THE MONIMENT She'll come out right bumby, thet I'll engage, 219 Soon ez she gits to seein' we 're of age; In spite of all the fools both sides the water. THE BRIDGE I b'lieve thet's so; but harken in your ear, I'm older 'n you,-Peace wun't keep house with Fear: Ef you want peace, the thing you've gut tu du Is jes' to show you're up to fightin', tu. I recollect how sailors' rights was won, 230 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'll think so still. Better thet all our ships an' all their crews Should sink to rot in ocean's dreamless ooze, Each torn flag wavin' chellenge ez it went, An' each dumb gun a brave man's moniment, Than seek sech peace ez only cowards Come must'rin' to the flag with sech a shout, I hoped to see things settled 'fore this fall, The Rebbles licked, Jeff Davis hanged, an' all; Then come Bull Run, an' sence then I've ben waitin' Like boys in Jennooary thaw for skatin', Nothin' 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 Ef we should part, it would n't be 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 airnest, ef you fight; Why, two thirds o' the Rebbles 'ould cut dirt, Ef they once thought thet Guv'ment meant to hurt; An' I du wish our Gin'rals hed in mind 280 The folks in front more than the folks be hind; You wun't do much ontil you think it's God, An' not constitoounts, thet holds the rod; We want some more o' Gideon's sword, I jedge, For proclamations ha'n't no gret of edge; There's nothin' for a cancer but the knife, Onless you set by 't more than by your life. I've seen hard times; I see a war begun Thet folks thet love their bellies never 'd won; Why talk so dreffle big, John, You did n't care a fig, John, Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess We give the critters back, John, Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess We 've a hard row,' sez he, 'To hoe jest now; but thet, somehow, 390 400 410 May happen to J. B., Ez wal ez you an' me!' We ain't so weak an' poor, John, 'The surest plan to make a Man Our folks believe in Law, John; 420 430 Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess, Ef 't warn't 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 ! )' We know we've got a cause, John, We thought 't would win applause, John, 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!' 440 Shall it be love, or hate, John? It's you thet 's to decide; Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess '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, 450 460 (For, 'thout new funnitoor, wut good in life?), An' so ole clawfoot, from the precinks dread O' the spare chamber, slinks into the shed, Where, dim with dust, it fust or last subsides To holdin' seeds an' fifty things besides; 10 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 of worked into their heart an' head, So's 't they can't seem to write but jest on sheers With furrin countries or played-out ideers, Nor hev a feelin', ef it doos n't smack O' wut some critter chose to feel 'way back: This makes 'em talk o' daisies, larks, an' things, Ez though we'd nothin' here that blows an' sings 20 1 He [Arthur Hugh Clough] often suggested that I should try my hand at some Yankee Fastorals, which would admit of more sentiment and a higher tone without foregoing the advantage 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. (LOWELL, in the Introduction' to the Biglow Papers, 1866.) (Why, I'd give more for one live bobolink Than a square mile o' larks in printer's ink), This makes 'em think our fust o' May is May, Which 't ain't, for all the almanicks can say. O little city-gals, don't never go it Blind on the word o' noospaper or poet! They 're apt to puff, an' May-day seldom looks Up in the country ez 't doos in books; They're no more like than hornets'-nests an' hives, 30 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 fling on April's hearse Your muslin nosegays from the milliner's, Puzzlin' to find dry ground your queen to choose, An' dance your throats sore in morocker shoes: I've seen ye an' felt proud, thet, come wut would, Our Pilgrim stock wuz 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, 40 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, Young oak-leaves mist the side-hill woods with pink; The catbird in the laylock-bush is loud; The orchards turn to heaps o' rosy cloud; Red-cedars blossom tu, though few folks know it, An' look all dipt in sunshine like a poet; 90 My innard vane pints east for weeks together, My natur' gits all goose-flesh, an’ my sins Come drizzlin' on my conscience sharp ez pins: Wal, et sech times I jes' slip out o' sight An' take it out in a fair stan'-up fight |