Now the light was dim
  Where she followed him,
And the dingy old parlor looked gloomy and grim. 
As she entered, behold, in contemplative mood,
In the farther corner the bold Captain stood
  In his coat of blue: 
  To his arms she flew;
She buried her face in his bosom so true: 
“Dear Captain!—­my Darling!” sighed Mrs. McNair;
Then she raised her dark eyes and—­Good Heavens’
  I declare!—–­
Instead of the Captain ’twas—­Mr. McNair!
She threw up her arms—­she screamed—­and she fainted;
Such a scene!—­Ah the like of it never was painted.

Of repentance and pardon I need not tell;
Her vows I will not relate,
For every man must guess them well
Who knows much of the “married state.” 
Of the sad mischance suffice it to say
That McNair had suspected the Captain’s “foul play;”
  So he laid a snare
  For the bold and the fair,
But he captured, alas, only Mrs. McNair;
And the brass-buttoned lover—­bold Captain Brown—­
Was nevermore seen in that rural town.

  Mrs. McNair
  Is tall and fair;
  Mrs. McNair is slim;
And her husband again is her only care—­
She is wonderfully fond of him; For now he is all the dear lady can wish—­he Is a captain himself—­in the State militia.

  1859.

THE DRAFT

[January, 1865.]

Old Father Abe has issued his “Call”
 For Three Hundred Thousand more! 
By Jupiter, boys, he is after you all—­
Lamed and maimed—­tall and small—­
With his drag-net spread for a general haul
  Of the “suckers” uncaught before.

I am sorry to see such a woeful change
  In the health of the hardiest;
It is wonderful odd—­it is “passing strange”—­
As over the country you travel and range,
To behold such a sudden, lamentable change
  All over the East and the West.

“Blades” tough and hearty a week ago,
  Who tippled and danced and laughed,
Are “suddenly taken,” and some quite low
With an epidemical illness, you know: 
“What!—­Zounds!—­the cholera?” you quiz;—­no—­no—­
  The doctors call it the “Draft.”

What a blessed thing it were to be old—­
  A little past “forty-five;”
’Twere better indeed than a purse of gold
At a premium yet unwritten, untold,
For what poor devil that’s now “enrolled”
  Expects to get off alive?

There’s a miracle wrought in the Democrats;
  They swore it was murder and sin
To put in the “Niggers,” like Kilkenny cats,
To clear the ship of the rebel rats,
But now I notice they swing their hats
  And shout to the “Niggers”—­“Go in!”

THE DEVIL AND THE MONK