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 "O T EM FOR a!" 
 
Temp OR a! 
 
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 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 
 1863. 
 
O^'^'^^ Of 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
 
 Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 
 
 2 4 / 
 
 1 
 
'^0 TEMPORAl" 
 
 Our times ! how much to all 
 
 Of manners, customs, that embalm an epoch. 
 
 Those words at once convey ! 
 
 For after all the biped man 
 
 Is very like his fellow, who lived 
 
 Perchance a thousand years ago. 
 
 'Tis education that expands and opens up 
 
 The mental man to knowledge of his neighbor ; 
 
 This in its turn with reason's aid 
 
 Developeth a system, by following which 
 
 We each may play a useful part in life. 
 
 We are prone to follow where another leads, 
 
 And hence arise our fashions. 
 
 Those strange inconstant whims, that make 
 
 One course of life awhile the rage ; 
 
 These happ'ning customs of the day 
 
 All tend to shape and make the man 
 
 Who stampeth its peculiar features ; 
 
 (3) 
 
4 "o tempora!" 
 
 These latter constitute the true 
 
 And well-marked characteristics of our times. 
 
 This rushing, tumbling hfe of ours, 
 
 Here on our private continent, 
 
 Bears little semblance to aught else 
 
 The world has ever seen. Men rise and fall ; 
 
 One day exalted to so grand a height 
 
 And flattered with such adulation, 
 
 What wonder that they ape that state 
 
 So sweet and soothing to all human pride ! 
 
 What wonder that they need a foreign staff, 
 
 And that their wives, if move they must, 
 
 Must go by special train ! But still exceptions 
 
 Can be found not far from where these musincrs 
 
 rise ; 
 Go look at those incongruous steeds 
 That draw the Presidential car, 
 And then make pretense, if you dare, 
 To dread a foul usurper's sway; 
 These smack too much of Springfield ! 
 Springfield ! there's something in thy very name 
 That lullcth all suspicion ; thou hast 
 A muddy, turgid seeming, and since thine 
 
 honored son 
 Has made his home among us. 
 
''o tempora!" 
 
 Methinks the mud has deeper grown, 
 
 And even now, so late in spring. 
 
 How firm the grasp of winter clingeth ! 
 
 Men talk of icebergs just broke loose 
 
 And floating south from Bafl&n's Bay ; 
 
 'Twould seem as if some venturous berg, 
 
 On strange and curious exploration bent, 
 
 Was coming up our own Potomac. 
 
 I say full changing here 
 
 The tide of human fortune ; we see 
 
 The petted idol, of a month gone by, 
 
 Abused and badgered with so fierce a cry, 
 
 We would protect him if we might 
 
 Through sympathy for human feeling. 
 
 Thus ever 'tis with us, some balance wheel is 
 
 wanting 
 To gauge true merit at its proper price. 
 To check the adulation that so sickening grows, 
 And curb fierce rancor's venom when we find 
 We've worshiped naught but hypocritical hu- 
 manity. 
 'No man unto his valet is a god ; 
 Much less so to himself methinks ; 
 Can it then be, that human vanity 
 Can so becloud that honest common sense 
 That God to each has given, 
 1* 
 
6 "o tempora!'- 
 
 That any animal, that swills its food 
 
 And worries if the mirror shows 
 
 New wrinkles on its ugly phiz, 
 
 Whose private thoughts if once laid bare 
 
 Such terrible duplicity would show. 
 
 Should, with calm calculated dress 
 
 And trappings to impose upon the eye, 
 
 Stand forth exalted to the crowd 
 
 A man of destiny or some such bosh ? 
 
 These are our humbugs on the grandest scale, 
 
 And serve as 'scape pipes, for the while, 
 
 For bottled up humanity ; the wildness of the 
 
 times, 
 The party venom that wipes out 
 E'en love of country's self, and would prefer 
 The utter degradation and disgrace, 
 That yet a black futurity may show, 
 Require that such should be. 
 
 Thou who sojourn'st for a time 
 
 Within this nation's busy Capitol, 
 
 And would'st read a telling page 
 
 From nature's book, go take thy stand, 
 
 Upon an early morn, at some convenient spot 
 
 Where thou shalt meet the tide 
 
 That daily surges to those gloomy piles 
 
"o temporaI" 1 
 
 Yclept departments ; and firstly note, 
 
 Before the tide sets heavy, those gray-haired 
 
 men ; 
 Years have they trod that self-same path, 
 For years the self-same task performed, 
 Till habit, more than second nature grown, 
 Now makes their office seem indeed their world. 
 'Tis said one constant never vary phase 
 Of life pursued unchanging through long lapse 
 
 of time, 
 However irksome it at first may be, 
 Becomes a true necessity. Thus 
 When those victims of some despot's spleen 
 Have lived immured in dungeons dark 
 From youth to hoary age, 
 They find when suddenly released 
 Their unaccustomed liberty a,ppal, and beg 
 The little remnant of their lives to spend 
 'Mid solitudes and damps so long famihar. 
 So these, to change them from these paths 
 Were very cruelty ; their Sabbaths come amiss, 
 So hitherward they turn and rummage 
 Through their ancient desks to while away the 
 
 time. 
 They mostly die in harness ; public considera- 
 tion 
 
8 "0 tempora!" 
 
 For their age forces immunity 
 
 E'en in the restless hungry eyes of those 
 
 Whoever prowl among the spoils ; 
 
 Unheeded are their deaths, save by the crowd 
 
 Of furious applicants who seek 
 
 To fill their places ; all innocent their lives, 
 
 And childish grown since age has freed them 
 
 From all fear of change, they seem to pass 
 
 away. 
 'Tis nine o'clock, and now the crowd sets heavy; 
 Young beardless men just entering hfe's battle. 
 Stern middle age, perchance ])y fickle fortune 
 
 forced 
 To lead a life he loathes, to bow submissive 
 To some heartless wretch, whose sole superiority 
 
 consists 
 In dipping somewhat deeper in the public crib, 
 For on his calm quiescence in this brute's com- 
 mand 
 Still hangs his wife's and children's bread. 
 Just Heaven ! what misery 'tis to feel 
 Our social state is thus immutable, 
 That worth bears nothing in the scale 
 When balanced 'gainst cold worldly tact, 
 That those most sensitive, most quick to feel. 
 Can never be presumptuous in their claims. 
 
"0 TEMPORAl" y 
 
 And hence must ever be subordinate ! 
 
 With calm resolve he still toils on, 
 
 Sustained by fervent faith, that he 
 
 Who in this world his task performs, 
 
 However odious at the time it be, 
 
 Shall find hereafter he his part fulfilled 
 
 And reap at length his just reward. 
 
 Next mark a very different set. 
 
 Those men of beetling brows; and those 
 
 Whose rapid nervous glance seems never fixed ; 
 
 And he whose ready sugared smile 
 
 Is all prepared for each he meets : 
 
 These are all sui generis, all branches of the 
 
 same 
 Great family, the wire-pulling clan. 
 These, we believe, exist throughout the earth 
 In every clime, 'mid every race 
 Endowed with mortal seeming ; where'er 
 True probity is found and manly pride. 
 Disdaining all device, nor stooping to supplant 
 His fellow-man if he in disingenuous phase 
 But make some trite remark and echo not 
 The trumpeted opinion of some upstart dema- 
 gogue. 
 Who in his turn, supported by a beggar mob, 
 Controls the keys of office ; where'er these dwell, 
 
10 "o tempora!" 
 
 Virtue and honor undisguised, these fellows 
 
 fatten. 
 But if there be one place they most affect, 
 One Mecca where they most do congregate. 
 And where the breed unhampered all 
 Acquires undue perfection, that place is here ; 
 Here, where our Capitol conglomerate rears 
 Its ever-changing dome ; here, where the stag- 
 ing 
 Melancholy stands upon the shaft of him 
 Who claims Columbia's highest gratitude and 
 
 love ; 
 Here, where the street lamps might for mile- 
 stones serve, 
 And moonlight only makes it gloomier still. 
 He comes from every point and apeth many 
 
 callings ; 
 Not civil all : beneath the shoulder strap 
 Full many full-blown specimens are found. 
 Who toadying to the powers that be, 
 Still seek promotion, and by that means 
 To ease their all insatiate vanity — 
 They hang about this place on every slight pre- 
 tense. 
 And no more soldiers are, except in dress. 
 Than he, who wore the lion's skin, was lion. 
 
"o tempora!" 11 
 
 And you, disingenuous but verdant stranger, 
 Who with breast swelUng with repressed 
 But ardent patriotic awe, may look 
 With unfeigned admiration at some pompous 
 
 nob, 
 And in return may meet with surly courtesy, 
 Feel not humility at a fool's disdain, 
 And know that here, rough impudence 
 Goes current for a grace. 
 And blustering, half-insulting manners pass 
 For type and symbol of bluff honesty. 
 These men are not your peers — our peers ! 
 God save the mark ! for are there not, to all. 
 Such times as when, within our heart of hearts, 
 ^0 wretch that walks God's footstool 
 Seems more low ? and these brief intervals 
 Of self-abasement, by guardian angels sent. 
 Scarce serve to check the self-laudations of our 
 
 minds. 
 As when the Roman conqueror passed in 
 
 triumph 
 Through the sacred city, some were about him 
 To remind that he himself were clay. 
 
 But lo ! now moving with the hurrying throng. 
 An M. C. heaves in view ; one of the few 
 
12 "0 tempora!" 
 
 That's left in town since now the session's o'er: 
 
 He stays, perhaps, to serve a friend, 
 
 To see some contract well in train. 
 
 Or held perchance by less exalted chain, 
 
 Still hangs On some Delilah's smile : 
 
 Not handsome he ; few M. C.'s are ; 
 
 But still there's something in his air, 
 
 That shows he feels his place. 
 
 And knows of extra mileage in his pocket. 
 
 Fearing that those, who knew the boy, 
 
 Might prove somewhat suspicious of the man. 
 
 Early in life he left his Eastern home 
 
 And settled in a far-off Western wild. 
 
 That great expansive West ! the land 
 
 Of generous hearts and ragged souls, 
 
 Of mud and fighting whisky ! 
 
 Here, by sharp practice and his mother wit, 
 
 He soon acquired a name ; he fast obtained, 
 
 No matter how, much substance ; 
 
 And round his grocery on election daj^s 
 
 The unwashed notables would swarm ; 
 
 He now grew grasping after office. 
 
 And, blessed with bitter and malignant tongue, 
 
 Was soon pre-eminent upon the stump ; 
 
 He knew but one side of mankind, 
 
 The low and overreaching, and he judged 
 
"0 tempora!" 13 
 
 All human nature by himself. 
 O modest merit ! what thj chance 
 To appeal to such for aid ? 
 His reckless impudence has been the ship 
 That bore him on to power ; dost think he cares 
 For any claim that cannot pay his aid in kind ? 
 Such men with us must ever be pre-eminent ; 
 The very nature of our laws, which give 
 To each and all, however ignorant, 
 The equal right to vote, must breed 
 Such fellows, and the power the}^ wield 
 Will ever force subservience from those 
 Who dread their impudent and selfish sway. 
 This is an evil that attends our wonderful pros- 
 perity ; 
 And since, on earth, God never meant 
 For man to attain undue perfection, 
 And all great blessings must be clogged 
 And counterbalanced by some mortal ills, 
 Perhaps for all 'tis better as it is. 
 We cannot these things change. 
 Nor would we if we could. 
 God made us all with natures all conflicting. 
 And he who, in the race of life. 
 Yields kind forbearance to his neighbor's weal, 
 Will find due credit registered above. 
 
14 ''0 temporaI" 
 
 But now again we'll pause and view 
 
 Anotlier feature of our day and age ; 
 
 Full fresh and fragrant from tonsorial hands 
 
 The military beau next comes in view ; 
 
 An adept he to please the eye 
 
 And take dear woman's wondrous fancy; 
 
 With what consummate skill we see combined 
 
 Soft elegance and semblance of rough service ; 
 
 The laced and touching round-about is there 
 
 'Neath shoulder-strap of glittering magnitude, 
 
 While far above the knees the boot-tops rise 
 
 The concentrated essence of bold chivalry ; 
 
 Again to heels that firmly meet the ground, 
 
 Huge spurs are usually attached, 
 
 Full boldly jingling now no horse is near. 
 
 'Tvf ere hard to trace his origin ; 
 
 Perchance a few months since, 
 
 The tape and yardstick graced 
 
 The hands that now are gauntleted ; 
 
 Or likelier still his glory is an heir-loom. 
 
 Ye gods defend us ! how many sons 
 
 Our aged veterans seem to have ! 
 
 And with what generous prodigality 
 
 They yield them to a grateful country's arms ! 
 
 These scions of valor are as plenty grown 
 
 As the translations of poor Jomini. 
 
"o tempora!" 15 
 
 And thus the crowd sweeps by, 
 We do not gaze with feelings e'en of pity ; 
 Full well we know ourselves and faults ; 
 Perchance our portraiture were worse than any 
 
 here. 
 Who then are we, that we should judge their 
 
 motives ? 
 We merely take things as they seem ; 
 For all, from ragged laborer to tinseled fop, 
 Are mortals like ourselves, whose earthly span 
 Of loves and joys, of miseries and pains 
 God only made coeval with our own. 
 
 Men know the world much better than of 
 
 yore ; 
 We sit at breakfast and we read 
 Of skirmishes in Poland's cause. 
 How revolution fails in China. 
 All strange events among us here at home 
 Are chronicled between the suns, 
 And special correspondents tearing round, 
 Now find our planet all too small ; 
 The old world, to our grandsires' eyes. 
 Immeasurably distant seemed ; but now 
 We've talked beneath the boundary waves, 
 Annihilating space ; steam and the wires 
 
16 "o tempora!" 
 
 Seem rather to confine us; and the strange 
 
 wild events, 
 Of this our wondrous epoch, 
 Fall all unnoted on our blazeed ears ; 
 We walk about unheeded and unheeding, 
 While so to speak beneath our very feet 
 Yawns grim mysterious eternity. 
 The cannon's echo, and the rise 
 Or fall of empire, matters not ; 
 While men, immortal men, 
 By thousands die unnoticed. 
 Life now indeed is fraught with death, 
 And with a calm cold method. 
 Learned from constant habit's use, 
 We make all preparations that may meet 
 The dread and bloody penalty of war. 
 List to that jarring and discordant sound 
 That breaks the sullen echoes of the night, 
 And blending in one long unbroken roar, 
 Half wakes the wrapt and drowsy sleeper. 
 As rushing on in long continuous train 
 The dismal ambulance now seeks its bloody 
 
 freight. 
 Pass down the avenue by early night, 
 And, while your ears are greeted by the shouts 
 Of boisterous revelry, and from blazing concert 
 
 halls 
 
"o tempora!" It 
 
 Pours forth the shrill contralto of the stage, 
 
 And careless men and brazen women 
 
 Go jostling by in reckless gayety — 
 
 Just mark that grim transparency, 
 
 Where from a darkly om'nous ground 
 
 Stare forth these capitals '' embalming of the 
 
 DEAD." 
 
 ''Embalming of the dead !" that conjures up 
 No calm and peaceful death-bed, 
 With death's cold damps upon the brows, 
 While sympathizing loving friends 
 Around stand weeping and distressed; 
 But young and glowing youth. 
 And strong and vigorous manhood. 
 Afar from home and friends, the vital spark 
 Upon the instant forced to seek a new existence, 
 Leaving the earthly form, but now admired 
 For sturdy strength and just and fair proportion, 
 A mass of perishable worthless clay ; 
 This from corruption's loathsome hands 
 The embalmer's arts awhile may stay, 
 That those who, beyond the world's grim friend- 
 ship. 
 To him were united by that heaven-born boon. 
 Affection's tie, may gaze once more. 
 E'en in this dismal and revolting work 
 2* ■ 
 
18 "o tempora!" 
 
 Hath speculation grown fall ripe ; 
 
 And only those, who garnered up full much 
 
 Of earthly dross, may be thus honored. 
 
 Ah, righteous Heaven ! how fearful 'tis to 
 think 
 
 That he, whose clay is being pampered and be- 
 decked. 
 
 May at that moment look 
 
 With overpowering awe to'ards one, 
 
 Whose body rots upon the sod. 
 
 As that of one despised by earthly parasites ; 
 
 And looking back to earth may feel, 
 
 In this same act, humiliation ! 
 
 These sights so tending to depress 
 
 All seem to fail most signally, 
 
 Nor can we force a gloom e'en 
 
 When we would to cover up appearance. 
 
 Strange, wonderful the whims 
 
 That flash across the fickle fancy ; 
 
 'Twere easier to control a mirror's rays 
 
 That, hanging loosely in the sun. 
 
 Still flashes where its wont, 
 
 Than force this sensitive mysterious brain 
 
 To- act up to a wished-for humor. 
 
 Well I remember, when a boy, 
 
"o temporaI" 19 
 
 I stood with reverence by Mount Yernon's 
 tomb, 
 
 And strove to conjure up 
 
 The stern o'erpowering awe with which 
 
 Methought the place should all impregnate. 
 
 But all my efforts were in vain ; 
 
 My fancy ran in very deviltry, 
 
 Nor could forget a scene I just had witnessed, 
 
 In which two ancient darkeys, eager bent 
 
 To sell their canes, had fallen to dire conten- 
 tion. 
 
 I left the place disgusted then with what 
 
 I thought my lack of human feeling ; 
 
 But now I take things as they come. 
 
 Nor deem myself inferior to the herd. 
 
 I doubt me much if e'er there comes, 
 
 To any healthy and full vigorous mind. 
 
 Thoughts unalloyed by earthly feeling, 
 
 God has not so intended : in some 
 
 A sensibility, denied to all, is felt on certain 
 points ; 
 
 With this again I've learned to feel 
 
 'Twere utter hopelessness to cope ; 
 
 I was not born an artist, 
 
 Nor have I learned to tutor so my taste 
 
 To see sublimity where others feel 
 
20 "0 tempora!" 
 
 That high and noble impulse. Once on a time 
 I stood within an ancient palace 
 Upon Avhose walls, 'midst other works of art, 
 Were gems bj early masters. 
 All this I knew, for had I not 
 A catalogue by which to gauge 
 My admiration ? still to my great disgust 
 I would return to one plain homely piece : 
 It was a death scene, two bodies laid in state ; 
 The guillotine had done its work, and, 'gainst 
 The trunk of each, the head was laid 
 In semblance of a natural death ; 
 I knew 'twas nothing in the painting's self 
 That chained me thus before it ; 
 But 'twas a morbid impulse, vulgar if you will, 
 That still I never could control. 
 And reasoning on these things, I've learned 
 To think our first impressions are the ones to 
 liumor. 
 
 My first impression, when I gazed 
 
 Upon bronze Jackson on his rampant horse. 
 
 Was that the savage hero felt uneasy ; 
 
 And looking at the boots and toes, so terribly 
 
 in pressed, 
 Felt sure he was in pain, 
 
"o tempora!" 21 
 
 And that his frowns arose from very agony; 
 
 But now each time I pass, methinks 
 
 The wrinkles on his furrowed brow grow 
 
 deeper, 
 As if 't might be the satisfaction grim 
 With which old England views and aids our 
 
 broils 
 Did raise his ready ire ; and he would fain 
 With her to enter once again the lists. 
 And indeed she's been a sorry mother, 
 E'en since the days her infant first kicked loose ; 
 When for long time she hounded on 
 The red skins on our borders to butchery and 
 
 blood ; 
 Of later years, grown somewhat courteous 
 From respect she only yields to power, 
 She has ceased her natural impudence 
 And interfered no more with national affairs. 
 But still we have bored been 
 By every snobbish Britisher who choose 
 Our homes to honor with his bloated person. 
 These traveling book machines, who come to us. 
 Soon 'find their level with a third-rate set, 
 And in these toadies think they see 
 Our simple homely people as they are. 
 E'en Trollope, that very Yankee in disguise, 
 
22 "o tempora!" 
 
 Who tore about in dread dismay 
 
 Lest aught should happen that he did not see, 
 
 Could not entire that dear illusion break 
 
 That we were all a set of cracked-brained fools. 
 
 Scarce has he landed on our shores 
 
 When he must meet some wonderful American, 
 
 Who talked of England hugging still her 
 
 chains. 
 Bah ! in the lowest cabins of the West, 
 You find none rougher than your dirty boors ; 
 And where refinement makes its home 
 We're every whit your peer, England ! 
 England ! there's jealousy within thy very milk ; 
 Take heed therefore, for who so jealous is 
 As he who has the most to dread ! 
 I have no love for thee as thou art now, 
 But still there's something in the name 
 Of merrie England, that wakes sweet echoes. 
 As it were, amidst old memory's odds and ends ; 
 I seem to think that times lang sjne, 
 I roamed among those cottage homes 
 And strutted 'neatli the greenwood's shade 
 With Kobin's roystering crew ; I feel 
 Strange recollections struggling rise 
 Of bold Jack Churchill's days ; the names 
 Of Temple Bar, of Charing Cross, 
 
"O TEMPOllA !" 2o 
 
 Of London Bridge are closely interwoven with 
 
 all 
 Of cliildhood's fair and clierislied dreams, 
 And thou dost seem from out that view 
 The land of never-ending Christmas. 
 I would not roughly all dispel 
 These sweetest musings of a troubled life ; 
 But still again 'tis all in fancy, — 
 I have no love for thee as thou art now. 
 
 We have no friends in this our day of need ; 
 But foreign rivals, who with ill concealed de- 
 light, 
 May watch the crippling of our power. 
 Miscalculate the end. It lies not in division. 
 The only question is which party rules. 
 O ye, who careless and reluctant aid 
 Your country in her deadliest throes, 
 What value think you will your birthright prove 
 When you before a despot bend ? 
 Such things are not chimerical ; 
 Ko singleness of purpose marks our aim, 
 And that may prove the rock that wrecks us : 
 For ramified throughout the North 
 And identified with every interest 
 Full many phant fools are found. 
 
24 "0 tempora!" 
 
 Who, to prevent a rival party from success, 
 
 Would seek a very hell on earth. 
 
 hug not to yourselves the fatal dream. 
 
 That you may 'scape unscathed ; 
 
 Too late you'll find your selfish course 
 
 Has wooed a power, relentless as 'tis firm ; 
 
 A power, that even now within our midst, 
 
 Maintains a grasp ye little wot of. 
 
 And ye again, who would divert 
 
 The holiest feehngs of a patriot's breast. 
 
 That love that makes him bless his flag, 
 
 To serve some philanthropic hobby. 
 
 Ye too beware, lest in due time 
 
 You howl amidst the misery you've caused 
 
 

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