Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 56, June, 1862», страница 17

Lafayette did his part thus. His troops, twelve hundred light infantry, the best soldiers in the world, he said at the end of the summer, had left Peekskill for a short expedition only. They had no supplies for a summer campaign, and seemed likely to desert him. Lafayette issued a spirited order of the day, in which he took the tone of Henry V. before the Battle of Agincourt, and offered a pass back to the North River to any man who did not dare share with him the perils of the summer against a superior force. He also hanged one deserter whom he caught after this order, and pardoned another who was less to blame. By such varied means he so far "encouraged the rest" that he wholly stopped desertion. He crossed the Susquehanna on the 13th of April, was in Baltimore on the 18th, and it was here that the ladies gave him the ball where he said, "My soldiers have no shirts." He borrowed two thousand guineas on his own personal security, promising to pay at the end of two years, when the French law would make him master of his estates. He bought material with the money, made the Baltimore belles, who were not then Secessionists, make the shirts, and started on his forced march again, with his troops clothed and partly shod, on the 20th. He passed the hills where Washington stands, unconscious of the city that was to be there, and of the Long Bridge which shakes under McClellan's columns. He halted to buy shoes in Alexandria, which he reached in two days. He pressed on to Fredericksburg, and was at Richmond on the 29th. So that a light column can march in nine days from Baltimore to Richmond, though there be no railroad in working order.

This was the first march "Forward to Richmond" in history. For the moment, it saved the city and its magazines from General Phillips, who had reached Manchester, on the opposite side of James River. Phillips retired down the river, hoping to decoy Lafayette after him, on that neck of land, now, as then, a point so critical, between the James and York Rivers,—and then to return by his vessels on the first change of wind, get in Lafayette's rear, and shut him up there. But it was another general who was to be shut up on that neck. Phillips was called south to Petersburg, where, as we have seen, he died. "Will they not let me die in peace?"

Cornwallis arrived at Petersburg with his Southern troops, including Tarleton's horse, on the 20th of May. He then had nearly six thousand men under his orders. Lafayette had about thirty-two hundred, of whom only a few were cavalry, a volunteer body of Baltimore young gentlemen being the most of them. The Virginia gentry had hesitated about giving up their fine blood-horses to mount cavalry on. But Tarleton had no hesitation in stealing them for his troopers, nor Simcoe, his fellow-partisan, for his,—so that Cornwallis had the invaluable aid of two bodies of cavalry thus admirably mounted, against an enemy almost destitute. Both armies marched without tents, with the very lightest baggage. It purely a light-infantry campaign, excepting the dashing raids of Tarleton and Simcoe.

Lafayette felt his inferiority of force,—and as soon as Cornwallis joined, crossed back over James River at Osborn's (say the bottom of the little-finger nail on our extempore map). Cornwallis crossed at Westover, also marked now on the maps as Ruffin's, some twenty miles lower down the river. Lafayette felt the necessity of meeting Wayne, who was supposed to be coming from Pennsylvania; he therefore retraced his march of a few weeks before, followed by Cornwallis with his infantry;—the cavalry had been on more distant service. Cornwallis would have crushed Lafayette, if he had overtaken him; but Lafayette knew this as well as we do,—marched nearly up to Fredericksburg again,—protected it till its stores were removed,—and then, after five days' march more, westward, met Wayne with his eight hundred Pennsylvanians at Raccoon Ford (head of the middle finger on the hand-map). The reader has, in just such way, marched a knight across the chess-board to escort back a necessary pawn, to make desperate fight against some Cornwallis of a castle. Cornwallis passed through Hanover Court-House to Chesterfield Court-House, "stealing tobacco," in the whole to the amount of two thousand hogsheads,—then, satisfying himself that he could not prevent the junction of the knight and pawn, and that Hunter's iron-works, at Fredericksburg, which he had threatened, were not of so much import as the stores in the western part of the country, he turned south and west again, and awaited Lafayette's movements, threatening Albemarle County, just west of where we are beginning to get acquainted with Gordonsville,—a place then uncreated. Cornwallis was all along unwilling to engage in extensive operations till he should hear from Sir Henry Clinton, whom he knew he had insulted and offended. His detachments of horse had been sent, meanwhile, up the line of James River above Richmond. Tarleton penetrated as far as Charlottesville, marching seventy miles in twenty-four hours, hoping to take the Legislature by surprise. The story is, that he would have succeeded, but for his eagerness to get his breakfast on the last day. He had waited long for it,—and finally asked, in some heat, where it was. Dr. Walker, whose guest he had made himself, replied, that Tarleton's soldiers had already taken two of the breakfasts which had been prepared for him that morning, and suggested a guard for the security of the third.

While the third breakfast was being cooked, the legislators escaped. Jefferson was among them. Tarleton took seven, however, who told him that the country was tired of the war,—and that, if no treaty for a loan were made with France that summer, Congress would negotiate with England before winter. They were eighty-one years in advance of their time! Tarleton returned down the Rivanna River to its junction with the James, where he assisted Simcoe in driving out Baron Steuben, who with a few militia was trying to protect some arms there. Poor Steuben had but few to protect, nothing to protect them with, and lost them all. At this point the cavalry rejoined the main army under Cornwallis.

In all these movements of both parties, the character of the "laboring people," of which, as I have said, President Tyler spoke to me, was illustrated. These people swarmed to Cornwallis with information, with horses and supplies. They did not swell the ranks of the Virginia militia. "He took away thirty thousand of our slaves," says Mr. Jefferson. "Many of your negroes joined the enemy," says Lafayette to Washington; "the news did not trouble me much, for that sort of interests touch me very little." This is in the letter where he tells the General how his agent, Lund Washington, had been disgracefully treating with the invaders. This disposition of the "laboring people," away from the high-roads, indeed, as Mr. Tyler said, explains the difference between Southern and Northern Revolutionary campaigns. The English forces never marched a day's march inland in the Northern States, excepting the three marches of two days or three, when they came to Bennington, to Saratoga, and to Trenton,—three memorable stopping-places. But in a country where the "laboring people" did not bear arms, they went to and fro, for months, as they chose. The Southern militia was small in numbers, and not trustworthy. The troops whom Lafayette relied upon, "the best troops in the world, far superior, in equal numbers, to the English," were his two thousand Northern men of the Continental line. Lord Cornwallis reunited all his forces at Elk Island, about forty miles above Richmond on James River. His own head-quarters were at "Jefferson's Plantation." He proposed another blow, on the stores collected in Old Albemarle Court-House, behind the mountains; and on the 9th of June he ordered Tarleton to march thither at daybreak, but recalled the order. He seems to have preferred waiting till he could attack "the Marquis," as they all called Lafayette, to advantage, to risking any considerable division in the mountains. And as he lay, the road by which he supposed Lafayette must come down from Raccoon Ford to protect Albemarle would expose him to a flank attack as he passed the head of Byrd's River. It was at this time, that, in a despatch which was intercepted, he wrote, "The boy cannot escape me." Lafayette tells the story with great gusto. "The boy" found a mountain-road which crossed farther west than that which he was expected to march upon. It had been long disused, but he pressed through it,—and at Burwell's Ordinary, in a neighborhood where our troops will find villages with the promising names of Union Town and Everettsville, he formed, on the 12th and 13th, in a strong position between Cornwallis and the coveted magazines. Cornwallis affected to suppose that the stores had been withdrawn; but, as he had given up Fredericksburg that he might destroy these very stores, Lafayette had good reason to congratulate himself that he had foiled him in the two special objects of the campaign, and had reduced him to the business which he did not like, of "stealing tobacco." For whatever reason, Cornwallis did not press his enterprise. With a force so formidable and a leader so enterprising before him, he did not care to entangle himself in the passes of the Blue Ridge. We shall know from General Banks's column, by the time this paper is printed, what are the facilities they afford for cover to an enemy. Leaving the Albemarle stores, therefore, and the road to Greene behind the mountains, he retraced his steps down the valley of the James River, and, passing Richmond, descended as low as Williamsburg, the point from which we have been tracing Lafayette's movements.

Lafayette followed him with delight, not to say amazement. "The enemy is so obliging as to withdraw before us," he writes,—and probably, to the end of his life, he did not fully understand why Lord Cornwallis did so. Their forces were numerically about equal, each commanding now rather more than five thousand men. But of Lafayette's only fifty were cavalry, a very important arm in that campaign, while Cornwallis had now eight hundred men mounted on the blood horses of Virginia. It was not true, as Lafayette thought possible, that the English exaggerated his force. It appears from Tarleton's memoirs that they estimated it very precisely. But we now know from Cornwallis's letters, that he had promised Clinton to be at Williamsburg on the 26th of June, ready for any operations he might then and there propose. He hoped that Clinton would largely reinforce him, so that his favorite scheme of "solid operations in Virginia" might be carried on. At all events, he had promised to have his army at Williamsburg to join any force which Clinton might send to him. To make this imagined junction, which never took place, he began his retreat. Lafayette again offered him battle; but Cornwallis did not accept the opportunity, and on the 25th of June he arrived at Williamsburg. Lafayette was always one day's march behind him, and encamped at last at Tyre's Plantation, one day beyond Williamsburg, which may become famous again in a few days. Colonel Butler, of Pennsylvania, with his riflemen, attacked Colonel Simcoe, of the English corps of refugees, at the Fords of the Chickahominy, about six miles west of Williamsburg. We shall be hearing of these fords again.

At Williamsburg poor Cornwallis met his fate. He had, perhaps, been dreading the arrival of his despatches from Clinton, through all the month he had been in Virginia. At last they came. Clinton was sorry he was there, expressed his regret that Cornwallis did not favor his plan for marching on Philadelphia, gave him carte blanche for Baltimore or Delaware,—but, instead of reinforcing him, asked for two thousand men, if he could spare them. The letter is, on the whole, a manly letter, from a superior to an inferior, who had social rank higher than himself, and more of the confidence of their Government. It gives Cornwallis great latitude; but it does not "abandon New York and bring our whole force into Virginia," which was Cornwallis's pet plan.

His Lordship behaved ill,—and, in a pet, threw away the British empire in America. He sulked, to speak simply. He took the sullen policy of literal obedience to orders, though he knew he should "break his owners." He marched at once, crossed James River at Jamestown, where Lafayette attacked his rear,—and, if his Lordship had been in fighting humor, would have got well beaten for his pains,—withdrew to Portsmouth, and put on vessels the two thousand men asked for by Sir Henry. Just then new despatches came from Clinton, who had received later news, and who was always trying to humor this spoiled child. He told him to keep all his men in Virginia, where he would take command himself as soon as the hot season was over. The "solid operations" were to begin. Very unstable they proved, even in the beginning!

Clinton ordered him to take post at Old Point Comfort,—where Fort Monroe is. But the engineer officers reported that they could not protect the fleet there against the French; and, to the delight of Lafayette and of all good angels, Cornwallis selected Yorktown for his summer position. Our neighborhood to it at Fort Monroe has made the position again familiar.

When Lafayette heard that the troops had sailed up the Chesapeake,—instead of to New York, which he had very correctly supposed to be their destination,—he thought Cornwallis was going to strike at Baltimore, and that he must "cut across" to Fredericksburg. That way he marched with his light infantry. His amazement hardly concealed itself when he found the enemy stopped at Yorktown. Back he came to Williamsburg, and wrote to Washington,—"If a fleet should arrive at this moment, our affairs will take a very fortunate turn." This was on the 6th of August. On the 1st of September he could write,—"From the bottom of my heart, my dear General, I felicitate you on the arrival of the French fleet…. Thanks to you, my dear General, I am in a charming situation, and I find myself at the head of a superb corps." The Marquis of St. Simon joined him with three thousand French infantry from the fleet,—and at Williamsburg they effectually kept Cornwallis from escape by land, as the French fleet did by sea.

The only proposal which Cornwallis made to save his corps after this was carefully considered, and, it is said, at one time determined on; but it was finally rejected, in expectation of relief from Clinton. Just now that we are beginning "solid operations in Virginia," and may have occasion to move a hundred thousand men, more or less, up the long neck of land between York and James Rivers, the passage is an interesting one. Washington had not yet arrived. The English plan was to attack and beat Lafayette and St. Simon before Washington joined them. The English columns were to move from Yorktown so as to attack Williamsburg before daybreak. "That time was deemed eligible," says Tarleton, "because the ground near and in Williamsburg is cut by several ravines, and because the British column, in advancing in the long and straight road through the town, would not be so much exposed to the enemy's cannon under cover of the night as during the day." Let the reader remember these defiles, as he traces the march of another column from Fort Monroe through Yorktown to Williamsburg, with some General Magruder falling back before it, watching his chances to strike. Cornwallis gave up the plan, however, and waited for the help from Clinton, which never came. On the 15th of September Washington and Rochambeau joined Lafayette; on the 18th of October Cornwallis capitulated, and for eighty years the Virginian campaigns were over.

There is not one subdivision of them but is touched by the movements of to-day. Everything is changed, indeed, except Virginia. But Raccoon Ford and Bottom's Bridge are where they were then. The division which marches on Gordonsville may send a party down the "Marquis's Road," as the people still call the wood-road which Lafayette opened; and all the battles of the next month,²⁶ in short, will be fought on the ground familiar to the soldiers of eighty years ago.

SUNTHIN' IN THE PASTORAL LINE

To the Editors of the ATLANTIC 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 draw
  An' 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 dread
  O' the spare-chamber, slinks into the shed,
  Where, dim with dust, it fust or last subsides
  To 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 read
  Gits kind o' 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 doosn'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,—
 
 
  (Why, I'd give more for one live bobolink
  Than 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 it
  Blind on the word o' noospaper or poet!
  They 're apt to puff, an' May-day seldom looks
  Up 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 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 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 find
  Some 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 springs
  Thet kind o' haggle with their greens an' things,
  An' when you 'most give up, without more words
  Toss the fields full o' blossoms, leaves, an' birds:
  Thet'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 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 willers
  So 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 knows
  Thet 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 dams
  Heaped-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 tune
  An' 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 clings
  An' for the summer vy'ge his hammock slings,
  All down the loose-walled lanes in archin' bowers
  The barb'ry droops its strings o' golden flowers,
  Whose shrinkin' hearts the school-gals love to try
  With 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 veins
  In spring, with curus heats an' prickly pains,
  Thet drive me, when I git a chance, to walk
  Off by myself to hev a privit talk
  With a queer critter thet can't seem to 'gree
  Along 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 mind
  Ez 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 sins
  Come drizzlin' on my conscience sharp ez pins:
 
 
  Wal, et sech times I jes' slip out o' sight
  An' take it out in a fair stan'-up fight
  With 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 rhyme
  With nobody's, but off the hendle flew
  An' took things from an east-wind pint o' view,
  I started off to lose me in the hills
  Where 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 grew
  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 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 minute
  Thet ever fits us easy while we 're in it;
  Long ez 't wuz futur', 't would be perfect bliss,—
  Soon ez it's past, thet time's wuth ten o' this;
  An' yit there ain't a man thet need be told
  Thet Now's the only bird lays eggs o' gold.
  A knee-high lad, I used to plot an' plan
  An' think 't wuz life's cap-sheaf to be a man;
  Now, gittin' gray, there's nothin' I enjoy
  Like dreamin' back along into a boy:
  So the ole school'us' is a place I choose
  Afore all others, ef I want to muse;
  I set down where I used to set, an' git
  My 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 arternoon
  Thet 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't feel none the better for);
  I thought o' Reconstruction, wut we 'd win
  Patchin' 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 pan
  Would 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' mingle
  In 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 stream
  Make a new upside-down'ard world o' dream:
  Sometimes they seem like sunrise-streaks an' warnins
  O' 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' spurs
  With rowels to 'em big ez ches'nut-burrs,
  An' his gret sword behind him sloped away
  Long 'z a man's speech thet dunno wut to say.—
  "Ef your name's Biglow, an' your given-name
  Hosee," sez he, "it's arter you I came;
  I'm your gret-gran'ther multiplied by three."—
  "My wut?" 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 May
  The ship I come in sailed up Boston Bay;
  I 'd ben a cunnle in our Civil War,—
  But wut on airth hev you gut 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 view
  O' 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-split
  Thet 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 known
  Nor 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 stock
  Could 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 warn't full-cocked with my jedgement on it;
  But now I'm gittin' on in life, I find
  It's a sight harder to make up my mind,—
  Nor I don't often try tu, when events
  Will 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 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, then
  Your facts an' figgers change to ign'ant men
  Actin' 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.
  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 a good cement,"
  Sez he, "an' so you 'll find it in th' event;
  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:
  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' ef I held 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 believe
  He '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.