It’s no use buildin’ wut’s a-goin’ to fall. 
  I’m older ‘n you, an’ I’ve seen things an’ men,
  An’ here’s wut my experience hez ben: 
  Folks thet worked thorough was the ones thet thriv,
  But bad work follers ye ez long’s ye live;
  You can’t git red on ’t; jest ez sure ez sin,
  It’s ollers askin’ to be done agin: 
  Ef we should part, it wouldn’t be a week
  ’Fore your soft-soddered peace would spring aleak. 
  We’ve turned our cuffs up, but, to put her thru,
  We must git mad an’ off with jackets, tu;
  ‘T wun’t du to think thet killin’ ain’t perlite,—­
  You’ve gut to be in airnest, ef you fight;
  Why, two-thirds o’ the Rebbles ’ould cut dirt,
  Ef they once thought thet Guv’ment meant to hurt;
  An’ I du wish our Gin’rals hed in mind
  The folks in front more than the folks behind;
  You wun’t do much ontil you think it’s God,
  An’ not constitoounts, thet holds the rod;
  We want some more o’ Gideon’s sword, I jedge,
  For proclamations hain’t no gret of edge;
  There’s nothin’ for a cancer but the knife,
  Onless you set by ’t more than by your life.
  I’ve seen hard times; I see a war begun
  Thet folks thet love their bellies never’d won,—­
  Pharo’s lean kine hung on for seven long year,—­
  But when’t was done, we didn’t count it dear. 
  Why, law an’ order, honor, civil right,
  Ef they ain’t wuth it, wut is wuth a fight? 
  I’m older ’n you:  the plough, the axe, the mill,
  All kinds o’ labor an’ all kinds o’ skill,
  Would be a rabbit in a wile-cat’s claw,
  Ef’t warn’t for thet slow critter, ’stablished law;
  Onsettle thet, an’ all the world goes whiz,
  A screw is loose in everythin’ there is: 
  Good buttresses once settled, don’t you fret
  An’ stir ’em:  take a bridge’s word for thet! 
  Young folks are smart, but all ain’t good thet’s new;
  I guess the gran’thers they knowed sunthin’, tu.

  THE MONIMENT.

  Amen to thet! build sure in the beginning’,
  An’ then don’t never tech the underpinnin’: 
  Th’ older a Guv’ment is, the better ’t suits;
  New ones hunt folks’s corns out like new boots: 
  Change jest for change is like those big hotels
  Where they shift plates, an’ let ye live on smells.

  THE BRIDGE

  Wal, don’t give up afore the ship goes down: 
  It’s a stiff gale, but Providence wun’t drown;
  An’ God wun’t leave us yet to sink or swim,
  Ef we don’t fail to du wut ’s right by Him. 
  This land o’ ourn, I tell ye, ’s gut to be
  A better country than man ever see. 
  I feel my sperit swellin’ with a cry
  Thet seems to say, “Break forth an’ prophesy!”
  O strange New World, thet yet wast never young,
  Whose youth from thee by gripin’ need was wrung,—­
  Brown foundlin’ o’ the woods, whose baby-bed
  Was prowled round by the Injun’s