War-lyrics and other poems

“Honest ABE!” What strange vexation
Thrills an office-armchaired party!
What impatience and disgust
That the people should put trust
In a name so true and hearty!
What indignant lamentation
For the unchosen—surely fitter
(Growl they) than a rough rail-splitter—
Most unheard-of nomination!

If the name you chance to mention,
Sir (they splutter) the Convention,
Sir, has acted like a babe!
You have missed it, be assured,
All your best men left to leeward;
Give us Banks, or Bates, or Seward,—
But confound this “Honest Abe!”

There's a story somewhere told,
By a fellow grave and old,
Which, just now, is rather pat.

112

I bethink me of his name—
Plutarch—and of lives the same
Had as many as a cat.

In the little State of Athens
Was a usage, there and then
Practised by those classic heathens,
Rather hard on public men.
Whatsoe'er the service past,
If they happened to distrust 'em—
Thought 'em getting on too fast—
'Twas, it seems, the pleasant custom
Just an oyster-shell to shy
(Sans a wherefore or a why)
Into a ballot-box huge and high—
With whatever name upon it
Chanced the elector's mind to strike,
(Sulking, like a jealous noddy,
O'er his Norwalks and his toddy,)—
Well—the name of anybody
That he didn't chance to like.
And the gentleman who won it—
Such election—(held to tell
What the free enlightened wished)—
Was, in fact, considered dished,
And served out on the half-shell!
And must needs, at any rate,
Draw a line in double-quick,
Mizzle, vamos, cut his stick,
And absquatulate!

113

Simple and ingenious scheme!
Of split tickets there were none—
(Though the bivalve you might deem
Suited well for such extreme)—
Hard or Soft Shell—all was one!

Once, while thus with general clamor
Athens eased her factious heart—
When the smith forsook his hammer,
And the huckster left his mart—.

Past the scene of noisy riot,
Clatter of shells and windy talk,
Aristides, calm and quiet,
Chanced to take a morning walk.

Musing, in his wonted fashion,
On the double care of state—
On the Demos' fickle passion,
And the cold patrician hate;

When a voter pressed beside him,
Saying, “Stranger, can you spell
Aristides? Wal, jest write him,
Square and straight, on this here shell.”

Smiling, cheery as a cricket,
Wrote the old Republican—
Then, as he returned the ticket,
Asked—“And what's his crime, my man?”

114

“Wal, not much,” said Snooks, appearing
Puzzled, “only I'll be cussed
But I'm sick to death of hearing
That old critter called ‘THE Just’!”

University of Virginia Library

HONEST ABE.

(Nomination of 1860.)