The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell Part 42

I expect you'll hev to wait; 90 Wen cold lead puts daylight thru ye You'll 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 etarnal bung wuz loose! 100 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 c.o.c.kerel 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'll sprout 110 (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 ollers 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! 120

Ma.s.sachusetts, G.o.d 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 W'ile the wracks are round her hurled, Holdin' up a beacon peerless To the oppressed of all the world!

Ha'n't they sold your colored seamen?

Ha'n't they made your env'ys w'iz? 130 _Wut_'ll make ye act like freemen?

_Wut_'ll git your dander riz?

Come, I'll 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; 140 Let our dear old Bay State proudly Put the trumpet to her mouth, Let her ring this messidge loudly In the ears of all the South:--

'I'll return ye good fer evil Much ez we frail mortils can, But I wun't go help the Devil Makin' man the cuss o' man; Call me coward, call me traiter, Jest ez suits your mean idees,-- Here I stand a tyrant hater, 151 An' the friend o' G.o.d an' Peace!'

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 wouldn't break my heart; Man hed ough' to put asunder Them thet G.o.d has noways jined; An' I shouldn't gretly wonder Ef there's thousands o' my mind. 160

[The first recruiting sergeant on record I conceive to have been that individual who is mentioned in the Book of Job as _going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it._ Bishop Latimer will have him to have been a bishop, but to me that other calling would appear more congenial. The sect of Cainites is not yet extinct, who esteemed the first-born of Adam to be the most worthy, not only because of that privilege of primogeniture, but inasmuch as he was able to overcome and slay his younger brother. That was a wise saying of the famous Marquis Pescara to the Papal Legate, that _it was impossible for men to serve Mars and Christ at the same time_. Yet in time past the profession of arms was judged to be [Greek: kat exochaen] 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 hold with that nicely metaphysical Pomeranian, Captain Vratz, who was Count Konigsmark's chief instrument in the murder of Mr. Thynne, that the Scheme of Salvation has been arranged with an especial eye to the necessities of the upper cla.s.ses, and that 'G.o.d would consider a _gentleman_ and deal with him suitably to the condition and profession he had placed him in'? It may be said of us all, _Exemplo plus quam ratione vivimus_.--H.W.]

No. II

A LETTER

FROM MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE HON. J.T. BUCKINGHAM, EDITOR OF THE BOSTON COURIER, COVERING A LETTER FROM MR. B. SAWIN, PRIVATE IN THE Ma.s.sACHUSETTS REGIMENT

[This letter of Mr. Sawin's was not originally written in verse. Mr.

Biglow, thinking it peculiarly susceptible of metrical adornment, translated it, so to speak, into his own vernacular tongue. This is not the time to consider the question, whether rhyme be a mode of expression natural to the human race. If leisure from other and more important avocations be granted, I will handle the matter more at large in an appendix to the present volume. In this place I will barely remark, that I have sometimes noticed in the unlanguaged prattlings of infants a fondness for alliteration, a.s.sonance, and even rhyme, in which natural predisposition we may trace the three degrees through which our Anglo-Saxon verse rose to its culmination in the poetry of Pope. I would not be understood as 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 Psammetieus to have 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 prefatory remark, that Mr. Sawin, though a native of Jaalam, has never been a stated attendant on the religious exercises of my congregation. I consider my humble efforts prospered in that not one of my sheep hath ever indued the wolf's clothing of war, save for the comparatively innocent diversion of a militia training. Not that my flock are backward to undergo the hards.h.i.+ps of _defensive_ warfare. They serve cheerfully in the great army which fights, even unto death _pro aris et focis_, accoutred with the spade, the axe, the plane, the sledge, the spelling-book, and other such effectual weapons against want and ignorance and unthrift. I have taught them (under G.o.d) to esteem our human inst.i.tutions as but tents of a night, to be stricken whenever Truth puts the bugle to her lips and sounds a march to the heights of wider-viewed intelligence and more perfect organization.--H.W.]

MISTER BUCKINUM, the follerin Billet was 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 sick o' any bizness that He went intu off 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 dependunts on his statemence. For I never heered nothin bad on him let Alone his havin what Parson Wilbur cals a _pong shong_ for c.o.c.ktales, and he ses it wuz a sos.h.i.+ashun of idees sot him agoin arter the Crootin Sargient cos he wore a c.o.c.ktale 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 Buckinum, ses he, i don't ollers agree with him, ses he, but by Time,[11] ses he, I _du_ like a feller that aint a Feared.

I have intussp.u.s.s.ed a Few refleckshuns hear and thar. We're a 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 feller could cry quarter Ef he fired away his ramrod arter tu much rum an' water.

Recollect wut fun we hed, you 'n' I an' Ezry Hollis, Up there to Waltham plain last fall, along o' the Cornwallis?[12]

This sort o' thing aint _jest_ like thet,--I wish thet I wuz furder,[13]-- Ninepunce a day fer killin' folks comes kind o' low fer murder, 10 (Wy I've worked out to slarterin' some fer Deacon Cephas Billins, An' in the hardest times there wuz I ollers tetched ten s.h.i.+llins.) There's sutthin' gits into my throat thet makes it hard to swaller, It comes so naturel to think about a hempen collar; It's glory,--but, in spite o' all my tryin' 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.' 20 'None o' your sa.r.s.e,' sez I; sez he, 'Stan' back!' 'Aint you a buster?'

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 seenorcetas; My folks to hum air full ez good ez his'n be, by golly!'

An' so ez I wuz goin' by, not thinkin' wut would folly, The everlastin' cus he stuck his one-p.r.o.nged 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 hoorawin' in ole Funnel Wen Mister Bolles he gin the sword to our Leftenant Cunnle, 30 (It's Mister Secondary Bolles,[14] thet writ the prize peace essay.

Thet's wy he didn'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's any wus achokin' on 'em; Than puttin' bullets thru their lights, or with a bagnet pokin' on 'em; 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 handy To du the buryin' down here upon the Rio Grandy), 40 About our patriotic pas an' our star-spangled banner, Our country's bird alookin' on an' singin' 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' privilege Atrampin' round thru Boston streets among the gutter's drivelage; I act'lly thought it wuz a treat to hear a little drummin', An' it did bonyfidy seem millanyum 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.[15] 50 This 'ere's about the meanest place a skunk could wal dlskiver (Saltillo's Mexican, I b'lieve, fer wut we call Salt-river); The sort o' trash a feller gits to eat doos beat all nater, I'd give a year's pay fer a smell o' one good blue-nose tater, The country here thet Mister Bolles declared to be so charmin'

Throughout is swarmin' with the most alarmin' kind o' varmin.

He talked about delis.h.i.+s froots, but then it wuz a wopper all, The holl on 't 's mud an' p.r.i.c.kly pears, with here an' there a chapparal; You see a feller peekin' out, an', fust you know, a lariat Is round your throat an' you a copse, 'fore you can say, 'Wut air ye at?'[16] 60 You never see sech darned gret bugs (it may not be irrelevant To say I've seen a _scarabaeus pilularius_[17] 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,--'twuz jest a common _cimex lectularius._

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 thru my leg--'twuz 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! 70 My gracious! it's a scorpion thet's took a s.h.i.+ne to play with 't, I darsn't skeer the tarnal thing fer fear he'd run away with 't,) Afore I come away from hum I hed a strong persuasion Thet Mexicans worn't human beans,[18]--an ourang outang nation, A sort o' folks a chap could kill an' never dream on 't arter, 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 fas.h.i.+on all, An' kickin' colored folks about, you know 's a kind o' national; But wen I jined I worn't so wise ez thet air queen o' Sheby, Fer, come to look at 'em, they aint much diff'rent from wut we be, 80 An' here we air ascrougin' 'em out o' thir own dominions, Ashelterin' 'em, ez Caleb sez, under our eagle's pinions, Wich means to take a feller up jest by 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, but 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 amazin' lots o' things thet isn't wut they ough' to; Bein' they haint no lead, they make their bullets out o' copper An' shoot the darned things at us, tu, wich Caleb sez ain proper; 90 He sez they'd ough' to stan' right up an' let us pop 'em fairly (Guess wen he ketches 'em at thet he'll hev to git up airly), 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 pullin' trigger, Thet Anglo Saxondom's idee's abreakin' 'em to pieces, An' thet idee's thet every man doos jest wut he d.a.m.n pleases; Ef I don't make his meanin' clear, perhaps in some respex I can, I know thet 'every man' don't mean a n.i.g.g.e.r or a Mexican; An' there's another thing I know, an' thet is, ef these creeters, Thet stick an Anglosaxon mask onto State-prison feeturs, 100 Should come to Jaalam Centre fer to argify an' spout on 't, The gals 'ould count the silver spoons the minnit 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, wouldn't I be off, quick time, ef 't worn't thet I wuz 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 aiut wut they wuz afore they left the Bay-state; Then it wuz 'Mister Sawin, sir, you're middlin' well now, be ye?

Step up an' take a nipper, sir; I'm dreffle glad to see ye:' 110 But now it's 'Ware's my eppylet? here, Sawin, step an' fetch it!

An' mind your eye, be thund'rin' spry, or, d.a.m.n 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 link.u.m vity, I'd play the rogue's march on their hides an' other music follerin'-- But I must close my letter here, fer one on 'em 's ahollerin', These Anglosaxon ossifers,--wal, taint no use ajawin', I'm safe enlisted fer the war, Yourn, BIRDOFREDOM SAWIN.

[Those have not been wanting (as, indeed, when hath Satan been to seek for attorneys?) who have maintained that our late inroad upon Mexico was undertaken not so much for the avenging of any national quarrel, as for the spreading of free inst.i.tutions and of Protestantism. _Capita vix duabus Anticyris medenda!_ Verily I admire that no pious sergeant among these new Crusaders beheld Martin Luther riding at the front of the host upon a tamed pontifical bull, as, in that former invasion of Mexico, the zealous Gomara (sp.a.w.n though he were of the Scarlet Woman) was favored with a vision of St. James of Compostella, skewering the infidels upon his apostolical lance. We read, also, that Richard of the lion heart, having 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 heaven, who cried to the king and his knights,_--Seigneurs, tuez! tuez!_ providentially using the French tongue, as being the only one understood by their auditors. This would argue for the pantoglottism of these celestial intelligences, while, on the other hand, the Devil, _teste_ Cotton Mather, is unversed in certain of the Indian dialects. Yet must he be a semeiologist the most expert, making himself intelligible to every people and kindred by signs; no other discourse, indeed, being needful, than such as the mackerel-fisher holds with his finned quarry, 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 fuzzy cotton.

This, however, by the way. It is time now _revocare gradum_. While so many miracles of this sort, vouched by eye-witnesses, have encouraged the arms of Papists, not to speak of Echetlaeus at Marathon and those _Dioscuri_ (whom we must conclude imps of the pit) who sundry times captained the pagan Roman soldiery, it is strange that our first American crusade was not in some such wise also signalized. Yet it is said that the Lord hath manifestly prospered our armies. This opens the question, whether, when our hands are strengthened 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 finger in it, as there are few pies into which his meddling digits are not thrust. Would the Sanctifier and Setter-apart of the seventh day have a.s.sisted in a victory gained on the Sabbath, as was one in the late war? Do we not know from Josephus, that, careful of His decree, a certain river in Judaea abstained from flowing on the day of Rest? Or has that day become less an object of His especial care since the year 1697, when so manifest a providence occurred to Mr. William Trowbridge, in answer to whose prayers, when he and all on s.h.i.+pboard with him were starving, a dolphin was sent daily, 'which was enough to serve 'em; only on _Sat.u.r.days_ 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 sculpins (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 Clergymen_.

It has been a refreshment to many nice consciences to know that our Chief Magistrate would not regard with eyes of approval the (by many esteemed) sinful pastime of dancing, and I own myseif to be so far of that mind, that I could not but set my face against this Mexican Polka, though danced to the Presidential piping with a Gubernatorial second. If ever the country should be seized with another such mania _pro propaganda fide_, I think it would be wise to fill our bombsh.e.l.ls with alternate copies of the Cambridge Platform and the Thirty-nine Articles, which would produce a mixture of the highest explosive power, and to wrap every one of our cannon-b.a.l.l.s in a leaf of the New 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 missionary. I have seen lads, unimpregnate with the more sublimated punctiliousness of Walton, secure pickerel, taking their unwary _siesta_ beneath the lily-pads too nigh the surface, with a gun and small shot. Why not, then, 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 _fishers_ 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 imagine 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 uttering it at all, or gives it so thick a p.r.o.nunciation as to be unintelligible. A mouth filled with the national pudding, or watering in expectation thereof, is wholly incompetent to this refractory monosyllable. An abject and herpetic Public Opinion is the Pope, the Anti-Christ, for us to protest against _e corde cordium_. And by what College of Cardinals is this our G.o.d'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-cus.h.i.+on, this guides the editor's pen, this wags the senator's tongue. This decides what Scriptures are canonical, and shuffles Christ away into the Apocrypha. According to that sentence fathered upon Solon, [Greek: Onto daemosion kakon erchetai oikad ekasto] This unclean spirit is skilful to a.s.sume various shapes. I have known it to enter my own study and nudge my elbow of a Sat.u.r.day, under the semblance of 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 Cilley at a dinner of the Bungtown Fencibles.--H.W.]

No. III

WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS

[A few 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 commentary Mr. Biglow had never heard, till he saw the letter itself.

The position of the satirist is oftentimes one which he would not have chosen, 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 _tenues in auras._ For what says Seneca? _Longum iter per praecepta, breve et efficace per exempla_. 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 exposes himself directly to our arrows, but, still dodging behind this neighbor or that acquaintance, compels us to wound him through them, if at all. He holds our affections as hostages, the while he patches up a truce with our conscience.