I discovered
afterward
that my interlocutor was Uncle Zeb.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v16 - Lev to Mai
They may talk o' Freedom's airy
Tell they're pupple in the face,-
It's a grand gret cemetary
Fer the barthrights of our race;
They jest want this Californy
So 's to lug new slave States in,
To abuse ye, an' to scorn ye,
An' to plunder ye like sin.
Ain't it cute to see a Yankee
Take sech everlastin' pains,
All to get the Devil's thankee
Helpin' on 'em weld their chains?
W'y, it's jest ez clear ez figgers,
Clear ez one an' one make two,-
Chaps thet make black slaves o' niggers
Want to make w'ite slaves o' you.
Tell ye jest the eend I've come to
Arter cipherin' plaguy smart,
An' it makes a handy sum, tu,
Any gump could larn by heart:
Laborin' man an' laborin' woman
Hev one glory an' one shame;
Ev'y thin' thet's done inhuman
Injers all on 'em the same.
## p. 9252 (#268) ###########################################
9252
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
'Tain't by turnin' out to hack folks
You're agoin' to git your right,
Nor by lookin' down on black folks
Coz you're put upon by w'ite;
Slavery ain't o' nary color,
'Tain't the hide thet makes it wus,
All it keers fer in a feller
'S jest to make him fill its pus.
Want to tackle me in, du ye?
I expect you'll hev to wait;
W'en cold lead puts daylight thru ye
You'll begin to kal'late;
S'pose the crows wun't fall to pickin'
All the carkiss from your bones,
Coz you helped to give a lickin'
To them poor half-Spanish drones?
Jest go home an' ask our Nancy
W'ether I'd be sech a goose
Ez to jine ye,-guess you'd fancy
The etarnal bung wuz loose!
She wants me fer home consumption,
Let alone the hay's to mow:
Ef you're arter folks o' gumption,
You've a darned long row to hoe.
Take them editors thet's crowin'
Like a cockerel three months old,
Don't ketch any on 'em goin',
Though they be so blasted bold;
Ain't they a prime lot o' fellers?
'Fore they think on't, guess they'll sprout
(Like a peach thet's got the yellers),
With the meanness bustin' out.
Wal, go 'long to help 'em stealin'
Bigger pens to cram with slaves;
Help the men thet's ollers dealin'
Insults on your fathers' graves;
Help the strong to grind the feeble;
Help the many agin the few;
Help the men thet call your people
W'itewashed slaves an' peddlin' crew!
## p. 9253 (#269) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9253
Massachusetts, God forgive her,
She's a-kneelin' with the rest,-
She, thet ough' to ha' clung ferever
In her grand old eagle-nest;
She thet ough' to stand so fearless
IW'ile the wracks are round her hurled,
Holdin' up a beacon peerless
To the oppressed of all the world!
Hain't they sold your colored seamen ?
Hain't they made your env'ys w'iz?
Wut'll make ye act like freemen?
Wut'll git your dander riz ?
Come, I'll tell ye wut I'm thinkin'
Is our dooty in this fix,-
They'd ha' done 't ez quick ez winkin'
In the days o' seventy-six.
Clang the bells in every steeple;
Call all true men to disown
The tradoocers of our people,
The enslavers o' their own;
Let our dear old Bay State proudly
Put the trumpet to her mouth;
Let her ring this messidge loudly
In the ears of all the South:-
"I'll return ye good fer evil
Much ez we frail mortils can,
But I wun't go help the Devil
Makin' man the cus o' man;
Call me coward, call me traiter,
Jest ez suits your mean idees,-
Here I stand a tyrant-hater,
An' the friend o' God an' Peace! "
Ef I'd my way, I hed ruther
We should go to work an' part,
They take one way, we take t'other,-
Guess it wouldn't break my heart:
Man hed ough' to put asunder
Them thet God has noways jined;
An' I shouldn't gretly wonder
Ef there's thousands o' my mind.
## p. 9254 (#270) ###########################################
9254
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
G
WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS
UVENER B. is a sensible man;
He stays to his home an' looks arter his folks;
He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can,
An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes:
But John P.
Robinson he
Sez he wun't vote fer Guvener B.
My! ain't it terrible? Wut shall we du?
We can't never choose him, o' course,-thet's flat;
Guess we shall hev to come round, (don't you? )
An' go in fer thunder, an' guns, an' all that:
Fer John P.
Robinson he
Sez he wun't vote fer Guvener B.
Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man:
He's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf;
But consistency still wuz a part of his plan,—
He's ben true to one party, an' thet is himself:
So John P.
Robinson he
Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C.
Gineral C. he goes in fer the war;
He don't vally princerple more 'n an' old cud;
Wut did God make us raytional creeturs fer,
But glory an' gunpowder, plunder an' blood?
So John P.
Robinson he
Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C.
We were gittin' on nicely up here to our village
With good old idees o' wut's right an' wut ain't;
We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage,
An' thet eppyletts worn't the best mark of a saint:
But John P.
Robinson he
Sez this kind o' thing 's an exploded idee.
The side of our country must ollers be took,
An' Presidunt Polk, you know, he is our country;
An' the angel thet writes all our sins in a book
Puts the debit to him, an' to us the per contry:
## p. 9255 (#271) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9255
An' John P.
Robinson he
Sez this is his view o' the thing to a T.
Parson Wilbur he calls all these argimunts lies;
Sez they're nothin' on airth but jest fee, faw, fum;
An' thet all this big talk of our destinies
Is half on it ign'ance, an' t'other half rum:
But John P.
Robinson he
Sez it ain't no sech thing; an' of course, so must we.
Parson Wilbur sez he never heerd in his life
Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats,
An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fife,
To git some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes;
But John P.
Robinson he
Sez they didn't know everythin' down in Judee.
Wal, it's a marcy we've gut folks to tell us
The rights an' the wrongs o' these matters, I vow,—
God sends country lawyers, an' other wise fellers,
To start the world's team w'en it gits in a slough;
Fer John P.
Robinson he
Sez the world 'll go right ef he hollers out Gee!
THE COURTIN'
G
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
An' peeked in thru' the winder,
An' there sot Huldy all alone,
'Ith no one nigh to hender.
A fireplace filled the room's one side
With half a cord o' wood in:
There warn't no stoves (tell comfort died)
To bake ye to a puddin'.
## p. 9256 (#272) ###########################################
9256
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out
Towards the pootiest, bless her!
An' leetle flames danced all about
The chiny on the dresser.
Agin the chimbley crooknecks hung,
An' in amongst 'em rusted
The ole queen's-arm thet gran'ther Young
Fetched back f'om Concord-busted.
The very room, coz sh was in,
Seemed warm f'om floor to ceilin';
An' she looked full ez rosy agin
Ez the apples she was peelin'.
'Twas kin' o' kingdom-come to look
On sech a blessed cretur;
A dog-rose blushin' to a brook
Ain't modester nor sweeter.
He was six foot o' man, Ar;
Clear grit an' human natur';
None couldn't quicker pitch a ton
Nor dror a furrer straighter.
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 couldn't love 'em.
But long o' her his veins 'ould run
All crinkly like curled maple;
The side she breshed felt full o' sun
Ez a south slope in Ap'il.
She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing
Ez hisn in the choir;
My! when he made 'Ole Hunderd' ring,
She knowed the Lord was nigher.
An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer,
When her new meetin'-bunnet
Felt somehow thru its crown a pair
O' blue eyes sot upun it.
Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some!
She seemed to 've gut a new soul;
## p. 9257 (#273) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9257
For she felt sartin-sure he'd come,
Down to her very shoe-sole.
She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu,
A-raspin' on the scraper:
All ways to once her feelin's flew
Like sparks in burnt-up paper.
He kin' o' l'itered on the mat,
Some doubtfle o' the sekle;
His heart kep' goin' pity-pat,
But hern went pity Zekle.
An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk
Ez though she wished him furder,
An' on her apples kep' to work.
Parin' away like murder.
"You want to see my Pa, I s'pose? "
"Wal-
no-I come dasignin'"-
"To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es
Agin to-morrer's i'nin'. "
――
To say why gals acts so or so,
Or don't, 'ould be persumin :
Mebby to mean yes an' say no
Comes nateral to women.
He stood a spell on one foot fust,
Then stood a spell on t' other;
An' on which one he felt the wust
He couldn't ha' told ye nuther.
Says he, "I'd better call agin; "
Says she, "Think likely, Mister:"
Thet last word pricked him like a pin,
An' Wal, he up an' kist her.
―
When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips,
Huldy sot pale ez ashes,
All kin' o' smily roun' the lips
An' teary roun' the lashes.
For she was jes' the quiet kind
Whose naturs never vary,
Like streams that keep a summer mind
Snow-hid in Jenooary.
## p. 9258 (#274) ###########################################
9258
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued
Too tight for all expressin',
Tell mother see how metters stood,
An' gin 'em both her blessin'.
Then her red come back like the tide
Down to the Bay o' Fundy;
An' all I know is, they was cried
In meetin' come nex' Sunday.
MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLAN-
TIC MONTHLY
EAR SIR,-Your letter come to han'
D 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,
An' wish, pervidin' it 'ould suit,
I'd take an' citify my English.
I ken write long-tailed, ef I please,-
But when I'm jokin', no, I thankee:
Then, 'fore I know it, my idees
Run helter-skelter into Yankee.
Sence I begun to scribble rhyme,
I tell ye wut, I hain't ben foolin';
The parson's books, life, death, an' time
Hev took some trouble with my schoolin':
Nor th' airth don't git put out with me,
Thet love her 'z though she wuz a woman;
Why, th' ain't a bird upon the tree
But half forgives my bein' human.
An' yit I love th' unhighschooled way
Ol' farmers hed when I wuz younger:
Their talk wuz meatier, an' 'ould stay,
While book froth seems to whet your hunger;
## p. 9259 (#275) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9259
For puttin' in a downright lick
'Twixt Humbug's eyes, ther's few can metch it;
An' then it helves my thoughts ez slick
Ez stret-grained hickory doos a hetchet.
But when I can't, I can't, thet's all;
For Natur' won't put up with gullin';
Idees you hev to shove an' haul
Like a druv pig, ain't wuth a mullein:
Live thoughts ain't sent for; thru all rifts
O' sense they pour an' resh ye onwards,
Like rivers when south-lyin' drifts
Feel thet th' old airth's a-wheelin' sunwards.
Time wuz, the rhymes come crowdin' thick
Ez office-seekers arter 'lection,
An' into ary place 'ould stick
Without no bother nor objection:
But since the war my thoughts hang back
Ez though I wanted to enlist 'em,
An' subs'tutes, - they don't never lack,
But then they'll slope afore you've mist 'em.
Nothin' don't seem like wut it wuz;
I can't see wut there is to hender,
An' yit my brains jes' go buzz, buzz,
Like bumblebees agin a winder:
'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;
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 shimmer.
I hev been gladder o' sech things
Than cocks o' spring or bees o' clover:
They filled my heart with livin' springs,
But now they seem to freeze 'em over;
## p. 9260 (#276) ###########################################
9260
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Sights innercent ez babes on knee,
Peaceful ez eyes o' pastur'd cattle,
Jes' coz they be so, seem to me
To rile me more with thoughts o' battle.
In-doors an' out by spells I try:
Ma'am Natur' keeps her spin-wheel goin',
But leaves my natur' stiff and dry
Ez fiel's o' clover arter mowin';
An' her jes' keepin' on the same,
Calmer 'n a clock, an' never carin',
An' findin' nary thing to blame,
Is wus than ef she took to swearin'.
Snowflakes come whisperin' on the pane
The charm makes blazin' logs so pleasant;
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'.
Or up the slippery knob I strain
An' see a hundred hills like islan's
Lift their blue woods in broken chain
Out o' the sea o' snowy silence;
The farm smokes - sweetes' sight on airth
Slow thru the winter air a-shrinkin',
Seem kin' o' sad, an' roun' the hearth
Of empty places set me thinkin'.
Beaver roars hoarse with meltin' snows,
An' rattles di'mon's from his granite:
Time wuz, he snatched away my prose,
An' into psalms or satires ran it;
## p. 9261 (#277) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9261
But he, nor all the rest thet once
Started my blood to country-dances,
Can't set me goin' more'n a dunce
Thet hain't no use for dreams an' fancies.
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?
Didn't I love to see 'em growin',-
Three likely lads ez wal could be,
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'.
Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth
On War's red techstone rang true metal,
Who ventered life an' love an' youth
For the gret prize o' death in battle?
To him who, deadly hurt, agen
Flashed on afore the charge's thunder,
Tippin' with fire the bolt of men
Thet rived the Rebel line asunder?
"Tain't right to hev the young go fust,
All throbbin' full o' gifts an' graces,
Leavin' life's paupers dry ez dust
To try an' make b'lieve fill their places:
Nothin' but tells us wut we miss;
Ther's gaps our lives can't never fay in;
An' thet world seems so fur from this
Lef' for us loafers to grow gray in!
My eyes cloud up for rain; my mouth
Will take to twitchin' roun' the corners:
I pity mothers, tu, down South,
For all they sot among the scorners;
## p. 9262 (#278) ###########################################
9262
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
I'd sooner take my chance to stan'
At Jedgment where your meanest slave is,
Than at God's bar hol' up a han'
Ez drippin' red ez yourn, Jeff Davis!
Come, Peace! not like a mourner bowed
For honor lost an' dear ones wasted,
But proud, to meet a people proud,
With eyes that tell o' triumph tasted!
Come, with han' grippin' on the hilt,
An' step thet proves ye Victory's daughter!
Longin' for you, our sperits wilt
Like shipwrecked men's on raf's for water.
Come, while our country feels the lift
Of a gret instinct shoutin' "Forwards! "
An' knows thet freedom ain't a gift
Thet tarries long in han's o' cowards!
Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when
They kissed their cross with lips thet quivered,
An' bring fair wages for brave men,
A nation saved, a race delivered!
THE WASHERS OF THE SHROUD
LONG a river-side, I know not where,
A I walked one night in mystery of dream;
A chill creeps curdling yet beneath my hair,
To think what chanced me by the pallid gleam
Of a moon-wraith that waned through haunted air.
Pale fireflies pulsed within the meadow-mist
Their halos, wavering thistle-downs of light;
The loon, that seemed to mock some goblin tryst,
Laughed; and the echoes, huddling in affright,
Like Odin's hounds, fled baying down the night.
Then all was silent, till there smote my ear
A movement in the stream that checked my breath:
Was it the slow plash of a wading deer?
But something said, "This water is of Death!
The Sisters wash a shroud,-ill thing to hear! ”
I, looking then, beheld the ancient Three
Known to the Greek's and to the Northman's creed,
## p. 9263 (#279) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9263
That sit in shadow of the mystic Tree,
Still crooning, as they weave their endless brede,
One song: "Time was, Time is, and Time shall be. "
No wrinkled crones were they, as I had deemed,
But fair as yesterday, to-day, to-morrow,
To mourner, lover, poet, ever seemed;
Something too high for joy, too deep for sorrow,
Thrilled in their tones, and from their faces gleamed.
"Still men and nations reap as they have strawn,”
So sang they, working at their task the while;
"The fatal raiment must be cleansed ere dawn:
-
For Austria? Italy? the Sea-Queen's isle?
O'er what quenched grandeur must our shroud be drawn?
"Or is it for a younger, fairer corse,
That gathered States like children round his knees,
That tamed the wave to be his posting-horse,
Feller of forests, linker of the seas,
Bridge-builder, hammerer, youngest son of Thor's?
"What make we, murmur'st thou? and what are we?
When empires must be wound, we bring the shroud,
The time-old web of the implacable Three:
Is it too coarse for him, the young and proud?
Earth's mightiest deigned to wear it,-why not he? "
"Is there no hope? " I moaned, "so strong, so fair!
Our Fowler whose proud bird would brook erewhile
No rival's swoop in all our western air!
Gather the ravens, then, in funeral file
For him, life's morn yet golden in his hair?
"Leave me not hopeless, ye unpitying dames!
I see, half seeing. Tell me, ye who scanned
The stars, Earth's elders, still must noblest aims
Be traced upon oblivious ocean sands?
Must Hesper join the wailing ghosts of names? "
"When grass blades stiffen with red battle dew,
Ye deem we choose the victor and the slain:
Say, choose we them that shall be leal and true
To the heart's longing, the high faith of brain?
Yet there the victory lies, if ye but knew.
"Three roots bear up Dominion: Knowledge, Will,—
These twain are strong, but stronger yet the third,—
## p. 9264 (#280) ###########################################
9264
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Obedience,-'tis the great tap-root that still,
Knit round the rock of Duty, is not stirred,
Though Heaven-loosed tempests spend their utmost skill.
"Is the doom sealed for Hesper? 'Tis not we
Denounce it, but the Law before all time:
The brave makes danger opportunity;
The waverer, paltering with the chance sublime,
Dwarfs it to peril: which shall Hesper be?
"Hath he let vultures climb his eagle's seat
To make Jove's bolts purveyors of their maw?
Hath he the Many's plaudits found more sweet
Than Wisdom? held Opinion's wind for Law?
Then let him hearken for the doomster's feet!
"Rough are the steps, slow-hewn in flintiest rock,
States climb to power by; slippery those with gold
Down which they stumble to eternal mock:
No chafferer's hand shall long the sceptre hold,
Who, given a Fate to shape, would sell the block.
"We sing old Sagas, songs of weal and woe,
Mystic because too cheaply understood;
Dark sayings are not ours; men hear and know,
See Evil weak, see strength alone in Good,
Yet hope to stem God's fire with walls of tow.
"Time Was unlocks the riddle of Time Is,
That offers choice of glory or of gloom;
The solver makes Time Shall Be surely his.
But hasten, Sisters! for even now the tomb
Grates its slow hinge and calls from the abyss. "
"But not for him," I cried,-"not yet for him
Whose large horizon, westering, star by star
Wins from the void to where on Ocean's rim
The sunset shuts the world with golden bar,—
Not yet his thews shall fail, his eye grow dim!
"His shall be larger manhood, saved for those
That walk unblenching through the trial fires;
Not suffering, but faint heart, is worst of woes,
And he no base-born son of craven sires,
Whose eye need blench confronted with his foes.
"Tears may be ours, but proud, for those who win
Death's royal purple in the foeman's lines;
## p. 9265 (#281) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9265
Peace, too, brings tears; and 'mid the battle din,
The wiser ear some text of God divines,—
For the sheathed blade may rust with darker sin.
"God, give us peace! not such as lulls to sleep,
But sword on thigh, and brow with purpose knit!
And let our Ship of State to harbor sweep,
Her ports all up, her battle lanterns lit,
And her leashed thunders gathering for their leap! "
So cried I with clenched hands and passionate pain,
Thinking of dear ones by Potomac's side;
Again the loon laughed mocking, and again
The echoes bayed far down the night and died,
While waking I recalled my wandering brain.
B
XVI-580
MEMORIÆ POSITUM
I
ENEATH the trees,
My lifelong friends in this dear spot,
Sad now for eyes that see them not,
I hear the autumnal breeze
Wake the dry leaves to sigh for gladness gone,
Whispering vague omens of oblivion;
Hear, restless as the seas,
Time's grim feet rustling through the withered grace
Of many a spreading realm and strong-stemmed race,
Even as my own through these.
Why make we moan
For loss that doth enrich us yet
With upward yearnings of regret?
Bleaker than unmossed stone
Our lives were but for this immortal gain
Of unstilled longing and inspiring pain!
As thrills of long-hushed tone
Live in the viol, so our souls grow fine
With keen vibrations from the touch divine
Of noble natures gone.
'Twere indiscreet
To vex the shy and sacred grief
With harsh obtrusions of relief;
Yet Verse, with noiseless feet,
## p. 9266 (#282) ###########################################
9266
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Go whisper: "This death hath far choicer ends
Than slowly to impearl in hearts of friends;
These obsequies 'tis meet
Not to seclude in closets of the heart,
But, church-like, with wide doorways, to impart
Even to the heedless street. "
II
Brave, good, and true,
I see him stand before me now,
And read again on that young brow,
Where every hope was new,
How sweet were life! Yet, by the mouth firm-set,
And look made up for Duty's utmost debt,
I could divine he knew
That death within the sulphurous hostile lines,
In the mere wreck of nobly pitched designs,
Plucks heart's-ease, and not rue.
Happy their end
Who vanish down life's evening stream
Placid as swans that drift in dream
Round the next river-bend!
Happy long life, with honor at the close,
Friends' painless tears, the softened thought of foes!
And yet, like him, to spend
All at a gush, keeping our first faith sure
From mid-life's doubt and eld's contentment poor,--
What more could Fortune send?
Right in the van,
On the red rampart's slippery swell,
With heart that beat a charge, he fell
Foeward, as fits a man;
But the high soul burns on to light men's feet
Where death for noble ends makes dying sweet;
His life her crescent's span
Orbs full with share in their undarkening days
Who ever climbed the battailous steeps of praise
Since valor's praise began.
III
His life's expense
Hath won him coeternal youth
With the immaculate prime of Truth;
While we, who make pretense
## p. 9267 (#283) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9267
At living on, and wake and eat and sleep,
And life's stale trick by repetition keep,—
Our fickle permanence
(A poor leaf-shadow on a brook, whose play
Of busy idlesse ceases with our day)
Is the mere cheat of sense.
We bide our chance,
Unhappy, and make terms with Fate
A little more to let us wait;
He leads for aye the advance,
Hope's forlorn-hopes that plant the desperate good
For nobler earths and days of manlier mood;
Our wall of circumstance
Cleared at a bound, he flashes o'er the fight,
A saintly shape of fame, to cheer the right
And steel each wavering glance.
I write of one,
While with dim eyes I think of three;
Who weeps not others fair and brave as he?
Ah, when the fight is won,
Dear Land, whom triflers now make bold to scorn
(Thee! from whose forehead earth awaits her morn),
How nobler shall the sun
Flame in thy sky, how braver breathe thy air,
That thou bred'st children who for thee could dare
And die as thine have done!
[The foregoing poems are copyrighted, and are reprinted by permission of
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers. ]
UNCLE ZEB
From A Moosehead Journal': Literary Essays. Copyright 1864, 1871, 1876,
1890, by James Russell Lowell. Reprinted by permission of Houghton,
Mifflin & Co. , publishers.
A
STRING of five loons was flying back and forth in long, irreg-
ular zigzags, uttering at intervals their wild, tremulous cry,
which always seems far away, like the last faint pulse of
echo dying among the hills, and which is one of those few sounds
that instead of disturbing solitude, only deepen and confirm it.
On our inland ponds they are usually seen in pairs, and I asked
if it were common to meet five together. My question was an-
swered by a queer-looking old man, chiefly remarkable for a pair
## p. 9268 (#284) ###########################################
9268
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
of enormous cowhide boots, over which large blue trousers of
frocking strove in vain to crowd themselves.
"Wahl, 'tain't ushil," said he, "and it's called a sign o' rain
comin', that is. "
"Do you think it will rain ? »
With the caution of a veteran auspex, he evaded a direct re-
ply. "Wahl, they du say it's a sign o' rain comin'," said he.
I discovered afterward that my interlocutor was Uncle Zeb.
Formerly, every New England town had its representative uncle.
He was not a pawnbroker, but some elderly man, who, for want
of more defined family ties, had gradually assumed this avuncular
relation to the community; inhabiting the borderland between
respectability and the almshouse, with no regular calling, but
ready for odd jobs at haying, wood-sawing, whitewashing, asso-
ciated with the demise of pigs and the ailments of cattle, and
possessing as much patriotism as might be implied in a devoted
attachment to "New England"—with a good deal of sugar and
very little water in it. Uncle Zeb was a good specimen of this
palæozoic class; extinct among us for the most part, or surviving,
like the Dodo, in the Botany Bays of society. He was ready to
contribute (somewhat muddily) to all general conversation; but
his chief topics were his boots and the 'Roostick war. Upon the
lowlands and levels of ordinary palaver he would make rapid and
unlooked-for incursions; but provision failing, he would retreat
to these two fastnesses, whence it was impossible to dislodge him,
and to which he knew innumerable passes and short cuts quite
beyond the conjecture of common woodcraft. His mind opened
naturally to these two subjects, like a book to some favorite
passage. As the ear accustoms itself to any sound recurring
regularly, such as the ticking of a clock, and without a conscious.
effort of attention takes no impression from it whatever, so does
the mind find a natural safeguard against this pendulum species
of discourse, and performs its duties in the parliament by an
unconscious reflex action, like the beating of the heart or the
movement of the lungs. If talk seemed to be flagging, our
Uncle would put the heel of one boot upon the toe of the other,
to bring it within point-blank range, and say, "Wahl, I stump
the Devil himself to make that 'ere boot hurt my foot,” — leav-
ing us in doubt whether it were the virtue of the foot or its
case which set at naught the wiles of the adversary; or looking
up suddenly, he would exclaim, "Wahl, we eat some beans to the
## p. 9269 (#285) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9269
'Roostic war, I tell you! " When his poor old clay was wet with
gin, his thoughts and words acquired a rank flavor from it, as
from too strong a fertilizer. At such times too his fancy com-
monly reverted to a prehistoric period of his life, when he singly
had settled all the surrounding country, subdued the Injuns and
other wild animals, and named all the towns.
We talked of the winter camps and the life there. "The best
thing is," said our Uncle, "to hear a log squeal thru the snow.
Git a good, col', frosty mornin', in Febuary say, an' take an'
hitch the critters onto a log that'll scale seven thousan', an' it'll
squeal as pooty as an'thin' you ever hearn, I tell you. "
A pause.
«< Lessee, seen Cal Hutchins lately? "
-
"No. "
"Seems to me's though I hedn't seen Cal sence the 'Roostick
war. Wahl," etc. , etc.
Another pause.
"To look at them boots you'd think they was too large; but
kind o'git your foot into 'em, and they're as easy 's a glove. "
(I observed that he never seemed really to get his foot in,—
there was always a qualifying kind o'. ) "Wahl, my foot can play
in 'em like a young hedgehog. "
"There's nothin' so sweet an' hulsome as your real spring
water," said Uncle Zeb, "git it pure. But it's dreffle hard to git it
that ain't got sunthin' the matter of it. Snow-water 'll burn a
man's inside out,-I larned that to the 'Roostick war, -and the
snow lays terrible long on some o' thes'ere hills. Me an' Eb
Stiles was up old Ktahdn oncet jest about this time o' year, an' we
come acrost a kind o' holler like, as full o' snow as your stockin'
's full o' your foot. I see it fust, an' took an' rammed a settin'-
pole-wahl, it was all o' twenty foot-into 't, an' couldn't fin' no
bottom. I dunno as there's snow-water enough in this to do no
hurt. I don't somehow seem to think that real spring-water's so
plenty as it used to be. " And Uncle Zeb, with perhaps a little.
over-refinement of scrupulosity, applied his lips to the Ethiop
ones of a bottle of raw gin, with a kiss that drew out its very
soul, a basia that Secundus might have sung. He must have
been a wonderful judge of water; for he analyzed this and de-
tected its latent snow simply by his eye, and without the clumsy
process of tasting. I could not help thinking that he had made
the desert his dwelling-place chiefly in order to enjoy the minis-
trations of this one fair spirit unmolested.
--
—
## p. 9270 (#286) ###########################################
9270
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
We pushed on.
Little islands loomed trembling between sky
and water, like hanging gardens. Gradually the filmy trees de-
fined themselves, the aerial enchantment lost its potency, and we
came up with common prose islands that had so late been magi-
cal and poetic. The old story of the attained and unattained.
About noon we reached the head of the lake, and took possession
of a deserted wongen, in which to cook and eat our dinner. No
Jew, I am sure, can have a more thorough dislike of salt pork
than I have in a normal state; yet I had already eaten it raw
with hard bread, for lunch, and relished it keenly. We soon had
our tea-kettle over the fire, and before long the cover was chat-
tering with the escaping steam, which had thus vainly begged
of all men to be saddled and bridled, till James Watt one day
happened to overhear it.
One of our guides shot three Canada
grouse; and these were turned slowly between the fire and a
bit of salt pork, which dropped fatness upon them as it fried.
Although my fingers were certainly not made before knives and
forks, yet they served as a convenient substitute for those more
ancient inventions. We sat round, Turk fashion, and ate thank-
fully, while a party of aborigines of the Mosquito tribe, who had
camped in the wongen before we arrived, dined upon us. I do
not know what the British Protectorate of the Mosquitoes amounts
to; but as I squatted there at the mercy of these bloodthirsty
savages, I no longer wondered that the classic Everett had been
stung into a willingness for war on the question.
"This 'ere 'd be about a complete place for a camp, ef there
was on'y a spring o' sweet water handy. Frizzled pork goes wal,
don't it? Yes, an' sets wal, too," said Uncle Zeb, and he again
tilted his bottle, which rose nearer and nearer to an angle of
forty-five at every gurgle. He then broached a curious dietetic
theory: "The reason we take salt pork along is cos it packs
handy: you git the greatest amount o' board in the smallest
compass, let alone that it's more nourishin' than an'thin' else.
It kind o' don't disgest so quick, but stays by ye, a-nourishin' ye
all the while. A feller can live wal on frizzled pork an' good
spring water, git it good. To the 'Roostick war we didn't ask
for nothin' better,-on'y beans. " (Tilt, tilt, gurgle, gurgle. )
Then, with an apparent feeling of inconsistency, "But then, come
to git used to a particular kind o' spring water, an' it makes a
feller hard to suit. Most all sorts o' water taste kind o' insipid
away from home. Now, I've gut a spring to my place that's as
sweet-wahl, it's as sweet as maple sap. A feller acts about
―
――
## p. 9271 (#287) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9271
water jest as he doos about a pair o' boots. It's all on it in gittin'
wonted. Now, them boots," etc. , etc. (Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle,
smack! )
All this while he was packing away the remains of the pork
and hard bread in two large firkins. This accomplished, we re-
embarked, our Uncle on his way to the birch essaying a kind of
song in four or five parts, of which the words were hilarious and
the tune profoundly melancholy; and which was finished, and the
rest of his voice apparently jerked out of him in one sharp fal-
setto note, by his tripping over the root of a tree. We paddled
a short distance up a brook which came into the lake smoothly
through a little meadow not far off. We soon reached the North-
west Carry, and our guide, pointing through the woods, said:
"That's the Cannydy road. You can travel that clearn to Kebeck,
a hunderd an' twenty mile," a privilege of which I respectfully
declined to avail myself. The offer, however, remains open to
the public. The Carry is called two miles; but this is the
estimate of somebody who had nothing to lug. I had a head-
ache and all my baggage, which, with a traveler's instinct, I had
brought with me. (P. S. -I did not even take the keys out of
my pocket, and both my bags were wet through before I came
back. ) My estimate of the distance is eighteen thousand six
hundred and seventy-four miles and three quarters, the fraction
being the part left to be traveled after one of my companions
most kindly insisted on relieving me of my heaviest bag. I
know very well that the ancient Roman soldiers used to carry
sixty pounds' weight, and all that; but I am not, and never
shall be, an ancient Roman soldier,-no, not even in the miracu-
lous Thundering Legion. Uncle Zeb slung the two provender
firkins across his shoulder, and trudged along, grumbling that
"he never see sech a contrairy pair as them. "
He had begun
upon a second bottle of his "particular kind o' spring water";
and at every rest, the gurgle of this peripatetic fountain might
be heard, followed by a smack, a fragment of mosaic song, or a
confused clatter with the cowhide boots, being an arbitrary sym-
bol intended to represent the festive dance. Christian's pack
gave him not half so much trouble as the firkins gave Uncle
Zeb. It grew harder and harder to sling them, and with every
fresh gulp of the Batavian elixir they got heavier. Or rather,
the truth was that his hat grew heavier, in which he was carry-
ing on an extensive manufacture of bricks without straw. At
―
―――――――――――――――
## p. 9272 (#288) ###########################################
9272
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
last affairs reached a crisis; and a particularly favorable pitch
offering, with a puddle at the foot of it, even the boots afforded
no sufficient ballast, and away went our Uncle, the satellite fir-
kins accompanying faithfully his headlong flight. Did ever exiled
monarch or disgraced minister find the cause of his fall in him-
self? Is there not always a strawberry at the bottom of our cup
of life, on which we can lay all the blame of our deviations
from the straight path? Till now Uncle Zeb had contrived to
give a gloss of volition to smaller stumblings and gyrations, by
exaggerating them into an appearance of playful burlesque. But
the present case was beyond any such subterfuges. He held a
bed of justice where he sat, and then arose slowly, with a stern
determination of vengeance stiffening every muscle of his face.
But what would he select as the culprit? "It's that cussed fir-
kin," he mumbled to himself. "I never knowed a firkin cair on
so, no, not in the 'Roostehicick war. There, go long, will ye?
and don't come back till you've larned how to walk with a gen-
elman! " And seizing the unhappy scapegoat by the bail, he
hurled it into the forest. It is a curious circumstance, that it
was not the firkin containing the bottle which was thus con-
demned to exile.
FROM THE ADDRESS ON ‹DEMOCRACY›
'Literary and Political Addresses: Copyright 1886, 1888, 1890, by James Rus-
sell Lowell. Reprinted by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , pub-
lishers.
I
SHOULD not think of coming before you to defend or to criti-
cize any form of government. All have their virtues, all
their defects, and all have illustrated one period or another
in the history of the race with signal services to humanity
and culture. There is not one that could stand a cynical cross-
examination by an experienced criminal lawyer, except that of
a perfectly wise and perfectly good despot, such as the world has
never seen except in that white-haired king of Browning's, who
"-lived long ago
In the morning of the world,
When earth was nearer heaven than now. "
The English race, if they did not invent government by discus-
sion, have at least carried it nearest to perfection in practice. It
1
·
A
## p. 9273 (#289) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9273
seems a very safe and reasonable contrivance for occupying the
attention of the country, and is certainly a better way of settling
questions than by push of pike. Yet if one should ask it why it
should not rather be called government by gabble, it would have
to fumble in its pocket a good while before it found the change
for a convincing reply. As matters stand, too, it is beginning to
be doubtful whether Parliament and Congress sit at Westminster
and Washington, or in the editors' rooms of the leading journals;
so thoroughly is everything debated before the authorized and
responsible debaters get on their legs. And what shall we say
of government by a majority of voices? To a person who in the
last century would have called himself an Impartial Observer, a
numerical preponderance seems, on the whole, as clumsy a way
of arriving at truth as could well be devised; but experience has
apparently shown it to be a convenient arrangement for deter-
mining what may be expedient or advisable or practicable at any
given moment. Truth, after all, wears a different face to every-
body, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed.
She is said to lie at the bottom of a well; for the very reason,
perhaps, that whoever looks down in search of her sees his own
image at the bottom, and is persuaded not only that he has
seen the goddess, but that she is far better looking than he had
imagined.
The arguments against universal suffrage are equally unan-
swerable. "What," we exclaim, "shall Tom, Dick, and Harry
have as much weight in the scale as I? " Of course, nothing
could be more absurd. And yet universal suffrage has not been
the instrument of greater unwisdom than contrivances of a more
select description. Assemblies could be mentioned composed en-
tirely of Masters of Arts and Doctors in Divinity which have
sometimes shown traces of human passion or prejudice in their
votes. Have the Serene Highnesses and Enlightened Classes car-
ried on the business of Mankind so well, then, that there is no
use in trying a less costly method? The democratic theory is
that those Constitutions are likely to prove steadiest which have
the broadest base, that the right to vote makes a safety-valve of
every voter, and that the best way of teaching a man how to
vote is to give him the chance of practice. For the question is
no longer the academic one, "Is it wise to give every man the
ballot? " but rather the practical one, "Is it prudent to deprive
whole classes of it any longer? " It may be conjectured that it
## p. 9274 (#290) ###########################################
9274
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
is cheaper in the long run to lift men up than to hold them
down, and that the ballot in their hands is less dangerous to
society than a sense of wrong in their heads. At any rate, this
is the dilemma to which the drift of opinion has been for some
time sweeping us; and in politics, a dilemma is a more unman-
ageable thing to hold by the horns than a wolf by the ears. It
is said that the right of suffrage is not valued when it is indis-
criminately bestowed; and there may be some truth in this, for I
have observed that what men prize most is a privilege, even if it
be that of chief mourner at a funeral. But is there not danger
that it will be valued at more than its worth if denied, and that
some illegitimate way will be sought to make up for the want of
it? Men who have a voice in public affairs are at once affiliated
with one or other of the great parties between which society is
divided; merge their individual hopes and opinions in its safer,
because more generalized, hopes and opinions, are disciplined by
its tactics, and acquire to a certain degree the orderly qualities
of an army. They no longer belong to a class, but to a body
corporate. Of one thing, at least, we may be certain: that under
whatever method of helping things to go wrong man's wit can
contrive, those who have the divine right to govern will be found
to govern in the end, and that the highest privilege to which
the majority of mankind can aspire is that of being governed
by those wiser than they. Universal suffrage has in the United
States sometimes been made the instrument of inconsiderate
changes, under the notion of reform; and this from a misconcep
tion of the true meaning of popular government. One of these
has been the substitution in many of the States of popular elec-
tion for official selection in the choice of judges. The same sys-
tem applied to military officers was the source of much evil during
our civil war, and I believe had to be abandoned. But it has
been also true that on all great questions of national policy, a
reserve of prudence and discretion has been brought out at the
critical moment to turn the scale in favor of a wiser decision.
An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known
to fail in the long run. It is perhaps true that by effacing the
principle of passive obedience, democracy ill understood has slack-
ened the spring of that ductility to discipline which is essential
to "the unity and married calm of States. " But I feel assured
that experience and necessity will cure this evil, as they have
shown their power to cure others.
And under what frame of
## p. 9275 (#291) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9275
policy have evils ever been remedied till they became intolerable,
and shook men out of their indolent indifference through their
fears?
We are told that the inevitable result of democracy is to sap
the foundations of personal independence, to weaken the principle
of authority, to lessen the respect due to eminence, whether in
station, virtue, or genius. If these things were so, society could
not hold together. Perhaps the best forcing-house of robust indi-
viduality would be where public opinion is inclined to be most
overbearing, as he must be of heroic temper who should walk
along Piccadilly at the height of the season in a soft hat. As for
authority, it is one of the symptoms of the time that the reli-
gious reverence for it is declining everywhere; but this is due.
partly to the fact that statecraft is no longer looked upon as a
mystery but as a business, and partly to the decay of supersti-
tion,- by which I mean the habit of respecting what we are told
to respect rather than what is respectable in itself. There is
more rough-and-tumble in the American democracy than is alto-
gether agreeable to people of sensitive nerves and refined habits;
and the people take their political duties lightly and laughingly,
as is perhaps neither unnatural nor unbecoming in a young giant.
Democracies can no more jump away from their own shadows
than the rest of us can. They no doubt sometimes make mis-
takes, and pay honor to men who do not deserve it.
But they
do this because they believe them worthy of it; and though it
be true that the idol is the measure of the worshiper, yet the
worship has in it the germ of a nobler religion. But is it de-
mocracies alone that fall into these errors? I, who have seen
it proposed to erect a statue to Hudson the railway king, and
have heard Louis Napoleon hailed as the savior of society by
men who certainly had no democratic associations or leanings,
am not ready to think so. But democracies have likewise their
finer instincts. I have also seen the wisest statesman and most
pregnant speaker of our generation, a man of humble birth and
ungainly manners, of little culture beyond what his own genius.
supplied, become more absolute in power than any monarch of
modern times,- through the reverence of his countrymen for his
honesty, his wisdom, his sincerity, his faith in God and man, and
the nobly humane simplicity of his character. And I remem-
ber another whom popular respect enveloped as with a halo,-
the least vulgar of men, the most austerely genial, and the most
## p. 9276 (#292) ###########################################
9276
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
ļ
!
independent of opinion. Wherever he went he never met a stran-
ger, but everywhere neighbors and friends proud of him as their
ornament and decoration. Institutions which could bear and breed
such men as Lincoln and Emerson had surely some energy for
good. No, amid all the fruitless turmoil and miscarriage of the
world, if there be one thing steadfast and of favorable omen, one
thing to make optimism distrust its own obscure distrust, it is the
rooted instinct in men to admire what is better and more beauti-
ful than themselves. The touchstone of political and social institu-
tions is their ability to supply them with worthy objects of this
sentiment, which is the very tap-root of civilization and progress.
There would seem to be no readier way of feeding it with the
elements of growth and vigor than such an organization of society
as will enable men to respect themselves, and so to justify them.
in respecting others.
FROM ESSAY ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNERS'
'Literary Essays': copyright 1870, 1871, 1890, by James Russell Lowell. Re-
printed by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers
HE fine old Tory aversion of former times was not hard to
THE bear. There was something even refreshing in it, as in a
northeaster to a hardy temperament. When a British par-
son, traveling in Newfoundland while the slash of our separa-
tion was still raw, after prophesying a glorious future for an
island that continued to dry its fish under the ægis of Saint
George, glances disdainfully over his spectacles in parting at the
U. S. A. , and forebodes for them a "speedy relapse into bar-
barism," now that they have madly cut themselves off from the
humanizing influences of Britain, I smile with barbarian self-
conceit. But this kind of thing became by degrees an unpleasant
anachronism. For meanwhile the young giant was growing, was
beginning indeed to feel tight in his clothes, was obliged to let
in a gore here and there in Texas, in California, in New Mexico,
in Alaska, and had the scissors and needle and thread ready for
Canada when the time came. His shadow loomed like a Brocken-
spectre over against Europe; the shadow of what they were com-
ing to, that was the unpleasant part of it. Even in such misty
image as they had of him, it was painfully evident that his
clothes were not of any cut hitherto fashionable, nor conceivable
## p. 9277 (#293) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9277
by a Bond Street tailor;—and this in an age, too, when every-
thing depends upon clothes, when if we do not keep up appear-
ances, the seeming-solid frame of this universe, nay, your very
God, would slump into himself, like a mockery king of snow,
being nothing after all but a prevailing mode, a make-believe
of believing. From this moment the young giant assumed the
respectable aspect of a phenomenon; to be got rid of if possible,
but at any rate as legitimate a subject of human study as the
glacial period or the Silurian what-d'ye-call-ems. If the man of
the primeval drift-heaps be so absorbingly interesting, why not
the man of the drift that is just beginning, of the drift into
whose irresistible current we are just being sucked whether we
will or no? If I were in their place, I confess I should not be
frightened. Man has survived so much, and contrived to be
comfortable on this planet after surviving so much! I am some-
thing of a Protestant in matters of government also, and am
willing to get rid of vestments and ceremonies and to come
down to bare benches, if only faith in God take the place of a
general agreement to profess confidence in ritual and sham.
Every mortal man of us holds stock in the only public debt that
is absolutely sure of payment-and that is the debt of the Maker
of this universe to the universe he has made. I have no notion
of selling out my shares in a panic.
It was something to have advanced even to the dignity of
a phenomenon, and yet I do not know that the relation of the
individual American to the individual European was bettered by
it; and that, after all, must adjust itself comfortably before there
can be a right understanding between the two. We had been a
desert, we became a museum. People came hither for scientific
and not social ends. The very cockney could not complete his
education without taking a vacant stare at us in passing. But
the sociologists (I think they call themselves so) were the hardest
to bear. There was no escape. I have even known a professor
of this fearful science to come disguised in petticoats. We were
cross-examined as a chemist cross-examines a new substance.
Human? Yes, all the elements are present, though abnormally
combined. Civilized? Hm! that needs a stricter assay. No
entomologist could take a more friendly interest in a strange
bug. After a few such experiences, I for one have felt as if I
were merely one of those horrid things preserved in spirits (and
very bad spirits, too) in a cabinet. I was not the fellow-being
## p. 9278 (#294) ###########################################
9278
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
of these explorers: I was a curiosity; I was a specimen. Hath
not an American organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions,
even as a European hath? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
