God makes sech nights, all white an' still Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown 1 The only attempt I had ever made at any thing like a pastoral (if that may be called an attempt which was the result almost of pure accident) was in "The Courtin'." While the Introduction to the First Series was going through the press, I received word from the printer that there was a blank page left which must be filled. I sat down at once and improvised another fictitious "notice of the press," in which, because verse would fill up space more cheaply than prose, I inserted an extract from a supposed ballad of Mr. Biglow. I kept no copy of it, and the printer, as directed, cut it off when the gap was filled. Presently I began to receive letters ask ing for the rest of it, sometimes for the balance of it. I had none, but to answer such demands, I patched a conclusion upon it in a later edition. Those who had only the first continued to importune me. Afterward, being asked to write it out as an autograph for the Baltimore Sanitary Commission Fair, I added other verses, into some of which I infused a little more sentiment in a homely way, and after a fashion completed it by sketching in the characters and making a connected story. Most likely I have spoiled it, but I shall put it at the end of this Introduction, to answer once for all those kindly importunings. (LOWELL, in the "Introduction" to the Biglow Papers, 1866.) An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer, Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some! She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu, He kin' o' l'itered on the mat, An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk Ez though she wished him furder, An' on her apples kep' to work, Parin' away like murder. "You want to see my Pa, I s'pose?" "Wal.. no.. I come dasignin" ". 50 60 "To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es Agin to-morrer's i'nin'." 1 In 1861, John M. Mason and John Slidell, commissioners from the Confederacy to England and France, after having eluded the Union blockade, were taken off a British steamer and held as prisoners of war. Two issues were involved in the British demand for their release. To give them up was to establish the American contention against the analogous act of impressing British seamen found on neutral vessels; but to give them up was to concede that while hostile messages were contraband of war, the bearers of such messages were not subject to interference. The commissioners were surrendered, but the whole episode was complicated by the kind of acrimonious debate that has accompanied many of the decisions in international law during the more recent European war. Lowell uttered, through the Bridge and the Monument, almost all the basic contentions of 1914-1917. But, neighbor, ef they prove their claim at law, The best way is to settle, an' not jaw. An' don't le' 's mutter 'bout the awfle bricks We'll give 'em, ef we ketch 'em in a fix: That 'ere 's most frequently the kin' o' talk Of critters can't be kicked to toe the chalk; Your "You'll see nex' time!" an' "Look out bumby!" 'Most ollers ends in eatin' umble-pie. 'T wun't pay to scringe to England: will it pay 190 To fear thet meaner bully, old "They 'll say"? Suppose they du say: words are dreffle bores, But they ain't quite so bad ez seventyfours. Wut England wants is jest a wedge to fit |