To larn folks they must hendle fects like men?

Ain't this the true p'int? Did the Rebs accep' 'em?

Ef nut, whose fault is 't thet we hev n't kep 'em?

War n't there two sides? an' don't it stend

to reason

Thet this week's 'Nited States ain't las' week's treason?

When all these sums is done, with nothin' missed,

An' nut afore, this school 'll be dismissed.

I knowed ez wal ez though I'd seen 't with

eyes

Thet when the war wuz over copper 'd rise,

An' thet we'd hev a rile-up in our kettle 't would need Leviathan's whole skin to settle:

I thought 't would take about a generation 'fore we could wal begin to be a nation, But I allow I never did imegine

't would be our Pres'dunt thet 'ould drive a wedge in

To keep the split from closin' ef it could, An' healin' over with new wholesome wood; For th' ain't no chance o' healin' while they think

Thet law an' gov'ment 's only printer's ink;
I mus' confess I thank him for discoverin'
The curus way in which the States are sov-
ereign;

They ain't nut quite enough so to rebel,
But, when they fin' it's costly to raise h-
[A groan from Deac'n G.]
Why, then, for jes' the same superl'tive

reason,

They're 'most too much so to be tetched for treason;

They can't go out, but ef they somehow du,
Their sovereignty don't noways go out tu;
The State goes out, the sovereignty don't
stir,

But stays to keep the door ajar for her.
He thinks secession never took 'em out,
An' mebby he's correc', but I misdoubt;
Ef they war'n't out, then why, 'n the name
o' sin,

Make all this row 'bout lettin' of 'em in ? In law, p'r'aps nut; but there's a diffurence, ruther,

Betwixt your mother-'n-law an' real mother, [Derisive cheers.]

I've noticed thet each half-baked scheme's abetters

Are in the hebbit o' producin' letters Writ by all sorts o' never-heared-on fellers,

'bout ez oridge'nal ez the wind in bellers; I 've noticed, tu, it's the quack med'cine gits

(An' needs) the grettest heaps o' stiffykits; [Two pothekeries goes out.] Now, sence I lef' off creepin' on all fours, I hain't ast no man to endorse my course; It's full ez cheap to be your own endorser, An' ef I 've made a cup, I'll fin' the

saucer;

But I've some letters here from t' other side, An' them's the sort thet helps me to decide; Tell me for wut the copper-comp❜nies hanker,

An' I'll tell you jest where it's safe to anchor. [Faint hiss.]

Fus❜ly the Hon'ble B. O. Sawin writes Thet for a spell he could n't sleep o' nights,

Puzzlin' which side wuz preudentest to pin to,

Which wuz th' ole homestead, which the temp❜ry leanto;

Et fust he jedged 't would right-side-up

his pan

To come out ez a 'ridge'nal Union man, "But now," he sez, "I ain't nut quite so

fresh;

Columby gut her back up so,

It warn't no use a-tryin' to stop her, — War's emptin's riled her very dough An' made it rise an' act improper; "T wuz full ez much ez I could du To jes' lay low an' worry thru, "Thout hevin' to sell out my copper.

But the drag 's broke, now slavery's gone,
An' there's gret resk they'll blunder on,
Ef they ain't stopped, to real Democ'cy.

"We 've gut an awful row to hoe
In this 'ere job o' reconstructin';
Folks dunno skurce which way to go,

Where th' ain't some boghole to be ducked in;

But one thing 's clear; there is a crack,
Ef we pry hard, 'twixt white an' black,
Where the ole makebate can be tucked in.

"No white man sets in airth's broad aisle
Thet I ain't willin' t' own ez brother,
An' ef he 's heppened to strike ile,
I dunno, fin❜ly, but I'd ruther;
An' Paddies, long 'z they vote all right,
Though they ain't jest a nat❜ral white,
I hold one on 'em good 'z another.

[Applause.]

"Wut is there lef' I'd like to know,
Ef 't ain't the defference o' color,
To keep up self-respec' an' show
The human natur' of a fullah?
Wut good in bein' white, onless
It's fixed by law, nut lef' to guess,
We're a heap smarter an' they duller?

"Ef we're to hev our ekle rights,
't wun't du to 'low no competition;
Th' ole debt doo us for bein' whites
Ain't safe onless we stop th' emission
O'these noo notes, whose specie base
Is human natur', 'thout no trace
O' shape, nor color, nor condition.

Thet tells the story! Thet's wut we shall git

By tryin' squirtguns on the burnin' Pit;
For the day never comes when it'll du
To kick off Dooty like a worn-out shoe.
I seem to hear a whisperin' in the air,
A sighin' like, of unconsoled despair,
Thet comes from nowhere an' from every-
where,

An' seems to say, "Why died we? warn't it, then,

To settle, once for all, thet men wuz men? Oh, airth's sweet cup snetched from us barely tasted,

The grave's real chill is feelin' life wuz wasted!

Oh, you we lef', long-lingerin' et the door, Lovin' you best, coz we loved Her the

more,

Thet Death, not we, had conquered, we should feel

Ef she upon our memory turned her heel,
An' unregretful throwed us all away
To flaunt it in a Blind Man's Holiday!"

My frien's, I've talked nigh on to long enough.

I hain't no call to bore ye coz ye 're tough; My lungs are sound, an' our own v'ice delights

Our ears, but even kebbige-heads hez rights.

It's the las' time thet I shell e'er address ye, But you'll soon fin' some new tormentor: bless ye!

[Tumult'ous applause and cries of "Go on!" "Don't stop!"]

"THE WILLOWs," as was pointed out in the introductory note to An Indian-Summer Reverie, was a clump of trees not far from Elmwood. Lowell took a peculiar pleasure in their gnarled and umbrageous forms, and wrote to Fields while the volume which took its title from the trees was in press: "My heart was almost broken yesterday by seeing nailed to my willow a board with these words on it, 'These trees for sale.' The wretch is going to peddle them for firewood! If I had the money, I would buy the piece of ground they stand on to save them the dear friends of a lifetime. They would be a loss to the town. But what can one do? They belong to a man who values them by the cord. I wish Fenn had sketched them at least. One of them I hope will stand a few years yet in my poem but he might just as well have outlasted me and my works, making his own green ode every summer.' Not all the trees have been destroyed, for some yet remain, and it is a pleasure to record the refusal of a new comer into the neighborhood to have one destroyed which was inconveniently near the site of the house she was to build. She changed, instead, the site.

The varying minds Lowell was in regarding the title of the volume may be learned from the following letter to C. E. Norton, dated

66

night I fairly ended my work. . . . I had decided to put the "June Idyl" in the forefront and call it "A June Idyl, and Other Poems." But Fields told me that Whittier's new volume was to be called "A Summer Idyl"—so I was blocked there. Then I took "Appledore," merely because it was a pretty name, though I did not wish to put that in the van. So it was all settled for the second time. Then I was suddenly moved to finish my "Voyage to Vinland," . . . and, as I liked the poem, thought no title so good as "The Voyage to Vinland, and Other Poems." But Fields would not hear of it, and proposed that I should rechristen the Idyl Elmwood," and name the book after that. But the more I thought of it the less I liked it. It was throwing my sanctuary open and making a showhouse of my hermitage. It was indecent. So I fumed and worried. I was riled. Then it occurred to me that I had taken the name of "June Idyl" as a pis-aller, because in my haste I could think of nothing else. Why not name it over? So I hit upon "Under the Willows," and that it is to be. But it is awfully depressing work. They call back so many moods, and they are so bad. I think, though, there is a suggestion of something good in them at least, and they are not silly. But how much the public will stand! I sometimes wonder they don't drive all us authors into a corner and make a battue of the whole concern at once.

...

Pipe blown through by the warm wild breath of the West

Shepherding his soft droves of fleecy cloud, Gladness of woods, skies, waters, all in

one,

The bobolink has come, and, like the soul
Of the sweet season vocal in a bird,
Gurgles in ecstasy we know not what
Save June ! Dear June! Now God be
praised for June.

May is a pious fraud of the almanac,
A ghastly parody of real Spring
Shaped out of snow and breathed with
eastern wind;

Or if, o'er-confident, she trust the date,
And, with her handful of anemones,
Herself as shivery, steal into the sun,
The season need but turn his hour-glass
round,

And Winter suddenly, like crazy Lear, Reels back, and brings the dead May in his arms,

Her budding breasts and wan dislustred front

With frosty streaks and drifts of his white beard

All overblown. Then, warmly walled with

books,