Akirill.com

Read the poem: The Biglow Papers – Second Series – No. VII

by James Russell Lowell

Download PDF

American Literature – American Poetry – James Russell Lowell
< < < The Biglow Papers – Second Series – No. V
The Biglow Papers – Second Series – No. VIII > > >

THE BIGLOW PAPERS – SECOND SERIES – No. VII

No. VII

LATEST VIEWS OF MR. BIGLOW

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

JAALAM, 24th Dec., 1862.

RESPECTED SIRS,—- The infirm state of my bodily health would be a sufficient apology for not taking up the pen at this time, wholesome as I deem it for the mind to apricate in the shelter of epistolary confidence, were it not that a considerable, I might even say a large, number of individuals in this parish expect from their pastor some publick expression of sentiment at this crisis. Moreover, Qui tacitus ardet magis uritur. In trying times like these, the besetting sin of undisciplined minds is to seek refuge from inexplicable realities in the dangerous stimulant of angry partisanship or the indolent narcotick of vague and hopeful vaticination: fortunamque suo temperat arbitrio. Both by reason of my age and my natural temperament, I am unfitted for either. Unable to penetrate the inscrutable judgments of God, I am more than ever thankful that my life has been prolonged till I could in some small measure comprehend His mercy. As there is no man who does not at some time render himself amenable to the one,—quum vix justus sit securus,—so there is none that does not feel himself in daily need of the other.

I confess I cannot feel, as some do, a personal consolation for the manifest evils of this war in any remote or contingent advantages that may spring from it. I am old and weak, I can bear little, and can scarce hope to see better days; nor is it any adequate compensation to know that Nature is young and strong and can bear much. Old men philosophize over the past, but the present is only a burthen and a weariness. The one lies before them like a placid evening landscape; the other is full of vexations and anxieties of housekeeping. It may be true enough that miscet hæc illis, prohibetque Clotho fortunam stare, but he who said it was fain at last to call in Atropos with her shears before her time; and I cannot help selfishly mourning that the fortune of our Republick could not at least stay till my days were numbered.

Tibullus would find the origin of wars in the great exaggeration of riches, and does not stick to say that in the days of the beechen trencher there was peace. But averse as I am by nature from all wars, the more as they have been especially fatal to libraries, I would have this one go on till we are reduced to wooden platters again, rather than surrender the principle to defend which it was undertaken. Though I believe Slavery to have been the cause of it, by so thoroughly demoralizing Northern politicks for its own purposes as to give opportunity and hope to treason, yet I would not have our thought and purpose diverted from their true object,—the maintenance of the idea of Government. We are not merely suppressing an enormous riot, but contending for the possibility of permanent order coexisting with democratical fickleness; and while I would not superstitiously venerate form to the sacrifice of substance, neither would I forget that an adherence to precedent and prescription can alone give that continuity and coherence under a democratical constitution which are inherent in the person of a despotick monarch and the selfishness of an aristocratieal class. Stet pro ratione voluntas is as dangerous in a majority as in a tyrant.

I cannot allow the present production of my young friend to go out without a protest from me against a certain extremeness in his views, more pardonable in the poet than in the philosopher. While I agree with him, that the only cure for rebellion is suppression by force, yet I must animadvert upon certain phrases where I seem to see a coincidence with a popular fallacy on the subject of compromise. On the one hand there are those who do not see that the vital principle of Government and the seminal principle of Law cannot properly be made a subject of compromise at all, and on the other those who are equally blind to the truth that without a compromise of individual opinions, interests, and even rights, no society would be possible. In medio tutissimus. For my own part, I would gladly—

Ef I a song or two could make
  Like rockets druv by their own burnin’,
All leap an’ light, to leave a wake
  Men’s hearts an’ faces skyward turnin’!—
But, it strikes me, ’tain’t jest the time
  Fer stringin’ words with settisfaction:
Wut’s wanted now’s the silent rhyme
  ‘Twixt upright Will an’ downright Action.

Words, ef you keep ’em, pay their keep,
  But gabble’s the short cut to ruin; 10
It’s gratis, (gals half-price,) but cheap
  At no rate, ef it henders doin’;
Ther’ ‘s nothin’ wuss, ‘less ’tis to set
  A martyr-prem’um upon jawrin’:
Teapots git dangerous, ef you shet
  Their lids down on ’em with Fort Warren.

‘Bout long enough it’s ben discussed
  Who sot the magazine afire,
An’ whether, ef Bob Wickliffe bust,
  ‘Twould scare us more or blow us higher. 20
D’ ye spose the Gret Foreseer’s plan
  Wuz settled fer him in town-meetin’?
Or thet ther’d ben no Fall o’ Man,
  Ef Adam’d on’y bit a sweetin’?

Oh, Jon’than, ef you want to be
  A rugged chap agin an’ hearty,
Go fer wutever’ll hurt Jeff D.,
  Nut wut’ll boost up ary party.
Here’s hell broke loose, an’ we lay flat
  With half the univarse a-singe-in’, 30
Till Sen’tor This an’ Gov’nor Thet
  Stop squabblin’ fer the gardingingin.

It’s war we’re in, not politics;
  It’s systems wrastlin’ now, not parties;
An’ victory in the eend’ll fix
  Where longest will an’ truest heart is,
An’ wut’s the Guv’ment folks about?
  Tryin’ to hope ther’ ‘s nothin’ doin’,
An’ look ez though they didn’t doubt
  Sunthin’ pertickler wuz a-brewin’. 40

Ther’ ‘s critters yit thet talk an’ act
  Fer wut they call Conciliation;
They’d hand a buff’lo-drove a tract
  When they wuz madder than all Bashan.
Conciliate? it jest means be kicked,
  No metter how they phrase an’ tone it;
It means thet we’re to set down licked,
  Thet we’re poor shotes an’ glad to own it!

A war on tick’s ez dear ‘z the deuce,
  But it wun’t leave no lastin’ traces, 50
Ez ‘twould to make a sneakin’ truce
  Without no moral specie-basis:
Ef greenbacks ain’t nut jest the cheese,
  I guess ther’ ‘s evils thet’s extremer,—
Fer instance,—shinplaster idees
  Like them put out by Gov’nor Seymour.

Last year, the Nation, at a word,
  When tremblin’ Freedom cried to shield her,
Flamed weldin’ into one keen sword
  Waitin’ an’ longin’ fer a wielder:
A splendid flash!—but how’d the grasp 61
  With sech a chance ez thet wuz tally?
Ther’ warn’t no meanin’ in our clasp,—
  Half this, half thet, all shilly-shally.

More men? More man! It’s there we fail;
  Weak plans grow weaker yit by lengthenin’:
Wut use in addin’ to the tail,
  When it’s the head’s in need o’ strengthenin’?
We wanted one thet felt all Chief
  From roots o’ hair to sole o’ stockin’, 70
Square-sot with thousan’-ton belief
  In him an’ us, ef earth went rockin’!

Ole Hick’ry wouldn’t ha’ stood see-saw
  ‘Bout doin’ things till they wuz done with,—
He’d smashed the tables o’ the Law
  In time o’ need to load his gun with;
He couldn’t see but jest one side,—
  Ef his, ‘twuz God’s, an’ thet wuz plenty;
An’ so his ‘Forrards!‘ multiplied
  An army’s fightin’ weight by twenty. 80

But this ‘ere histin’, creak, creak, creak,
  Your cappen’s heart up with a derrick,
This tryin’ to coax a lightnin’-streak
  Out of a half-discouraged hayrick,
This hangin’ on mont’ arter mont’
  Fer one sharp purpose ‘mongst the twitter,—
I tell ye, it doos kind o’ stunt
  The peth and sperit of a critter.

In six months where’ll the People be,
  Ef leaders look on revolution 90
Ez though it wuz a cup o’ tea,—
  Jest social el’ments in solution?
This weighin’ things doos wal enough
  When war cools down, an’ comes to writin’;
But while it’s makin’, the true stuff
  Is pison-mad, pig-headed fightin’.

Democ’acy gives every man
  The right to be his own oppressor;
But a loose Gov’ment ain’t the plan,
  Helpless ez spilled beans on a dresser: 100
I tell ye one thing we might larn
  From them smart critters, the Seceders,—
Ef bein’ right’s the fust consarn,
  The ‘fore-the-fust’s cast-iron leaders.

But ‘pears to me I see some signs
  Thet we’re a-goin’ to use our senses:
Jeff druv us into these hard lines,
  An’ ough’ to bear his half th’ expenses;
Slavery’s Secession’s heart an’ will,
  South, North, East, West, where’er you find it, 110
An’ ef it drors into War’s mill,
  D’ye say them thunder-stones sha’n’t grind it?

D’ ye s’pose, ef Jeff giv him a lick,
  Ole Hick’ry’d tried his head to sof’n
So’s ‘twouldn’t hurt thet ebony stick
 Thet’s made our side see stars so of’n?
‘No!’ he’d ha’ thundered, ‘on your knees,
  An’ own one flag, one road to glory!
Soft-heartedness, in times like these,
  Shows sof’ness in the upper story!’ 120

An’ why should we kick up a muss
  About the Pres’dunt’s proclamation?
It ain’t a-goin’ to lib’rate us,
  Ef we don’t like emancipation:
The right to be a cussed fool
  Is safe from all devices human,
It’s common (ez a gin’l rule)
  To every critter born o’ woman.

So we’re all right, an’ I, fer one,
  Don’t think our cause’ll lose in vally 130
By rammin’ Scriptur’ in our gun,
  An’ gittin’ Natur’ fer an ally:
Thank God, say I, fer even a plan
  To lift one human bein’s level,
Give one more chance to make a man,
  Or, anyhow, to spile a devil!

Not thet I’m one thet much expec’
  Millennium by express to-morrer;
They will miscarry,—I rec’lec’
  Tu many on ’em, to my sorrer:
Men ain’t made angels in a day, 141
  No matter how you mould an’ labor ’em,
Nor ‘riginal ones, I guess, don’t stay
  With Abe so of’n ez with Abraham.

The’ry thinks Fact a pooty thing,
  An’ wants the banns read right ensuin’;
But fact wun’t noways wear the ring,
  ‘Thout years o’ settin’ up an’ wooin’:
Though, arter all, Time’s dial-plate
  Marks cent’ries with the minute-finger, 150
An’ Good can’t never come tu late,
  Though it does seem to try an’ linger.

An’ come wut will, I think it’s grand
  Abe’s gut his will et last bloom-furnaced
In trial-flames till it’ll stand
  The strain o’ bein’ in deadly earnest:
Thet’s wut we want,—we want to know
  The folks on our side hez the bravery
To b’lieve ez hard, come weal, come woe,
  In Freedom ez Jeff doos in Slavery. 160

Set the two forces foot to foot,
  An’ every man knows who’ll be winner,
Whose faith in God hez ary root
  Thet goes down deeper than his dinner:
Then ’twill be felt from pole to pole,
  Without no need o’ proclamation,
Earth’s biggest Country’s gut her soul
  An’ risen up Earth’s Greatest Nation!


< < < The Biglow Papers – Second Series – No. V
The Biglow Papers – Second Series – No. VIII > > >

American Literature – American Poetry – James Russell Lowell

Copyright holders –  Public Domain

If you liked this article, subscribe , put likes, write comments!

Share on social networks

Visit us on Facebook or Twitter

Check out Our Latest Posts

© 2023 Akirill.com – All Rights Reserved

Leave a comment