Poems
Description:
These poems are included in the papers of Julia Buttles of Worthington, Ohio, married to Job Warren Case in 1815. The collection also includes correspondence, poems, essays, and other writings. Letters between Julia and family, re. early life in Ohio, activities in Connecticut and New York, War of 1812, and routine social graces. The poems appear to be school assignments as spelling has been corrected in pencil. The first is a simple verse about social graces to remember. The second is a rousing account of slaughtering bed bugs.Creator:
Unknown; Levi ButtlesCreation Date:
UnknownCollection Title/Number:
VFM 1620Image Number:
TAH1806
Bed bug Day
1
A drum was heard; a note of attack
As to the assault we hurried;
The students scratching their itching backs
Whence the bugs, their blood had carried.
2
The day was dark, the sun not bright;
When the beds with our hands turning
By the struggling sun beams’ misty light.
We saw them slowly crawling.
3
In useless cavities they made their nests
In sheets and in clothes we found them;
Where they lay - like warriors taking their rest.
With their martial friends around them
4
Few and short were the curses we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow:
But we steadfastly [^ wished] they were all dead.
And we gladly thought of the morrow- 5
We thought as we mashed them in our narrow beds
And shook them from our lone pillow -
How we their foes would sleep o’er their dead,
As sweetly and soundly as if we were mellow!
6
Lightly we’ll talk of the spirits that are gone.
And o’er their cold ashes upbraid them;
But nothing we’ll seek, if they’ll sleep on
In the graves where the students have laid them.
7
And when our heavy task was done,
When the bell toll’d the hour of rest,
We knew that [^ Death, who the] work has begun,
Had now, rid us of a very great pest
8
Slowley but joyfully we laid us down.
From the field of our slaughter fresh and gory!
We felt not a bite, we felt not a bug,
But we slept alone - in our glory
Levi Buttles
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