Poems of James Russell Lowell: With biographical sketch by Nathan Haskell DoleLowell, James Russell
General
Poems of James Russell Lowell: With biographical sketch by Nathan Haskell Dole
Lowell, James Russell
American poetry
This goin' ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable feetur,
An' ef it worn't fer wakin' snakes, I'd home agin short meter;
O, wouldn't I be off, quick time, ef't worn't thet I wuz sartin
They'd let the daylight into me to pay me fer desartin'!
I don't approve o' tellin' tales, but jest to you I may state
Our ossifers aint wut they wuz afore they left the Baystate;
Then it wuz "Mister Sawin, sir, you're middlin' well now, be ye?
Step up an' take a nipper, sir; I'm dreffle glad to see ye";
But now it's "Ware's my eppylet? here, Sawin, step an' fetch it!
An' mind your eye, be thund'rin' spry, or, damn ye, you shall ketch it!"
Wal, ez the Doctor sez, some pork will bile so, but by mighty,
Ef I hed some on 'em to hum, I 'd give 'em linkum vity,
I'd play the rogue's march on their hides an' other music follerin'--
But I must close my letter here, fer one on 'em 's ahollerin',
These Anglosaxon ossifers,--wal, taint no use ajawin',
I'm safe enlisted fer the war,
Yourn,
|Birdofredom Sawin|.
[Those have not been wanting (as, indeed, when hath Satan
been to seek for attorneys?) who have maintained that our
late inroad upon Mexico was undertaken, not so much for the
avenging of any national quarrel, as for the spreading of
free institutions and of Protestantism. _Capita vix duabus
Anticyris medenda!_ Verily I admire that no pious sergeant
among these new Crusaders beheld Martin Luther riding at the
front of the host upon a tamed pontifical bull, as, in that
former invasion of Mexico, the zealous Gomara (spawn though
he were of the Scarlet Woman) was favored with a vision of
St. James of Compostella, skewering the infidels upon his
apostolical lance. We read, also, that Richard of the lion
heart, having gone to Palestine on a similar errand of
mercy, was divinely encouraged to cut the throats of such
Paynims as refused to swallow the bread of life (doubtless
that they might be thereafter incapacitated for swallowing
the filthy gobbets of Mahound) by angels of heaven, who
cried to the king and his knights,--_Seigneurs, tuez! tuez!_
providentially using the French tongue, as being the only
one understood by their auditors. This would argue for the
pantoglottism of these celestial intelligences, while, on
the other hand, the Devil, _teste_ Cotton Mather, is
unversed in certain of the Indian dialects. Yet must he be a
semeiologist the most expert, making himself intelligible to
every people and kindred by signs; no other discourse,
indeed, being needful, than such as the mackerel-fisher
holds with his finned quarry, who, if other bait be wanting,
can by a bare bit of white rag at the end of a string
captivate those foolish fishes. Such piscatorial oratory is
Satan cunning in.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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