The Draft

Old 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!"