O’er the wet sands an insect crept Ages ere man on earth was known— And patient Time, while Nature slept, The slender tracing turned to stone. ’T was the first autograph: and ours? Prithee, how much of prose or song, In league with the creative powers, Shall ’scape Oblivion’s broom so long. 24th June, 1886.
From “The Biglow Papers,” No. III. GUVENER B. 1 is a sensible man; He stays to his home an’ looks arter his folks; He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can, An’ into nobody’s tater-patch pokes;— But John P. Robinson he Sez he wunt vote for Guvener B. My! ain’t it...
From “a Fable for Critics” THERE are truths you Americans need to be told, And it never ’ll refute them to swagger and scold; John Bull, looking o’er the Atlantic, in choler. At your aptness for trade, says you worship the dollar; But to scorn i-dollar-try ’s what very few do, And John goes to...
From “a Fable for Critics” LET us glance for a moment, ’t is well worth the pains, And note what an average grave-yard contains; There lie levellers levelled, duns done up themselves, There are booksellers finally laid on their shelves, Horizontally there lie upright politicians, Dose-a-dose...
“Some time afterward, it was reported to me by the city officers that they had ferreted out the paper and its editor; that his office was an obscure hole, his only visible auxiliary a negro boy, and his supporters a few very insignificant persons of all colors.” —Letter of H. G. OTIS. IN...
[From “Under the Elm,” read at Cambridge, July 3, 1875, on the Hundredth Anniversary of Washington’s taking Command of the American Army.] BENEATH our consecrated elm A century ago he stood, Famed vaguely for that old fight in the wood, Which redly foamèd round him but could not overwhelm The...
