My Double
I’m in Amesbury, not at Oak Knoll;
‘T is my double here you see:
I’m sitting on the platform,
Where the programme places me—
Where the women nudge each other,
And point me out and say:
“That’s the man who makes the verses—
My! How old he is and gray!”
I hear the crackers popping,
I hear the bass drums throb;
I sit at Boynton’s right hand,
And help him boss the job.
And like the great stone giant
Dug out of Cardiff mire,
We lift our man of metal,
And resurrect Josiah!
Around, the Hampshire Democrats
Stand looking glum and grim,--
That thing the Kingston doctor!
Do you call that critter him?
“The pesky Black Republicans
Have gone and changed his figure;
We buried him a white man—
They’ve dug him up a nigger!”
I hear the wild winds rushing
From Boynton’s limber jaws,
Swift as his railroad bicycle,
And buzzing like his saws!
But Hiram the wise is explaining
It’s only an old oration
Of Ginger-Pop Emmons, come down
By way of undulation!
Then Jacob, the vehicle-maker,
Comes forward to inquire
If Governor Ames will relieve the town
Of the care of old Josiah.
And the governor says: “If Amesbury can’t
Take care of its own town charge,
The State, I suppose, must do it,
And keep him from runnin’ at large!”
Then rises the orator Robert,
Recounting with grave precision
The tale of the great Declaration,
And the claims of his brother physician.
Both doctors, and both Congressmen,
Tall and straight, you’d scarce know which is
The live man, and which is the image,
Except by their trousers and breeches!
Then when the Andover “heretic”
Reads the rhymes I dared not utter,
I fancy Josiah is scowling,
And his bronze lips seem to mutter:
“Dry up! and stop your nonsense!
The Lord who in His mercies
Once saved me from the Tories,
Preserve me now from verses!”
Bad taste in the old Continental!
Whose knowledge of verse was at best
John Rogers’ farewell to his wife and
Nine children and one at the breast!
He’s treating me worse than the Hessians
He shot in the Bennington scrimmage—
Have I outlived the newspaper critic,
To be scalped by a graven image!
Perhaps, after all, I deserve it,
Since I, who was born a Quaker,
Sit here an image worshiper,
Instead of an image breaker!
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