| |
A National Portrait
THE YANKEE boy, before he ’s sent to school, | |
| Well knows the mysteries of that magic tool, | |
| The pocket-knife. To that his wistful eye | |
| Turns, while he hears his mother’s lullaby; | |
| His hoarded cents he gladly gives to get it, | 5 |
| Then leaves no stone unturned till he can whet it; | |
| And in the education of the lad | |
| No little part that implement hath had. | |
| His pocket-knife to the young whittler brings | |
| A growing knowledge of material things. | 10 |
| |
| Projectiles, music, and the sculptor’s art, | |
| His chestnut whistle and his shingle dart, | |
| His elder popgun with its hickory rod, | |
| Its sharp explosion and rebounding wad, | |
| His cornstalk fiddle, and the deeper tone | 15 |
| That murmurs from his pumpkin-stalk trombone, | |
| Conspire to teach the boy. To these succeed | |
| His bow, his arrow of a feathered seed, | |
| His windmill, raised the passing breeze to win, | |
| His water-wheel, that turns upon a pin; | 20 |
| Or, if his father lives upon the shore, | |
| You ’ll see his ship, “beam ends upon the floor,” | |
| Full rigged with raking masts, and timbers stanch, | |
| And waiting near the wash-tub for a launch. | |
| |
| Thus by his genius and his jack-knife driven, | 25 |
| Erelong he ’ll solve you any problem given; | |
| Make any gimcrack musical or mute, | |
| A plough, a couch, an organ or a flute; | |
| Make you a locomotive or a clock, | |
| Cut a canal, or build a floating-dock, | 30 |
| Or lead forth Beauty from a marble block;— | |
| Make anything in short, for sea or shore, | |
| From a child’s rattle to a seventy-four;— | |
| Make it, said I?—Ay, when he undertakes it, | |
| He ’ll make the thing and the machine that makes it. | 35 |
| |
| And when the thing is made,—whether it be | |
| To move on earth, in air, or on the sea; | |
| Whether on water, o’er the waves to glide, | |
| Or upon land to roll, revolve, or slide; | |
| Whether to whirl or jar, to strike or ring, | 40 |
| Whether it be a piston or a spring, | |
| Wheel, pulley, tube sonorous, wood or brass, | |
| The thing designed shall surely come to pass; | |
| For, when his hand ’s upon it, you may know | |
| That there ’s go in it, and he ’ll make it go. | 45 |
| |
