our fault, in so fur
Ez Yankee skippers would keep on atotin’ on ’em over. 50
‘T improved the whites by savin’ ’em from ary need o’ workin’,
An’ kep’ the blacks from bein’ lost thru idleness an’ shirkin’;
We took to ’em ez nat’ral ez a barn-owl doos to mice,
An’ hed our hull time on our hands to keep us out o’ vice;
It made us feel ez pop’lar ez a hen doos with one chicken,
An’ fill our place in Natur’s scale by givin’ ’em a lickin’: 
For why should Caesar git his dues more ‘n Juno, Pomp, an’ Cuffy? 
It’s justifyin’ Ham to spare a nigger when he’s stuffy. 
Where’d their soles go tu, like to know, ef we should let ’em ketch
Freeknowledgism an’ Fourierism an’ Speritoolism an’ sech? 60
When Satan sets himself to work to raise his very bes’ muss,
He scatters roun’ onscriptur’l views relatin’ to Ones’mus. 
You’d ough’ to seen, though, how his facs an’ argymunce an’ figgers
Drawed tears o’ real conviction from a lot o’ pen’tent niggers! 
It warn’t like Wilbur’s meetin’, where you’re shet up in a pew,
Your dickeys sorrin’ off your ears, an’ bilin’ to be thru;
Ther’ wuz a tent clost by thet hed a kag o’ sunthin’ in it,
Where you could go, ef you wuz dry, an’ damp ye in a minute;
An’ ef you did dror off a spell, ther’ wuzn’t no occasion
To lose the thread, because, ye see, he bellered like all Bashan. 70
It’s dry work follerin’ argymunce an’ so, ‘twix’ this an’ thet,
I felt conviction weighin’ down somehow inside my hat;
It growed an’ growed like Jonah’s gourd, a kin’ o’ whirlin’ ketched me,
Ontil I fin’lly clean gin out an’ owned up thet he’d fetched me;
An’ when nine tenths o’ th’ perrish took to tumblin’ roun’ an’ hollerin’,
I didn’ fin’ no gret in th’ way o’ turnin’ tu an’ follerin’. 
Soon ez Miss S. see thet, sez she, ‘Thet’s wut I call wuth seein’!
Thet’s actin’ like a reas’nable an’ intellectle bein’!’
An’ so we fin’lly made it up, concluded to hitch hosses,
An’ here I be ’n my ellermunt among creation’s bosses; 80
Arter I’d drawed sech heaps o’ blanks, Fortin at last hez sent a prize,
An’ chose me for a shinin’ light o’ missionary entaprise.

This leads me to another pint on which I’ve changed my plan
O’ thinkin’ so’s’t I might become a straight-out Southun man. 
Miss S. (her maiden name wuz Higgs, o’ the fus’ fem’ly here)
On her Ma’s side’s all Juggernot, on Pa’s all Cavileer,
An’ sence I’ve merried into her an’ stept into her shoes,
It ain’t more ’n nateral thet I should modderfy my views: 
I’ve ben a-readin’ in Debow ontil I’ve fairly gut
So ‘nlightened thet I’d full ez lives ha’ ben a Dook ez nut; 90
An’ when we’ve laid ye all out stiff, an’ Jeff hez gut his crown,
An’ comes to pick his nobles out, wun’t this child be in town! 
We’ll hev an Age o’ Chivverlry surpassin’ Mister Burke’s,
Where every fem’ly is fus’-best an’