Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right,3 And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light. Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand, Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land?4 Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 'tis Truth alone is strong, And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong. 27 Backward look across the ages and the beacon-moments see, Of those Crises, God's stern winnowers, from whose feet earth's chaff must fly; Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath passed by. 35 Careless seems the great Avenger;5 history's pages but record We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great, List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,— "They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin." Slavery, the earth-born Cyclops, fellest of the giant brood, 45 Sons of brutish Force and Darkness, who have drenched the earth with blood, Famished in his self-made desert, blinded by our purer day, Shall we guide his gory fingers where our helpless children play? so Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just; Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, 3. Cf. Matthew xxv: 31-33. 5. I.e., God. Cf. I Thessalonians iv: 6. which arose the mystical vapor inhaled by the priestess who then prophesied. 8. In mythology, the one-eyed Cyclopes were the offspring of Heaven and Earth, representing the terrors of lightning and thunder or disaster. Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified, 55 Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes,-they were souls that stood alone, While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone, 61 By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track, Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back, And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learned One new word of that grand Credo which in prophet-hearts hath burned Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heaven upturned. For Humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the martyr stands, 65 70 'Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' graves, Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light a crime;Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind their time? Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, that make Plymouth Rock sublime? 75 They were men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts, Hoarding it in mouldly parchments, while our tender spirits flee sea. 80 They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to our sires, Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's new-lit altar fires; Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall we, in our haste to slay, 85 9. Judas, one of the twelve disciples, who betrayed Christ for thirty pieces of silver. Cf. Matthew xxvii: 3. New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth; Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea, 89 Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key. 1844, 1848 From The Biglow Papers, First Series1 No. I: A Letter FROM MR. EZEKIEL BIGLOW OF JAALAM TO THE HON. JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM, EDITOR OF THE BOSTON COURIER, ENCLOSING A POEM OF HIS SON, MR. HOSEA BIGLOW MISTER EDDYTER: JAYLEM, june 1846. Our Hosea wuz down to Boston last week, and he see a cruetin Sarjunt2 a struttin round as popler as a hen with 1 chicking, with 2 fellers a drummin and fifin arter him like all nater. the sarjunt he thout Hosea hed n't gut his i teeth cut cos he looked a kindo's though he'd jest com down, so he cal'lated to hook him in, but Hosy wood n't take none o' his sarse for all he hed much as 20 Rooster's tales stuck onto his hat and eenamost enuf brass a-bobbin and down on his shoulders and figureed onto his coat and trousis, up 1. On June 17, 1846, in the Boston Courier, there appeared a letter to the editor, supposedly from an up-country farmer enclosing a poem written by his son after a disturbing trip to Boston. In so unassuming and disguised a manner, Lowell began The Biglow Papers, unsurpassed in American literature for political and social satire, the authentic use of Yankee idiom, and the skillful blending of sincerity and broad humor. Provoked by the poet's belief that the Mexican War was a threat to domestic unity and a political maneuver to extend slave territory, the poems appeared in the Boston Courier and the National Anti-Slavery Standard before their publication as The Biglow Papers in 1848. "Edited" by the pedantic "Rev. Homer Wilbur," who blithely wrote his own press notices, affixed a scholarly title page and strewed Latin quotations through the volume, the poems indicate the New England character of Hosea Biglow-"homely common-sense vivified and heated by conscience"and of Birdofredum Sawin, the “un moral" foil for Hosea, not here represented. The early years of the Civil War brought Biglow and Sawin into print again, as staunch and caustic supporters of the Union, in the Atlantic Monthly, and in 1862 The Biglow Papers, Second Series was published in England. In the introduction to the American edition of 1867, Lowell described the genesis of the Papers, adding a masterly defense and explanation of the Yankee dialect. The notes signed "H.W." are those of the supposititious editor, "Homer Wilbur." 2. President Polk, authorized by an act of May 13, 1846, called out fifty thousand volunteers, and in Massachusetts, as elsewhere, the recruiting sergeants used every inducement to meet their quota. 3. I.e., "just come down from the country." 4. "sarse: abuse, impertinence" [Lowell's note; like other definitions that follow, this is taken from the glossary of the 1848 edition]. let alone wut nater hed sot in his featers, to make a 6 pounder out on. wal, Hosea he com home considerabal riled, and arter I'd gone to bed I heern Him a-thrashin round like a short-tailed Bull in flitime. The old Woman ses she to me ses she, Zekle, ses she, our Hosee's gut the chollery or suthin anuther ses she, don't you Bee skeered, ses I, he's oney amakin pottery ses i, he's ollers on hand at that ere busynes like Da & martin, and shure enuf, cum mornin, Hosy he cum down stares full chizzle," hare on eend and cote tales flyin, and sot rite of to go reed his varses to Parson Wilbur bein he hain't aney grate shows o' book larnin himself, bimeby he cum back and sed the parson wuz dreffle tickled with 'em as i hoop you will Be, and said they wuz True grit. Hosea ses 't ain't hardly fair to call 'em his'n now, cos the parson kind o' slicked off sum o' the last varses, but he told Hosee he did n't want to put his ore in to tetch to the Rest on 'em, bein they wuz verry well As thay wuz, and then Hosy ses he sed suthin anuther about Simplex Mundishes or sum sech feller, but I guess Hosea kind o' did n't hear him, for I never hearn o' nobody o' that name in this villadge, and I've lived here man and boy 76 year cum next tater diggin, and thair ain't no wheres a kitting spryer 'n I be. If you print 'em I wish you'd jest let folks know who hosy's father is, cos my ant Keziah used to say it's nater to be curus ses she, she ain't livin though and he's a likely kind o' lad. EZEKIEL BIGLOW. THRASH away, you'll hev to rattle Thet is ketched with mouldy corn; Let folks see how spry you be,- Thet air flag's a leetle rotten, Hope it ain't your Sunday's best; To stuff out a soger's1 chest: Ef you must wear humps like these, 5. "Aut insanit, aut versos facit.H.W." ["Either he is mad, or he is making poetry."] 6. Makers of shoe blacking, Day and Martin advertised their product in verse. 7. I.e., full of grit; determined. 8. Hosea's misunderstanding of the parson's criticism: simplex ΤΟ mundis, 9. A reference to the staple of southern economy. 1. "sogerin', soldiering: a barbarous amusement common among men in the savage state." [Lowell's note.] S'posin' you should try salt hay fer 't, "T would n't suit them Southun fellers, O' them nigger-drivin' States. Them thet rule us, them slave-traders, Thru the vartu o' the North! We begin to think it's nater To take sarse an' not be riled;- All on eend at bein' biled? Ez fer war, I call it murder,- "T ain't your eppyletts an' feathers An' go stick a feller thru, Trainin' round in bobtail coats,- This 'ere cuttin' folk's throats. 2. The male sheep with a bell on his neck, leading the flock. |