I cannot say a scene is fairBecause it is beloved of theeBut I shall love to linger there,For sake of thy dear memory;I would not be so coldly justAs to love only what I must.I cannot say a thought is goodBecause thou foundest joy in it;Each soul must choose its proper foodWhich Nature hath decreed most fit;But I shall ever deem it soBecause it made thy heart o'erflow.I love thee for that thou art fair;And that thy spirit joys in aughtCreateth a new beauty there,With throe own dearest image fraught;And love, for others' sake that springs,Gives half their charm to lovely things.
I not as all other women areIs she that to my soul is dear;Her glorious fancies come from far,Beneath the silver evening-star,And yet her heart is ever near.Great feelings has she of her own,Which lesser souls may never know;God giveth them to her alone,And sweet they are as any toneWherewith the wind may choose to blow.Yet in herself she dwelleth not,Although no home were half so fair;No simplest duty is forgot,Life hath no dim and lowly spotThat doth not in her sunshine share.She 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 m her eyes.She hath no scorn of common things,And, though she seem of other birth,Round us her heart entwines and clings,And patiently she folds her wingsTo tread the humble paths of earth.Blessing she is: God made her so,And deeds of week-day holinessFall from her noiseless as the snow,Nor hath she ever chanced to knowThat aught were easier than to bless.She is most fair, and thereuntoHer life loth rightly harmonize;Feeling or thought that was not trueNe'er made less beautiful the blueUnclouded heaven of her eyes.She is a woman: one in whomThe spring-time of her childish yearsHath never lost its fresh perfume,Though knowing well that life bath roomFor many blights and many tears.I love her with a love as stillAs a broad river's peaceful might,Which, by high tower and lowly mill,Goes wandering at its own 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.
Into the sunshine,Full of the light,Leaping and flashingFrom morn till night!Into the moonlight,Whiter than snow,Waving so flower-likeWhen the winds blow!Into the starlight,Rushing in spray,Happy at midnight,Happy by day!Ever in motion,Blithesome and cheery.Still climbing heavenward,Never awearyGlad of all weathers,Still seeming best,Upward or downward,Motion thy rest;—Full of a natureNothing can tame,Changed every moment,Ever the same;—Ceaseless aspiring,Ceaseless content,Darkness or sunshineThy element;—Glorious fountain!Let my heart beFresh, changeful, constant,Upward, like thee!
There came a youth upon the earth,Some thousand years ago,Whose slender hands were nothing worth,Whether to plow, to reap, or sow.Upon an empty tortoise-shellHe stretched some chords, and drewMusic that made men's bosoms swellFearless, or brimmed their eyes with dew.Then King Admetus, one who hadPure taste by right divine,Decreed his singing not too badTo hear between the cups of wineAnd so, well-pleased with being soothedInto 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 roughIn 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 thingsDid 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 caughtOf his slim grace and woman's eyes,They laughed, and called him good-for-naught.Yet after he was dead and gone,And e'en his memory dim,Earth seemed more sweet to live upon,More full of love, because of him.And day by day more holy grewEach spot where he had trod,Till after—poets only knewTheir first-born brother as a god.
July 21, 1865
Weak-Winged is Song,Nor aims at that clear-ethered heightWhither the brave deed climbs for lightWe seem to do them wrong,Bringing our robin's-leaf to deck their hearseWho in warm life-blood wrote their nobler verse.Our trivial song to honor those who comeWith ears attuned to strenuous trump and drum.And shaped in squadron-strophes their desireLive battle-odes whose lines mere steel and fire:Yet sometimes feathered words are strong,A gracious memory to buoy up and saveFrom Lethe's dreamless ooze, the common graveOf the unventurous throng.Many loved Truth, and lavished Life's best oilAmid 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 for 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 fleetnessOf her divine completenessTheir higher instinct knewThose love her best who to themselves are true,And what they dare to dream of, dare to do;They followed her and found herWhere all may hope to find,Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind,But beautiful, with danger's sweetness round her.Where faith made whole with deedBreathes its awakening breathInto the lifeless creed,They saw her plumed and mailed,With sweet, stern face unveiled,And all-repaying eyes, look proud on them in death.Our slender life runs rippling by, and glidesInto the silent hollow of the past;What is there that abidesTo make the next age better for the last?Is earth too poor to give usSomething to live for here that shall outlive us?Some more substantial boonThan such as flows and ebbs withFortune's fickle moon?The little that we sec:From doubt is never free;The little that we doIs but half-nobly true;With our laborious hivingWhat 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 unseen 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.Whither leads the pathTo ampler fates that leads?Not down through flowery meads,To reap an aftermathOf youth's vainglorious weeds,But up the steep, amid the wrathAnd shock of deadly-hostile creeds,Where the world's best hope and stayBy 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 wordLight the black lips of cannon, and the swordDreams in its easeful sheath;But some day the live coal behind the thought,Whether from Baal's stone obscene,Or from the shrine sereneOf God's pure altar brought,Bursts up in flame; the war of tongue and penLearns with what deadly purpose it was fraught,And, helpless in the fiery passion caught,Shakes all the pillared state with shock of menSome day the soft Ideal that we wooedConfronts us fiercely, foe-beset, pursued,And trips reproachful: "Was it, then, my praise,And not myself was loved? Prove now thy truth;I claim of thee the promise of thy youth;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 sealedAs 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 planAnd measure of a stalwart man,Limbed like the old heroic breeds,Who stands self-poised on manhood'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 turnTo speak what in my heart will beat and burn,And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn.Nature, they say, doth dote,And cannot make a manSave on some worn-out plan,Repeating us by roteFor him her Old-World moulds aside she threw,And, choosing sweet clay from the breastOf the unexhausted West,With stuff untainted shaped a hero new,Vise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true.How beautiful to seeOnce more a shepherd of mankind indeed,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 is dust;They could not choose but trustIn that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill,And supple-tempered willThat 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 mornward still,Ere any names of Serf and PeerCould Nature's equal scheme defaceAnd thwart her genial will;Here was a 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 beIn him who condescends to victorySuch as the Present gives, and cannot wait,Safe in himself as in a fate.So always firmly heHe knew to bide his time,And can his fame abide,Still patient in his simple faith sublime,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, foreseeing man,Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,New birth of our new soil, the first American.
Over his 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 instrumentGives hope and fervor, nearer draws his themeFirst guessed by faint auroral flushes sentAlong the wavering vista of his dream.Not only around our infancyDoth heaven with all its splendors lie;Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,We Sinais climb and know it not.Over our manhood bend the skies;Against our fallen and traitor livesThe great winds utter prophecies;With our faint hearts the mountain strives;Its arms outstretched, the druid woodWaits with its benedicite;And to our age's drowsy bloodMill shouts the inspiring sea.Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us;The beggar is taxed for a corner 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'Tis heaven alone that is given away,'Tis only God may be had for the asking;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 the earth if it be in tune,And over it softly her warm ear laysWhether 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 seenThrilling 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 meanTo be some happy creature's palace;The little bird sits at his door in the sun,Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,And lets his illumined being o'errunWith the deluge of summer it receives;His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sinkHe pings to the wide world, and she to her nest,In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?Now is the high-tide of the year,And whatever of life bath ebbed awayComes flooding back with a ripply cheer,Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,We are happy now because God wills it;No matter how barren the past may have been,'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green;We sit in the warm shade and feel right wellHow the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;We may shut our eyes but we cannot help knowingThat skies are clear and grass is growing;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;'Tis as easy now for the heart to be trueAs for grass to be green or skies to be blue,—Tis the natural way of livingWho 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 woeLie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth,Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.What wonder if Sir Launfal nowRemembered the keeping of his vow?
Guvener B. is a sensible man;He stays to his home an' looks arter his folks;He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can,An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes;—But John P.Robinson heSez he wunt vote fer Guvener B.My! aint it terrible? Wut shall we du?We can't never choose him o' course,—thet's flat;Guess we shall hev to come round, (don't you?)An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all that;Fer John P.Robinson heSez he wunt vote fer GuvenerGineral 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 been true to one party—an' thet is himself;—So John P.Robinson heSez 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 heSez 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 aintWe kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage,An' thet eppyletts worn't the best mark of a saint,But John P.Robinson heSez 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 bookPuts the debit to him, an' to us the per contryAn' John P.Robinson heSez this is his view o' the thing to a T.Parson Wilbur he calls all these argimunts lies;Sez they're nothin' on airth but jest fee, faw, fum:An' thet all this big talk of our destiniesIs half on it ign'ance, an' t' other half rum,But John P.Robinson heSez it aint no seek thing; an', of course, so must we.Parson Wilbur sez he never heerd in his lifeThet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats,An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fife,To git some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes,But John P.Robinson heSez they didn't know everthin' down in Judee.Wal, it's a marcy we've gut folks to tell usThe rights an' the wrongs o' these matters,I vow, God sends country lawyers, an' other wise fellersTo start the world's team wen it gits in a Slough;Fer John P.Robinson heSez the world 'll go right, ef he hollers out Gee!
God makes sech nights, all white an' stillFur 'z you can look or listen,Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill,All silence an' all glisten.Zekle crep' up quite unbeknownAn' peeked in thru' the winder,An' there sot Huldy all alone,'Ith no one nigh to hender.A fireplace filled the room's one sideWith 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 outTowards the pootiest, bless her,An' leetle flames danced all aboutThe chiny on the dresser.Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung,An' in amongst 'em rustedThe ole queen's arm thet gran'ther YoungFetched back from Concord busted.The very room, coz she was in,Seemed warm from floor to ceilin',An' she looked full ez rosy aginEz the apples she was peelin'.'Twas kin' o' kingdom-come to lookOn seek a blessed cretur,A dogrose blushin' to a brookAin't modester nor sweeter.He was six foot o' man, A 1,Clean grit an' human natur';None couldn't quicker pitch a tonNor dror a furrer straighter.He'd sparked it with full twenty gals,He'd squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em,Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells—All is, he couldn't love 'em.But long o' her his veins 'ould runAll crinkly like curled maple,The side she breshed felt full o' sunEz a south slope in Ap'il.She thought no v'ice hed sech a swingEz 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'-bunnetFelt somehow thru' its crown a pairO' 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 feelin's flewLike sparks in burnt-up paper.He kin' o' l'itered on the mat,Some doubtfle o' the sekle,His heart kep' goin' pity-pat,But hern went pity Zekle.An' yit she gin her cheer a jerkEz though she wished him furder,An' on her apples kep' to work,Parin' away like murder."you want to see my Pa, I s'pose?""Wal...no...I come dasignin'"—"To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'esAgin 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 noComes 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 wustHe couldn'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 roun' the lipsAn' teary roun' the lashes.For she was jes' the quiet kindWhose naturs never vary,Like streams that keep a summer mindSnowhid in Jenooary.The blood clost roun' her heart felt gluedToo tight for all expressin',Tell mother see how metters stood,And gin 'em both her blessin'.Then her red come back like the tideDown to the Bay o' Fundy,An' all I know is they was criedIn meetin' come nex' Sunday.
Once git a smell o' musk into a draw,An' it clings hold like precerdents in law;Your gra'ma'am put it there,—when, goodness knows,—To jes this—worldify her Sunday-clo'es;But the old chist wun't sarve her gran'son's wife,(For, 'thout new funnitoor, wut good in life?)An' so ole clawfoot, from the precinks dreadO' the spare chamber, slinks into the shed,Where, dim with dust, it fust or last subsidesTo 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 readGit,s kind o' worked into their heart-an' head,So 's 't they can't seem to write but jest on sheersWith furrin countries or played-out ideers,Nor hev a feelin', ef it doosn't smackO' wut some critter chose to feel 'way back.This makes 'em talk o' daisies, larks, an' things,Ez though we'd nothin' here that blows an' sings,—(Why, I'd give more for one live bobolinkThan 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 itBlind on the word o' noospaper or poet!They're apt to puff, an' May-day seldom looksUp in the country, ez it dons in booksThey're no more like than hornets'-nests an' hives,Or printed sarmons be to holy lives.I, with my trouses perched on cow-hide boots,Tuggin' my foundered feet out by the roots,Hev seen ye come to fling on April's hearseYour muslin nosegays from the milliner's,Puzzlin' to find dry ground your queen to choose,An' dance your throats sore m morocker shoesI've seen ye an' felt proud, thet, come wut would,Our Pilgrim stock wuz pithed with hardihood.Pleasure doos make us Yankees kind o' winch,Ez though 'twuz 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 hollerday, ef we set out,Ez stidchly ez though 'twaz a redoubt.I, country-born an' bred, know where to findSome blooms thet make the season suit the mind,An' seem to metch the doubtin' bluebird's notes,—Half-vent'rin' liverworts in furry coats,Bloodroots, whose rolled-up leaves ef you oncurl,Each on 'em 's cradle to a baby-pearl,—But these are jes' Spring's pickets; sure ez sin,The rebble frosts'll try to drive 'em in;For half our May's so awfully like Mayn't,'Twould rile a Shaker or an evrige saint;Though I own up I like our back'ard springsThet kind o' haggle with their greens an' things,An' when you most give up, 'ithout more wordsToss the fields full o' blossoms, leaves, an' birdsThet's Northun natur', slow an' apt to doubt,But when it doos git stirred, ther' 's no gin-out!Fust come the blackbirds clatt'rin' in tall trees,An' settlin' things in windy Congresses,—Queer politicians, though, for I'll be skinnedEf all on 'em don't head against the wind.'Fore long the trees begin to show belief,The maple crimsons to a coral-reef,Then saffern swarms swing off from' all the willersSo plump they look like yaller caterpillars,Then gray hossches'nuts leetle hands unfoldSofter'n a baby's be at three days oldThet's robin-redbreast's almanick; he knowsThet arter this ther' 's only blossom-snowsSo, choosin' out a handy crotch an' spouse,He goes to plast'rin' his adobe house.Then seems to come a hitch,—things lag behind,Till some fine mornin' Spring makes up her mind,An' ez, when snow-swelled avers cresh their damsHeaped-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' comeSuddin, in one gret slope o' shedderin' foam,Jes' so our Spring gits everythin' in tuneAn gives one leap from April into JuneThen all comes crowdin' in; afore you think,Young oak-leaves mist the side-hill woods with pinkThe 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;The lime-trees pile their solid stacks o' shadeAn' drows'ly simmer with the bees' sweet trade;In ellum-shrouds the flashin' hangbird clingsAn' for the summer vy'ge his hammock slings;All down the loose-walled lanes in archin' bowersThe barb'ry droops its strings o' golden flowers,Whose shrinkin' hearts the school-gals love to tryWith pins—they'll worry yourn so, boys, bimeby!But I don't love your cat'logue style,—do you?—Ez ef to sell off Natur' b y vendoo;One word with blood in 't 's twice ez good ez two:'Nuff sed, June's bridesman, poet o' the year,Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here;Half-hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings,Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin' wings,Or, givin' way to't in a mock despair,Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air.I ollus feels the sap start in my veinsIn Spring, with curus heats an' prickly pains,Thet drive me, when I git a chance, to walkOff by myself to hev a privit talkWith a queer critter thet can't seem to 'greeAlong o' me like most folks,—Mister Me.Ther' 's times when I'm unsoshle ez a stoneAn' sort o' suffocate to be alone,—I'm crowded jes' to think thet folks are nigh,An' can't bear nothin' closer than the sky;Now the wind's full ez shifty in the mindEz wut it is ou'-doors, ef I ain't blind,An' sometimes, in the fairest sou'west weather,My innard vane pints east for weeks together,My natur' gits all goose-flesh, an' my sinsCome drizzlin' on my conscience sharp ez pins:Wal, et sech times I jes' slip out o' sightAn' take it out in a fair stan'-up fightWith the one cuss I can't lay on the shelf,The crook'dest stick in all the heap,—Myself.'Twuz so las' Sabbath arter meetin'-time:F'indin' my feelin's wouldn't noways rhymeWith nobody's, but off the hendle flewAn' took things from an east-wind pint o' view,I started off to lose me in the hillsWhere the pines be, up back o' Siah's Mills:Pines, ef you're blue, are the best friends I know,They mope an' sigh an' sheer your feelin's so,—They hesh the ground beneath so, tu, I swan,You half-forgit you've gut a body on."Ther' 's a small school'us' there where four road, meet,The door-steps hollered out by little feet,An side-posts carved with names whose owners grewTo gret men, some on 'em an' deacons, tu;'Tain't used no longer, coz the town hez gutA high-school, where they teach the Lord knows wut:Three-story larnin' 's poplar now: I guessWe thriv' ez wal on jes' two stories less,For it strikes me ther' 's sech a thing ez sinnin'By overloadin' children's underpinnin:Wal, here it wuz I larned my A B C,An' it's a kind o' favorite spot with me.We're curus critters: Now ain't jes' the minuteThet ever fits us easy while we're in it;Long ez 'twuz futur', 'twould be perfect bliss,—Soon ez it's past, thet time's wuth ten o' thisAn' yit there ain't a man thet need be toldThet Now's the only bird lays eggs o' gold.A knee-high lad, I used to plot an' planAn' think 'twuz life's cap-sheaf to be a man;Now, gittin' gray, there's nothin' I enjoyLike dreamin' back along into a boy:So the ole school'us' is a place I chooseAfore all others, ef I want to muse;I set down where I used to set, an' gitDiy boyhood back, an' better things with it,—Faith, Hope, an' sunthin' ef it isn't Cherrity,It's want o' guile, an' thet's ez gret a rerrity.Now, 'fore I knowed, thet Sabbath arternoonThet 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 hearn, to make your feelin's blue.From this to thet I let my worryin' creepTill finally I must ha' fell asleep.Our lives in sleep are some like streams thet glideTwixt flesh an' sperrit boundin' on each side,Where both shores' shadders kind o' mix an' mingleIn sunthin' thet ain't jes' like either single;An' when you cast off moorin's from To-day,An' down towards To-morrer drift away,The imiges thet tengle on the streamMake a new upside-down'ard world o' dream:Sometimes they seem like sunrise-streaks an' warnin'sO' wut'll be in Heaven on Sabbath-mornin'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 rally dreamed,Nor, ef I did, how long I might ha' slep',When I hearn some un stompin' up the step,An' lookirz' round, ef two an' two make four,I see a Pilgrim Father in the door.He wore a steeple-hat, tall boots, an' spursWith rowels to 'em big ez ches'nut-burrs,An' his gret sword behind him sloped awayLong'z a man's speech thet dunno wut to say.—"Ef your name's Biglow, an' your given-nameHosee," sez he, "it's arter you I came;I'm your gret-gran they multiplied by three.""My wut?" sez I.—your gret-gret-gret," sez he:"You wouldn'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 cunnle in our Civil War,—But wut on girth hev ,you gut up one for?Coz we du things in England, 'tain't for youTo 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 endorse,—'Twould prove, coz you wear spurs, you kep' a horse:But du pray tell me, 'fore we furder 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 gone,In hopes o' larnin wut wuz goin' on,"Sez he, "but mejums lie so like all-splitThet I 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 knownNor asked to hev a jedgment of its own;An' yit, ef 'tain't gut rusty in the jints,It's safe to trust its say on certin pintsIt knows the wind's opinions to a T,An' the wind settles wut the weather'll be.""I never thought a scion of our stockCould grow the wood to make a weathercock;When I wuz younger'n you, skurce more'n a shaver,No airthly wind," sez he, "could make me waver!"(Ez 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 I wuz younger'n wut you see me now,—Nothin' from Adam's fall to Huldy's bonnet,Thet I warm't full-cocked with my jedgment on it;But now I'm gittin' on in life, I findIt's a sight harder to make up my mind,—Nor I don't often try tu, when eventsWill du it for me free of all expense.The moral question's ollus plain enough,—It's jes' the human-natur' side thet's tough;Wut's best to think mayn't puzzle me nor you,—The pinch comes in decidin' wut to du;Ef you read History, all runs smooth ez grease,Coz there the men ain't nothin' more'n idees,—But come to make it, ez we must to-day,Th' idees hev arms an' legs an' stop the wayIt's easy fixin' things in facts an' figgers,—They can't resist, nor warn't brought up with nigers;But come to try your the'ry on,—why, thenYour facts an' figgers change to ign'ant menActin' 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 hen 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 twelvemonth 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'll find before you're thru;"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 believeHe'll settle things they run away an' leave!"He brought his foot down fiercely, ez he spoke,An' give me sech a startle thet I woke.