And swift little troops of silent sparks,

Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks Like herds of startled deer.

10

IN WAR TIME

From The Biglow Papers

Where's Peace? I start, some clear-blown night, When gaunt stone walls grow numb and number, An' creakin' 'cross the snow-crus' white,

Walk the col' starlight into summer; Up grows the moon, an' swell by swell

Thru the pale pastures silvers dimmer Than the last smile that strives to tell

O' love gone heavenward in its shimmer.

15 I hev ben gladder of sech things

20

Than cocks o' spring or bees o' clover; They filled my heart with livin' springs, But now they seem to freeze 'em over; Sights innercent ez babes on knee,

Peaceful ez eyes o' pastured cattle, Jes' coz they be so, seem to me

To rile me more with thoughts o' battle.

In-doors an' out by spells I try:

Ma'am Natur' keeps her spin-wheel goin',

25 But leaves my natur' stiff an 'dry Ez fiel's o' clover arter mowin';

An' her jest keepin' on the same,
Calmer'n a clock, an' never carin',
An' findin' nary thing to blame,

Is wus than ef she took to swearin'.

Under the yaller-pines I house,

When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented, And hear among their furry boughs

The baskin' west-wind purr contented, While 'way o'erhead, ez sweet an' low Ez distant bells that ring fer meetin' The wedged wil' geese their bugles blow, Further an' further South retreatin'.

Or up the slippery knob I strain

An' see a thousand hills like islan's
Lift their blue woods in broken chain
Out o' the sea o' smoky silence;
The farm-smokes, sweetes' sight on airth,
Slow thru the winter air a-shrinkin'
Seem kin' o' sad, an' roun' the hearth
Of empty places set me thinkin'.

Beaver roars hoarse with meltin' snows,

An' rattles di'mon's from his granite;
Time wuz, he snatched away my prose,

An' into psalms or satires ran it;
But he, nor all the rest thet once
Started my blood to country-dances,
Can't set me goin' more'n a dunce

Thet ain't no use fer dreams an' fancies.

Rat-tat-tattle thru the streets

I hear the drummers makin' riot, An' I set thinkin' o' the feet

Thet follered once an' now are quiet, 5 White feet ez snow-drops innercent,

Thet never knowed the paths o' Satan, Whose comin' step ther's ears thet won't No, not lifelong, leave off awaitin'.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

10 From the Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration, July 21, 1865.

Such was he, our Martyr-Chief,

Whom late the Nation he had led

With ashes on her head,

15 Wept with the passion of an angry grief: Forgive me, if from present things I turn

20

To speak what in my heart will beat and burn,
And hand my wreath on his world-honored urn.
Nature, they say, doth dote,

And cannot make a man

Save on some worn-out plan,

Repeating us by rote:

For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw,
And choosing sweet clay from the breast

25 Of the unexhausted West,

With stuff untainted shaped a hero new,

Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true.