ONCE git a smell o' musk into a draw,
An' it clings hold like precerdents in law:
Your gra'ma'am put it there, when, good-
ness 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.

Half-vent'rin' liverworts in furry coats, Bloodroots, whose rolled-up leaves ef you oncurl,

Each on 'em 's cradle to a baby-pearl,- 50 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 May n'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,

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: 230 For brains," sez I, "wutever you may think, Ain't boun' to cash the drafs 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' wut it's meant for 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'

An' danced the tables till their legs wuz gone,

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 conjectures 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's 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."

241

"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!"

bonnet,

Thet I warn't full-cocked with my jedgment 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 may n't puzzle me nor you,

The pinch comes in decidin' wut to du;

Ef you read History, all runs smooth ez

Oh for three weeks o' Crommle an' the Lord!

Up, Isr'el, to your tents an' grind the sword!"

"Thet kind o' thing worked wal in ole Judee,

But you forgit how long it 's ben A. D.; You think thet 's ellerkence,-I call it shoddy,

A thing," sez I, "wun't cover soul nor body;

I like the plain all-wool o' commonsense, Thet warms ye now, an' will a twelve month hence.

You took to follerin' where the Prophets beckoned,

280

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 the best o' glue,"

Sez he, "an' so you'll find before you 're thru;

Ef reshness venters sunthin', shilly-shally Loses ez often wut 's ten times the vally. Thet ex of ourn, when Charles's neck gut split,

Opened a gap thet ain't bridged over yit: 290 Slav'ry's your Charles, the Lord hez gin the

"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,
But t'other's chained in soul to an idee:
It's a long job, but we shall worry thru it;
Ef bagnets fail, the spellin'-book must du
it."

"Hosee," sez he, "I think you 're goin' to fail:

The rettlesnake ain't dangerous in the tail;

300

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' cresh 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';

310

God hates your sneakin' creturs thet believe He'll 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.

was

And offered their fresh lives to make it good:

1 Written immediately before the service in commemoration of the Harvard dead in the Civil War (held on the date given above), as Lowell explains in the following passage from a letter written in 1886 to R. W. Gilder: "The passage about Lincoln was not in the Ode as originally recited, but added immediately after. More than eighteen months before, however, I had written about Lincoln in the North American Reviewan article which pleased him. I did divine him earlier than most men of the Brahmin caste. The Ode itself an improvization. Two days before the Commemoration I had told my friend Child that it was impossible that I was dull as a door-mat. But the next day something gave me a jog and the whole thing came out of me with a rush. I sat up all night writing it out clear, and took it on the morning of the day to Child. 'I have something, but don't yet know what it is, or whether it will do. Look at it and tell me.' He went a little way apart with it under an elm-tree in the college yard. He read a passage here and there, brought it back to me, and said, 'Do? I should think enough had gone out of me to make me weak for a fortso! Don't you be scared.' And I wasn't, but virtue night after."