"These loud ancestral boasts of yours, How can they else than vex us? Where were your dinner orators When slavery grasped at Texas? Dumb on his knees was every one That now is bold as Cæsar; Mere pegs to hang an office on Such stalwart men as these are." "Good sir," I said, "you seem much stirred; The sacred compromises "Now God confound the dastard word! My gall thereat arises : Northward it hath this sense alone, That you, your conscience blinding, Shall bow your fool's nose to the stone, When slavery feels like grinding. ""T is shame to see such painted sticks To see your spirit of Seventy-six "We forefathers to such a rout! No, by my faith in God's word!" Half rose the ghost, and half drew out The ghost of his old broadsword, Then thrust it slowly back again, And said, with reverent gesture, "No, Freedom, no! blood should not stain The hem of thy white vesture. "I feel the soul in me draw near The streaks of first forewarning, "Child of our travail and our woe, Light in our day of sorrow, Through my rapt spirit I foreknow The glory of thy morrow; I hear great steps, that through the shade Draw nigher still and nigher, And voices call like that which bade The prophet come up higher." I looked, no form mine eyes could find, Some Pilgrim-stuff that hates all sham, THE COURTIN'. OD makes sech nights, all white an still Fur 'z you can look or listen, Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill, All silence an' all glisten. Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown A fireplace filled the room's one side There warn't no stoves (tell comfort died) To bake ye to a puddin'. The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung, The very room, coz she was in, Seemed warm from floor to ceilin', 'T was kin' o' kingdom-come to look A dogrose blushin' to a brook He was six foot o' man, A 1, None could n't quicker pitch a ton He'd sparked it with full twenty gals, Hed squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em, Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells — All is, he could n't love 'em. But long o' her his veins 'ould run She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring, An' she'd blush scarlet, right in prayer, Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some! She seemed to 've gut a new soul, |