MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
[When the Mexican war was under discussion, Mr. Lowell began the publication in a Boston newspaper of satirical poems, written in the Yankee dialect, and purporting to come for the most part from one Hosea Biglow. The poems were the sharpest political darts that were fired at the time, and when the verses were collected and set forth, with a paraphernalia of introductions and notes professedly prepared by an old-fashioned, scholarly parson, Rev. Homer Wilbur, the book gave Mr. Lowell a distinct place as a wit and satirist, and was read with delight in England and America after the circumstance which called it out had become a matter of history and no longer of politics.
When the war for the Union broke out, Mr. Lowell took up the same strain and contributed to the Atlantic Monthly a second series of Biglow Papers, and just before the close of the war, published the poem that follows.]
Dear Sir,—Your letter come to han'
Requestin' me to please be funny;
But I ain't made upon a plan
Thet knows wut's comin', gall or honey:
5Ther' 's times the world does look so queer,
Odd fancies come afore I call 'em;
An' then agin, for half a year,
No preacher 'thout a call 's more solemn.
You're 'n want o' sunthin' light an' cute,
10Rattlin' an' shrewd an' kin' o' jingleish,
An' wish, pervidin' it 'ould suit,
I'd take an' citify my English.
I ken write long-tailed, ef I please,—
But when I'm jokin', no, I thankee;
15Then, 'fore I know it, my idees
Run helter-skelter into Yankee.
Sence I begun to scribble rhyme,
I tell ye wut, I hain't ben foolin';
The parson's books, life, death, an' time
20Hev took some trouble with my schoolin';
Nor th' airth don't git put out with me,
Thet love her 'z though she wuz a woman;
Why, th' ain't a bird upon the tree
But half forgives my bein' human.
25An' yit I love th' unhighschooled way
Ol' farmers hed when I wuz younger;
Their talk wuz meatier, an' 'ould stay,
While book-froth seems to whet your hunger;
For puttin' in a downright lick
30'Twixt Humbug's eyes, ther' 's few can metch it.
An' then it helves my thoughts ez slick
Ez stret-grained hickory doos a hetchet.
But when I can't, I can't, thet's all,
For Natur' won't put up with gullin';
35Idees you hev to shove an' haul
Like a druv pig ain't wuth a mullein:
Live thoughts ain't sent for; thru all rifts
O' sense they pour an' resh ye onwards,
Like rivers when south-lyin' drifts
40Feel thet th' old airth's a-wheelin' sunwards.
Time wuz, the rhymes come crowdin' thick
Ez office-seekers arter 'lection,
An' into ary place 'ould stick
Without no bother nor objection;
45But sence the war my thoughts hang back
Ez though I wanted to enlist 'em,
An' subs'tutes—they don't never lack,
But then they'll slope afore you've mist 'em.