Thrash away, you'll _hev_ to rattle On them kittle-drums o' yourn,-- 'Tain't a knowin' kind o' cattle Thet is ketched with mouldy corn; Put in stiff, you fifer feller, Let folks see how spry you be,-- Guess you'll toot till you are yeller 'Fore you git ahold o' me!... Ez fer war, I call it murder,-- There you hev it plain an' flat; I don't want to go no furder Than my Testyment fer that; God hez sed so plump an' fairly, It's ez long ez it is broad, An' you've got to git up airly Ef you want to take in God. 'Tain't your eppyletts an' feathers Make the thing a grain more right; 'Tain't afollerin' your bell-wethers Will excuse ye in His sight; Ef you take a sword an' dror it, An' go stick a feller thru, Guv'mint ain't to answer for it, God'll send the bill to you. Wut's the use o' meetin'-goin' Every Sabbath, wet or dry, Ef it's right to go amowin' Feller-men like oats an' rye? I dunno but wut it's pooty Trainin' round in bobtail coats,-- But it's curus Christian dooty This 'ere cuttin' folks's throats.... Tell ye jest the eend I've come to Arter cipherin' plaguey smart, An' it makes a handy sum, tu, Any gump could larn by heart; Laborin' man an' laborin' woman Hev one glory an' one shame. Ev'y thin' thet's done inhuman Injers all on 'em the same. 'Tain't by turnin' out to hack folks You're agoin' to git your right, Nor by lookin' down on black folks Coz you're put upon by white; Slavery ain't o' nary color, 'Tain't the hide thet makes it wus, All it keers fer in a feller 'S jest to make him fill its pus. To a Nine-inch Gun BY P. F. MCCARTHY (This poem came to the New York _World_ office on a crumpled piece of soiled paper. The author's address was given as Fourth Bench, City Hall Park) Whether your shell hits the target or not, Your cost is Five Hundred Dollars a Shot. You thing of noise and flame and power, We feed you a hundred barrels of flour Each time you roar. Your flame is fed With twenty thousand loaves of bread. Silence! A million hungry men Seek bread to fill their mouths again. Kruppism (_From "The Present Hour"_) BY PERCY MACKAYE (American poet and dramatist, born 1875) Crowned on the twilight battlefield, there bends A crooked iron dwarf, and delves for gold, Chuckling: "One hundred thousand gatlings--sold!" And the moon rises, and a moaning rends The mangled living, and the dead distends, And a child cowers on the chartless wold, Where, searching in his safety vault of mold, The kobold kaiser cuts his dividends.