Our lives in sleep are some like streams thet glide
  ‘Twixt flesh an’ sperrit boundin’ on each side,
  Where both shores’ shadders kind o’ mix an’ mingle
  In sunthin’ thet ain’t jes’ like either single;
  An’ when you cast off’ moorins from To-day,
  An’ down towards To-morrer drift away,
  The imiges thet tengle on the stream
  Make a new upside-down’ard world o’ dream: 
  Sometimes they seem like sunrise-streaks an’ warnins
  O’ wut ’ll be in Heaven on Sabbath-mornins,
  An’, mixed right in ez ef jest out o’ spite,
  Sunthin’ thet says your supper ain’t gone right. 
  I’m gret on dreams, an’ often, when I wake,
  I’ve lived so much it makes my mem’ry ache,
  An’ can’t skurce take a cat-nap in my cheer
  ‘Thout hevin’ ’em, some good, some bad, all queer.

  Now I wuz settin’ where I ’d ben, it seemed,
  An’ ain’t sure yit whether I r’ally dreamed,
  Nor, ef I did, how long I might ha’ slep’,
  When I hearn some un stompin’ up the step,
  An’ lookin’ round, ef two an’ two make four,
  I see a Pilgrim Father in the door. 
  He wore a steeple-hat, tall boots, an’ spurs
  With rowels to ’em big ez ches’nut-burrs,
  An’ his gret sword behind him sloped away
  Long ’z a man’s speech thet dunno wut to say.—­
  “Ef your name’s Biglow, an’ your given-name
  Hosee,” sez he, “it’s arter you I came;
  I’m your gret-gran’ther multiplied by three.”—­
  “My wut?” sez I.—­“Your gret-gret-gret,” sez he: 
  “You wouldn’t ha’ never ben here but for me. 
  Two hunderd an’ three year ago this May
  The ship I come in sailed up Boston Bay;
  I ’d ben a cunnle in our Civil War,—­
  But wut on airth hev you gut up one for? 
  I’m told you write in public prints:  ef true,
  It’s nateral you should know a thing or two.”—­
  “Thet air’s an argymunt I can’t endorse,—­
  ‘T would prove, coz you wear spurs, you kep’ a horse: 
  For brains,” sez I, “wutever you may think,
  Ain’t boun’ to cash the draft o’ pen-an’-ink,—­
  Though mos’ folks write ez ef they hoped jes’ quickenin’
  The churn would argoo skim-milk into thickenin’;
  But skim-milk ain’t a thing to change its view
  O’ usefleness, no more ’n a smoky flue. 
  But du pray tell me, ’fore we furder go,
  How in all Natur’ did you come to know
  ’Bout our affairs,” sez I, “in Kingdom-Come?”—­
  “Wal, I worked round at sperrit-rappin’ some,
  In hopes o’ larnin’ wut wuz goin’ on,”
  Sez he, “but mejums lie so like all-split
  Thet I concluded it wuz best to quit. 
  But, come now, ef you wun’t confess to knowin’,
  You ’ve some conjecturs how the thing’s a-goin’.”—­
  “Gran’ther,” sez I, “a vane warn’t never known
  Nor asked to hev a jedgment of its own;
  An’ yit, ef ’t ain’t gut rusty in the jints,
  It ’a safe to trust its say on certin pints: 
  It knows the wind’s opinions to