Selections From American Poetry

Guvener 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 wunt vote fer Guvener B.

My! aint 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 wunt vote fer Guvener

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 been 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 principle 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 aint

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 oilers 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

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 aint no seek 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 everthin' 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 wen it gits in a Slough;

Fer John P.

Robinson he

Sez the world 'll go right, ef he hollers out Gee!

God 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'.

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 crook-necks hung,

An' in amongst 'em rusted

The ole queen's arm thet gran'ther Young

Fetched back from Concord busted.

The very room, coz she was in,

Seemed warm from floor to ceilin',

An' she looked full ez rosy agin

Ez the apples she was peelin'.

'Twas kin' o' kingdom-come to look

On seek a blessed cretur,

A dogrose blushin' to a brook

Ain't modester nor sweeter.

He was six foot o' man, A 1,

Clean grit an' human natur';

None couldn't quicker pitch a ton

Nor dror a furrer straighter.

He'd sparked it with full twenty gals,

He'd 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,

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 presumin';

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

Snowhid in Jenooary.

The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued

Too tight for all expressin',

Tell mother see how metters stood,

And 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.

"There comes Emerson first, whose rich words, every one,

Are like gold nails in temples to hang trophies on,

Whose prose is grand verse, while his verse, the Lord knows,

Is some of it pr-- No, 'tis not even prose;

I'm speaking of metres; some poems have welled

From those rare depths of soul that have ne'er been excelled;

They're not epics, but that doesn't matter a pin,

In creating, the only hard thing's to begin;

A grass-blade's no easier to make than an oak,

If you've once found the way you've achieved the grand stroke;

In the worst of his poems are mines of rich matter,

But thrown in a heap with a crash and a clatter

Now it is not one thing nor another alone

Makes a poem, but rather the general tone,

The something pervading, uniting, the whole,

The before unconceived, unconceivable soul,

So that just in removing this trifle or that, you

Take away, as it were, a chief limb of the statue;

Roots, wood, bark, and leaves, singly perfect may be,

But, clapt bodge-podge together, they don't make a tree.

"But, to come back to Emerson, (whom by the way,

I believe we left waiting,)-his is, we may say,

A Greek head on right Yankee shoulders, whose range

Has Olympus for one pole, for t' other the Exchange;

Life, nature, lore, God, and affairs of that sort,

He looks at as merely ideas; in short,

As if they were fossils stuck round in a cabinet,

Of such vast extent that our earth's a mere dab in it;

Composed just as he is inclined to conjecture her,

Namely, one part pure earth, ninety-nine parts pure lecturer;

You are filled with delight at his clear demonstration,

Each figure, word, gesture, just fits the occasion,

With the quiet precision of science he'll sort em,

But you can't help suspecting the whole a post mortem.