A Letter

'T is over, Moses! All is lostI hear the bells a-ringing;Of Pharaoh and his Red Sea hostI hear the Free-Wills singingWe're routed, Moses, horse and foot,If there be truth in figures,With Federal Whigs in hot pursuit,And Hale, and all the "niggers."

Alack! alas! this month or moreWe've felt a sad foreboding;Our very dreams the burden boreOf central cliques exploding;Before our eyes a furnace shone,Where heads of dough were roasting,And one we took to be your ownThe traitor Hale was toasting!

Our Belknap brother (5) heard with aweThe Congo minstrels playing;At Pittsfield Reuben Leavitt (6) sawThe ghost of Storrs a-praying;And Calroll's woods were sad to see,With black-winged crows a-darting;And Black Snout looked on Ossipee,New-glossed with Day and Martin.

We thought the "Old Man of the Notch"His face seemed changing wholly--His lips seemed thick; his nose seemed flat;His misty hair looked woolly;And Coos teamsters, shrieking, fledFrom the metamorphosed figure."Look there!" they said, "the Old Stone HeadHimself is turning nigger!"

The schoolhouse, out of Canaan hauledSeemed turning on its track again,And like a great swamp-turtle crawledTo Canaan village back again,Shook off the mud and settled flatUpon its underpinning;A nigger on its ridge-pole sat,From ear to ear a-grinning.

Gray H----d heard o' nights the soundOf rail-cars onward faring;Right over Democratic groundThe iron horse came tearing.A flag waved o'er that spectral train,As high as Pittsfield steeple;Its emblem was a broken chain;Its motto: "To the people!"

I dreamed that Charley took his bed,With Hale for his physician;His daily dose an old "unreadAnd unreferred" petition.There Hayes and Tuck as nurses sat,As near as near could be, man;They leeched him with the "Democrat;"They blistered with the "Freeman."

Ah! grisly portents! What availYour terrors of forewarning?We wake to find the nightmare HaleAstride our breasts at morning!From Portsmouth lights to Indian streamOur foes their throats are trying;The very factory-spindles seemTo mock us while they're flying.

The hills have bonfires; in our streetsFlags flout us in our faces;The newsboys, peddling off their sheets,Are hoarse with our disgraces.In vain we turn, for gibing witAnd shoutings follow after,As if old Kearsarge had splitHis granite sides with laughter.

What boots it that we pelted outThe anti-slavery women,And bravely strewed their hall aboutWith tattered lace and trimming?Was it for such a sad reverseOur mobs became peacemakers,And kept their tar and wooden horseFor Englishmen and Quakers?

For this did shifty AthertonMake gag rules for the Great House?Wiped we for this our feet uponPetitions in our State House?Plied we for this our axe of doom,No stubborn traitor sparing,Who scoffed at our opinion loom,And took to homespun wearing?

Ah, Moses! hard it is to scanThese crooked providences,Deducing from the wisest planThe saddest consequences!Strange that, in trampling as was meetThe nigger-men's petition,We sprang a mine beneath our feetWhich opened up perdition.

How goodly, Moses, was the gameIn which we've long been actors,Supplying freedom with the nameAnd slavery with the practiceOur smooth words fed the people's mouth,Their ears our party rattle;We kept them headed to the South,As drovers do their cattle.

But now our game of politicsThe world at large is learning;And men grown gray in all our tricksState's evidence are turning.Votes and preambles subtly spunThey cram with meanings louder,And load the Democratic gunWith abolition powder.

The ides of June! Woe worth the dayWhen, turning all things over,The traitor Hale shall make his hayFrom Democratic clover!Who then shall take him in the law,Who punish crime so flagrant?Whose hand shall serve, whose pen shall draw,A writ against that "vagrant"?

Alas! no hope is left us here,And one can only pine forThe envied place of overseerOf slaves in Carolina!Pray, Moses, give Calhoun the wink,And see what pay he's giving!We've practised long enough, we think,To know the art of driving.

And for the faithful rank and file,Who know their proper stations,Perhaps it may be worth their whileTo try the rice plantations.Let Hale exult, let Wilson scoff,To see us southward scamper;The slaves, we know, are "better offThan laborers in New Hampshire!"