costly gums seld-seen. 
 Hoarded to embalm a queen, 
 With what frankincense and myrrh, 
 Burn these precious parts of her. 
 Full of life and light and sweetness 
 As a summer day's completeness, 
 Joy of sun and song of bird 
 Running wild in every word, 
 FuU of all the superhuman 
 Grace and winsomeness of woman ? 
 
 O'er these leaves her wrist has slid, 
 Thrilled with veins where fire is hid 
 'Neath the skin's pellucid veil, 
 Like the opal's passion pale ; 
 This her breath hath sweetened ; this 
 Still seems trembling with the kiss 
 She half-ventured on my name, 
 Brow and cheek and throat aflame ; 
 Over all caressing lies 
 Sunshine left there by her eyes ; 
 From them all an eflluence rare 
 With her nearness fills the air. 
 Till the murmur I half-hear 
 Of her light feet drawing near. 
 
 Barest woods were coarse and rough. 
 Sweetest spice not sweet enough. 
 Too impure all earthly fire 
 For this sacred f uneri^-pyre ; 
 These rich relics must suffice 
 For their own dear sacrifice. 
 
466 THE PROTEST. — THE PETITION. — FACT OB FANCY? 
 
 Seek we first an altar fit 
 For such victims laid on it ; 
 It shall be this slab, brought home 
 In old happy days from Borne, — 
 Lazuli, once blest to line 
 Dian's inmost cell and shrine. 
 Gently now I lay them there. 
 Pure as Dian's forehead bare. 
 Yet suffused with warmer hue, 
 Snch as only Latmos knew. 
 
 Fire I gather from the sun 
 In a TJrgin lens : 't is dune ! 
 Mount the flames, red, yellow, blue. 
 As her moods were shining through. 
 Of the moment's impulse born, — 
 Moods of sweetness, playful scorn, 
 Half defiance, half surrender. 
 More than cruel, more than tender, 
 Plonts, caresses, sunshine, shade. 
 Gracious doublings of a maid 
 Infinite in guileless art, 
 Flaying hide-seek with her heai°t. 
 
 On the altar now, alas, 
 There they. lie a crinkling mass, 
 Writhing still, as if with grief 
 Went the life from every leaf ; 
 Then (heart-breaking palimpsest !) 
 Vanishing ere wholly guessed, 
 Suddenly some lines flash back, 
 Traced in lightning on the black. 
 And confess, till now denied. 
 All the fire they strove to hide. 
 What they told me, sacred trust. 
 Stays to glorify my dust. 
 There to burn through dust and damp 
 Like a mage's deathless lamp. 
 While an atom of this frame 
 Lasts to feed the dainty flame. 
 
 All is ashes now, but they 
 
 In my soul are laid away. 
 
 And their radiance round me hovers 
 
 Soft as moonlight over lovers. 
 
 Shutting her and me alone 
 
 In dream-Edens of our own ; 
 
 Fiist of lovers to invent 
 
 Love, and teach men what it meant. 
 
 THE PEOTEST. 
 
 1 COULD not bear to see those eyes 
 On all with wasteful largess shine. 
 And that delight of welcome rise 
 Like sunshine strained through amber 
 wine, 
 
 But that a glow from deeper skies. 
 From conscious fountains more divine^ 
 Is (is it?) mine. 
 
 Be beautiful to all mankind. 
 As Nature fashioned thee to be ; 
 'T would anger me did all not find 
 The sweet perfection that 's in thee : 
 Yet keep one charm of charms bei 
 
 hind, — 
 Nay, thou 'rt so rich, keep two or three 
 For (is it?) me! 
 
 IHE PETITION. 
 
 Oh, tell me less or tell me more, 
 Soft eyes with mystery at the core. 
 That always seem to meet my own 
 Frankly as pansies fully blown. 
 Yet waver still 'tween no and yes I 
 
 So swift to cavil and deny. 
 Then parley with concessions shy. 
 Dear eyes, that make their youth bo 
 
 mine 
 And through my inmost shadows shinea 
 Uh, tell me more or tell me less 1 
 
 FACT OH FANCY? 
 
 In town I hear, scarce wakened yet. 
 My neighbor's clock behind the wall 
 Record the day's increasing debt. 
 And Cuckoo! Cuckoo 1 faintly call. 
 
 Our senses run in deepening grooves. 
 Thrown out of which they lose thei» 
 
 tact. 
 And consciousness with effort moves 
 From habit past to present fact. 
 
 So, in the country waked to^iay, 
 I hear, unwitting of the change, 
 A cuckoo's throb from far away 
 Begin to strike, nor think it strango. 
 
 The sound creates its wonted frame : 
 My bed at home, the songster hid 
 Behind the wRinscoting, — all came 
 As long association bid. 
 
 Then, half-aroused, ere yet Sleep's mist 
 From the mind's uplands furl away. 
 To the familiar sound I list, 
 Disputed for by Night and Day. 
 
AGEO-DOLCE. — A 
 
 t connt to learn how late it is, 
 Uniil, arrived at thirty-four, 
 I questioa, " What strange world is this 
 Whose lavish hours would make me 
 poor ? " 
 
 Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Still on it went. 
 With hints of mockery in its tone j 
 How could such hoards of time be spent 
 By one poor mortal's wit alone ? 
 
 I have it ! Grant, ye kindly Powers, 
 
 I from this spot may never stir. 
 
 If only these uncounted hours 
 
 May pass, and seem too short, with Her ! 
 
 But who She is, her form and face. 
 These to the world of dream belong ; 
 She moves through fancy's visioned 
 
 space, 
 Unhodied, like the cuckoo's song, 
 
 AGEO-DOLCE. 
 
 One kiss from all others prevents me. 
 And sets all my pulses astir, 
 And burns on my lips and torments me : 
 'T is the kiss that 1 fain would give her. 
 
 One kiss for all others requites me. 
 Although it is never to be, 
 And sweetens my dreHms and invites me : 
 'T is the kiss that she dare not give me. 
 
 Ah, could it he mine, it were sweeter 
 Than honey bees garner in dream. 
 Though its bliss on my lips were fleeter 
 Than a swallow's dip to the stream. 
 
 And yet, thns denied, it can never 
 In the prose of life ranish away ; 
 O'er my lips it must hover forever. 
 The sunshine and shade of my day. 
 
 THE BROKEN TETST. 
 
 Walking alone where we walked to- 
 gether. 
 When June was breezy and blue, 
 I watch in the gray autumnal weather 
 The leaves fall inconstant as you. 
 
 If a dead leaf startle behind me, 
 I thmk 't is your garment's hem, 
 And, oh, where no memory could find me. 
 Might I whirl away with them I 
 
 CHRISTMAS CAROL. 467 
 
 CASA SIN ALMA. 
 
 BBCUEBDO DB HADBID. 
 
 SiLENCioso por la puerta 
 
 Voy de su casa desierta 
 
 Do siempre feliz entr^, 
 
 Y la encuentro en vano abierta 
 
 Cual la boca de una mnerta 
 
 Despues que el alma se fu£. 
 
 A CHBISTMAS CABOL. 
 
 FOB THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL CHILDBEN 
 OF THE CHUBCa OF THE DISCIPLES. 
 
 " What means this glory round our feet," 
 The Magi mused, " more bright than 
 morn ? " 
 And voices chanted clear and sweet, 
 "To-day the Prince of Peace is 
 born!" 
 
 " What means that star," the Shepherds 
 said, 
 " That hrightens through the rocky 
 glen f " 
 And angels, answering overhead. 
 
 Sang, " Peace on earth, good-will to 
 men ! " 
 
 'T is eighteen hundred years and more 
 Since those sweet oracles were dumb; 
 
 We wait for Him, like them of yore ; 
 Alas, He seems so slow to come 1 
 
 But it was said, in words of gold 
 No time or sorrow e'er shall dim, 
 
 That little children might be bold 
 In perfect trust to come to Him. 
 
 All round about our feet shall shine 
 A light like that the wise men saw. 
 
 If we our loving wills incline 
 To that sweet Life which is the Law. 
 
 So shall we learn to understand 
 The simple faith of shepherds then. 
 
 And, claspmg kindly hand in hand. 
 Sing, " Peace on earth, good-will to 
 men ! " 
 
 And they who do their souls no wrong, 
 But keep at eve the faith of mom. 
 
 Shall daily hear the angel-song, 
 " To-day the Prince of Peace is bom ! " 
 
«68 
 
 MT PORTRAIT GALLERY. — SONNET. 
 
 MT POETEAIT GALLEET. 
 
 Opt round my hall of portraiture I gaze, 
 By Memory reared, the artist wise and 
 
 holy. 
 From Btainless quarries of deep-buried 
 
 days. 
 There, as I muse in soothing melancholy, 
 Your faces glow in more than mortal 
 
 youth, 
 Companions of my prime, now vanished 
 
 wholly. 
 The loud, impetuous boy, the low-voiced 
 
 maiden, 
 Now for the first time seen in flawless 
 
 truth. 
 Ah, never master that drew mortal breath 
 Can match thy portraits, just and gener- 
 ous Death, 
 Whose brush with sweet regretful tints is 
 
 laden ! 
 Thou paintest that which struggled here 
 
 below 
 Half understood, or understood for woe. 
 And with a sweet forewarning 
 Mak'st round the sacred front an aureole 
 
 glow 
 Woven of that light -that rose on Easter 
 
 morning. 
 
 PAOLO TO rRANCBSCA. 
 
 I WAS with thee in Heaven : I cannot tell 
 [f years or moments, so the sudden bliss, 
 When first we found, then lost, us in a 
 
 kiss, 
 Abolished Time, abolished Earth and 
 
 Hell, 
 Left only Heaven. Then from our blue 
 
 there fell 
 The dag!;er's flash, and did not fall amiss, 
 For nothing now can rob my life of 
 
 this, — 
 That once with thee in Heaven, all else 
 
 is well. 
 Us, undivided when man's vengeance 
 
 came, 
 God's half-forgives that doth not here 
 
 divide ; 
 And, were this bitter whirl-blast fanged 
 
 with flame. 
 To me 't were summer, we being side by 
 
 side: 
 This granted, I God's mercy will not 
 
 blame. 
 For, given thy nearness, nothing is de- 
 nied. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Scottish Border. 
 
 As sinks the sun behind yon alien hills 
 Whose heather-purpled slopes, in gloiy 
 
 rolled. 
 Flush all my thought with momentary 
 
 gold. 
 What pang of vague regret my fancy 
 
 thrills ? 
 Here 't is enchanted ground the peasant 
 
 tills. 
 Where the shy ballad dared its blooms 
 
 unfold. 
 And memory's glamour makes new 
 
 sights seem old. 
 As when our life some vanished dream 
 
 fulfils. 
 Yet not to thee belong these painless 
 
 tears, 
 Land loved ere seen : before my darkened 
 
 eyes. 
 From far beyond the waters and the 
 
 years, 
 Horizons mute that wait their poet rise ; 
 The stream before me fades and disap- 
 pears. 
 And in the Charles the western splendor 
 
 dies. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 On being asked fir an Autograph in Venice. 
 
 Amid these fragments of heroic days 
 When thought met deed with mutual 
 
 passion's leap. 
 There sits a Fame whose silent trump 
 
 makes cheap 
 What short-lived rumor of ourselves ws 
 
 raise. 
 They had far other estimate of praise 
 Who stamped the signet of their souls so 
 
 deep 
 In art and action, and whose memories 
 
 keep 
 Their height like stars above our misty 
 
 ways: 
 In this grave presence to record my 
 
 name 
 Something within me hangs the heed 
 
 and shrinks. 
 Dull were the soul without some joy in 
 
 fame; 
 Yet here to clum lemembrance vm^ 
 
 mothiuks. 
 
THE DANCING BEAR. — DEATH OF QUEEN MERCEDES. 469 
 
 Like him who, in the desert's awful 
 
 frame, 
 Kotches his cockney iuitials on the 
 
 Sphinx. 
 
 THE DANCING BEAK. 
 
 Fab over Elf-land poets stretch their 
 
 sway, 
 And win their dearest crowns beyond the 
 
 goal 
 Of their own conscions purpose; they 
 
 control 
 With gossamer threads wide-flown our 
 
 fancy's play. 
 And so our action. On my walk to-day, 
 A wallowing bear begged clumsily his 
 
 toll. 
 When straight a vision rose of Atta 
 
 Troll, 
 And scenes ideal witched mine eyes 
 
 away. 
 " Merci, Mossieu 1 " the astonished bear- 
 ward cried. 
 Grateful for thrice his hope to me, the 
 
 slave 
 Of partial memory, seeing at his side 
 A bear immortal. The glad dole I gave 
 Was none of mine ; poor Heine o'ei the 
 
 wide 
 Atlantic welter stretched it from his 
 
 grave. 
 
 THE MAPLE. 
 
 The Maple puts her corals on in May, 
 While loitering frosts about the lowlands 
 
 cling. 
 To be in tune with what the robma smg, 
 Plastering new log -huts 'mid her 
 
 branches gray ; 
 Bat when the Autumn southward turns 
 
 away. 
 Then in her veins burns most the blood 
 
 of Spring, 
 And every leaf, intensely blossomins, 
 Makes the year's snnset pale the set of 
 
 day. 
 O Tonth nnprescient, were it only so 
 With trees you plant, and in whose shade 
 
 reclined. 
 Thinking their drifting blooms Fate's 
 
 coldest snow. 
 Ton carve dear names npon the faithf nl 
 
 rind, 
 
 Nor in that vernal stem the cross fore- 
 know 
 
 That Age shall bear, silent, yet unro> 
 signed t 
 
 NIGHTWATCHE3. 
 
 While the slow clock, as they were mi- 
 
 ser's gold, 
 Connts and recounts the momward steps 
 
 of Time, • 
 
 The darkness thrills with conscience of 
 
 each crime 
 By Death committed, daily grown more 
 
 bold. 
 Once more the Ust of all my wrongs is 
 
 told. 
 And ghostly hands stretch to me from 
 
 my prime 
 Helpless farewells, as from an alien 
 
 clime ; 
 For each new loss redoubles all the old. 
 This mom 'twas May; the blossoms 
 
 were astir 
 With southern wind ; but now the boughs 
 
 are bent 
 With snow instead of birds, and all things 
 
 How much of all my past is dumb with 
 
 her. 
 And of my future, too, for with her 
 
 went 
 Half of that world I ever cared to please I 
 
 DEATH OF QUEEN MEBCEDES. 
 
 Hebs all that Earth conld promise or 
 
 bestow, — 
 Youth, Beauty, Love, a crown, the beck- 
 oning years, 
 Lids never wet, unless with joyous tears, 
 A life remote from every sordid woe. 
 And by a nation's swelled to lordlier 
 
 flow. 
 What lurking-place, thonght we, for 
 
 doubts or fears. 
 When, the day's swan, she swam along 
 
 the cheers 
 Of the AlcaU, five happy months ago ? 
 The guns were shouting lo Hymen then 
 That, on her birthday, now denounce 
 
 her doom ; 
 The same white steeds that tossed their 
 
 scorn of men 
 To-day as proudly drag her to the tomb. 
 
470 
 
 PRISON OF CERVANTES. — PESSIMOPTIMISM. 
 
 Grim jest of fate I Yet who dare call it 
 blind, 
 
 Biiowing what life is, what our human- 
 kind? 
 
 PEISON OF CEEVANTE3. 
 
 Seat of all woes? Though Nature's 
 firm decree 
 
 The narrowing soul with narrowing dun- 
 geon bind, 
 
 Tet was his free of motion as the wind, 
 
 And held both worlds, of spirit and sense, 
 in fee. 
 
 In charmed communion with his dual 
 mind 
 
 He wandered Spain, himself both knight 
 and hind. 
 
 Redressing wrongs he knew must ever be. 
 
 His humor wise could see life's long de- 
 ceit, 
 
 Man's baffled aims, nor therefore both 
 despise ; 
 
 His knightly nature could ill fortune 
 greet 
 
 Like an old friend. Whose ever such 
 kind eyes 
 
 That pierced so deep, such scope, save 
 his whose feet 
 
 By Avon censed 'neath the same April's 
 skies ? 
 
 TO A LADY PLATING ON THE 
 CITHEEN. 
 
 So dreamy-soft the notes, so far away 
 They seem to fall, the horns of Oberon 
 Blow their faint Hunt's -up from the 
 
 good-time gone ; 
 Or, on a morning of long-withered May, 
 Larks tinkle unseen o'er Claudian arches 
 
 gray. 
 That Homeward crawl from Dream- 
 land ; and anon 
 My fancy flings her cloak of Darkness 
 
 on. 
 To vanish from the dungeon of To-day. 
 In happier times and scenes I seem to 
 
 ^ be. 
 And, as her fingers flutter o'er the 
 
 strings, 
 The days return when I was young as 
 
 she, 
 And my fledged thoughts began to feel 
 
 Uieir wings 
 
 With all Heaven's blue before them I 
 
 Memory 
 Or Music is it such enchantment sings 1 
 
 THE EYE'S TEEASUEY. 
 
 Gold of the reddening sunset, backward 
 
 thrown 
 In largess on my tall paternal trees. 
 Thou with false hope or fear didst never 
 
 tease 
 His heart that hoards thee ; nor is child- 
 hood flown 
 From him who.se life no fairer boon hath 
 
 known 
 Than that what pleased him earliest still 
 
 should please. 
 And who hath incomes safe from chance 
 
 as these. 
 Gone in a moment, yet for life his own 1 
 All other gold is slave of earthward 
 
 laws; 
 This to the deeps of ether takes its flight, 
 And on the topmost leaves makes glori 
 
 ous pause 
 Of parting pathos ere it yield to night : 
 So linger, aa from me earth's light with. 
 
 draws. 
 Dear touch of Nature, tremulously 
 
 bright I 
 
 PESSIMOPTIMISM. 
 
 Yb little think what toil it was to build 
 A world of men imperfect even as this. 
 Where we conceive of Good by what W8 
 
 miss. 
 Of 111 by that wherewith best days are 
 
 fiUed; 
 A world whose every atom is self-willed, 
 Whose corner-stone is propt on artifice. 
 Whose joy is shorter-lived than woman's 
 
 kiss, 
 Whose wisdom hoarded is but to be 
 
 spilled. 
 Yet this is better than a life of caves. 
 Whose highest art was scratching on a 
 
 bone. 
 Or chipping toilsome arrowheads of flint ; 
 Better, though doomed to hear while 
 
 Cleon raves, 
 To see wit's want eterned in paint or 
 
 stone, 
 And wade the drain-drenched shoals ol 
 
 daily print. 
 
THE BRAKES. — 
 THS BBAEES. 
 
 What countless years and wealth of 
 brain were spent 
 
 To bring us hither from our caves and 
 huts. 
 
 And trace through pathless wilds the 
 deep-worn ruts 
 
 Of faith and habit, by whose deep indent 
 
 Prudence may guide if genius be not 
 lent, — 
 
 Genius, not always happy when it shuts 
 
 Its ears against the plodder's ifs and 
 buts, 
 
 Hoping in one rash leap to snatch the 
 eveut. 
 
 The coursers of the sun, whose hoofs of 
 flame 
 
 Consume morn's misty threshold, are 
 exact 
 
 As bankers' clerks, and all this star- 
 poised frame. 
 
 One swerve allowed, were with convul- 
 sion rackt ; 
 
 This world were doomed, should Dulness 
 fail, to tame 
 
 Wit's feathered heels in the stern stocks 
 of fact. 
 
 A FOREBODING. 471 
 
 A FOBEBODING. 
 
 What were the whole void world, if 
 
 thou wert dead. 
 Whose briefest absence can eclipse my 
 
 day. 
 And make the hours that danced with 
 
 Time away 
 Drag their funereal steps with muffled 
 
 head? 
 Through thee, meseems, the very rose is 
 
 red, 
 From thee the violet steals its breath in 
 
 May, 
 From thee draw life all things that grow 
 
 not gray. 
 And by thy force the uappy stars are 
 
 sped. 
 Thou near, the hope of thee to overflow 
 Fills all my earth and heaven, as when 
 
 in Spring, 
 Ere April come, the birds and blossoms 
 
 Know, 
 And grasses brighten roand her feet to 
 
 cling; 
 Nay, and this hope delights all nature so 
 That the dumb turf I tread on seems to 
 
 sing. 
 
III. FANCY. 
 
 .tTNDEE THE OCTOBEE MAPLES. 
 
 What mean these banners spread. 
 These paths with loyal red 
 So gaily carpeted 1 
 Comes there a prince to-day 1 
 Such foating were too fine 
 For feet less argentine 
 Than Dian's own or thine, 
 Queen whom my tides obey. 
 
 iSnrely for thee are meant 
 These hu^s so orient 
 That with a sultan's tent 
 Each tree invites the sun ; 
 Our Earth such homage pays. 
 So decks her dusty ways, 
 And keeps such holidays, 
 For one, and only one. 
 
 My brain shapes form and face, 
 Throbs with the rhythmic grace 
 And cadence of her pace 
 To all fine instincts true ; 
 Her footsteps, as they pass. 
 Than moonbeams oyer grass 
 Fall lighter, — and, alas. 
 More insubstantial too I 
 
 LOVE'S CLOCK. 
 A PASTOEAL. 
 DAFHKis toaiting 
 
 *0 Dktad feet, 
 
 Be doubly fleet, 
 
 Timed to my heart's expectant beat 
 ' While I await her ! 
 * At four,' vowed she ; 
 
 T is scarcely three. 
 
 Yet by my time it seems to tie 
 A good hour later ! " 
 
 "Bid me not stay 1 
 Hear reason, pray ! 
 'T is striking six ! Sure never day 
 Was short as this is 1 " 
 
 "Eeason nor rhyme 
 Is in the chime I 
 
 It can't be five ; I 've scarce had time 
 To beg two kisses 1 " 
 
 " Early or late, 
 When lovers wait, 
 And Love's watch gain, if Time a 
 
 gait 
 So snail-like chooses. 
 Why should his feet 
 Become more fleet 
 
 Than cowards' are, when lovers meet 
 And Love's watch loses ! " 
 
 ELEANOB IIAKES MACAB00N3. 
 
 Light of triumph in her eyes, 
 Eleanor her apron ties ; 
 As she pushes back her sleeves. 
 High resolve her bosom heaves. 
 Hasten, cook ! impel the fire 
 To the pace of her desire ; 
 As you hope to save your soul. 
 Bring a virgin casserole, 
 Brightest bring of silver spoons, '>■ 
 Eleanor makes macaroons .' 
 
TELEPATHY. 
 
 FRANCISCUS DE VESULAMIO. 
 
 478 
 
 Almond-blossoms, now adance 
 lu the smile of Southern France, 
 Leave your sport with sun and breeze, 
 Think of duty, not of ease ; 
 ~ Fashion, 'neath their jerkins brown, 
 Kernels white as thistledown. 
 Tiny cheeses made with cream 
 From the Galaxy's mid-stream, 
 Blanched in light of honeymoons, — 
 Eleanor makes macaroons I 
 
 Now for sugar, — nay, our plan 
 Tolerates no work of man. 
 Hurry, then, ye golden bees ; 
 Fetch your clearest honey, please, 
 Garnered on a Yorkshire moor, 
 While the last larks sing and soar. 
 From the heather-blossoms sweet 
 Where sea-breeze and sunshine meet, 
 And the Augusts mask as Junes, — 
 Eleanor makes macaroons ! 
 
 Next the pestle and mortar find. 
 Pure rock-crystal, — these to grind 
 Into paste more smooth than silk. 
 Whiter than the milkweed's milk : 
 Spread it on a rose-leaf, thus. 
 Gate to please Theocritus ; 
 Then the fire with spices swell. 
 While, for her completer spell. 
 Mystic canticles she croons, — 
 Eleanor makes macaroons ! 
 
 Perfect ! and all this to waste 
 On a gray beard's palsied taste ! 
 Poets so their Tcrses write, 
 Heap them full of life and light. 
 And then fling them to the rude 
 Mumbling of the multitude. 
 Not so dire her fate as theirs. 
 Since her friend this gift detlares 
 Choicest of his birthday boons, — 
 Eleanor's dear macaroons ! 
 Pebntary 22, 1884. 
 
 TELEPATHY. 
 
 "And how could you dream of meet- 
 ing 1 " 
 
 Nay, how can yon ask me, sweet ' 
 All day ray pulse had been beating 
 
 The tune of your coming feet. 
 
 And ns nearer and ever nearer 
 I felt the throb of your tread. 
 
 To be in the world grew dearer. 
 And my blood ran rosier red. 
 
 Love called, and I could not linger, 
 But sought the forbidden tryst. 
 
 As music follows the finger 
 Of the dreaming lutanist. 
 
 And though you had said it and said it» 
 " We must not be happy to-day," 
 
 Was I not wiser to credit , 
 
 The fire in my feet than your Nay t 
 
 SCHEBZO. 
 
 When the down is on the chin 
 And the gold-gleam in the hair. 
 When the birds their sweethearts win 
 And champagne is in the air. 
 Love is here, and Love is there, 
 Love is welcome everywhere. 
 
 Summer's cheek too soon turns thin. 
 Days grow briefer, sunshine rare ; 
 Antumn from his cannekin 
 Blows the froth to chase Despair : 
 Love is met with frosty stare, 
 Cannot house 'neath branches bare. 
 
 When new life is in the leaf 
 
 And new red is in the rose, 
 
 Though Love's Maytlme be as brief 
 
 As a dragon-fly's repose. 
 
 Never moments come like those. 
 
 Be they Heaven or Hell : who knows 1 
 
 All too soon comes Winter's grief. 
 Spendthrift Love's false friends turn foflSJ 
 'Softly comes Old Age, the thief. 
 Steals the rapture, leaves the throes : 
 Love his mantle round him throws, — 
 " Time to say Good-bye ; it snows." 
 
 "FEANCISCUS DE VEEULAMIO SIO 
 COGITAVIT.-' 
 
 That 'b a rather bold speech, my Lord 
 Bacon, 
 For, indeed, is 't so easy to know 
 Just how much we from others have 
 taken. 
 And how much our own natural flow % 
 
 Since your mind bubbled np at its foun- 
 tain, 
 How many streams made it elate. 
 While it calmed to the plain from the 
 mountain. 
 As every mind mast that grows great t 
 
474 AUSPEX. — THE PREGNANT COMMENT. — THE LESSON. 
 
 While you thought 't was You thinking 
 as newly 
 As Adam stUl wet with God's dew, 
 You forgot in your self-pride that truly 
 The whole Past was thinking through 
 you. 
 
 Greece, Rome, nay, your namesake, old 
 Roger, 
 With Tnith's nameless delvers who 
 wrought 
 In the dark mines of Truth, helped to 
 prod your 
 Fine brain with the goad of their 
 thought. 
 
 As mummy was prized for a rich hue 
 The painter no elsewhere could find. 
 So 't was buried men's thinking with 
 which you 
 Gave the lipe mellow tone to your 
 mind. 
 
 I heard the proud strawberry saying, 
 " Only look what a ruby I 've made ! " 
 
 It forgot how the bees in their maying 
 Had brought it the stuff for its trade. 
 
 And yet there 's the half of a truth in 
 
 it, 
 And my Lord might his copyright sue ; 
 For a thought 's his who kindles new 
 
 youth in it. 
 Or so puts it as makes it more true. 
 
 The birds but repeat without ending 
 The same old traditional notes. 
 
 Which some, by more happily blending. 
 Seem to make over new in their 
 throats ; 
 
 And we men through our old bit of song 
 run. 
 Until one just improves on the rest, 
 And we call a thing his, in the long 
 run, 
 Who utters it clearest and best. 
 
 ATTSPEX. 
 
 Ht heart, I cannot still it. 
 Nest that had song-birds in it ; 
 And when the last shall go, 
 The dreary days, to fill it, 
 Instead of lark or linnet, 
 Shall whirl dead leaves and snow. 
 
 Had they been swallows only, 
 Without the passion stronger 
 That skyward longs and sings, — 
 Woe 's me, I shall be lonely 
 When I can feel no longer 
 The impatience of their wings I 
 
 A moment, sweet delusion. 
 Like birds the brown leaves hover} 
 But it will not be long 
 Before their wild confusion 
 Fall wavering down to cover 
 The poet and his song. 
 
 THE FBEGNANT COMMENT. 
 
 OpENiiro one day a book of mine, 
 I absent, Hester found a line 
 Praised with a pencil-mark, and this 
 She left transfigured with a kiss. 
 
 When next upon the page I chance, 
 Like Poussin's nymphs my pulses danc^ 
 And whirl my fancy where it sees 
 Pan piping 'neath Arcadian trees, 
 Whose leaves no winter-scenes rehearse^ 
 Still young and glad as Homer's verse. 
 " What mean," I ask, " these sudden 
 _ joys? 
 This feeling fresher than a boy's ? 
 What makes this line, familiar long. 
 New as the first bird's April song 1 
 I could, with sense illumined thus, 
 Clear doubtful texts in ^schylus 1 " 
 
 Laughing, one day she gave the key, 
 My riddle's open-sesame ; 
 Then added, with a smile demure. 
 Whose downcast lids veiled triumph 
 sure, 
 " If what I left there give yon pain. 
 Yon — you — can take it off again; 
 'T was for my poet, not for him. 
 Your Doctor Donne there 1 " 
 
 Earth grew dim 
 And wavered in a golden mist, 
 As rose, not paper, leaves I kissed. 
 Donne, you forgive 'i I let you keep 
 Her precious comment, poet deep. 
 
 • THE LESSON. 
 
 I SAT and watched the walls of night 
 With cracks of sudden lightning glow, 
 
SCIENCE AND POETBT. — WITH A SEASHELL. 
 
 475 
 
 And listened while with clumsy might 
 The thunder wallowed to and fio. 
 
 The rain fell softly now ; the squall, 
 That to a torrent drove the trees, 
 Had whirled beyond us to let fall 
 Its tumult on the whitening 8ea& 
 
 But still the lightning crinkled keen. 
 Or fluttered fitful from behind 
 The leaden drifts, then only seen, 
 That rumbled eastward on the wind. 
 
 Still as gloom followed after glare, 
 While bated breath the pine-trees drew. 
 Tiny Salmoneus of the air, 
 His mimic bolts the firefly threw. 
 
 He thought, no doubt, " Those flashes 
 
 grand. 
 That light for leagues the shuddering 
 
 sky, 
 Are made, a fool could understand, 
 By some superior kind of fly. 
 
 " He 's of our race's elder branch 
 His family-arms the same as onrs. 
 Both born the twy-forked flame to 
 
 launch, 
 Of kindred, if unequal, powers." 
 
 And is man wiser 1 Man who takes 
 His consciousness the law to be 
 Of all beyond his ken, and makes 
 God but a bigger kind of Me f 
 
 SCIENCE AND POETRY. 
 
 Be who first stretched his nerves of sub- 
 
 tiie wire 
 Over the land and through the sea-depths 
 
 still, 
 Thought only of the flame-winged mes- 
 senger 
 As a dull drudge that should encircle 
 
 earth 
 With sordid messages of Trade, and tame 
 Blithe Ariel to a bagman. But the Muse 
 Not long will be defrauded. From her 
 
 foe 
 Her misused wand she snatches; at a 
 
 touch. 
 The Age of Wonder is renewed again. 
 And to our di.ienchanted day restores 
 The Shoes of Swiftness that give odds to 
 
 Thought, 
 
 The Cloak that makes invisible ; and 
 
 with these 
 I glide, an airy fire, from shore to shore, 
 Or from my Cambridge whisper to Ca- 
 thay. 
 
 A NEW TEAK'S GBEETINO. 
 
 The century numbers fourscore years; 
 You, fortressed in your teens. 
 To Time's alarums close your ears. 
 And, while he devastates your peers, 
 Conceive not what he means. 
 
 If e'er life's winter fleck with snow 
 Your hair's deep shadowed bowers. 
 That winsome head an art would know 
 To make it charm, and wear it so 
 As 't were a wreath of flowers. 
 
 If to such fairies years must come. 
 May yours fall soft and slow 
 As, shaken by a bee's low hum. 
 The rose-leaves waver, sweetly dumth 
 Down to their mates below ! 
 
 THE DISCOVEET. 
 
 I WATCHED a moorland torrent run 
 Down through the rift itself had made^ 
 Golden as honey in the sun. 
 Of darkest amber in the shade. 
 
 In this wild glen at last, methought. 
 The magic's secret I surprise ; 
 Here Celia's guardian fairy caught 
 The changeful splendors of her eyes. 
 
 All else grows tame, the sky's one hloB, 
 The one long languish of the rose. 
 But these, beyond prevision new. 
 Shall charm and startle to the close. 
 
 WITH A SEASHELL. 
 
 Shell, whose lips, than mine more coldj 
 Might with Dian's ear make bold. 
 Seek my Lady's ; if thou win 
 To that portal, shut from sin. 
 Where commissioned angels' swordf 
 Startle back unholy words. 
 Thou a miracle shalt see 
 Wrought by it and wrought in thee; 
 Thou, the dumb one, shalt recover 
 
476 
 
 THE SECRET. 
 
 Speech of poet, speech of lover. 
 If she deign to lift you there, 
 MiirmuT what I may not dare ; 
 In that archway, pearly-pink 
 As the Dawn's untrodden brink, 
 Murmur, " Excellent and good, 
 Beauty's beat in every mood. 
 Never common, never tame, 
 Changeful fair as windwaved flame " — 
 Kay, I maunder ; this she hears 
 ■Every day with mocking ears, 
 With a brow not sudden-stained 
 With the flush of bliss restrained, 
 With no tremor of the pulse 
 More than feels the dreaming dulse 
 In the midmost ocean's caves. 
 When a tempest heaps the waves. 
 Thou must woo her in a phrase 
 Mvstic as the opal's blaze, 
 W'hich pure maids alone can see 
 When their lovers constant be. 
 I with thee a secret share, 
 Half a hope, and half a prayer. 
 Though no reach of mortal skill 
 Erer told it all, or will ; 
 
 Say, " He bids me — nothing more- 
 Tell you what you guessed before 1 " 
 
 THE SECKET. 
 
 I HA.VE a fancy : how shall I bring it 
 Home to all mortals wherever they be ! 
 Say it or sing it 1 Shoe it or wing it. 
 So it may outrtm or ontfly Me, 
 Merest cocoon-web whence it broke free f 
 
 Only one secret can save from disaster, 
 Only one magic is that of the Master : 
 Set it to music ; give it a tune, — 
 Tune the brook sings you, tune the breeze 
 
 brings yon. 
 Tune the wild columbines nod to in June I 
 
 This is the secret : so simple, yon see 1 
 Easy as loving, easy as kissing. 
 Easy as — well, let me ponder — as miss- 
 ing. 
 Known, since the world was, by scarce 
 two or three. 
 
rV. HUMOR AND SATIRE. 
 
 FITZ ADAM'S STOET. 
 
 [The greater part of this poem wee written 
 many yeare ago as part of a larger one, to be 
 called "The Nooning," made up of tales in 
 Terse, some of them grave, some comic. It gives 
 me a sad pleasure to remember that 1 was en- 
 couraged m this project by my friend the late 
 Arthur Hugh Clough.] 
 
 This next whose fortune 't was a tale to 
 
 tell 
 Was one whom men, before they thought, 
 
 loved well, 
 And after thinking wondered why they 
 
 did, 
 Foi half he seemed to let them, half 
 
 forbid, 
 And wrapped him so in humors, sheath 
 
 on sheath, 
 TT was hard to guess the mellow soul 
 
 beneath ; 
 But, once divined, you took him to your 
 
 heart, 
 While he appeared to bear with you as 
 
 part 
 Of life's impertinence, and once a year 
 Betrayed his true self by a smile or tear, 
 Or rather something sweetly -shy and 
 
 loath, 
 Withdrawn ere fully shown, and mixed 
 
 of both. 
 A cynic 1 Not precisely : one who thrust 
 Against a heart too prone to love and 
 
 trust. 
 Who so despised false sentiment he 
 
 knew 
 Scarce in himself to part the false and 
 
 true, 
 And strove to hide, by rougheningo'er 
 
 the skin, 
 Those cobweb nerves he could not dull 
 
 within. 
 Gwtle by birth, but of a stem decayed. 
 
 He shunned life's rivalries and hated 
 
 trade ; 
 On a small patrimony and larger pride, 
 He lived uneaseful on the Other Side 
 (So he called Europe), only coming 
 
 West 
 To give his Old -World appetite new 
 
 zest; 
 Yet still the New World spooked it in 
 
 his veins, 
 A ghost he could not lay with all his 
 
 pains ; 
 For never Pilgrims' offshoot scapes 
 
 control 
 Of those old instincts that have shaped 
 
 his soul. 
 A radical in thought, he pufFed away 
 With shrewd contempt the dust of usage 
 
 gray. 
 Yet loathed democracy as one who saw. 
 In what he longed to love, some vulgar" 
 
 flaw. 
 And, shocked through all his delicate 
 
 reserves. 
 Remained a Tory by his taste and nerves. 
 His fancy's thrall, he drew all ergoes 
 
 thence. 
 And thought himself the type of common 
 
 sense ; 
 Misliking women, not from cross or 
 
 whim. 
 But that his mother shared too much in 
 
 him, 
 And he half felt that what in them was 
 
 grace 
 Made the unlncky weakness of his race. 
 What powers he had he hardly cared to 
 
 know. 
 But sauntered through the world aa 
 
 through a show ; 
 A critic fine in his haphazard way, 
 A sort of mild La Bruyfere on hajf-pajr. 
 For comic weaknesses be had an eye ' 
 
478 
 
 FITZ ADAM'S STOBT. 
 
 Keen as an acid for an alkali, 
 
 Yet you cuuld feel, through his sardonic 
 
 'tone, 
 He loved them all, unless they were his 
 
 own. 
 Ton might hare called him, with his 
 
 humorous twist, 
 A kind of human entomologist : 
 As these bring home, from everj walk 
 
 they take. 
 Their hat-crowns stnck with bugs of 
 
 curious make. 
 So he filled all the lining of his head 
 With characters impaled and ticketed. 
 And had a cabinet behind his eyes 
 For all they caught of mortal oddities. 
 He might have been a, poet — many 
 
 worse — 
 But that he had, or feigned, contempt of 
 
 verse ; 
 Called it tattooing language, and held 
 
 rhymes 
 The young world's lullaby of ruder 
 
 times. 
 Bitter in words, too indolent for gall. 
 He satirized himself the first of all. 
 In men and their affairs could find no law, 
 And was the ill logic that he thought he 
 
 saw. 
 
 Scratching a match to light his pipe 
 
 anew, 
 With eyes half shut some musing whiffs 
 
 he drew. 
 And thus began: "I give yon all my 
 
 word, 
 I think this mock-Decameron absurd ; 
 Boccaccio's garden ! how bring that to 
 
 pass 
 In our bleak clime save under double 
 
 glass ? 
 The moral east-wind of New England 
 
 life 
 Would snip its gay luxuriance like a 
 
 knife ; 
 Mile-deep the glaciers brooded here, 
 
 they say. 
 Through seons numb; we feel their 
 
 chill to-day. 
 These foreign plants are but. half-hardy 
 
 still, 
 Die on a south, and on a north wall 
 
 chill. 
 Had we stayed Puritans! Thei/ had 
 
 eome heat 
 (Though whence derived I have my own 
 
 conceit). 
 
 But yon have long ago laked np theii 
 
 fires; 
 Where they had faith, you 've ten sham< 
 
 Gothic spires. 
 Why more exotics? Try your native 
 
 vines, 
 And in some thousand years you may 
 
 have wines ; 
 Youi present grapes are harsh, all pulpg 
 
 and skins. 
 And want traditions of ancestral bins 
 That saved for evenings round the pol- 
 ished board 
 Old lavarfires, the snn-steeped hillside's 
 
 hoard. 
 Without a Past, you lack that southern 
 
 wall 
 O'er which the vines of Poesy should 
 
 crawl ; 
 Still they 're your only hope ; no mid- 
 night ou 
 Makes np for virtue wanting in the 
 
 soil; 
 Mannre them well and prune them ; 
 
 't won't be France, 
 Nor Spain, nor Italy, but there 's your 
 
 chance. 
 Yon have one story-teller worth a score 
 Of dead Boccaccios, — nay, add twenty 
 
 more, — 
 A hawthorn asking spring's most dainty 
 
 breath. 
 And him you 're freezing pretty well to 
 
 death. 
 However, since yon say so, I will tease 
 My memory to a story by degrees. 
 Though you will cry, 'Enough!' I'm 
 
 wellnigh sure, 
 Ere I have dreamed through half my 
 
 overture. 
 Stories were good for men who had no 
 
 books, 
 (Fortunate race!) and built their nests 
 
 like rooks 
 In lonely towers, to which the Jongleur 
 
 brought 
 His pedler'sbox of cheap and tawdry 
 
 thought, 
 With here and there a fancy fit to see 
 Wrought to quaint grace in golden 
 
 filigree, — 
 Some ring that with the Muse's finger 
 
 yet 
 Is warm, like Ancassin and Nicolete ; 
 The morning newspaper has spoilt hil 
 
 trade, 
 (For better or for worse, I leave uDsaid,) 
 
FITZ ADAM'S STORY. 
 
 479 
 
 And stories now, to suit a public nice, 
 Must be balf epigram, half pleasant vice. 
 
 "All tourists know Shebagog County : 
 
 there 
 The summer idlers take their yearly 
 
 stare, 
 Dresa to see Nature in a well-bred way. 
 As 't were Italian opera, or play. 
 Encore the sunrise (if they're out of 
 
 bed). 
 And pat the Mighty Mother on the 
 
 head: 
 These have I seen, — all things are good 
 
 to see, — 
 And wondered much at their compla- 
 cency. 
 This world's great show, that took in 
 
 getting-up 
 Millions of years, they finish ere they 
 
 sup; 
 Sights that God gleams through with 
 
 soul-tingling force 
 They glance approvingly as things of 
 
 course. 
 Say, • That 's a grand rock,' ' This a 
 
 pretty faU,' 
 Not thinking, ' Are we worthy ? ' What 
 
 ifaU 
 The scornful landscape should turn 
 
 round and say, 
 
 I often wonder what the Mountain 
 
 'This is a fool, and that a popinjay ' 1 
 
 ' '■ ■ " the " 
 
 thinks 
 
 Of French boots creaking o'er his breath- 
 less brinks. 
 
 Or how the Sun would scare the chatter- 
 ing crowd. 
 
 If some fine day he chanced to think 
 aloud. 
 
 I, who love Nature much as sinners can, 
 
 Love her where she most grandeur 
 shows, — in man : 
 
 Here find I mountain, forest, cloud, and 
 sun, 
 
 Eiver and sea, and glows when day is 
 done ; 
 
 Nay, where she makes grotesques, and 
 moulds in jest 
 
 The clown's cheap clay, I find unfading 
 zest. 
 
 The natural instincts year by year 
 retire, 
 
 As deer shrink northward from the set- 
 tler's fire. 
 
 And he who loves the wild game-flavor 
 more 
 
 Than city-feasts, where every man 's a 
 bore 
 
 To every other man, must seek it where 
 
 The steamer's throb and railway's iron 
 blare 
 
 Have not yet startled with their punctual 
 stir 
 
 The shy, wood-wandering brood of Char- 
 acter. 
 
 " There is a village, once the county 
 
 town, 
 Through which the weekly mail rolled 
 
 dustily down, 
 Where the courts sat, it may be, twice a 
 
 year. 
 And the one tavern reeked with rustic 
 
 cheer ; 
 Cheeshogquesnmscot erst, now Jethro 
 
 bight, 
 Ked-man and pale-face bore it equal 
 
 spite. 
 The railway ruined it, the natives say. 
 That passed unwisely fifteen miles away. 
 And made a drain to which, with steady 
 
 ooze, 
 Filtered away law, stage-coach, trade, 
 
 and news. 
 The railway saved it ; so at least think 
 
 those 
 Who love old ways, old houses, old 
 
 repose. 
 Of course the Tavern stayed : its genial 
 
 host 
 Thought not of flitting more than did. 
 
 the post 
 On which high-hung the fading sign< 
 
 board creaks, 
 Inscribed, 'The Eagle Inn, by Ezra 
 
 Weeks." 
 
 " If in life's journey you should ever 
 
 find 
 An inn medicinal for body and mind, 
 'T is sure to be some drowsy-looking 
 
 house 
 Whose easy landlord lias a bustling 
 
 spouse : 
 He, if he like you, will not long forego 
 Some bottle deep in cobwebbed dust laid 
 
 low, 
 That, since the War we used to call the 
 
 ' Last,' 
 Has dozed and held its lang-syne mem- 
 ories fast ; 
 From him exhales that Indian-summer 
 
 aiz 
 
480 
 
 FITZ ADAM'S STOBT. 
 
 Of hazy, lazy welcome everywhere, 
 While with her toil the napery is white, 
 The china dustless, the keen knife- 
 blades bright. 
 Bait dry as sand, and bread that seems 
 
 as though 
 'T were rather sea-foam baked than 
 vulgar dough. 
 
 "In our swift country, houses trim 
 
 and white 
 Are pitched like tents, the lodging of a 
 
 night; 
 Each on its bank of baked turf mounted 
 
 high 
 Perches impatient o er the roadside dry, 
 While the wronged landscape coldly 
 
 stands aloof, 
 Befusing friendship with the upstart 
 
 roof. 
 Kot so the Eagle ; on a grass - green 
 
 swell 
 That toward the south with sweet con- 
 cessions fell 
 It dwelt retired, and half had grown to 
 
 be 
 As aboriginal as rock or tree. 
 It nestled close to earth, and seemed to 
 
 brood 
 O'er homely thoughts in a half-conscious 
 
 mood, 
 As by the peat that rather fades than 
 
 burns 
 The smouldering grandam nods and 
 
 knits by turns, 
 Happy, although her newest news were 
 
 old 
 Ere the first hostile dram at Concord 
 
 rolled. 
 If paint it e'er had known, it knew no 
 
 more 
 Than yellow lichens spattered thickly 
 
 o'er 
 That soft lead-gray, less dark beneath 
 
 the eares 
 Which the slow brush of wind and 
 
 weather leaves. 
 The ample roof sloped backward to the 
 
 ground. 
 And vassal lean-tos gathered thickly 
 
 round, 
 Patched on, as sire or son had felt the 
 
 need, 
 Like chance growths sprouting from the 
 
 old roof's seed, 
 Just as about a yellow-pine-tree spring 
 Its lOUgh-barked darlings in a filial ting. 
 
 But the great chimney was the central 
 thought 
 
 Whose gravitation through the cluster 
 wrought ; 
 
 For 't is not styles far - fetched from 
 Greece or Borne, 
 
 But just the Fireside, that can make a 
 home; 
 
 None of your spindling things of modem 
 style, 
 
 Like pins stuck through to stay the card- 
 built pile. 
 
 It rose broad-shouldered, kindly, de- 
 bonair. 
 
 Its warm breath whitening in the Octo- 
 ber air. 
 
 While on its front a heart in oulline 
 showed 
 
 The place it filled in that serene abode. 
 
 " When first I chanced the Eagle to 
 
 explore, 
 Ezra sat listless by the open door ; 
 One chair careened him at an angle 
 
 meet. 
 Another nursed his hugely -slippered 
 
 feet; 
 Upon a third reposed a shirt - sleeved 
 
 arm. 
 And the whole man diffused tobacco's 
 
 charm. 
 ' Are yon the landlord 1 ' ' Wahl, I guess 
 
 Ibe,' 
 Watching the smoke, he answered lei- 
 surely. 
 lie was a stoutish man, and through the 
 
 breast 
 Of his loose shirt there showed a brambly 
 
 chest ; 
 Streaked redly as a wind-foreboding 
 
 morn. 
 His tanned cheeks curved to templei 
 
 closely shorn ; 
 Clean-shaved he was, save where a hedge 
 
 of gray 
 Upon his brawny throat leaned every 
 
 way 
 About an Adam's-apple, that beneath 
 Bulged like a boulder from a brambly 
 
 heath. 
 The Western World's true child and 
 
 nursling he, 
 Equipt with aptitudes enough for three : 
 No eye like his to value horse or cow, 
 Or gauge the contents of a stack of 
 
 mow; 
 He could foretell the weather at a woic^ 
 
niZ ADAM\S STORY. 
 
 481 
 
 He knew the haunt of every beast aud 
 
 bird, 
 Or where a two-pound trout was sure 
 
 to lie, 
 Waiting the flutter of his home-made 
 
 fly;. 
 
 Nay, once in autumns five, ho had the 
 
 luck 
 To drop at fair-play range a ten-tined 
 
 buck ; 
 Of sportsmen true he favored every 
 
 whim. 
 But never cockney found a guide in 
 
 him; 
 A. natural man, with all his instincts 
 
 fresh, 
 Not buzzing helpless in Reflection's 
 
 mesh, 
 Pirm on its feet stood his broad-shoul- 
 dered mind. 
 As bluffly bouest as a northwest wind ; 
 Hard - headed and soft - hearted, you 'd 
 
 scarce meet 
 A kindlier mixture of the shrewd and 
 
 sweet ; 
 Generous by birth, and ill at saying 
 
 'No,' 
 Yet in a bargain he was all men's foe, 
 Would yield no inch of vantage iu a 
 
 trade. 
 And give away ere nightfall all he made. 
 
 " ' Can I have lodging here ? ' once 
 
 more I said. 
 He blew a whiff, and, leaning back his 
 
 head, 
 'Tou come a piece through Bailey's 
 
 woods, I s'pose, 
 Acrost a bridge where a big swamp-oak 
 
 grows ? 
 It don't grow, neither ; it 's ben dead ten 
 
 year, 
 Nor th' ain't a livin' creetur, fur nor 
 
 near. 
 Can tell wut killed it ; but I some rais- 
 
 donbt 
 'T was borers, there 'a sech heaps on 'em 
 
 about. 
 Yon did n' chance to run ag'inst my son, 
 A long, slab-sided youngster with a 
 
 gun? 
 He 'd oughto ben back more 'n an hour 
 
 ago. 
 An' brought some birds to dress for sup- 
 per — sho ! 
 There be comes now. 'Say, Obed. wut 
 
 ye got f" 
 
 (lie '11 hev some upland plover like as 
 
 not.) 
 Wal, them 's real nice uns, an 'U eat 
 
 Al, 
 Ef I can stop their bein' over-done ; 
 Nothin' riles me (I pledge my fastin' 
 
 word) 
 Like cookin' out the natur' of a bird ; 
 (Ubed, you pick 'em out o' sight an' 
 
 sound. 
 Your ma'am don't love no feathers 
 
 cluttrin' round ;) 
 
 vith the 
 my idee.' 
 
 Jes' scare 'em wish the coals, — thet 's 
 
 Then, turning suddenly about on me, 
 ' Wal, Square, I guess so. Callilate to 
 
 stay? 
 I '11 ask Mis' Weeks ; 'bout thet it 'a hern 
 
 to say.' 
 
 "Well, there I lingered all October 
 
 through. 
 In that sweet atmosphere of hazy blue. 
 So leisurely, so soothing, so forgiving, 
 That sometimes makes New England fit 
 
 for living. 
 I watched the landscape, erst so granite 
 
 glum. 
 Bloom like the south side of a ripening 
 
 plum. 
 And each rock -maple on the hillside 
 
 make 
 H!s ten days' sunset doubled in the lake ; 
 The very stone walls draggling up the 
 
 hills 
 Seemed touched, and wavered in their 
 
 roundhead wills. 
 Ah ! there 's a deal of sugar in the sun I 
 Tap me in Indian summer, I should run 
 A juice to make rock-candy of, — but 
 
 then 
 We get such weather scarce one year in 
 
 ten. 
 
 " There was a parlor in the house, a 
 
 room 
 To make you shudder with its prudish 
 
 gloom. 
 The furniture stood round with such an 
 
 air, 
 There seemed an old maid's ghost in 
 
 every chair 
 Which looked as it had scuttled to ite 
 
 place 
 And pulled extempore a Sunday facev 
 Too smugly proper for a world of sin, 
 Like boys on whom the minister comes in< 
 
482 
 
 PITZ ADAM S STOET. 
 
 The table, fronting you with icy stare, 
 
 Strove to louk witless tliat its legs were 
 bare, 
 
 While the black sofa with its horse-hair 
 pall 
 
 Gloomed like a bier for Comfort's fu- 
 neral. 
 
 Each piece appeared to do its chilly best 
 
 To seem an utter stranger to tlie rest, 
 
 As if acquaintanceship were deadly sin, 
 
 Like Britons meeting; in a foreign inn. 
 
 Two portraits graced the viM in grim- 
 mest truth. 
 
 Mister and Mistress W. in tlieir youth, — 
 
 Kew England youth, that seems a sort 
 of pill, 
 
 Half wish-X-dared, half Edwards on the 
 Will, 
 
 Bitter to swallow, and which leaves, a 
 trace 
 
 Of Calvinistic cholic on the face. 
 
 Between them, o'er the mantel, hung in 
 state 
 
 Solomon's temple, done in copperplate ; 
 
 Invention pure, but meant, we may pre- 
 sume. 
 
 To give some Scripture sanction to the 
 room. 
 
 Facing this last, two samplers you might 
 see. 
 
 Each, with its urn and stiffly-weepmg 
 tree. 
 
 Devoted to some memory long ago 
 
 More faded than their lines o£ worsted 
 woe ; 
 
 Cut paper decked their frames against 
 the flies. 
 
 Though none e'er dared an entrance who 
 were wise, 
 
 And bushed asparagus in fading preen 
 
 Added its shiver to the franklin clean. 
 
 " When first arrived, I chilled a half- 
 hour there, 
 
 Nor dared deflower with use a single 
 chair; 
 
 I caught no cold, yet flying pains could 
 find 
 
 For weeks in me, — a rheumatism of 
 mind. 
 
 One thing alone imprisoned there had 
 power 
 
 To bold me in the place that long half- 
 hour : 
 
 A scutcheon this, a helm-surmounted 
 shield, 
 
 Three griffins argent on a sable field ; 
 
 A relic of the shipwrecked past was here, 
 And Ezra held some Old- World lumbet 
 
 dear. 
 Nay, do not smile; I love this kind of 
 
 thing. 
 These cooped traditions with a broken 
 
 wing. 
 This freehold nook in Fancy's pipe* 
 
 blown ball. 
 This less than nothing that is more than 
 
 all! 
 Have I not seen sweet natures kept 
 
 alive 
 Amid the humdrum of your business 
 
 hive. 
 Undowered spinsters shielded from all 
 
 harms, 
 By airy incomes from a coat of arms 1 " 
 
 He pansed a moment, and bis features 
 
 took 
 The flitting sweetness of that inward 
 
 look 
 I hinted at before ; but, scarcely seen. 
 It shrank for shelter 'ueath his bardei 
 
 mien, 
 And, rapping his black pipe of ashes 
 
 clear. 
 He went on with a seU-deriSive sneer : 
 "No doubt we make a part of God's 
 
 design. 
 And break the forest -path for feet 
 
 divine ; 
 To furnish foothold for this grand pre- 
 vision 
 Is good, and yet — to be the mere tran- 
 sition, 
 That, you will say, is also good, thongh I 
 Scarce like to feed the ogre By-and-by. 
 Raw edges rasp my nerves ; my taste is 
 
 wooed 
 By things that are, not going ' to hi, 
 
 good, 
 Though were I what I dreamed two 
 
 lustres gone, 
 I 'd stay to help the Consummation on. 
 Whether a new Eome than the old more 
 
 fair. 
 Or a deadflat of rascal-ruled despair; 
 Bat my skull somehow never closed the 
 
 suture 
 That seem.s to knit yours firmly with the 
 
 future. 
 So you 'U excuse me if I 'm sometimea 
 
 fain 
 To tie the past's warm nightcap o'er mj 
 
 brain; 
 
FITZ ADAM'S STORY. 
 
 483 
 
 I 'm quite aware 't is not in fashion 
 
 here, 
 But ,then your northeast winds are so 
 
 severe ! 
 
 " But to my story : though 't is truly 
 naught 
 
 But a few hints in Memory's sketchbook 
 caught, 
 
 And which may claim a value on the 
 score 
 
 Of calling back some scenery now no 
 more. 
 
 Shall I confess ? The tavern's only 
 Lar 
 
 Seemed (be not shocked !) its homely- 
 featured bar. 
 
 Here dozed a fire of beechen logs, that 
 bred 
 
 Strange fancies in its embers golden-red. 
 
 And nursed the loggerhead whose hissing 
 dip. 
 
 Timed by nice instinct, creamed the mug 
 of flip 
 
 That made from mouth to mouth its 
 genial round, 
 
 Nor left one nature wholly winter- 
 bound ; 
 
 Hence dropt the tinkling coal all mellow- 
 ripe 
 
 For Uncle Reuben's talk -extinguished 
 pipe ; 
 
 Hence rayed the heat, as from an m- 
 door sun. 
 
 That wooed forth many a shoot of rustic 
 fun. 
 
 Here Ezra ruled as king by right 
 divine ; 
 
 No other face had such a wholesome shine. 
 
 No laugh like his so full of honest cheer ; 
 
 Above the rest it crowed like Chanti- 
 cleer. 
 
 " In this one room his dame yon never 
 
 saw. 
 Where reigned by custom old a Salic 
 
 law; 
 Here coatless lolled he on his throne of 
 
 oak, 
 And every tongue paused midway if he 
 
 spoke. 
 Due mirth he loved, yet was his sway 
 
 severe : 
 No blear-eyed driveller got his stagger 
 
 here; 
 'Measure was happiness; who wanted 
 
 more. 
 
 Must buy his ruin at the Deacon's store ; • 
 None but his lodgers after ten coald 
 
 stay, 
 Nor after nine on eves of Sabbath-day. 
 He hud his favorites and his pensioners. 
 The same that gypsy Nature owns iot 
 
 hers : 
 Loose-ended sonls, whose skills brmg 
 
 scanty gold, 
 And whom the poor-house catches when 
 
 they 're old : 
 Rude country-minstrels, men who doctor 
 
 kine. 
 Or graft, and, out of scions ten, save nine ; 
 Creatures of genius they, but never 
 
 meant 
 To keep step with the civic regiment. 
 These Ezra welcomed, feeling in hia 
 
 mind 
 Perhaps some motions of the vagrant 
 
 kind; 
 These paid no money, yet for them he 
 
 drew 
 Special Jamaica from a tap they knew, 
 And, for their feelings, chalked behind 
 
 the door 
 With solemn face a visionary score. 
 This thawed to life in Uncle Reuben's 
 
 throat 
 A torpid shoal of jest and anecdote. 
 Like those queer fish that doze the 
 
 droughts away. 
 And wait for moisture, wrapt in sun. 
 
 baked clay ; 
 This warmed the one-eyed fiddler to his 
 
 task. 
 Perched in the corner on an empty cask, 
 By whose shrill art rapt suddenly, some 
 
 boor 
 Rattled a double-shuffle on the floor ; 
 ' Hull's Victory ' was, indeed, the tai- 
 
 vorite air. 
 Though ' Yankee Doodle ' claimed its 
 
 proper share. 
 
 " 'T was there I caught from Uncle 
 
 Reuben's lips, 
 Li dribbling monologue 'twixt whiffs 
 
 and sips. 
 The story I so long have tried to tell ; 
 The humor coarse, the persons common, 
 
 — well. 
 From Nature only do 1 love to paint. 
 Whether she send a satyr or a saint ; 
 To me Sincerity 's the one thing good, 
 Soiled though she be and lost to mak 
 
 denhood. 
 
484 
 
 FITZ ADAM'S STORY. 
 
 Quompegan is a town some ten miles 
 south 
 
 rrom Jethro, at Nagumscot river-mouth, 
 
 A seaport town, and makes its title good 
 
 With lumber and dried fish and eastern 
 wood. 
 
 Here Deacon Bitters dwelt and kept the 
 Store, 
 
 The richest man for many a mile of 
 shore ; 
 
 In little less than everything dealt he, 
 
 From meeting-houses to a chest of tea ; 
 
 So dextrous therewithal a flint to skin. 
 
 He could make profit on a single pin ; 
 
 In business strict, to bring the balance 
 true 
 
 He had been known to bite a fig in two, 
 
 And change a board-nail fur a sliingle- 
 nail. 
 
 All that he had he ready held for sale, 
 
 His house, his tomb, whate'er the law al- 
 lows. 
 
 And he had gladly parted with his spouse. 
 
 His one ambition still to get and get. 
 
 He would arrest your very ghost for debt. 
 
 His store looked righteous, should the 
 Parson come, 
 
 But in a dark back-room he peddled rum, 
 
 And eased Ma'am Conscience, if she e'er 
 would scold. 
 
 By christening it with water ere he sold. 
 
 A small, dry man he was, who wore a 
 queue, 
 
 And one white neckcloth all the week- 
 days through, — 
 
 On Monday white, by Saturday as dun 
 
 As that worn homeward by the prodigal 
 son. 
 
 His frosted earlocks, striped with foxy 
 brown, 
 
 Were braided up to hide a desert crown ; 
 
 His coat was brownish, black perhaps of 
 yore ; 
 
 In Bummer-time a banyan loose ho wore ; 
 
 His trousers short, through many a sea- 
 son true, 
 
 Made no pretence to hide his stockings 
 blue; 
 
 A waistcoat buff his chief adornment was, 
 
 Its porcelain buttons rimmed with dusky 
 brass. 
 
 A deacon he, you saw it in each limb. 
 
 And well he knew to deacon-off a hymn. 
 
 Or lead the choir through all its wander- 
 ing woes 
 
 With voice that gathered unction in his 
 nose. 
 
 Wherein a constant snuffle yon might 
 
 hear. 
 As if with him 'twere winter all the 
 
 year. 
 At pew-head sat he with decorous pains, 
 In sermon-time could foot his weekly 
 
 gains. 
 Or, with closed eyes and heaven-ab- 
 stracted air, 
 Could plan a new investment in long- 
 prayer. 
 A pious man, and thrifty too, he made 
 The psalms and prophets partners in his 
 
 trade, < 
 
 And in his orthodoxy straitened more 
 As it enlarged the business at his store - 
 He honored Moses, but, when gain he 
 
 planned. 
 Had his own notion of the Promised 
 Land. 
 
 " Soon as the winter made the sledding 
 good. 
 
 From far around the farmers hauled him 
 wood. 
 
 For all the trade had gathered 'neb.th his 
 thumb. 
 
 He paid in groceries and Kew England 
 rum. 
 
 Making two profits with a conscience 
 clear, — 
 
 Cheap all he bought, and all he paid with 
 dear. 
 
 With his own mete-wand measuring ev- 
 ery load. 
 
 Each somehow had diminished on the 
 road; 
 
 An honest cord in Jethro still would fail 
 
 By a good foot upon the Deacon's scale. 
 
 And, more to abate the price, his gimlet 
 eye 
 
 Wonld pierce to cat-sticks that none else 
 could spy ; 
 
 Tet none dared grumble, for no farmer 
 yet 
 
 But New Year found him in the Dea- 
 con's debt. 
 
 " While the first snow was mealy un- 
 der feet, ( 
 
 A team drawled creaking doivn Quom< 
 pegan street. 
 
 Two cords of oak weighed down tha 
 grinding sled. 
 
 And cornstalk fodder rustled overhead ; 
 
 The oxen's mnzzles, as they shouldered 
 through. 
 
FiTZ Adam's stoky. 
 
 485 
 
 Were silTer-fiinged ; the driver's own 
 
 was blue 
 As the coarse frock that swung below 
 
 his knee. 
 Behind his load for shelter waded he ; 
 His mittened hands now on his chest he 
 
 beat, 
 Now stamped the stiffened cowhides of 
 
 his feet, 
 Hushed as a ghost's ; his armpit scarce 
 
 could hold 
 The walnut whipstock slippery-bright 
 
 with cold. 
 What wonder if, the tavern as he past, 
 He looked and longed, and stayed his 
 
 beasts at last. 
 Who patient stood and veiled themselves 
 
 in steam 
 While he explored the bar-room's ruddy 
 
 gleam ? 
 
 " Before the fire, in want of thought 
 profound, 
 
 There sat a brother-townsman weather- 
 bound ■ 
 
 A sturdy churl, crisp-headed, bristly- 
 eared. 
 
 Bed as a pepper; 'twixt coarse brows 
 and beard 
 
 His eyes lay ambushed, on the watch for 
 fools. 
 
 Clear, gray, and glittering like two bay- 
 edged pools ; 
 
 A shifty creature, with a turn for fun, 
 
 Could swap a poor horse for a better 
 one, — 
 
 He 'd a high-stepper always in his stall ; 
 
 liiked far and near, and dreaded there-, 
 withal. 
 
 To him the in-comer, ' Perez, how d' ye 
 do?' 
 
 'Jest as I'm mind to, Obed; how do 
 you?' 
 
 Then, his eyes twinkling such swift 
 gleams as run 
 
 Along the levelled barrel of a gun 
 
 Brought to his shoulder by a man you 
 know 
 
 Will bring his game down, he continued, 
 'So, 
 
 I s'pose yon 're haulin' wood ? But 
 you 're too late ; 
 
 The Deacon 's oft ; Old Splitfoot could n't 
 wait; 
 
 He made a bee-line las' night in the storm 
 
 Id where he won't need wood to keep 
 him warm. 
 
 'Fore this he 'a treasorer of a fund to train 
 Young imps as missionaries; hopes to 
 
 gain 
 That way a contract that he has in view 
 For fireproof pitchforks of a pattern new. 
 It must have tickled him, aU drawbacks 
 
 weighed. 
 To think he stuck the Old One in a 
 
 trade ; 
 His soul, to start with, was n't worth a 
 
 carrot, 
 And all he 'd left 'ould hardly serve to 
 
 swear at.' 
 
 "By this time Obed had his wits 
 
 thawed out. 
 And, looking at the other half in doubt, 
 Took off his fox-skin cap to scratch his 
 
 head. 
 Donned it again, and drawled forth, 
 
 ' Mean he 's dead ? ' 
 ' Jesso ; he 's dead and t' other d that 
 
 foUers 
 With folks that never love a thing but 
 
 dollars. 
 He pulled up stakes last evening, fair and 
 
 square. 
 And ever since there 's been a row Down 
 
 There. 
 The minute the old chap arrived, yon see. 
 Comes the Boss-devil to him, and says he, 
 " What are you good at ? Little enough, 
 
 1 fear ; 
 We callilate to make folks useful here." 
 " Well," says old Bitters, " I expect I 
 
 can 
 Scale a fair load of wood with e'er a 
 
 man." 
 " Wood we don't deal in ; but perhaps 
 
 you '11 suit. 
 Because we buy our brimstone by the 
 
 foot: 
 Here, take this measurin' rod, as smooth 
 
 as sin, 
 And keep a reckonin' of what loads 
 
 comes in. 
 You '11 not want business, for we need a 
 
 lot 
 To keep the Yankees that yon send us 
 
 hot; 
 At firin' up they 're barely half as spry 
 As Spaniards or Italians, though they 're 
 
 dry; 
 At first we have to let the draught on 
 
 stronger. 
 But, heat 'em through, they seem to hold 
 
 it longer." 
 
436 
 
 FITZ ADAM'S STORY. 
 
 *"■ Bitters he took the rod, and pretty 
 
 soon 
 A teanist.er comes, whistling an ex-psa.Im 
 
 tune. 
 A likelier chap you would n't ask to see, 
 No different, but his limp, from you or 
 
 me' — 
 * No different, Perez I Don't your mem- 
 ory fail 1 
 Why, where in thunder was his horns 
 
 and tail ? ' 
 ' They 're only worn by some old-fash- 
 ioned pokes ; 
 They mostly aim at looking just like 
 
 folks. 
 Sech things are scarce as queues and top- 
 boots here ; 
 'T would spoil their usefulness to look 
 
 too queer. 
 Ef you could always know 'em when 
 
 they come, 
 They 'd get no purchase on you : now be 
 
 mum. 
 On come the teamster, smart as Davy 
 
 Crockelt, 
 Jinglin' the red- hot coppers in his pocket, 
 And clost behind, ('t was gold-dust, you 'd 
 
 ha' sworn,) 
 A load of sulphur yallower 'n seed-corn ; 
 To see it wasted as it is Down There 
 Would make a Friction-Match Co. tear 
 
 its hair I 
 " Hold on ! " says Bitters, " stop right 
 
 where you be ; 
 Tou can't go in athout a pass from me." 
 "All right," says t' other, "only step 
 
 round smart ; 
 I must be home by noon-time with the 
 
 cart." 
 Bitters goes round it sharp-eyed as a rat, 
 Then with a scrap of paper on his hat 
 Pretends to cipher. " By the public staff, 
 That load scarce rises twelve foot and a 
 
 half." 
 " There 's fourteen foot and over," says 
 
 the driver, 
 " Worth twenty dollars, ef it 's worth a 
 
 stiver ; 
 Good fourth-proof brimstone, that'll 
 
 make 'cm squirm, — 
 I leave it to the Headman of the Firm ; 
 After we masure it, we always lay 
 Some on to allow for settlin' by the way. 
 Imp and full-grown, I've carted sulphur 
 
 here. 
 And gi'n fair satisfaction, thirty year." 
 With that they fell to qnarrellin' so load 
 
 That in five minutes ihey had drawed a 
 
 crowd. 
 And afore long the Boss, who heard the 
 
 row. 
 Comes elbowin' in with " What 's to pay 
 
 here now ? " 
 Both parties heard, the measurin'-rod he 
 
 takes. 
 And of the load a careful survey makes. 
 " Sence I have bossed the business here," 
 
 says he, 
 " No fairer load was ever seen by me." 
 Then, turnin' to the Deacon, " You mean 
 
 cus. 
 None of your old Qnompegan tricks with 
 
 us! 
 They won't do here : we 're plain old- 
 fashioned folks. 
 And don't quite understand that kind o' 
 
 jokes. 
 I know this teamster, and bis pa afore 
 
 him, 
 And the hard-working Mrs. D. that bore 
 
 him ; 
 He would n't soil his conscience with a 
 
 lie. 
 Though he might get the custom-house 
 
 thereby. 
 Here, constable, take Bitters by the 
 
 queue. 
 And clap him into furnace ninety-two, 
 And try this brimstone on him ; if he 's 
 
 bright. 
 He '11 find the masure honest afore night. 
 He isn't worth his fuil, and I'll bet 
 The parish oven has to take him yet ! " ' 
 
 " This is my tale, heard twenty yean 
 
 ago 
 From Uncle Beuben, as the logs burned 
 
 low, 
 Touching the walls and ceiling with that 
 
 bloom 
 That makes a rose's calyx of a room. 
 I could not give his language, where- 
 
 thronghi ran 
 The gamy flavor of the bookless man 
 Who shapes a word before the fancy 
 
 cools, 
 As lonely Crusoe improvised his tools. 
 I liked the tale, — 't was like so many 
 
 told 
 By Eutebpuf and his brother Tronveres 
 
 bold; 
 Nor were the hearers much unlike to 
 
 theirs, 
 Men unsophifticate, rude-nerved as beats. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF DIDACTIC POETRY. 
 
 487 
 
 Ezra is gone and his large-hearted kind, 
 
 The landloids of the hospitable mind ; 
 
 Good Warriuer of Spriugfield was the 
 last; 
 
 An inn is now a vision of the past ; 
 
 One yet-surviving host my mind re- 
 calls, — 
 
 You'll find him iC you go to Trenton 
 Falls." 
 
 THE OEIGIN OF DIDACTIC POETRY. 
 
 When wise Minerva still was young 
 
 And just the least romantic, 
 Soon after from Jove's head she flung 
 
 That preternatural antic, 
 'T is said, to keep from idleness 
 
 Or flirting, those twin curses. 
 She spent her leisure, more or less, 
 
 In writing po— — , no, verses. 
 
 How nice they were ! to rhyme with yar 
 
 A kind star did not tarry ; 
 The metre, too, was regular 
 
 As schoolboy's dot and carry ; 
 And full they were of pious plums. 
 
 So extra-super-moral, — 
 i"or sucking Virtue's teuder gums 
 
 Most tooth-enticing coral. 
 
 A clean, fair copy she prepares, 
 
 Makes sure of moods and tenses, 
 With her own hand, — for prudence 
 spares 
 
 A man- (or woman-) -nensis; 
 Complete, and tied witli ribbons proud. 
 
 She hinted soon how cosy a 
 Treat it would be to read thr-m loud 
 
 After next day's Ambrosia. 
 
 The Gnds thontrht not it would amuse 
 
 So much as Homer's Odvssees, 
 But could not very well refuse 
 
 The properest of Goddesses : 
 So all sat round in attitudes 
 
 Of various dejec'ion, 
 As with a hem .' the queen of prudes 
 
 Began her grave prelection. 
 
 At the first pause Zeus said, "Well 
 sung ! — 
 
 I mean — ask Phoebus, — he. knows." 
 Bays Phoebus, " Zounds 1 a wolf 's among 
 
 Admetus'a merinos 1 
 Pine I very fine 1 but I mnst go ; 
 
 They stand in need of me there ; 
 
 Excuse me I " snatched his stick, and ao 
 Plunged down the gladdened ether. 
 
 With the next gap. Mars said, " For me 
 
 Don't wait, — naught could be finer. 
 Bat I 'm engaged at half past three, — 
 
 A fight in Asia Minor ! " 
 Then Venus lisped, " I 'm sorely tried. 
 
 These duty-calls are vip'rous ; ' 
 
 But I must go ; I have a bride 
 
 To see about in Cyprus." 
 
 Then Bacchus, — "I must say good bye^ 
 
 Although my peace it jeopards ; 
 I meet a man at four, to try 
 
 A well-broke pair of leopards." 
 His words woke Hermes. "Ah ! " be said, 
 
 " I so love moral theses ! " 
 Then winked at Hebe, who turned red, 
 
 And smoothed her apron's creases. 
 
 Jnst then Zeus snored, — the Eagle drew 
 
 His head the wing from under ; 
 Zens snored, — o'er startled Greece there 
 flew 
 
 The many-volumed thunder. 
 Some augurs counted nine, some, ten ; 
 
 Some said 't was war, some, famine. 
 And all, that other-minded men 
 
 Would get a precious . 
 
 Proud Pallas sighed, " It will not do ; 
 
 Affainst the Muse I 've sinned, oh ! " 
 And her torn rhymes sent flying through 
 
 Olympus's back window. 
 Then, packing up a peplus clean. 
 
 She took the shortest path thence, 
 And opened, with a mind serene, 
 
 A Sunday-school in Athens. 
 
 The verses ? Some in ocean swilled. 
 
 Killed every fish that bit to 'em ; 
 Some Galen caught, and, when distilled 
 
 Found morphine the residuum ; 
 But some that rotted on the earth 
 
 Sprang up again in copies. 
 And gave two strong narcotics birth. 
 
 Didactic verse and poppies. 
 
 Years after, when a poet asked 
 
 The Goddess's opinion, 
 As one whose soul its wings had tasked 
 
 In Art's clear-aired dominion, 
 " Discriminate," she said, " betimes ; 
 
 The Muse is unforgiving ; 
 Put all your beauty in your rhymes 
 
 Yoar morals in your living.' 
 
488 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN. — CREDIDIMUS JOVEM REGNABE. 
 
 TUE FLTING DUTCHMAN. 
 
 Don't believe in the Flying Dutchman 1 
 I 've known the fellow for years ; 
 
 My button I 've wrenched from his clutch, 
 man : 
 I shudder whenever he nears 1 
 
 He 's a Rip van Winkle akipper, 
 A wandering Jew of the sea, 
 
 Who sails hia bedevilled old clipper 
 In the wind's eye, straight as a bee. 
 
 Back topsails ! yon can't escape him ; 
 
 The man-ropes stretch with his weight. 
 And the queerest old toggeries drape 
 him, 
 The Lord knows how long out of 
 dace! 
 
 Like a, long-disembodied idea, 
 (A kind of ghost plentiful now,) 
 
 He stands there ; you fancy you see a 
 Coeval of Teniers or Douw. 
 
 He greets yon ; would have yon take let- 
 ters: 
 Ton scan the addresses with dread. 
 While he mutters his dormers and wet- 
 ters, — 
 They 're all from the dead to the dead ! 
 
 Ton seem taking time for reflection. 
 But the heart iills your throat with a 
 jam, 
 
 As you spell in each faded direction 
 An ominous ending in dam. 
 
 Am I tagging my rhymes to a legend 1 
 That were changing green turtle to 
 mock: 
 No, thank you ! I 've found out which 
 wedge-end 
 Is meant for the head of a block. 
 
 The fellow I have in ray mind's eye 
 Plays the old Skipper's part here on 
 shore. 
 
 And Slicks like a burr, till he finds I 
 Have got just the gauge of his bore. 
 
 This postman 'twixt one ghost and t' 
 other. 
 With last dates that smell of the 
 mould, 
 I have met him (0 man and brother, 
 Forgive me !) in azure and gold. 
 
 In the pnlpit I 've known of his preacb 
 ing, 
 Out of hearing behind the time. 
 Some statement of Balaam's impeach* 
 ing, 
 Giving Ere a due sense of her crime. 
 
 I have seen him some poor ancient thrash, 
 ing 
 Into something (God save us !) more 
 dry, 
 With the Water of Lite itself washing 
 The life out of earth, sea, and sky. 
 
 dread fellow-mortal, get newer 
 Despatches to carry, or none ! 
 
 We 're as quick as the Greek and the Jew 
 were 
 At knowing a loaf from a stone. 
 
 Till the couriers of God fail in duty. 
 We sha'n't ask a mummy for news. 
 
 Nor sate the soul's hunger for beauty 
 With your drawings from casts of a 
 Muse. 
 
 CBEDIDIMXTS JOVEM BEGNABK. 
 
 O DATS endeared to every Muse, 
 When nobody had any Views, 
 Nor, while the cloudscape of his mind 
 By every breeze was new designed. 
 Insisted all the world should see 
 Camels or whales where none there be ! 
 
 happy days, when men received 
 From sire to son what all believed. 
 And left the other world in bliss. 
 Too bnsy with bedevilling this 1 
 
 Beset by doubts of every breed 
 In the last bastion of my creed, 
 With shot and shell for Sabbath-chime, 
 
 1 watch the storming-party climb. 
 Panting (their prey in easy reach), 
 
 To pour triumphant through the breach 
 In walls that shed like snowflakes tons 
 Of missiles from old-fashioned guns. 
 But crumble 'neath the storm that pours 
 All day and night from bigger bores. 
 There, as I hopeless watch and wait 
 The last life-crushing coil of Fate, 
 Despair finds solace in the praise 
 Of those serene dawn-rosy days 
 F.re microscopes had made us heirs 
 To large estates of doubts and snareij. 
 By proving that the title-deeds. 
 
CKEDIDIMUS JOVEM EEGNARE. 
 
 489 
 
 Once allsnfficient for men 'a needs, 
 Are palimpsests that scarce disguise 
 The tracings of still earlier lies, 
 Themselves as surely written o'er 
 An older fib erased before. 
 
 So from these days I fly to those 
 That in the landlocked Fast repose, 
 Where no rude wind of doctrine shakes 
 From bloom -flushed boughs untimely 
 
 flakes ; 
 Where morning's eyes see nothing 
 
 strange, 
 No crude perplexity of change, 
 And morrows trip along their ways 
 Secure as happy yesterdays. 
 Then there were rulers who could trace 
 Through heroes up to gods their race. 
 Pledged to fair fame and noble use 
 By veins from Odin filled or Zeus, 
 AJnd under bonds to keep divine 
 The praise of a celestial line. 
 Then priests could pUe the altar's sods. 
 With whom gods spake as they with 
 
 gods, 
 And everywhere from haunted earth 
 £roke springs of wonder, that had birth 
 jn depths divine beyond the ken 
 4nd fatal scrutiny of men ; 
 Then hills and groves and streams and 
 
 seas 
 Thrilled with immortal presences. 
 Not too ethereal for the scope 
 Of human passion's dream or hope. 
 
 Now Fan at last is surely dead. 
 
 And King No-Credit reigns instead. 
 
 Whose officers, morosely strict, 
 
 Foor Fancy's tenantry evict. 
 
 Chase the last Genius from the door. 
 
 And nothing dances any more. 
 
 Nothing ? Ah, yes, our tables do, 
 
 Drumming the Old One's own tattoo, 
 
 And, if the oracles are dumb. 
 
 Have we not mediums 1 Why be glum ? 
 
 Fly thither ? Why, the very air 
 
 Is full of hindrance and despair I 
 
 Fly thither ? But I cannot fly ; 
 
 My doubts enmesh me if I try, — 
 
 Each lilliputian, but, combined, 
 
 Potent a giant's limbs to bind. 
 
 This world and that are growing dark ; 
 
 A huge interrogation mark, 
 
 The Devil's crook episcopal, 
 
 Still borne before him since the Fall, 
 
 Blackens with its ill-omened sign 
 
 The old blue heaven of faith benign. 
 Whence? Whither? Wherefore? How? 
 
 Which ? Why ? 
 All ask at once, all wait reply. 
 Men feel old systems cracking nnder 
 
 'em; 
 Life saddens to a mere conundrum 
 Which once Religion solved, but she 
 Has lost — has Science found ? — the 
 
 key. 
 
 What was snow-bearded Odin, trow. 
 
 The mighty hunter long ago, 
 
 Whose horn and hounds the peasant 
 
 hears 
 Still when the Northlights shake their 
 
 spears ? 
 Science hath answers twain, I 've heard ; 
 Choose which you will, nor hope a 
 
 third ; 
 Whichever box the truth be stowed in, 
 There 's not a sliver left of Odin. 
 Either he was a pinchbrowed thing, 
 With scarcely wit a stone to fling, 
 A creature both in size and shape 
 Nearer than we are to the ape. 
 Who hung sublime with brat and spouse 
 By tail prehensile from the boughs, 
 Ajid, happier than his maimed descend- 
 ants, 
 The culture-curtailed independents. 
 Could pluck his cherries with both paws, 
 And stuff with both his big-boned jaws ; 
 Or else the core his name enveloped 
 Was from a solar myth developed, 
 Which, hunted to its primal shoot. 
 Takes refuge in a Sanskrit root. 
 Thereby to instant death explaining 
 The little poetry remaining. 
 
 Try it with Zeus, 't is jnst the same ; 
 The thing evades, we bug a name ; 
 Nay, scarcely that, — perhaps a vapor 
 Born of some atmospheric caper. 
 All Lempriere's fables blur together 
 In cloudy symbols of the weather. 
 And Aphrodite rose from frothy seas 
 But to illustrate such hypotheses. 
 With years enough behind his back, 
 Lincoln will take the selfsame track. 
 And prove, hulled fairly to the cob, 
 A mere vagary of Old Prob. 
 Give the right man a solar myth, 
 And he '11 confute the sun therewith. 
 
 They make things admirably plain. 
 But one hard question will remain' 
 
490 
 
 CKEDiDIMUS JOVEM REGNARE. 
 
 If one h3'pothesis you lose, 
 
 Another in its place yon choose, 
 
 But, your faith gone, O man and 
 
 brother. 
 Whose shop shall furnish you another ? 
 One that will wash, I mean, and wear, 
 And wrap us warmly from despair f 
 While they are clearing up our puzzles. 
 And clapping prophj'lactic muzzles 
 On the Actseon's hounds that sniff 
 Our devious track through But and If, 
 Would ihey 'd explain away the Devil 
 And oiher facts that won't keep level, 
 But rise beneath our feet or fail, 
 A reeling ship's deck in a gale ! 
 God vanished long ago, iwis, 
 A mere subjective synthesis ; 
 A doll, stuffed out with hopes and fears, 
 Too homely for us pretty dears. 
 Who want one that conviction carries. 
 Last make of London or of Paris. 
 He gone, I felt a moment's spasm, 
 Bnt calmed myself with Protoplasm, 
 A finer name, and, what is more, 
 As enigmatic as before ; 
 Greek, too, and sure to fill with ease 
 Minds caught in the Symplcgades 
 Of soul and sense, life's two conditions. 
 Each baffled with its own omniscience. 
 The men who labor to revise 
 Our Bibles will, I hope, be wise. 
 And print it without foolish qualms 
 Instead of God in David's psalms : 
 Noll had been more effective far 
 Could he have shouted at Duubar, 
 " Rise, Protojilasm ! " No dourest Scot 
 Had waited for another shot. 
 
 And yet I frankly must confess 
 
 A secret unforgivin;;ness. 
 
 And shudder at the saving chrism 
 
 Whose best New Birth is Pe.ssimism ; 
 
 My soul — I mean the bit of phosjihorus, 
 
 That fills the place of what that was for 
 
 us — 
 Can't bid its inward bores defiance 
 With the new nursery-tales of science. 
 What profits me, though doubt by 
 
 doubt, 
 As nail by nail, be driven out, 
 When every new one, like the last. 
 Still holds my coffin-lid as fast 1 
 Would I find thought a moment's truce, 
 Give me the young world's Mother 
 
 Goose 
 With life and joy in every limb. 
 The chimney-corner tales of Grimm! 
 
 Our dear and admirable Huxley 
 Cannot explain to me why ducks lay, 
 Gr rather, how into their eggs 
 Blunder potential wings and legs 
 With will to move them and decide 
 Whether in air or lymph to glide. 
 Who gets a hair's-breadth on by showing 
 That Something Else set all agoing 1 
 Farther and farther back we push 
 From Moses and his burning bush ; 
 Cry, " Art Thou there f " Above, below. 
 All Nature mutters yes and no! 
 'T is the old answer : we 're agreed 
 Being from Being must proceed. 
 Life be Life's source. I might as well 
 Obey the meeting-house's bell. 
 And listen while Old Hundred pours 
 Forth through the summer-opened doora^ 
 From old and young. I hear it yet, 
 Swelled by bass-viol and clarinet, 
 While the gray minister, with face 
 Kadiant, let loose his noble bass. 
 If Heaven it reached not, yet its roll 
 Waked all the echoes of the soul. 
 And in it many a life found wings 
 To soar away from sordid things. 
 Cllnrch gone and singers too, the song 
 Sinas lo me voiceless ail night long, 
 Till my soul beckons me afar. 
 Glowing and trembling like a star. 
 Will any scientific touch 
 With my worn strings achieve as much ? 
 
 I don't object, not I, to know 
 My sires were monkeys, if 't was so ; 
 I touch my ear's collusive tip 
 And own the poor-relationship. 
 That apes of various shapes and sizes 
 Contained their germs that all the prizes 
 Of senate, pulpit, camp, and bar win 
 May give us hopes that sweeten Darwin. 
 Who knows but from our loins may 
 
 spring 
 (Long hence) some winged sweet. 
 
 throated thing 
 As much suyierior to us 
 As we to Cynocephalus? 
 
 This is con«ioling, but, alas, 
 Ifc wipes no dimness from the glass 
 Where I am flattening my poor nose. 
 In hope to see beyond my toes. 
 Though I accept mv pedigree. 
 Yet where, pray tell me, is the key 
 That should unlock a private door 
 To the Great Mystery, such no moref 
 Each offers his, but one nor all 
 
TEMPORA MUTANTUB. 
 
 491 
 
 Are ranch peraunsive with the wall 
 That rises now, as long ago, 
 Between I wonder and I know, 
 Nor will vouchsafe a pin-hole peep 
 At the veiled Isis in its keep. 
 Where is no door, I but produce 
 My key to find it of no use. 
 Yet better keep it, after all, 
 Since Naturo 's economical, 
 And who can tell but some fine day 
 (If it occur to her) she may, 
 In her good-wiW to you and me, 
 Make door and lock to match the key? 
 
 TEMPOEA MUTANTUE. 
 
 The world turns mild ; democracy, they 
 
 say. 
 Rounds the sharp knobs of character 
 
 away, 
 And no great harm, unless at grave ex- 
 pense 
 Of what needs edge of proof, the moral 
 
 sense ; 
 For man or race is on the downward 
 
 path 
 Whose fibre grows too soft for honest 
 
 wrath, 
 And there 's a subtle influence that 
 
 springs 
 From words to modify our sense of 
 
 things. 
 A plain distinction grows obscure of 
 
 late: 
 Man, if he will, may pardon; but the 
 
 State 
 Forgets its function if not fixed as Fate. 
 So thought our sires : a hundred years 
 
 ago, 
 If men were knaves, why, people called 
 
 them so, 
 And crime could see the prison-portal 
 
 bend 
 Its brow severe at no long vista's end. 
 In those days for plain things plain words 
 
 would serve ; 
 Men had not learned to admire the grace- 
 ful swerve 
 Wherewith the ^Esthetic Nature's genial 
 
 mood 
 Makes public duty slope to private 
 
 good ; 
 No muddled conscience raised the saving 
 
 doubt: 
 A soldier proved unworthy was drummed 
 
 out : 
 
 An oflScer cashiered, a civil servant 
 
 (No matter though his piety were fer- 
 vent) 
 
 Disgracefully dismissed, and through the 
 land 
 
 Each bore for life a stigma from the 
 brand 
 
 Whose far-heard hiss made others more 
 averse 
 
 To take the facile step from bad to 
 worse. 
 
 The Ten Commandments had a iuean> 
 ing then 
 
 Felt in their bones by least considerate 
 pien, 
 
 Because behind them Public Conscience 
 stood. 
 
 And without wincing made their man- 
 dates good. 
 
 But now that " Statesmanship " is just a 
 way 
 
 To dodge the primal curse and make it 
 
 pay. 
 
 Since oflBce means a kind of patent drill 
 To force an entrance to the Nation's 
 
 till. 
 And peculation something rather less 
 Risky than if you spelt it with an s ; 
 Now that to steal by law is grown an 
 
 art, 
 Whom rogues the sires, their milder 
 
 sons call smart. 
 And "slightly irregular" dilutes the 
 
 shame 
 Of what had once a somewhat blunter 
 
 name, 
 With generous curve we draw the moral 
 
 line: 
 Our swindlers are permitted to resign ; 
 Their guilt is wrapped in deferential 
 
 names, 
 And twenty sympathize for one that 
 
 blames. 
 Add national disgrace to private crime. 
 Confront mankind with brazen front 
 
 sublime, j 
 
 Steal but enough, the world is un-[ 
 
 severe, — 
 Tweed is a statesman, Fisk a financier : 
 Invent a mine, and be — the Lord knows 
 
 what; 
 Secure, at any rate, with what you 'v6 
 
 got. 
 The public servant who has stolen or 
 
 lied. 
 If called on, may resign with honest 
 
 pride : 
 
492 
 
 IN THE EALF-WAT HOUSE. 
 
 As unjust favor put him in, why doubt 
 
 Disfavor as unjust has turned him out t 
 
 Even if indicted, what is that but fudge 
 
 To him who counted -in the elective 
 judge'? 
 
 Whitewashed, he quits the politician's 
 strife 
 
 At ease in mind, with pockets filled for 
 life: 
 
 His "lady" glares with gems whose 
 vulgar blaze 
 
 The poor man through his heightened 
 taxes pays, 
 
 Himself content if one huge Kohinoor 
 
 Bulgii from a shirt-front ampler than 
 before, 
 
 But not too candid, lest it haply tend 
 
 To rouse suspicion of the People's 
 Friend. 
 
 A public meeting, treated at his cost, 
 
 Besolves him back more virtue than he 
 lost; 
 
 With character regilt he counts his 
 gains ; 
 
 What 's gone was air, the solid good re- 
 mains ; 
 
 For what is good, except what friend and 
 foe 
 
 Seem quite unanimous in thinking so. 
 
 The stocks and bonds which, in our age 
 of loans, 
 
 Beplace the stupid pagan's stocks and 
 stones t 
 
 With choker white, wherein no cynic 
 eye 
 
 Dares see idealized a hempen tie, 
 
 At parish - meetings be conducta in 
 prayer. 
 
 And pays for missions to be sent else- 
 where ; 
 
 On 'Change respected, to his friends en- 
 deared, 
 
 Add but a Sunday-school-class, he 's re- 
 vered. 
 
 And his too early tomb will not be dumb 
 
 To point a mural for our youth to 
 come. 
 
 1872. 
 
 IN THE HALF-WAT HOUSE. 
 
 I. 
 
 At twenty we fancied the blest Middle 
 
 A spirited cross of romantic and 
 grand. 
 
 All templars and minstrels and ladiei 
 and pages. 
 And love and adventure in Outre-Mer 
 land; 
 But ah, where the youth dreamed of 
 building a minster, 
 The man takes a pew and sits reckon- 
 ing his pelf. 
 And the Graces wear fronts, the Muse 
 thins to a spinster 
 When Middle-Age stares from one's 
 glass at oneself 1 
 
 Do you twit me with days when I had 
 an Ideal, 
 And saw the sear future throngh 
 spectacles green ? 
 Then find me some charm, while I look 
 round and see all 
 These fat friends of forty, shall ke Ip 
 me nineteen ; 
 Should we go on pining for chaplets of 
 laurel 
 Who 've paid a perruquier for mend- 
 ing our thatch. 
 Or, our feet swathed in baize, with our 
 Fate pick a quarrel. 
 If, instead of cheap bay-leaves, she 
 sent a dear scratch ? 
 
 We called it our Eden, that small patent- 
 baker. 
 When life was half moonshine and half 
 Mary Jane ; 
 But the butcher, the baker, the candle- 
 stick-maker ! — 
 Did Adam have duns and slip down a 
 back-lane 1 
 Nay, after the Fall did the modiste keep 
 coming 
 With last styles of fig-leaf to Madam 
 Eve's bower ? 
 Did Jubal, or whoever taught the girls 
 thrumming. 
 Make the patriarchs deaf at a dollar 
 the hour ? 
 
 IV. 
 
 As I think what I was, I sigh Detunt 
 
 nonnulla I 
 Years are creditors Sheridan's seli 
 
 could not bilk; 
 But then, as my boy says, " What right 
 
 has a f allah , 
 
AT THE BURNS CENTENNIAL. 
 
 493 
 
 To ask for tho cream, when himself 
 spilt the milk 'i " 
 Perhaps when you 're older, my lad, 
 you '11 discover 
 The secret with which Auld Lang 
 Syne there is gilt, — 
 Superstition of old man, maid, poet, and 
 lover, — 
 That cream rises thickest on milk that 
 WHS spilt 1 
 
 V. 
 
 We sailed for the moon, hut, in gad 
 disillusion, 
 Snug under Point Comfort are glad to 
 make fast. 
 And strive (sans our glasses) to make a 
 confusion 
 'Twixt our rind of green cheese and 
 the moon of the past. 
 Ah, Might-have-been, Could-have-been, 
 Would-have-been ! rascals, 
 He 's a genius or fool whom ye cheat 
 at twoscore, 
 And tho man whose boy -promise was 
 likened to Pascal's 
 Is thankful at forty they don't call him 
 bore 1 
 
 VL 
 
 With what fumes of fame was each con- 
 fident pate full ! 
 How rates of insurance should rise on 
 the Charles ! 
 And which of us now would not feel 
 wisely grateful, 
 If his rhymes sold as fast as the Em^ 
 hlems of Quarles 1 
 E'en if won, what 's the good of Life's 
 medals and prizes f 
 The rapture 's in what never was or is 
 gone ; 
 f hat we missed them makes Helens of 
 plain Ann Elizys, 
 For the goose of To-day still is Mem- 
 ory's swan. 
 
 vn. 
 
 And yet who would change tha old 
 dream for new treasure ? 
 Make not youth's sourest grapes the 
 best wine of our life ? 
 Need he reckon his date by the Almanac's 
 measure 
 Who is twenty life-long in the eyes of 
 his wife 1 
 
 Ah, Fate, should I lire to be nonageir 
 arian, 
 Let me still take Hope's frail I. 0. U.s 
 upon trust, 
 Still talk of a trip to the Islands Macarian, 
 And still climb the dream-tree for — 
 ashes and dust ! 
 
 AT THE BURNS CENTEKNIAL, 
 
 JANUARY, 1859. 
 
 I. 
 
 A HTJKDBBD years ! they 're quickly fled. 
 
 With all their joy and sorrow; 
 Their dead leaves shed upon the dead, 
 
 Their fresh ones sprung by morrow ! 
 And still the patient seasons bring 
 
 Their change of sun and shadow ; 
 New birds still sing with every spring. 
 
 New violets spot the meadow, 
 
 n. 
 
 A hundred years! and Nature's powers 
 
 No greater grown nor lessened ! 
 They saw no flowers more sweet than 
 ours, 
 
 No fairer new moon's crescent. 
 Would she hut treat us poets so, 
 
 So from our winter free us. 
 And set our slow old sap aflow 
 
 To sprout in fresh ideas ! 
 
 in. 
 
 Alas, think I, what worth or parts 
 
 Have brought me here competing. 
 To speak what starts in myriad hearts 
 
 With Bnrns's memory heating !_ 
 Himself had loved a theme like this, 
 
 Must I be its entomber 1 
 No pen save his but 's sure to mias 
 
 Its pathos or its humor. 
 
 IV. 
 
 As I snt musing what to say. 
 
 And how my verse to number, 
 Some elf in play passed by that way. 
 
 And sank my lids in slumber ; 
 And on my sleep a vision stole. 
 
 Which I will put in metre, 
 Of Bnrns's soul at the wicket-hole 
 
 Where sits the good Saint Peter. 
 
 The saint, methought, had left his port 
 That day to Holy Willie, 
 
494 
 
 AT THE BUHNS CENTENNIAt. 
 
 Who swore, "Each ghost that comes 
 shall toast 
 
 In bruiistane, will he, nill he ; 
 There 's nane need hope with phrases fine 
 
 Their score to wipe a sin frae ; 
 I '11 chalk a sign, to save their tryin', — 
 
 A hand (n) and ' Vide infra!'" 
 
 VI. 
 
 Alas ! no soil 's too cold or dry 
 
 For spiritual small potatoes, 
 Scrimped natures, spry the trade to ply 
 
 Of diaboli advocatus ; 
 Who lay bent pins in the penance-stool 
 
 Where Mercy plumps a cushion, 
 Who 've just one rule for knave and fool. 
 
 It saves so much confusion I 
 
 vn. 
 
 So when Bums knocked. Will knit his 
 brows. 
 
 His window gap made scanter, 
 And said, " Go rouse the other house ; 
 
 We lodge no Tam O'Shanter 1 " 
 " We lodge 1 " laughed Burns. " Now 
 well I see 
 
 Death cannot kill old nature ; 
 No human flea but thinks that he 
 
 May speak for his Creator 1 
 
 "But, Willie, friend, don't turn me 
 forth, 
 
 Aiild Clootie needs no ganger ; 
 And if on earth I had small worth. 
 
 You 've let in worse, I 'se wager ! " 
 "Na, nane has knockit at the yett 
 
 But found me hard as whunstane ; 
 There 's chances yet your bread to get 
 
 Wi Auld Nick, gaugin' brunstane." 
 
 IX. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Unco' Guid had ta'en 
 
 Their place to watch the process, 
 Flattening in vain on many a pane 
 
 Their disembodied noses. 
 Remember, please, 't is all a dream ; 
 
 One can't control the fancies 
 Through sleep that stream with way- 
 ward gleam, 
 
 Like midnight's boreal dances. 
 
 X. 
 
 Old Willie's tone grew sharp 's a knife : 
 " In primis, I indite ye^ 
 
 For makin' strife wi' the water o' lifa^ 
 And preferrin' agua vitce ! " 
 
 Then roared a voice with lusty din. 
 Like a skipper's when 't is blowy, 
 
 " If that 's a sin, Z 'd ne'er got in. 
 As sure as my name 's Noah ! " 
 
 Baulked, Willie turned another leaf, — 
 
 " There 's many here have heard ye. 
 To the pain and grief o' true belief. 
 
 Say hard things o' the clergy ! " 
 Then rang a clear tone over all, — 
 
 " One plea for him allow me : 
 I once heard call from o'er me, ' Sanl, 
 
 Why persecutest thou me ? '" 
 
 xn. 
 
 To the next charge vexed Willie turned, 
 
 And, sighing, wiped his glasses : 
 " 1 'm much concerned to find ya 
 yearned 
 
 O'er-warmly tow'rd the lasses ! " 
 Here David sighed ; poor Willie's face 
 
 Lost all its self-possession : 
 " I leave this case to God's own grace : 
 
 It baffles my discretion 1 " 
 
 XHL 
 
 Then sudden glory round me broke. 
 
 And low melodious surges 
 Of wings whose stroke to splendor woke 
 
 Creation's farthest verges ; 
 A cross stretched, ladder-like, secure 
 
 From earth to heaven's own portal. 
 Whereby God's poor, with footing snre^ 
 
 Climbed up to peace immortal, 
 
 XIV. 
 
 I heard a voice serene and low 
 
 ( With my heart I seemed to hear it) 
 Fall soft and slow as snow on snow. 
 
 Like grace of the heavenly spirit ; 
 As sweet as over new-born son 
 
 The croon of new-made mother. 
 The voice befrun, " Sore tempted one ! " 
 
 Then, pausing, sighed, " Our brother i 
 
 " II not a sparrow fall, unless 
 The Jatner sees and knows it. 
 
 Think ! recks He less His form express 
 The soul His own deposit ? 
 
 If only dear to Him the strong. 
 That never trip nor wander. 
 
IN AN ALBUM. 
 
 495 
 
 l^ere were tho throng wliose morning 
 soug 
 Thrills His blue arches vender? 
 
 XVI. 
 
 " Do souls alone clear - eyed, strong- 
 kneed, 
 
 To Him true service render. 
 And they wlio need His hand to lead, 
 
 Find ihey His heart uiiteuder '! 
 Thiough all your various raulis and fates 
 
 He opens doors to duty. 
 And he that waits there at your gates 
 
 Was servant of His Beauty. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 " The Earth must richer s.ip secrete, 
 
 (Cuuld ye in time but Icuow it !) 
 Must juice concrete with fiercer heat. 
 
 Ere she can make her poet ; 
 Long generations go and come. 
 
 At lust she bears a sijjger. 
 For ages dumb of senses numb 
 
 The compensation- bringer I 
 
 xvni. 
 
 " Her cheaper broods in palaces 
 
 IShe raises under glasses, 
 But souls like these, heav'n's hostages. 
 
 Spring shelterless as grasses : 
 They share Eanh's blessing and her 
 bane. 
 
 The common sun and shower ; 
 What makes your pain to them is gain. 
 
 Your weakness is tlioir power. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 " These larger hearts must feel the rolls 
 
 Of stormier-waved temptation; 
 These star -wide souls between their 
 poles 
 
 Bear zones of tropic passion. 
 He loved mucli ! — that is gospel good, 
 
 Howe'er the text you handle ; 
 From common wood the cross was 
 hewed. 
 
 By love turned priceless sandal. 
 
 XX. 
 
 " If scant his service at the kirk. 
 
 He paters heard and aves 
 From choirs that lurk in hedge and 
 birk. 
 From blackbird and from mavis ; 
 The cowering mouse, poor unroofed 
 thing. 
 
 In him found Mercy's angel ; 
 The daisy's ring brought every spring 
 Tu him Love's fresh evangel 1 
 
 XXI. 
 
 " Not he the threatening texts who 
 deals 
 
 Is highest 'mong the preachers. 
 But he who feels the woes tiud weals 
 
 Of all God's wandering creatures. 
 He doth good work whose heart can 
 find 
 
 The .spirit 'neath the letter ; 
 Who makes his kiud of happier mind. 
 
 Leaves wiser meu and better. 
 
 xxn. 
 
 " They make Religion be abhorred 
 
 Who round with darkness gulf her, 
 And think no word can please the Lord 
 
 Unless it smell of sulphur. 
 Dear Poet-heart, that childlike guessed 
 
 The Father's loving kindness, 
 Come now to rest t 'i hou didst His hesl^ 
 
 H haply 't was in blindness 1 " 
 
 TTTTT . 
 
 Thsn leapt heaven's portals wide apart. 
 
 And at their golden thunder 
 With sudden start I woke, my heart 
 
 Still throbbing-f uU of wonder. 
 " Father," 1 said, " 't is known to Thee 
 
 How I'hou thy Saints preparest ; 
 But this I see, — Saint Charity 
 
 Is still the fi^st and fairest I " 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Dear Bard and Brother ! let who may 
 
 Against thy faults be railing, 
 (Though far, I pray, from us be they 
 
 That never had a failing I) 
 One toast I '11 give, and that not long, 
 
 Which thou wouldst pledge if pre» 
 ent, — 
 To him whose song, in natnre strong. 
 
 Makes man of prince and peasant I 
 
 IN AN ALBUM. 
 
 The misspelt scrawl, upon the wall 
 By some Pompeian idler traced, 
 In ashes packed (ironic fact!) 
 Lies eighteen centuries uneffaced, 
 While many a page of bard and sage. 
 Deemed once mankind's immortal gaiOk 
 
496 
 
 AT THE COMMENCEMENT DINNER. 
 
 Lost from Time's ark, leaTes no more 
 
 mark 
 Thau a keel's furrow through the main. 
 
 O Chance and Change! our buzz's 
 
 range 
 Is scarcely wider than a fly's ; 
 Then let us play at fame to-day. 
 To-morrow be unknown and wise ; 
 A.nd while the fair beg locks of hair, 
 A.nd autographs, and Lord knows what, 
 Quick ! let us scratch our moment's 
 
 m.itch, 
 Make our brief blaze, and be forgot ! 
 
 Too pressed to wait, upon her slate 
 Fame writes a name or two in doubt ; 
 Scarce written, these no longer please. 
 And her own finger rubs them out : 
 It may ensue, fair girl, that you 
 Years hence this yellowing leaf may 
 
 see. 
 And put to task, your memory ask 
 In vain, " This Lowell, who was he 1 " 
 
 AT THE COMMENCEMENT DINNER, 
 1866, IN ACKNOWLEDGING A TOAST 
 TO THE SMITH PEOFESSOE. 
 
 I BISE, Mr. Chairman, as both of us 
 
 know. 
 With the impromptu 1 promised you 
 
 three weeks ago, 
 Dragged up to my doom by your might 
 
 and my mane, 
 To do what I vowed I 'd do never again ; 
 And I feel like your good honest dough 
 
 when possest 
 By a stirring, impertinent devil of yeast. 
 " you must rise," says the leaven. " I 
 
 can't," says the dough ; 
 " Just examine my bnmps and yon 'II 
 
 see it 's no go." 
 " But you must," the tormentor insists, 
 
 " 't is all right ; 
 Yoa must rise when I bid yon, and, 
 
 what 's more, be light." 
 
 'T is a dreadful oppression, this making 
 
 men speak 
 What they 're sure to be sorry for all 
 
 the next week ; 
 Some poor stick requesting, like Aaron's, 
 
 to bud 
 Into eloquence, pathos, or wit in cold 
 
 blood. 
 
 As if the dull brain that yon vented 
 your spite on 
 
 Could be got, like an ox, by mere pok- 
 ing, to Brighton. 
 
 They say it is wholesome to rise with the 
 
 sun. 
 And I dare say it may be if not over* 
 
 done ; 
 (I think it was Thomson who made the 
 
 remark 
 'T was an excellent thing in its way — 
 
 for a lark ;) 
 But to rise after dinner and look down 
 
 the meeting 
 On a distant (as Gray calls it) prospect 
 
 of Eating, 
 With a stomach iialf fall and a cerebrum 
 
 hollow 
 As the tortoise-shell ere it was strung for 
 
 Apollo, 
 Under contract to raise anerithmon 
 
 gelasma 
 With rhymes so hard hunted they gasp 
 
 with the asthma, 
 And jokes not much younger than 
 
 Jethro's phylacteries, 
 Is something I leave you yourselves to 
 
 characterize. 
 
 I 've a notion, I think, of a good dinner 
 
 speech, 
 Tripping light as a sandpiper over the 
 
 beach, 
 Swerving this way and that as the wave 
 
 of the moment 
 Washes out its slight trace with a dash 
 
 of whim's foam on 't. 
 And leaving on memory's rim just a sense 
 Something graceful had gone by, a live 
 
 present tense ; 
 Not poetry, — no, not quite that, but as 
 
 good, 
 A kind of winged prose that could fly if 
 
 it would. 
 'T is a time for gay fancies as fleeting^ 
 
 and vain 
 As the whisper of foam-beads on fresh- 
 poured champagne. 
 Since dinners were not perhaps strictly 
 
 designed 
 For manoeuvering the heavy dragoons of 
 
 the mind. 
 When I hear your set speeches that start 
 
 with a pop. 
 Then wander and maunder, too feeble to 
 
 stop. 
 
A PARABLE. 
 
 497 
 
 With a vague apprehension from popular 
 
 rumor 
 There used to be something by mortals 
 
 called humor, 
 Beginning Again when you thought they 
 
 were done. 
 Respectable, sensible, weighing a ton, 
 And as near to the present occasions of 
 
 men 
 As a Fast Day discourse of the year 
 
 eighteen ten, 
 I — well, I sit still, and my sentiments 
 
 smother. 
 For am I not also a bore and a brother 1 
 
 And a toast, — what should that be? 
 
 Light, airy, and free, 
 The foam-Aphrodite of Bacchus's sea, 
 A fancy-tinged bubble, an orbed rain- 
 bow-stain, 
 That floats for an instant 'twixt goblet 
 
 and brain ; 
 A breath-born perfection, half something, 
 
 half naught. 
 And breaks if it strike the hard edge of 
 
 a thought. 
 Do you ask me to make such 'i Ah no, 
 
 not so simple ; 
 Ask Apelles to paint yon the ravishing 
 
 dimple 
 Whose shifting enchantment lights Ve- 
 
 nus's cheek. 
 And the artist will tell yon his skill is 
 
 to seek ; 
 Once fix it, 't is naught, for the charm of 
 
 it rises 
 From the sudden bopeeps of its smiling 
 
 surprises. 
 
 I 've tried to define it, but what mother's 
 
 son 
 Conld ever yet do what he knows should 
 
 be done ? 
 My rocket has burst, and I watch in the 
 
 air 
 Its &st-fading heart's-blood drop back in 
 
 despair ; 
 Yet one chance is left me, and, if I am 
 
 quick, 
 I can palm off, before yon suspect me, 
 
 the stick. 
 
 Now since I've succeeded — I pray do 
 
 not frown — 
 To Ticknor's and Longfellow's classical 
 
 gown. 
 And profess four strange languages, 
 
 which, luckless elf, 
 I speak like a native (of Cambridge) 
 
 myself. 
 Let me beg, Mr. President, leave to 
 
 propose 
 A sentiment treading on nobody's toes, 
 And give, in such ale as with pump- 
 handles we brew. 
 Their memory who saved us from all 
 
 talking Hebrew, — 
 A toast that to deluge with water is 
 
 good. 
 For in Scripture they come in just after 
 
 the flood : 
 I give you the men but for whom, as I 
 
 guess, sir. 
 Modem languages ne'er could have had 
 
 a professor, 
 The builders of Babel, to whose zeal the 
 
 lungs 
 Of the children of men owe confusion of 
 
 tongues ; 
 And a name all-embracing I couple there- 
 with, 
 Which is that of my founder — the lata 
 
 Mr. Smith. 
 
 AFABABLE. 
 
 An ass munched thistles, while a night- 
 ingale 
 From passion's fountain flooded all the 
 
 vale. 
 " Hee-haw 1 " cried he, " I hearken," as 
 
 who knew 
 For such ear-largess humble thanks were 
 
 due. 
 " Friend," said the wingfed pain, " in vain 
 
 you bray. 
 Who tunnels bring, not cisterns, for my 
 
 lay; 
 None but his peers the poet rightly hear. 
 Nor mete we listeners by their length of 
 
 ear." 
 
 CounniA, tuLT, 1SB2. 
 
V. EPIGRAMS. 
 
 SAYixas. 
 
 In life's small things be resolute apd great 
 To keep thy miucle trained : kuow'st 
 
 thou when Fate 
 Thy measure takes, or when she '11 say 
 
 to thee, 
 "I find thee worthy; do this deed for 
 
 me "3 
 
 2. 
 
 A camel-driver, angry with his drudge, 
 Beating him, called him hunchback ; to 
 
 the hind 
 Thus spake a dervish : " Friend, the 
 
 Eternal Judge 
 Dooms not His work, but ours, the 
 
 crooked mind." 
 
 Swiftly the politic goes ; is it dark ? — he 
 
 borrows a lantern ; 
 Slowly the statesman and sure, guiding 
 
 his steps by the stais. 
 
 " Where lies the capital, pilgrim, seat of 
 who governs the Faithful ? " 
 
 "Thither my footsteps are bent*, it is 
 where Saadi is lodged." 
 
 raSCMPTIONS. 
 FOB A BELL AT COBNELL UNIVERSITT. 
 
 I CALL as fly the irrevocable hours, 
 
 Futile as air or strong as fate to make 
 Tour lives of sand or granite ; awful 
 powers, 
 Even as men choose, they either give 
 I ' or take. 
 
 FOB A MEHOBIAL WINDOW TO SIB WAIr 
 TEB HALEIGH, SET UP IN ST. MAS- 
 OASET'S, WESTUINSTBB, BT AUEBI- 
 CAS CONTBIBUTOBS. 
 
 The New World's sons, from Englajid's 
 breasts we drew 
 Such milk as bids remember whence 
 we came ; 
 Frond of her F;«st wherefrom onr Pres- 
 ent grew. 
 This window we inscribe with Baleigh'B 
 name. 
 
 FBOFOSED FOR A SOLDIESS' AND SAIL> 
 ORS' MONUHENI IN BOSTON. 
 
 To those who died for her on land and sea. 
 
 That she might have a country great 
 and free, 
 
 Boston builds this : build ye her monu- 
 ment 
 
 In lives like theirs, at duty's summons 
 spent. 
 
 A MISCONCEPTION. 
 
 B, TAUGHT by Pope to do his good by 
 
 stealth, 
 'Twixt participle and noun no difference 
 
 feeling. 
 In office placed to serve the Common. 
 
 wealth. 
 Does himself all the good he can by 
 
 stealing. 
 
 THE BOSS. 
 
 Skilled to pull wires, he baffles Nature's 
 
 hope. 
 Who sure intended him to stretch » 
 
 lope. 
 
SUN-WORSHIP. — INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 
 
 499 
 
 SUN-WOKSHIP. 
 
 If I were the rose at your wiudow, 
 Happiest rose of its crew, 
 Every blossom I bore would bend in- 
 ward, 
 They 'd know where the sunshine grew. 
 
 CHANGED PEKSPECTIVE. 
 
 Fun oft the pathway to her door 
 I 've measured by the selfsame track, 
 Yot doul)! the distance more and more. 
 'T is so much longer coming back i 
 
 WITH A PAIE OF GLOVES LOST IN 
 A WAGES. 
 
 Wk wagered, she for sunshine, I for rain, 
 And I should hint sharp practice if I 
 darsd ; 
 
 For was not she beforehand sure to gain 
 Who made the sunshine we together 
 shared t 
 
 SESTT-EIGHTH BIRTHDAY. 
 
 As life runs on, the road grows strange 
 With faces new, and near the end 
 The -milestones into headstones change, 
 'Neath every one a friend. 
 
 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 
 
 In vain we call old notions fudge. 
 And bend our conscience to our deal- 
 ing; 
 
 The Ten Commandments will not budge, 
 And stealing will^continne stealing. 
 
LAST POEMS. 
 
 The following note was prefixed to this group when published in 1 895 : " This 
 little volume contains those of the poems which Mr. Lowell wrote in his last years 
 which, I believe, he might have wished to preserve. Three of them were published 
 before his death. Of the rest, two appear here for the first time. C. E. S." 
 
 HOW I CONSULTED THE ORACLE OF 
 THE GOLDFISHES. 
 
 What know we of the world immense 
 Beyond the narrow ring of sense ? 
 What should we know, who lounge about 
 The house we dwell in, nor find out. 
 Masked by a wall, the secret cell 
 Where the soul's priests in hiding dwell? 
 The winding stair that steals aloof 
 To chapel-mysteries 'neath the roof t 
 
 It lies about us, yet as far 
 From sense sequestered as a star 
 New launched its wake of fire to trace 
 In secrecies of unprobed space, 
 Whose beacon's lightning - pinioned 
 
 spears 
 Might earthward haste a thousand years 
 Nor reach it. So remote seems this 
 World undiscovered, yet it is 
 A neighbor near and dumb as death. 
 So near, we seem to feel the breath 
 Of its hushed haoitants as they 
 Pass us unchallenged, night and day. 
 
 Never could mortal ear nor eye 
 
 By sound or sign suspect them nigh. 
 
 Yet why may not some subtler sense 
 
 Than those poor two give evidence t 
 
 Transfuse the ferment of their being 
 
 Into our own, past hearing, seeing, 
 
 As men, if once attempered so, 
 
 Far off each other's thought can know t 
 
 As horses with an instant thrill 
 
 Measure their rider's strength of will t 
 
 Comes not to all some glimpse that 
 
 brings 
 Strange sense of sense-escaping things ? 
 
 Wraiths some transfigured nerve di- 
 vines '! 
 Approaches, premonitions, signs, 
 Voices of Ariel that die out 
 In the dim No Man's Land of Doubt ? 
 
 Are these Night's dusky birds t Are these 
 Fhantasmas of the silences 
 Outer or inner ? — rude heirlooms 
 From grovellers in the cavern-glooms. 
 Who in unhuman Nature saw 
 Misshapen foes with tnsk and claw. 
 And with those night-fears brute and 
 
 blind 
 Peopled the chaos of their mind. 
 Which, in ungovernable hours. 
 Still make their bestial lair in ours 1 
 
 Were they, or were they not? Ye«j 
 
 no; 
 Uncalled they come, unhid they go, 
 And leave us fumbling in a doubt 
 Whether within us or without 
 The spell of this illusion be 
 That witches ns to hear and see 
 As in a twi-life what it will. 
 And hath such wonder-working skill 
 That what we deemed most solid- 
 wrought 
 Turns a mere figment of our thought, 
 Which when we grasp at in despair 
 Our fingers find vain semblance there, 
 For Psyche seeks a corner-stone 
 Firmer than aught to matter known. 
 
 Is it illusion ? Dream-stuff ? Show 
 Made of the wish to have it so ? 
 'T were something, even though this 
 were all : 
 
THE ORACLE OF THE GOLDFISHES. 
 
 601 
 
 So the poor prisoner, on his wall 
 Long gazing, from the chance designs 
 Of crack, mould, weather-staiu, refines 
 New and new pictures without cease. 
 Landscape, or saint, or altar-piece : 
 But these are Fancy's common brood 
 Hatched in the nest of solitude ; 
 This is Dame Wish's hourly trade. 
 By our rude sires a goddess made. 
 Could longing, though its heart broke, 
 
 give 
 Trances in which we chiefly live ? 
 Moments that darken all beside. 
 Tearfully radiant as a bride ? 
 Beckonings of bright escape, of wings 
 Purchased with loss of baser things 1 
 Blithe truancies from all control 
 Of Hyle, outings of the soul ? 
 
 The worm, by trustful instinct led, 
 Draws from its womb a slender thread. 
 And drops, confiding that the breeze 
 Will waft it to nnpastured trees : 
 So the brain spins itself, and so 
 Swings boldly ofi in hope to blow 
 Across some tree of knowledge, fair 
 With fruitage new, none else shall share: 
 Sated with wavering in the Void, 
 It backward climbs, so best employed. 
 And, where no proof is nor can be, 
 Seeks refuge with Analogy ; 
 Truth's soft half-sister, she may tell 
 Where lurks, seld-sought, the other's 
 
 well. 
 With metaphysic midges sore. 
 My Thought seeks comfort at her door, 
 And, at her feet a suppliant cast. 
 Evokes a spectre of the past. 
 Not such as shook the knees of Saul, 
 But winsome, golden-gay withal, — 
 Two fishes in a globe of glass, 
 That pass, and waver, and re-pass,_ 
 And lighten that way, and then this, ' 
 Silent as meditation is. 
 With a half-humorous smile I see 
 In this their aimless industry, 
 These errands nowhere and returns 
 Grave as a pair of funeral urns. 
 This ever-seek and never-find, 
 A mocking image of my mind. 
 But not for this I bade you climb_ 
 Tip from the darkening deeps of time : 
 Help me to tame these wild day-mares 
 That sndden on me unawares. 
 !Fish, do your duty, as did they 
 Of the Black Island far away 
 In life's safe places, — far as you 
 
 From all that now I see or do. 
 You come, embodied flames, as when 
 I knew you first, nor yet knew men ; 
 Your gold renews my golden days, 
 Your splendor all my loss repays. 
 
 'T is more than sixty years ago 
 Since first I watched your to-and-f ro ; 
 Two generations come and gone 
 From silence to oblivion, 
 With all their noisy strife and stress 
 Lulled in the grave's forgivingness, 
 While you unquenchably survive 
 Immortal, almost more alive. 
 I watched you then a curious boy, 
 Who in your beauty found full joy. 
 And, by no problem-debts distrest, 
 Sate at life's board a welcome guest. 
 You were my sister's pets, not mine ; 
 But Property's dividing line 
 No hint of dispossession drew 
 On any map my simplesse knew ; 
 golden age, not yet dethroned ! 
 What made me happy, that I owned ; 
 You were my wonders, you my Lars, 
 In darkling days my sun and stars. 
 And over you entranced I hung. 
 Too young to know that I was young. 
 Gazing with still unsated bliss. 
 My fancies took some shape like this : 
 " I have my world, and so have you, 
 A tiny universe for two, 
 A bubble by the artist blown. 
 Scarcely more fragile than our own, 
 Where you have all a whale could wish, 
 Happy as Eden's primal fish. 
 Manna is dropt you thrice a day 
 From some kind heaven not far away. 
 And still you snatch its softening 
 
 crumbs. 
 Nor, more than we, think whence it 
 
 comes. 
 No toil seems yours but to explore 
 Your cloistered realm from shore to 
 
 shore ; 
 Sometimes you trace its limits round. 
 Sometimes its limpid depths you sound. 
 Or hover motionless midway. 
 Like gold-red clouds at set of day ; 
 Erelong you whirl with sudden whim 
 OS to your globe's most distant rim, 
 Where, greatened by the watery lens, 
 Methinks no dragon of the fens 
 Flashed huger scales against the sky, 
 Boused by Sir Bevis or Sir Guy, 
 And the one eye that meets my view, 
 Lidless and strangely largening, too. 
 
502 
 
 turner's old t£m£baire. 
 
 Like that of conscience in tlie dark. 
 Seems to make me its single mark. 
 Wliat a benignant lot is yours 
 That have an own All-out-of-doors, 
 No words to spell, no sums to do, 
 No Nepos and no parlyvoo ! 
 How happy you without a thought 
 Of such cross things as Must and 
 
 i Ought, — 
 
 ) I too the happiest of boys 
 
 I To see and share your golden joys ! " 
 
 So thought the child, in simpler words. 
 Of you his finny flocks and nerds ; 
 Now, an old man, I bid you rise 
 To the fine sight behind the eyes. 
 And, lo, you float and flash again 
 In the dark cistern of my brain. 
 But o'er your visioned flames I brood 
 With other mien, in other mood ; 
 You are no longer there to please. 
 But to stir argument, and tease 
 My thought with all the ghostly shapes 
 From which no moody man escapes. 
 Diminished creature, I no more 
 Find Fairyland beside my door. 
 But for each moment's pleasure pay 
 Wilh the guart d'heure of Rabelais 1 
 
 I watch yon in your crystal sphere. 
 And wonder if you see and hear 
 Those shapes and sounds that stir the 
 
 wide 
 Conjecture of the world outside ; 
 In your pent lives, as we in ours. 
 Have you surmises dim of powers. 
 Of presences obscurely shown. 
 Of lives a riddle to your own, • 
 Just on the senses' outer verge, 
 Where sense-nerves into soul nerves 
 
 merge. 
 Where we conspire our own deceit 
 Confederate in deft Fancy's feat, 
 I And the fooled brain befools the eyes 
 ; With pageants woven of its own lies ? 
 V But are they lies? Why more than 
 those 
 Phantoms that startle your repose. 
 Half seen, half heard, then flit away. 
 And leave you your prose-bounded day ? 
 
 The things ye see as shadows I 
 
 Know to be substance ; tell me why 
 
 My visions, like those haunting yon. 
 
 May not be as substantial too. 
 
 Alas, who ever answer heard 
 
 From fish, and dream-fish too 1 Absurd ! 
 
 Your consciousness I half divine. 
 But you are wholly deaf to mine. 
 Go, I dismiss you ; ye have done 
 All that ye could ; our silk is spun ; 
 Dive back into the deep of dreams. 
 Where what is real is what seems! 
 Yet I shall fancy till my grave 
 Your lives to mine a lesson gave ; 
 If lesson none, an image, then. 
 Impeaching self-conceit in men 
 Who put their confidence alone 
 In what they call the Seen and Known. 
 How seen ? How known ? As through 
 
 your glass 
 Our wavering apparitions pass 
 Perplexingly, then subtly wrought 
 To some quite other thing by thought. 
 Here shall my resolution be : 
 The shadow of the mystery 
 Is haply wholesomer for eyes 
 That cheat us to be Overwise, 
 And I am happy in my right 
 To love God's darkness as His light. 
 
 TUBNBE'S OLD TEMEEAIEE. 
 
 UNDER A FIGURE SYMBOLIZING THE 
 CHURCH, 
 
 THOtr wast the fairest of all man-made 
 
 things ; 
 The breath of heaven bore up thy cloudy 
 
 wings. 
 And, patient in their triple rank, 
 The thundera crouched about thy flank. 
 Their black lips silent with the doom of 
 
 kings. 
 
 The storm-wind loved to rock him in 
 
 thy pines. 
 And swell thy vans with breath of great 
 
 designs ; 
 Long-wildered pilgrims of the main 
 By thee relaid their course again, 
 Whose prow was guided by celestiaj 
 
 signs. 
 
 How didst thou trample on tnmnltnoua 
 seas, 
 
 Or, like some basking sea-beast stretched 
 at ease. 
 
 Let the bull-fronted surges glide 
 
 Caressingly along thy side, 
 
 Like glad hounds leaping by the bunts- 
 man's knees ! 
 
ST. MICHAEL THE WEIGHER. 
 
 603 
 
 Heroic feet, with fire of genius shod, 
 In battle's ecstasy thy deck have trod, 
 While from their touch a fulgur ran 
 Through plank and spar, frum man to 
 
 man, 
 Welding thee to a thunderbolt of God. 
 
 Now a black demon, belching fire and 
 
 steam, 
 Drags thee away, a pale, dismantled 
 
 dream, 
 And all thy desecrated bulk 
 Must landlocked lie, a helpless hulk, 
 To gather weeds in the regardless 
 
 stream. 
 
 Woe 's me, from Ocean's sky-horizoned 
 air 
 
 To this! Better, the flame-cross still 
 aflare. 
 
 Shot-shattered to hare met thy doom 
 
 Where thy last lightnings cheered the 
 gloom, 
 
 Than here be safe in dangerless de- 
 spair. 
 
 Thy drooping symbol to the flagstaff 
 
 clings. 
 Thy rudder soothes the tide to lazy 
 
 rings, 
 Thy thunders now but birthdays greet. 
 Thy plauks forget the martyrs' feet, 
 Thy masts what challenges the sea-wind 
 
 brings. 
 
 Thou a mere hospital, where human 
 
 wrecks. 
 Like winter-flies, crawl those renowned 
 
 decks, 
 Ne'er trodden save by captive foes. 
 And wonted sternly to impose 
 God's will and thine on bowed imperial 
 
 necks ! 
 
 Shall nevermore, engendered of thy 
 
 fame, 
 A new sea-eagle heir thy conqueror 
 
 name, 
 And with commissioned talons wrench 
 From thy supplanter's grimy clench 
 Plis sheath of steel, his wings of smoke 
 
 and flame ? 
 
 This shall the pleased eyes of our chil- 
 dren see ; 
 
 For this the stars of God long even as 
 we; 
 
 Earth listens for his winss ; the Fates 
 Expectant lean ; Faith eroas-propt waits, 
 And ttie tired waves of Tliuuglit's insur. 
 gent sea. 
 
 ST. MICHAEL THE WEIGHEK. 
 
 Stood the tall Archangel weighing 
 All man's dreaming, doing, saying. 
 All the failure and the pain, 
 All the triumph and the gain. 
 In the unimagined years. 
 Full of hopes, more full of tears, 
 Since old Adam's hopeless eyes 
 Backward searched for Paradise, 
 And, instead, the flame-blade saw 
 Of inexorable Law. 
 
 Waking, I beheld him there. 
 With his fire-gold, flickering hair. 
 In his blinding armor stand, 
 And the scales were in his hand : 
 Mighty were they, and full well 
 They could poise both heaven and 
 hell. 
 "Angel," asked I humbly then, 
 " Weighest thou the souls of men t 
 
 That thine office is, I know." 
 " Nay," he answered me, " not stt 
 But I weigh the hope of Man 
 Since the power of choice began, 
 In the world, of good or ill." 
 Then I waited and was still. 
 
 In one scale I saw him place 
 All the glories of our race, 
 Cups that lit Belshazzar's feast, 
 Gems, the lightning of the East, 
 Kublai's sceptre, Caesar's sword. 
 Many a poet's golden word, 
 Many a skill of science, vain 
 To make men as gods again. 
 
 In the other scale he threw 
 
 Things regardless, outcast, few, 
 
 Martyr-ash, arena sand. 
 
 Of St. Francis' cord a strand, 
 
 Beechen cups of men whose need 
 
 Fasted that the poor might feed, 
 
 Disillusions and despairs 
 
 Of young saints with grief-grayed 
 
 hairs, 
 Broken hearts that brake for Man. 
 
 Marvel through my pulses ran 
 Seeing then the beam divine 
 
504 
 
 A VALENTINE. — THE NOBLER LOVER, 
 
 Swiftly on this hand decline, 
 While Earth's splendor and renown 
 Mounted light as thistle-down. 
 
 A VALENTINE. 
 
 Let others wonder what fair face 
 Upon their path shall shine, 
 
 And, fancying half, half hoping, trace 
 Some maiden shape of tenderest grace 
 To be their Valentine. 
 
 Let other hearts with tremor sweet 
 
 One secret wish enshrine 
 That Fate may lead their happy feet 
 
 Fair Jnlia in the lane to meet 
 To be their Valentine, 
 
 Bnt I, far happier, am secure ; 
 
 I know the eyes benign. 
 The face more beautiful and pure 
 
 Than Fancy's fairest portraiture 
 That mark my Valentine, 
 
 More than when first I singled thee. 
 This only prayer is mine, — 
 
 That, in the years I yet shall see. 
 As, darling, in the past, tliou 'It he 
 My happy Valentine. 
 
 AN APRIL BIETHDAT— AT SEA. 
 
 On this wild waste, where never blossom 
 came. 
 Save the white wind-flower in the 
 billow's cap, 
 Or those pale disks of momentary flame, 
 Loose petals dropped from Dian's 
 careless lap, 
 What far fetched influence all my 
 
 fancy fills. 
 With singing birds and dancing 
 daffodils? 
 
 Why, 't is her day whom jocund April 
 brought, 
 And who brings April with her in her 
 eyes; 
 It is her vision lights my lonely thought. 
 Even as a rose that opes its hushed 
 surprise 
 In sick men's chambers, with its 
 
 glowing breath 
 Plants Summer at the glacier edge 
 of Death. 
 
 Gray sky, sea gray as mossy stones on 
 graves ; — 
 Anon comes April in her jollity ; 
 And dancing down the bleak vales 'tween 
 the waves. 
 Hakes them green glades for all her 
 flowers and me. 
 The guUs turn thrushes, charmed 
 
 are sea and sky 
 By magic of my thought, and know 
 not why. 
 
 Ah, but I know, for never April's shine, 
 Ji^or passion gust of rain, nor all her 
 flowers 
 Scattered in haste, were seen so sudden 
 fine 
 As she in various mood, on whom the 
 powers 
 Of happiest stars in fair conjunction 
 
 smiled 
 To bless the birth of April's darling 
 child. 
 
 LOVE AND THOUGHT. 
 
 What hath Love with Thought to do ? 
 Still at variance are the two. 
 Love is sudden, Love is rash. 
 Love is like the levin flash. 
 Comes as swift, as swiftly goes. 
 And his mark as surely knows. 
 
 Thought is lumpish. Thought is slow, 
 Weighing long 'tween yes and no ; 
 When dear Love is dead and gone, 
 Thought comes creeping in anon, 
 And, in his deserted nest. 
 Sits to hold the crowner's quest. 
 
 Since we love, what need to think ? 
 Happiness stands on a brink 
 Whence too easy 't is to fall 
 Whither 's no return at all ; 
 Have a care, half-hearted lover. 
 Thought would only push her over ! 
 
 THE NOBLEB LOVEE. 
 
 If he he a nobler lover, take him ! 
 
 You in you I seek, and not myself ; 
 Love .with men 's what women choose to 
 make him, 
 Seraph strong to soar, or fawn-eyed 
 elf: 
 
ON HEARING A SONATA OF BEETHOVEN S. — VERSES. 
 
 505 
 
 All I am or can, your beauty gave it, 
 Lifting: me a moment nigh to you, 
 
 And my bit of heaven, I fain would save 
 It — 
 Mine I thought it was, I never knew. 
 
 "What you take of me is yours to serve 
 you, 
 All I give, you gave to me before ; 
 Let him win you! If I but deserve 
 you, 
 I keep all you grant to him and more : 
 You shall make me dare what others 
 dare not. 
 You shall keep my nature pure as 
 snow. 
 And a light from you that others share 
 not 
 Shall transfigure me where'er I go. 
 
 Let me be your thrall ! However lowly 
 
 Be the bondsman's service I can do, 
 Loyalty shall make it high and holy ; 
 Naught can be unworthy, done for 
 you. 
 Men shall say, " A lover of this fashion 
 
 Such an icy mistress well beseems." 
 Women say, " Could we deserve such 
 passion. 
 We might be the marvel that he 
 dreams." 
 
 ON HEARING A SONATA OF BEE- 
 THOVEN'S PLATED IN THE NEXT 
 BOOH. 
 
 Unseen Musician, thou art sure to 
 
 For those same notes in happier days 
 I heard 
 Poured by dear hands that long have 
 never stirred 
 Yet now again for me delight the 
 keys: 
 Ah me, to strong illusions Such as these 
 What are Life's solid things? The 
 walls that gird 
 Our senses, lo, a casual scent or word 
 Levels, and 'tis the soul that hears 
 and sees ! 
 Play on, dear girl, and many be the 
 years 
 Ere some grayhaired survivor sit like 
 me 
 And, for thy largess pay a meed of tears 
 Unto another who, beyond the sea 
 
 Of Time and Change, perhaps not sadly 
 hears 
 A music in this verse undreamed by 
 thee ! 
 
 VEBSES. 
 
 INTENDED TO 60 VflTH A POSSET DISH 
 TO MT DEAR LITTLE GODDAUGHTEK, 
 1882. 
 
 In good old times, which means, you 
 
 know. 
 The time men wasted long ago, 
 And we must blame our brains or mood 
 If that we squander seems less good, 
 In those blest days when wish was act. 
 And fancy dreamed itself to fact. 
 Godfathers used to fill with guineas 
 The cups they gave their pickaninnies. 
 Performing functions at the chrism 
 Not mentioned in the Catechism. 
 No millioner, poor I fill up 
 With wishes my more modest cup. 
 Though had I Amalthea's horn 
 It should be hers the newly born. 
 Nay, shudder not ! I should bestow it 
 So brimming full she could n't blow it. 
 Wishes are n't horses : true, but still 
 There are worse roadsters than good- 
 will. 
 And so I wish my darling health. 
 And just to round my couplet, wealth. 
 With faith enough to bridge the chasm 
 'Twixt Genesis and Protoplasm, 
 And bear her o'er life's current vext 
 From this world to a better next. 
 Where the full glow of God puts out 
 Poor reason's farthing candle, Doubt. 
 I 've wished her healthy, wealthy, wise. 
 What more can godfather devise 1 
 But since there 's room for countless 
 
 wishes 
 In these old-fashioned posset dishes, 
 I 'U wish her from my plenteous store 
 Of those commodities two more, 
 Her father's wit, veined through and 
 
 through 
 With tenderness that Watts (but whewl 
 Celia 's aflame, I mean no stricture 
 On his Sir Josh-surpassing picture) — 
 I wish her next, and *t is the soul 
 Of all I 've dropt into the bowl. 
 Her mother's beauty — nay, bat two 
 So fair at once would never do. 
 Then let her but the half possess, 
 Troy was besieged ten ye»,rj for less. 
 
506 
 
 ON A BUST OF GENERAL GRANT. 
 
 Now if there 'a any truth in Darwir, 
 And we from what was, all we are 
 
 win, 
 I simply wish the child to be 
 A sample of Heredity, 
 Enjoying to the full extent 
 Life's best, the Unearned Increment 
 Which Fate her Godfather to flout 
 Gave him in legacies of gout. 
 Thus, then, the cup is duly filled ; 
 Walk steady, dear, lest all be spilled. 
 
 ON A BUST OF GENEKAL GEANT. 
 
 " This poem is the last, so far as is known, 
 written b}' Mr. Lowell. He laid it aside 
 for revision, leaving two of the verses in- 
 complete. In a pencilled fragment of the 
 poem the first verse appears as follows : — 
 
 ' strong, eimple, ailent, such are Nature's Laws.' 
 
 In the final copy, from which the poem is 
 now printed, the verse originally stood : — 
 
 * Strong, steadfast, silent are the laws.' 
 
 but ' steadfast ' is crossed out, and ' simple ' 
 written above. 
 
 "A similar change is made in the ninth 
 vei'se of the stanza, where 'simpleness' 
 is substituted for 'steadfastness.' The 
 change from ' steadfast ' to ' simple ' was 
 not made, probably through oversight, iu 
 the first verse of tlie second stanza. There 
 is nothing to indicate what epithet Mr. 
 Lowell would have chosen to complete the 
 first verse of the third stanza. C. E. N." 
 
 Stkong, simple, silent are the [stead- 
 fast] laws 
 
 That sway this universe, of none with- 
 stood, 
 
 UncoMscioua of man's outcries or ap- 
 plause, 
 
 Or what man deems his evil or his good; 
 
 And when the Fates ally them with a 
 cause 
 
 That wallows in the sea -trough and 
 seems lost. 
 
 Drifting in danger of the reefs and sands 
 
 Of shallow counsels, this way, that way, 
 tost. 
 
 Strength, silence, simpleness, of these 
 three strands 
 
 They twist the cable shall the world hold 
 fast 
 
 To where its anchors clutch the bed-rock 
 of the Past. 
 
 Strong, simple, silent, therefore such 
 
 was he 
 Who helped us in our need ; the eternal 
 
 law 
 That who can saddle Opportunity 
 Is God's elect, though many a mortal 
 
 flaw 
 May minish him in eyes that closely see, 
 Was verified in him : what need we say 
 Of one who made success where others 
 
 failed. 
 Who, with no light save that of common 
 
 day. 
 Struck hard, and still struck on till For- 
 tune quailed. 
 But that (so sift the Norns) a desperate 
 
 van 
 Ne'er fell at last to one who was not 
 
 wholly man. 
 
 A face all prose where Time's [benig- 
 nant] haze 
 Softens no raw edge yet, nor makes all 
 
 fair 
 With the beguiling light of vanished 
 
 days ; 
 This is relentless granite, bleak and bare, 
 Roughhewn, and scornful of sesthetic 
 
 phrase ; 
 Nothing is here for fancy, naught for 
 
 dreams. 
 The Present's hard uncompromising 
 
 light 
 Accents all vulgar outlines, flaws, and 
 
 seams. 
 Yet vindicates some pristine natural 
 
 right 
 O'ertopping that hereditary grace 
 Which marks the gain or loss of som? 
 
 titue-fondled race. 
 
 So Marius looked, mcthinks, and Crom- 
 well so, 
 Not in the purple born, to those they led 
 Nearer for that and costlier to the foe, 
 New moulders of old forms, by nature 
 
 bred 
 The exhaustless life of manhood's seeds 
 
 to show, 
 Let but the ploughshare of portentous 
 
 times 
 Strike deep enough to reach them where 
 
 they lie : 
 Despair and danger are their fostering 
 
 climes, 
 And their best sun bursts from a stormy 
 
 sky: 
 
ON A BUST OF GENERAL GRANT. 
 
 507 
 
 He was our man of men, nor would 
 
 abate 
 The utmost due manliood could claim 
 
 of fate. 
 
 Nothing ideal, a plain-people's man 
 At the first glance, a more deliberate ken 
 Finds type primeval, theirs in whose 
 
 veins ran 
 Such blood as quelled the dragon in his 
 
 den. 
 Made harmless fields, and better worlds 
 
 He came grim-silent, saw and did the 
 deed 
 
 That was to do ; in his master-grip 
 
 Our sword flashed joy ; no skill of words 
 could breed 
 
 Such sure conviction as that close- 
 clamped lip ; 
 
 He slew our dragon, nor, so seemed it, 
 knew 
 
 He had done more than any simplest 
 man might do, 
 
 Yet did this man, war-tempered, stern 
 
 as steel 
 Where steel opposed, prove soft in civil 
 
 eway ; 
 The hand hilt-hardened had lost tact to 
 
 feel 
 The world's base coin, and glozing 
 
 knaves made prey 
 Of him and of the entrusted Common- 
 weal ; 
 So Truth insists and will not be denied. 
 We turn our eyes away, and so will 
 
 Fame, 
 As if in his last battle he had died 
 Victor for us and spotless of all blame. 
 Doer of hopeless tasks which praters 
 
 shirk. 
 One of those still plain men that do the 
 
 world's rough work. 
 
INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 
 
 A beggar through the world am I, 4. 
 
 A camel-driver, angry with his drudge, 498. 
 
 A heap of bare and splintery crags, 361. 
 
 A hundred years 1 they 're quickly fled, 493. 
 
 A legend that grew in the forest's hush, 74. 
 
 A hly thou wast when I saw thee first, 9, 
 
 A poet cannot strive for despotism, 23. 
 
 A presence both by night and day, 3ti0. 
 
 A race of nobles may die out, 101. 
 
 A stranger came one night to Yussouf 's tent, 
 
 376. 
 About the oak that framed this chair, of old, 
 
 449. 
 Alike I hate to be your debtor, 385. 
 Along a river-side, I know not where, 392, 
 Amid these fragments of heroic days, 468. 
 An ass munched thistles, while a nightingale, 
 
 497. 
 *' And how could you dream of meeting ? " 473. 
 I I Another star 'ueath Time's horizon dropped, 
 
 106. 
 Are we, then, wholly fallen ? Can it be, 98. 
 As a twig trembles, which a bird, 90. 
 As, cleansed of Tiber's and Oblivion's slime, 
 
 450. 
 ^ B, flake by flake, the beetling avalanches, 92. 
 AS life runs on, the road grows strange, 499. 
 As sinks the sim behind yon alien hills, 468. 
 As the broad ocean endlessly upheaveth, 22, 
 At Gamac in Brittany, close on the bay, 459. 
 At length arrived, your book I take, 446. 
 At twenty we fancied the blest Middle Ages, 492. 
 Ay, pale and silent maiden, 18. 
 
 B, taught by Pope to do his good by stealth, 
 
 498. 
 Beauty on my hearth-stone blazing I 377. 
 Beloved, in the noisy city here, 22. 
 Beneath the trees, 395. 
 Bowing thyself in dust before a Book, 99. 
 
 Can this be thou who, lean and pale, 87, 
 Come back before the birds are flown, 464. 
 " Come forth I " my catbird calls to me, 389. 
 Curtis, whose Wit, with Fancy arm in arm, 451. 
 
 Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the 
 way, 83. 
 
 Dear M. By way of saving time, 151. 
 
 Dear Sir, — You wish to know my notions, 195. 
 Dear Sir, — Your letter come to han', 289. 
 Dear Wendell, why need count the years, 445. 
 Death never came so nigh to me before, 87. 
 Don't believe in the Flying Dutchman? 488. 
 Down 'mid the tangled roots of things, 383. 
 
 Ef I a song or two could make, 281. 
 Entranced I saw a vision in the cloud, 430. 
 Bre poles in Heaven the morning star^ 463. 
 
 Fair as a summer dream was Margaret, 27. 
 Far over Elf-land poets stretch their sway, 46ft 
 Far through the memory shines a happy day, 
 
 407. 
 Far up on Katahdin thou towerest, 63. 
 Far 'yond this narrow parapet of Time, 23. 
 Fit for an Abbot of Theleme, 380. 
 " For this true nobleness I seek in vain," 20. 
 Frank-hearted hostess of the field and wood, 
 
 343. 
 From the close-shut windows gleams no epark, 
 
 4. 
 Full oft the pathway to her door, 499. 
 
 Oiddings, far rougher names than thine have 
 
 grown, 25. 
 Go I leave me, Priest ; my soul would be, 76, 
 God I do not let my loved one die, 15. 
 God makes sech nights, all white an' still, 233. 
 God sends his teachers unto every ape, 46. 
 Godminster ? Is it Fancy's play ? 355. 
 Gold of the reddening sunset, backward thrown, 
 
 470. 
 Gone, gone from us I and shall we see, 1. 
 Great soul, thou sittest with me in my room, 21. 
 Great truths are portions of the soul of man, 20. 
 Guvener B. is a sensible man, 180. 
 
 He came to Florence long ago, 354, 
 
 He spoke of Bums : men rude and rough, 44. 
 
 He stood upon the world's broad threshold ; 
 wide, 24. 
 
 He who first stretched his nerves of subtile 
 wire, 475. 
 
 Heaven's cup held down to me I drain, 89. 
 
 Here once my step was quickened, 367. 
 
 " Here we stan' on the Constitution, by thun- 
 der! "189. 
 
 Hers all that Earth could promise or bestow, 
 469. 
 
 Hers is a spirit deep, and crystal-clear, 3. 
 
 How strange are the freaks of memory 1 387. 
 
 How struggles with the tempest's swells, 37b. 
 
 How was I worthy so divine a loss, 464, 
 
 Hushed with broad sunlight lies tbe hill, 100. 
 
 I am a man of forty, sirs, a native of East Had- 
 
 dam, 337. 
 I ask not for those thoughts, that sudden leap, 
 
 20. 
 I call as fly the irrevocable hours, 498. 
 I cannot think that thou shouldst pass away, 
 
 21. 
 I christened you in happier days, before, 447. 
 I could not bear to see those eyes, 466. 
 I did not praise thee when the crowd, 101. 
 I do not come to weep above thy pall, 104. 
 I don't much s'pose, hows'ever I should plen Iti 
 
 293. 
 
610 
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 
 
 I du believe In Freedom's cause, 192, 
 
 I go to the ridge in the forest, Stiti. 
 
 I grieve not that ripe knowledge takes away, 
 
 25. 
 I hod a little daughter, 90. 
 I have a fancy : how shall I bring it, 476. 
 I hed it on my min* las' time, when I to write 
 
 ye started, 256. 
 I know a falcon, swift and peerless, 48. 
 I love to atart out artar night *b begun, 24S. 
 I need not praise the sweetness of his song, 
 
 388. 
 I rise, Mr. Chairman, as both of us know, 496. 
 I aat and watched the walls tit night, 474. 
 I sat one evening in my room, 81. 
 [ saw a Sower walking slow, 01. 
 I saw the twinkle of white feet, 66. 
 I sent you a message, my friens, t' other day, 
 
 263. 
 I spose you recollect thet I explcuned my gennle 
 
 views, 203. 
 I spose you wonder ware I be ; I can't tell, f er 
 
 the soul o' me, 198. 
 I swam with undulation soft, 383. 
 I thank ye, my frien's, for the warmth o' your 
 
 greetin', 269. 
 I thought our love at full, but I did err, 25. 
 I treasure in secret some long, fine hair, 365. 
 I, walking the familiar street, 461. 
 I was with thee in Heaven : I cannot tell, 4GS. 
 I watched a moorland torrent run, 475. 
 I went to seek for Christ, 66. 
 T would more natures were like thine, 10. 
 I would not have this perfect love of ours, 20. 
 If he be a nobler lover, take him, 604. 
 If I let fall a word of bitter mirth, 420. 
 If I were the rose at your window, 499. 
 In a small chamber, friendless and unseen, 108. 
 In good old times, which means, you know, 505. 
 In his tower flat the poet, 16. 
 In life's small things be resolute and great, 498. 
 In the old days of awe and keen-eyed wonder, 
 
 1q town I hear, scarce wa.kened y^t, 466. 
 In vain we call old notions fudge, 499. 
 Into the sunshine, 10. 
 It is a mere wild rosebud, 44. 
 It don't seem hardly right, John, !252. 
 It mounts athwart the windy <hill, 390. 
 It was past the hour of trysting, 79. 
 It 's some consid'ble of a spell sence I hain't 
 writ no letters, 237. 
 
 Leaves fit to have been poor Juliet's cradle- 
 rhyme, 451. 
 
 Let others wonder what fair face, 504. 
 
 Light of triumph in her eyes, 472. 
 
 Look on who will in apathy, and stifle they who 
 can, 82. 
 
 Maiden, when such a soul as thine in born, 21. 
 
 Mary, since first I knew thee, to this hour, 23. 
 
 Men say the sullen instrument, 389. 
 
 Men ! whose boast it is that ye, 56. 
 
 My coachman, in the moonlight there, 355. 
 
 My day began not till the twilight fell, 456. 
 
 My heart, I cannot still it, 474. 
 
 My Love, I have no fear that thou shoul^t die, 
 
 21. ■ 
 My name is TTater; I have sped, 96. 
 My soul was like the sea, 9. 
 My worthy friend, A. Gordon Knott, 323. 
 
 Never, surely, was holier man, 78. 
 IVew England's poet, rich in love as years, 450. 
 Nine years have slipt like hour-glass sand, 858. 
 No? Hez he? He baint, though? Wut? 
 
 Voted agin him? 184. 
 Nor deem he lived unto himflelf alone, 448. 
 Not always uaimpeded can I pray, 352. 
 Not as all other women are, 6. 
 Now BiOrn, the son of Heriulf, had ill days, 368. 
 
 days endeared to every Muse, 488. 
 
 " Dryad feet," 472. 
 
 dwellers in the valley-land, 79. 
 
 Land of Promise ! from what Fisgah's height, 
 
 65. 
 moonlight deep and tender, 19. 
 0, wandering dim on the extremest edge, 63. 
 Of all the myriad moods of mind, 92. 
 Oft round my hall of portraiture I gaze, 468. 
 Oh, tell me less or tell me more, 466. 
 Old events have modern meanings; only that 
 
 survives, 372. 
 Old Friend, farewell ! Your kindly door again, 
 
 447. 
 Ou this wild waste, where never .blossom came, 
 
 504. 
 Once git a smell o' muek into a draw, 274. 
 Once hardly in a cycle blossometh, 22, 
 Once on a time there was a pool, 262. 
 One after one the stars have risen and set, 38. 
 One feast, of holy days the crest, 377. 
 One kiss from all others prevents me, 467. 
 Opening one day a book of mine, 474. 
 Our love is not a fading, earthly flower, 24. 
 Our ship lay tumbling in an angry sea, 397. 
 Orer his keys the musing organist, 107. 
 
 Phoebus, sitting one day in a laurel-tree's shade, 
 
 119. 
 Praisest Law, friend 7 We, too, love it much 
 
 as they that love it best, 94. 
 Propped on the marsh, a dwelling now I see, 
 
 166. 
 Punctorum garretos colenset cellara-Quin^Lue, 
 
 284. 
 
 Babbi Jehosha used to say, 377. 
 
 Reader I Walk up at once (it will soon be too 
 
 late), 113. 
 RipX)ling through thy branches goes the aaiu 
 
 shine, 80. 
 
 Said Christ our Iiord, *• I will go and see," 96. 
 Seat of all woes ? Though Nature's firm de* 
 
 cree, 470. 
 She gave me all that woman can, 465. 
 Shell, whose lips, than joine more cold, 475. 
 Ship, blest to bear such freight across the blue. 
 
 450. 
 Shy soul and stalwart, man of patient will, 448. 
 Silencioso por la puerta, 467. 
 Sisters two, all praise to you, 61. 
 Skilled to pull wires, he baffles Nature's hope, 
 
 498. * 
 
 Sleep is Death's image, — poets tell us so, 464. 
 So dreamy-soft the notes, so far away, 470. 
 Some sort of heart I know is hers, 86. 
 Sometimes come pauses of calm, when the rapt 
 
 bard, holding his heart back, 462. 
 Somewhere in India, upon a time, 332. 
 Rnirit, that rarely comest now, 381. 
 Still thirteen years : 't is auttmm now. 366. 
 
INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 
 
 511 
 
 Stood the tall Archrfngel weighing, 503. 
 Strong, simple, silent are the [steadfust] laws, 
 
 6U6. 
 Swiftly the politic goes: is it dark? — he hor- 
 
 T0W8 a lantern, 4b8. 
 
 Thank God, he saw you last in pomp of May, 
 ^447. 
 
 Thanta to the artlat, ever on my w^, 460. 
 ^% * rather bold epeooh, my Lord Bacon, 
 
 The Bardling came where by a riyer grew, 373. 
 The century numbers fourscore years, 475. 
 The cordage creaks and rattles in the wind, 56. 
 The dandelions and buttercups, 353. 
 I^electric nerve, whose uiBtautaueoua thrill, 
 
 The fire is burning clear and blithely, 376. 
 ^^liope of Truth grows stronger, day by day, 
 
 The little gate was reached at hwt, 366. 
 99^°^® of all things springs from love of one, 
 
 Xhe Maple puts her corals on in May, 469. 
 The misspelt scrawl, upon the wall, 495, 
 The moon shines white and silent, 15. 
 The New 'World's sons, from England's breasts 
 
 we drew, 498. 
 The next whose fortune *t was a tale to tell 
 
 477. 
 The night is dark, the stinging sleet, 14. 
 The old Chief, feeling now weihiigh his end, 54. 
 The path from me to you that led, 4C3. 
 The pipe came safe, and welcome too, 446. 
 The rich man's son inherits lands, 15. 
 The same good blood that now refills, 97. 
 The sea is lonely, the sea is dreary, 2. 
 The snow had begun in the gloaming, 350. 
 The tower of old Saint Nicholas soared upward 
 
 to the skies, 60. 
 The wmd is roistering out of doors, 343. 
 The wisest man could ask no more of Fate, 448. 
 The world turns mild ; democracy, they say, 491. 
 There are who triumph in a losing cause, 102. 
 There came a youth upon the earth, 44. 
 There lay upon the ocean's shore, ^2. 
 There never yet was flower fair in vain, 21. 
 Therefore think not the Past is wise alone, 23. 
 These pearU of thought in Persian gulfs wera 
 
 bred, 446. 
 These rugged, wintry days I scarce could bear, 
 
 24. 
 They pass me by like shadows, crowds on 
 
 crowds, 24. 
 Thick-rushing, like an ocean vast, 9. 
 This is the midnight of the century, — hark t 
 
 353. 
 This kind o* sogerin* aint a mite like our Octo- 
 ber trainin', 176. 
 ^is little blossom from afar, 5. 
 Thou lookMst on me all yesternight, 17. 
 Thou wast the fairest of all man-made things, 
 
 502. 
 Though old the thought and oft exprest, 353. 
 Thrash away, you '11 hev to rattle, 173. 
 Through suffering and sorrow Ulou hast passed, 
 
 19. 
 Thy love thou oendest oft to me, 76. 
 7hy voice is like a fountain, 8. 
 'T is a woodland enchanted 1 373. 
 To those who died for her on land and sea, 
 
 True as the sun's own work, but more refined, 
 
 449. 
 True Love is a humble, low-bom thing, 7. 
 Turbid from London's noise and smoko, 465. 
 'T was sung of old in hut and hall, 463. 
 'T were no hard task, perchance, to win, 804. 
 Two brothers once, an ill-matched pair, 168. 
 Two fellers, Isrel named and Joe, 168. 
 
 UnconsciouB as the sunshine, simply sweet, 448. 
 tJuseen Musician, thou art sure to please, 605. 
 UntremulouB la the river clear, 6. 
 
 Violet! sweet violet! 17. 
 
 Wait a little : do we not wait? 382. 
 "Walking alone where we walked together, 467. 
 We see but half the causes of our deeds, 49. 
 We, too, have autumns, when our leaves, 98. 
 We wagered, she for sunehine, 1 for rain, 499. 
 Weak-winged is song, 398. 
 What boot your houses and your lands ? 62. 
 What countless years and wealth of brain were 
 
 spent, 471. 
 " What fairings will ye that I bring? =' 351. 
 What gnarled stretch, what depth of shade, is 
 
 his! 77. 
 What hath Love with Thought to do, 504. 
 What know we of the world immense, 600. 
 What man would live coffined with brick and 
 
 stone, 91. 
 What mean these banners spread, 472. 
 '' Wliat means this glory round our feet," 407. 
 What Nature makes in any mood, 359. 
 What visionary tints the year puts on, 69. 
 What were I, Love, if I were stripped of thee, 
 
 What were the whole void world, if thou wert 
 
 dead, 471. 
 When a deed Is done for Freedom, through the 
 
 broad earth's aching breast, 67. 
 When I was a beggarly boy, 3^. 
 When o^en woods with buds are pink, 462. 
 When Persia's sceptre trembled in a hand, 349> 
 When the down is on the chin, 473. 
 When wise Minerva still was young, 487. 
 Where is the true man^s fatherland ? 13. 
 *' Where lies the capital, pilgrim, seat of who 
 
 governs the Faithful ? " 498. 
 Whether my heart hath wiser grown or not, 25. 
 Whether the idle prisoner through his grate, 
 
 48. 
 While the slow clock, as they were miser's gold, 
 
 469. 
 Whither ? Albeit I follow fast, 404. 
 Who cometh over the hills, 421. 
 Who does his duty is a question, 451. 
 Who hath not been a poet ? Who hath not. 
 
 356. 
 Why should I seek her spell to decompose, 4491 
 With what odorous woods and spices, 465. 
 Woe worth the hour when it is crime, 104. 
 Wondrous and awful are thy silent halls, 64. 
 Words pass as wind, but where great deedl 
 
 were done, 424. 
 Worn and footsore was the Prophet, 18. 
 
 Te little think what toil it was to build, 470. 
 Ye wlio, passing praves by night, 84. 
 Yes, faith is a goodly anchor, 367. 
 
 Zekle crep' up, quite unbeknown, 160. 
 
INDEX OF TITLES. 
 
 A. C. L., To, la 
 
 Above and Below, 79 
 
 Absence, 464. 
 
 After the Burial, 367 
 
 Agaasiz, 437. 
 
 Agro-Dolce, 467. 
 
 Al Fresco, 353. 
 
 Aladdin, 358. 
 
 Alexander, Fanny, Co, 443. 
 
 All-Saints, 377. 
 
 Allegra, 10. 
 
 Ambrose, 78. 
 
 Anti-Apis, 94. 
 
 Appledore, Pictures from, 361. 
 
 April Birthday, An, — at Sea, 604 
 
 Arcadia rediTiva, 461. 
 
 At the Bums Centennial, 493. 
 
 At the Commencement Dinner, 496. 
 
 Auf Wiederseben, 366. 
 
 Auspex, 474. 
 
 Bankaide, 447. 
 Bartlett, Mr. John, To, 380. 
 Beaver Brook, 100. 
 Beggar, The, 5. 
 Bibliolatres, 99. 
 
 Biglow, Mr. Hoaea, to the Editor of the Atlan- 
 tic Monthly, 289. 
 Biglow, Mr., Latest Views of, 279. 
 BioLow Papebs, The, 155. 
 Biglow's, Mr. Hosea, Speech in March Meeting, 
 
 Birch-Tree, The, 80. 
 
 Birdofredum Sawin, Esq., to Mr. Bosea Biglow, 
 
 235. 
 Birdofredum Sawin, Esq., to Mr. Hosea Biglow, 
 
 2S4. 
 Birthday Verses, 463. 
 Black Preacher, The, 469. 
 Blondel, Two Scenes from the Life of, 394. 
 Bon Voyage ! 450. 
 Boss, The, 498. 
 Boston, Letter from, 151. 
 Bradford, C. F., To, 446. 
 Brakes, The, 471. 
 Brittany, A Legend of, 27. 
 Broken Tiyst, The, 467. 
 Bums Centennial, At the, 493. 
 Captive, The, 79. 
 Capture of Fugitive Slaves near Washington, 
 
 On the, 8a. 
 Casa sin Alma, 467. 
 Catrxdeal, The, 407. 
 Cervantes, Prison of, ♦TO. 
 Changed Perspective, 499, 
 Changeling, The, 90. 
 
 Channing, Dr., Elegy on the Death of, 104. 
 Chippewa Legend, A, 54. 
 Christmas Carol, A, 467. 
 
 Cochituate Water, Ode written for the Calebra, 
 tion of the Introduction of the, into the Gitar 
 of Boston, 96. 
 
 Columbue, 56. 
 
 Concord Bridge, Ode read at the One Huni 
 dredth Anniversary of the Fight at, 421. 
 
 Contrast, A., 76. 
 
 Courtin', The, 233. 
 
 Credldimus .Tovem regnare, 488. 
 
 Curtis, George William, Au Epistle to, 461. 
 
 Dancing Bear, The, 469. 
 Dandelion, To the, 83. 
 Dante, On a Portrait of, by Giotto, S7. 
 Dara, 349. 
 
 Darkened Mind, The, 376. 
 Dead House, The, 367. 
 Death of a Friend's Child, On the, 87. 
 Death of Queen Mercedes, 469. 
 Debate in the Sennit, The, 189. 
 Discovery, The, 475. 
 
 Dobson's, Mr. Austin, "Old World Hyaa," On 
 receiving a Copy of, 446. 
 
 E. a. de R., 449. 
 
 Eleanor makes Macaroons, 472. 
 
 Elegy on the Death of Dr. Channing, 104. 
 
 Ember Picture, An, 387. 
 
 Endymion, 466. 
 
 Epistle to George William Curtis, An, 461* 
 
 Estrangement, 463. 
 
 Eurydice, 89. 
 
 Ewig-Weiblichn, Das, 464. 
 
 Extreme Unction, 76. 
 
 Eye's Treasury, The, 470. 
 
 Fable vob Cbitiob, A, 113. 
 
 Fact or Fancy? 466. 
 
 Falcon, The, 48. 
 
 Familiar Epistle to a Friend, A, 38S, 
 
 Fancy's Casuistry, 379. 
 
 Fatherland, The, 13. 
 
 Festina Lente, 262. 
 
 Finding of the Lyre, The, 352. 
 
 First Snow-Fall, The KiO. 
 
 Fitz Adam's Story, 477. 
 
 Flying Dutchman, The, 488. 
 
 Foot-Path, The, 390. 
 
 For an Autograph, 363. 
 
 Foreboding, A, 471. 
 
 Forlorn, The, 14. 
 
 Fountain, The, 10. 
 
 Fountain of Youth, The, 373. 
 
 Fourth of July, 1876, An Ode for the, 430. 
 
 Fragments of an Unfinished Poem, 337. 
 
 France, Ode to, 92. 
 
 " Francisciis de Terulamio aic oogitavit," 47SI 
 
 Freedom, 98. 
 
 Future, To the, 65. 
 
INDEX OF TITLES. 
 
 613 
 
 Garrison, W. L,, To, 103. 
 
 Ohost-Seer, The, 84. 
 
 Giddings, J. K., To, 25. 
 
 Glance behind the Curtain, A, 49. 
 
 Godminster Chimes, 855 
 
 Gold Egg : A Dream Fantasy, 888. 
 
 Grant, General, On a Bust of, 506. 
 
 Graves of two Engli.<:h Soldiers on Concord Bat- 
 
 tle-Ground, Linos suggested by the, 97. 
 Growth of the Legend, The, 74. 
 
 H. W. L., To, 388. 
 
 Hamburg, An Incident of the Fire at, 60. 
 
 Happiness, Ode to, 381- 
 
 Harvard Commemoration, Oderecitedat the, 898. 
 
 Heartsbasx and Kde, 485. 
 
 Hebe, 66. 
 
 Heritage, The, 15. 
 
 Holmes, To, 445. 
 
 Hood, To the Memory of, 106. 
 
 How I consulted the Oracle of the Goldfishes, 
 
 500. 
 Hunger and Cold, 61. 
 
 In a Copy of Omar Khayyim, 446. 
 
 In Absence, 24. 
 
 In an Album, 495. 
 
 In the Half-Way House, 492. 
 
 In the Twilight, 889. 
 
 Incident in a Railroad Car, An, 44. 
 
 Incident of the Fire at Hamburg, An, 60. 
 
 Indian-Summer Reverie, An, 69. 
 
 Insciiptions, 498. 
 
 For a Bell at Cornell University. 
 
 For a Memorial Window to Sir Walter Ra- 
 leigh, set up in St. Margaret's, Westminster, 
 by American Contributors. 
 
 Proposed for a Soldiers' and Sailors' Monu- 
 ment in Boston. 
 International Copyright, 499. 
 Interview with Mtiea Staudisb, An, 81. 
 Invita Minerva, 373. 
 Invitation, An, 358. 
 Inveraray, On planting a Tree at, 451. 
 Iren^, 3. 
 
 Jonathan to John, 252. 
 
 Eeata, To the Spirit of, 20. 
 Eettelopotomachia, 283, 
 Kossuth, 101. 
 
 Lamartine, To, 101. 
 
 Landlord, The, 62. 
 
 Latest Views of Mr. Biglow, 279. 
 
 Leaving the Matter open, 168. 
 
 Legend of Brittany, A, 27. 
 
 L'Envoi (To the MuBe), 404. 
 
 L'Envoi (Whether my heart hath wiser grown 
 or not), 26. 
 
 Lesson, The, 474. 
 
 Letter, A, from a candidate for the presidency 
 in answer to suttin questions proposed by Mr. 
 Hosea Biglow, inclosed in a note from Mr. 
 Biglow, to S. H. Gay, Esq., editor of the Na- 
 tional Anti-Slavery Standard, 194. 
 
 Letter, A, from Mr. Ezekiel Biglow of Jaalam 
 to the Hon. Joseph T. Buckingham, editor of 
 the Boston Courier, inclosing a poem of his 
 son, Mr. Hosea Biglow, 173. 
 
 Letter, A, from Mr. Hosea Biglow to the Hon. 
 J. T, Buckingham, edito;^ 0' che Boston Cour- 
 
 ier, covering a letter from Mr. B. Sawin, pri- 
 vate in the Massachusetts Regiment, 175. 
 
 Letter from Boston, 151. 
 
 Lines (suggested by the Graves of two Ijinglish 
 Soldiers on Concord Battle-Ground), 97. 
 
 Longing, 92. 
 
 Love, 7. 
 
 Love and Thought, 504. 
 
 Love's Clock, 472. 
 
 M. 0. S., To, 22. 
 
 Mahmood, the Ima^e-Breaker, 872. 
 
 Maple, The, 469. 
 
 Mason and Slidell : a Yankee Idyll, 242. 
 
 Memoriae Positum, 895. 
 
 Message of Jeff Davis in Secret Session, A, 26L 
 
 Midnight, 16. 
 
 Miner, The, 383. 
 
 Misconception, A, 498. 
 
 MissD. T., To, 450. 
 
 Monna Lisa, 4d5* 
 
 Mood, A, 868. 
 
 Moon, The, 9. 
 
 My Love, 5. * 
 
 My Portrait Gallery, 468. 
 
 Nest, The, 462. 
 
 New-Year's Eve, 1850, 853. 
 
 New Year's Greeting, A, 476. 
 
 Nightingale in the Stu(^, The, 889. 
 
 Nightwatches, 469. 
 
 Nobler Lover, The, 504. 
 
 Nomades, The, 359. 
 
 Norton, Charles Eliot, To, 343. 
 
 Oak, The, 77. 
 
 Ode. An (for the Fourth of July, 1876), 430, 
 
 Ode (In the old days of awe and keen-eyed won- 
 der), 11. 
 
 Ode (read at the One Hundredth Anniversary 
 of the Fight at Concord Bridge), 421. 
 
 Ode recited at the Harvard Commemoration, 
 898. 
 
 Ode to France, 92. 
 
 Ode to Happiness, 381. 
 
 Ode (written for the Celebration of the Intro- 
 duction of the Cochituate Water Into the 
 City of Boston), 96. 
 
 Omar Khayyim, In a Copy of, 446. 
 
 On a Bust of General Grant, 506. 
 
 On a Portrait of Dante by Giotto, 87. 
 
 On an Autumn Sketch of H. G. Wild, 450. 
 
 On being asked for an Autograph in Venice, 468. 
 
 On Board the 76, 397. 
 
 On burning some Old Tjetters, 465. 
 
 On hearing a Sonata of Beethoven's played in 
 the Next Room, 505. 
 
 Go planting a Tree at Inveraray, 451. 
 
 On reading Wordsworth's Sonnets in Defence 
 of Capital Punishment, 22. 
 
 On receiving a Copy of Mr. Austin Dobson's 
 "Old World Idylls," 446. 
 
 On the Capturis of Fugitive Slaves near Wash* 
 ingcon, 82. 
 
 On the Death of a Friend's Child, 87. 
 
 On the Death of C. T. Torrey, 104. 
 
 Optimist, The, 465. 
 
 Oriental Apologue, An, 332. 
 
 Origin of Didactic Poetry, The, 487. 
 
 Palfrey, John G., To, 102. 
 
614 
 
 INDEX OP TITLES. 
 
 Palinode, 366. 
 
 Paolo to Frauceaca, 468. 
 
 Parable, A (An Ass munched Thistles, while a 
 Kightingale), 497. 
 
 Parable, A (Said Christ our Lard, " 1 will go 
 and see"), 96. 
 
 Parable, A (Worn and footsore was the Pro- 
 phet), 18. 
 
 Farting of the Wav^ The, 356. 
 
 Past, To the, 64. 
 
 Perdita, singing, To, 8. 
 
 Pessimoptimism, 470. 
 
 Petition, The, 466. 
 
 PliiUipa, WeudeU, 24, 
 
 PtaoBbe, 463. 
 
 Pictui'es from Appledore, 361. 
 
 Pme-Tree, To a, 63. 
 
 Pioneer, The, 91. 
 
 Pious Editor's Creed, The, 191. 
 
 Portrait of Dante by Giotto,. On a, SI* 
 
 Prayer, A, 15. 
 
 Pregnant Comment, The, 474. 
 
 Present Crisis, The, 67. 
 
 Prison of Cerrantee, 470. 
 
 Prometheus, 38. 
 
 Protest, The, 466. 
 
 Becall, The, 464. 
 
 liemarka of Increase D. 0*Phace, Esquire, at 
 
 an Extrumpery Caucus in State Street, re. 
 
 ported by Mr. H. Biglow, 183. 
 Eemembered Music, 9. 
 Kequiem, A, 18. 
 Rhoecus, 46. 
 Rosaline, 17. 
 Rose, The : a Ballad, 16. 
 
 St. Michael the Weigher, 503. 
 
 Gayings, 498. 
 
 Scherzo, 473. 
 
 Science and Poetry, 476. 
 
 Scottish Border, «68. 
 
 Search, The, 66. 
 
 Seaweed, 352. 
 
 Second Letter, A, from B. Sawin, Esq., 197. 
 
 Secret, The, 476. 
 
 Self-Study, 360. 
 
 Serenade, 41. 
 
 She came and went, 90. 
 
 Shepherd of King AdmetuB, The, 44, 
 
 Si descendero in Infernum, ades, 63. 
 
 Singing Leaves, The, 351. 
 
 Sirens, The, 2. 
 
 Sixty-Eighth Birthday, 499. 
 
 Song (O moonlight deep and tender), 19. 
 
 Song (To M. L.), 9. 
 
 Snng (Violet I sweet violet I), 17. 
 
 BoiraETs. 
 
 Bankaide, 447. 
 
 Bon VoyaRe ! 450. 
 
 Brakes, The, 471. 
 
 Dancing Bear, The, 469. 
 
 Death of Queen Mercedes, 469. 
 
 E. a. de R., 449. 
 
 Eye's Treasury, The, 470. 
 
 Foreboding, 471. 
 
 In Absence, 24. 
 
 Maple, The, 469. 
 
 ITightwatchea, 469. 
 
 On an Autumn Sketch of H. O. Wild, 450. 
 
 On being asked for sua Autograph in Veuica, 
 
 On hearing a Sonata of Beothoven^s played 
 in the Next Room, 5U5. 
 
 On reading Wordsworth's Sonnets in Defence 
 of Capital Punishment, 22. 
 
 Paolo to Francesca, 468. 
 
 Pessimoptimism, 470. 
 
 Phillips, Wendell, 24. 
 
 Scottish Border, 463. 
 
 Street, The, 24. 
 
 Sub PonJere creecit, 22. 
 
 To A. C. L., 19. 
 
 To a Friend, 449. 
 
 To a Lady playing on the Cithern, 470. 
 
 To Fanny Alexander, 448. 
 
 To J. R. GiddingE, 26. 
 
 To M. O. B., 22. 
 
 To M. W., on her. Birthday, 21. 
 
 To Miss D. T., 460. 
 
 To the Spirit of Keats, 20. 
 
 To Whittier, 450. 
 
 Winlock, Joseph, 448. 
 
 With a copy of Aucassin and Nicolete, 451, 
 
 With an Armchair, 449. 
 
 Wyman, Jeffries, 448. 
 Sower, The, 61. 
 Speech of Honourable Preserved Doe in Secret 
 
 Caucus, 267. 
 Standish, Miles, An Interview with, 81. 
 Stanzas on Freedom, 56. 
 Street, The, 24. 
 Studies for two Heads, 86. 
 Sub Pondere crescit, 22. 
 Summer Storm, 6. 
 Sun-Worship, 499. 
 Suntbin* in the Pastoral Line, 273. 
 
 Telepathy, 473. 
 
 Tempera mutantur, 491. 
 
 Third Letter, A, from B. Sawin, Esq., 203. 
 
 Threnodia, 1. 
 
 To , 98. 
 
 To A. C. L., 19. 
 
 To a Friend, 449. 
 
 To a Lady playing on the Cithern, 470. 
 
 To a Pine-Tree, 63. 
 
 To C. F. Bradford, 446. 
 
 To Charles Eliot Korton, 343. 
 
 To H. W. L., 388. 
 
 To Holmes, 445. 
 
 To J. R. Giddings, 25. 
 
 To John G. Palfrey, 102. 
 
 To Lamartine, 101. 
 
 ToM. O. S.,22. 
 
 To M. W., on her Birthday, 21. 
 
 ToMisaD. T.,450. 
 
 To Mr. John Bartlett, 380. 
 
 To Perdita, singing, 8. 
 
 To the Dandelion, 83. 
 
 To the Future, 65. 
 
 To the Memory of Hood, 106. 
 
 To the Past, 64. 
 
 To the Spirit of Keats, 20. 
 
 To W. L. Garrison, 103. 
 
 To Whittier, 460. 
 
 Token, The, 44. 
 
 Torrey, C. T., On the Death of, 104. 
 
 Trial, 48. 
 
 Turner's Old TSmAralre, 502. 
 
 Two Gunners, The, 168. 
 
 Two Scenes from the Life of Blondel, 894. 
 
 Under the October Maules. 472. 
 
INDEX OF TITLES. 
 
 515 
 
 Coder the Old Elm, 424. 
 Unbsr the Willows, 843. 
 Unhappy Lot of Mr. Knott, The, S21. 
 
 Valentine, A, 604. 
 
 VerReg intended to go with a Posset Dish, 605. 
 
 Villa FraDCB, 382. 
 
 VI3I0N or Sir LAUNfAL, Th«, 107. 
 
 Voyage to Vinland, The, 368. 
 
 Washers o{ the Shroud, The, 892. 
 
 What Mr. Robinson thinks, 179. 
 
 What Rabbi .Tehosha said, 377. 
 
 Whittier, To, 450. 
 
 Wild, H. G., On an Autumn Sketch ol, 460. 
 
 Wind-Harp, The, 366. 
 
 Winlock, Joseph, 448. 
 
 Winter-£Tening llymn to my Fire, A, 877. 
 
 With a Copy of Auca8t<in and Nicolete, 451. 
 
 With a Fair of Gloves lost in a Wager, 499. 
 
 With a Pressed Flower, 6. 
 
 With a Seashell, 476. 
 
 With an Armchair, 449. 
 
 Without and Within, 365. 
 
 Wordsworth's Sonnets in Defence of Capital 
 
 Punishment, On reading, 22. 
 Wyman, Jeffries, 448. 
 
 Youthful Experiment In English Hexameters, 
 
 A, 462. 
 TuSBOuf, 376.