Mexican War, 1846-1848 -- Poetry; Slavery -- United States -- Poetry
Now here wuz New England ahevin' the honor
Of a chance at the speakership showered upon her;--
Do you say,--"She don't want no more Speakers, but fewer;
She 's hed plenty o' them, wut she wants is a _doer_"?
Fer the matter o' thet, it 's notorous in town
Thet her own representatives du her quite brown.
But thet 's nothin' to du with it; wut right hed Palfrey
To mix himself up with fanatical small fry?
Warn't we gettin' on prime with our hot an' cold blowin',
Acondemnin' the war wilst we kep' it agoin'?
We 'd assumed with gret skill a commandin' position,
On this side or thet, no one could n't tell wich one,
So, wutever side wipped, we 'd a chance at the plunder
An' could sue for infringin' our paytended thunder;
We were ready to vote fer whoever wuz eligible,
Ef on all pints at issoo he 'd stay unintelligible.
Wal, sposin' we hed to gulp down our perfessions,
We were ready to come out next mornin' with fresh ones;
Besides, ef we did, 't was our business alone,
Fer could n't we du wut we would with our own?
An' ef a man can, wen pervisions hev riz so,
Eat up his own words, it 's a marcy it is so.
Wy, these chaps from the North, with back-bones to 'em, darn 'em,
'Ould be wuth more 'an Gennle Tom Thumb is to Barnum;
Ther 's enough thet to office on this very plan grow,
By exhibitin' how very small a man can grow;
But an M. C. frum here ollers hastens to state he
Belongs to the order called invertebraty,
Wence some gret filologists judge primy fashy
Thet M. C. is M. T. by paronomashy;
An' these few exceptions air _loosus naytury_
Folks 'ould put down their quarters to stare at, like fury.
It 's no use to open the door o' success,
Ef a member can bolt so fer nothin' or less;
Wy, all o' them grand constitootional pillers
Our four fathers fetched with 'em over the billers,
Them pillers the people so soundly hev slept on,
Wile to slav'ry, invasion, an' debt they were swept on,
Wile our Destiny higher an' higher kep' mountin'
(Though I guess folks 'll stare wen she hends her account in),
Ef members in this way go kickin' agin 'em,
They wunt hev so much ez a feather left in 'em.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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