"It doesn't foller thet he can swaller Prescriptions signed 'J. B.' We own the ocean, tu, John: You mus'n' take it hard, Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, Why talk so dreffle big, John, Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, one Thet's nearest to J. B., Ez wal ez you an' me!" We give the critters back, John, Coz Abra'm thought 'twas right; It warn't your bullyin' clack, John, Provokin' us to fight. Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess May happen to J. B., Ez wal ez you an' me!" We ain't so weak an' poor, John, A school-house an' a steeple. "The surest plan to make a Man Our folks believe in Law, John: Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, We know we've gut a cause, John, Ef nowheres else, from you. Ez wal ez you an' me!" The South says, “ Poor folks down!” John, An' "All men up!" say we, — White, yaller, black, an' brown,John: Now which is your idee? Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, Why, there's the ole J. B. Shall it be love or hate, John? Ole Uncle S. sez he, “I guess The truth may strike J. B., God means to make this land, John, Ole Uncle S, sez he, "I guess, Wears long, an' thet J. B. THE FLAG. THERE'S a flag hangs over my threshold, whose folds are more dear to me Than the blood that thrills in my bosom its earnest of liberty; And dear are the stars it harbors in its sunny field of blue As the hope of a further heaven that lights all our dim lives through. But now should my guests be merry, the house is in holiday guise, Looking out, through its burnished windows like a score of wel coming eyes. Come hither, my brothers who wander in saintliness and in sin! Come hither, ye pilgrims of Nature! my heart doth invite you in. My wine is not of the choicest, yet bears it an honest brand; And the bread that I bid you lighten I break with no sparing hand; But pause, ere you pass to taste it, one act must accomplished be: Salute the flag in its virtue, before ye sit down with me. The flag of our stately battles, not struggles of wrath and greed: Its stripes were a holy lesson, its spangles a deathless creed; 'Twas red with the blood of freemen, and white with the fear of the foe, And the stars that fight in their courses 'gainst tyrants its symbols know. Come hither, thou son of my mother! we were reared in the selfsame arms; Thou hast many a pleasant gesture, thy mind hath its gifts and charms, But my heart is as stern to question as mine eyes are of sorrows full: Salute the flag in its virtue, or pass on where others rule. Thou lord of a thousand acres, with heaps of uncounted gold, The steeds of thy stall are haughty, thy lackeys cunning and bold: I envy no jot of thy splendor, I rail at thy follies none: Salute the flag in its virtue, or leave my poor house alone. Fair lady with silken trappings, high waving thy stainless plume, We welcome thee to our numbers, a flower of costliest bloom: Let a hundred maids live widowed to furnish thy bridal bed; But pause where the flag doth question, and bend thy triumphant head. "What make we, murmur'st thou, and what are we? When empires must be wound, we bring the shroud, The time-old web of the implacable Three: Is it too coarse for him, the young and proud? Earth's mightiest deigned to wear it; why not he?" "Is there no hope?" I moaned. "So strong, so fair! Our Fowler, whose proud bird would brook erewhile No rival's swoop in all our western air! Gather the ravens, then, in funeral file For him, life's morn-gold bright yet in his hair! The alarum of drums swept past, From the camp on the shore. Then far away to the south uprose A little feather of snow-white smoke, And we knew that the iron ship of our foes Was steadily steering its course Of our ribs of oak. Down upon us heavily runs, Silent and sullen, the floating fort; Then comes a puff of smoke from her guns, And leaps the terrible death, We are not idle, but send her straight Defiance back in a full broadside! As hail rebounds from a roof of slate, Rebounds our heavier hail "Strike your flag!" the rebel cries, In his arrogant old plantation strain. "Never!" our gallant Morris replies: "It is better to sink than to yield!" And the whole air pealed With the cheers of our men. Then, like a kraken huge and black, She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp! Down went the Cumberland all a wrack, With a sudden shudder of death, Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay, Still floated our flag at the main- Lord, how beautiful was thy day! ONCE git a smell o' musk into a draw, An' it clings hold like precerdents in law: Your gra'ma'am put it there,when, goodness knows, To jes' this-worldify her Sundayclo'es; But the old chist wun't sarve her gran'son's wife, (For, 'thout new funnitoor, wut good in life?) An' so ole clawfoot, from the precinks dread O' the spare chamber, slinks into the shed, Where, dim with dust, it fust or last subsides To holdin' seeds, an' fifty things besides; But better days stick fast in heart an' husk, An' all you keep in't gits a scent o' musk. Jes' so with poets: wut they've airly read Gits kind o' worked into their heart an' head, So's't they can't seem to write but jest on sheers With furrin countries or played-out ideers, Nor hev a feelin', ef it doesn't smack O' wut some critter chose to feel 'way back: This makes 'em talk o' daises, larks, an' things, Ez though we'd nothin' here that blows an' sings, (Why, I'd give more for one live bobolink |