Ez I was settin' so, it warn't long sence,
Mixin' the perfect with the present tense,
I heerd two voices som'ers in the air,
Though, ef I was to die, I can't tell where:
Voices I call 'em: 't was a kind o' sough
Like pine-trees thet the wind is geth'rin' through;
An', fact, I thought it _was_ the wind a spell,--
Then some misdoubted,--couldn't fairly tell,--
Fust sure, then not, jest as you hold an eel,--
I knowed, an' didn't,--fin'lly seemed to feel
'T was Concord Bridge a-talkin' off to kill
With the Stone Spike thet's druv thru Bunker Hill:
Whether't was so, or ef I only dreamed,
I couldn't say; I tell it ez it seemed.
THE BRIDGE.
Wal, neighbor, tell us, wut's turned up thet's new?
You're younger'n I be,--nigher Boston, tu;
An' down to Boston, ef you take their showin',
Wut they don't know ain't hardly wuth the knowin'.
There's _sunthin'_ goin' on, I know: las' night
The British sogers killed in our gret fight
(Nigh fifty year they hedn't stirred nor spoke)
Made sech a coil you'd thought a dam hed broke:
Why, one he up an' beat a revellee
With his own crossbones on a holler tree,
Till all the graveyards swarmed out like a hive
With faces I hain't seen sence Seventy-five.
Wut _is_ the news? 'T ain't good, or they'd be cheerin'.
Speak slow an' clear, for I'm some hard o' hearin'.
THE MONIMENT.
I don't know hardly ef it's good or bad,--
THE BRIDGE.
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