For mighty few o’ thim’s rael Quality, musha, they’re mostly a pack
     O’ playbians, each wid a tag to his name an’ a long black coat to
                his back;
     An’ it’s on’y romancin’ they are belike; a man must stick be his
                trade,
     An’ they git their livin’ by lettin’ on they know how wan’s
                sowl is made.

     And in chapel or church they’re bound to know somethin’ for sure,
                good or bad,
     Or where’d be the sinse o’ their preachin’ an’ prayers an’ hymns an’
                howlin’ like mad? 
     So who’d go mindin’ o’ thim? barrin’ women, in coorse, an’ wanes,
     That believe ’most aught ye tell thim, if they don’t understand what
                it manes—­
     Bedad, if it worn’t the nathur o’ women to want the wit,
     Parson and Priest I’m a-thinkin’ might shut up their shop an’ quit.

     But, och, it’s lost an’ disthracted the crathurs ’ud be without
     Their bit of divarsion on Sundays whin all o’ thim gits about,
     Cluth’rin’ an’ pluth’rin’ together like hins, an’ a-roostin’ in rows,
     An’ meetin’ their frins an’ their neighbors, and wearin’ their dacint
                clothes. 
     An’ sure it’s quare that the clergy can’t ever agree to keep
     Be tellin’ the same thrue story, sin’ they know such a won’erful heap;

     For many a thing Priest tells ye that Parson sez is a lie,
     An’ which has a right to be wrong, the divil a much know I,
     For all the differ I see ‘twixt the pair o’ thim ’d fit in a nut: 
     Wan for the Union, an’ wan for the League, an’ both o’ thim bitther
                as sut. 
     But Misther Pierce, that’s a gintleman born, an’ has college larnin’
                and all,
     There he was starin’ no wiser than me where the shadow stands like
                a wall.

     Authorized American Edition, Dodd, Mead and Company.

JOEL BARLOW

(1754-1812)

One morning late in the July of 1778, a select company gathered in the little chapel of Yale College to listen to orations and other exercises by a picked number of students of the Senior class, one of whom, named Barlow, had been given the coveted honor of delivering what was termed the ‘Commencement Poem.’  Those of the audience who came from a distance carried back to their homes in elm-shaded Norwich, or Stratford, or Litchfield, high on its hills, lively recollections of a handsome young man and of his ‘Prospect of Peace,’ whose cheerful prophecies in heroic verse so greatly “improved the occasion.”  They had heard that he was a farmer’s son from Redding, Connecticut, who had been to school at Hanover, New Hampshire, and had entered Dartmouth College, but soon removed to Yale on account of its superior advantages; that he had twice seen active service in the Continental army, and that he was engaged to marry a beautiful New Haven girl.