Edmund Clarence Stedman

“ Not a word has been said that can bring us repentance:
We've had a clear road and a sunshiny sky,
And every thing's lovely and the goose may hang high!
My team, well in hand, is so trained to its paces,
That our Radical friends haven't dared show their faces.
With A-dy and G-de-n for leaders, you know,
The one rough and restive, the other too slow,
And with Gr-nt and the Adm-r-l mated behind,
Both good, steady pullers (when drove with a blind) ,
I have sat on the box with the ribbons in hand,
And pushed them thus far on the journey we planned. ”

“ To recant, there is always a way, where the will is—
Quote Tempora mutantur et S-w-rd in illis.
As to A-dy, I say, it's well for our game
Just to put him in training, and enter his name
For the National Sweepstakes, A.D. '68,
And to tickle his pasterns and keep his head straight.
He's the favorite, now, with the outsiders' ring—
The gamesters and trimmers and that sort of thing,—
But once we have made up our own little books,
And the jockeys grow tired of his manners and looks,
And the season draws near for the Washington Race,
We'll put up another, I guess, in his place:
Eh! ”

“ Now, Gr-nt! Now, G-de-n and A-dy!
On! R-ss-u, On! St-dm-n, On! C-st-r, my dandy!
We're off to Chicago: keep pace, large and small;
Now dash away, dash away, dash away all!"
As for A-dy, nigh-leader, I wouldn't, for double
His worth, to train him again take the trouble.
Betwixt you and me, he's of rather low breed
(A cross of Poor White with a Tennessee steed) ;
And so stubborn and tricky, so dogged and willful,
The groom who would guide him indeed must be skillful:
He's proud to the servant, but stoops to the master—
Just bid him go slower, he's sure to go faster ”