To the Editors of theATLANTIC MONTHLY.
Jaalam, 17th May, 1862.
Gentlemen,—At the special request of Mr. Biglow, I intended to inclose, together with his own contribution, (into which, at my suggestion, he has thrown a little more of pastoral sentiment than usual,) some passages from my sermon on the day of the National Fast, from the text, "Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them,"Heb. xiii. 3. But I have not leisure sufficient at present for the copying of them, even were I altogether satisfied with the production as it stands. I should prefer, I confess, to contribute the entire discourse to the pages of your respectable miscellany, if it should be found acceptable upon perusal, especially as I find the difficulty of selection of greater magnitude than I had anticipated. What passes without challenge in the fervour of oral delivery cannot always stand the colder criticism of the closet. I am not so great an enemy of Eloquence as my friend Mr. Biglow would appear to be from some passages in his contribution for the current month. I would not, indeed, hastily suspect him of covertly glancing at myself in his somewhat caustick animadversions, albeit some of the phrases he girds at are not entire strangers to my lips. I am a more hearty admirer of the Puritans than seems now to be the fashion, and believe, that, if they Hebraized a little too much in their speech, they showed remarkable practical sagacity as statesmen and founders. But such phenomena as Puritanism are the results rather of great religious than merely social convulsions, and do not long survive them. So soon as an earnest conviction has cooled into a phrase, its work is over, and the best that can be done with it is to bury it.Ite, missa est. I am inclined to agree with Mr. Biglow that we cannot settle the great political questions which are now presenting themselves to the nation by the opinions of Jeremiah or Ezekiel as to the wants and duties of the Jews in their time, nor do I believe that an entire community with their feelings and views would be practicable or even agreeable at the present day. At the same time I could wish that their habit of subordinating the actual to the moral, the flesh to the spirit, and this world to the other were more common. They had found out, at least, the great military secret that soul weighs more than body.—But I am suddenly called to a sick-bed in the household of a valued parishioner.
With esteem and respect. Your ob't serv't HOMER WILBUR.
Once git a smell o' musk into a drawAn' it clings hold like precerdents in law:Your gran'ma'am put it there,—when, goodness knows,—To jes' this-worldify her Sunday-clo'es;But the old chist wun't sarve her gran'son's wife,(For, 'thout new funnitoor, wut good in life?)An' so ole clawfoot, from the precinks 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 readGits 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 doos in books;They 're no more like than hornets'-nests an' hives,Or printed sarmons be to holy lives.I, with my trouses perched on cow-hide boots,Tuggin' my foundered feet out by the roots,Hev seen ye come to fling on April's hearseYour muslin nosegays from the milliner's,Puzzlin' to find dry ground your queen to choose,An' dance your throats sore in morocker shoes:I've seen ye an' felt proud, thet, come wut would,Our Pilgrim stock wuz pithed with hardihood.Pleasure doos make us Yankees kind o' winch,Ez though 't wuz sunthin' paid for by the inch;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 stiddily ez though 't wuz 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,'T would 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, without more wordsToss the fields full o' blossoms, leaves, an' birds:Thet's Northun natur', slow an' apt to doubt,But when itdoosgit 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 skinned,Ef all on 'em don't head aginst 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 unfold
Softer 'n a baby's be at three days old:This is the robin's almanick; he knowsThet arter this ther' 's only blossom-snows;So, choosin' out a handy crotch an' spouse,He goes to plast'rin' his adobe house.
Then seems to come a hitch,—things lag behind,Till some fine mornin' Spring makes up her mind,An' ez, when snow-swelled rivers cresh their 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' come,Suddin, in one gret slope o' shedderin' foam,Jes' so our Spring gits everythin' in tuneAn' gives one leap from April into June:Then all comes crowdin' in; afore you think,The oak-buds mist the side-hill woods with pink,The catbird in the laylock-bush is loud,The orchards turn to heaps o' rosy cloud,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 all Natur' by vendoo;One word with blood in 't's twice ez good ez two:'Nuff sed, June's bridesman, poet o' the year,Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here;Half-hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings,Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin' wings,Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair,Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air.
I ollus feel the sap start in my 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 stone,An' sort o' suffocate to be alone,—I'm crowded jes' to think thet folks are nigh,An' can't bear nothin' closer than the sky;Now the wind's full ez shifty in the 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.
'T wuz so las' Sabbath arter meetin'-time:Findin' my feelins 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 feelins so,—They hesh the ground beneath so, tu, I swan,You half-forgit you 'we 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 grewTo gret men, some on 'em, an' deacons, tu;'T ain't used no longer, coz the town hez gutA high-school, where they teach the Lord knows wut:Three-story larnin' 's pop'lar 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 underpitmin':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 't wuz futur', 't would be perfect bliss,—Soon ez it's past,thettime's wuth ten o' this;An' 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 't wuz 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' gitMy 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 feelins 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 wun'tfeelnone the better for);I thought o' Reconstruction, wut we 'd winPatchin' our patent self-blow-up agin;I thought ef tins 'ere milkin' o' the wits,So much, a month, warn't givin' Natur' fits,—Ef folks warn't druv, findin' their own milk fail,To work the cow thet hez an iron tail,An' ef idees 'thout ripenin' in the panWould send up cream to humor ary man:From this to thet I let my worryin' creep,Till finally I must ha' fell asleep.
Our lives in sleep are some like streams thet glide'Twixt flesh an' sperrit boundin' on each side,Where both shores' shadders kind o' mix an' mingleIn sunthin' thet ain't jes' like either single;An' when you cast off' moorins 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' warninsO' wut 'll be in Heaven on Sabbath-mornins,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 hearn 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' 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'ther multiplied by three."—"Mywut?" sez I.—"Your gret-gret-gret," sez he:"You wouldn't ha' never ben here but for me.Two hunderd an' three year ago this MayThe ship I come in sailed up Boston Bay;I 'd ben a cunnle in our Civil War,—But wut on airth hevyougut up one for?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,—'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 draft o' pen-an'-ink,—Though mos' folks write ez ef they hoped jes' quickenin'The churn would argoo skim-milk into thickenin';But skim-milk ain't a thing to change its viewO' usefleness, no more 'n a smoky flue.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,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 conjecturs 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 't ain't gut rusty in the jints,It 'a safe to trust its say on certin pints:It 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,WhenIwuz younger 'n wut you see me now,—Nothin', from Adam's fall to Huldy's bonnet,Thet I warn't full-cocked with my jedgement 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 todu;Ef youreadHistory, all runs smooth ez grease,Coz there the men ain't nothin more 'n idees,—But come tomakeit, ez we must to-day,Th' idees hev arms an' legs an' stop the way:It's easy fixin' things in facts an' figgers,—They can't resist, nor warn't brought up with niggers;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, "an' let every man-child die!Oh for three weeks o' Crommle an' the Lord!O Israel, to your tents an' grind the sword!"—"Thet kind o' thing worked wal in ole Judee,But yon forgit how long It's ben A.D.;You think thet's ellerkence,—I call it shoddy,A thing," sez I, "wun't cover sonl nor body;I like the plain all-wool o' common-sense,Thet warms ye now, an' will a twelvemonth hence.Youtook to follerin' where the Prophets beckoned,An', fust you knowed on, back come Charles the Second;Now wut I want's to hev allwegain 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 a good cement,"Sez he, "an' so you 'll find it in th' event;Ef reshness venters sunthin', shilly-shallyLoses 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 trouble is to'mancipate the white;One's chained in body an' can be sot free,—The other's chained in soul to an idee:It's a long job, but we shall worry thru it;Ef bag'nets fail, the spellin'-book must do it."—"Hosee," sez he, "I think you 're goin' to fail:The rettlesnake ain't dangerous in the tail;This 'ere rebellion's nothin' but the rettle,—You 'll stomp on thet an' think you 've won the bettle;It's Slavery thet's the fangs an' thinkin' head,An' ef you want selvation, cresh it dead,—An' crash it suddin, or you 'll larn by waitin'Thet Chance wun't stop to listen to debatin'!"—"God's truth!" sez I,—"an' efIheld 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 believeHe 'II settle things they run away an' leave!"He brought his foot down fercely, ez he spoke,An' give me sech a startle thet I woke.