Laborin' man an' laborin' woman 'Taint by turnin' out to hack folks 'T aint the hide thet makes it wus, All it keers fer in a feller 'S jest to make him fill its pus. Want to tackle me in, du ye? I expect you '11 hev to wait; Wen cold lead puts daylight thru ye You'll begin to kal'late; S'pose the crows wun't fall to pickin' All the carkiss from your bones, Coz you helped to give a lickin' To them poor half-Spanish drones? Jest go home an' ask our Nancy Wether I'd be sech a goose Ez to jine ye,-guess you 'd fancy You 've a darned long row to hoe. Take them editors thet 's crowin' Like a cockerel three months old,Don't ketch any on 'em goin', Though they 'd be so blasted bold; Aint they a prime lot o' fellers? 80 90 100 'Fore they think on 't guess they '11 sprout (Like a peach thet 's got the yellers), With the meanness bustin' out. Wal, go 'long to help 'em stealin' Bigger pens to cram with slaves, Help the men thet 's ollers dealin' 110 Insults on your fathers' graves; Help the strong to grind the feeble, Help the many agin the few, Help the men thet call your people Witewashed slaves an' peddlin' crew! 120 Massachusetts, God forgive her, She 's akneelin' with the rest, She, thet ough' to ha' clung ferever In her grand old eagle-nest; She thet ough' to stand so fearless W'ile the wracks are round her hurled, Holdin' up a beacon peerless To the oppressed of all the world! Ha'n't they sold your colored seamen? Ha'n't they made your env'ys w'iz? 1 Wut 'll make ye act like freemen? Wut 'll git your dander riz? Come, I'll tell ye wut I 'm thinkin' Is our dooty in this fix, They 'd ha' done 't ez quick ez winkin' Clang the bells in every steeple, Much ez we frail mortils can, Makin' man the cus o' man; Call me coward, call me traiter, Jest ez suits your mean idees,Here I stand a tyrant-hater, An' the friend o' God an' Peace!" 130 140 150 160 June 17, 1846. Sez he wunt vote for Guvener B. 1 Mr. Hoar was driven out of South Carolina and Mr. Hubbard out of Louisiana where they had gone to represent Massachusetts in behalf of free colored seamen in 1844. 2 Governor B. was Geo. N. Briggs, Governor of Massachusetts from 1844 to 1851. General C. was Caleb Cushing, who had been a somewhat elusive Congressman, and in this state campaign of 1847 was defeated by Briggs. John P. was J. P. Robinson, formerly an influential Whig, who in this campaign went over to the side of of Mr. Cushing, much to the dissatisfaction Lowell, as this poem shows. [The attentive reader will doubtless have perceived in the foregoing poem an allusion to that pernicious sentiment, "Our country, right or wrong." It is an abuse of language to call a certain portion of land, much more, certain personages, elevated for the time being to high station, our country. I would not sever nor loosen a single one of those ties by which we are united to the spot of our birth, nor minish by a tittle the respect due to the Magistrate. I love our own Bay State too well to do the one, and as for the other, I have myself for nigh forty years exercised, however unworthily, the function of Justice of the Peace, having been called thereto by the unsolicited kindness of that most excellent man and upright patriot, Caleb Strong. Patriæ fumus igne alieno luculentior is best qualified with this,-Ubi libertas, ibi patria. We are inhabitants of two worlds, and owe a double, not a divided, allegiance. In virtue of our clay, this little ball of earth exacts a certain loyalty of us, while, in our capacity as spirits, we are admitted citizens of an invisible and holier fatherland. There is a patriotism of the soul whose claim absolves us from our other and terrene fealty. Our true country is that ideal realm which we represent to ourselves under the names of religion, duty, and the like. Our terrestrial organizations are but far-off approaches to so fair a model, and all they are verily traitors who resist not any attempt to divert them from this their original intendment. When, therefore, one would have us to fling up our caps and shout with the multitude, "Our country, however bounded!" he demands of us that we sacrifice the larger to the less, the higher to the lower, and that we yield to the imaginary claims of a few acres of soil our duty and privilege as liegemen of Truth. Our true country is bounded on the north and the south, on the east and the west, by Justice, and when she oversteps that invisible boundary-line by so much as a hair's-breadth, she ceases to be our mother, and chooses rather to be looked upon quasi noverca. That is a hard choice when our earthly love of country calls upon us to tread one path and our duty points us to another. We must make as noble and becoming an election as did Penelope between Icarius and Ulysses. Veiling our faces, we must take silently the hand of Duty to follow her. . . . H. W.] No. VI THE PIOUS EDITOR'S CREED I du believe in Freedom's cause, To dror resolves an' triggers,- 1 The monarchy of Louis Philippe had just been overthrown by the Revolution of 1848 in France. The leper raised not the gold from the dust: "Better to me the poor man's crust, 160 Better the blessing of the poor, Though I turn me empty from his door; That is no true alms which the hand can hold; He gives only the worthless gold Who gives from a sense of duty; But he who gives but a slender mite, And gives to that which is out of sight, That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty 1 According to the mythology of the Romancers, the San Greal, or Holy Grail, was the cup out of which Jesus partook of the Last Supper with his disciples. It was brought into England by Joseph of Arimathea, and remained there, an object of pilgrimage and adoration, for many years in the keeping of his lineal descendants. It was incumbent upon those who had charge of it to be chaste in thought, word, and deed; but one of the keepers having broken this condition, the Holy Grail disappeared. From that time it was a favorite enterprise of the knights of Arthur's court to go in search of it. Sir Galahad was at last successful in finding it, as may be read in the seventeenth book of the Romance of King Arthur. Tennyson has made Sir Galahad the subject of one of the most exquisite of his poems. The plot (if I may give that name to anything so slight) of the following poem is my own, and, to serve its purposes, I have enlarged the circle of competition in search of the miraculous cup in such a manner as to include, not only other persons than the heroes of the Round Table, but also a period of time subsequent to the supposed date of King Arthur's reign. (Author's Note.) VI Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway he Remembered in what a haughtier guise 290 He had flung an alms to leprosie, When he girt his young life up in gilded mail And set forth in search of the Holy Grail. The heart within him was ashes and dust; He parted in twain his single crust, He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink, And gave the leper to eat and drink, 'T was a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread, 'T was water out of a wooden bowlYet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed, 300 And 't was red wine he drank with his thirsty soul. VII As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face, A light shone round about the place; Himself the Gate whereby men can |