An' God wun't leave us yit to sink or swim,
Ef we don't fail to du wut 's right by Him.
This land o' ourn, I tell ye, 's gut to be
A better country than man ever see.
I feel my sperit swellin' with a cry
Thet seems to say, 'Break forth an' pro-
phesy!'

O strange New World, thet yit wast never young,

Whose youth from thee by gripin' need was wrung,

Brown foundlin' o' the woods, whose babybed

320

You wonder why we 're hot, John?
Your mark wuz on the guns,
The neutral guns, thet shot, John,
Our brothers an' our sons:

Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess
There's human blood,' sez he,
'By fits an' starts, in Yankee hearts,
Though 't may surprise J. B.
More 'n it would you an' me.'

Ef I turned mad dogs loose, John, On your front-parlor stairs,

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360

381

When your rights was our wrongs, John,
You did n't stop for fuss,
Britanny's trident prongs, John,
Was good 'nough law for us.

Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess,
Though physic's good,' sez he,
It does n't foller thet he can swaller
Prescriptions signed "J. B.,"
Put up by you an' me!'

We own the ocean, tu, John:
You mus' n' take it hard,

Ef we can't think with you, John,
It's jest your own back-yard.
Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess,
Ef thet 's his claim,' sez he,
'The fencin'-stuff 'll cost enough
To bust up friend J. B.,
Ez wal ez you an' me !'

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400

410

May happen to J. B.,

Ez wal ez you an' me!'

We ain't so weak an' poor, John,
With twenty million people,
An' close to every door, John,
A school-house an' a steeple.
Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess,
It is a fact,' sez he,

The surest plan to make a Man
Is, think him so, J. B.,
Ez much ez you or me!'

Our folks believe in Law, John;
An' it's for her sake, now,
They 've left the axe an' saw, John,
The anvil an' the plough.

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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,

Thet 's honest, just, an' true;

We thought 't would win applause, John,
Ef nowheres else, from you.

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

The South says, 'Poor folks down!' John,
An' All men up!' say we,

White, yaller, black, an' brown, John:
Now which is your idee?

Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess,
John preaches wal,' sez he;

'But, sermon thru, an' come to du,
Why, there's the old J. B.
A-crowdin' you an' me!'

Shall it be love, or hate, John ?
It's you thet 's to decide;
Ain't your bonds held by Fate, John
Like all the world's beside ?

Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess
Wise men forgive,' sez he,

'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,

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460

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.)

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' lives,

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,
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.

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70

Softer 'n a baby's be at three days old: Thet 's robin-redbreast's almanick; he knows

Thet arter this ther' 's only blossom-snows; So, choosin' out a handy crotch an' spouse, He goes to plast'rin' his adobë 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 dams

Heaped-up with ice thet dovetails in an' jams,

A leak comes spirtin' thru some pin-hole

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

To gret men, some on 'em, an' deacons, tu; 't ain't used no longer, coz the town hez gut A high-school, where they teach the Lord knows wut:

Three-story larnin' 's pop'lar now; I guess
We 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.

Faith, Hope, an' sunthin', ef it is n't Cherrity,

It's want o' guile, an' thet 's ez gret a rerrity,

While Fancy's cushin', free to Prince and Clown,

Makes the hard bench ez soft ez milkweed-down.

Now, 'fore I knowed, thet Sabbath arter

noon

When I sot out to tramp myself in tune,
I found me in the school'us' on my seat, 170
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.
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't feel none the better for);

I thought o' Reconstruction, wut we'd

win

180

'twixt flesh an' sperrit boundin' on each side,

Where both shores' shadders kind o' mix an' mingle

In sunthin' thet ain't jes' like either single; An' when you cast off moorin's from Today,

An' down towards To-morrer drift away,
The imiges thet tengle on the stream
Make a new upside-down'ard world o'
dream:

Sometimes they seem like sunrise-streaks an' warnin's