in mind 280
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 ha’n’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; 290
But when ’twas 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 kin’s o’ labor an’ all kin’s o’ skill,
Would be a rabbit in a wile-cat’s claw,
Ef ’twarn’t for thet slow critter, ’stablished law;
Onsettle thet, an’ all the world goes whiz,
A screw’s gut loose in eyerythin’ there is: 
Good buttresses once settled, don’t you fret 300
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 beginnin’: 
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 jes’ for change, is like them big hotels
Where they shift plates, an’ let ye live on smells.

THE BRIDGE

Wal, don’t give up afore the ship goes down:  310
It’s a stiff gale, but Providence wun’t drown;
An’ God wun’t leave us yit 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 yit wast never young,
Whose youth from thee by gripin’ need was wrung,
Brown foundlin’ o’ the woods, whose baby-bed 320
Was prowled roun’ by the Injun’s cracklin’ tread,
An’ who grew’st strong thru shifts an’ wants an’ pains,
Nussed by stern men with empires in their brains,
Who saw in vision their young Ishmel strain
With each hard hand a vassal ocean’s mane,
Thou, skilled by Freedom an’ by gret events
To pitch new States ez Old-World men pitch tents,
Thou, taught by Fate to know Jehovah’s plan
Thet man’s devices can’t unmake a man,
An’ whose free latch-string never was drawed in 330
Against the poorest child of Adam’s kin,—­
The grave’s not dug where traitor hands shall lay
In fearful haste thy murdered corse away! 
I see—­