You wonder why we’re hot, John?
Your mark wuz on the guns—
The neutral guns, thet shot, John,
Our brothers an’ our sons.
Ole Uncle S., sez he, “I guess
There’s human blood,” sez he,
“By fits an’ starts, in Yankee hearts,
Though’t may surprise J. B.
More ’n it would you an’ me.”
When your rights was our wrongs, John,
You didn’t stop for fuss—
Britanny’s trident prongs, John,
Was good ’nough law for us.
Ole Uncle S., sez he, “I guess,
Though physic’s good,” sez he,
“It doesn’t foller thet he can swaller
Prescriptions signed ‘J. B.’,
Put up by you an’ me!”
We own the ocean, tu, John;
You mus’n’t take it hard,
Ef we can’t think with you, John,
It’s jest your own back yard.
Ole Uncle S., sez he, “I guess,
Ef thet’s his claim,” sez he,
“The fencin’ stuff’ll cost enough
To bust up friend J. B.,
Ez wal ez you an’ me!”
We know we’ve got a cause, John,
Thet’s honest, just, an’ true;
We thought ’twould win applause, John,
Ef nowheres else, from you.
Ole Uncle S., sez he, “I guess
His love of right,” sez he,
“Hangs by a rotten fibre o’ cotton;
There’s natur’ in J. B.,
Ez wal ez you an’ me!”
God means to make this land, John,
Clear thru, from sea to sea,
Believe an’ understand, John,
The wuth o’ being free.
Ole Uncle S., sez he, “I guess
God’s price is high,” sez he;
“But nothin’ else than wut he sells
Wears long, an’ thet J. B.
May larn, like you an’ me.”
SOLILOQUY FROM “HAMLET.”
BY WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
To be, or not to be; that is the question;
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep:
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to; ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die; to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: aye, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despis’d love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death—
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveler returns—puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turns awry
And lose the name of action.
TO A WATER FOWL.
BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
Whither, ’midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler’s eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.