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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7389.txt b/7389.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..97aea05 --- /dev/null +++ b/7389.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2940 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell +Holmes, Vol. 2, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vol. 2 + Additional Poems (1837-1848) + +Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +Release Date: September 30, 2004 [EBook #7389] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY OF HOLMES, VOL. 2 *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + + THE POETICAL WORKS + + OF + + OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + + [1893 three volume set] + + + + + ADDITIONAL POEMS + + 1837-1848 + + + THE PILGRIM'S VISION + THE STEAMBOAT + LEXINGTON + ON LENDING A PUNCH BOWL + A SONG FOR THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF HARVARD COLLEGE, + THE ISLAND HUNTING-SONG + DEPARTED DAYS + THE ONLY DAUGHTER + SONG WRITTEN FOR THE DINNER GIVEN TO CHARLES + DICKENS, BY THE YOUNG MEN OF BOSTON, FEBRUARY 1, 1842 + LINES RECITED AT THE BERKSHIRE JUBILEE + NUX POSTCOENATICA + VERSES FOR AFTER-DINNER + A MODEST REQUEST, COMPLIED WITH AFTER THE + DINNER AT PRESIDENT EVERETT'S INAUGURATION + THE PARTING WORD + A SONG OF OTHER DAYS + SONG FOR A TEMPERANCE DINNER TO WHICH LADIES WERE INVITED + (NEW YORK MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, NOVEMBER, 1842) + A SENTIMENT + A RHYMED LESSON (URANIA) + AN AFTER-DINNER POEM (TERPSICHORE) + + + + + THE PILGRIM'S VISION + +IN the hour of twilight shadows +The Pilgrim sire looked out; +He thought of the "bloudy Salvages" +That lurked all round about, +Of Wituwamet's pictured knife +And Pecksuot's whooping shout; +For the baby's limbs were feeble, +Though his father's arms were stout. + +His home was a freezing cabin, +Too bare for the hungry rat; +Its roof was thatched with ragged grass, +And bald enough of that; +The hole that served for casement +Was glazed with an ancient hat, +And the ice was gently thawing +From the log whereon he sat. + +Along the dreary landscape +His eyes went to and fro, + +The trees all clad in icicles, +The streams that did not flow; +A sudden thought flashed o'er him,-- +A dream of long ago,-- +He smote his leathern jerkin, +And murmured, "Even so!" + +"Come hither, God-be-Glorified, +And sit upon my knee; +Behold the dream unfolding, +Whereof I spake to thee +By the winter's hearth in Leyden +And on the stormy sea. +True is the dream's beginning,-- +So may its ending be! + +"I saw in the naked forest +Our scattered remnant cast, +A screen of shivering branches +Between them and the blast; +The snow was falling round them, +The dying fell as fast; +I looked to see them perish, +When lo, the vision passed. + +"Again mine eyes were opened;-- +The feeble had waxed strong, +The babes had grown to sturdy men, +The remnant was a throng; +By shadowed lake and winding stream, +And all the shores along, +The howling demons quaked to hear +The Christian's godly song. + +"They slept, the village fathers, +By river, lake, and shore, +When far adown the steep of Time +The vision rose once more +I saw along the winter snow +A spectral column pour, +And high above their broken ranks +A tattered flag they bore. + +"Their Leader rode before them, +Of bearing calm and high, +The light of Heaven's own kindling +Throned in his awful eye; +These were a Nation's champions +Her dread appeal to try. +God for the right! I faltered, +And lo, the train passed by. + +"Once more;--the strife is ended, +The solemn issue tried, +The Lord of Hosts, his mighty arm +Has helped our Israel's side; +Gray stone and grassy hillock +Tell where our martyrs died, +But peaceful smiles the harvest, +And stainless flows the tide. + +"A crash, as when some swollen cloud +Cracks o'er the tangled trees +With side to side, and spar to spar, +Whose smoking decks are these? +I know Saint George's blood-red cross, +Thou Mistress of the Seas, +But what is she whose streaming bars +Roll out before the breeze? + +"Ah, well her iron ribs are knit, +Whose thunders strive to quell +The bellowing throats, the blazing lips, +That pealed the Armada's knell! +The mist was cleared,--a wreath of stars +Rose o'er the crimsoned swell, +And, wavering from its haughty peak, +The cross of England fell! + +"O trembling Faith! though dark the morn, +A heavenly torch is thine; +While feebler races melt away, +And paler orbs decline, +Still shall the fiery pillar's ray +Along thy pathway shine, +To light the chosen tribe that sought +This Western Palestine. + +"I see the living tide roll on; +It crowns with flaming towers +The icy capes of Labrador, +The Spaniard's 'land of flowers'! +It streams beyond the splintered ridge +That parts the northern showers; +From eastern rock to sunset wave +The Continent is ours!" + +He ceased, the grim old soldier-saint, +Then softly bent to cheer +The Pilgrim-child, whose wasting face +Was meekly turned to hear; +And drew his toil-worn sleeve across +To brush the manly tear +From cheeks that never changed in woe, +And never blanched in fear. + +The weary Pilgrim slumbers, +His resting-place unknown; +His hands were crossed, his lips were closed, +The dust was o'er him strown; +The drifting soil, the mouldering leaf, +Along the sod were blown; +His mound has melted into earth, +His memory lives alone. + +So let it live unfading, +The memory of the dead, +Long as the pale anemone +Springs where their tears were shed, +Or, raining in the summer's wind +In flakes of burning red, +The wild rose sprinkles with its leaves +The turf where once they bled! + +Yea, when the frowning bulwarks +That guard this holy strand +Have sunk beneath the trampling surge +In beds of sparkling sand, +While in the waste of ocean +One hoary rock shall stand, +Be this its latest legend,-- +HERE WAS THE PILGRIM'S LAND! + + + + + +THE STEAMBOAT + +SEE how yon flaming herald treads +The ridged and rolling waves, +As, crashing o'er their crested heads, +She bows her surly slaves! +With foam before and fire behind, +She rends the clinging sea, +That flies before the roaring wind, +Beneath her hissing lee. + +The morning spray, like sea-born flowers, +With heaped and glistening bells, +Falls round her fast, in ringing showers, +With every wave that swells; +And, burning o'er the midnight deep, +In lurid fringes thrown, +The living gems of ocean sweep +Along her flashing zone. + +With clashing wheel and lifting keel, +And smoking torch on high, +When winds are loud and billows reel, +She thunders foaming by; +When seas are silent and serene, +With even beam she glides, +The sunshine glimmering through the green +That skirts her gleaming sides. + +Now, like a wild, nymph, far apart +She veils her shadowy form, +The beating of her restless heart +Still sounding through the storm; +Now answers, like a courtly dame, +The reddening surges o'er, +With flying scarf of spangled flame, +The Pharos of the shore. + +To-night yon pilot shall not sleep, +Who trims his narrowed sail; +To-night yon frigate scarce shall keep +Her broad breast to the gale; +And many a foresail, scooped and strained, +Shall break from yard and stay, +Before this smoky wreath has stained +The rising mist of day. + +Hark! hark! I hear yon whistling shroud, +I see yon quivering mast; +The black throat of the hunted cloud +Is panting forth the blast! +An hour, and, whirled like winnowing chaff, +The giant surge shall fling +His tresses o'er yon pennon staff, +White as the sea-bird's wing. + +Yet rest, ye wanderers of the deep; +Nor wind nor wave shall tire +Those fleshless arms, whose pulses leap +With floods of living fire; +Sleep on, and, when the morning light +Streams o'er the shining bay, +Oh think of those for whom the night +Shall never wake in day. + + + + + +LEXINGTON + +SLOWLY the mist o'er the meadow was creeping, +Bright on the dewy buds glistened the sun, +When from his couch, while his children were sleeping, +Rose the bold rebel and shouldered his gun. +Waving her golden veil +Over the silent dale, +Blithe looked the morning on cottage and spire; +Hushed was his parting sigh, +While from his noble eye +Flashed the last sparkle of liberty's fire. + +On the smooth green where the fresh leaf is springing +Calmly the first-born of glory have met; +Hark! the death-volley around them is ringing! +Look! with their life-blood the young grass is wet +Faint is the feeble breath, +Murmuring low in death, +"Tell to our sons how their fathers have died;" +Nerveless the iron hand, +Raised for its native land, +Lies by the weapon that gleams at its side. + +Over the hillsides the wild knell is tolling, +From their far hamlets the yeomanry come; +As through the storm-clouds the thunder-burst rolling, +Circles the beat of the mustering drum. +Fast on the soldier's path +Darken the waves of wrath,-- +Long have they gathered and loud shall they fall; +Red glares the musket's flash, +Sharp rings the rifle's crash, +Blazing and clanging from thicket and wall. + +Gayly the plume of the horseman was dancing, +Never to shadow his cold brow again; +Proudly at morning the war-steed was prancing, +Reeking and panting he droops on the rein; +Pale is the lip of scorn, +Voiceless the trumpet horn, +Torn is the silken-fringed red cross on high; +Many a belted breast +Low on the turf shall rest +Ere the dark hunters the herd have passed by. + +Snow-girdled crags where the hoarse wind is raving, +Rocks where the weary floods murmur and wail, +Wilds where the fern by the furrow is waving, +Reeled with the echoes that rode on the gale; +Far as the tempest thrills +Over the darkened hills, +Far as the sunshine streams over the plain, +Roused by the tyrant band, +Woke all the mighty land, +Girded for battle, from mountain to main. + +Green be the graves where her martyrs are lying! +Shroudless and tombless they sunk to their rest, +While o'er their ashes the starry fold flying +Wraps the proud eagle they roused from his nest. +Borne on her Northern pine, +Long o'er the foaming brine +Spread her broad banner to storm and to sun; +Heaven keep her ever free, +Wide as o'er land and sea +Floats the fair emblem her heroes have won. + + + + + +ON LENDING A PUNCH-BOWL + +This "punch-bowl" was, according to old family tradition, a caudle-cup. +It is a massive piece of silver, its cherubs and other ornaments of +coarse repousse work, and has two handles like a loving-cup, by which +it was held, or passed from guest to guest. + +THIS ancient silver bowl of mine, it tells of good old times, +Of joyous days and jolly nights, and merry Christmas times; +They were a free and jovial race, but honest, brave, and true, +Who dipped their ladle in the punch when this old bowl was new. + +A Spanish galleon brought the bar,--so runs the ancient tale; +'T was hammered by an Antwerp smith, whose arm was like a flail; +And now and then between the strokes, for fear his strength should fail, +He wiped his brow and quaffed a cup of good old Flemish ale. + +'T was purchased by an English squire to please his loving dame, +Who saw the cherubs, and conceived a longing for the same; +And oft as on the ancient stock another twig was found, +'T was filled with candle spiced and hot, and handed smoking round. + +But, changing hands, it reached at length a Puritan divine, +Who used to follow Timothy, and take a little wine, +But hated punch and prelacy; and so it was, perhaps, +He went to Leyden, where he found conventicles and schnapps. + +And then, of course, you know what's next: it left the Dutchman's shore +With those that in the Mayflower came,--a hundred souls and more,-- +Along with all the furniture, to fill their new abodes,-- +To judge by what is still on hand, at least a hundred loads. + +'T was on a dreary winter's eve, the night was closing, dim, +When brave Miles Standish took the bowl, and filled it to the brim; +The little Captain stood and stirred the posset with his sword, +And all his sturdy men-at-arms were ranged about the board. + +He poured the fiery Hollands in,--the man that never feared,-- +He took a long and solemn draught, and wiped his yellow beard; +And one by one the musketeers--the men that fought and prayed-- +All drank as 't were their mother's milk, and not a man afraid. + +That night, affrighted from his nest, the screaming eagle flew, +He heard the Pequot's ringing whoop, the soldier's wild halloo; +And there the sachem learned the rule he taught to kith and kin, +Run from the white man when you find he smells of "Hollands gin!" + +A hundred years, and fifty more, had spread their leaves and snows, +A thousand rubs had flattened down each little cherub's nose, +When once again the bowl was filled, but not in mirth or joy,-- +'T was mingled by a mother's hand to cheer her parting boy. + +Drink, John, she said, 't will do you good,--poor child, +you'll never bear +This working in the dismal trench, out in the midnight air; +And if--God bless me!--you were hurt, 't would keep away the chill. +So John did drink,--and well he wrought that night at Bunker's Hill! + +I tell you, there was generous warmth in good old English cheer; +I tell you, 't was a pleasant thought to bring its symbol here. +'T is but the fool that loves excess; hast thou a drunken soul? +Thy bane is in thy shallow skull, not in my silver bowl! + +I love the memory of the past,--its pressed yet fragrant flowers,-- +The moss that clothes its broken walls, the ivy on its towers; +Nay, this poor bauble it bequeathed,--my eyes grow moist and dim, +To think of all the vanished joys that danced around its brim. + +Then fill a fair and honest cup, and bear it straight to me; +The goblet hallows all it holds, whate'er the liquid be; +And may the cherubs on its face protect me from the sin +That dooms one to those dreadful words,--"My dear, where HAVE you been?" + + + + + +A SONG + +FOR THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF HARVARD COLLEGE, 1836 + +This song, which I had the temerity to sing myself (_felix auda-cia_, +Mr. Franklin Dexter had the goodness to call it), was sent in a little +too late to be printed with the official account of the celebration. It +was written at the suggestion of Dr. Jacob Bigelow, who thought the +popular tune "The Poacher's Song" would be a good model for a lively +ballad or ditty. He himself wrote the admirable Latin song to be found +in the record of the meeting. + +WHEN the Puritans came over +Our hills and swamps to clear, +The woods were full of catamounts, +And Indians red as deer, +With tomahawks and scalping-knives, +That make folks' heads look queer; +Oh the ship from England used to bring +A hundred wigs a year! + +The crows came cawing through the air +To pluck the Pilgrims' corn, +The bears came snuffing round the door +Whene'er a babe was born, +The rattlesnakes were bigger round +Than the but of the old rams horn +The deacon blew at meeting time +On every "Sabbath" morn. + +But soon they knocked the wigwams down, +And pine-tree trunk and limb +Began to sprout among the leaves +In shape of steeples slim; +And out the little wharves were stretched +Along the ocean's rim, +And up the little school-house shot +To keep the boys in trim. + +And when at length the College rose, +The sachem cocked his eye +At every tutor's meagre ribs +Whose coat-tails whistled by +But when the Greek and Hebrew words +Came tumbling from his jaws, +The copper-colored children all +Ran screaming to the squaws. + +And who was on the Catalogue +When college was begun? +Two nephews of the President, +And the Professor's son; +(They turned a little Indian by, +As brown as any bun;) +Lord! how the seniors knocked about +The freshman class of one! + +They had not then the dainty things +That commons now afford, +But succotash and hominy +Were smoking on the board; +They did not rattle round in gigs, +Or dash in long-tailed blues, +But always on Commencement days +The tutors blacked their shoes. + +God bless the ancient Puritans! +Their lot was hard enough; +But honest hearts make iron arms, +And tender maids are tough; +So love and faith have formed and fed +Our true-born Yankee stuff, +And keep the kernel in the shell +The British found so rough! + + + + + +THE ISLAND HUNTING-SONG + +The island referred to is a domain of princely proportions, which has +long been the seat of a generous hospitality. Naushon is its old Indian +name. William Swain, Esq., commonly known as "the Governor," was the +proprietor of it at the time when this song was written. Mr. John M. +Forbes is his worthy successor in territorial rights and as a hospitable +entertainer. The Island Book has been the recipient of many poems from +visitors and friends of the owners of the old mansion. + +No more the summer floweret charms, +The leaves will soon be sere, +And Autumn folds his jewelled arms +Around the dying year; +So, ere the waning seasons claim +Our leafless groves awhile, +With golden wine and glowing flame +We 'll crown our lonely isle. + +Once more the merry voices sound +Within the antlered hall, +And long and loud the baying hounds +Return the hunter's call; +And through the woods, and o'er the hill, +And far along the bay, +The driver's horn is sounding shrill,-- +Up, sportsmen, and away! + +No bars of steel or walls of stone +Our little empire bound, +But, circling with his azure zone, +The sea runs foaming round; +The whitening wave, the purpled skies, +The blue and lifted shore, +Braid with their dim and blending dyes +Our wide horizon o'er. + +And who will leave the grave debate +That shakes the smoky town, +To rule amid our island-state, +And wear our oak-leaf crown? +And who will be awhile content +To hunt our woodland game, +And leave the vulgar pack that scent +The reeking track of fame? + +Ah, who that shares in toils like these +Will sigh not to prolong +Our days beneath the broad-leaved trees, +Our nights of mirth and song? +Then leave the dust of noisy streets, +Ye outlaws of the wood, +And follow through his green retreats +Your noble Robin Hood. + + + + + +DEPARTED DAYS + +YES, dear departed, cherished days, +Could Memory's hand restore +Your morning light, your evening rays, +From Time's gray urn once more, +Then might this restless heart be still, +This straining eye might close, +And Hope her fainting pinions fold, +While the fair phantoms rose. + +But, like a child in ocean's arms, +We strive against the stream, +Each moment farther from the shore +Where life's young fountains gleam; +Each moment fainter wave the fields, +And wider rolls the sea; +The mist grows dark,--the sun goes down,-- +Day breaks,--and where are we? + + + + + +THE ONLY DAUGHTER + +ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE + +THEY bid me strike the idle strings, +As if my summer days +Had shaken sunbeams from their wings +To warm my autumn lays; +They bring to me their painted urn, +As if it were not time +To lift my gauntlet and to spurn +The lists of boyish rhyme; +And were it not that I have still +Some weakness in my heart +That clings around my stronger will +And pleads for gentler art, +Perchance I had not turned away +The thoughts grown tame with toil, +To cheat this lone and pallid ray, +That wastes the midnight oil. + +Alas! with every year I feel +Some roses leave my brow; +Too young for wisdom's tardy seal, +Too old for garlands now. +Yet, while the dewy breath of spring +Steals o'er the tingling air, +And spreads and fans each emerald wing +The forest soon shall wear. +How bright the opening year would seem, +Had I one look like thine +To meet me when the morning beam +Unseals these lids of mine! +Too long I bear this lonely lot, +That bids my heart run wild +To press the lips that love me not, +To clasp the stranger's child. + +How oft beyond the dashing seas, +Amidst those royal bowers, +Where danced the lilacs in the breeze, +And swung the chestnut-flowers, +I wandered like a wearied slave +Whose morning task is done, +To watch the little hands that gave +Their whiteness to the sun; +To revel in the bright young eyes, +Whose lustre sparkled through +The sable fringe of Southern skies +Or gleamed in Saxon blue! +How oft I heard another's name +Called in some truant's tone; +Sweet accents! which I longed to claim, +To learn and lisp my own! + +Too soon the gentle hands, that pressed +The ringlets of the child, +Are folded on the faithful breast +Where first he breathed and smiled; +Too oft the clinging arms untwine, +The melting lips forget, +And darkness veils the bridal shrine +Where wreaths and torches met; +If Heaven but leaves a single thread +Of Hope's dissolving chain, +Even when her parting plumes are spread, +It bids them fold again; +The cradle rocks beside the tomb; +The cheek now changed and chill +Smiles on us in the morning bloom +Of one that loves us still. + +Sweet image! I have done thee wrong +To claim this destined lay; +The leaf that asked an idle song +Must bear my tears away. +Yet, in thy memory shouldst thou keep +This else forgotten strain, +Till years have taught thine eyes to weep, +And flattery's voice is vain; +Oh then, thou fledgling of the nest, +Like the long-wandering dove, +Thy weary heart may faint for rest, +As mine, on changeless love; +And while these sculptured lines retrace +The hours now dancing by, +This vision of thy girlish grace +May cost thee, too, a sigh. + + + + + +SONG + +WRITTEN FOR THE DINNER GIVEN TO CHARLES DICKENS +BY THE YOUNG MEN OF BOSTON, FEBRUARY 1, 1842 + +THE stars their early vigils keep, +The silent hours are near, +When drooping eyes forget to weep,-- +Yet still we linger here; +And what--the passing churl may ask-- +Can claim such wondrous power, +That Toil forgets his wonted task, +And Love his promised hour? + +The Irish harp no longer thrills, +Or breathes a fainter tone; +The clarion blast from Scotland's hills, +Alas! no more is blown; +And Passion's burning lip bewails +Her Harold's wasted fire, +Still lingering o'er the dust that veils +The Lord of England's lyre. + +But grieve not o'er its broken strings, +Nor think its soul hath died, +While yet the lark at heaven's gate sings, +As once o'er Avon's side; +While gentle summer sheds her bloom, +And dewy blossoms wave, +Alike o'er Juliet's storied tomb +And Nelly's nameless grave. + +Thou glorious island of the sea! +Though wide the wasting flood +That parts our distant land from thee, +We claim thy generous blood; +Nor o'er thy far horizon springs +One hallowed star of fame, +But kindles, like an angel's wings, +Our western skies in flame! + + + + + +LINES + +RECITED AT THE BERKSHIRE JUBILEE, +PITTSFIELD, MASS., AUGUST 23, 1844 + +COME back to your mother, ye children, for shame, +Who have wandered like truants for riches or fame! +With a smile on her face, and a sprig in her cap, +She calls you to feast from her bountiful lap. + +Come out from your alleys, your courts, and your lanes, +And breathe, like young eagles, the air of our plains; +Take a whiff from our fields, and your excellent wives +Will declare it 's all nonsense insuring your lives. + +Come you of the law, who can talk, if you please, +Till the man in the moon will allow it's a cheese, +And leave "the old lady, that never tells lies," +To sleep with her handkerchief over her eyes. + +Ye healers of men, for a moment decline +Your feats in the rhubarb and ipecac line; +While you shut up your turnpike, your neighbors can go +The old roundabout road to the regions below. + +You clerk, on whose ears are a couple of pens, +And whose head is an ant-hill of units and tens, +Though Plato denies you, we welcome you still +As a featherless biped, in spite of your quill. + +Poor drudge of the city! how happy he feels, +With the burs on his legs and the grass at his heels +No dodger behind, his bandannas to share, +No constable grumbling, "You must n't walk there!" + +In yonder green meadow, to memory dear, +He slaps a mosquito and brushes a tear; +The dew-drops hang round him on blossoms and shoots, +He breathes but one sigh for his youth and his boots. + +There stands the old school-house, hard by the old church; +That tree at its side had the flavor of birch; +Oh, sweet were the days of his juvenile tricks, +Though the prairie of youth had so many "big licks." + +By the side of yon river he weeps and he slumps, +The boots fill with water, as if they were pumps, +Till, sated with rapture, he steals to his bed, +With a glow in his heart and a cold in his head. + +'T is past,--he is dreaming,--I see him again; +The ledger returns as by legerdemain; +His neckcloth is damp with an easterly flaw, +And he holds in his fingers an omnibus straw. + +He dreams the chill gust is a blossomy gale, +That the straw is a rose from his dear native vale; +And murmurs, unconscious of space and of time, +"A 1. Extra super. Ah, is n't it PRIME!" + +Oh, what are the prizes we perish to win +To the first little "shiner" we caught with a pin! +No soil upon earth is so dear to our eyes +As the soil we first stirred in terrestrial pies! + +Then come from all parties and parts to our feast; +Though not at the "Astor," we'll give you at least +A bite at an apple, a seat on the grass, +And the best of old--water--at nothing a glass. + + + + + +NUX POSTCOENATICA + +I WAS sitting with my microscope, upon my parlor rug, +With a very heavy quarto and a very lively bug; +The true bug had been organized with only two antennae, +But the humbug in the copperplate would have them twice as many. + +And I thought, like Dr. Faustus, of the emptiness of art, +How we take a fragment for the whole, and call the whole a part, +When I heard a heavy footstep that was loud enough for two, +And a man of forty entered, exclaiming, "How d' ye do?" + +He was not a ghost, my visitor, but solid flesh and bone; +He wore a Palo Alto hat, his weight was twenty stone; +(It's odd how hats expand their brims as riper years invade, +As if when life had reached its noon it wanted them for shade!) + +I lost my focus,--dropped my book,--the bug, who was a flea, +At once exploded, and commenced experiments on me. +They have a certain heartiness that frequently appalls,-- +Those mediaeval gentlemen in semilunar smalls! + +"My boy," he said, (colloquial ways,--the vast, broad-hatted man,) +"Come dine with us on Thursday next,--you must, you know you can; +We're going to have a roaring time, with lots of fun and noise, +Distinguished guests, et cetera, the JUDGE, and all the boys." + +Not so,--I said,--my temporal bones are showing pretty clear. +It 's time to stop,--just look and see that hair above this ear; +My golden days are more than spent,--and, what is very strange, +If these are real silver hairs, I'm getting lots of change. + +Besides--my prospects--don't you know that people won't employ +A man that wrongs his manliness by laughing like a boy? +And suspect the azure blossom that unfolds upon a shoot, +As if wisdom's old potato could not flourish at its root? + +It's a very fine reflection, when you 're etching out a smile +On a copperplate of faces that would stretch at least a mile, +That, what with sneers from enemies and cheapening shrugs of friends, +It will cost you all the earnings that a month of labor lends! + +It's a vastly pleasing prospect, when you're screwing out a laugh, +That your very next year's income is diminished by a half, +And a little boy trips barefoot that Pegasus may go, +And the baby's milk is watered that your Helicon may flow! + +No;--the joke has been a good one,--but I'm getting fond of quiet, +And I don't like deviations from my customary diet; +So I think I will not go with you to hear the toasts and speeches, +But stick to old Montgomery Place, and have some pig and peaches. + +The fat man answered: Shut your mouth, and hear the genuine creed; +The true essentials of a feast are only fun and feed; +The force that wheels the planets round delights in spinning tops, +And that young earthquake t' other day was great at shaking props. + +I tell you what, philosopher, if all the longest heads +That ever knocked their sinciputs in stretching on their beds +Were round one great mahogany, I'd beat those fine old folks +With twenty dishes, twenty fools, and twenty clever jokes! + +Why, if Columbus should be there, the company would beg +He'd show that little trick of his of balancing the egg! +Milton to Stilton would give in, and Solomon to Salmon, +And Roger Bacon be a bore, and Francis Bacon gammon! + +And as for all the "patronage" of all the clowns and boors +That squint their little narrow eyes at any freak of yours, +Do leave them to your prosier friends,--such fellows ought to die +When rhubarb is so very scarce and ipecac so high! + +And so I come,--like Lochinvar, to tread a single measure,-- +To purchase with a loaf of bread a sugar-plum of pleasure, +To enter for the cup of glass that's run for after dinner, +Which yields a single sparkling draught, +then breaks and cuts the winner. + +Ah, that's the way delusion comes,--a glass of old Madeira, +A pair of visual diaphragms revolved by Jane or Sarah, +And down go vows and promises without the slightest question +If eating words won't compromise the organs of digestion! + +And yet, among my native shades, beside my nursing mother, +Where every stranger seems a friend, and every friend a brother, +I feel the old convivial glow (unaided) o'er me stealing,-- +The warm, champagny, the old-particular brandy-punchy feeling. + +We're all alike;--Vesuvius flings the scoriae from his fountain, +But down they come in volleying rain back to the burning mountain; +We leave, like those volcanic stones, our precious Alma Mater, +But will keep dropping in again to see the dear old crater. + + + + + +VERSES FOR AFTER-DINNER +PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY, 1844 + +I WAS thinking last night, as I sat in the cars, +With the charmingest prospect of cinders and stars, +Next Thursday is--bless me!--how hard it will be, +If that cannibal president calls upon me! + +There is nothing on earth that he will not devour, +From a tutor in seed to a freshman in flower; +No sage is too gray, and no youth is too green, +And you can't be too plump, though you're never too lean. + +While others enlarge on the boiled and the roast, +He serves a raw clergyman up with a toast, +Or catches some doctor, quite tender and young, +And basely insists on a bit of his tongue. + +Poor victim, prepared for his classical spit, +With a stuffing of praise and a basting of wit, +You may twitch at your collar and wrinkle your brow, +But you're up on your legs, and you're in for it now. + +Oh think of your friends,--they are waiting to hear +Those jokes that are thought so remarkably queer; +And all the Jack Horners of metrical buns +Are prying and fingering to pick out the puns. + +Those thoughts which, like chickens, will always thrive best +When reared by the heat of the natural nest, +Will perish if hatched from their embryo dream +In the mist and the glow of convivial steam. + +Oh pardon me, then, if I meekly retire, +With a very small flash of ethereal fire; +No rubbing will kindle your Lucifer match, +If the fiz does not follow the primitive scratch. + +Dear friends, who are listening so sweetly the while, +With your lips double--reefed in a snug little smile, +I leave you two fables, both drawn from the deep,-- +The shells you can drop, but the pearls you may keep. + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +The fish called the FLOUNDER, perhaps you may know, +Has one side for use and another for show; +One side for the public, a delicate brown, +And one that is white, which he always keeps down. + +A very young flounder, the flattest of flats, +(And they 're none of them thicker than opera hats,) +Was speaking more freely than charity taught +Of a friend and relation that just had been caught. + +"My! what an exposure! just see what a sight! +I blush for my race,--he is showing his white +Such spinning and wriggling,--why, what does he wish? +How painfully small to respectable fish!" + +Then said an Old SCULPIN,--"My freedom excuse, +You're playing the cobbler with holes in your shoes; +Your brown side is up,--but just wait till you're tried +And you'll find that all flounders are white on one side." + + . . . . . . . . . . + +There's a slice near the PICKEREL'S pectoral fins, +Where the thorax leaves off and the venter begins, +Which his brother, survivor of fish-hooks and lines, +Though fond of his family, never declines. + +He loves his relations; he feels they'll be missed; +But that one little tidbit he cannot resist; +So your bait may be swallowed, no matter how fast, +For you catch your next fish with a piece of the last. + +And thus, O survivor, whose merciless fate +Is to take the next hook with the president's bait, +You are lost while you snatch from the end of his line +The morsel he rent from this bosom of mine! + + + + + +A MODEST REQUEST + +COMPLIED WITH AFTER THE DINNER AT +PRESIDENT EVERETT'S INAUGURATION + +SCENE,--a back parlor in a certain square, +Or court, or lane,--in short, no matter where; +Time,--early morning, dear to simple souls +Who love its sunshine and its fresh-baked rolls; +Persons,--take pity on this telltale blush, +That, like the AEthiop, whispers, "Hush, oh hush!" + +Delightful scene! where smiling comfort broods, +Nor business frets, nor anxious care intrudes; +_O si sic omnia_ I were it ever so! +But what is stable in this world below? +_Medio e fonte_,--Virtue has her faults,-- +The clearest fountains taste of Epsom salts; +We snatch the cup and lift to drain it dry,-- +Its central dimple holds a drowning fly +Strong is the pine by Maine's ambrosial streams, +But stronger augers pierce its thickest beams; +No iron gate, no spiked and panelled door, +Can keep out death, the postman, or the bore. +Oh for a world where peace and silence reign, +And blunted dulness verebrates in vain! +--The door-bell jingles,--enter Richard Fox, +And takes this letter from his leathern box. + +"Dear Sir,-- + In writing on a former day, +One little matter I forgot to say; +I now inform you in a single line, +On Thursday next our purpose is to dine. +The act of feeding, as you understand, +Is but a fraction of the work in hand; +Its nobler half is that ethereal meat +The papers call 'the intellectual treat;' +Songs, speeches, toasts, around the festive board +Drowned in the juice the College pumps afford; +For only water flanks our knives and forks, +So, sink or float, we swim without the corks. +Yours is the art, by native genius taught, +To clothe in eloquence the naked thought; +Yours is the skill its music to prolong +Through the sweet effluence of mellifluous song; +Yours the quaint trick to cram the pithy line +That cracks so crisply over bubbling wine; +And since success your various gifts attends, +We--that is, I and all your numerous friends-- +Expect from you--your single self a host-- +A speech, a song, excuse me, and a toast; +Nay, not to haggle on so small a claim, +A few of each, or several of the same. +(Signed), Yours, most truly, ________" + + No! my sight must fail,-- +If that ain't Judas on the largest scale! +Well, this is modest;--nothing else than that? +My coat? my boots? my pantaloons? my hat? +My stick? my gloves? as well as all my wits, +Learning and linen,--everything that fits! + +Jack, said my lady, is it grog you'll try, +Or punch, or toddy, if perhaps you're dry? +Ah, said the sailor, though I can't refuse, +You know, my lady, 't ain't for me to choose; +I'll take the grog to finish off my lunch, +And drink the toddy while you mix the punch. + + . . . . . . . . + +THE SPEECH. (The speaker, rising to be seen, +Looks very red, because so very green.) +I rise--I rise--with unaffected fear, +(Louder!--speak louder!--who the deuce can hear?) +I rise--I said--with undisguised dismay +--Such are my feelings as I rise, I say +Quite unprepared to face this learned throng, +Already gorged with eloquence and song; +Around my view are ranged on either hand +The genius, wisdom, virtue of the land; +"Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed" +Close at my elbow stir their lemonade; +Would you like Homer learn to write and speak, +That bench is groaning with its weight of Greek; +Behold the naturalist who in his teens +Found six new species in a dish of greens; +And lo, the master in a statelier walk, +Whose annual ciphering takes a ton of chalk; +And there the linguist, who by common roots +Thro' all their nurseries tracks old Noah's shoots,-- +How Shem's proud children reared the Assyrian piles, +While Ham's were scattered through the Sandwich Isles! + +--Fired at the thought of all the present shows, +My kindling fancy down the future flows: +I see the glory of the coming days +O'er Time's horizon shoot its streaming rays; +Near and more near the radiant morning draws +In living lustre (rapturous applause); +From east to west the blazing heralds run, +Loosed from the chariot of the ascending sun, +Through the long vista of uncounted years +In cloudless splendor (three tremendous cheers). +My eye prophetic, as the depths unfold, +Sees a new advent of the age of gold; +While o'er the scene new generations press, +New heroes rise the coming time to bless,-- +Not such as Homer's, who, we read in Pope, +Dined without forks and never heard of soap,-- +Not such as May to Marlborough Chapel brings, +Lean, hungry, savage, anti-everythings, +Copies of Luther in the pasteboard style,-- +But genuine articles, the true Carlyle; +While far on high the blazing orb shall shed +Its central light on Harvard's holy head, +And learning's ensigns ever float unfurled +Here in the focus of the new-born world +The speaker stops, and, trampling down the pause, +Roars through the hall the thunder of applause, +One stormy gust of long-suspended Ahs! +One whirlwind chaos of insane hurrahs! + + . . . . . . . . + +THE SONG. But this demands a briefer line,-- +A shorter muse, and not the old long Nine; +Long metre answers for a common song, +Though common metre does not answer long. + +She came beneath the forest dome +To seek its peaceful shade, +An exile from her ancient home, +A poor, forsaken maid; +No banner, flaunting high above, +No blazoned cross, she bore; +One holy book of light and love +Was all her worldly store. + +The dark brown shadows passed away, +And wider spread the green, +And where the savage used to stray +The rising mart was seen; +So, when the laden winds had brought +Their showers of golden rain, +Her lap some precious gleanings caught, +Like Ruth's amid the grain. + +But wrath soon gathered uncontrolled +Among the baser churls, +To see her ankles red with gold, +Her forehead white with pearls. +"Who gave to thee the glittering bands +That lace thine azure veins? +Who bade thee lift those snow-white hands +We bound in gilded chains?" + +"These are the gems my children gave," +The stately dame replied; +"The wise, the gentle, and the brave, +I nurtured at my side. +If envy still your bosom stings, +Take back their rims of gold; +My sons will melt their wedding-rings, +And give a hundred-fold!" + + . . . . . . . . + +THE TOAST. Oh tell me, ye who thoughtless ask +Exhausted nature for a threefold task, +In wit or pathos if one share remains, +A safe investment for an ounce of brains! +Hard is the job to launch the desperate pun, +A pun-job dangerous as the Indian one. +Turned by the current of some stronger wit +Back from the object that you mean to hit, +Like the strange missile which the Australian throws, +Your verbal boomerang slaps you on the nose. +One vague inflection spoils the whole with doubt, +One trivial letter ruins all, left out; +A knot can choke a felon into clay, +A not will save him, spelt without the k; +The smallest word has some unguarded spot, +And danger lurks in i without a dot. + +Thus great Achilles, who had shown his zeal +In healing wounds, died of a wounded heel; +Unhappy chief, who, when in childhood doused, +Had saved his bacon had his feet been soused +Accursed heel that killed a hero stout +Oh, had your mother known that you were out, +Death had not entered at the trifling part +That still defies the small chirurgeon's art +With corns and bunions,--not the glorious John, +Who wrote the book we all have pondered on, +But other bunions, bound in fleecy hose, +To "Pilgrim's Progress" unrelenting foes! + + . . . . . . . . + +A HEALTH, unmingled with the reveller's wine, +To him whose title is indeed divine; +Truth's sleepless watchman on her midnight tower, +Whose lamp burns brightest when the tempests lower. +Oh, who can tell with what a leaden flight +Drag the long watches of his weary night, +While at his feet the hoarse and blinding gale +Strews the torn wreck and bursts the fragile sail, +When stars have faded, when the wave is dark, +When rocks and sands embrace the foundering bark! +But still he pleads with unavailing cry, +Behold the light, O wanderer, look or die! + +A health, fair Themis! Would the enchanted vine +Wreathed its green tendrils round this cup of thine! +If Learning's radiance fill thy modern court, +Its glorious sunshine streams through Blackstone's port. + +Lawyers are thirsty, and their clients too, +Witness at least, if memory serve me true, +Those old tribunals, famed for dusty suits, +Where men sought justice ere they brushed their boots; +And what can match, to solve a learned doubt, +The warmth within that comes from "cold with-out"? + +Health to the art whose glory is to give +The crowning boon that makes it life to live. +Ask not her home;--the rock where nature flings +Her arctic lichen, last of living things; +The gardens, fragrant with the orient's balm, +From the low jasmine to the star-like palm, +Hail her as mistress o'er the distant waves, +And yield their tribute to her wandering slaves. +Wherever, moistening the ungrateful soil, +The tear of suffering tracks the path of toil, +There, in the anguish of his fevered hours, +Her gracious finger points to healing flowers; +Where the lost felon steals away to die, +Her soft hand waves before his closing eye; +Where hunted misery finds his darkest lair, +The midnight taper shows her kneeling there! +VIRTUE,--the guide that men and nations own; +And LAW,--the bulwark that protects her throne; +And HEALTH,--to all its happiest charm that lends; +These and their servants, man's untiring friends +Pour the bright lymph that Heaven itself lets fall, +In one fair bumper let us toast them all! + + + + + +THE PARTING WORD + +I MUST leave thee, lady sweet +Months shall waste before we meet; +Winds are fair and sails are spread, +Anchors leave their ocean bed; +Ere this shining day grow dark, +Skies shall gird my shoreless bark. +Through thy tears, O lady mine, +Read thy lover's parting line. + +When the first sad sun shall set, +Thou shalt tear thy locks of jet; +When the morning star shall rise, +Thou shalt wake with weeping eyes; +When the second sun goes down, +Thou more tranquil shalt be grown, +Taught too well that wild despair +Dims thine eyes and spoils thy hair. + +All the first unquiet week +Thou shalt wear a smileless cheek; +In the first month's second half +Thou shalt once attempt to laugh; +Then in Pickwick thou shalt dip, +Slightly puckering round the lip, +Till at last, in sorrow's spite, +Samuel makes thee laugh outright. + +While the first seven mornings last, +Round thy chamber bolted fast +Many a youth shall fume and pout, +"Hang the girl, she's always out!" +While the second week goes round, +Vainly shall they ring and pound; +When the third week shall begin, +"Martha, let the creature in." + +Now once more the flattering throng +Round thee flock with smile and song, +But thy lips, unweaned as yet, +Lisp, "Oh, how can I forget!" +Men and devils both contrive +Traps for catching girls alive; +Eve was duped, and Helen kissed,-- +How, oh how can you resist? + +First be careful of your fan, +Trust it not to youth or man; +Love has filled a pirate's sail +Often with its perfumed gale. +Mind your kerchief most of all, +Fingers touch when kerchiefs fall; +Shorter ell than mercers clip +Is the space from hand to lip. + +Trust not such as talk in tropes, +Full of pistols, daggers, ropes; +All the hemp that Russia bears +Scarce would answer lovers' prayers; +Never thread was spun so fine, +Never spider stretched the line, +Would not hold the lovers true +That would really swing for you. + +Fiercely some shall storm and swear, +Beating breasts in black despair; +Others murmur with a sigh, +You must melt, or they will die: +Painted words on empty lies, +Grubs with wings like butterflies; +Let them die, and welcome, too; +Pray what better could they do? + +Fare thee well: if years efface +From thy heart love's burning trace, +Keep, oh keep that hallowed seat +From the tread of vulgar feet; +If the blue lips of the sea +Wait with icy kiss for me, +Let not thine forget the vow, +Sealed how often, Love, as now. + + + + + +A SONG OF OTHER DAYS + +As o'er the glacier's frozen sheet +Breathes soft the Alpine rose, +So through life's desert springing sweet +The flower of friendship grows; +And as where'er the roses grow +Some rain or dew descends, +'T is nature's law that wine should flow +To wet the lips of friends. +Then once again, before we part, +My empty glass shall ring; +And he that has the warmest heart +Shall loudest laugh and sing. + +They say we were not born to eat; +But gray-haired sages think +It means, Be moderate in your meat, +And partly live to drink. +For baser tribes the rivers flow +That know not wine or song; +Man wants but little drink below, +But wants that little strong. +Then once again, etc. + +If one bright drop is like the gem +That decks a monarch's crown, +One goblet holds a diadem +Of rubies melted down! +A fig for Caesar's blazing brow, +But, like the Egyptian queen, +Bid each dissolving jewel glow +My thirsty lips between. +Then once again, etc. + +The Grecian's mound, the Roman's urn, +Are silent when we call, +Yet still the purple grapes return +To cluster on the wall; +It was a bright Immortal's head +They circled with the vine, +And o'er their best and bravest dead +They poured the dark-red wine. +Then once again, etc. + +Methinks o'er every sparkling glass +Young Eros waves his wings, +And echoes o'er its dimples pass +From dead Anacreon's strings; +And, tossing round its beaded brim +Their locks of floating gold, +With bacchant dance and choral hymn +Return the nymphs of old. +Then once again, etc. + +A welcome then to joy and mirth, +From hearts as fresh as ours, +To scatter o'er the dust of earth +Their sweetly mingled flowers; +'T is Wisdom's self the cup that fills +In spite of Folly's frown, +And Nature, from her vine-clad hills, +That rains her life-blood down! +Then once again, before we part, +My empty glass shall ring; +And he that has the warmest heart +Shall loudest laugh and sing. + + + + + +SONG + +FOR A TEMPERANCE DINNER TO WHICH LADIES WERE +INVITED (NEW YORK MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, +NOVEMBER, 1842) + +A HEALTH to dear woman! She bids us untwine, +From the cup it encircles, the fast-clinging vine; +But her cheek in its crystal with pleasure will glow, +And mirror its bloom in the bright wave below. + +A health to sweet woman! The days are no more +When she watched for her lord till the revel was o'er, +And smoothed the white pillow, and blushed when he came, +As she pressed her cold lips on his forehead of flame. + +Alas for the loved one! too spotless and fair +The joys of his banquet to chasten and share; +Her eye lost its light that his goblet might shine, +And the rose of her cheek was dissolved in his wine. + +Joy smiles in the fountain, health flows in the rills, +As their ribbons of silver unwind from the hills; +They breathe not the mist of the bacchanal's dream, +But the lilies of innocence float on their stream. + +Then a health and a welcome to woman once more! +She brings us a passport that laughs at our door; +It is written on crimson,--its letters are pearls,-- +It is countersigned Nature.--So, room for the Girls! + + + + + +A SENTIMENT + +THE pledge of Friendship! it is still divine, +Though watery floods have quenched its burning wine; +Whatever vase the sacred drops may hold, +The gourd, the shell, the cup of beaten gold, +Around its brim the hand of Nature throws +A garland sweeter than the banquet's rose. +Bright are the blushes of the vine-wreathed bowl, +Warm with the sunshine of Anacreon's soul, +But dearer memories gild the tasteless wave +That fainting Sidney perished as he gave. +'T is the heart's current lends the cup its glow, +Whate'er the fountain whence the draught may flow,-- +The diamond dew-drops sparkling through the sand, +Scooped by the Arab in his sunburnt hand, +Or the dark streamlet oozing from the snow, +Where creep and crouch the shuddering Esquimaux; +Ay, in the stream that, ere again we meet, +Shall burst the pavement, glistening at our feet, +And, stealing silent from its leafy hills, +Thread all our alleys with its thousand rills,-- +In each pale draught if generous feeling blend, +And o'er the goblet friend shall smile on friend, +Even cold Cochituate every heart shall warm, +And genial Nature still defy reform! + + + + + +A RHYMED LESSON (URANIA) + +This poem was delivered before the Boston Mercantile Library +Association, October 14, 1846. + +YES, dear Enchantress,--wandering far and long, +In realms unperfumed by the breath of song, +Where flowers ill-flavored shed their sweets around, +And bitterest roots invade the ungenial ground, +Whose gems are crystals from the Epsom mine, +Whose vineyards flow with antimonial wine, +Whose gates admit no mirthful feature in, +Save one gaunt mocker, the Sardonic grin, +Whose pangs are real, not the woes of rhyme +That blue-eyed misses warble out of time;-- +Truant, not recreant to thy sacred claim, +Older by reckoning, but in heart the same, +Freed for a moment from the chains of toil, +I tread once more thy consecrated soil; +Here at thy feet my old allegiance own, +Thy subject still, and loyal to thy throne! + +My dazzled glance explores the crowded hall; +Alas, how vain to hope the smiles of all! +I know my audience. All the gay and young +Love the light antics of a playful tongue; +And these, remembering some expansive line +My lips let loose among the nuts and wine, +Are all impatience till the opening pun +Proclaims the witty shamfight is begun. +Two fifths at least, if not the total half, +Have come infuriate for an earthquake laugh; +I know full well what alderman has tied +His red bandanna tight about his side; +I see the mother, who, aware that boys +Perform their laughter with superfluous noise, +Beside her kerchief brought an extra one +To stop the explosions of her bursting son; +I know a tailor, once a friend of mine, +Expects great doings in the button line,-- +For mirth's concussions rip the outward case, +And plant the stitches in a tenderer place. +I know my audience,--these shall have their due; +A smile awaits them ere my song is through! + +I know myself. Not servile for applause, +My Muse permits no deprecating clause; +Modest or vain, she will not be denied +One bold confession due to honest pride; +And well she knows the drooping veil of song +Shall save her boldness from the caviller's wrong. +Her sweeter voice the Heavenly Maid imparts +To tell the secrets of our aching hearts +For this, a suppliant, captive, prostrate, bound, +She kneels imploring at the feet of sound; +For this, convulsed in thought's maternal pains, +She loads her arms with rhyme's resounding chains; +Faint though the music of her fetters be, +It lends one charm,--her lips are ever free! + +Think not I come, in manhood's fiery noon, +To steal his laurels from the stage buffoon; +His sword of lath the harlequin may wield; +Behold the star upon my lifted shield +Though the just critic pass my humble name, +And sweeter lips have drained the cup of fame, +While my gay stanza pleased the banquet's lords, +The soul within was tuned to deeper chords! +Say, shall my arms, in other conflicts taught +To swing aloft the ponderous mace of thought, +Lift, in obedience to a school-girl's law, +Mirth's tinsel wand or laughter's tickling straw? +Say, shall I wound with satire's rankling spear +The pure, warm hearts that bid me welcome here? +No! while I wander through the land of dreams, +To strive with great and play with trifling themes, +Let some kind meaning fill the varied line. +You have your judgment; will you trust to mine? + + . . . . . . . . . . + +Between two breaths what crowded mysteries lie,-- +The first short gasp, the last and long-drawn sigh! +Like phantoms painted on the magic slide, +Forth from the darkness of the past we glide, +As living shadows for a moment seen +In airy pageant on the eternal screen, +Traced by a ray from one unchanging flame, +Then seek the dust and stillness whence we came. + +But whence and why, our trembling souls inquire, +Caught these dim visions their awakening fire? +Oh, who forgets when first the piercing thought +Through childhood's musings found its way unsought? +I AM;--I LIVE. The mystery and the fear +When the dread question, WHAT HAS BROUGHT ME HERE? +Burst through life's twilight, as before the sun +Roll the deep thunders of the morning gun! + +Are angel faces, silent and serene, +Bent on the conflicts of this little scene, +Whose dream-like efforts, whose unreal strife, +Are but the preludes to a larger life? + +Or does life's summer see the end of all, +These leaves of being mouldering as they fall, +As the old poet vaguely used to deem, +As WESLEY questioned in his youthful dream? +Oh, could such mockery reach our souls indeed, +Give back the Pharaohs' or the Athenian's creed; +Better than this a Heaven of man's device,-- +The Indian's sports, the Moslem's paradise! + +Or is our being's only end and aim +To add new glories to our Maker's name, +As the poor insect, shrivelling in the blaze, +Lends a faint sparkle to its streaming rays? +Does earth send upward to the Eternal's ear +The mingled discords of her jarring sphere +To swell his anthem, while creation rings +With notes of anguish from its shattered strings? +Is it for this the immortal Artist means +These conscious, throbbing, agonized machines? + +Dark is the soul whose sullen creed can bind +In chains like these the all-embracing Mind; +No! two-faced bigot, thou dost ill reprove +The sensual, selfish, yet benignant Jove, +And praise a tyrant throned in lonely pride, +Who loves himself, and cares for naught beside; +Who gave thee, summoned from primeval night, +A thousand laws, and not a single right,-- +A heart to feel, and quivering nerves to thrill, +The sense of wrong, the death-defying will; +Who girt thy senses with this goodly frame, +Its earthly glories and its orbs of flame, +Not for thyself, unworthy of a thought, +Poor helpless victim of a life unsought, +But all for him, unchanging and supreme, +The heartless centre of thy frozen scheme. + +Trust not the teacher with his lying scroll, +Who tears the charter of thy shuddering soul; +The God of love, who gave the breath that warms +All living dust in all its varied forms, +Asks not the tribute of a world like this +To fill the measure of his perfect bliss. +Though winged with life through all its radiant shores, +Creation flowed with unexhausted stores +Cherub and seraph had not yet enjoyed; +For this he called thee from the quickening void! +Nor this alone; a larger gift was thine, +A mightier purpose swelled his vast design +Thought,--conscience,--will,--to make them all thine own, +He rent a pillar from the eternal throne! + +Made in his image, thou must nobly dare +The thorny crown of sovereignty to share. +With eye uplifted, it is thine to view, +From thine own centre, Heaven's o'erarching blue; +So round thy heart a beaming circle lies +No fiend can blot, no hypocrite disguise; +From all its orbs one cheering voice is heard, +Full to thine ear it bears the Father's word, +Now, as in Eden where his first-born trod +"Seek thine own welfare, true to man and God!" +Think not too meanly of thy low estate; +Thou hast a choice; to choose is to create! +Remember whose the sacred lips that tell, +Angels approve thee when thy choice is well; +Remember, One, a judge of righteous men, +Swore to spare Sodom if she held but ten! +Use well the freedom which thy Master gave, +(Think'st thou that Heaven can tolerate a slave?) +And He who made thee to be just and true +Will bless thee, love thee,--ay, respect thee too! + +Nature has placed thee on a changeful tide, +To breast its waves, but not without a guide; +Yet, as the needle will forget its aim, +Jarred by the fury of the electric flame, +As the true current it will falsely feel, +Warped from its axis by a freight of steel; +So will thy CONSCIENCE lose its balanced truth +If passion's lightning fall upon thy youth, +So the pure effluence quit its sacred hold +Girt round too deeply with magnetic gold. +Go to yon tower, where busy science plies +Her vast antennae, feeling through the skies +That little vernier on whose slender lines +The midnight taper trembles as it shines, +A silent index, tracks the planets' march +In all their wanderings through the ethereal arch; +Tells through the mist where dazzled Mercury burns, +And marks the spot where Uranus returns. +So, till by wrong or negligence effaced, +The living index which thy Maker traced +Repeats the line each starry Virtue draws +Through the wide circuit of creation's laws; +Still tracks unchanged the everlasting ray +Where the dark shadows of temptation stray, +But, once defaced, forgets the orbs of light, +And leaves thee wandering o'er the expanse of night. + +"What is thy creed?" a hundred lips inquire; +"Thou seekest God beneath what Christian spire?" +Nor ask they idly, for uncounted lies +Float upward on the smoke of sacrifice; +When man's first incense rose above the plain, +Of earth's two altars one was built by Cain! +Uncursed by doubt, our earliest creed we take; +We love the precepts for the teacher's sake; +The simple lessons which the nursery taught +Fell soft and stainless on the buds of thought, +And the full blossom owes its fairest hue +To those sweet tear-drops of affection's dew. +Too oft the light that led our earlier hours +Fades with the perfume of our cradle flowers; +The clear, cold question chills to frozen doubt; +Tired of beliefs, we dread to live without +Oh then, if Reason waver at thy side, +Let humbler Memory be thy gentle guide; +Go to thy birthplace, and, if faith was there, +Repeat thy father's creed, thy mother's prayer! + +Faith loves to lean on Time's destroying arm, +And age, like distance, lends a double charm; +In dim cathedrals, dark with vaulted gloom, +What holy awe invests the saintly tomb! +There pride will bow, and anxious care expand, +And creeping avarice come with open hand; +The gay can weep, the impious can adore, +From morn's first glimmerings on the chancel floor +Till dying sunset sheds his crimson stains +Through the faint halos of the irised panes. +Yet there are graves, whose rudely-shapen sod +Bears the fresh footprints where the sexton trod; +Graves where the verdure has not dared to shoot, +Where the chance wild-flower has not fixed its root, +Whose slumbering tenants, dead without a name, +The eternal record shall at length proclaim +Pure as the holiest in the long array +Of hooded, mitred, or tiaraed clay! + +Come, seek the air; some pictures we may gain +Whose passing shadows shall not be in vain; +Not from the scenes that crowd the stranger's soil, +Not from our own amidst the stir of toil, +But when the Sabbath brings its kind release, +And Care lies slumbering on the lap of Peace. + +The air is hushed, the street is holy ground; +Hark! The sweet bells renew their welcome sound +As one by one awakes each silent tongue, +It tells the turret whence its voice is flung. +The Chapel, last of sublunary things +That stirs our echoes with the name of Kings, +Whose bell, just glistening from the font and forge, +Rolled its proud requiem for the second George, +Solemn and swelling, as of old it rang, +Flings to the wind its deep, sonorous clang; +The simpler pile, that, mindful of the hour +When Howe's artillery shook its half-built tower, +Wears on its bosom, as a bride might do, +The iron breastpin which the "Rebels" threw, +Wakes the sharp echoes with the quivering thrill +Of keen vibrations, tremulous and shrill; +Aloft, suspended in the morning's fire, +Crash the vast cymbals from the Southern spire; +The Giant, standing by the elm-clad green, +His white lance lifted o'er the silent scene, +Whirling in air his brazen goblet round, +Swings from its brim the swollen floods of sound; +While, sad with memories of the olden time, +Throbs from his tower the Northern Minstrel's chime,-- +Faint, single tones, that spell their ancient song, +But tears still follow as they breathe along. + +Child of the soil, whom fortune sends to range +Where man and nature, faith and customs change, +Borne in thy memory, each familiar tone +Mourns on the winds that sigh in every zone. +When Ceylon sweeps thee with her perfumed breeze +Through the warm billows of the Indian seas; +When--ship and shadow blended both in one-- +Flames o'er thy mast the equatorial sun, +From sparkling midnight to refulgent noon +Thy canvas swelling with the still monsoon; +When through thy shrouds the wild tornado sings, +And thy poor sea-bird folds her tattered wings,-- +Oft will delusion o'er thy senses steal, +And airy echoes ring the Sabbath peal +Then, dim with grateful tears, in long array +Rise the fair town, the island-studded bay, +Home, with its smiling board, its cheering fire, +The half-choked welcome of the expecting sire, +The mother's kiss, and, still if aught remain, +Our whispering hearts shall aid the silent strain. +Ah, let the dreamer o'er the taffrail lean +To muse unheeded, and to weep unseen; +Fear not the tropic's dews, the evening's chills, +His heart lies warm among his triple hills! + +Turned from her path by this deceitful gleam, +My wayward fancy half forgets her theme. +See through the streets that slumbered in repose +The living current of devotion flows, +Its varied forms in one harmonious band +Age leading childhood by its dimpled hand; +Want, in the robe whose faded edges fall +To tell of rags beneath the tartan shawl; +And wealth, in silks that, fluttering to appear, +Lift the deep borders of the proud cashmere. +See, but glance briefly, sorrow-worn and pale, +Those sunken cheeks beneath the widow's veil; +Alone she wanders where with HIM she trod, +No arm to stay her, but she leans on God. +While other doublets deviate here and there, +What secret handcuff binds that pretty pair? +Compactest couple! pressing side to side,-- +Ah, the white bonnet that reveals the bride! +By the white neckcloth, with its straitened tie, +The sober hat, the Sabbath-speaking eye, +Severe and smileless, he that runs may read +The stern disciple of Geneva's creed +Decent and slow, behold his solemn march; +Silent he enters through yon crowded arch. +A livelier bearing of the outward man, +The light-hued gloves, the undevout rattan, +Now smartly raised or half profanely twirled,-- +A bright, fresh twinkle from the week-day world,-- +Tell their plain story; yes, thine eyes behold +A cheerful Christian from the liberal fold. +Down the chill street that curves in gloomiest shade +What marks betray yon solitary maid? +The cheek's red rose that speaks of balmier air, +The Celtic hue that shades her braided hair, +The gilded missal in her kerchief tied,-- +Poor Nora, exile from Killarney's side! +Sister in toil, though blanched by colder skies, +That left their azure in her downcast eyes, +See pallid Margaret, Labor's patient child, +Scarce weaned from home, the nursling of the wild, +Where white Katahdin o'er the horizon shines, +And broad Penobscot dashes through the pines. +Still, as she hastes, her careful fingers hold +The unfailing hymn-book in its cambric fold. +Six days at drudgery's heavy wheel she stands, +The seventh sweet morning folds her weary hands. +Yes, child of suffering, thou mayst well be sure +He who ordained the Sabbath loves the poor! + +This weekly picture faithful Memory draws, +Nor claims the noisy tribute of applause; +Faint is the glow such barren hopes can lend, +And frail the line that asks no loftier end. +Trust me, kind listener, I will yet beguile +Thy saddened features of the promised smile. +This magic mantle thou must well divide, +It has its sable and its ermine side; +Yet, ere the lining of the robe appears, +Take thou in silence what I give in tears. + +Dear listening soul, this transitory scene +Of murmuring stillness, busily serene,-- +This solemn pause, the breathing-space of man, +The halt of toil's exhausted caravan,-- +Comes sweet with music to thy wearied ear; +Rise with its anthems to a holier sphere! + +Deal meekly, gently, with the hopes that guide +The lowliest brother straying from thy side +If right, they bid thee tremble for thine own; +If wrong, the verdict is for God alone. + +What though the champions of thy faith esteem +The sprinkled fountain or baptismal stream; +Shall jealous passions in unseemly strife +Cross their dark weapons o'er the waves of life? + +Let my free soul, expanding as it can, +Leave to his scheme the thoughtful Puritan; +But Calvin's dogma shall my lips deride? +In that stern faith my angel Mary died; +Or ask if mercy's milder creed can save, +Sweet sister, risen from thy new-made grave? + +True, the harsh founders of thy church reviled +That ancient faith, the trust of Erin's child; +Must thou be raking in the crumbled past +For racks and fagots in her teeth to cast? +See from the ashes of Helvetia's pile +The whitened skull of old Servetus smile! +Round her young heart thy "Romish Upas" threw +Its firm, deep fibres, strengthening as she grew; +Thy sneering voice may call them "Popish tricks," +Her Latin prayers, her dangling crucifix, +But De Profundis blessed her father's grave, +That "idol" cross her dying mother gave! +What if some angel looks with equal eyes +On her and thee, the simple and the wise, +Writes each dark fault against thy brighter creed, +And drops a tear with every foolish bead! +Grieve, as thou must, o'er history's reeking page; +Blush for the wrongs that stain thy happier age; +Strive with the wanderer from the better path, +Bearing thy message meekly, not in wrath; +Weep for the frail that err, the weak that fall, +Have thine own faith,--but hope and pray for all! + +Faith; Conscience; Love. A meaner task remains, +And humbler thoughts must creep in lowlier strains. +Shalt thou be honest? Ask the worldly schools, +And all will tell thee knaves are busier fools; +Prudent? Industrious? Let not modern pens +Instruct "Poor Richard's" fellow-citizens. + +Be firm! One constant element in luck +Is genuine solid old Teutonic pluck. +See yon tall shaft; it felt the earthquake's thrill, +Clung to its base, and greets the sunrise still. + +Stick to your aim: the mongrel's hold will slip, +But only crowbars loose the bulldog's grip; +Small as he looks, the jaw that never yields +Drags down the bellowing monarch of the fields! + +Yet in opinions look not always back,-- +Your wake is nothing, mind the coming track; +Leave what you've done for what you have to do; +Don't be "consistent," but be simply true. + +Don't catch the fidgets; you have found your place +Just in the focus of a nervous race, +Fretful to change and rabid to discuss, +Full of excitements, always in a fuss. +Think of the patriarchs; then compare as men +These lean-cheeked maniacs of the tongue and pen! +Run, if you like, but try to keep your breath; +Work like a man, but don't be worked to death; +And with new notions,--let me change the rule,-- +Don't strike the iron till it 's slightly cool. + +Choose well your set; our feeble nature seeks +The aid of clubs, the countenance of cliques; +And with this object settle first of all +Your weight of metal and your size of ball. +Track not the steps of such as hold you cheap, +Too mean to prize, though good enough to keep; +The "real, genuine, no-mistake Tom Thumbs" +Are little people fed on great men's crumbs. +Yet keep no followers of that hateful brood +That basely mingles with its wholesome food +The tumid reptile, which, the poet said, +Doth wear a precious jewel in his head. + +If the wild filly, "Progress," thou wouldst ride, +Have young companions ever at thy side; +But wouldst thou stride the stanch old mare, "Success," +Go with thine elders, though they please thee less. +Shun such as lounge through afternoons and eves, +And on thy dial write, "Beware of thieves!" +Felon of minutes, never taught to feel +The worth of treasures which thy fingers steal, +Pick my left pocket of its silver dime, +But spare the right,--it holds my golden time! + +Does praise delight thee? Choose some _ultra_ side,-- +A sure old recipe, and often tried; +Be its apostle, congressman, or bard, +Spokesman or jokesman, only drive it hard; +But know the forfeit which thy choice abides, +For on two wheels the poor reformer rides,-- +One black with epithets the _anti_ throws, +One white with flattery painted by the pros. + +Though books on MANNERS are not out of print, +An honest tongue may drop a harmless hint. +Stop not, unthinking, every friend you meet, +To spin your wordy fabric in the street; +While you are emptying your colloquial pack, +The fiend Lumbago jumps upon his back. +Nor cloud his features with the unwelcome tale +Of how he looks, if haply thin and pale; +Health is a subject for his child, his wife, +And the rude office that insures his life. +Look in his face, to meet thy neighbor's soul, +Not on his garments, to detect a hole; +"How to observe" is what thy pages show, +Pride of thy sex, Miss Harriet Martineau! +Oh, what a precious book the one would be +That taught observers what they 're NOT to see! + +I tell in verse--'t were better done in prose-- +One curious trick that everybody knows; +Once form this habit, and it's very strange +How long it sticks, how hard it is to change. +Two friendly people, both disposed to smile, +Who meet, like others, every little while, +Instead of passing with a pleasant bow, +And "How d' ye do?" or "How 's your uncle now?" + +Impelled by feelings in their nature kind, +But slightly weak and somewhat undefined, +Rush at each other, make a sudden stand, +Begin to talk, expatiate, and expand; +Each looks quite radiant, seems extremely struck, +Their meeting so was such a piece of luck; +Each thinks the other thinks he 's greatly pleased +To screw the vice in which they both are squeezed; +So there they talk, in dust, or mud, or snow, +Both bored to death, and both afraid to go! +Your hat once lifted, do not hang your fire, +Nor, like slow Ajax, fighting still, retire; +When your old castor on your crown you clap, +Go off; you've mounted your percussion cap. + +Some words on LANGUAGE may be well applied, +And take them kindly, though they touch your pride. +Words lead to things; a scale is more precise,-- +Coarse speech, bad grammar, swearing, drinking, vice. +Our cold Northeaster's icy fetter clips +The native freedom of the Saxon lips; +See the brown peasant of the plastic South, +How all his passions play about his mouth! +With us, the feature that transmits the soul, +A frozen, passive, palsied breathing-hole. +The crampy shackles of the ploughboy's walk +Tie the small muscles when he strives to talk; +Not all the pumice of the polished town +Can smooth this roughness of the barnyard down; +Rich, honored, titled, he betrays his race +By this one mark,--he's awkward in the face;-- +Nature's rude impress, long before he knew +The sunny street that holds the sifted few. +It can't be helped, though, if we're taken young, +We gain some freedom of the lips and tongue; +But school and college often try in vain +To break the padlock of our boyhood's chain +One stubborn word will prove this axiom true,-- +No quondam rustic can enunciate view. + +A few brief stanzas may be well employed +To speak of errors we can all avoid. +Learning condemns beyond the reach of hope +The careless lips that speak of so'ap for soap; +Her edict exiles from her fair abode +The clownish voice that utters ro'ad for road +Less stern to him who calls his coat a co'at, +And steers his boat, believing it a bo'at, +She pardoned one, our classic city's boast, +Who said at Cambridge mo'st instead of most, +But knit her brows and stamped her angry foot +To hear a Teacher call a root a ro'ot. + +Once more: speak clearly, if you speak at all; +Carve every word before you let it fall; +Don't, like a lecturer or dramatic star, +Try over-hard to roll the British R; +Do put your accents in the proper spot; +Don't,--let me beg you,--don't say "How?" for "What?" +And when you stick on conversation's burs, +Don't strew your pathway with those dreadful _urs_. + +From little matters let us pass to less, +And lightly touch the mysteries of DRESS; +The outward forms the inner man reveal,-- +We guess the pulp before we cut the peel. + +I leave the broadcloth,--coats and all the rest,-- +The dangerous waistcoat, called by cockneys "vest," +The things named "pants" in certain documents, +A word not made for gentlemen, but "gents;" +One single precept might the whole condense +Be sure your tailor is a man of sense; +But add a little care, a decent pride, +And always err upon the sober side. + +Three pairs of boots one pair of feet demands, +If polished daily by the owner's hands; +If the dark menial's visit save from this, +Have twice the number,--for he 'll sometimes miss. +One pair for critics of the nicer sex, +Close in the instep's clinging circumflex, +Long, narrow, light; the Gallic boot of love, +A kind of cross between a boot and glove. +Compact, but easy, strong, substantial, square, +Let native art compile the medium pair. +The third remains, and let your tasteful skill +Here show some relics of affection still; +Let no stiff cowhide, reeking from the tan, +No rough caoutchoue, no deformed brogan, +Disgrace the tapering outline of your feet, +Though yellow torrents gurgle through the street. + +Wear seemly gloves; not black, nor yet too light, +And least of all the pair that once was white; +Let the dead party where you told your loves +Bury in peace its dead bouquets and gloves; +Shave like the goat, if so your fancy bids, +But be a parent,--don't neglect your kids. + +Have a good hat; the secret of your looks +Lives with the beaver in Canadian brooks; +Virtue may flourish in an old cravat, +But man and nature scorn the shocking hat. +Does beauty slight you from her gay abodes? +Like bright Apollo, you must take to Rhoades,-- +Mount the new castor,--ice itself will melt; +Boots, gloves, may fail; the hat is always felt. + +Be shy of breastpins; plain, well-ironed white, +With small pearl buttons,--two of them in sight,-- +Is always genuine, while your gems may pass, +Though real diamonds, for ignoble glass. +But spurn those paltry Cisatlantic lies +That round his breast the shabby rustic ties; +Breathe not the name profaned to hallow things +The indignant laundress blushes when she brings! + +Our freeborn race, averse to every check, +Has tossed the yoke of Europe from its _neck_; +From the green prairie to the sea-girt town, +The whole wide nation turns its collars down. +The stately neck is manhood's manliest part; +It takes the life-blood freshest from the heart. +With short, curled ringlets close around it spread, +How light and strong it lifts the Grecian head! +Thine, fair Erechtheus of Minerva's wall; +Or thine, young athlete of the Louvre's hall, +Smooth as the pillar flashing in the sun +That filled the arena where thy wreaths were won, +Firm as the band that clasps the antlered spoil +Strained in the winding anaconda's coil +I spare the contrast; it were only kind +To be a little, nay, intensely blind. +Choose for yourself: I know it cuts your ear; +I know the points will sometimes interfere; +I know that often, like the filial John, +Whom sleep surprised with half his drapery on, +You show your features to the astonished town +With one side standing and the other down;-- +But, O, my friend! my favorite fellow-man! +If Nature made you on her modern plan, +Sooner than wander with your windpipe bare,-- +The fruit of Eden ripening in the air,-- +With that lean head-stalk, that protruding chin, +Wear standing collars, were they made of tin! +And have a neckcloth--by the throat of Jove!-- +Cut from the funnel of a rusty stove! + +The long-drawn lesson narrows to its close, +Chill, slender, slow, the dwindled current flows; +Tired of the ripples on its feeble springs, +Once more the Muse unfolds her upward wings. + +Land of my birth, with this unhallowed tongue, +Thy hopes, thy dangers, I perchance had sung; +But who shall sing, in brutal disregard +Of all the essentials of the "native bard"? +Lake, sea, shore, prairie, forest, mountain, fall, +His eye omnivorous must devour them all; +The tallest summits and the broadest tides +His foot must compass with its giant strides, +Where Ocean thunders, where Missouri rolls, +And tread at once the tropics and the poles; +His food all forms of earth, fire, water, air, +His home all space, his birthplace everywhere. + +Some grave compatriot, having seen perhaps +The pictured page that goes in Worcester's Maps, +And, read in earnest what was said in jest, +"Who drives fat oxen"--please to add the rest,-- +Sprung the odd notion that the poet's dreams +Grow in the ratio of his hills and streams; +And hence insisted that the aforesaid "bard," +Pink of the future, fancy's pattern-card, +The babe of nature in the "giant West," +Must be of course her biggest and her best. + +Oh! when at length the expected bard shall come, +Land of our pride, to strike thine echoes dumb, +(And many a voice exclaims in prose and rhyme, +It's getting late, and he's behind his time,) +When all thy mountains clap their hands in joy, +And all thy cataracts thunder, "That 's the boy,"-- +Say if with him the reign of song shall end, +And Heaven declare its final dividend! + +Becalm, dear brother! whose impassioned strain +Comes from an alley watered by a drain; +The little Mincio, dribbling to the Po, +Beats all the epics of the Hoang Ho; +If loved in earnest by the tuneful maid, +Don't mind their nonsense,--never be afraid! + +The nurse of poets feeds her winged brood +By common firesides, on familiar food; +In a low hamlet, by a narrow stream, +Where bovine rustics used to doze and dream, +She filled young William's fiery fancy full, +While old John Shakespeare talked of beeves and wool! + +No Alpine needle, with its climbing spire, +Brings down for mortals the Promethean fire, +If careless nature have forgot to frame +An altar worthy of the sacred flame. +Unblest by any save the goatherd's lines, +Mont Blanc rose soaring through his "sea of pines;" +In vain the rivers from their ice-caves flash; +No hymn salutes them but the Ranz des Vaches, +Till lazy Coleridge, by the morning's light, +Gazed for a moment on the fields of white, +And lo! the glaciers found at length a tongue, +Mont Blanc was vocal, and Chamouni sung! + +Children of wealth or want, to each is given +One spot of green, and all the blue of heaven! +Enough if these their outward shows impart; +The rest is thine,--the scenery of the heart. + +If passion's hectic in thy stanzas glow, +Thy heart's best life-blood ebbing as they flow; +If with thy verse thy strength and bloom distil, +Drained by the pulses of the fevered thrill; +If sound's sweet effluence polarize thy brain, +And thoughts turn crystals in thy fluid strain,-- +Nor rolling ocean, nor the prairie's bloom, +Nor streaming cliffs, nor rayless cavern's gloom, +Need'st thou, young poet, to inform thy line; +Thy own broad signet stamps thy song divine! +Let others gaze where silvery streams are rolled, +And chase the rainbow for its cup of gold; +To thee all landscapes wear a heavenly dye, +Changed in the glance of thy prismatic eye; +Nature evoked thee in sublimer throes, +For thee her inmost Arethusa flows,-- +The mighty mother's living depths are stirred,-- +Thou art the starred Osiris of the herd! + +A few brief lines; they touch on solemn chords, +And hearts may leap to hear their honest words; +Yet, ere the jarring bugle-blast is blown, +The softer lyre shall breathe its soothing tone. + +New England! proudly may thy children claim +Their honored birthright by its humblest name +Cold are thy skies, but, ever fresh and clear, +No rank malaria stains thine atmosphere; +No fungous weeds invade thy scanty soil, +Scarred by the ploughshares of unslumbering toil. +Long may the doctrines by thy sages taught, +Raised from the quarries where their sires have wrought, +Be like the granite of thy rock-ribbed land,-- +As slow to rear, as obdurate to stand; +And as the ice that leaves thy crystal mine +Chills the fierce alcohol in the Creole's wine, +So may the doctrines of thy sober school +Keep the hot theories of thy neighbors cool! + +If ever, trampling on her ancient path, +Cankered by treachery or inflamed by wrath, +With smooth "Resolves" or with discordant cries, +The mad Briareus of disunion rise, +Chiefs of New England! by your sires' renown, +Dash the red torches of the rebel down! +Flood his black hearthstone till its flames expire, +Though your old Sachem fanned his council-fire! + +But if at last, her fading cycle run, +The tongue must forfeit what the arm has won, +Then rise, wild Ocean! roll thy surging shock +Full on old Plymouth's desecrated rock! +Scale the proud shaft degenerate hands have hewn, +Where bleeding Valor stained the flowers of June! +Sweep in one tide her spires and turrets down, +And howl her dirge above Monadnock's crown! + +List not the tale; the Pilgrim's hallowed shore, +Though strewn with weeds, is granite at the core; +Oh, rather trust that He who made her free +Will keep her true as long as faith shall be! +Farewell! yet lingering through the destined hour, +Leave, sweet Enchantress, one memorial flower! + +An Angel, floating o'er the waste of snow +That clad our Western desert, long ago, +(The same fair spirit who, unseen by day, +Shone as a star along the Mayflower's way,)-- +Sent, the first herald of the Heavenly plan, +To choose on earth a resting-place for man,-- +Tired with his flight along the unvaried field, +Turned to soar upwards, when his glance revealed +A calm, bright bay enclosed in rocky bounds, +And at its entrance stood three sister mounds. + +The Angel spake: "This threefold hill shall be +The home of Arts, the nurse of Liberty! +One stately summit from its shaft shall pour +Its deep-red blaze along the darkened shore; +Emblem of thoughts that, kindling far and wide, +In danger's night shall be a nation's guide. +One swelling crest the citadel shall crown, +Its slanted bastions black with battle's frown, +And bid the sons that tread its scowling heights +Bare their strong arms for man and all his rights! +One silent steep along the northern wave +Shall hold the patriarch's and the hero's grave; +When fades the torch, when o'er the peaceful scene +The embattled fortress smiles in living green, +The cross of Faith, the anchor staff of Hope, +Shall stand eternal on its grassy slope; +There through all time shall faithful Memory tell, +'Here Virtue toiled, and Patriot Valor fell; +Thy free, proud fathers slumber at thy side; +Live as they lived, or perish as they died!'" + + + + + +AN AFTER-DINNER POEM + +(TERPSICHORE) + +Read at the Annual Dinner of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at +Cambridge, August 24, 1843. + +IN narrowest girdle, O reluctant Muse, +In closest frock and Cinderella shoes, +Bound to the foot-lights for thy brief display, +One zephyr step, and then dissolve away! + + . . . . . . . . . . + +Short is the space that gods and men can spare +To Song's twin brother when she is not there. +Let others water every lusty line, +As Homer's heroes did their purple wine; +Pierian revellers! Know in strains like these +The native juice, the real honest squeeze,--- +Strains that, diluted to the twentieth power, +In yon grave temple might have filled an hour. +Small room for Fancy's many-chorded lyre, +For Wit's bright rockets with their trains of fire, +For Pathos, struggling vainly to surprise +The iron tutor's tear-denying eyes, +For Mirth, whose finger with delusive wile +Turns the grim key of many a rusty smile, +For Satire, emptying his corrosive flood +On hissing Folly's gas-exhaling brood, +The pun, the fun, the moral, and the joke, +The hit, the thrust, the pugilistic poke,-- +Small space for these, so pressed by niggard Time, +Like that false matron, known to nursery rhyme,-- +Insidious Morey,--scarce her tale begun, +Ere listening infants weep the story done. + +Oh, had we room to rip the mighty bags +That Time, the harlequin, has stuffed with rags! +Grant us one moment to unloose the strings, +While the old graybeard shuts his leather wings. +But what a heap of motley trash appears +Crammed in the bundles of successive years! +As the lost rustic on some festal day +Stares through the concourse in its vast array,-- +Where in one cake a throng of faces runs, +All stuck together like a sheet of buns,-- +And throws the bait of some unheeded name, +Or shoots a wink with most uncertain aim, +So roams my vision, wandering over all, +And strives to choose, but knows not where to fall. + +Skins of flayed authors, husks of dead reviews, +The turn-coat's clothes, the office-seeker's shoes, +Scraps from cold feasts, where conversation runs +Through mouldy toasts to oxidated puns, +And grating songs a listening crowd endures, +Rasped from the throats of bellowing amateurs; +Sermons, whose writers played such dangerous tricks +Their own heresiarchs called them heretics, +(Strange that one term such distant poles should link, +The Priestleyan's copper and the Puseyan's zinc); +Poems that shuffle with superfluous legs +A blindfold minuet over addled eggs, +Where all the syllables that end in ed, +Like old dragoons, have cuts across the head; +Essays so dark Champollion might despair +To guess what mummy of a thought was there, +Where our poor English, striped with foreign phrase, +Looks like a zebra in a parson's chaise; +Lectures that cut our dinners down to roots, +Or prove (by monkeys) men should stick to fruits,-- +Delusive error, as at trifling charge +Professor Gripes will certify at large; +Mesmeric pamphlets, which to facts appeal, +Each fact as slippery as a fresh-caught eel; +And figured heads, whose hieroglyphs invite +To wandering knaves that discount fools at sight: +Such things as these, with heaps of unpaid bills, +And candy puffs and homoeopathic pills, +And ancient bell-crowns with contracted rim, +And bonnets hideous with expanded brim, +And coats whose memory turns the sartor pale, +Their sequels tapering like a lizard's tale,-- +How might we spread them to the smiling day, +And toss them, fluttering like the new-mown hay, +To laughter's light or sorrow's pitying shower, +Were these brief minutes lengthened to an hour. + +The narrow moments fit like Sunday shoes,-- +How vast the heap, how quickly must we choose! +A few small scraps from out his mountain mass +We snatch in haste, and let the vagrant pass. +This shrunken CRUST that Cerberus could not bite, +Stamped (in one corner) "Pickwick copyright," +Kneaded by youngsters, raised by flattery's yeast, +Was once a loaf, and helped to make a feast. +He for whose sake the glittering show appears +Has sown the world with laughter and with tears, +And they whose welcome wets the bumper's brim +Have wit and wisdom,--for they all quote him. +So, many a tongue the evening hour prolongs +With spangled speeches,--let alone the songs; +Statesmen grow merry, lean attorneys laugh, +And weak teetotals warm to half and half, +And beardless Tullys, new to festive scenes, +Cut their first crop of youth's precocious greens, +And wits stand ready for impromptu claps, +With loaded barrels and percussion caps, +And Pathos, cantering through the minor keys, +Waves all her onions to the trembling breeze; +While the great Feasted views with silent glee +His scattered limbs in Yankee fricassee. + +Sweet is the scene where genial friendship plays +The pleasing game of interchanging praise. +Self-love, grimalkin of the human heart, +Is ever pliant to the master's art; +Soothed with a word, she peacefully withdraws +And sheathes in velvet her obnoxious claws, +And thrills the hand that smooths her glossy fur +With the light tremor of her grateful purr. + +But what sad music fills the quiet hall, +If on her back a feline rival fall! +And oh, what noises shake the tranquil house +If old Self-interest cheats her of a mouse. + +Thou, O my country, hast thy foolish ways, +Too apt to purr at every stranger's praise; +But if the stranger touch thy modes or laws, +Off goes the velvet and out come the claws! +And thou, Illustrious! but too poorly paid +In toasts from Pickwick for thy great crusade, +Though, while the echoes labored with thy name, +The public trap denied thy little game, +Let other lips our jealous laws revile,-- +The marble Talfourd or the rude Carlyle,-- +But on thy lids, which Heaven forbids to close +Where'er the light of kindly nature glows, +Let not the dollars that a churl denies +Weigh like the shillings on a dead man's eyes! +Or, if thou wilt, be more discreetly blind, +Nor ask to see all wide extremes combined. +Not in our wastes the dainty blossoms smile +That crowd the gardens of thy scanty isle. +There white-cheeked Luxury weaves a thousand charms; +Here sun-browned Labor swings his naked arms. +Long are the furrows he must trace between +The ocean's azure and the prairie's green; +Full many a blank his destined realm displays, +Yet sees the promise of his riper days +Far through yon depths the panting engine moves, +His chariots ringing in their steel-shod grooves; +And Erie's naiad flings her diamond wave +O'er the wild sea-nymph in her distant cave! +While tasks like these employ his anxious hours, +What if his cornfields are not edged with flowers? +Though bright as silver the meridian beams +Shine through the crystal of thine English streams, +Turbid and dark the mighty wave is whirled +That drains our Andes and divides a world! + +But lo! a PARCHMENT! Surely it would seem +The sculptured impress speaks of power supreme; +Some grave design the solemn page must claim +That shows so broadly an emblazoned name. +A sovereign's promise! Look, the lines afford +All Honor gives when Caution asks his word: +There sacred Faith has laid her snow-white hands, +And awful Justice knit her iron bands; +Yet every leaf is stained with treachery's dye, +And every letter crusted with a lie. +Alas! no treason has degraded yet +The Arab's salt, the Indian's calumet; +A simple rite, that bears the wanderer's pledge, +Blunts the keen shaft and turns the dagger's edge; +While jockeying senates stop to sign and seal, +And freeborn statesmen legislate to steal. +Rise, Europe, tottering with thine Atlas load, +Turn thy proud eye to Freedom's blest abode, +And round her forehead, wreathed with heavenly flame, +Bind the dark garland of her daughter's shame! +Ye ocean clouds, that wrap the angry blast, +Coil her stained ensign round its haughty mast, +Or tear the fold that wears so foul a scar, +And drive a bolt through every blackened star! +Once more,--once only,--- we must stop so soon: +What have we here? A GERMAN-SILVER SPOON; +A cheap utensil, which we often see +Used by the dabblers in aesthetic tea, +Of slender fabric, somewhat light and thin, +Made of mixed metal, chiefly lead and tin; +The bowl is shallow, and the handle small, +Marked in large letters with the name JEAN PAUL. +Small as it is, its powers are passing strange, +For all who use it show a wondrous change; +And first, a fact to make the barbers stare, +It beats Macassar for the growth of hair. +See those small youngsters whose expansive ears +Maternal kindness grazed with frequent shears; +Each bristling crop a dangling mass becomes, +And all the spoonies turn to Absaloms +Nor this alone its magic power displays, +It alters strangely all their works and ways; +With uncouth words they tire their tender lungs, +The same bald phrases on their hundred tongues +"Ever" "The Ages" in their page appear, +"Alway" the bedlamite is called a "Seer;" +On every leaf the "earnest" sage may scan, +Portentous bore! their "many-sided" man,-- +A weak eclectic, groping vague and dim, +Whose every angle is a half-starved whim, +Blind as a mole and curious as a lynx, +Who rides a beetle, which he calls a "Sphinx." +And oh, what questions asked in clubfoot rhyme +Of Earth the tongueless and the deaf-mute Time! + +Here babbling "Insight" shouts in Nature's ears +His last conundrum on the orbs and spheres; +There Self-inspection sucks its little thumb, +With "Whence am I?" and "Wherefore did I come?" +Deluded infants! will they ever know +Some doubts must darken o'er the world below, +Though all the Platos of the nursery trail +Their "clouds of glory" at the go-cart's tail? +Oh might these couplets their attention claim +That gain their author the Philistine's name +(A stubborn race, that, spurning foreign law, +Was much belabored with an ass's jaw.) + +Melodious Laura! From the sad retreats +That hold thee, smothered with excess of sweets, +Shade of a shadow, spectre of a dream, +Glance thy wan eye across the Stygian stream! +The slipshod dreamer treads thy fragrant halls, +The sophist's cobwebs hang thy roseate walls, +And o'er the crotchets of thy jingling tunes +The bard of mystery scrawls his crooked "runes." +Yes, thou art gone, with all the tuneful hordes +That candied thoughts in amber-colored words, +And in the precincts of thy late abodes +The clattering verse-wright hammers Orphic odes. +Thou, soft as zephyr, wast content to fly +On the gilt pinions of a balmy sigh; +He, vast as Phoebus on his burning wheels, +Would stride through ether at Orion's heels. +Thy emblem, Laura, was a perfume-jar, +And thine, young Orpheus, is a pewter star. +The balance trembles,--be its verdict told +When the new jargon slumbers with the old! + + . . . . . . . . + +Cease, playful goddess! From thine airy bound +Drop like a feather softly to the ground; +This light bolero grows a ticklish dance, +And there is mischief in thy kindling glance. +To-morrow bids thee, with rebuking frown, +Change thy gauze tunic for a home-made gown, +Too blest by fortune if the passing day +Adorn thy bosom with its frail bouquet, +But oh, still happier if the next forgets +Thy daring steps and dangerous pirouettes! + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell +Holmes, Vol. 2, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY OF HOLMES, VOL. 2 *** + +***** This file should be named 7389.txt or 7389.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/7/3/8/7389/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c18c29 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #7389 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7389) diff --git a/old/ohp0210.txt b/old/ohp0210.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d97c835 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ohp0210.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2930 @@ +Project Gutenberg EBook The Poetical Works of O. W. Holmes, Volume 2. +Additional Poems (1837-1848) +#16 in our series by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + + +Title: The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Volume 2. + Additional Poems (1837-1848) + +Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +Release Date: January, 2005 [Etext #7389] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[Most recently updated: April 22, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY OF O. W. HOLMES, V2 *** + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] + + + + + + THE POETICAL WORKS + + OF + + OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + + + 1893 + (Printed in three volumes) + + + + +CONTENTS: + + THE PILGRIM'S VISION + THE STEAMBOAT + LEXINGTON + ON LENDING A PUNCH BOWL + A SONG FOR THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF HARVARD COLLEGE, + THE ISLAND HUNTING-SONG + DEPARTED DAYS + THE ONLY DAUGHTER + SONG WRITTEN FOR THE DINNER GIVEN TO CHARLES + DICKENS, BY THE YOUNG MEN OF BOSTON, FEBRUARY 1, 1842 + LINES RECITED AT THE BERKSHIRE JUBILEE + NUX POSTCOENATICA + VERSES FOR AFTER-DINNER + A MODEST REQUEST, COMPLIED WITH AFTER THE + DINNER AT PRESIDENT EVERETT'S INAUGURATION + THE PARTING WORD + A SONG OF OTHER DAYS + SONG FOR A TEMPERANCE DINNER TO WHICH LADIES WERE INVITED + (NEW YORK MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, NOVEMBER, 1842) + A SENTIMENT + A RHYMED LESSON (URANIA) + AN AFTER-DINNER POEM (TERPSICHORE) + + + + + + ADDITIONAL POEMS + + 1837-1848 + + + + THE PILGRIM'S VISION + +IN the hour of twilight shadows +The Pilgrim sire looked out; +He thought of the "bloudy Salvages " +That lurked all round about, +Of Wituwamet's pictured knife +And Pecksuot's whooping shout; +For the baby's limbs were feeble, +Though his father's arms were stout. + +His home was a freezing cabin, +Too bare for the hungry rat; +Its roof was thatched with ragged grass, +And bald enough of that; +The hole that served for casement +Was glazed with an ancient hat, +And the ice was gently thawing +From the log whereon he sat. + +Along the dreary landscape +His eyes went to and fro, + +The trees all clad in icicles, +The streams that did not flow; +A sudden thought flashed o'er him,-- +A dream of long ago,-- +He smote his leathern jerkin, +And murmured, "Even so!" + +"Come hither, God-be-Glorified, +And sit upon my knee; +Behold the dream unfolding, +Whereof I spake to thee +By the winter's hearth in Leyden +And on the stormy sea. +True is the dream's beginning,-- +So may its ending be! + +"I saw in the naked forest +Our scattered remnant cast, +A screen of shivering branches +Between them and the blast; +The snow was falling round them, +The dying fell as fast; +I looked to see them perish, +When lo, the vision passed. + +"Again mine eyes were opened;-- +The feeble had waxed strong, +The babes had grown to sturdy men, +The remnant was a throng; +By shadowed lake and winding stream, +And all the shores along, +The howling demons quaked to hear +The Christian's godly song. + +"They slept, the village fathers, +By river, lake, and shore, +When far adown the steep of Time +The vision rose once more +I saw along the winter snow +A spectral column pour, +And high above their broken ranks +A tattered flag they bore. + +"Their Leader rode before them, +Of bearing calm and high, +The light of Heaven's own kindling +Throned in his awful eye; +These were a Nation's champions +Her dread appeal to try. +God for the right! I faltered, +And lo, the train passed by. + +"Once more;--the strife is ended, +The solemn issue tried, +The Lord of Hosts, his mighty arm +Has helped our Israel's side; +Gray stone and grassy hillock +Tell where our martyrs died, +But peaceful smiles the harvest, +And stainless flows the tide. + +"A crash, as when some swollen cloud +Cracks o'er the tangled trees +With side to side, and spar to spar, +Whose smoking decks are these? +I know Saint George's blood-red cross, +Thou Mistress of the Seas, +But what is she whose streaming bars +Roll out before the breeze? + +"Ah, well her iron ribs are knit, +Whose thunders strive to quell +The bellowing throats, the blazing lips, +That pealed the Armada's knell! +The mist was cleared,--a wreath of stars +Rose o'er the crimsoned swell, +And, wavering from its haughty peak, +The cross of England fell + +"O trembling Faith! though dark the morn, +A heavenly torch is thine; +While feebler races melt away, +And paler orbs decline, +Still shall the fiery pillar's ray +Along thy pathway shine, +To light the chosen tribe that sought +This Western Palestine + +"I see the living tide roll on; +It crowns with flaming towers +The icy capes of Labrador, +The Spaniard's 'land of flowers'! +It streams beyond the splintered ridge +That parts the northern showers; +From eastern rock to sunset wave +The Continent is ours!" + +He ceased, the grim old soldier-saint, +Then softly bent to cheer +The Pilgrim-child, whose wasting face +Was meekly turned to hear; +And drew his toil-worn sleeve across +To brush the manly tear +From cheeks that never changed in woe, +And never blanched in fear. + +The weary Pilgrim slumbers, +His resting-place unknown; +His hands were crossed, his lips were closed, +The dust was o'er him strown; +The drifting soil, the mouldering leaf, +Along the sod were blown; +His mound has melted into earth, +His memory lives alone. + +So let it live unfading, +The memory of the dead, +Long as the pale anemone +Springs where their tears were shed, +Or, raining in the summer's wind +In flakes of burning red, +The wild rose sprinkles with its leaves +The turf where once they bled! + +Yea, when the frowning bulwarks +That guard this holy strand +Have sunk beneath the trampling surge +In beds of sparkling sand, +While in the waste of ocean +One hoary rock shall stand, +Be this its latest legend,-- +HERE WAS THE PILGRIM'S LAND! + + + + + +THE STEAMBOAT + +SEE how yon flaming herald treads +The ridged and rolling waves, +As, crashing o'er their crested heads, +She bows her surly slaves! +With foam before and fire behind, +She rends the clinging sea, +That flies before the roaring wind, +Beneath her hissing lee. + +The morning spray, like sea-born flowers, +With heaped and glistening bells, +Falls round her fast, in ringing showers, +With every wave that swells; +And, burning o'er the midnight deep, +In lurid fringes thrown, +The living gems of ocean sweep +Along her flashing zone. + +With clashing wheel and lifting keel, +And smoking torch on high, +When winds are loud and billows reel, +She thunders foaming by; +When seas are silent and serene, +With even beam she glides, +The sunshine glimmering through the green +That skirts her gleaming sides. + +Now, like a wild, nymph, far apart +She veils her shadowy form, +The beating of her restless heart +Still sounding through the storm; +Now answers, like a courtly dame, +The reddening surges o'er, +With flying scarf of spangled flame, +The Pharos of the shore. + +To-night yon pilot shall not sleep, +Who trims his narrowed sail; +To-night yon frigate scarce shall keep +Her broad breast to the gale; +And many a foresail, scooped and strained, +Shall break from yard and stay, +Before this smoky wreath has stained +The rising mist of day. + +Hark! hark! I hear yon whistling shroud, +I see yon quivering mast; +The black throat of the hunted cloud +Is panting forth the blast! +An hour, and, whirled like winnowing chaff, +The giant surge shall fling +His tresses o'er yon pennon staff, +White as the sea-bird's wing + +Yet rest, ye wanderers of the deep; +Nor wind nor wave shall tire +Those fleshless arms, whose pulses leap +With floods of living fire; +Sleep on, and, when the morning light +Streams o'er the shining bay, +Oh think of those for whom the night +Shall never wake in day + + + + + +LEXINGTON + +SLOWLY the mist o'er the meadow was creeping, +Bright on the dewy buds glistened the sun, +When from his couch, while his children were sleeping, +Rose the bold rebel and shouldered his gun. +Waving her golden veil +Over the silent dale, +Blithe looked the morning on cottage and spire; +Hushed was his parting sigh, +While from his noble eye +Flashed the last sparkle of liberty's fire. + +On the smooth green where the fresh leaf is springing +Calmly the first-born of glory have met; +Hark! the death-volley around them is ringing! +Look! with their life-blood the young grass is wet +Faint is the feeble breath, +Murmuring low in death, +"Tell to our sons how their fathers have died;" +Nerveless the iron hand, +Raised for its native land, +Lies by the weapon that gleams at its side. + +Over the hillsides the wild knell is tolling, +From their far hamlets the yeomanry come; +As through the storm-clouds the thunder-burst rolling, +Circles the beat of the mustering drum. +Fast on the soldier's path +Darken the waves of wrath,-- +Long have they gathered and loud shall they fall; +Red glares the musket's flash, +Sharp rings the rifle's crash, +Blazing and clanging from thicket and wall. + +Gayly the plume of the horseman was dancing, +Never to shadow his cold brow again; +Proudly at morning the war-steed was prancing, +Reeking and panting he droops on the rein; +Pale is the lip of scorn, +Voiceless the trumpet horn, +Torn is the silken-fringed red cross on high; +Many a belted breast +Low on the turf shall rest +Ere the dark hunters the herd have passed by. + +Snow-girdled crags where the hoarse wind is raving, +Rocks where the weary floods murmur and wail, +Wilds where the fern by the furrow is waving, +Reeled with the echoes that rode on the gale; +Far as the tempest thrills +Over the darkened hills, +Far as the sunshine streams over the plain, +Roused by the tyrant band, +Woke all the mighty land, +Girded for battle, from mountain to main. + +Green be the graves where her martyrs are lying! +Shroudless and tombless they sunk to their rest, +While o'er their ashes the starry fold flying +Wraps the proud eagle they roused from his nest. +Borne on her Northern pine, +Long o'er the foaming brine +Spread her broad banner to storm and to sun; +Heaven keep her ever free, +Wide as o'er land and sea +Floats the fair emblem her heroes have won + + + + + +ON LENDING A PUNCH-BOWL + +This "punch-bowl" was, according to old family tradition, a caudle-cup. +It is a massive piece of silver, its cherubs and other ornaments of +coarse repousse work, and has two handles like a loving-cup, by which +it was held, or passed from guest to guest. + +THIS ancient silver bowl of mine, it tells of good old times, +Of joyous days and jolly nights, and merry Christmas times; +They were a free and jovial race, but honest, brave, and true, +Who dipped their ladle in the punch when this old bowl was new. + +A Spanish galleon brought the bar,--so runs the ancient tale; +'T was hammered by an Antwerp smith, whose arm was like a flail; +And now and then between the strokes, for fear his strength should fail, +He wiped his brow and quaffed a cup of good old Flemish ale. + +'T was purchased by an English squire to please his loving dame, +Who saw the cherubs, and conceived a longing for the same; +And oft as on the ancient stock another twig was found, +'T was filled with candle spiced and hot, and handed smoking round. + +But, changing hands, it reached at length a Puritan divine, +Who used to follow Timothy, and take a little wine, +But hated punch and prelacy; and so it was, perhaps, +He went to Leyden, where he found conventicles and schnapps. + +And then, of course, you know what's next: it left the Dutchman's shore +With those that in the Mayflower came,--a hundred souls and more,-- +Along with all the furniture, to fill their new abodes,-- +To judge by what is still on hand, at least a hundred loads. + +'T was on a dreary winter's eve, the night was closing, dim, +When brave Miles Standish took the bowl, and filled it to the brim; +The little Captain stood and stirred the posset with his sword, +And all his sturdy men-at-arms were ranged about the board. + +He poured the fiery Hollands in,--the man that never feared,-- +He took a long and solemn draught, and wiped his yellow beard; +And one by one the musketeers--the men that fought and prayed-- +All drank as 't were their mother's milk, and not a man afraid. + +That night, affrighted from his nest, the screaming eagle flew, +He heard the Pequot's ringing whoop, the soldier's wild halloo; +And there the sachem learned the rule he taught to kith and kin, +Run from the white man when you find he smells of "Hollands gin!" + +A hundred years, and fifty more, had spread their leaves and snows, +A thousand rubs had flattened down each little cherub's nose, +When once again the bowl was filled, but not in mirth or joy,-- +'T was mingled by a mother's hand to cheer her parting boy. + +Drink, John, she said, 't will do you good,--poor child, +you'll never bear +This working in the dismal trench, out in the midnight air; +And if--God bless me!--you were hurt, 't would keep away the chill. +So John did drink,--and well he wrought that night at Bunker's Hill! + +I tell you, there was generous warmth in good old English cheer; +I tell you, 't was a pleasant thought to bring its symbol here. +'T is but the fool that loves excess; hast thou a drunken soul? +Thy bane is in thy shallow skull, not in my silver bowl! + +I love the memory of the past,--its pressed yet fragrant flowers,-- +The moss that clothes its broken walls, the ivy on its towers; +Nay, this poor bauble it bequeathed,--my eyes grow moist and dim, +To think of all the vanished joys that danced around its brim. + +Then fill a fair and honest cup, and bear it straight to me; +The goblet hallows all it holds, whate'er the liquid be; +And may the cherubs on its face protect me from the sin +That dooms one to those dreadful words,--"My dear, where HAVE you been?" + + + + + +A SONG + +FOR THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF HARVARD COLLEGE, 1836 + +This song, which I had the temerity to sing myself (/felix auda-cia/, +Mr. Franklin Dexter had the goodness to call it), was sent in a little +too late to be printed with the official account of the celebration. It +was written at the suggestion of Dr. Jacob Bigelow, who thought the +popular tune "The Poacher's Song" would be a good model for a lively +ballad or ditty. He himself wrote the admirable Latin song to be found +in the record of the meeting. + +WHEN the Puritans came over +Our hills and swamps to clear, +The woods were full of catamounts, +And Indians red as deer, +With tomahawks and scalping-knives, +That make folks' heads look queer; +Oh the ship from England used to bring +A hundred wigs a year! + +The crows came cawing through the air +To pluck the Pilgrims' corn, +The bears came snuffing round the door +Whene'er a babe was born, +The rattlesnakes were bigger round +Than the but of the old rams horn +The deacon blew at meeting time +On every "Sabbath" morn. + +But soon they knocked the wigwams down, +And pine-tree trunk and limb +Began to sprout among the leaves +In shape of steeples slim; +And out the little wharves were stretched +Along the ocean's rim, +And up the little school-house shot +To keep the boys in trim. + +And when at length the College rose, +The sachem cocked his eye +At every tutor's meagre ribs +Whose coat-tails whistled by +But when the Greek and Hebrew words +Came tumbling from his jaws, +The copper-colored children all +Ran screaming to the squaws. + +And who was on the Catalogue +When college was begun? +Two nephews of the President, +And the Professor's son; +(They turned a little Indian by, +As brown as any bun;) +Lord! how the seniors knocked about +The freshman class of one! + +They had not then the dainty things +That commons now afford, +But succotash and hominy +Were smoking on the board; +They did not rattle round in gigs, +Or dash in long-tailed blues, +But always on Commencement days +The tutors blacked their shoes. + +God bless the ancient Puritans! +Their lot was hard enough; +But honest hearts make iron arms, +And tender maids are tough; +So love and faith have formed and fed +Our true-born Yankee stuff, +And keep the kernel in the shell +The British found so rough! + + + + + +THE ISLAND HUNTING-SONG + +The island referred to is a domain of princely proportions, which has +long been the seat of a generous hospitality. Naushon is its old Indian +name. William Swain, Esq., commonly known as "the Governor," was the +proprietor of it at the time when this song was written. Mr. John M. +Forbes is his worthy successor in territorial rights and as a hospitable +entertainer. The Island Book has been the recipient of many poems from +visitors and friends of the owners of the old mansion. + +No more the summer floweret charms, +The leaves will soon be sere, +And Autumn folds his jewelled arms +Around the dying year; +So, ere the waning seasons claim +Our leafless groves awhile, +With golden wine and glowing flame +We 'll crown our lonely isle. + +Once more the merry voices sound +Within the antlered hall, +And long and loud the baying hounds +Return the hunter's call; +And through the woods, and o'er the hill, +And far along the bay, +The driver's horn is sounding shrill,-- +Up, sportsmen, and away! + +No bars of steel or walls of stone +Our little empire bound, +But, circling with his azure zone, +The sea runs foaming round; +The whitening wave, the purpled skies, +The blue and lifted shore, +Braid with their dim and blending dyes +Our wide horizon o'er. + +And who will leave the grave debate +That shakes the smoky town, +To rule amid our island-state, +And wear our oak-leaf crown? +And who will be awhile content +To hunt our woodland game, +And leave the vulgar pack that scent +The reeking track of fame? + +Ah, who that shares in toils like these +Will sigh not to prolong +Our days beneath the broad-leaved trees, +Our nights of mirth and song? +Then leave the dust of noisy streets, +Ye outlaws of the wood, +And follow through his green retreats +Your noble Robin Hood. + + + + + +DEPARTED DAYS + +YES, dear departed, cherished days, +Could Memory's hand restore +Your morning light, your evening rays, +From Time's gray urn once more, +Then might this restless heart be still, +This straining eye might close, +And Hope her fainting pinions fold, +While the fair phantoms rose. + +But, like a child in ocean's arms, +We strive against the stream, +Each moment farther from the shore +Where life's young fountains gleam; +Each moment fainter wave the fields, +And wider rolls the sea; +The mist grows dark,--the sun goes down,-- +Day breaks,--and where are we? + + + + + +THE ONLY DAUGHTER + +ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE + +THEY bid me strike the idle strings, +As if my summer days +Had shaken sunbeams from their wings +To warm my autumn lays; +They bring to me their painted urn, +As if it were not time +To lift my gauntlet and to spurn +The lists of boyish rhyme; +And were it not that I have still +Some weakness in my heart +That clings around my stronger will +And pleads for gentler art, +Perchance I had not turned away +The thoughts grown tame with toil, +To cheat this lone and pallid ray, +That wastes the midnight oil. + +Alas! with every year I feel +Some roses leave my brow; +Too young for wisdom's tardy seal, +Too old for garlands now. +Yet, while the dewy breath of spring +Steals o'er the tingling air, +And spreads and fans each emerald wing +The forest soon shall wear. +How bright the opening year would seem, +Had I one look like thine +To meet me when the morning beam +Unseals these lids of mine! +Too long I bear this lonely lot, +That bids my heart run wild +To press the lips that love me not, +To clasp the stranger's child. + +How oft beyond the dashing seas, +Amidst those royal bowers, +Where danced the lilacs in the breeze, +And swung the chestnut-flowers, +I wandered like a wearied slave +Whose morning task is done, +To watch the little hands that gave +Their whiteness to the sun; +To revel in the bright young eyes, +Whose lustre sparkled through +The sable fringe of Southern skies +Or gleamed in Saxon blue! +How oft I heard another's name +Called in some truant's tone; +Sweet accents! which I longed to claim, +To learn and lisp my own! + +Too soon the gentle hands, that pressed +The ringlets of the child, +Are folded on the faithful breast +Where first he breathed and smiled; +Too oft the clinging arms untwine, +The melting lips forget, +And darkness veils the bridal shrine +Where wreaths and torches met; +If Heaven but leaves a single thread +Of Hope's dissolving chain, +Even when her parting plumes are spread, +It bids them fold again; +The cradle rocks beside the tomb; +The cheek now changed and chill +Smiles on us in the morning bloom +Of one that loves us still. + +Sweet image! I have done thee wrong +To claim this destined lay; +The leaf that asked an idle song +Must bear my tears away. +Yet, in thy memory shouldst thou keep +This else forgotten strain, +Till years have taught thine eyes to weep, +And flattery's voice is vain; +Oh then, thou fledgling of the nest, +Like the long-wandering dove, +Thy weary heart may faint for rest, +As mine, on changeless love; +And while these sculptured lines retrace +The hours now dancing by, +This vision of thy girlish grace +May cost thee, too, a sigh. + + + + + +SONG + +WRITTEN FOR THE DINNER GIVEN TO CHARLES DICKENS +BY THE YOUNG MEN OF BOSTON, FEBRUARY 1, 1842 + +THE stars their early vigils keep, +The silent hours are near, +When drooping eyes forget to weep,-- +Yet still we linger here; +And what--the passing churl may ask-- +Can claim such wondrous power, +That Toil forgets his wonted task, +And Love his promised hour? + +The Irish harp no longer thrills, +Or breathes a fainter tone; +The clarion blast from Scotland's hills, +Alas! no more is blown; +And Passion's burning lip bewails +Her Harold's wasted fire, +Still lingering o'er the dust that veils +The Lord of England's lyre. + +But grieve not o'er its broken strings, +Nor think its soul hath died, +While yet the lark at heaven's gate sings, +As once o'er Avon's side; +While gentle summer sheds her bloom, +And dewy blossoms wave, +Alike o'er Juliet's storied tomb +And Nelly's nameless grave. + +Thou glorious island of the sea! +Though wide the wasting flood +That parts our distant land from thee, +We claim thy generous blood; +Nor o'er thy far horizon springs +One hallowed star of fame, +But kindles, like an angel's wings, +Our western skies in flame! + + + + + +LINES + +RECITED AT THE BERKSHIRE JUBILEE, +PITTSFIELD, MASS., AUGUST 23, 1844 + +COME back to your mother, ye children, for shame, +Who have wandered like truants for riches or fame! +With a smile on her face, and a sprig in her cap, +She calls you to feast from her bountiful lap. + +Come out from your alleys, your courts, and your lanes, +And breathe, like young eagles, the air of our plains; +Take a whiff from our fields, and your excellent wives +Will declare it 's all nonsense insuring your lives. + +Come you of the law, who can talk, if you please, +Till the man in the moon will allow it's a cheese, +And leave "the old lady, that never tells lies," +To sleep with her handkerchief over her eyes. + +Ye healers of men, for a moment decline +Your feats in the rhubarb and ipecac line; +While you shut up your turnpike, your neighbors can go +The old roundabout road to the regions below. + +You clerk, on whose ears are a couple of pens, +And whose head is an ant-hill of units and tens, +Though Plato denies you, we welcome you still +As a featherless biped, in spite of your quill. + +Poor drudge of the city! how happy he feels, +With the burs on his legs and the grass at his heels +No dodger behind, his bandannas to share, +No constable grumbling, "You must n't walk there!" + +In yonder green meadow, to memory dear, +He slaps a mosquito and brushes a tear; +The dew-drops hang round him on blossoms and shoots, +He breathes but one sigh for his youth and his boots. + +There stands the old school-house, hard by the old church; +That tree at its side had the flavor of birch; +Oh, sweet were the days of his juvenile tricks, +Though the prairie of youth had so many "big licks." + +By the side of yon river he weeps and he slumps, +The boots fill with water, as if they were pumps, +Till, sated with rapture, he steals to his bed, +With a glow in his heart and a cold in his head. + +'T is past,--he is dreaming,--I see him again; +The ledger returns as by legerdemain; +His neckcloth is damp with an easterly flaw, +And he holds in his fingers an omnibus straw. + +He dreams the chill gust is a blossomy gale, +That the straw is a rose from his dear native vale; +And murmurs, unconscious of space and of time, +"A 1. Extra super. Ah, is n't it PRIME!" + +Oh, what are the prizes we perish to win +To the first little "shiner" we caught with a pin! +No soil upon earth is so dear to our eyes +As the soil we first stirred in terrestrial pies! + +Then come from all parties and parts to our feast; +Though not at the "Astor," we'll give you at least +A bite at an apple, a seat on the grass, +And the best of old--water--at nothing a glass. + + + + + +NUX POSTCOENATICA + +I WAS sitting with my microscope, upon my parlor rug, +With a very heavy quarto and a very lively bug; +The true bug had been organized with only two antennae, +But the humbug in the copperplate would have them twice as many. + +And I thought, like Dr. Faustus, of the emptiness of art, +How we take a fragment for the whole, and call the whole a part, +When I heard a heavy footstep that was loud enough for two, +And a man of forty entered, exclaiming, "How d' ye do?" + +He was not a ghost, my visitor, but solid flesh and bone; +He wore a Palo Alto hat, his weight was twenty stone; +(It's odd how hats expand their brims as riper years invade, +As if when life had reached its noon it wanted them for shade!) + +I lost my focus,--dropped my book,--the bug, who was a flea, +At once exploded, and commenced experiments on me. +They have a certain heartiness that frequently appalls,-- +Those mediaeval gentlemen in semilunar smalls! + +"My boy," he said, (colloquial ways,--the vast, broad-hatted man,) +"Come dine with us on Thursday next,--you must, you know you can; +We're going to have a roaring time, with lots of fun and noise, +Distinguished guests, et cetera, the JUDGE, and all the boys." + +Not so,--I said,--my temporal bones are showing pretty clear. +It 's time to stop,--just look and see that hair above this ear; +My golden days are more than spent,--and, what is very strange, +If these are real silver hairs, I'm getting lots of change. + +Besides--my prospects--don't you know that people won't employ +A man that wrongs his manliness by laughing like a boy? +And suspect the azure blossom that unfolds upon a shoot, +As if wisdom's old potato could not flourish at its root? + +It's a very fine reflection, when you 're etching out a smile +On a copperplate of faces that would stretch at least a mile, +That, what with sneers from enemies and cheapening shrugs of friends, +It will cost you all the earnings that a month of labor lends! + +It's a vastly pleasing prospect, when you're screwing out a laugh, +That your very next year's income is diminished by a half, +And a little boy trips barefoot that Pegasus may go, +And the baby's milk is watered that your Helicon may flow! + +No;--the joke has been a good one,--but I'm getting fond of quiet, +And I don't like deviations from my customary diet; +So I think I will not go with you to hear the toasts and speeches, +But stick to old Montgomery Place, and have some pig and peaches. + +The fat man answered: Shut your mouth, and hear the genuine creed; +The true essentials of a feast are only fun and feed; +The force that wheels the planets round delights in spinning tops, +And that young earthquake t' other day was great at shaking props. + +I tell you what, philosopher, if all the longest heads +That ever knocked their sinciputs in stretching on their beds +Were round one great mahogany, I'd beat those fine old folks +With twenty dishes, twenty fools, and twenty clever jokes! + +Why, if Columbus should be there, the company would beg +He'd show that little trick of his of balancing the egg! +Milton to Stilton would give in, and Solomon to Salmon, +And Roger Bacon be a bore, and Francis Bacon gammon! + +And as for all the "patronage" of all the clowns and boors +That squint their little narrow eyes at any freak of yours, +Do leave them to your prosier friends,--such fellows ought to die +When rhubarb is so very scarce and ipecac so high! + +And so I come,--like Lochinvar, to tread a single measure,-- +To purchase with a loaf of bread a sugar-plum of pleasure, +To enter for the cup of glass that's run for after dinner, +Which yields a single sparkling draught, +then breaks and cuts the winner. + +Ah, that's the way delusion comes,--a glass of old Madeira, +A pair of visual diaphragms revolved by Jane or Sarah, +And down go vows and promises without the slightest question +If eating words won't compromise the organs of digestion! + +And yet, among my native shades, beside my nursing mother, +Where every stranger seems a friend, and every friend a brother, +I feel the old convivial glow (unaided) o'er me stealing,-- +The warm, champagny, the old-particular brandy-punchy feeling. + +We're all alike;--Vesuvius flings the scoriae from his fountain, +But down they come in volleying rain back to the burning mountain; +We leave, like those volcanic stones, our precious Alma Mater, +But will keep dropping in again to see the dear old crater. + + + + + +VERSES FOR AFTER-DINNER +PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY, 1844 + +I WAS thinking last night, as I sat in the cars, +With the charmingest prospect of cinders and stars, +Next Thursday is--bless me!--how hard it will be, +If that cannibal president calls upon me! + +There is nothing on earth that he will not devour, +From a tutor in seed to a freshman in flower; +No sage is too gray, and no youth is too green, +And you can't be too plump, though you're never too lean. + +While others enlarge on the boiled and the roast, +He serves a raw clergyman up with a toast, +Or catches some doctor, quite tender and young, +And basely insists on a bit of his tongue. + +Poor victim, prepared for his classical spit, +With a stuffing of praise and a basting of wit, +You may twitch at your collar and wrinkle your brow, +But you're up on your legs, and you're in for it now. + +Oh think of your friends,--they are waiting to hear +Those jokes that are thought so remarkably queer; +And all the Jack Horners of metrical buns +Are prying and fingering to pick out the puns. + +Those thoughts which, like chickens, will always thrive best +When reared by the heat of the natural nest, +Will perish if hatched from their embryo dream +In the mist and the glow of convivial steam. + +Oh pardon me, then, if I meekly retire, +With a very small flash of ethereal fire; +No rubbing will kindle your Lucifer match, +If the fiz does not follow the primitive scratch. + +Dear friends, who are listening so sweetly the while, +With your lips double--reefed in a snug little smile, +I leave you two fables, both drawn from the deep,-- +The shells you can drop, but the pearls you may keep. + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +The fish called the FLOUNDER, perhaps you may know, +Has one side for use and another for show; +One side for the public, a delicate brown, +And one that is white, which he always keeps down. + +A very young flounder, the flattest of flats, +(And they 're none of them thicker than opera hats,) +Was speaking more freely than charity taught +Of a friend and relation that just had been caught. + +"My! what an exposure! just see what a sight! +I blush for my race,--be is showing his white +Such spinning and wriggling,--why, what does he wish? +How painfully small to respectable fish!" + +Then said an Old SCULPIN,--"My freedom excuse, +You're playing the cobbler with holes in your shoes; +Your brown side is up,--but just wait till you're tried +And you'll find that all flounders are white on one side." + + . . . . . . . . . . + +There's a slice near the PICKEREL'S pectoral fins, +Where the thorax leaves off and the venter begins, +Which his brother, survivor of fish-hooks and lines, +Though fond of his family, never declines. + +He loves his relations; he feels they'll be missed; +But that one little tidbit he cannot resist; +So your bait may be swallowed, no matter how fast, +For you catch your next fish with a piece of the last. + +And thus, O survivor, whose merciless fate +Is to take the next hook with the president's bait, +You are lost while you snatch from the end of his line +The morsel he rent from this bosom of mine! + + + + + +A MODEST REQUEST + +COMPLIED WITH AFTER THE DINNER AT +PRESIDENT EVERETT'S INAUGURATION + +SCENE,--a back parlor in a certain square, +Or court, or lane,--in short, no matter where; +Time,--early morning, dear to simple souls +Who love its sunshine and its fresh-baked rolls; +Persons,--take pity on this telltale blush, +That, like the AEthiop, whispers, "Hush, oh hush!" + +Delightful scene! where smiling comfort broods, +Nor business frets, nor anxious care intrudes; +/O si sic omnia/ I were it ever so! +But what is stable in this world below? +/Medio e fonte/,--Virtue has her faults,-- +The clearest fountains taste of Epsom salts; +We snatch the cup and lift to drain it dry,-- +Its central dimple holds a drowning fly +Strong is the pine by Maine's ambrosial streams, +But stronger augers pierce its thickest beams; +No iron gate, no spiked and panelled door, +Can keep out death, the postman, or the bore. +Oh for a world where peace and silence reign, +And blunted dulness terebrates in vain! +--The door-bell jingles,--enter Richard Fox, +And takes this letter from his leathern box. + +"Dear Sir,-- + In writing on a former day, +One little matter I forgot to say; +I now inform you in a single line, +On Thursday next our purpose is to dine. +The act of feeding, as you understand, +Is but a fraction of the work in hand; +Its nobler half is that ethereal meat +The papers call 'the intellectual treat;' +Songs, speeches, toasts, around the festive board +Drowned in the juice the College pumps afford; +For only water flanks our knives and forks, +So, sink or float, we swim without the corks. +Yours is the art, by native genius taught, +To clothe in eloquence the naked thought; +Yours is the skill its music to prolong +Through the sweet effluence of mellifluous song; +Yours the quaint trick to cram the pithy line +That cracks so crisply over bubbling wine; +And since success your various gifts attends, +We--that is, I and all your numerous friends-- +Expect from you--your single self a host-- +A speech, a song, excuse me, and a toast; +Nay, not to haggle on so small a claim, +A few of each, or several of the same. +(Signed), Yours, most truly, ________ + + No! my sight must fail,-- +If that ain't Judas on the largest scale! +Well, this is modest;--nothing else than that? +My coat? my boots? my pantaloons? my hat? +My stick? my gloves? as well as all my wits, +Learning and linen,--everything that fits! + +Jack, said my lady, is it grog you'll try, +Or punch, or toddy, if perhaps you're dry? +Ah, said the sailor, though I can't refuse, +You know, my lady, 't ain't for me to choose; +I'll take the grog to finish off my lunch, +And drink the toddy while you mix the punch. + + . . . . . . . . + +THE SPEECH. (The speaker, rising to be seen, +Looks very red, because so very green.) +I rise--I rise--with unaffected fear, +(Louder!--speak louder!--who the deuce can hear?) +I rise--I said--with undisguised dismay-- +--Such are my feelings as I rise, I say +Quite unprepared to face this learned throng, +Already gorged with eloquence and song; +Around my view are ranged on either hand +The genius, wisdom, virtue of the land; +"Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed" +Close at my elbow stir their lemonade; +Would you like Homer learn to write and speak, +That bench is groaning with its weight of Greek; +Behold the naturalist who in his teens +Found six new species in a dish of greens; +And lo, the master in a statelier walk, +Whose annual ciphering takes a ton of chalk; +And there the linguist, who by common roots +Thro' all their nurseries tracks old Noah's shoots,-- +How Shem's proud children reared the Assyrian piles, +While Ham's were scattered through the Sandwich Isles! + +--Fired at the thought of all the present shows, +My kindling fancy down the future flows: +I see the glory of the coming days +O'er Time's horizon shoot its streaming rays; +Near and more near the radiant morning draws +In living lustre (rapturous applause); +From east to west the blazing heralds run, +Loosed from the chariot of the ascending sun, +Through the long vista of uncounted years +In cloudless splendor (three tremendous cheers). +My eye prophetic, as the depths unfold, +Sees a new advent of the age of gold; +While o'er the scene new generations press, +New heroes rise the coming time to bless,-- +Not such as Homer's, who, we read in Pope, +Dined without forks and never heard of soap,-- +Not such as May to Marlborough Chapel brings, +Lean, hungry, savage, anti-everythings, +Copies of Luther in the pasteboard style,-- +But genuine articles, the true Carlyle; +While far on high the blazing orb shall shed +Its central light on Harvard's holy head, +And learning's ensigns ever float unfurled +Here in the focus of the new-born world +The speaker stops, and, trampling down the pause, +Roars through the hall the thunder of applause, +One stormy gust of long-suspended Ahs! +One whirlwind chaos of insane hurrahs! + + . . . . . . . . + +THE SONG. But this demands a briefer line,-- +A shorter muse, and not the old long Nine; +Long metre answers for a common song, +Though common metre does not answer long. + +She came beneath the forest dome +To seek its peaceful shade, +An exile from her ancient home, +A poor, forsaken maid; +No banner, flaunting high above, +No blazoned cross, she bore; +One holy book of light and love +Was all her worldly store. + +The dark brown shadows passed away, +And wider spread the green, +And where the savage used to stray +The rising mart was seen; +So, when the laden winds had brought +Their showers of golden rain, +Her lap some precious gleanings caught, +Like Ruth's amid the grain. + +But wrath soon gathered uncontrolled +Among the baser churls, +To see her ankles red with gold, +Her forehead white with pearls. +"Who gave to thee the glittering bands +That lace thine azure veins? +Who bade thee lift those snow-white hands +We bound in gilded chains?" + +"These are the gems my children gave," +The stately dame replied; +"The wise, the gentle, and the brave, +I nurtured at my side. +If envy still your bosom stings, +Take back their rims of gold; +My sons will melt their wedding-rings, +And give a hundred-fold!" + + . . . . . . . . + +THE TOAST. Oh tell me, ye who thoughtless ask +Exhausted nature for a threefold task, +In wit or pathos if one share remains, +A safe investment for an ounce of brains! +Hard is the job to launch the desperate pun, +A pun-job dangerous as the Indian one. +Turned by the current of some stronger wit +Back from the object that you mean to hit, +Like the strange missile which the Australian throws, +Your verbal boomerang slaps you on the nose. +One vague inflection spoils the whole with doubt, +One trivial letter ruins all, left out; +A knot can choke a felon into clay, +A not will save him, spelt without the k; +The smallest word has some unguarded spot, +And danger lurks in i without a dot. + +Thus great Achilles, who had shown his zeal +In healing wounds, died of a wounded heel; +Unhappy chief, who, when in childhood doused, +Had saved his bacon had his feet been soused +Accursed heel that killed a hero stout +Oh, had your mother known that you were out, +Death had not entered at the trifling part +That still defies the small chirurgeon's art +With corns and bunions,--not the glorious John, +Who wrote the book we all have pondered on, +But other bunions, bound in fleecy hose, +To "Pilgrim's Progress" unrelenting foes! + + . . . . . . . . + +A HEALTH, unmingled with the reveller's wine, +To him whose title is indeed divine; +Truth's sleepless watchman on her midnight tower, +Whose lamp burns brightest when the tempests lower. +Oh, who can tell with what a leaden flight +Drag the long watches of his weary night, +While at his feet the hoarse and blinding gale +Strews the torn wreck and bursts the fragile sail, +When stars have faded, when the wave is dark, +When rocks and sands embrace the foundering bark! +But still he pleads with unavailing cry, +Behold the light, O wanderer, look or die! + +A health, fair Themis! Would the enchanted vine +Wreathed its green tendrils round this cup of thine! +If Learning's radiance fill thy modern court, +Its glorious sunshine streams through Blackstone's port + +Lawyers are thirsty, and their clients too, +Witness at least, if memory serve me true, +Those old tribunals, famed for dusty suits, +Where men sought justice ere they brushed their boots; +And what can match, to solve a learned doubt, +The warmth within that comes from "cold with-out "? + +Health to the art whose glory is to give +The crowning boon that makes it life to live. +Ask not her home;--the rock where nature flings +Her arctic lichen, last of living things; +The gardens, fragrant with the orient's balm, +From the low jasmine to the star-like palm, +Hail her as mistress o'er the distant waves, +And yield their tribute to her wandering slaves. +Wherever, moistening the ungrateful soil, +The tear of suffering tracks the path of toil, +There, in the anguish of his fevered hours, +Her gracious finger points to healing flowers; +Where the lost felon steals away to die, +Her soft hand waves before his closing eye; +Where hunted misery finds his darkest lair, +The midnight taper shows her kneeling there! +VIRTUE,--the guide that men and nations own; +And LAW,--the bulwark that protects her throne; +And HEALTH,--to all its happiest charm that lends; +These and their servants, man's untiring friends +Pour the bright lymph that Heaven itself lets fall, +In one fair bumper let us toast them all! + + + + + +THE PARTING WORD + +I MUST leave thee, lady sweet +Months shall waste before we meet; +Winds are fair and sails are spread, +Anchors leave their ocean bed; +Ere this shining day grow dark, +Skies shall gird my shoreless bark. +Through thy tears, O lady mine, +Read thy lover's parting line. + +When the first sad sun shall set, +Thou shalt tear thy locks of jet; +When the morning star shall rise, +Thou shalt wake with weeping eyes; +When the second sun goes down, +Thou more tranquil shalt be grown, +Taught too well that wild despair +Dims thine eyes and spoils thy hair. + +All the first unquiet week +Thou shalt wear a smileless cheek; +In the first month's second half +Thou shalt once attempt to laugh; +Then in Pickwick thou shalt dip, +Slightly puckering round the lip, +Till at last, in sorrow's spite, +Samuel makes thee laugh outright. + +While the first seven mornings last, +Round thy chamber bolted fast +Many a youth shall fume and pout, +"Hang the girl, she's always out!" +While the second week goes round, +Vainly shall they ring and pound; +When the third week shall begin, +"Martha, let the creature in." + +Now once more the flattering throng +Round thee flock with smile and song, +But thy lips, unweaned as yet, +Lisp, "Oh, how can I forget!" +Men and devils both contrive +Traps for catching girls alive; +Eve was duped, and Helen kissed,-- +How, oh how can you resist? + +First be careful of your fan, +Trust it not to youth or man; +Love has filled a pirate's sail +Often with its perfumed gale. +Mind your kerchief most of all, +Fingers touch when kerchiefs fall; +Shorter ell than mercers clip +Is the space from hand to lip. + +Trust not such as talk in tropes, +Full of pistols, daggers, ropes; +All the hemp that Russia bears +Scarce would answer lovers' prayers; +Never thread was spun so fine, +Never spider stretched the line, +Would not hold the lovers true +That would really swing for you. + +Fiercely some shall storm and swear, +Beating breasts in black despair; +Others murmur with a sigh, +You must melt, or they will die: +Painted words on empty lies, +Grubs with wings like butterflies; +Let them die, and welcome, too; +Pray what better could they do? + +Fare thee well: if years efface +From thy heart love's burning trace, +Keep, oh keep that hallowed seat +From the tread of vulgar feet; +If the blue lips of the sea +Wait with icy kiss for me, +Let not thine forget the vow, +Sealed how often, Love, as now. + + + + + +A SONG OF OTHER DAYS + +As o'er the glacier's frozen sheet +Breathes soft the Alpine rose, +So through life's desert springing sweet +The flower of friendship grows; +And as where'er the roses grow +Some rain or dew descends, +'T is nature's law that wine should flow +To wet the lips of friends. +Then once again, before we part, +My empty glass shall ring; +And he that has the warmest heart +Shall loudest laugh and sing. + +They say we were not born to eat; +But gray-haired sages think +It means, Be moderate in your meat, +And partly live to drink. +For baser tribes the rivers flow +That know not wine or song; +Man wants but little drink below, +But wants that little strong. +Then once again, etc. + +If one bright drop is like the gem +That decks a monarch's crown, +One goblet holds a diadem +Of rubies melted down! +A fig for Caesar's blazing brow, +But, like the Egyptian queen, +Bid each dissolving jewel glow +My thirsty lips between. +Then once again, etc. + +The Grecian's mound, the Roman's urn, +Are silent when we call, +Yet still the purple grapes return +To cluster on the wall; +It was a bright Immortal's head +They circled with the vine, +And o'er their best and bravest dead +They poured the dark-red wine. +Then once again, etc. + +Methinks o'er every sparkling glass +Young Eros waves his wings, +And echoes o'er its dimples pass +From dead Anacreon's strings; +And, tossing round its beaded brim +Their locks of floating gold, +With bacchant dance and choral hymn +Return the nymphs of old. +Then once again, etc. + +A welcome then to joy and mirth, +From hearts as fresh as ours, +To scatter o'er the dust of earth +Their sweetly mingled flowers; +'T is Wisdom's self the cup that fills +In spite of Folly's frown, +And Nature, from her vine-clad hills, +That rains her life-blood down! +Then once again, before we part, +My empty glass shall ring; +And he that has the warmest heart +Shall loudest laugh and sing. + + + + + +SONG + +FOR A TEMPERANCE DINNER TO WHICH LADIES WERE +INVITED (NEW YORK MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, +NOVEMBER, 1842) + +A HEALTH to dear woman! She bids us untwine, +From the cup it encircles, the fast-clinging vine; +But her cheek in its crystal with pleasure will glow, +And mirror its bloom in the bright wave below. + +A health to sweet woman! The days are no more +When she watched for her lord till the revel was o'er, +And smoothed the white pillow, and blushed when he came, +As she pressed her cold lips on his forehead of flame. + +Alas for the loved one! too spotless and fair +The joys of his banquet to chasten and share; +Her eye lost its light that his goblet might shine, +And the rose of her cheek was dissolved in his wine. + +Joy smiles in the fountain, health flows in the rills, +As their ribbons of silver unwind from the hills; +They breathe not the mist of the bacchanal's dream, +But the lilies of innocence float on their stream. + +Then a health and a welcome to woman once more! +She brings us a passport that laughs at our door; +It is written on crimson,--its letters are pearls,-- +It is countersigned Nature.--So, room for the Girls! + + + + + +A SENTIMENT + +THE pledge of Friendship! it is still divine, +Though watery floods have quenched its burning wine; +Whatever vase the sacred drops may hold, +The gourd, the shell, the cup of beaten gold, +Around its brim the hand of Nature throws +A garland sweeter than the banquet's rose. +Bright are the blushes of the vine-wreathed bowl, +Warm with the sunshine of Anacreon's soul, +But dearer memories gild the tasteless wave +That fainting Sidney perished as he gave. +'T is the heart's current lends the cup its glow, +Whate'er the fountain whence the draught may flow,-- +The diamond dew-drops sparkling through the sand, +Scooped by the Arab in his sunburnt hand, +Or the dark streamlet oozing from the snow, +Where creep and crouch the shuddering Esquimaux; +Ay, in the stream that, ere again we meet, +Shall burst the pavement, glistening at our feet, +And, stealing silent from its leafy hills, +Thread all our alleys with its thousand rills,-- +In each pale draught if generous feeling blend, +And o'er the goblet friend shall smile on friend, +Even cold Cochituate every heart shall warm, +And genial Nature still defy reform! + + + + + +A RHYMED LESSON(URANIA) + +This poem was delivered before the Boston Mercantile Library +Association, October 14, 1846. + +YES, dear Enchantress,--wandering far and long, +In realms unperfumed by the breath of song, +Where flowers ill-flavored shed their sweets around, +And bitterest roots invade the ungenial ground, +Whose gems are crystals from the Epsom mine, +Whose vineyards flow with antimonial wine, +Whose gates admit no mirthful feature in, +Save one gaunt mocker, the Sardonic grin, +Whose pangs are real, not the woes of rhyme +That blue-eyed misses warble out of time;-- +Truant, not recreant to thy sacred claim, +Older by reckoning, but in heart the same, +Freed for a moment from the chains of toil, +I tread once more thy consecrated soil; +Here at thy feet my old allegiance own, +Thy subject still, and loyal to thy throne! + +My dazzled glance explores the crowded hall; +Alas, how vain to hope the smiles of all! +I know my audience. All the gay and young +Love the light antics of a playful tongue; +And these, remembering some expansive line +My lips let loose among the nuts and wine, +Are all impatience till the opening pun +Proclaims the witty shamfight is begun. +Two fifths at least, if not the total half, +Have come infuriate for an earthquake laugh; +I know full well what alderman has tied +His red bandanna tight about his side; +I see the mother, who, aware that boys +Perform their laughter with superfluous noise, +Beside her kerchief brought an extra one +To stop the explosions of her bursting son; +I know a tailor, once a friend of mine, +Expects great doings in the button line,-- +For mirth's concussions rip the outward case, +And plant the stitches in a tenderer place. +I know my audience,--these shall have their due; +A smile awaits them ere my song is through! + +I know myself. Not servile for applause, +My Muse permits no deprecating clause; +Modest or vain, she will not be denied +One bold confession due to honest pride; +And well she knows the drooping veil of song +Shall save her boldness from the caviller's wrong. +Her sweeter voice the Heavenly Maid imparts +To tell the secrets of our aching hearts +For this, a suppliant, captive, prostrate, bound, +She kneels imploring at the feet of sound; +For this, convulsed in thought's maternal pains, +She loads her arms with rhyme's resounding chains; +Faint though the music of her fetters be, +It lends one charm,--her lips are ever free! + +Think not I come, in manhood's fiery noon, +To steal his laurels from the stage buffoon; +His sword of lath the harlequin may wield; +Behold the star upon my lifted shield +Though the just critic pass my humble name, +And sweeter lips have drained the cup of fame, +While my gay stanza pleased the banquet's lords, +The soul within was tuned to deeper chords! +Say, shall my arms, in other conflicts taught +To swing aloft the ponderous mace of thought, +Lift, in obedience to a school-girl's law, +Mirth's tinsel wand or laughter's tickling straw? +Say, shall I wound with satire's rankling spear +The pure, warm hearts that bid me welcome here? +No! while I wander through the land of dreams, +To strive with great and play with trifling themes, +Let some kind meaning fill the varied line. +You have your judgment; will you trust to mine? + + . . . . . . . . . . + +Between two breaths what crowded mysteries lie,-- +The first short gasp, the last and long-drawn sigh! +Like phantoms painted on the magic slide, +Forth from the darkness of the past we glide, +As living shadows for a moment seen +In airy pageant on the eternal screen, +Traced by a ray from one unchanging flame, +Then seek the dust and stillness whence we came. + +But whence and why, our trembling souls inquire, +Caught these dim visions their awakening fire? +Oh, who forgets when first the piercing thought +Through childhood's musings found its way unsought? +I AM;--I LIVE. The mystery and the fear +When the dread question, WHAT HAS BROUGHT ME HERE? +Burst through life's twilight, as before the sun +Roll the deep thunders of the morning gun! + +Are angel faces, silent and serene, +Bent on the conflicts of this little scene, +Whose dream-like efforts, whose unreal strife, +Are but the preludes to a larger life? + +Or does life's summer see the end of all, +These leaves of being mouldering as they fall, +As the old poet vaguely used to deem, +As WESLEY questioned in his youthful dream? +Oh, could such mockery reach our souls indeed, +Give back the Pharaohs' or the Athenian's creed; +Better than this a Heaven of man's device,-- +The Indian's sports, the Moslem's paradise! + +Or is our being's only end and aim +To add new glories to our Maker's name, +As the poor insect, shrivelling in the blaze, +Lends a faint sparkle to its streaming rays? +Does earth send upward to the Eternal's ear +The mingled discords of her jarring sphere +To swell his anthem, while creation rings +With notes of anguish from its shattered strings? +Is it for this the immortal Artist means +These conscious, throbbing, agonized machines? + +Dark is the soul whose sullen creed can bind +In chains like these the all-embracing Mind; +No! two-faced bigot, thou dost ill reprove +The sensual, selfish, yet benignant Jove, +And praise a tyrant throned in lonely pride, +Who loves himself, and cares for naught beside; +Who gave thee, summoned from primeval night, +A thousand laws, and not a single right,-- +A heart to feel, and quivering nerves to thrill, +The sense of wrong, the death-defying will; +Who girt thy senses with this goodly frame, +Its earthly glories and its orbs of flame, +Not for thyself, unworthy of a thought, +Poor helpless victim of a life unsought, +But all for him, unchanging and supreme, +The heartless centre of thy frozen scheme + +Trust not the teacher with his lying scroll, +Who tears the charter of thy shuddering soul; +The God of love, who gave the breath that warms +All living dust in all its varied forms, +Asks not the tribute of a world like this +To fill the measure of his perfect bliss. +Though winged with life through all its radiant shores, +Creation flowed with unexhausted stores +Cherub and seraph had not yet enjoyed; +For this he called thee from the quickening void! +Nor this alone; a larger gift was thine, +A mightier purpose swelled his vast design +Thought,--conscience,--will,--to make them all thine own, +He rent a pillar from the eternal throne! + +Made in his image, thou must nobly dare +The thorny crown of sovereignty to share. +With eye uplifted, it is thine to view, +From thine own centre, Heaven's o'erarching blue; +So round thy heart a beaming circle lies +No fiend can blot, no hypocrite disguise; +From all its orbs one cheering voice is heard, +Full to thine ear it bears the Father's word, +Now, as in Eden where his first-born trod +"Seek thine own welfare, true to man and God!" +Think not too meanly of thy low estate; +Thou hast a choice; to choose is to create! +Remember whose the sacred lips that tell, +Angels approve thee when thy choice is well; +Remember, One, a judge of righteous men, +Swore to spare Sodom if she held but ten! +Use well the freedom which thy Master gave, +(Think'st thou that Heaven can tolerate a slave?) +And He who made thee to be just and true +Will bless thee, love thee,--ay, respect thee too! + +Nature has placed thee on a changeful tide, +To breast its waves, but not without a guide; +Yet, as the needle will forget its aim, +Jarred by the fury of the electric flame, +As the true current it will falsely feel, +Warped from its axis by a freight of steel; +So will thy CONSCIENCE lose its balanced truth +If passion's lightning fall upon thy youth, +So the pure effluence quit its sacred hold +Girt round too deeply with magnetic gold. +Go to yon tower, where busy science plies +Her vast antennae, feeling through the skies +That little vernier on whose slender lines +The midnight taper trembles as it shines, +A silent index, tracks the planets' march +In all their wanderings through the ethereal arch; +Tells through the mist where dazzled Mercury burns, +And marks the spot where Uranus returns. +So, till by wrong or negligence effaced, +The living index which thy Maker traced +Repeats the line each starry Virtue draws +Through the wide circuit of creation's laws; +Still tracks unchanged the everlasting ray +Where the dark shadows of temptation stray, +But, once defaced, forgets the orbs of light, +And leaves thee wandering o'er the expanse of night. + +"What is thy creed?" a hundred lips inquire; +"Thou seekest God beneath what Christian spire?" +Nor ask they idly, for uncounted lies +Float upward on the smoke of sacrifice; +When man's first incense rose above the plain, +Of earth's two altars one was built by Cain! +Uncursed by doubt, our earliest creed we take; +We love the precepts for the teacher's sake; +The simple lessons which the nursery taught +Fell soft and stainless on the buds of thought, +And the full blossom owes its fairest hue +To those sweet tear-drops of affection's dew. +Too oft the light that led our earlier hours +Fades with the perfume of our cradle flowers; +The clear, cold question chills to frozen doubt; +Tired of beliefs, we dread to live without +Oh then, if Reason waver at thy side, +Let humbler Memory be thy gentle guide; +Go to thy birthplace, and, if faith was there, +Repeat thy father's creed, thy mother's prayer! + +Faith loves to lean on Time's destroying arm, +And age, like distance, lends a double charm; +In dim cathedrals, dark with vaulted gloom, +What holy awe invests the saintly tomb! +There pride will bow, and anxious care expand, +And creeping avarice come with open hand; +The gay can weep, the impious can adore, +From morn's first glimmerings on the chancel floor +Till dying sunset sheds his crimson stains +Through the faint halos of the irised panes. +Yet there are graves, whose rudely-shapen sod +Bears the fresh footprints where the sexton trod; +Graves where the verdure has not dared to shoot, +Where the chance wild-flower has not fixed its root, +Whose slumbering tenants, dead without a name, +The eternal record shall at length proclaim +Pure as the holiest in the long array +Of hooded, mitred, or tiaraed clay! + +Come, seek the air; some pictures we may gain +Whose passing shadows shall not be in vain; +Not from the scenes that crowd the stranger's soil, +Not from our own amidst the stir of toil, +But when the Sabbath brings its kind release, +And Care lies slumbering on the lap of Peace. + +The air is hushed, the street is holy ground; +Hark! The sweet bells renew their welcome sound +As one by one awakes each silent tongue, +It tells the turret whence its voice is flung. +The Chapel, last of sublunary things +That stirs our echoes with the name of Kings, +Whose bell, just glistening from the font and forge, +Rolled its proud requiem for the second George, +Solemn and swelling, as of old it rang, +Flings to the wind its deep, sonorous clang; +The simpler pile, that, mindful of the hour +When Howe's artillery shook its half-built tower, +Wears on its bosom, as a bride might do, +The iron breastpin which the "Rebels" threw, +Wakes the sharp echoes with the quivering thrill +Of keen vibrations, tremulous and shrill; +Aloft, suspended in the morning's fire, +Crash the vast cymbals from the Southern spire; +The Giant, standing by the elm-clad green, +His white lance lifted o'er the silent scene, +Whirling in air his brazen goblet round, +Swings from its brim the swollen floods of sound; +While, sad with memories of the olden time, +Throbs from his tower the Northern Minstrel's chime,-- +Faint, single tones, that spell their ancient song, +But tears still follow as they breathe along. + +Child of the soil, whom fortune sends to range +Where man and nature, faith and customs change, +Borne in thy memory, each familiar tone +Mourns on the winds that sigh in every zone. +When Ceylon sweeps thee with her perfumed breeze +Through the warm billows of the Indian seas; +When--ship and shadow blended both in one-- +Flames o'er thy mast the equatorial sun, +From sparkling midnight to refulgent noon +Thy canvas swelling with the still monsoon; +When through thy shrouds the wild tornado sings, +And thy poor sea-bird folds her tattered wings,-- +Oft will delusion o'er thy senses steal, +And airy echoes ring the Sabbath peal +Then, dim with grateful tears, in long array +Rise the fair town, the island-studded bay, +Home, with its smiling board, its cheering fire, +The half-choked welcome of the expecting sire, +The mother's kiss, and, still if aught remain, +Our whispering hearts shall aid the silent strain. +Ah, let the dreamer o'er the taffrail lean +To muse unheeded, and to weep unseen; +Fear not the tropic's dews, the evening's chills, +His heart lies warm among his triple hills! + +Turned from her path by this deceitful gleam, +My wayward fancy half forgets her theme. +See through the streets that slumbered in repose +The living current of devotion flows, +Its varied forms in one harmonious band +Age leading childhood by its dimpled hand; +Want, in the robe whose faded edges fall +To tell of rags beneath the tartan shawl; +And wealth, in silks that, fluttering to appear, +Lift the deep borders of the proud cashmere. +See, but glance briefly, sorrow-worn and pale, +Those sunken cheeks beneath the widow's veil; +Alone she wanders where with HIM she trod, +No arm to stay her, but she leans on God. +While other doublets deviate here and there, +What secret handcuff binds that pretty pair? +Compactest couple! pressing side to side,-- +Ah, the white bonnet that reveals the bride! +By the white neckcloth, with its straitened tie, +The sober hat, the Sabbath-speaking eye, +Severe and smileless, he that runs may read +The stern disciple of Geneva's creed +Decent and slow, behold his solemn march; +Silent he enters through yon crowded arch. +A livelier bearing of the outward man, +The light-hued gloves, the undevout rattan, +Now smartly raised or half profanely twirled,-- +A bright, fresh twinkle from the week-day world,-- +Tell their plain story; yes, thine eyes behold +A cheerful Christian from the liberal fold. +Down the chill street that curves in gloomiest shade +What marks betray yon solitary maid? +The cheek's red rose that speaks of balmier air, +The Celtic hue that shades her braided hair, +The gilded missal in her kerchief tied,-- +Poor Nora, exile from Killarney's side! +Sister in toil, though blanched by colder skies, +That left their azure in her downcast eyes, +See pallid Margaret, Labor's patient child, +Scarce weaned from home, the nursling of the wild, +Where white Katahdin o'er the horizon shines, +And broad Penobscot dashes through the pines. +Still, as she hastes, her careful fingers hold +The unfailing hymn-book in its cambric fold. +Six days at drudgery's heavy wheel she stands, +The seventh sweet morning folds her weary hands. +Yes, child of suffering, thou mayst well be sure +He who ordained the Sabbath loves the poor! + +This weekly picture faithful Memory draws, +Nor claims the noisy tribute of applause; +Faint is the glow such barren hopes can lend, +And frail the line that asks no loftier end. +Trust me, kind listener, I will yet beguile +Thy saddened features of the promised smile. +This magic mantle thou must well divide, +It has its sable and its ermine side; +Yet, ere the lining of the robe appears, +Take thou in silence what I give in tears. + +Dear listening soul, this transitory scene +Of murmuring stillness, busily serene,-- +This solemn pause, the breathing-space of man, +The halt of toil's exhausted caravan,-- +Comes sweet with music to thy wearied ear; +Rise with its anthems to a holier sphere! + +Deal meekly, gently, with the hopes that guide +The lowliest brother straying from thy side +If right, they bid thee tremble for thine own; +If wrong, the verdict is for God alone + +What though the champions of thy faith esteem +The sprinkled fountain or baptismal stream; +Shall jealous passions in unseemly strife +Cross their dark weapons o'er the waves of life? + +Let my free soul, expanding as it can, +Leave to his scheme the thoughtful Puritan; +But Calvin's dogma shall my lips deride? +In that stern faith my angel Mary died; +Or ask if mercy's milder creed can save, +Sweet sister, risen from thy new-made grave? + +True, the harsh founders of thy church reviled +That ancient faith, the trust of Erin's child; +Must thou be raking in the crumbled past +For racks and fagots in her teeth to cast? +See from the ashes of Helvetia's pile +The whitened skull of old Servetus smile! +Round her young heart thy "Romish Upas" threw +Its firm, deep fibres, strengthening as she grew; +Thy sneering voice may call them "Popish tricks," +Her Latin prayers, her dangling crucifix, +But De Profundis blessed her father's grave, +That "idol" cross her dying mother gave! +What if some angel looks with equal eyes +On her and thee, the simple and the wise, +Writes each dark fault against thy brighter creed, +And drops a tear with every foolish bead! +Grieve, as thou must, o'er history's reeking page; +Blush for the wrongs that stain thy happier age; +Strive with the wanderer from the better path, +Bearing thy message meekly, not in wrath; +Weep for the frail that err, the weak that fall, +Have thine own faith,--but hope and pray for all! + +Faith; Conscience; Love. A meaner task remains, +And humbler thoughts must creep in lowlier strains. +Shalt thou be honest? Ask the worldly schools, +And all will tell thee knaves are busier fools; +Prudent? Industrious? Let not modern pens +Instruct "Poor Richard's" fellow-citizens. + +Be firm! One constant element in luck +Is genuine solid old Teutonic pluck. +See yon tall shaft; it felt the earthquake's thrill, +Clung to its base, and greets the sunrise still. + +Stick to your aim: the mongrel's hold will slip, +But only crowbars loose the bulldog's grip; +Small as he looks, the jaw that never yields +Drags down the bellowing monarch of the fields! + +Yet in opinions look not always back,-- +Your wake is nothing, mind the coming track; +Leave what you've done for what you have to do; +Don't be "consistent," but be simply true. + +Don't catch the fidgets; you have found your place +Just in the focus of a nervous race, +Fretful to change and rabid to discuss, +Full of excitements, always in a fuss. +Think of the patriarchs; then compare as men +These lean-cheeked maniacs of the tongue and pen! +Run, if you like, but try to keep your breath; +Work like a man, but don't be worked to death; +And with new notions,--let me change the rule,-- +Don't strike the iron till it 's slightly cool. + +Choose well your set; our feeble nature seeks +The aid of clubs, the countenance of cliques; +And with this object settle first of all +Your weight of metal and your size of ball. +Track not the steps of such as hold you cheap, +Too mean to prize, though good enough to keep; +The "real, genuine, no-mistake Tom Thumbs" +Are little people fed on great men's crumbs. +Yet keep no followers of that hateful brood +That basely mingles with its wholesome food +The tumid reptile, which, the poet said, +Doth wear a precious jewel in his head. + +If the wild filly, "Progress," thou wouldst ride, +Have young companions ever at thy side; +But wouldst thou stride the stanch old mare, "Success," +Go with thine elders, though they please thee less. +Shun such as lounge through afternoons and eves, +And on thy dial write, "Beware of thieves!" +Felon of minutes, never taught to feel +The worth of treasures which thy fingers steal, +Pick my left pocket of its silver dime, +But spare the right,--it holds my golden time! + +Does praise delight thee? Choose some _ultra_ side,-- +A sure old recipe, and often tried; +Be its apostle, congressman, or bard, +Spokesman or jokesman, only drive it hard; +But know the forfeit which thy choice abides, +For on two wheels the poor reformer rides,-- +One black with epithets the _anti_ throws, +One white with flattery painted by the pros. + +Though books on MANNERS are not out of print, +An honest tongue may drop a harmless hint. +Stop not, unthinking, every friend you meet, +To spin your wordy fabric in the street; +While you are emptying your colloquial pack, +The fiend Lumbago jumps upon his back. +Nor cloud his features with the unwelcome tale +Of how he looks, if haply thin and pale; +Health is a subject for his child, his wife, +And the rude office that insures his life. +Look in his face, to meet thy neighbor's soul, +Not on his garments, to detect a hole; +"How to observe" is what thy pages show, +Pride of thy sex, Miss Harriet Martineau! +Oh, what a precious book the one would be +That taught observers what they 're NOT to see! + +I tell in verse--'t were better done in prose-- +One curious trick that everybody knows; +Once form this habit, and it's very strange +How long it sticks, how hard it is to change. +Two friendly people, both disposed to smile, +Who meet, like others, every little while, +Instead of passing with a pleasant bow, +And "How d' ye do?" or "How 's your uncle now?" + +Impelled by feelings in their nature kind, +But slightly weak and somewhat undefined, +Rush at each other, make a sudden stand, +Begin to talk, expatiate, and expand; +Each looks quite radiant, seems extremely struck, +Their meeting so was such a piece of luck; +Each thinks the other thinks he 's greatly pleased +To screw the vice in which they both are squeezed; +So there they talk, in dust, or mud, or snow, +Both bored to death, and both afraid to go! +Your hat once lifted, do not hang your fire, +Nor, like slow Ajax, fighting still, retire; +When your old castor on your crown you clap, +Go off; you've mounted your percussion cap. + +Some words on LANGUAGE may be well applied, +And take them kindly, though they touch your pride. +Words lead to things; a scale is more precise,-- +Coarse speech, bad grammar, swearing, drinking, vice. +Our cold Northeaster's icy fetter clips +The native freedom of the Saxon lips; +See the brown peasant of the plastic South, +How all his passions play about his mouth! +With us, the feature that transmits the soul, +A frozen, passive, palsied breathing-hole. +The crampy shackles of the ploughboy's walk +Tie the small muscles when he strives to talk; +Not all the pumice of the polished town +Can smooth this roughness of the barnyard down; +Rich, honored, titled, he betrays his race +By this one mark,--he's awkward in the face;-- +Nature's rude impress, long before he knew +The sunny street that holds the sifted few. +It can't be helped, though, if we're taken young, +We gain some freedom of the lips and tongue; +But school and college often try in vain +To break the padlock of our boyhood's chain +One stubborn word will prove this axiom true,-- +No quondam rustic can enunciate view. + +A few brief stanzas may be well employed +To speak of errors we can all avoid. +Learning condemns beyond the reach of hope +The careless lips that speak of so'ap for soap; +Her edict exiles from her fair abode +The clownish voice that utters ro'ad for road +Less stern to him who calls his coat a co'at, +And steers his boat, believing it a bo'at, +She pardoned one, our classic city's boast, +Who said at Cambridge mo'st instead of most, +But knit her brows and stamped her angry foot +To hear a Teacher call a root a ro'ot. + +Once more: speak clearly, if you speak at all; +Carve every word before you let it fall; +Don't, like a lecturer or dramatic star, +Try over-hard to roll the British R; +Do put your accents in the proper spot; +Don't,--let me beg you,--don't say "How?" for "What?" +And when you stick on conversation's burs, +Don't strew your pathway with those dreadful _urs_. + +From little matters let us pass to less, +And lightly touch the mysteries of DRESS; +The outward forms the inner man reveal,-- +We guess the pulp before we cut the peel. + +I leave the broadcloth,--coats and all the rest,-- +The dangerous waistcoat, called by cockneys "vest," +The things named "pants" in certain documents, +A word not made for gentlemen, but "gents;" +One single precept might the whole condense +Be sure your tailor is a man of sense; +But add a little care, a decent pride, +And always err upon the sober side. + +Three pairs of boots one pair of feet demands, +If polished daily by the owner's hands; +If the dark menial's visit save from this, +Have twice the number,--for he 'll sometimes miss. +One pair for critics of the nicer sex, +Close in the instep's clinging circumflex, +Long, narrow, light; the Gallic boot of love, +A kind of cross between a boot and glove. +Compact, but easy, strong, substantial, square, +Let native art compile the medium pair. +The third remains, and let your tasteful skill +Here show some relics of affection still; +Let no stiff cowhide, reeking from the tan, +No rough caoutchoue, no deformed brogan, +Disgrace the tapering outline of your feet, +Though yellow torrents gurgle through the street. + +Wear seemly gloves; not black, nor yet too light, +And least of all the pair that once was white; +Let the dead party where you told your loves +Bury in peace its dead bouquets and gloves; +Shave like the goat, if so your fancy bids, +But be a parent,--don't neglect your kids. + +Have a good hat; the secret of your looks +Lives with the beaver in Canadian brooks; +Virtue may flourish in an old cravat, +But man and nature scorn the shocking hat. +Does beauty slight you from her gay abodes? +Like bright Apollo, you must take to Rhoades,-- +Mount the new castor,--ice itself will melt; +Boots, gloves, may fail; the hat is always felt + +Be shy of breastpins; plain, well-ironed white, +With small pearl buttons,--two of them in sight,-- +Is always genuine, while your gems may pass, +Though real diamonds, for ignoble glass. +But spurn those paltry Cisatlantic lies +That round his breast the shabby rustic ties; +Breathe not the name profaned to hallow things +The indignant laundress blushes when she brings! + +Our freeborn race, averse to every check, +Has tossed the yoke of Europe from its _neck_; +From the green prairie to the sea-girt town, +The whole wide nation turns its collars down. +The stately neck is manhood's manliest part; +It takes the life-blood freshest from the heart. +With short, curled ringlets close around it spread, +How light and strong it lifts the Grecian head! +Thine, fair Erechtheus of Minerva's wall; +Or thine, young athlete of the Louvre's hall, +Smooth as the pillar flashing in the sun +That filled the arena where thy wreaths were won, +Firm as the band that clasps the antlered spoil +Strained in the winding anaconda's coil +I spare the contrast; it were only kind +To be a little, nay, intensely blind. +Choose for yourself: I know it cuts your ear; +I know the points will sometimes interfere; +I know that often, like the filial John, +Whom sleep surprised with half his drapery on, +You show your features to the astonished town +With one side standing and the other down;-- +But, O, my friend! my favorite fellow-man! +If Nature made you on her modern plan, +Sooner than wander with your windpipe bare,-- +The fruit of Eden ripening in the air,-- +With that lean head-stalk, that protruding chin, +Wear standing collars, were they made of tin! +And have a neckcloth--by the throat of Jove!-- +Cut from the funnel of a rusty stove! + +The long-drawn lesson narrows to its close, +Chill, slender, slow, the dwindled current flows; +Tired of the ripples on its feeble springs, +Once more the Muse unfolds her upward wings. + +Land of my birth, with this unhallowed tongue, +Thy hopes, thy dangers, I perchance had sung; +But who shall sing, in brutal disregard +Of all the essentials of the "native bard"? +Lake, sea, shore, prairie, forest, mountain, fall, +His eye omnivorous must devour them all; +The tallest summits and the broadest tides +His foot must compass with its giant strides, +Where Ocean thunders, where Missouri rolls, +And tread at once the tropics and the poles; +His food all forms of earth, fire, water, air, +His home all space, his birthplace everywhere. + +Some grave compatriot, having seen perhaps +The pictured page that goes in Worcester's Maps, +And, read in earnest what was said in jest, +"Who drives fat oxen"--please to add the rest,-- +Sprung the odd notion that the poet's dreams +Grow in the ratio of his hills and streams; +And hence insisted that the aforesaid "bard," +Pink of the future, fancy's pattern-card, +The babe of nature in the "giant West," +Must be of course her biggest and her best. + +Oh! when at length the expected bard shall come, +Land of our pride, to strike thine echoes dumb, +(And many a voice exclaims in prose and rhyme, +It's getting late, and he's behind his time,) +When all thy mountains clap their hands in joy, +And all thy cataracts thunder, "That 's the boy,"-- +Say if with him the reign of song shall end, +And Heaven declare its final dividend! + +Becalm, dear brother! whose impassioned strain +Comes from an alley watered by a drain; +The little Mincio, dribbling to the Po, +Beats all the epics of the Hoang Ho; +If loved in earnest by the tuneful maid, +Don't mind their nonsense,--never be afraid! + +The nurse of poets feeds her winged brood +By common firesides, on familiar food; +In a low hamlet, by a narrow stream, +Where bovine rustics used to doze and dream, +She filled young William's fiery fancy full, +While old John Shakespeare talked of beeves and wool! + +No Alpine needle, with its climbing spire, +Brings down for mortals the Promethean fire, +If careless nature have forgot to frame +An altar worthy of the sacred flame. +Unblest by any save the goatherd's lines, +Mont Blanc rose soaring through his "sea of pines;" +In vain the rivers from their ice-caves flash; +No hymn salutes them but the Ranz des Vaches, +Till lazy Coleridge, by the morning's light, +Gazed for a moment on the fields of white, +And lo! the glaciers found at length a tongue, +Mont Blanc was vocal, and Chamouni sung! + +Children of wealth or want, to each is given +One spot of green, and all the blue of heaven! +Enough if these their outward shows impart; +The rest is thine,--the scenery of the heart. + +If passion's hectic in thy stanzas glow, +Thy heart's best life-blood ebbing as they flow; +If with thy verse thy strength and bloom distil, +Drained by the pulses of the fevered thrill; +If sound's sweet effluence polarize thy brain, +And thoughts turn crystals in thy fluid strain,-- +Nor rolling ocean, nor the prairie's bloom, +Nor streaming cliffs, nor rayless cavern's gloom, +Need'st thou, young poet, to inform thy line; +Thy own broad signet stamps thy song divine! +Let others gaze where silvery streams are rolled, +And chase the rainbow for its cup of gold; +To thee all landscapes wear a heavenly dye, +Changed in the glance of thy prismatic eye; +Nature evoked thee in sublimer throes, +For thee her inmost Arethusa flows,-- +The mighty mother's living depths are stirred,-- +Thou art the starred Osiris of the herd! + +A few brief lines; they touch on solemn chords, +And hearts may leap to hear their honest words; +Yet, ere the jarring bugle-blast is blown, +The softer lyre shall breathe its soothing tone. + +New England! proudly may thy children claim +Their honored birthright by its humblest name +Cold are thy skies, but, ever fresh and clear, +No rank malaria stains thine atmosphere; +No fungous weeds invade thy scanty soil, +Scarred by the ploughshares of unslumbering toil. +Long may the doctrines by thy sages taught, +Raised from the quarries where their sires have wrought, +Be like the granite of thy rock-ribbed land,-- +As slow to rear, as obdurate to stand; +And as the ice that leaves thy crystal mine +Chills the fierce alcohol in the Creole's wine, +So may the doctrines of thy sober school +Keep the hot theories of thy neighbors cool! + +If ever, trampling on her ancient path, +Cankered by treachery or inflamed by wrath, +With smooth "Resolves" or with discordant cries, +The mad Briareus of disunion rise, +Chiefs of New England! by your sires' renown, +Dash the red torches of the rebel down! +Flood his black hearthstone till its flames expire, +Though your old Sachem fanned his council-fire! + +But if at last, her fading cycle run, +The tongue must forfeit what the arm has won, +Then rise, wild Ocean! roll thy surging shock +Full on old Plymouth's desecrated rock! +Scale the proud shaft degenerate hands have hewn, +Where bleeding Valor stained the flowers of June! +Sweep in one tide her spires and turrets down, +And howl her dirge above Monadnock's crown! + +List not the tale; the Pilgrim's hallowed shore, +Though strewn with weeds, is granite at the core; +Oh, rather trust that He who made her free +Will keep her true as long as faith shall be! +Farewell! yet lingering through the destined hour, +Leave, sweet Enchantress, one memorial flower! + +An Angel, floating o'er the waste of snow +That clad our Western desert, long ago, +(The same fair spirit who, unseen by day, +Shone as a star along the Mayflower's way,)-- +Sent, the first herald of the Heavenly plan, +To choose on earth a resting-place for man,-- +Tired with his flight along the unvaried field, +Turned to soar upwards, when his glance revealed +A calm, bright bay enclosed in rocky bounds, +And at its entrance stood three sister mounds. + +The Angel spake: "This threefold hill shall be +The home of Arts, the nurse of Liberty! +One stately summit from its shaft shall pour +Its deep-red blaze along the darkened shore; +Emblem of thoughts that, kindling far and wide, +In danger's night shall be a nation's guide. +One swelling crest the citadel shall crown, +Its slanted bastions black with battle's frown, +And bid the sons that tread its scowling heights +Bare their strong arms for man and all his rights! +One silent steep along the northern wave +Shall hold the patriarch's and the hero's grave; +When fades the torch, when o'er the peaceful scene +The embattled fortress smiles in living green, +The cross of Faith, the anchor staff of Hope, +Shall stand eternal on its grassy slope; +There through all time shall faithful Memory tell, +'Here Virtue toiled, and Patriot Valor fell; +Thy free, proud fathers slumber at thy side; +Live as they lived, or perish as they died!'" + + + + + +AN AFTER-DINNER POEM + +(TERPSICHORE) + +Read at the Annual Dinner of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at +Cambridge, August 24, 1843. + +IN narrowest girdle, O reluctant Muse, +In closest frock and Cinderella shoes, +Bound to the foot-lights for thy brief display, +One zephyr step, and then dissolve away! + + . . . . . . . . . . + +Short is the space that gods and men can spare +To Song's twin brother when she is not there. +Let others water every lusty line, +As Homer's heroes did their purple wine; +Pierian revellers! Know in strains like these +The native juice, the real honest squeeze,--- +Strains that, diluted to the twentieth power, +In yon grave temple might have filled an hour. +Small room for Fancy's many-chorded lyre, +For Wit's bright rockets with their trains of fire, +For Pathos, struggling vainly to surprise +The iron tutor's tear-denying eyes, +For Mirth, whose finger with delusive wile +Turns the grim key of many a rusty smile, +For Satire, emptying his corrosive flood +On hissing Folly's gas-exhaling brood, +The pun, the fun, the moral, and the joke, +The hit, the thrust, the pugilistic poke,-- +Small space for these, so pressed by niggard Time, +Like that false matron, known to nursery rhyme,-- +Insidious Morey,--scarce her tale begun, +Ere listening infants weep the story done. + +Oh, had we room to rip the mighty bags +That Time, the harlequin, has stuffed with rags! +Grant us one moment to unloose the strings, +While the old graybeard shuts his leather wings. +But what a heap of motley trash appears +Crammed in the bundles of successive years! +As the lost rustic on some festal day +Stares through the concourse in its vast array,-- +Where in one cake a throng of faces runs, +All stuck together like a sheet of buns,-- +And throws the bait of some unheeded name, +Or shoots a wink with most uncertain aim, +So roams my vision, wandering over all, +And strives to choose, but knows not where to fall. + +Skins of flayed authors, husks of dead reviews, +The turn-coat's clothes, the office-seeker's shoes, +Scraps from cold feasts, where conversation runs +Through mouldy toasts to oxidated puns, +And grating songs a listening crowd endures, +Rasped from the throats of bellowing amateurs; +Sermons, whose writers played such dangerous tricks +Their own heresiarchs called them heretics, +(Strange that one term such distant poles should link, +The Priestleyan's copper and the Puseyan's zinc); +Poems that shuffle with superfluous legs +A blindfold minuet over addled eggs, +Where all the syllables that end in ed, +Like old dragoons, have cuts across the head; +Essays so dark Champollion might despair +To guess what mummy of a thought was there, +Where our poor English, striped with foreign phrase, +Looks like a zebra in a parson's chaise; +Lectures that cut our dinners down to roots, +Or prove (by monkeys) men should stick to fruits,-- +Delusive error, as at trifling charge +Professor Gripes will certify at large; +Mesmeric pamphlets, which to facts appeal, +Each fact as slippery as a fresh-caught eel; +And figured heads, whose hieroglyphs invite +To wandering knaves that discount fools at sight: +Such things as these, with heaps of unpaid bills, +And candy puffs and homoeopathic pills, +And ancient bell-crowns with contracted rim, +And bonnets hideous with expanded brim, +And coats whose memory turns the sartor pale, +Their sequels tapering like a lizard's tale,-- +How might we spread them to the smiling day, +And toss them, fluttering like the new-mown hay, +To laughter's light or sorrow's pitying shower, +Were these brief minutes lengthened to an hour. + +The narrow moments fit like Sunday shoes,-- +How vast the heap, how quickly must we choose! +A few small scraps from out his mountain mass +We snatch in haste, and let the vagrant pass. +This shrunken CRUST that Cerberus could not bite, +Stamped (in one corner) "Pickwick copyright," +Kneaded by youngsters, raised by flattery's yeast, +Was once a loaf, and helped to make a feast. +He for whose sake the glittering show appears +Has sown the world with laughter and with tears, +And they whose welcome wets the bumper's brim +Have wit and wisdom,--for they all quote him. +So, many a tongue the evening hour prolongs +With spangled speeches,--let alone the songs; +Statesmen grow merry, lean attorneys laugh, +And weak teetotals warm to half and half, +And beardless Tullys, new to festive scenes, +Cut their first crop of youth's precocious greens, +And wits stand ready for impromptu claps, +With loaded barrels and percussion caps, +And Pathos, cantering through the minor keys, +Waves all her onions to the trembling breeze; +While the great Feasted views with silent glee +His scattered limbs in Yankee fricassee. + +Sweet is the scene where genial friendship plays +The pleasing game of interchanging praise. +Self-love, grimalkin of the human heart, +Is ever pliant to the master's art; +Soothed with a word, she peacefully withdraws +And sheathes in velvet her obnoxious claws, +And thrills the hand that smooths her glossy fur +With the light tremor of her grateful purr. + +But what sad music fills the quiet hall, +If on her back a feline rival fall! +And oh, what noises shake the tranquil house +If old Self-interest cheats her of a mouse + +Thou, O my country, hast thy foolish ways, +Too apt to purr at every stranger's praise; +But if the stranger touch thy modes or laws, +Off goes the velvet and out come the claws! +And thou, Illustrious! but too poorly paid +In toasts from Pickwick for thy great crusade, +Though, while the echoes labored with thy name, +The public trap denied thy little game, +Let other lips our jealous laws revile,-- +The marble Talfourd or the rude Carlyle,-- +But on thy lids, which Heaven forbids to close +Where'er the light of kindly nature glows, +Let not the dollars that a churl denies +Weigh like the shillings on a dead man's eyes! +Or, if thou wilt, be more discreetly blind, +Nor ask to see all wide extremes combined. +Not in our wastes the dainty blossoms smile +That crowd the gardens of thy scanty isle. +There white-cheeked Luxury weaves a thousand charms; +Here sun-browned Labor swings his naked arms. +Long are the furrows he must trace between +The ocean's azure and the prairie's green; +Full many a blank his destined realm displays, +Yet sees the promise of his riper days +Far through yon depths the panting engine moves, +His chariots ringing in their steel-shod grooves; +And Erie's naiad flings her diamond wave +O'er the wild sea-nymph in her distant cave! +While tasks like these employ his anxious hours, +What if his cornfields are not edged with flowers? +Though bright as silver the meridian beams +Shine through the crystal of thine English streams, +Turbid and dark the mighty wave is whirled +That drains our Andes and divides a world! + +But lo! a PARCHMENT! Surely it would seem +The sculptured impress speaks of power supreme; +Some grave design the solemn page must claim +That shows so broadly an emblazoned name. +A sovereign's promise! Look, the lines afford +All Honor gives when Caution asks his word: +There sacred Faith has laid her snow-white hands, +And awful Justice knit her iron bands; +Yet every leaf is stained with treachery's dye, +And every letter crusted with a lie. +Alas! no treason has degraded yet +The Arab's salt, the Indian's calumet; +A simple rite, that bears the wanderer's pledge, +Blunts the keen shaft and turns the dagger's edge; +While jockeying senates stop to sign and seal, +And freeborn statesmen legislate to steal. +Rise, Europe, tottering with thine Atlas load, +Turn thy proud eye to Freedom's blest abode, +And round her forehead, wreathed with heavenly flame, +Bind the dark garland of her daughter's shame! +Ye ocean clouds, that wrap the angry blast, +Coil her stained ensign round its haughty mast, +Or tear the fold that wears so foul a scar, +And drive a bolt through every blackened star! +Once more,--once only,--- we must stop so soon: +What have we here? A GERMAN-SILVER SPOON; +A cheap utensil, which we often see +Used by the dabblers in aesthetic tea, +Of slender fabric, somewhat light and thin, +Made of mixed metal, chiefly lead and tin; +The bowl is shallow, and the handle small, +Marked in large letters with the name JEAN PAUL. +Small as it is, its powers are passing strange, +For all who use it show a wondrous change; +And first, a fact to make the barbers stare, +It beats Macassar for the growth of hair. +See those small youngsters whose expansive ears +Maternal kindness grazed with frequent shears; +Each bristling crop a dangling mass becomes, +And all the spoonies turn to Absaloms +Nor this alone its magic power displays, +It alters strangely all their works and ways; +With uncouth words they tire their tender lungs, +The same bald phrases on their hundred tongues +"Ever" "The Ages" in their page appear, +"Alway" the bedlamite is called a "Seer;" +On every leaf the "earnest" sage may scan, +Portentous bore! their "many-sided" man,-- +A weak eclectic, groping vague and dim, +Whose every angle is a half-starved whim, +Blind as a mole and curious as a lynx, +Who rides a beetle, which he calls a "Sphinx." +And oh, what questions asked in clubfoot rhyme +Of Earth the tongueless and the deaf-mute Time! + +Here babbling "Insight" shouts in Nature's ears +His last conundrum on the orbs and spheres; +There Self-inspection sucks its little thumb, +With "Whence am I?" and "Wherefore did I come?" +Deluded infants! will they ever know +Some doubts must darken o'er the world below, +Though all the Platos of the nursery trail +Their "clouds of glory" at the go-cart's tail? +Oh might these couplets their attention claim +That gain their author the Philistine's name +(A stubborn race, that, spurning foreign law, +Was much belabored with an ass's jaw.) + +Melodious Laura! From the sad retreats +That hold thee, smothered with excess of sweets, +Shade of a shadow, spectre of a dream, +Glance thy wan eye across the Stygian stream! +The slipshod dreamer treads thy fragrant halls, +The sophist's cobwebs hang thy roseate walls, +And o'er the crotchets of thy jingling tunes +The bard of mystery scrawls his crooked "runes." +Yes, thou art gone, with all the tuneful hordes +That candied thoughts in amber-colored words, +And in the precincts of thy late abodes +The clattering verse-wright hammers Orphic odes. +Thou, soft as zephyr, wast content to fly +On the gilt pinions of a balmy sigh; +He, vast as Phoebus on his burning wheels, +Would stride through ether at Orion's heels. +Thy emblem, Laura, was a perfume-jar, +And thine, young Orpheus, is a pewter star. +The balance trembles,--be its verdict told +When the new jargon slumbers with the old! + + . . . . . . . . + +Cease, playful goddess! From thine airy bound +Drop like a feather softly to the ground; +This light bolero grows a ticklish dance, +And there is mischief in thy kindling glance. +To-morrow bids thee, with rebuking frown, +Change thy gauze tunic for a home-made gown, +Too blest by fortune if the passing day +Adorn thy bosom with its frail bouquet, +But oh, still happier if the next forgets +Thy daring steps and dangerous pirouettes! + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY OF O. W. HOLMES, V2 *** + +******* This file should be named ohp0210.txt or ohp0210.zip ******** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, ohp0211.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, ohp0210a.txt + +This eBook was produced by David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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