Ther' are critters so base thet they want it explained
Jes' wut is the totle amount thet we've gained,
Ez ef we could maysure stupenjious events
By the low Yankee stan'ard o' dollars an' cents:
They seem to forgit, thet, sence last year revolved,
We've succeeded in gittin' seceshed an' dissolved,
An' thet no one can't hope to git thru dissolootion
'Thout sonic kin' o' strain on the best Constitootion.
Who asks for a prospec' more flettrin' an' bright,
When from here clean to Texas it's all one free fight?
Hain't we rescued from Seward the gret leadin' featurs
Thet makes it wuth while to be reasonin' creaturs?
Hain't we saved Habus Coppers, improved it in fact,
By suspending the Unionists 'stid o' the Act?
Ain't the laws free to all? Where on airth else d' ye see
Every freeman improvin' his own rope an' tree?
It's ne'ssary to take a good confident tone
With the public; but here, jest amongst us, I own
Things looks blacker 'n thunder. Ther' 's no use denyin'
We're clean out o' money, an' 'most out o' lyin',—
Two things a young nation can't mennage without,
Ef she wants to look wal at her fust comin' out;
For the fust supplies physickle strength, while the second
Gives a morril edvantage thet's hard to be reckoned:
For this latter I'm willin' to du wut I can;
For the former you'll hev to consult on a plan,—
Though our fust want (an' this pint I want your best views on)
Is plausible paper to print I.O.U.s on.
Some gennlemen think it would cure all our cankers
In the way o' finance, ef we jes' hanged the bankers;
An' I own the proposle 'ud square with my views,
Ef their lives wuzn't all thet we'd left 'em to lose.
Some say thet more confidence might be inspired,
Ef we voted our cities an' towns to be fired,—
A plan thet 'ud suttenly tax our endurance,
Coz 't would be our own bills we should git for th' insurance;
But cinders, no metter how sacred we think 'em,
Mightn't strike furrin minds ez good sources of income,
Nor the people, perhaps, wouldn't like the eclaw
O' bein' all turned into paytriots by law.
Some want we should buy all the cotton an' burn it,
On a pledge, when we've gut thru the war, to return it,—
Then to take the proceeds an' hold them ez security
For an issue o' bonds to be met at maturity
With an issue o' notes to be paid in hard cash
On the fus' Monday follerin' the 'tarnal Allsmash:
This hez a safe air, an', once hold o' the gold,
'Ud leave our vile plunderers out in the cold,
An' might temp' John Bull, ef it warn't for the dip he
Once gut from the banks o' my own Massissippi.
Some think we could make, by arrangin' the figgers,
A hendy home-currency out of our niggers;
But it wun't du to lean much on ary sech staff,
For they're gittin' tu current a'ready, by half.
One gennleman says, ef we lef' our loan out
Where Floyd could git hold on 't, he'd take it, no doubt;
But 't ain't jes' the takin', though 't hez a good look,
We mus' git sunthin' out on it arter it's took,
An' we need now more 'n ever, with sorrer I own,
Thet some one another should let us a loan,
Sence a soger wun't fight, on'y jes' while he draws his
Pay down on the nail, for the best of all causes,
'Thout askin' to know wut the quarrel's about,—
An' once come to thet, why, our game is played out.
It's ez true ez though I shouldn't never hev said it
Thet a hitch hez took place in our system o' credit;
I swear it's all right in my speeches an' messiges,
But ther' 's idees afloat, ez ther' is about sessiges:
Folks wun't take a bond ez a basis to trade on,
Without nosin' round to find out wut it's made on,
An' the thought more an' more thru the public min' crosses
Thet our Treshry hez gut 'mos' too many dead hosses.
Wut's called credit, you see, is some like a balloon,
Thet looks while it's up 'most ez harnsome 'z a moon,
But once git a leak in 't an' wut looked so grand
Caves righ' down in a jiffy ez flat ez your hand.
Now the world is a dreffle mean place, for our sins,
Where ther' ollus is critters about with long pins
A-prickin' the globes we've blowcd up with sech care,
An' provin' ther' 's nothin' inside but bad air:
They're all Stuart Millses, poor-white trash, an' sneaks,
Without no more chivverlry 'n Choctaws or Creeks,
Who think a real gennleman's promise to pay
Is meant to be took in trade's ornery way:
Them fellers an' I couldn' never agree;
They're the nateral foes o' the Southun Idee;
I'd gladly take all of our other resks on me
To be red o' this low-lived politikle 'con'my!
Now a dastardly notion is gittin' about
Thet our bladder is bust an' the gas oozin' out,
An' onless we can mennage in some way to stop it,
Why, the thing's a gone coon, an' we might ez wal drop it.
Brag works wal at fust, but it ain't jes' the thing
For a stiddy inves'ment the shiners to bring,
An' votin' we're prosp'rous a hundred times over
Wun't change bein' starved into livin' on clover.
Manassas done sunthin' tow'rds drawin' the wool
O'er the green, anti-slavery eyes o' John Bull:
Oh, warn't it a godsend, jes' when sech tight fixes
Wuz crowdin' us mourners, to throw double-sixes!
I wuz tempted to think, an' it wuzn't no wonder,
Ther' wuz reelly a Providence,—over or under,—
When, all packed for Nashville, I fust ascertained
From the papers up North wut a victory we'd gained,
'T wuz the time for diffusin' correc' views abroad
Of our union an' strength an' relyin' on God;
An', fact, when I'd gut thru my fust big surprise,
I much ez half b'lieved in my own tallest lies,
An' conveyed the idee thet the whole Southun popperlace
Wuz Spartans all on the keen jump for Thermopperlies,
Thet set on the Lincolnites' bombs till they bust,
An' fight for the priv'lege o' dyin' the fust;
But Roanoke, Bufort, Millspring, an' the rest
Of our recent starn-foremost successes out West,
Hain't left us a foot for our swellin' to stand on,—
We've showed too much o' wut Buregard calls abandon,
For all our Thermopperlies (an' it's a marcy
We hain't hed no more) hev ben clean vicy-varsy,
An' wut Spartans wuz lef' when the battle wuz done
Wuz them thet wuz too unambitious to run.
Oh, ef we hed on'y jes' gut Reecognition,
Things now would ha' ben in a different position!
You'd ha' hed all you wanted: the paper blockade
Smashed up into toothpicks,—unlimited trade
In the one thing thet's needfle, till niggers, I swow,
Hed ben thicker 'n provisional shinplasters now,—
Quinine by the ton 'ginst the shakes when they seize ye,—
Nice paper to coin into C.S.A. specie;
The voice of the driver'd be heerd in our land,
An' the univarse scringe, ef we lifted our hand:
Wouldn't thet be some like a fulfillin' the prophecies,
With all the fus' fem'lies in all the best offices?
'T wuz a beautiful dream, an' all sorrer is idle,—
But ef Lincoln would ha' hanged Mason an' Slidell!
They ain't o' no good in European pellices,
But think wut a help they'd ha' ben on their gallowses!
They'd ha' felt they wuz truly fulfillin' their mission,
An', oh, how dog-cheap we'd ha' gut Reecognition!
But somehow another, wutever we've tried,
Though the the'ry's fust-rate, the facs wun't coincide:
Facs are contrary 'z mules, an' ez hard in the mouth,
An' they allus hev showed a mean spite to the South.
Sech bein' the case, we hed best look about
For some kin' o' way to slip our necks out:
Le''s vote our las' dollar, ef one can be found,
(An', at any rate, votin' it hez a good sound,)—
Le''s swear thet to arms all our people is flyin',
(The critters can't read, an' wun't know how we're lyin',)—
Thet Toombs is advancin' to sack Cincinnater,
With a rovin' commission to pillage an' slarter,—
Thet we've throwed to the winds all regard for wut's lawfle,
An' gone in for sunthin' promiscu'sly awfle.
Ye see, hitherto, it's our own knaves an' fools
Thet we've used,—those for whetstones, an't' others ez tools,—
An' now our las' chance is in puttin' to test
The same kin' o' cattle up North an' out West.
I——But, Gennlemen, here's a despatch jes' come in
Which shows thet the tide's begun turnin' agin,—
Gret Cornfedrit success! C'lumbus eevacooated!
I mus' run down an' hev the thing properly stated,
An' show wut a triumph it is, an' how lucky
To fin'lly git red o' thet cussed Kentucky,—
An' how, sence Fort Donelson, winnin' the day
Consists in triumphantly gittin' away.
REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
The Sisters, Inisfail, and other Poems. By AUBREY DE VERE. London.
Whatever Mr. De Vere writes is welcomed by a select audience. Not taking rank among the great masters of English poetry, he yet possesses a genuine poetic faculty which distinguishes him from "the small harpers with their glees" who counterfeit the true gift of Nature. In refined and delicate sensibility, in purity of feeling, in elevation of tone, there is no English writer of verse at the present day who surpasses him. The fine instinct of a poet is united in him with the cultivated taste of a scholar. There is nothing forced or spasmodic in his verse; it is the true expression of character disciplined by thought and study, of fancy quickened by ready sympathies, of feeling deepened and calmed by faith. As is the case with most English poets since Wordsworth, he invests the impressions received from the various aspects of Nature with moral associations, and with fine spiritual insight he seeks out the inner meaning of the external life of the earth. No one describes more truthfully than he those transient beauties of Nature which in their briefness and their exquisite variety of change elude the coarse grasp of the common observer, and too frequently pass half unnoticed and unfelt even by those whose temperament is susceptive of their inspiring influences, but whose thoughts are occupied with the cares and business of living. But it is especially as the poet of Ireland, and of the Roman Church, that Mr. De Vere presents himself to us in this last volume; and while, consequently, the subject and treatment of many of the poems contained in it give to them a special rather than a universal interest, the patriotic spirit and the fervor of faith manifest in them appeal powerfully to the sympathies of readers in other countries and of other creeds. "'Inisfail' may be regarded as a sort of National Chronicle, cast in a form partly lyrical, partly narrative…. Its aim is to record the past alone, and that chiefly as its chances might have been sung by those old bards, who, consciously or unconsciously, uttered the voice which comes from a people's heart." In this attempt Mr. De Vere has had an uncommon measure of success. The strings of the Irish harp sound with the cadences of fitting harmonies under his hand, as he sings of the sorrows and the joys of Ireland, of the wild storms and the rare sunshine of her pathetic history,—as he denounces vengeance on her oppressors, or blesses the saints and the heroes who have made the land dear and beautiful to its children. The key-note of the series of poems which form this poetic chronicle is struck in the fine verses with which it begins, entitled "History," and of which our space allows us to quote but the opening stanza:—
"At my casement I sat by night, while the wind far off in dark valleys
Voluminous gathered and grew, and waxing swelled to a gale;
An hour I heard it, or more, ere yet it sobbed on my lattice:
Far off, 't was a People's moan; hard by, but a widow's wail.
Atoms we are, we men: of the myriad sorrow around us
Our littleness little grasps; and the selfish in that have no part:
Yet time with the measureless chain of a world-wide mourning hath
wound us;
History but counts the drops as they fall from a Nation's heart."