Another View
By Beatrice Barry.
"When the torch is near the powder"—when a boat, f'r instance, sinks,
And the "hyphens" raise a loud hurrah and blow themselves to drinks;
When 'bout a hundred neutral lives are snuffed out like a torch,
An' "hyphens" read the news an' smoke, a-settin' on the porch—
Well, it's then the native's kind o' apt to see a little red,
An' it's hardly fair to criticise the burning things he sed.
For since the eagle's not a bird that thrives within a cage,
One kind o' hears with sympathy his screams of baffled rage.
There's something sort o' horrible, that catches at the breath,
To visualize some two score babes most foully done to death;
To see their fright, their struggles—to watch their lips turn blue—
There ain't no use denyin', it will raise the deuce with you.
O yes, God bless the President—he's an awful row to hoe,
An' God grant, too, that peace with honor hand in hand may go,
But let's not call men "rotters," 'cause, while we are standing pat,
They lose their calm serenity, an' can't see things like that!