free-verse30 lines
The Draft
by Hanford Lennox GordonOld 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!"