They're 'most too fur away, take too much time
To visit often, ef it ain't in rhyme;
But there's a walk thet's hendier, a sight,
An' suits me fust-rate of a winter's night,—
I mean the round whale's-back o' Prospect Hill.
I love to loiter there while night grows still,
An' in the twinklin' villages about,
Fust here, then there, the well-saved lights goes out,
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 pin
Where the war'd oughto end, then tries agin;—
My gran'ther's rule was safer'n 't is to crow:
Don't never prophesy—onless ye know.
I love to muse there till it kind o' seems
Ez ef the world went eddyin' off in dreams.
The Northwest wind thet twitches at my baird
Blows out o' sturdier days not easy scared,
An' the same moon thet this December shines
Starts out the tents an' booths o' Putnam's lines;
The rail-fence posts, acrost the hill thet runs,
Turn ghosts o' sogers should'rin' ghosts o' guns;
Ez wheels the sentry, glints a flash o' light
Along the firelock won at Concord Fight,
An' 'twixt the silences, now fur, now nigh,
Rings the sharp chellenge, hums the low reply.
Ez I was settin' so, it warn't long sence,
Mixin' the perfect with the present tense,
I heerd two voices som'ers in the air,
Though, ef I was to die, I can't tell where:
Voices I call 'em: 't was a kind o' sough
Like pine-trees thet the wind is geth'rin' through;
An', fact, I thought it was the wind a spell,—
Then some misdoubted,—couldn't fairly tell,—
Fust sure, then not, jest as you hold an eel,—
I knowed, an' didn't,—fin'lly seemed to feel
'T was Concord Bridge a-talkin' off to kill
With the Stone Spike thet's druv thru Bunker Hill:
Whether't was so, or ef I only dreamed,
I couldn't say; I tell it ez it seemed.
THE BRIDGE.
Wal, neighbor, tell us, wut's turned up thet's new?
You're younger'n I be,—nigher Boston, tu;
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
(Nigh fifty year they hedn'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-five.
Wut is the news? 'T ain't good, or they'd be cheerin'.
Speak slow an' clear, for I'm some hard o' hearin'.
THE MONIMENT.
I don't know hardly ef it's good or bad,—
THE BRIDGE.
At wust, it can't be wus than wut we've had.
THE MONIMENT.
You know them envys thet the Rebbles sent,
An' Cap'n Wilkes he borried o' the Trent?