Year: 1868

The Country & the Country's Me-


We have recently met the following poel


and have secured it for our paper as still of i


terest to the people, though treating OF even


that have now passed into history. 1t w
written with special reference to the Congre
sional Campaign of 1866, in Minnesota, al
was there read before\ a number of polite
audiences, though constantly refused the pres


The illusions made to Grant and Colfax wi
make it particularly interesting at this tin
when they stand so prominently before the nj
ton, as candidates for its two highest offices.
You see old statues by the masters made
Where beauty carved in marble cannot fade:
White, stony rigid in their changeless mould,
They stand in peerless beauty-perfect cold.
Though years roll into ages, still the same
They stand in changcless lines-proclaming fame.
Yet though SO cold and lifeless, stark and dead,
To bring them forth, great fires must be fed
With oil by midnight burnt, that sap the life
OF some racked brains, half crazed and the strife
To form lifework ages hence might see
Their names to speak, though they had ceased to be.


All living in his soul the statue grew,
But, lasting there alone, the sculptor knew
That it existed only as his warm


And throbbingbrain could hold its graceful form.
OF course, he made it less for men to buy,
Than to prevent its loss, il he should die.


But this is not the thing that would speak Of
Some people seem to have wondrous freak Of
Supposing that chiseling from granite
Merely shapely stone to those who scan it
Existed in the ledge before twas chseled,
As woman's hair was hair before twas rizzled.
The beauty of the brain that formed the picture
Is when CRITICS In stricture
Twas not the ledge that stares so bianky at you
But twas the sculptor's brain that held the


So the thing man, is viewed by many people
As they would see a house, or barn, or steeple
Not by the rich design that Nature CAV. it, -
But as a barber views face to shave it e
The nature of the skin. the size of beard.
The shape Of teeth, the figure how tits reared,
The-strength of voice, the arm if graceful moved
If these are right it only need be proved,
In order to receve.it in society,
If it can wear good clothes with due propriety.
1t matters not what God has made the brain of,
That is a thing that would complain If.
But when look at statues cut from marble,
see the brain there, not composite garble.
love to the ideal in painting
Where blended colors into colors faintng
Speak soul well as rt;-and men view
As all so different and all so new





And giving scope for study each to find.


We know statue with an hours study,
But in an hour can you learn body!
Man is a statue with living soul,
That soul you learn before you learn the whole.
To learn a soul you have to study actions.
As boys work up to logarithns through fractions
For actions tell the motions of the mind
Since acts must have prompter of some kind
So when you look at men to learn their nature
You find yourself all lost until you bate your
Hot fiery mpatience to discover
Through eyes lips through lights shades, that hove
Around man, the thoughts that may possess him
But when you've done your best, you only guess him.


That men are land-crabs has been demonstrated
Not that they bite and snap-as has been stated
That crabs and grabbed natures are inclined to,
But that they like crabslike them seem blind too
For if great or little end they seek
They flank it in Il right or left oblique =
Some Pat would give it with an Irish bull
go forwards backwards, or in pushing pull"
Such men think of, and would describe them
They say they're honest,-but you'll easy bribe them
In offering money, fattery or love,
Or giving them in politics shove
That may secure them throu h your goosequills nib
chance to forage at the public crib


Yet some struggling with an honest zest
To gain position where they'll shin. the best
But even these will seldom 90 straight for it
They'll learn the law by reading Little Dorritt."
Rcdeeming swamp, and making useful land ont
You must do moro than simply so and stand ont.
1t docs not do TO merely read up books
But you must grub, and sweat and ply your hooks.
This growing great in any grade or station
Requires long and quite severe probation.
By counting Fortune you never rally her.
No gun can shoot beyond its native calibre.
To make bisrh and holy DurDOse ours
Will tax our energies, and tax our powers.
You cannot hope to leap the stream-you ford it.
You cannot fly along the rosd-yOu plOd it.
When once you make up your determination
Then push steadily, without eation,
Your eye upon your goal, your footstep steady,
For every trial that may meet you ready.


But now before 1 tell my touching story
Bear with me in a bit of alegory-
Since would chow you how purpose formed
With high Intentionally ambition warmed
And nurturcd in the breast with impulse stately,3
May prove to be quite worthless, we've lately
Discovered in the fate of one poor statesman
Who l'ft his party and became the gatesman
Between his people and the rest Of them
To turn 10 ruin all the best of them.
Poor Lane you think of and you say, "detestabler'
But when you come to try yourself you're best able
To judge to what degree tits safe to urge
To push ahead-even though he be clergyman.
You may some position and call that gem
Which would repay you in all sorts of stratagem;
But look before you eap,'-and count the COST
To see how you would stand in you lost.
The ways most sure TO win, I'll bet guinea
Those ways the nearest to the rectiinear.
Then make your aim an object to be proud of,
And one that future poets will sing loud Of
But I've snapped at all these thoughts that rount


did lie,


ADdi inft vo1a ,dotll,