Victorian Poetry

Above 'I Wud Not Die' by a Western Post, is one of my favourite early American poems, mainly because it shows the poor grammar in some of the American newspaper publications during the early Victorian Era.

Below is a translation into Modern English of the first paragraph; the full transcript and translation can be viewed on Nathanville's main website, link below:-

I WOULD not die in winter,
When whisky punches flow -
When silly girls are skating
Over fields of ice and snow -
When sausage meat is frying,
And hickory nuts are thick (plentiful);
Oh! Who could think of dying,
Or even getting sick?

When this poem was written (I guess early 19th century) the word 'Sass' mentioned in the third paragraph above meant 'garden vegetables'. However, by the mid-19th century in America and England the term "sass" (as a corruption of the word "saucy") became slang for 'to talk back in an impertinent way'. An example of how meanings of words can change over time.

This poem above called 'The little bird whispered to me' was written to mark Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887, and the placement of a statue in Bristol to mark the occasion.