[Dedicated to the Exempts]
To go or not to go, that is the question:
Whether it pays best to suffer pestering
By idle girls and garrulous old women
Or to take up arms against a host of Yankees
And by opposing get killed - to die, to sleep -
(Get out!) and in this sleep to say we "sink
To rest by all our country's wishes blest,"
And to live forever (there's a consummation,
Just what I'm after). To march, to fight -
To fight! Perchance to die - aye, there's the rub!
For while I'm asleep, who'd take care of Mary
And the babes - when Bill is in the low ground -
Who'd feed 'em, eh? There's the respect
I have for them that makes life sweet;
For who would bear the bag to mill,
Plow Dobbin, cut the wheat, dig "taters,"
Kill hogs, and do all sorts of drudgery,
If I am fool enough to get a Yankee
Bullet in my brain! Who'd cry for me?
Would patriotism pay my debts, when dead?
But oh! the dread of something after death -
That undiscovered fellow who'd court Mary,
And do my hugging - that's agony,
And makes me want to stay at home,
'Specially as I ain't mad with nobody.
Shells and bullets make cowards of us all;
And blamed my skin if snortin' steeds
And pomp and circumstance of war
Are to be compared with feather-bed
And Mary by my side.
