The critters milked an' foddered, gates shet fast,

Tools cleaned aginst to-morrer, supper

past,

An' Nancy darnin' by her ker'sene lamp, -
I love, I say, to start upon a tramp,
To shake the kinkles out o' back an' legs,
An' kind o' rack my life off from the dregs
Thet's apt to settle in the buttery-hutch
Of folks thet foller in one rut too much: 10
Hard work is good an' wholesome, past all
doubt;

But 't ain't so, ef the mind gits tuckered out.

Now, bein' born in Middlesex, you know, There's certin spots where I like best to

They're 'most too fur away, take too much time

To visit of'en, ef it ain't in rhyme;
But the''s a walk thet 's hendier, a sight,
An' suits me fust-rate of a winter's night,

the British mail-steamer Trent. On the way the Trent was stopped by Captain Wilkes, of the American manof-war San Jacinto, and the Confederate agents were transferred as prisoners to the latter vessel. The British Government at once proclaimed the act a great outrage,' and sent a peremptory demand for the release of the prisoners and reparation. At the same time, without waiting for any explanation, it made extensive preparations for hostilities. It seemed and undoubtedly was expedient for the United States to receive Lord Russell's demand as an admission that impressment of British seamen found on board neutral vessels was unwarrantable. Acting on the demand as an admission of the principle so long contended for by the United States, Mr. Seward disavowed the act of Wilkes and released the commissioners. But it was held then and has since been stoutly maintained by many jurists that the true principles of international law will not justify a neutral vessel in transporting the agents of a belligerent on a hostile mission. On the analogy of despatches they should be contraband. The difficulty of amicable settlement at that time, however, lay not so much in the point of law as in the intensity of popular feeling on both sides of the Atlantic. (F. B. Williams, in the Riverside and Cambridge Editions of Lowell's Poetical Works.) See also the long introductory letter of the Rev. Homer Wilbur, in the Cambridge Edition, pp. 228-233, and the Riverside Edition, vol. ii, pp 240-253.

I mean the round whale's-back o' Prospect Hill.

I love to l'iter there while night grows still,

An' in the twinklin' villages about,

Fust here, then there, the well-saved lights goes out,

With the Stone Spike thet 's druv thru Bunker's Hill;

Whether 't was so, or ef I on'y dreamed, I couldn't say; I tell it ez it seemed.

THE BRIDGE

up

An' nary sound but watch-dogs' false alarms,

Or muffled cock-crows from the drowsy farms,

Where some wise rooster (men act jest thet way)

Stands to 't thet moon-rise is the break o' day

(So Mister Seward sticks a three-months'

An' down to Boston, ef you take their showin',

Wut they don't know ain't hardly wuth the knowin'.

There's sunthin' goin' on, I know: las' night

The British sogers killed in our gret fight 70 (Nigh fifty year they hed n't stirred nor spoke)

Made sech a coil you'd thought a dam hed broke:

Why, one he up an' beat a revellee
With his own crossbones on a holler tree,
Till all the graveyards swarmed out like a
hive

With faces I hain't seen sence Seventy

Wut profits her is ollers right an' just, An' ef you don't read Scriptur so, you must;

She 's praised herself ontil she fairly thinks There ain't no light in Natur when she winks;

Hain't she the Ten Comman'ments in her pus?

Could the world stir 'thout she went, tu, ez nus ?

She ain't like other mortals, thet 's a fact: She never stopped the habus-corpus act, Nor specie payments, nor she never yet Cut down the int'rest on her public debt; 130 She don't put down rebellions, lets 'em breed,

An' 's ollers willin' Ireland should secede; She's all thet 's honest, honnable, an' fair, An' when the vartoos died they made her heir.

THE MONIMENT

But, neighbor, ef they prove their claim at law,

The best way is to settle, an' not jaw.
An' don't le''s mutter 'bout the awfle bricks
We'll give 'em, ef we ketch 'em in a
fix:

That 'ere 's most frequently the kin' o' talk
Of critters can't be kicked to toe the chalk;
Your You'll see nex' time!' an' 'Look
out bumby!'

'Most ollers ends in eatin' umble-pie. 'T wun't pay to scringe to England: will it pay

190

To fear thet meaner bully, old 'They 'll say'?

Suppose they du say: words are dreffle bores,

But they ain't quite so bad ez seventy-fours. Wut England wants is jest a wedge to fit Where it'll help to widen out our split: She's found her wedge, an' 't ain't for us to come

An' lend the beetle thet's to drive it home. For growed-up folks like us 't would be a scandle,

When we git sarsed, to fly right off the handle.

England ain't all bad, coz she thinks us