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.' 'Wall, milk-an-water ain't the best o' glue,' Sez he, an' so you'll find afore you're thru;

Ef reshness venters sunthin', shilly-shally 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: 300 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;

Oh, Jon'than, ef you want to be

A rugged chap agin an' hearty, Go fer wutever 'll hurt Jeff D.,

Nut wut 'll 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 'll 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 Sunthin' pertickler wuz a-brewin'.

20

30

40

In six months where 'll the People be, Ef leaders look on revolution

Ez though it wuz a cup o' tea,

90

Jest social el'ments in solution? This weighin' things doos wal enough When war cools down, an' comes to writin';

the Democratic party, and a bitter opponent of Lincoln. He had at this time been recently elected governor of New York on a platform that denounced almost every measure the government had found it necessary to adopt for the suppression of the Rebellion. His influence contributed not a little to the encouragement of that spirit which inspired the Draft Riot in the city of New York in July, 1863. (F. B. Williams, in Riverside and Cambridge Editions.)

DEAR SIR, Your letter come to han'
Requestin' me to please be funny;
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.

You 're 'n want o' sunthin' light an' cute, Rattlin' an' shrewd an' kin' o' jingleish,

ΤΟ

'fore 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's all one teeter, hopin', dreadin'.

Where's Peace? I start, some clear-blown night,

When gaunt stone walls grow numb an' number,

An', creakin' 'cross the snow-crus' white,
Walk the col' starlight into summer; 60
Up grows the moon, an' swell by swell'
Thru the pale pasturs silvers dimmer
Than the last smile thet strives to tell
O' love gone heavenward in its shim-

But I can't hark to wut they 're say'n', With Grant or Sherman ollers present; The chimbleys shudder in the gale,

Thet lulls, then suddin takes to flappin' 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 contented,
While 'way o'erhead, ez sweet an' low
Ez distant bells thet ring for meetin',
The wedged wil' geese their bugles blow,
Further an' further South retreatin'.

90

Rat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street

I hear the drummers makin' riot, An' I set thinkin' o' the feet

Thet follered once an' now are quiet, White feet ez snowdrops innercent,

Thet never knowed the paths o' Satan, Whose comin' step ther' 's ears thet won't, No, not lifelong, leave off awaitin'.

Why, hain't I held 'em on my knee? 1
Did n't I love to see 'em growin',
Three likely lads ez wal could be,

120

Hahnsome an' brave an' not tu knowin'? I set an' look into the blaze

Whose natur', jes' like theirn, keeps climbin',

Ez long 'z it lives, in shinin' ways,
An' half despise myself for rhymin'.

1 Of Lowell's three nephews one, William Lowell Putnam, was killed, and another, James Jackson Lowell, seriously wounded, at the battle of Ball's Bluff, the same battle in which Holmes's son was wounded (see My Hunt After the Captain '); the third, Charles Russell Lowell, died October 20, 1864, of wounds received the previous day at the battle of Cedar Creek. James Jackson Lowell recovered from the wounds received at Ball's Bluff, but was killed in the battle of Seven Pines. See Lowell's Letters, vol. i, pp. 162166; and Scudder's Life of Lowell, vol. ii, pp. 29-31.

See also the note on Emerson's Sacrifice,' p. 95, note 1; and Colonel Henry Lee Higginson's Four Addresses, there referred to. Emerson wrote to Carlyle, October 15, 1870: The Lowell race, again, in our War yielded three or four martyrs so able and tender and true, that James Russell Lowell cannot allude to them in verse or prose but the public is melted anew.' (Carlyle-Emerson Correspondence, vol. ii, p. 374.) See also Lowell's 'Commemoration Ode,' p. 490, and Under the Old Elm,' p. 512, with the passages from his letters there quoted.