Dock riz
'Bout half up, a-spittin' red,
An' shuck his head--
An' I wuz a-standin' as clost to 'em
As me an' you is!
An' Dock he says,
A-whisperin'-like,--
"It hain't no use
A-tryin'!--Mike
He's jes' ripped my daylights loose!--
Git that blame-don fiddler to
Let up, an' come out here--You
Got some burryin' to do,--
Mike makes _one_, an' I expects
In ten seconds I'll make _two_!"
And he drapped back, where he riz,
'Crost Mike's body, black and blue,
Like a great big letter X!--
An' I wuz a-standin' as clost to 'em
As me an' you is!
THE DRUM.
O the drum!
There is some
Intonation in thy grum
Monotony of utterance that strikes the spirit dumb,
As we hear
Through the clear
And unclouded atmosphere,
Thy palpitating syllables roll in upon the car!
There's a part
Of the art
Of thy music-throbbing heart
That thrills a something in us that awakens with a start,
And in rhyme
With the chime
And exactitude of time,
Goes marching on to glory to thy melody sublime.
And the guest
Of the breast
That thy rolling robs of rest
Is a patriotic spirit as a Continental dressed;
And he looms
From the glooms
Of a century of tombs,
And the blood he spilled at Lexington in living beauty blooms.
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