An' sort o' suffocate to be alone, — I'm crowded jes' to think thet folks are nigh,

An' can't bear nothin' closer than the sky;

Now the wind's full ez shifty in the mind

Ez wut it is ou'-doors, ef I ain't blind, An' sometimes, in the fairest sou'west weather,

My innard vane pints east for weeks together,

My natur' gits all goose-flesh, an' my sins

Come drizzlin' on my conscience sharp ez pins :

Wal, et sech times I jes' slip out o' sight

An' take it out in a fair stan'-up fight With the one cuss I can't lay on the shelf,

The crook'dest stick in all the heap, ~ Myself.

'T wuz so las' Sabbath arter meetin'time:

Findin' my feelin's would n't noways rhyme

With nobody's, but off the hendle flew An' took things from an east-wind pint o' view,

I started off to lose me in the hills Where the pines be, up back o' 'Siah's Mills:

Pines, ef you're blue, are the best friends

I know,

They mope an' sigh an' sheer your feel

in's so,

They hesh the ground beneath so, tu, I

Faith, Hope, an' sunthin', ef it is n't Cherrity,

It's want o' guile, an thet 's ez gret a rerrity,

While Fancy's Cushin', free to Prince and Clown,

Makes the hard bench ez soft ez milkweed-down.

Now, 'fore I knowed, thet Sabbath

arternoon

Thet I sot out to tramp myself in tune, I found me in the school'us' on my seat,

Drummin' the march to No-wheres with my feet.

Thinkin' o' nothin', I've heerd ole folks say

Is a hard kind o' dooty in its way:
It's thinkin' everythin' you ever knew,
Or ever hearn, to make your feelin's
blue.

I sot there tryin' thet on for a spell:
I thought of the Rebellion, then o'
Hell,

Which some folks tell ye now is jest a metterfor

(A the'ry, p'raps, it wun't feel none the better for):

I thought o' Reconstruction, wut we'd

Till finally I must ha' fell asleep.

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 moorin's 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 sunrisestreaks an' warnin's

D' wut'll be in Heaven on Sabbath

mornin's,

"You would n't ha' never ben here but for me.

Two hundred an' three year ago this May

The ship I come in sailed up Boston Bay;

I'd been a cunnle in our Civil War, — But wut on airth hev you gut up one for?

Coz we du things in England, 't ain't for

you

To git a notion you can du 'em tu:
I'm told you write in public prints: af

true,

"Thet air's an argymunt I can't endorse,

'T would prove, coz you wear spurs, you kep' a horse :

For brains," sez I, 66 wutever you may think,

Ain't boun' to cash the drafs o' pen-an'ink,

Though mos' folks write ez ef they hoped jes' quicker.in'

The churn would argoo skim-milk into thickenin';

But skim-milk ain't a thing to change its view

O' wut it's meant for 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 KingdomCome?"

"Wal, I worked round at sperrit-rap

An' yit, ef 't ain't gut rusty in the jints, It's safe to trust its say on certin pints: It knows the wind's opinions to a T, An' the wind settles wut the weather 'll be."

"I never thought a scion of our stock Could grow the wood to make a weathercock;

When I wuz younger 'n you, skurce more 'n a shaver,

No airthly wind," sez he, "could make me waver!"

(Ez he said this, he clinched his jaw an' forehead,

me now,

Nothin' from Adam's fall to Huldy's bonnet,

Thet I warn't full-cocked with my jedgment on it;

But now I'm gittin' on in life, I find It's a sight harder to make up my mind,

Nor I don't often try tu, when events Will du it for me free of all expense. The moral question 's ollus plain enough,

It's jes' the human-natur' side thet's tough;

Wut's best to think may n't puzzle me nor you,

The pinch comes in decidin' wut to

Ef

du;

you read History, all runs smooth ez grease,

Coz there the men ain't nothin' more 'n

idees,

I like the plain all-wool o' common

sense,

Thet warms ye now, an' will a twelvemonth hence.

You took to follerin' where the Prophets beckoned,

An', fust you knowed on, back come

Charles the Second;

Now wut I want 's to hev all we gain stick,

An' not to start Millennium too quick; We hain't to punish only, but to keep, An' the cure 's gut to go a cent'ry deep."

"Wal, milk-an'-water ain't the best o' glue,"

Sez he," an' so you'll find before you

're thru ;

Ef reshness venters sunthin', shillyshally

Loses ez often wut 's ten times the vally.

Thet exe of ourn, when Charles's neck gut split,

Opened a gap thet ain't bridged over yit:

Slav'ry's your Charles, the Lord hez gin the exe

"Our Charles," sez I, "hez gut eight million necks.

The hardest question ain't the black man's right,

The trouble is to 'mancipate the white; One 's chained in body an' can be sot free,

But t'other 's chained in soul to an idee:

It's a long job, but we shall worry thru it;

Ef bagnets fail, the spellin'-book must du it." "Hosee,"

sez he, "I think you're goin' to fail:

The rettlesnake ain't dangerous in the

tail;

Thet Chance wun't stop to listen to debatin'!

"God's truth!" sez I, “an' ef 1 held the club,

An' knowed jes' where to strike, but there's the rub!"— "Strike soon,' ," sez he, 66 or you'll be deadly ailin',

Folks thet 's afeared to fail are sure o' failin';

God hates your sneakin' creturs thet believe

He'll settle things they run away an' leave!"

He brought his foot down fercely, ez he spoke.

An' give me sech a startle thet I woke.

No. VII.

LATEST VIEWS OF MR. BIGLOW.

PRELIMINARY NOTE.

[IT is with feelings of the liveliest pain that we inform our readers of the death of the Reverend Homer Wilbur, A. M., which took place suddenly, by an apoplectic stroke, on the afternoon of Christmas day, 1862. Our venerable friend (for so we may venture to call him, though we never enjoyed the high privilege of his personal acquaintance) was in his eighty-fourth year, having been born June 12, 1779, at Pigsgusset Precinct (now West Jerusha) in the then District of Maine. Graduated with distinction at Hubville College in 1805, he pursued his theological studies with the late Reverend Preserved Thacker, D. D., and was called to the charge of the First Society in Jaalam in 1809, where he remained till his death.

"As an antiquary he has probably left no superior, if, indeed, an equal,' writes his friend and colleague, the Reverend Jeduthun Hitchcock, to whom we are indebted for the above facts; "in proof of which I need only allude to his History of Jaalam, Genealogical, Topographical, and Ee

clesiastical,' 1849, which has won him an eminent and enduring place in our more solid and useful literature. It is only to be regretted that his intense application to historical studies should have so entirely withdrawn him from the pursuit of poetical composition, for which he was endowed by Nature with a remarkable aptitude. His well-known hymn, beginning, With clouds of care encompassed round,' has been attributed in some collections to the late President Dwight, and it is hardly presumptuous to affirm that the simile of the rainbow in the eighth stanza would do no discredit to that polished pen."

We regret that we have not room at present for the whole of Mr. Hitchcock's exceedingly valuable communication. We hope to lay more liberal extracts from it before our readers at an early day. A summary of its contents will give some notion of its importance and interest. It contains: 1st, A biographical sketch of Mr. Wilbur, with notices of his predecessors in the pastoral office, and of eminent cler

cal contemporaries; 2d, An obituary of deceased, from the Punkin-Falls "Weekly Parallel"; 3d, A list of his printed and manuscript productions and of projected works; 4th, Personal anecdotes and recollections, with specimens of table-talk; 5th, A tribute to his relict, Mrs. Dorcas (Pilcox) Wilbur; 6th, A list of graduates fitted for different colleges by Mr. Wilbur, with biographical memoranda touching the more distinguished; 7th, Concerning learned, charitable, and other societies, of which Mr. Wilbur was a member, and of those with which, had his life been prolonged, he would doubtless have been associated, with a complete catalogue of such Americans as have been Fellows of the Royal Society; 8th, A brief summary of Mr. Wilbur's latest conclusions concerning the Tenth Horn of the Beast in its special application to recent events for which the public, as Mr. Hitchcock assures us, have been waiting with feelings of lively anticipation; 9th, Mr. Hitchcock's own views on the same topic; and,

10th, A brief essay on the importance of local histories. It will be apparent that the duty of preparing Mr Wil bur's biography could not have fallen into more sympathetic hands.

In a private letter with which the reverend gentleman has since favored us, he expresses the opinion that Mr. Wilbur's life was shortened by our unhappy civil war. It disturbed his studies, dislocated all his habitual asso ciations and trains of thought, and unsettled the foundations of a faith, rather the result of habit than conviction, in the capacity of man for self-government. "Such has been the felicity of my life,' he said to Mr. Hitchcock, on the very morning of the day he died, "that, through the divine mercy, I could always say, Summum nec metuo diem, nec opto. It has been my habit, as you know, on every recurrence of this blessed anniversary, to read Milton's 'Hymn of the Nativity' till its sublime harmonies so dilated my soul and quickened its spiritual sense that I seemed to hear that other song which gave assurance to the shepherds that there was One who would lead them also in green pastures and beside the still waters. But to-day I have been unable to think of anything but that mournful text, 'I came not to send peace, but a sword,' and, did it not smack of pagan presumptuousness, could almost wish I had never lived to see this day."

Mr. Hitchcock also informs us that his friend "lies buried in the Jaalam graveyard, under a large red-cedar which he specially admired. A neat and substantial monument is to be erected over his remains, with a Latin epitaph written by himself; for he was accustomed to say, pleasantly, 'that there was at least one occasion in a scholar's life when he might show the advantages of a classical training."

The following fragment of a letter addressed to us, and apparently intended to accompany Mr. Biglow's contribution to the present number, was found upon his table after his decease.- EDITORS ATLANTIC MONTH LY.]