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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/7395.txt b/7395.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..79ad3fe --- /dev/null +++ b/7395.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2007 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell +Holmes, Vol. 8, 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. 8 + Bunker-Hill Battle And Other Poems (1874-1877) + +Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +Release Date: September 30, 2004 [EBook #7395] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY OF HOLMES, VOL. 8 *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + THE POETICAL WORKS + + OF + + OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + + [Volume 3 of the 1893 three volume set] + + + + BUNKER-HILL BATTLE + + AND OTHER POEMS + + 1874-1877 + + + + + GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF BUNKER-HILL BATTLE + AT THE "ATLANTIC" DINNER, DECEMBER 15, 1874 + "LUCY." FOR HER GOLDEN WEDDING, OCTOBER 18, 1875 + HYMN FOR THE INAUGURATION OF THE STATUE OF GOVERNOR ANDREW, HINGHAM, + OCTOBER 7, 1875 + A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE TO DR. SAMUEL G. HOWE + JOSEPH WARREN, M. D. + OLD CAMBRIDGE, JULY 3, 1875 + WELCOME TO THE NATIONS, PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4, 1876 + A FAMILIAR LETTER + UNSATISFIED + HOW THE OLD HORSE WON THE BET + AN APPEAL FOR "THE OLD SOUTH" + THE FIRST FAN + To R. B. H. + THE SHIP OF STATE + A FAMILY RECORD + + + + +GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF BUNKER-HILL BATTLE + +AS SHE SAW IT FROM THE BELFRY + +'T is like stirring living embers when, at eighty, one remembers +All the achings and the quakings of "the times that tried men's souls"; +When I talk of Whig and Tory, when I tell the Rebel story, +To you the words are ashes, but to me they're burning coals. + +I had heard the muskets' rattle of the April running battle; +Lord Percy's hunted soldiers, I can see their red-coats still; +But a deadly chill comes o'er me, as the day looms up before me, +When a thousand men lay bleeding on the slopes of Bunker's Hill. + +'T was a peaceful summer's morning, when the first thing gave us warning +Was the booming of the cannon from the river and the shore: +"Child," says grandma, "what 's the matter, what is all this noise and + clatter? +Have those scalping Indian devils come to murder us once more?" + +Poor old soul! my sides were shaking in the midst of all my quaking, +To hear her talk of Indians when the guns began to roar: +She had seen the burning village, and the slaughter and the pillage, +When the Mohawks killed her father with their bullets through his door. + +Then I said, "Now, dear old granny, don't you fret and worry any, +For I'll soon come back and tell you whether this is work or play; +There can't be mischief in it, so I won't be gone a minute"-- +For a minute then I started. I was gone the live-long day. + +No time for bodice-lacing or for looking-glass grimacing; +Down my hair went as I hurried, tumbling half-way to my heels; +God forbid your ever knowing, when there's blood around her flowing, +How the lonely, helpless daughter of a quiet house-hold feels! + +In the street I heard a thumping; and I knew it was the stumping +Of the Corporal, our old neighbor, on that wooden leg he wore, +With a knot of women round him,-it was lucky I had found him, +So I followed with the others, and the Corporal marched before. + +They were making for the steeple,--the old soldier and his people; +The pigeons circled round us as we climbed the creaking stair. +Just across the narrow river--oh, so close it made me shiver!-- +Stood a fortress on the hill-top that but yesterday was bare. + +Not slow our eyes to find it; well we knew who stood behind it, +Though the earthwork hid them from us, and the stubborn walls were dumb +Here were sister, wife, and mother, looking wild upon each other, +And their lips were white with terror as they said, THE HOUR HAS COME! + +The morning slowly wasted, not a morsel had we tasted, +And our heads were almost splitting with the cannons' deafening thrill, +When a figure tall and stately round the rampart strode sedately; +It was PRESCOTT, one since told me; he commanded on the hill. + +Every woman's heart grew bigger when we saw his manly figure, +With the banyan buckled round it, standing up so straight and tall; +Like a gentleman of leisure who is strolling out for pleasure, +Through the storm of shells and cannon-shot he walked around the wall. + +At eleven the streets were swarming, for the red-coats' ranks were + forming; +At noon in marching order they were moving to the piers; +How the bayonets gleamed and glistened, as we looked far down, and + listened +To the trampling and the drum-beat of the belted grenadiers! + +At length the men have started, with a cheer (it seemed faint-hearted), +In their scarlet regimentals, with their knapsacks on their backs, +And the reddening, rippling water, as after a sea-fight's slaughter, +Round the barges gliding onward blushed like blood along their tracks. + +So they crossed to the other border, and again they formed in order; +And the boats came back for soldiers, came for soldiers, soldiers still: +The time seemed everlasting to us women faint and fasting,-- +At last they're moving, marching, marching proudly up the hill. + +We can see the bright steel glancing all along the lines advancing,-- +Now the front rank fires a volley,--they have thrown away their shot; +For behind their earthwork lying, all the balls above them flying, +Our people need not hurry; so they wait and answer not. + +Then the Corporal, our old cripple (he would swear sometimes and tipple), +He had heard the bullets whistle (in the old French war) before,-- +Calls out in words of jeering, just as if they all were hearing,-- +And his wooden leg thumps fiercely on the dusty belfry floor:-- + +"Oh! fire away, ye villains, and earn King George's shillin's, +But ye 'll waste a ton of powder afore a 'rebel' falls; +You may bang the dirt and welcome, they're as safe as Dan'l Malcolm +Ten foot beneath the gravestone that you've splintered with your balls!" + +In the hush of expectation, in the awe and trepidation +Of the dread approaching moment, we are well-nigh breathless all; +Though the rotten bars are failing on the rickety belfry railing, +We are crowding up against them like the waves against a wall. + +Just a glimpse (the air is clearer), they are nearer,--nearer,--nearer, +When a flash--a curling smoke-wreath--then a crash--the steeple shakes-- +The deadly truce is ended; the tempest's shroud is rended; +Like a morning mist it gathered, like a thunder-cloud it breaks! + +Oh the sight our eyes discover as the blue-black smoke blows over! +The red-coats stretched in windrows as a mower rakes his hay; +Here a scarlet heap is lying, there a headlong crowd is flying +Like a billow that has broken and is shivered into spray. + +Then we cried, "The troops are routed! they are beat--it can't be + doubted! +God be thanked, the fight is over!"--Ah! the grim old soldier's smile! +"Tell us, tell us why you look so?" (we could hardly speak, we shook so), +"Are they beaten? Are they beaten? ARE they beaten?"--"Wait a while." + +Oh the trembling and the terror! for too soon we saw our error: +They are baffled, not defeated; we have driven them back in vain; +And the columns that were scattered, round the colors that were tattered, +Toward the sullen, silent fortress turn their belted breasts again. + +All at once, as we are gazing, lo the roofs of Charlestown blazing! +They have fired the harmless village; in an hour it will be down! +The Lord in heaven confound them, rain his fire and brimstone round them, +The robbing, murdering red-coats, that would burn a peaceful town! + +They are marching, stern and solemn; we can see each massive column +As they near the naked earth-mound with the slanting walls so steep. +Have our soldiers got faint-hearted, and in noiseless haste departed? +Are they panic-struck and helpless? Are they palsied or asleep? + +Now! the walls they're almost under! scarce a rod the foes asunder! +Not a firelock flashed against them! up the earth-work they will swarm! +But the words have scarce been spoken, when the ominous calm is broken, +And a bellowing crash has emptied all the vengeance of the storm! + +So again, with murderous slaughter, pelted backwards to the water, +Fly Pigot's running heroes and the frightened braves of Howe; +And we shout, "At last they're done for, it's their barges they have run + for: +They are beaten, beaten, beaten; and the battle 's over now!" + +And we looked, poor timid creatures, on the rough old soldier's features, +Our lips afraid to question, but he knew what we would ask: +"Not sure," he said; "keep quiet,--once more, I guess, they 'll try it-- +Here's damnation to the cut-throats!"--then he handed me his flask, + +Saying, "Gal, you're looking shaky; have a drop of old Jamaiky; +I 'm afeard there 'll be more trouble afore the job is done"; +So I took one scorching swallow; dreadful faint I felt and hollow, +Standing there from early morning when the firing was begun. + +All through those hours of trial I had watched a calm clock dial, +As the hands kept creeping, creeping,--they were creeping round to four, +When the old man said, "They're forming with their bagonets fixed for + storming: +It 's the death-grip that's a coming,--they will try the works once + more." + +With brazen trumpets blaring, the flames behind them glaring, +The deadly wall before them, in close array they come; +Still onward, upward toiling, like a dragon's fold uncoiling,-- +Like the rattlesnake's shrill warning the reverberating drum. + +Over heaps all torn and gory--shall I tell the fearful story, +How they surged above the breastwork, as a sea breaks over a deck; +How, driven, yet scarce defeated, our worn-out men retreated, +With their powder-horns all emptied, like the swimmers from a wreck? + +It has all been told and painted; as for me, they say I fainted, +And the wooden-legged old Corporal stumped with me down the stair: +When I woke from dreams affrighted the evening lamps were lighted,-- +On the floor a youth was lying; his bleeding breast was bare. + +And I heard through all the flurry, "Send for WARREN! hurry! hurry! +Tell him here's a soldier bleeding, and he 'll come and dress his + wound!" +Ah, we knew not till the morrow told its tale of death and sorrow, +How the starlight found him stiffened on the dark and bloody ground. + +Who the youth was, what his name was, where the place from which he came +was, +Who had brought him from the battle, and had left him at our door, +He could not speak to tell us; but 't was one of our brave fellows, +As the homespun plainly showed us which the dying soldier wore. + +For they all thought he was dying, as they gathered round him crying,-- +And they said, "Oh, how they'll miss him!" and, "What will his mother + do?" +Then, his eyelids just unclosing like a child's that has been dozing, +He faintly murmured, "Mother!"--and--I saw his eyes were blue. + +"Why, grandma, how you 're winking!" Ah, my child, it sets me thinking +Of a story not like this one. Well, he somehow lived along; +So we came to know each other, and I nursed him like a--mother, +Till at last he stood before me, tall, and rosy-checked, and strong. + +And we sometimes walked together in the pleasant summer weather,-- +"Please to tell us what his name was?" Just your own, my little dear,-- +There's his picture Copley painted: we became so well acquainted, +That--in short, that's why I 'm grandma, and you children all are here! + + + + + +AT THE "ATLANTIC" DINNER + +DECEMBER 15, 1874 + +I SUPPOSE it's myself that you're making allusion to +And bringing the sense of dismay and confusion to. +Of course some must speak,--they are always selected to, +But pray what's the reason that I am expected to? +I'm not fond of wasting my breath as those fellows do; +That want to be blowing forever as bellows do; +Their legs are uneasy, but why will you jog any +That long to stay quiet beneath the mahogany? + +Why, why call me up with your battery of flatteries? +You say "He writes poetry,"--that 's what the matter is +"It costs him no trouble--a pen full of ink or two +And the poem is done in the time of a wink or two; +As for thoughts--never mind--take the ones that lie uppermost, +And the rhymes used by Milton and Byron and Tupper most; +The lines come so easy! at one end he jingles 'em, +At the other with capital letters he shingles 'em,-- +Why, the thing writes itself, and before he's half done with it +He hates to stop writing, he has such good fun with it!" + +Ah, that is the way in which simple ones go about +And draw a fine picture of things they don't know about! +We all know a kitten, but come to a catamount +The beast is a stranger when grown up to that amount, +(A stranger we rather prefer should n't visit us, +A _felis_ whose advent is far from felicitous.) +The boy who can boast that his trap has just got a mouse +Must n't draw it and write underneath "hippopotamus"; +Or say unveraciously, "This is an elephant,"-- +Don't think, let me beg, these examples irrelevant,-- +What they mean is just this--that a thing to be painted well +Should always be something with which we're acquainted well. + +You call on your victim for "things he has plenty of,-- +Those copies of verses no doubt at least twenty of; +His desk is crammed full, for he always keeps writing 'em +And reading to friends as his way of delighting 'em!" +I tell you this writing of verses means business,-- +It makes the brain whirl in a vortex of dizziness +You think they are scrawled in the languor of laziness-- +I tell you they're squeezed by a spasm of craziness, +A fit half as bad as the staggering vertigos +That seize a poor fellow and down in the dirt he goes! + +And therefore it chimes with the word's etytology +That the sons of Apollo are great on apology, +For the writing of verse is a struggle mysterious +And the gayest of rhymes is a matter that's serious. +For myself, I'm relied on by friends in extremities, +And I don't mind so much if a comfort to them it is; +'T is a pleasure to please, and the straw that can tickle us +Is a source of enjoyment though slightly ridiculous. + +I am up for a--something--and since I 've begun with it, +I must give you a toast now before I have done with it. +Let me pump at my wits as they pumped the Cochituate +That moistened--it may be--the very last bit you ate: +Success to our publishers, authors and editors +To our debtors good luck,--pleasant dreams to our creditors; +May the monthly grow yearly, till all we are groping for +Has reached the fulfilment we're all of us hoping for; +Till the bore through the tunnel--it makes me let off a sigh +To think it may possibly ruin my prophecy-- +Has been punned on so often 't will never provoke again +One mild adolescent to make the old joke again; +Till abstinent, all-go-to-meeting society +Has forgotten the sense of the word inebriety; +Till the work that poor Hannah and Bridget and Phillis do +The humanized, civilized female gorillas do; +Till the roughs, as we call them, grown loving and dutiful, +Shall worship the true and the pure and the beautiful, +And, preying no longer as tiger and vulture do, +All read the "Atlantic" as persons of culture do! + + + + + +"LUCY" + +FOR HER GOLDEN WEDDING, OCTOBER 18, 1875 + +"Lucy."--The old familiar name +Is now, as always, pleasant, +Its liquid melody the same +Alike in past or present; +Let others call you what they will, +I know you'll let me use it; +To me your name is Lucy still, +I cannot bear to lose it. + +What visions of the past return +With Lucy's image blended! +What memories from the silent urn +Of gentle lives long ended! +What dreams of childhood's fleeting morn, +What starry aspirations, +That filled the misty days unborn +With fancy's coruscations! + +Ah, Lucy, life has swiftly sped +From April to November; +The summer blossoms all are shed +That you and I remember; +But while the vanished years we share +With mingling recollections, +How all their shadowy features wear +The hue of old affections! + +Love called you. He who stole your heart +Of sunshine half bereft us; +Our household's garland fell apart +The morning that you left us; +The tears of tender girlhood streamed +Through sorrow's opening sluices; +Less sweet our garden's roses seemed, +Less blue its flower-de-luces. + +That old regret is turned to smiles, +That parting sigh to greeting; +I send my heart-throb fifty miles +Through every line 't is beating; +God grant you many and happy years, +Till when the last has crowned you +The dawn of endless day appears, +And heaven is shining round you! + +October 11, 1875. + + + + + +HYMN + +FOR THE INAUGURATION OF THE STATUE OF GOVERNOR +ANDREW, HINGHAM, OCTOBER 7, 1875 + +BEHOLD the shape our eyes have known! +It lives once more in changeless stone; +So looked in mortal face and form +Our guide through peril's deadly storm. + +But hushed the beating heart we knew, +That heart so tender, brave, and true, +Firm as the rooted mountain rock, +Pure as the quarry's whitest block! + +Not his beneath the blood-red star +To win the soldier's envied sear; +Unarmed he battled for the right, +In Duty's never-ending fight. + +Unconquered will, unslumbering eye, +Faith such as bids the martyr die, +The prophet's glance, the master's hand +To mould the work his foresight planned, + +These were his gifts; what Heaven had lent +For justice, mercy, truth, he spent, +First to avenge the traitorous blow, +And first to lift the vanquished foe. + +Lo, thus he stood; in danger's strait +The pilot of the Pilgrim State! +Too large his fame for her alone,-- +A nation claims him as her own! + + + + + +A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE + +READ AT THE MEETING HELD AT MUSIC HALL, +FEBRUARY 8, 1876, IN MEMORY OF DR. SAMUEL G. HOWE + + +I. + +LEADER of armies, Israel's God, +Thy soldier's fight is won! +Master, whose lowly path he trod, +Thy servant's work is done! + +No voice is heard from Sinai's steep +Our wandering feet to guide; +From Horeb's rock no waters leap; +No Jordan's waves divide; + +No prophet cleaves our western sky +On wheels of whirling fire; +No shepherds hear the song on high +Of heaven's angelic choir. + +Yet here as to the patriarch's tent +God's angel comes a guest; +He comes on heaven's high errand sent, +In earth's poor raiment drest. + +We see no halo round his brow +Till love its own recalls, +And, like a leaf that quits the bough, +The mortal vesture falls. + +In autumn's chill declining day, +Ere winter's killing frost, +The message came; so passed away +The friend our earth has lost. + +Still, Father, in thy love we trust; +Forgive us if we mourn +The saddening hour that laid in dust +His robe of flesh outworn. + + +II. + +How long the wreck-strewn journey seems +To reach the far-off past +That woke his youth from peaceful dreams +With Freedom's trumpet-blast. + +Along her classic hillsides rung +The Paynim's battle-cry, +And like a red-cross knight he sprung +For her to live or die. + +No trustier service claimed the wreath +For Sparta's bravest son; +No truer soldier sleeps beneath +The mound of Marathon; + +Yet not for him the warrior's grave +In front of angry foes; +To lift, to shield, to help, to save, +The holier task he chose. + +He touched the eyelids of the blind, +And lo! the veil withdrawn, +As o'er the midnight of the mind +He led the light of dawn. + +He asked not whence the fountains roll +No traveller's foot has found, +But mapped the desert of the soul +Untracked by sight or sound. + +What prayers have reached the sapphire throne, +By silent fingers spelt, +For him who first through depths unknown +His doubtful pathway felt, + +Who sought the slumbering sense that lay +Close shut with bolt and bar, +And showed awakening thought the ray +Of reason's morning star. + +Where'er he moved, his shadowy form +The sightless orbs would seek, +And smiles of welcome light and warm +The lips that could not speak. + +No labored line, no sculptor's art, +Such hallowed memory needs; +His tablet is the human heart, +His record loving deeds. + + +III. + +The rest that earth denied is thine,-- +Ah, is it rest? we ask, +Or, traced by knowledge more divine, +Some larger, nobler task? + +Had but those boundless fields of blue +One darkened sphere like this; +But what has heaven for thee to do +In realms of perfect bliss? + +No cloud to lift, no mind to clear, +No rugged path to smooth, +No struggling soul to help and cheer, +No mortal grief to soothe! + +Enough; is there a world of love, +No more we ask to know; +The hand will guide thy ways above +That shaped thy task below. + + + + + +JOSEPH WARREN, M. D. + +TRAINED in the holy art whose lifted shield +Wards off the darts a never-slumbering foe, +By hearth and wayside lurking, waits to throw, +Oppression taught his helpful arm to wield +The slayer's weapon: on the murderous field +The fiery bolt he challenged laid him low, +Seeking its noblest victim. Even so +The charter of a nation must be sealed! +The healer's brow the hero's honors crowned, +From lowliest duty called to loftiest deed. +Living, the oak-leaf wreath his temples bound; +Dying, the conqueror's laurel was his meed, +Last on the broken ramparts' turf to bleed +Where Freedom's victory in defeat was found. + +June 11, 1875. + + + + + +OLD CAMBRIDGE + +JULY 3, 1875 + +AND can it be you've found a place +Within this consecrated space, +That makes so fine a show, +For one of Rip Van Winkle's race? +And is it really so? +Who wants an old receipted bill? +Who fishes in the Frog-pond still? +Who digs last year's potato hill?-- +That's what he'd like to know! + +And were it any spot on earth +Save this dear home that gave him birth +Some scores of years ago, +He had not come to spoil your mirth +And chill your festive glow; +But round his baby-nest he strays, +With tearful eye the scene surveys, +His heart unchanged by changing days, +That's what he'd have you know. + +Can you whose eyes not yet are dim +Live o'er the buried past with him, +And see the roses blow +When white-haired men were Joe and Jim +Untouched by winter's snow? +Or roll the years back one by one +As Judah's monarch backed the sun, +And see the century just begun?-- +That's what he'd like to know! + +I come, but as the swallow dips, +Just touching with her feather-tips +The shining wave below, +To sit with pleasure-murmuring lips +And listen to the flow +Of Elmwood's sparkling Hippocrene, +To tread once more my native green, +To sigh unheard, to smile unseen,-- +That's what I'd have you know. + +But since the common lot I've shared +(We all are sitting "unprepared," +Like culprits in a row, +Whose heads are down, whose necks are bared +To wait the headsman's blow), +I'd like to shift my task to you, +By asking just a thing or two +About the good old times I knew,-- +Here's what I want to know. + +The yellow meetin' house--can you tell +Just where it stood before it fell +Prey of the vandal foe,-- +Our dear old temple, loved so well, +By ruthless hands laid low? +Where, tell me, was the Deacon's pew? +Whose hair was braided in a queue? +(For there were pig-tails not a few,)-- +That's what I'd like to know. + +The bell--can you recall its clang? +And how the seats would slam and bang? +The voices high and low? +The basso's trump before he sang? +The viol and its bow? +Where was it old Judge Winthrop sat? +Who wore the last three-cornered hat? +Was Israel Porter lean or fat?-- +That's what I'd like to know. + +Tell where the market used to be +That stood beside the murdered tree? +Whose dog to church would go? +Old Marcus Reemie, who was he? +Who were the brothers Snow? +Does not your memory slightly fail +About that great September gale?-- +Whereof one told a moving tale, +As Cambridge boys should know. + +When Cambridge was a simple town, +Say just when Deacon William Brown +(Last door in yonder row), +For honest silver counted down, +His groceries would bestow?-- +For those were days when money meant +Something that jingled as you went,-- +No hybrid like the nickel cent, +I'd have you all to know, + +But quarter, ninepence, pistareen, +And fourpence hapennies in between, +All metal fit to show, +Instead of rags in stagnant green, +The scum of debts we owe; +How sad to think such stuff should be +Our Wendell's cure-all recipe,-- +Not Wendell H., but Wendell P.,-- +The one you all must know! + +I question--but you answer not-- +Dear me! and have I quite forgot +How fivescore years ago, +Just on this very blessed spot, +The summer leaves below, +Before his homespun ranks arrayed +In green New England's elmbough shade +The great Virginian drew the blade +King George full soon should know! + +O George the Third! you found it true +Our George was more than double you, +For nature made him so. +Not much an empire's crown can do +If brains are scant and slow,-- +Ah, not like that his laurel crown +Whose presence gilded with renown +Our brave old Academic town, +As all her children know! + +So here we meet with loud acclaim +To tell mankind that here he came, +With hearts that throb and glow; +Ours is a portion of his fame +Our trumpets needs must blow! +On yonder hill the Lion fell, +But here was chipped the eagle's shell,-- +That little hatchet did it well, +As all the world shall know! + + + + + +WELCOME TO THE NATIONS + +PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4, 1876 + +BRIGHT on the banners of lily and rose +Lo! the last sun of our century sets! +Wreathe the black cannon that scowled on our foes, +All but her friendships the nation forgets +All but her friends and their welcome forgets! +These are around her; but where are her foes? +Lo, while the sun of her century sets, +Peace with her garlands of lily and rose! + +Welcome! a shout like the war trumpet's swell +Wakes the wild echoes that slumber around +Welcome! it quivers from Liberty's bell; +Welcome! the walls of her temple resound! +Hark! the gray walls of her temple resound +Fade the far voices o'er hillside and dell; +Welcome! still whisper the echoes around; +Welcome I still trembles on Liberty's bell! + +Thrones of the continents! isles of the sea +Yours are the garlands of peace we entwine; +Welcome, once more, to the land of the free, +Shadowed alike by the pahn and the pine; +Softly they murmur, the palm and the pine, +"Hushed is our strife, in the land of the free"; +Over your children their branches entwine, +Thrones of the continents! isles of the sea! + + + + + +A FAMILIAR LETTER + +TO SEVERAL CORRESPONDENTS + +YES, write, if you want to, there's nothing like trying; +Who knows what a treasure your casket may hold? +I'll show you that rhyming's as easy as lying, +If you'll listen to me while the art I unfold. + +Here's a book full of words; one can choose as he fancies, +As a painter his tint, as a workman his tool; +Just think! all the poems and plays and romances +Were drawn out of this, like the fish from a pool! + +You can wander at will through its syllabled mazes, +And take all you want,--not a copper they cost,-- +What is there to hinder your picking out phrases +For an epic as clever as "Paradise Lost"? + +Don't mind if the index of sense is at zero, +Use words that run smoothly, whatever they mean; +Leander and Lilian and Lillibullero +Are much the same thing in the rhyming machine. + +There are words so delicious their sweetness will smother +That boarding-school flavor of which we 're afraid,-- +There is "lush" is a good one, and "swirl" another,-- +Put both in one stanza, its fortune is made. + +With musical murmurs and rhythmical closes +You can cheat us of smiles when you've nothing to tell; +You hand us a nosegay of milliner's roses, +And we cry with delight, "Oh, how sweet they do smell!" + +Perhaps you will answer all needful conditions +For winning the laurels to which you aspire, +By docking the tails of the two prepositions +I' the style o' the bards you so greatly admire. + +As for subjects of verse, they are only too plenty +For ringing the changes on metrical chimes; +A maiden, a moonbeam, a lover of twenty +Have filled that great basket with bushels of rhymes. + +Let me show you a picture--'tis far from irrelevant-- +By a famous old hand in the arts of design; +'T is only a photographed sketch of an elephant,-- +The name of the draughtsman was Rembrandt of Rhine. + +How easy! no troublesome colors to lay on, +It can't have fatigued him,--no, not in the least,-- +A dash here and there with a hap-hazard crayon, +And there stands the wrinkled-skinned, baggy-limbed beast. + +Just so with your verse,--'t is as easy as sketching,-- +You--can reel off a song without knitting your brow, +As lightly as Rembrandt a drawing or etching; +It is nothing at all, if you only know how. + +Well; imagine you've printed your volume of verses: +Your forehead is wreathed with the garland of fame, +Your poems the eloquent school-boy rehearses, +Her album the school-girl presents for your name; + +Each morning the post brings you autograph letters; +You'll answer them promptly,--an hour is n't much +For the honor of sharing a page with your betters, +With magistrates, members of Congress, and such. + +Of course you're delighted to serve the committees +That come with requests from the country all round, +You would grace the occasion with poems and ditties +When they've got a new schoolhouse, or poor-house, or pound. + +With a hymn for the saints and a song for the sinners, +You go and are welcome wherever you please; +You're a privileged guest at all manner of dinners, +You've a seat on the platform among the grandees. + +At length your mere presence becomes a sensation, +Your cup of enjoyment is filled to its brim +With the pleasure Horatian of digitmonstration, +As the whisper runs round of "That's he!" or "That Is him!" + +But remember, O dealer in phrases sonorous, +So daintily chosen, so tunefully matched, +Though you soar with the wings of the cherubim o'er us, +The ovum was human from which you were hatched. + +No will of your own with its puny compulsion +Can summon the spirit that quickens the lyre; +It comes, if at all, like the Sibyl's convulsion +And touches the brain with a finger of fire. + +So perhaps, after all, it's as well to be quiet, +If you've nothing you think is worth saying in prose, +As to furnish a meal of their cannibal diet +To the critics, by publishing, as you propose. + +But it's all of no use, and I 'm sorry I've written,-- +I shall see your thin volume some day on my shelf; +For the rhyming tarantula surely has bitten, +And music must cure you, so pipe it yourself. + + + + + +UNSATISFIED + +"ONLY a housemaid!" She looked from the kitchen,-- +Neat was the kitchen and tidy was she; +There at her window a sempstress sat stitching; +"Were I a sempstress, how happy I'd be!" + +"Only a Queen!" She looked over the waters,-- +Fair was her kingdom and mighty was she; +There sat an Empress, with Queens for her daughters; +"Were I an Empress, how happy I'd be!" + +Still the old frailty they all of them trip in! +Eve in her daughters is ever the same; +Give her all Eden, she sighs for a pippin; +Give her an Empire, she pines for a name! + +May 8, 1876. + + + + + +HOW THE OLD HORSE WON THE BET + +DEDICATED BY A CONTRIBUTOR TO THE COLLEGIAN, +1830, TO THE EDITORS OF THE HARVARD ADVOCATE, 1876. + +'T WAS on the famous trotting-ground, +The betting men were gathered round +From far and near; the "cracks" were there +Whose deeds the sporting prints declare +The swift g. m., Old Hiram's nag, +The fleet s. h., Dan Pfeiffer's brag, +With these a third--and who is he +That stands beside his fast b. g.? +Budd Doble, whose catarrhal name +So fills the nasal trump of fame. +There too stood many a noted steed +Of Messenger and Morgan breed; +Green horses also, not a few; +Unknown as yet what they could do; +And all the hacks that know so well +The scourgings of the Sunday swell. + +Blue are the skies of opening day; +The bordering turf is green with May; +The sunshine's golden gleam is thrown +On sorrel, chestnut, bay, and roan; +The horses paw and prance and neigh, +Fillies and colts like kittens play, +And dance and toss their rippled manes +Shining and soft as silken skeins; +Wagons and gigs are ranged about, +And fashion flaunts her gay turn-out; +Here stands--each youthful Jehu's dream +The jointed tandem, ticklish team! +And there in ampler breadth expand +The splendors of the four-in-hand; +On faultless ties and glossy tiles +The lovely bonnets beam their smiles; +(The style's the man, so books avow; +The style's the woman, anyhow); +From flounces frothed with creamy lace +Peeps out the pug-dog's smutty face, +Or spaniel rolls his liquid eye, +Or stares the wiry pet of Skye,-- +O woman, in your hours of ease +So shy with us, so free with these! + +"Come on! I 'll bet you two to one +I 'll make him do it!" "Will you? Done!" + +What was it who was bound to do? +I did not hear and can't tell you,-- +Pray listen till my story's through. + +Scarce noticed, back behind the rest, +By cart and wagon rudely prest, +The parson's lean and bony bay +Stood harnessed in his one-horse shay-- +Lent to his sexton for the day; +(A funeral--so the sexton said; +His mother's uncle's wife was dead.) + +Like Lazarus bid to Dives' feast, +So looked the poor forlorn old beast; +His coat was rough, his tail was bare, +The gray was sprinkled in his hair; +Sportsmen and jockeys knew him not, +And yet they say he once could trot +Among the fleetest of the town, +Till something cracked and broke him down,-- +The steed's, the statesman's, common lot! +"And are we then so soon forgot?" +Ah me! I doubt if one of you +Has ever heard the name "Old Blue," +Whose fame through all this region rung +In those old days when I was young! + +"Bring forth the horse!" Alas! he showed +Not like the one Mazeppa rode; +Scant-maned, sharp-backed, and shaky-kneed, +The wreck of what was once a steed, +Lips thin, eyes hollow, stiff in joints; +Yet not without his knowing points. +The sexton laughing in his sleeve, +As if 't were all a make-believe, +Led forth the horse, and as he laughed +Unhitched the breeching from a shaft, +Unclasped the rusty belt beneath, +Drew forth the snaffle from his teeth, +Slipped off his head-stall, set him free +From strap and rein,--a sight to see! + +So worn, so lean in every limb, +It can't be they are saddling him! +It is! his back the pig-skin strides +And flaps his lank, rheumatic sides; +With look of mingled scorn and mirth +They buckle round the saddle-girth; +With horsey wink and saucy toss +A youngster throws his leg across, +And so, his rider on his back, +They lead him, limping, to the track, +Far up behind the starting-point, +To limber out each stiffened joint. + +As through the jeering crowd he past, +One pitying look Old Hiram cast; +"Go it, ye cripple, while ye can!" +Cried out unsentimental Dan; +"A Fast-Day dinner for the crows!" +Budd Doble's scoffing shout arose. + +Slowly, as when the walking-beam +First feels the gathering head of steam, +With warning cough and threatening wheeze +The stiff old charger crooks his knees; +At first with cautious step sedate, +As if he dragged a coach of state +He's not a colt; he knows full well +That time is weight and sure to tell; +No horse so sturdy but he fears +The handicap of twenty years. + +As through the throng on either hand +The old horse nears the judges' stand, +Beneath his jockey's feather-weight +He warms a little to his gait, +And now and then a step is tried +That hints of something like a stride. + +"Go!"--Through his ear the summons stung +As if a battle-trump had rung; +The slumbering instincts long unstirred +Start at the old familiar word; +It thrills like flame through every limb,-- +What mean his twenty years to him? +The savage blow his rider dealt +Fell on his hollow flanks unfelt; +The spur that pricked his staring hide +Unheeded tore his bleeding side; +Alike to him are spur and rein,-- +He steps a five-year-old again! + +Before the quarter pole was past, +Old Hiram said, "He's going fast." +Long ere the quarter was a half, +The chuckling crowd had ceased to laugh; +Tighter his frightened jockey clung +As in a mighty stride he swung, +The gravel flying in his track, +His neck stretched out, his ears laid back, +His tail extended all the while +Behind him like a rat-tail file! +Off went a shoe,--away it spun, +Shot like a bullet from a gun; + +The quaking jockey shapes a prayer +From scraps of oaths he used to swear; +He drops his whip, he drops his rein, +He clutches fiercely for a mane; +He'll lose his hold--he sways and reels-- +He'll slide beneath those trampling heels! +The knees of many a horseman quake, +The flowers on many a bonnet shake, +And shouts arise from left and right, +"Stick on! Stick on!" "Hould tight! Hould tight!" +"Cling round his neck and don't let go--" +"That pace can't hold--there! steady! whoa!" +But like the sable steed that bore +The spectral lover of Lenore, +His nostrils snorting foam and fire, +No stretch his bony limbs can tire; +And now the stand he rushes by, +And "Stop him!--stop him!" is the cry. +Stand back! he 's only just begun-- +He's having out three heats in one! + +"Don't rush in front! he'll smash your brains; +But follow up and grab the reins!" +Old Hiram spoke. Dan Pfeiffer heard, +And sprang impatient at the word; +Budd Doble started on his bay, +Old Hiram followed on his gray, +And off they spring, and round they go, +The fast ones doing "all they know." +Look! twice they follow at his heels, +As round the circling course he wheels, +And whirls with him that clinging boy +Like Hector round the walls of Troy; +Still on, and on, the third time round +They're tailing off! they're losing ground! +Budd Doble's nag begins to fail! +Dan Pfeiffer's sorrel whisks his tail! +And see! in spite of whip and shout, +Old Hiram's mare is giving out! +Now for the finish! at the turn, +The old horse--all the rest astern-- +Comes swinging in, with easy trot; +By Jove! he's distanced all the lot! + +That trot no mortal could explain; +Some said, "Old Dutchman come again!" +Some took his time,--at least they tried, +But what it was could none decide; +One said he couldn't understand +What happened to his second hand; +One said 2.10; that could n't be-- +More like two twenty-two or three; +Old Hiram settled it at last; +"The time was two--too dee-vel-ish fast!" + +The parson's horse had won the bet; +It cost him something of a sweat; +Back in the one-horse shay he went; +The parson wondered what it meant, +And murmured, with a mild surprise +And pleasant twinkle of the eyes, +That funeral must have been a trick, +Or corpses drive at double-quick; +I should n't wonder, I declare, +If brother--Jehu--made the prayer! + +And this is all I have to say +About that tough old trotting bay, +Huddup! Huddup! G'lang! Good day! +Moral for which this tale is told +A horse can trot, for all he 's old. + + + + + +AN APPEAL FOR "THE OLD SOUTH" + +"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; +When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall." + +FULL sevenscore years our city's pride-- +The comely Southern spire-- +Has cast its shadow, and defied +The storm, the foe, the fire; +Sad is the sight our eyes behold; +Woe to the three-hilled town, +When through the land the tale is told-- +"The brave 'Old South' is down!" + +Let darkness blot the starless dawn +That hears our children tell, +"Here rose the walls, now wrecked and gone, +Our fathers loved so well; +Here, while his brethren stood aloof, +The herald's blast was blown +That shook St. Stephen's pillared roof +And rocked King George's throne! + +"The home-bound wanderer of the main +Looked from his deck afar, +To where the gilded, glittering vane +Shone like the evening star, +And pilgrim feet from every clime +The floor with reverence trod, +Where holy memories made sublime +The shrine of Freedom's God!" + +The darkened skies, alas! have seen +Our monarch tree laid low, +And spread in ruins o'er the green, +But Nature struck the blow; +No scheming thrift its downfall planned, +It felt no edge of steel, +No soulless hireling raised his hand +The deadly stroke to deal. + +In bridal garlands, pale and mute, +Still pleads the storied tower; +These are the blossoms, but the fruit +Awaits the golden shower; +The spire still greets the morning sun,-- +Say, shall it stand or fall? +Help, ere the spoiler has begun! +Help, each, and God help all! + + + + + +THE FIRST FAN + +READ AT A MEETING OF THE BOSTON BRIC-A-BRAC +CLUB, FEBRUARY 21, 1877 + +WHEN rose the cry "Great Pan is dead!" +And Jove's high palace closed its portal, +The fallen gods, before they fled, +Sold out their frippery to a mortal. + +"To whom?" you ask. I ask of you. +The answer hardly needs suggestion; +Of course it was the Wandering Jew,-- +How could you put me such a question? + +A purple robe, a little worn, +The Thunderer deigned himself to offer; +The bearded wanderer laughed in scorn,-- +You know he always was a scoffer. + +"Vife shillins! 't is a monstrous price; +Say two and six and further talk shun." +"Take it," cried Jove; "we can't be nice,-- +'T would fetch twice that at Leonard's auction." + +The ice was broken; up they came, +All sharp for bargains, god and goddess, +Each ready with the price to name +For robe or head-dress, scarf or bodice. + +First Juno, out of temper, too,-- +Her queenly forehead somewhat cloudy; +Then Pallas in her stockings blue, +Imposing, but a little dowdy. + +The scowling queen of heaven unrolled +Before the Jew a threadbare turban +"Three shillings." "One. 'T will suit some old +Terrific feminine suburban." + +But as for Pallas,--how to tell +In seemly phrase a fact so shocking? +She pointed,--pray excuse me,--well, +She pointed to her azure stocking. + +And if the honest truth were told, +Its heel confessed the need of darning; +"Gods!" low-bred Vulcan cried, "behold! +There! that's what comes of too much larning!" + +Pale Proserpine came groping round, +Her pupils dreadfully dilated +With too much living underground,-- +A residence quite overrated; + +This kerchief's what you want, I know,-- +Don't cheat poor Venus of her cestus,-- +You'll find it handy when you go +To--you know where; it's pure asbestus. + +Then Phoebus of the silverr bow, +And Hebe, dimpled as a baby, +And Dian with the breast of snow, +Chaser and chased--and caught, it may be: + +One took the quiver from her back, +One held the cap he spent the night in, +And one a bit of bric-a-brac, +Such as the gods themselves delight in. + +Then Mars, the foe of human kind, +Strode up and showed his suit of armor; +So none at last was left behind +Save Venus, the celestial charmer. + +Poor Venus! What had she to sell? +For all she looked so fresh and jaunty, +Her wardrobe, as I blush' to tell, +Already seemed but quite too scanty. + +Her gems were sold, her sandals gone,-- +She always would be rash and flighty,-- +Her winter garments all in pawn, +Alas for charming Aphrodite. + +The lady of a thousand loves, +The darling of the old religion, +Had only left of all the doves +That drew her car one fan-tailed pigeon. + +How oft upon her finger-tips +He perched, afraid of Cupid's arrow, +Or kissed her on the rosebud lips, +Like Roman Lesbia's loving sparrow! + +"My bird, I want your train," she cried; +"Come, don't let's have a fuss about it; +I'll make it beauty's pet and pride, +And you'll be better off without it. + +"So vulgar! Have you noticed, pray, +An earthly belle or dashing bride walk, +And how her flounces track her way, +Like slimy serpents on the sidewalk? + +"A lover's heart it quickly cools; +In mine it kindles up enough rage +To wring their necks. How can such fools +Ask men to vote for woman suffrage?" + +The goddess spoke, and gently stripped +Her bird of every caudal feather; +A strand of gold-bright hair she clipped, +And bound the glossy plumes together, + +And lo, the Fan! for beauty's hand, +The lovely queen of beauty made it; +The price she named was hard to stand, +But Venus smiled: the Hebrew paid it. + +Jove, Juno, Venus, where are you? +Mars, Mercury, Phoebus, Neptune, Saturn? +But o'er the world the Wandering Jew +Has borne the Fan's celestial pattern. + +So everywhere we find the Fan,-- +In lonely isles of the Pacific, +In farthest China and Japan,-- +Wherever suns are sudorific. + +Nay, even the oily Esquimaux +In summer court its cooling breezes,-- +In fact, in every clime 't is so, +No matter if it fries or freezes. + +And since from Aphrodite's dove +The pattern of the fan was given, +No wonder that it breathes of love +And wafts the perfumed gales of heaven! + +Before this new Pandora's gift +In slavery woman's tyrant kept her, +But now he kneels her glove to lift,-- +The fan is mightier than the sceptre. + +The tap it gives how arch and sly! +The breath it wakes how fresh and grateful! +Behind its shield how soft the sigh! +The whispered tale of shame how fateful! + +Its empire shadows every throne +And every shore that man is tost on; +It rules the lords of every zone, +Nay, even the bluest blood of Boston! + +But every one that swings to-night, +Of fairest shape, from farthest region, +May trace its pedigree aright +To Aphrodite's fan-tailed pigeon. + + + + +TO R. B. H. + +AT THE DINNER TO THE PRESIDENT, +BOSTON, JUNE 26, 1877 + +How to address him? awkward, it is true +Call him "Great Father," as the Red Men do? +Borrow some title? this is not the place +That christens men Your Highness and Your Grace; +We tried such names as these awhile, you know, +But left them off a century ago. + +His Majesty? We've had enough of that +Besides, that needs a crown; he wears a hat. +What if, to make the nicer ears content, +We say His Honesty, the President? + +Sir, we believed you honest, truthful, brave, +When to your hands their precious trust we gave, +And we have found you better than we knew, +Braver, and not less honest, not less true! +So every heart has opened, every hand +Tingles with welcome, and through all the land +All voices greet you in one broad acclaim, +Healer of strife! Has earth a nobler name? + +What phrases mean you do not need to learn; +We must be civil, and they serve our turn +"Your most obedient humble" means--means what? +Something the well-bred signer just is not. + +Yet there are tokens, sir, you must believe; +There is one language never can deceive +The lover knew it when the maiden smiled; +The mother knows it when she clasps her child; +Voices may falter, trembling lips turn pale, +Words grope and stumble; this will tell their tale +Shorn of all rhetoric, bare of all pretence, +But radiant, warm, with Nature's eloquence. +Look in our eyes! Your welcome waits you there,-- +North, South, East, West, from all and everywhere! + + + + + +THE SHIP OF STATE + +A SENTIMENT + +This "sentiment" was read on the same occasion as the "Family Record," +which immediately follows it. The latter poem is the dutiful tribute of a +son to his father and his father's ancestors, residents of Woodstock from +its first settlement. + +THE Ship of State! above her skies are blue, +But still she rocks a little, it is true, +And there are passengers whose faces white +Show they don't feel as happy as they might; +Yet on the whole her crew are quite content, +Since its wild fury the typhoon has spent, +And willing, if her pilot thinks it best, +To head a little nearer south by west. +And this they feel: the ship came too near wreck, +In the long quarrel for the quarter-deck, +Now when she glides serenely on her way,-- +The shallows past where dread explosives lay,-- +The stiff obstructive's churlish game to try +Let sleeping dogs and still torpedoes lie! +And so I give you all the Ship of State; +Freedom's last venture is her priceless freight; +God speed her, keep her, bless her, while she steers +Amid the breakers of unsounded years; +Lead her through danger's paths with even keel, +And guide the honest hand that holds her wheel! + +WOODSTOCK, CONN., July 4, 1877. + + + + + +A FAMILY RECORD + +WOODSTOCK, CONN., JULY 4, 1877 + +NOT to myself this breath of vesper song, +Not to these patient friends, this kindly throng, +Not to this hallowed morning, though it be +Our summer Christmas, Freedom's jubilee, +When every summit, topmast, steeple, tower, +That owns her empire spreads her starry flower, +Its blood-streaked leaves in heaven's benignant dew +Washed clean from every crimson stain they knew,-- +No, not to these the passing thrills belong +That steal my breath to hush themselves with song. +These moments all are memory's; I have come +To speak with lips that rather should be dumb; +For what are words? At every step I tread +The dust that wore the footprints of the dead +But for whose life my life had never known +This faded vesture which it calls its own. +Here sleeps my father's sire, and they who gave +That earlier life here found their peaceful grave. +In days gone by I sought the hallowed ground; +Climbed yon long slope; the sacred spot I found +Where all unsullied lies the winter snow, +Where all ungathered spring's pale violets blow, +And tracked from stone to stone the Saxon name +That marks the blood I need not blush to claim, +Blood such as warmed the Pilgrim sons of toil, +Who held from God the charter of the soil. +I come an alien to your hills and plains, +Yet feel your birthright tingling in my veins; +Mine are this changing prospect's sun and shade, +In full-blown summer's bridal pomp arrayed; +Mine these fair hillsides and the vales between; +Mine the sweet streams that lend their brightening green; +I breathed your air--the sunlit landscape smiled; +I touch your soil--it knows its children's child; +Throned in my heart your heritage is mine; +I claim it all by memory's right divine +Waking, I dream. Before my vacant eyes +In long procession shadowy forms arise; +Far through the vista of the silent years +I see a venturous band; the pioneers, +Who let the sunlight through the forest's gloom, +Who bade the harvest wave, the garden bloom. +Hark! loud resounds the bare-armed settler's axe, +See where the stealthy panther left his tracks! +As fierce, as stealthy creeps the skulking foe +With stone-tipped shaft and sinew-corded bow; +Soon shall he vanish from his ancient reign, +Leave his last cornfield to the coming train, +Quit the green margin of the wave he drinks, +For haunts that hide the wild-cat and the lynx. + +But who the Youth his glistening axe that swings +To smite the pine that shows a hundred rings? +His features?--something in his look I find +That calls the semblance of my race to mind. +His name?--my own; and that which goes before +The same that once the loved disciple bore. +Young, brave, discreet, the father of a line +Whose voiceless lives have found a voice in mine; +Thinned by unnumbered currents though they be, +Thanks for the ruddy drops I claim from thee! + +The seasons pass; the roses come and go; +Snows fall and melt; the waters freeze and flow; +The boys are men; the girls, grown tall and fair, +Have found their mates; a gravestone here and there +Tells where the fathers lie; the silvered hair +Of some bent patriarch yet recalls the time +That saw his feet the northern hillside climb, +A pilgrim from the pilgrims far away, +The godly men, the dwellers by the bay. +On many a hearthstone burns the cheerful fire; +The schoolhouse porch, the heavenward pointing spire +Proclaim in letters every eye can read, +Knowledge and Faith, the new world's simple creed. +Hush! 't is the Sabbath's silence-stricken morn +No feet must wander through the tasselled corn; +No merry children laugh around the door, +No idle playthings strew the sanded floor; +The law of Moses lays its awful ban +On all that stirs; here comes the tithing-man +At last the solemn hour of worship calls; +Slowly they gather in the sacred walls; +Man in his strength and age with knotted staff, +And boyhood aching for its week-day laugh, +The toil-worn mother with the child she leads, +The maiden, lovely in her golden beads,-- +The popish symbols round her neck she wears, +But on them counts her lovers, not her prayers,-- +Those youths in homespun suits and ribboned queues, +Whose hearts are beating in the high-backed pews. +The pastor rises; looks along the seats +With searching eye; each wonted face he meets; +Asks heavenly guidance; finds the chapter's place +That tells some tale of Israel's stubborn race; +Gives out the sacred song; all voices join, +For no quartette extorts their scanty coin; +Then while both hands their black-gloved palms display, +Lifts his gray head, and murmurs, "Let us pray!" +And pray he does! as one that never fears +To plead unanswered by the God that hears; +What if he dwells on many a fact as though +Some things Heaven knew not which it ought to know,-- +Thanks God for all his favors past, and yet, +Tells Him there's something He must not forget; +Such are the prayers his people love to hear,-- +See how the Deacon slants his listening ear! +What! look once more! Nay, surely there I trace +The hinted outlines of a well-known face! +Not those the lips for laughter to beguile, +Yet round their corners lurks an embryo smile, +The same on other lips my childhood knew +That scarce the Sabbath's mastery could subdue. +Him too my lineage gives me leave to claim,-- +The good, grave man that bears the Psalmist's name. + +And still in ceaseless round the seasons passed; +Spring piped her carol; Autumn blew his blast; +Babes waxed to manhood; manhood shrunk to age; +Life's worn-out players tottered off the stage; +The few are many; boys have grown to men +Since Putnam dragged the wolf from Pomfret's den; +Our new-old Woodstock is a thriving town; +Brave are her children; faithful to the crown; +Her soldiers' steel the savage redskin knows; +Their blood has crimsoned his Canadian snows. +And now once more along the quiet vale +Rings the dread call that turns the mothers pale; +Full well they know the valorous heat that runs +In every pulse-beat of their loyal sons; +Who would not bleed in good King George's cause +When England's lion shows his teeth and claws? +With glittering firelocks on the village green +In proud array a martial band is seen; +You know what names those ancient rosters hold,-- +Whose belts were buckled when the drum-beat rolled,-- +But mark their Captain! tell us, who is he? +On his brown face that same old look I see +Yes! from the homestead's still retreat he came, +Whose peaceful owner bore the Psalmist's name; +The same his own. Well, Israel's glorious king +Who struck the harp could also whirl the sling,-- +Breathe in his song a penitential sigh +And smite the sons of Amalek hip and thigh: +These shared their task; one deaconed out the psalm, +One slashed the scalping hell-hounds of calm; +The praying father's pious work is done, +Now sword in hand steps forth the fighting son. +On many a field he fought in wilds afar; +See on his swarthy cheek the bullet's scar! +There hangs a murderous tomahawk; beneath, +Without its blade, a knife's embroidered sheath; +Save for the stroke his trusty weapon dealt +His scalp had dangled at their owner's belt; +But not for him such fate; he lived to see +The bloodier strife that made our nation free, +To serve with willing toil, with skilful hand, +The war-worn saviors of the bleeding land. +His wasting life to others' needs he gave,-- +Sought rest in home and found it in the grave. +See where the stones life's brief memorials keep, +The tablet telling where he "fell on sleep,"-- +Watched by a winged cherub's rayless eye,-- +A scroll above that says we all must die,-- +Those saddening lines beneath, the "Night-Thoughts" lent: +So stands the Soldier's, Surgeon's monument. +Ah! at a glance my filial eye divines +The scholar son in those remembered lines. + +The Scholar Son. His hand my footsteps led. +No more the dim unreal past I tread. +O thou whose breathing form was once so dear, +Whose cheering voice was music to my ear, +Art thou not with me as my feet pursue +The village paths so well thy boyhood knew, +Along the tangled margin of the stream +Whose murmurs blended with thine infant dream, +Or climb the hill, or thread the wooded vale, +Or seek the wave where gleams yon distant sail, +Or the old homestead's narrowed bounds explore, +Where sloped the roof that sheds the rains no more, +Where one last relic still remains to tell +Here stood thy home,--the memory-haunted well, +Whose waters quench a deeper thirst than thine, +Changed at my lips to sacramental wine,-- +Art thou not with me, as I fondly trace +The scanty records of thine honored race, +Call up the forms that earlier years have known, +And spell the legend of each slanted stone? +With thoughts of thee my loving verse began, +Not for the critic's curious eye to scan, +Not for the many listeners, but the few +Whose fathers trod the paths my fathers knew; +Still in my heart thy loved remembrance burns; +Still to my lips thy cherished name returns; +Could I but feel thy gracious presence near +Amid the groves that once to thee were dear +Could but my trembling lips with mortal speech +Thy listening ear for one brief moment reach! +How vain the dream! The pallid voyager's track +No sign betrays; he sends no message back. +No word from thee since evening's shadow fell +On thy cold forehead with my long farewell,-- +Now from the margin of the silent sea, +Take my last offering ere I cross to thee! + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell +Holmes, Vol. 8, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY OF HOLMES, VOL. 8 *** + +***** This file should be named 7395.txt or 7395.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/7/3/9/7395/ + +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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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 8. + Bunker Hill and Other Poems + +Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +Release Date: January, 2005 [Etext #7395] +[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, V8 *** + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] + + + + + + THE POETICAL WORKS + + OF + + OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + + VOL. III + + + +CONTENTS: + +BUNKER-HILL BATTLE AND OTHER POEMS + GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF BUNKER-HILL BATTLE + AT THE "ATLANTIC" DINNER, DECEMBER 15, 1874 + "LUCY." FOR HER GOLDEN WEDDING, OCTOBER 18, 1875 + HYMN FOR THE INAUGURATION OF THE STATUE OF GOVERNOR ANDREW, HINGHAM, + OCTOBER 7, 1875 + A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE TO DR. SAMUEL G. HOWE + JOSEPH WARREN, M. D. + OLD CAMBRIDGE, JULY 3, 1875 + WELCOME TO THE NATIONS, PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4, 1876 + A FAMILIAR LETTER + UNSATISFIED + HOW THE OLD HORSE WON THE BET + AN APPEAL FOR "THE OLD SOUTH" + THE FIRST FAN + To R. B. H. + THE SHIP OF STATE + A FAMILY RECORD + + + + + + BUNKER-HILL BATTLE + + AND OTHER POEMS + + 1874-1877 + + + +GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF BUNKER-HILL BATTLE + +AS SHE SAW IT FROM THE BELFRY + +'T is like stirring living embers when, at eighty, one remembers +All the achings and the quakings of "the times that tried men's souls"; +When I talk of Whig and Tory, when I tell the Rebel story, +To you the words are ashes, but to me they're burning coals. + +I had heard the muskets' rattle of the April running battle; +Lord Percy's hunted soldiers, I can see their red-coats still; +But a deadly chill comes o'er me, as the day looms up before me, +When a thousand men lay bleeding on the slopes of Bunker's Hill. + +'T was a peaceful summer's morning, when the first thing gave us warning +Was the booming of the cannon from the river and the shore: +"Child," says grandma, "what 's the matter, what is all this noise and + clatter? +Have those scalping Indian devils come to murder us once more?" + +Poor old soul! my sides were shaking in the midst of all my quaking, +To hear her talk of Indians when the guns began to roar: +She had seen the burning village, and the slaughter and the pillage, +When the Mohawks killed her father with their bullets through his door. + +Then I said, "Now, dear old granny, don't you fret and worry any, +For I'll soon come back and tell you whether this is work or play; +There can't be mischief in it, so I won't be gone a minute"-- +For a minute then I started. I was gone the live-long day. + +No time for bodice-lacing or for looking-glass grimacing; +Down my hair went as I hurried, tumbling half-way to my heels; +God forbid your ever knowing, when there's blood around her flowing, +How the lonely, helpless daughter of a quiet house-hold feels! + +In the street I heard a thumping; and I knew it was the stumping +Of the Corporal, our old neighbor, on that wooden leg he wore, +With a knot of women round him,-it was lucky I had found him, +So I followed with the others, and the Corporal marched before. + +They were making for the steeple,--the old soldier and his people; +The pigeons circled round us as we climbed the creaking stair. +Just across the narrow river--oh, so close it made me shiver!-- +Stood a fortress on the hill-top that but yesterday was bare. + +Not slow our eyes to find it; well we knew who stood behind it, +Though the earthwork hid them from us, and the stubborn walls were dumb +Here were sister, wife, and mother, looking wild upon each other, +And their lips were white with terror as they said, THE HOUR HAS COME! + +The morning slowly wasted, not a morsel had we tasted, +And our heads were almost splitting with the cannons' deafening thrill, +When a figure tall and stately round the rampart strode sedately; +It was PRESCOTT, one since told me; he commanded on the hill. + +Every woman's heart grew bigger when we saw his manly figure, +With the banyan buckled round it, standing up so straight and tall; +Like a gentleman of leisure who is strolling out for pleasure, +Through the storm of shells and cannon-shot he walked around the wall. + +At eleven the streets were swarming, for the red-coats' ranks were + forming; +At noon in marching order they were moving to the piers; +How the bayonets gleamed and glistened, as we looked far down, and + listened +To the trampling and the drum-beat of the belted grenadiers! + +At length the men have started, with a cheer (it seemed faint-hearted), +In their scarlet regimentals, with their knapsacks on their backs, +And the reddening, rippling water, as after a sea-fight's slaughter, +Round the barges gliding onward blushed like blood along their tracks. + +So they crossed to the other border, and again they formed in order; +And the boats came back for soldiers, came for soldiers, soldiers still: +The time seemed everlasting to us women faint and fasting,-- +At last they're moving, marching, marching proudly up the hill. + +We can see the bright steel glancing all along the lines advancing,-- +Now the front rank fires a volley,--they have thrown away their shot; +For behind their earthwork lying, all the balls above them flying, +Our people need not hurry; so they wait and answer not. + +Then the Corporal, our old cripple (he would swear sometimes and tipple), +He had heard the bullets whistle (in the old French war) before,-- +Calls out in words of jeering, just as if they all were hearing,-- +And his wooden leg thumps fiercely on the dusty belfry floor:-- + +"Oh! fire away, ye villains, and earn King George's shillin's, +But ye 'll waste a ton of powder afore a 'rebel' falls; +You may bang the dirt and welcome, they're as safe as Dan'l Malcolm +Ten foot beneath the gravestone that you've splintered with your balls!" + +In the hush of expectation, in the awe and trepidation +Of the dread approaching moment, we are well-nigh breathless all; +Though the rotten bars are failing on the rickety belfry railing, +We are crowding up against them like the waves against a wall. + +Just a glimpse (the air is clearer), they are nearer,--nearer,--nearer, +When a flash--a curling smoke-wreath--then a crash--the steeple shakes-- +The deadly truce is ended; the tempest's shroud is rended; +Like a morning mist it gathered, like a thunder-cloud it breaks! + +Oh the sight our eyes discover as the blue-black smoke blows over! +The red-coats stretched in windrows as a mower rakes his hay; +Here a scarlet heap is lying, there a headlong crowd is flying +Like a billow that has broken and is shivered into spray. + +Then we cried, "The troops are routed! they are beat--it can't be + doubted! +God be thanked, the fight is over!"--Ah! the grim old soldier's smile! +"Tell us, tell us why you look so?" (we could hardly speak, we shook so), +"Are they beaten? Are they beaten? ARE they beaten?"--"Wait a while." + +Oh the trembling and the terror! for too soon we saw our error: +They are baffled, not defeated; we have driven them back in vain; +And the columns that were scattered, round the colors that were tattered, +Toward the sullen, silent fortress turn their belted breasts again. + +All at once, as we are gazing, lo the roofs of Charlestown blazing! +They have fired the harmless village; in an hour it will be down! +The Lord in heaven confound them, rain his fire and brimstone round them, +The robbing, murdering red-coats, that would burn a peaceful town! + +They are marching, stern and solemn; we can see each massive column +As they near the naked earth-mound with the slanting walls so steep. +Have our soldiers got faint-hearted, and in noiseless haste departed? +Are they panic-struck and helpless? Are they palsied or asleep? + +Now! the walls they're almost under! scarce a rod the foes asunder! +Not a firelock flashed against them! up the earth-work they will swarm! +But the words have scarce been spoken, when the ominous calm is broken, +And a bellowing crash has emptied all the vengeance of the storm! + +So again, with murderous slaughter, pelted backwards to the water, +Fly Pigot's running heroes and the frightened braves of Howe; +And we shout, "At last they're done for, it's their barges they have run + for: +They are beaten, beaten, beaten; and the battle 's over now!" + +And we looked, poor timid creatures, on the rough old soldier's features, +Our lips afraid to question, but he knew what we would ask: +"Not sure," he said; "keep quiet,--once more, I guess, they 'll try it-- +Here's damnation to the cut-throats!"--then he handed me his flask, + +Saying, "Gal, you're looking shaky; have a drop of old Jamaiky; +I 'm afeard there 'll be more trouble afore the job is done"; +So I took one scorching swallow; dreadful faint I felt and hollow, +Standing there from early morning when the firing was begun. + +All through those hours of trial I had watched a calm clock dial, +As the hands kept creeping, creeping,--they were creeping round to four, +When the old man said, "They're forming with their bagonets fixed for + storming: +It 's the death-grip that's a coming,--they will try the works once + more." + +With brazen trumpets blaring, the flames behind them glaring, +The deadly wall before them, in close array they come; +Still onward, upward toiling, like a dragon's fold uncoiling,-- +Like the rattlesnake's shrill warning the reverberating drum + +Over heaps all torn and gory--shall I tell the fearful story, +How they surged above the breastwork, as a sea breaks over a deck; +How, driven, yet scarce defeated, our worn-out men retreated, +With their powder-horns all emptied, like the swimmers from a wreck? + +It has all been told and painted; as for me, they say I fainted, +And the wooden-legged old Corporal stumped with me down the stair: +When I woke from dreams affrighted the evening lamps were lighted,-- +On the floor a youth was lying; his bleeding breast was bare. + +And I heard through all the flurry, "Send for WARREN! hurry! hurry! +Tell him here's a soldier bleeding, and he 'll come and dress his + wound!" +Ah, we knew not till the morrow told its tale of death and sorrow, +How the starlight found him stiffened on the dark and bloody ground. + +Who the youth was, what his name was, where the place from which he came +was, +Who had brought him from the battle, and had left him at our door, +He could not speak to tell us; but 't was one of our brave fellows, +As the homespun plainly showed us which the dying soldier wore. + +For they all thought he was dying, as they gathered round him crying,-- +And they said, "Oh, how they'll miss him!" and, "What will his mother + do?" +Then, his eyelids just unclosing like a child's that has been dozing, +He faintly murmured, "Mother!"--and--I saw his eyes were blue. + +"Why, grandma, how you 're winking!" Ah, my child, it sets me thinking +Of a story not like this one. Well, he somehow lived along; +So we came to know each other, and I nursed him like a--mother, +Till at last he stood before me, tall, and rosy-checked, and strong. + +And we sometimes walked together in the pleasant summer weather,-- +"Please to tell us what his name was?" Just your own, my little dear,-- +There's his picture Copley painted: we became so well acquainted, +That--in short, that's why I 'm grandma, and you children all are here! + + + + + +AT THE "ATLANTIC" DINNER + +DECEMBER 15, 1874 + +I SUPPOSE it's myself that you're making allusion to +And bringing the sense of dismay and confusion to. +Of course some must speak,--they are always selected to, +But pray what's the reason that I am expected to? +I'm not fond of wasting my breath as those fellows do; +That want to be blowing forever as bellows do; +Their legs are uneasy, but why will you jog any +That long to stay quiet beneath the mahogany? + +Why, why call me up with your battery of flatteries? +You say "He writes poetry,"--that 's what the matter is +"It costs him no trouble--a pen full of ink or two +And the poem is done in the time of a wink or two; +As for thoughts--never mind--take the ones that lie uppermost, +And the rhymes used by Milton and Byron and Tupper most; +The lines come so easy! at one end he jingles 'em, +At the other with capital letters he shingles 'em,-- +Why, the thing writes itself, and before he's half done with it +He hates to stop writing, he has such good fun with it!" + +Ah, that is the way in which simple ones go about +And draw a fine picture of things they don't know about! +We all know a kitten, but come to a catamount +The beast is a stranger when grown up to that amount, +(A stranger we rather prefer should n't visit us, +A _felis_ whose advent is far from felicitous.) +The boy who can boast that his trap has just got a mouse +Must n't draw it and write underneath "hippopotamus"; +Or say unveraciously, "This is an elephant,"-- +Don't think, let me beg, these examples irrelevant,-- +What they mean is just this--that a thing to be painted well +Should always be something with which we're acquainted well. + +You call on your victim for "things he has plenty of,-- +Those copies of verses no doubt at least twenty of; +His desk is crammed full, for he always keeps writing 'em +And reading to friends as his way of delighting 'em!" +I tell you this writing of verses means business,-- +It makes the brain whirl in a vortex of dizziness +You think they are scrawled in the languor of laziness-- +I tell you they're squeezed by a spasm of craziness, +A fit half as bad as the staggering vertigos +That seize a poor fellow and down in the dirt he goes! + +And therefore it chimes with the word's etytology +That the sons of Apollo are great on apology, +For the writing of verse is a struggle mysterious +And the gayest of rhymes is a matter that's serious. +For myself, I'm relied on by friends in extremities, +And I don't mind so much if a comfort to them it is; +'T is a pleasure to please, and the straw that can tickle us +Is a source of enjoyment though slightly ridiculous. + +I am up for a--something--and since I 've begun with it, +I must give you a toast now before I have done with it. +Let me pump at my wits as they pumped the Cochituate +That moistened--it may be--the very last bit you ate: +Success to our publishers, authors and editors +To our debtors good luck,--pleasant dreams to our creditors; +May the monthly grow yearly, till all we are groping for +Has reached the fulfilment we're all of us hoping for; +Till the bore through the tunnel--it makes me let off a sigh +To think it may possibly ruin my prophecy-- +Has been punned on so often 't will never provoke again +One mild adolescent to make the old joke again; +Till abstinent, all-go-to-meeting society +Has forgotten the sense of the word inebriety; +Till the work that poor Hannah and Bridget and Phillis do +The humanized, civilized female gorillas do; +Till the roughs, as we call them, grown loving and dutiful, +Shall worship the true and the pure and the beautiful, +And, preying no longer as tiger and vulture do, +All read the "Atlantic" as persons of culture do! + + + + + +"LUCY" + +FOR HER GOLDEN WEDDING, OCTOBER 18, 1875 + +"Lucy."--The old familiar name +Is now, as always, pleasant, +Its liquid melody the same +Alike in past or present; +Let others call you what they will, +I know you'll let me use it; +To me your name is Lucy still, +I cannot bear to lose it. + +What visions of the past return +With Lucy's image blended! +What memories from the silent urn +Of gentle lives long ended! +What dreams of childhood's fleeting morn, +What starry aspirations, +That filled the misty days unborn +With fancy's coruscations! + +Ah, Lucy, life has swiftly sped +From April to November; +The summer blossoms all are shed +That you and I remember; +But while the vanished years we share +With mingling recollections, +How all their shadowy features wear +The hue of old affections! + +Love called you. He who stole your heart +Of sunshine half bereft us; +Our household's garland fell apart +The morning that you left us; +The tears of tender girlhood streamed +Through sorrow's opening sluices; +Less sweet our garden's roses seemed, +Less blue its flower-de-luces. + +That old regret is turned to smiles, +That parting sigh to greeting; +I send my heart-throb fifty miles +Through every line 't is beating; +God grant you many and happy years, +Till when the last has crowned you +The dawn of endless day appears, +And heaven is shining round you! + +October 11, 1875. + + + + + +HYMN + +FOR THE INAUGURATION OF THE STATUE OF GOVERNOR +ANDREW, HINGHAM, OCTOBER 7, 1875 + +BEHOLD the shape our eyes have known! +It lives once more in changeless stone; +So looked in mortal face and form +Our guide through peril's deadly storm. + +But hushed the beating heart we knew, +That heart so tender, brave, and true, +Firm as the rooted mountain rock, +Pure as the quarry's whitest block! + +Not his beneath the blood-red star +To win the soldier's envied sear; +Unarmed he battled for the right, +In Duty's never-ending fight. + +Unconquered will, unslumbering eye, +Faith such as bids the martyr die, +The prophet's glance, the master's hand +To mould the work his foresight planned, + +These were his gifts; what Heaven had lent +For justice, mercy, truth, he spent, +First to avenge the traitorous blow, +And first to lift the vanquished foe. + +Lo, thus he stood; in danger's strait +The pilot of the Pilgrim State! +Too large his fame for her alone,-- +A nation claims him as her own! + + + + + +A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE + +READ AT THE MEETING HELD AT MUSIC HALL, +FEBRUARY 8, 1876, IN MEMORY OF DR. SAMUEL G. HOWE + + +I. + +LEADER of armies, Israel's God, +Thy soldier's fight is won! +Master, whose lowly path he trod, +Thy servant's work is done! + +No voice is heard from Sinai's steep +Our wandering feet to guide; +From Horeb's rock no waters leap; +No Jordan's waves divide; + +No prophet cleaves our western sky +On wheels of whirling fire; +No shepherds hear the song on high +Of heaven's angelic choir + +Yet here as to the patriarch's tent +God's angel comes a guest; +He comes on heaven's high errand sent, +In earth's poor raiment drest. + +We see no halo round his brow +Till love its own recalls, +And, like a leaf that quits the bough, +The mortal vesture falls. + +In autumn's chill declining day, +Ere winter's killing frost, +The message came; so passed away +The friend our earth has lost. + +Still, Father, in thy love we trust; +Forgive us if we mourn +The saddening hour that laid in dust +His robe of flesh outworn. + + +II. + +How long the wreck-strewn journey seems +To reach the far-off past +That woke his youth from peaceful dreams +With Freedom's trumpet-blast + +Along her classic hillsides rung +The Paynim's battle-cry, +And like a red-cross knight he sprung +For her to live or die. + +No trustier service claimed the wreath +For Sparta's bravest son; +No truer soldier sleeps beneath +The mound of Marathon; + +Yet not for him the warrior's grave +In front of angry foes; +To lift, to shield, to help, to save, +The holier task he chose. + +He touched the eyelids of the blind, +And lo! the veil withdrawn, +As o'er the midnight of the mind +He led the light of dawn. + +He asked not whence the fountains roll +No traveller's foot has found, +But mapped the desert of the soul +Untracked by sight or sound. + +What prayers have reached the sapphire throne, +By silent fingers spelt, +For him who first through depths unknown +His doubtful pathway felt, + +Who sought the slumbering sense that lay +Close shut with bolt and bar, +And showed awakening thought the ray +Of reason's morning star + +Where'er he moved, his shadowy form +The sightless orbs would seek, +And smiles of welcome light and warm +The lips that could not speak. + +No labored line, no sculptor's art, +Such hallowed memory needs; +His tablet is the human heart, +His record loving deeds. + + +III. + +The rest that earth denied is thine,-- +Ah, is it rest? we ask, +Or, traced by knowledge more divine, +Some larger, nobler task? + +Had but those boundless fields of blue +One darkened sphere like this; +But what has heaven for thee to do +In realms of perfect bliss? + +No cloud to lift, no mind to clear, +No rugged path to smooth, +No struggling soul to help and cheer, +No mortal grief to soothe! + +Enough; is there a world of love, +No more we ask to know; +The hand will guide thy ways above +That shaped thy task below. + + + + + +JOSEPH WARREN, M. D. + +TRAINED in the holy art whose lifted shield +Wards off the darts a never-slumbering foe, +By hearth and wayside lurking, waits to throw, +Oppression taught his helpful arm to wield +The slayer's weapon : on the murderous field +The fiery bolt he challenged laid him low, +Seeking its noblest victim. Even so +The charter of a nation must be sealed! +The healer's brow the hero's honors crowned, +From lowliest duty called to loftiest deed. +Living, the oak-leaf wreath his temples bound; +Dying, the conqueror's laurel was his meed, +Last on the broken ramparts' turf to bleed +Where Freedom's victory in defeat was found. + +June 11, 1875. + + + + + +OLD CAMBRIDGE + +JULY 3, 1875 + +AND can it be you've found a place +Within this consecrated space, +That makes so fine a show, +For one of Rip Van Winkle's race? +And is it really so? +Who wants an old receipted bill? +Who fishes in the Frog-pond still? +Who digs last year's potato hill?-- +That's what he'd like to know! + +And were it any spot on earth +Save this dear home that gave him birth +Some scores of years ago, +He had not come to spoil your mirth +And chill your festive glow; +But round his baby-nest he strays, +With tearful eye the scene surveys, +His heart unchanged by changing days, +That's what he'd have you know. + +Can you whose eyes not yet are dim +Live o'er the buried past with him, +And see the roses blow +When white-haired men were Joe and Jim +Untouched by winter's snow? +Or roll the years back one by one +As Judah's monarch backed the sun, +And see the century just begun?-- +That's what he'd like to know! + +I come, but as the swallow dips, +Just touching with her feather-tips +The shining wave below, +To sit with pleasure-murmuring lips +And listen to the flow +Of Elmwood's sparkling Hippocrene, +To tread once more my native green, +To sigh unheard, to smile unseen,-- +That's what I'd have you know. + +But since the common lot I've shared +(We all are sitting "unprepared," +Like culprits in a row, +Whose heads are down, whose necks are bared +To wait the headsman's blow), +I'd like to shift my task to you, +By asking just a thing or two +About the good old times I knew,-- +Here's what I want to know + +The yellow meetin' house--can you tell +Just where it stood before it fell +Prey of the vandal foe,-- +Our dear old temple, loved so well, +By ruthless hands laid low? +Where, tell me, was the Deacon's pew? +Whose hair was braided in a queue? +(For there were pig-tails not a few,)-- +That's what I'd like to know. + +The bell--can you recall its clang? +And how the seats would slam and bang? +The voices high and low? +The basso's trump before he sang? +The viol and its bow? +Where was it old Judge Winthrop sat? +Who wore the last three-cornered hat? +Was Israel Porter lean or fat?-- +That's what I'd like to know. + +Tell where the market used to be +That stood beside the murdered tree? +Whose dog to church would go? +Old Marcus Reemie, who was he? +Who were the brothers Snow? +Does not your memory slightly fail +About that great September gale?-- +Whereof one told a moving tale, +As Cambridge boys should know. + +When Cambridge was a simple town, +Say just when Deacon William Brown +(Last door in yonder row), +For honest silver counted down, +His groceries would bestow?-- +For those were days when money meant +Something that jingled as you went,-- +No hybrid like the nickel cent, +I'd have you all to know, + +But quarter, ninepence, pistareen, +And fourpence hapennies in between, +All metal fit to show, +Instead of rags in stagnant green, +The scum of debts we owe; +How sad to think such stuff should be +Our Wendell's cure-all recipe,-- +Not Wendell H., but Wendell P.,-- +The one you all must know! + +I question--but you answer not-- +Dear me! and have I quite forgot +How fivescore years ago, +Just on this very blessed spot, +The summer leaves below, +Before his homespun ranks arrayed +In green New England's elmbough shade +The great Virginian drew the blade +King George full soon should know! + +O George the Third! you found it true +Our George was more than double you, +For nature made him so. +Not much an empire's crown can do +If brains are scant and slow,-- +Ah, not like that his laurel crown +Whose presence gilded with renown +Our brave old Academic town, +As all her children know! + +So here we meet with loud acclaim +To tell mankind that here he came, +With hearts that throb and glow; +Ours is a portion of his fame +Our trumpets needs must blow! +On yonder hill the Lion fell, +But here was chipped the eagle's shell,-- +That little hatchet did it well, +As all the world shall know! + + + + + +WELCOME TO THE NATIONS + +PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4, 1876 + +BRIGHT on the banners of lily and rose +Lo! the last sun of our century sets! +Wreathe the black cannon that scowled on our foes, +All but her friendships the nation forgets +All but her friends and their welcome forgets! +These are around her; but where are her foes? +Lo, while the sun of her century sets, +Peace with her garlands of lily and rose! + +Welcome! a shout like the war trumpet's swell +Wakes the wild echoes that slumber around +Welcome! it quivers from Liberty's bell; +Welcome! the walls of her temple resound! +Hark! the gray walls of her temple resound +Fade the far voices o'er hillside and dell; +Welcome! still whisper the echoes around; +Welcome I still trembles on Liberty's bell! + +Thrones of the continents! isles of the sea +Yours are the garlands of peace we entwine; +Welcome, once more, to the land of the free, +Shadowed alike by the pahn and the pine; +Softly they murmur, the palm and the pine, +"Hushed is our strife, in the land of the free"; +Over your children their branches entwine, +Thrones of the continents! isles of the sea! + + + + + +A FAMILIAR LETTER + +TO SEVERAL CORRESPONDENTS + +YES, write, if you want to, there's nothing like trying; +Who knows what a treasure your casket may hold? +I'll show you that rhyming's as easy as lying, +If you'll listen to me while the art I unfold. + +Here's a book full of words; one can choose as he fancies, +As a painter his tint, as a workman his tool; +Just think! all the poems and plays and romances +Were drawn out of this, like the fish from a pool! + +You can wander at will through its syllabled mazes, +And take all you want,--not a copper they cost,-- +What is there to hinder your picking out phrases +For an epic as clever as "Paradise Lost"? + +Don't mind if the index of sense is at zero, +Use words that run smoothly, whatever they mean; +Leander and Lilian and Lillibullero +Are much the same thing in the rhyming machine. + +There are words so delicious their sweetness will smother +That boarding-school flavor of which we 're afraid,-- +There is "lush" is a good one, and "swirl" another,-- +Put both in one stanza, its fortune is made. + +With musical murmurs and rhythmical closes +You can cheat us of smiles when you've nothing to tell; +You hand us a nosegay of milliner's roses, +And we cry with delight, "Oh, how sweet they do smell!" + +Perhaps you will answer all needful conditions +For winning the laurels to which you aspire, +By docking the tails of the two prepositions +I' the style o' the bards you so greatly admire. + +As for subjects of verse, they are only too plenty +For ringing the changes on metrical chimes; +A maiden, a moonbeam, a lover of twenty +Have filled that great basket with bushels of rhymes. + +Let me show you a picture--'tis far from irrelevant-- +By a famous old hand in the arts of design; +'T is only a photographed sketch of an elephant,-- +The name of the draughtsman was Rembrandt of Rhine. + +How easy! no troublesome colors to lay on, +It can't have fatigued him,--no, not in the least,-- +A dash here and there with a hap-hazard crayon, +And there stands the wrinkled-skinned, baggy-limbed beast. + +Just so with your verse,--'t is as easy as sketching,-- +You--can reel off a song without knitting your brow, +As lightly as Rembrandt a drawing or etching; +It is nothing at all, if you only know how. + +Well; imagine you've printed your volume of verses: +Your forehead is wreathed with the garland of fame, +Your poems the eloquent school-boy rehearses, +Her album the school-girl presents for your name; + +Each morning the post brings you autograph letters; +You'll answer them promptly,--an hour is n't much +For the honor of sharing a page with your betters, +With magistrates, members of Congress, and such. + +Of course you're delighted to serve the committees +That come with requests from the country all round, +You would grace the occasion with poems and ditties +When they've got a new schoolhouse, or poor-house, or pound. + +With a hymn for the saints and a song for the sinners, +You go and are welcome wherever you please; +You're a privileged guest at all manner of dinners, +You've a seat on the platform among the grandees. + +At length your mere presence becomes a sensation, +Your cup of enjoyment is filled to its brim +With the pleasure Horatian of digitmonstration, +As the whisper runs round of "That's he!" or "That Is him!" + +But remember, O dealer in phrases sonorous, +So daintily chosen, so tunefully matched, +Though you soar with the wings of the cherubim o'er us, +The ovum was human from which you were hatched. + +No will of your own with its puny compulsion +Can summon the spirit that quickens the lyre; +It comes, if at all, like the Sibyl's convulsion +And touches the brain with a finger of fire. + +So perhaps, after all, it's as well to be quiet, +If you've nothing you think is worth saying in prose, +As to furnish a meal of their cannibal diet +To the critics, by publishing, as you propose. + +But it's all of no use, and I 'm sorry I've written,-- +I shall see your thin volume some day on my shelf; +For the rhyming tarantula surely has bitten, +And music must cure you, so pipe it yourself. + + + + + +UNSATISFIED + +"ONLY a housemaid!" She looked from the kitchen,-- +Neat was the kitchen and tidy was she; +There at her window a sempstress sat stitching; +"Were I a sempstress, how happy I'd be!" + +"Only a Queen!" She looked over the waters,-- +Fair was her kingdom and mighty was she; +There sat an Empress, with Queens for her daughters; +Were I an Empress, how happy I'd be!" + +Still the old frailty they all of them trip in! +Eve in her daughters is ever the same; +Give her all Eden, she sighs for a pippin; +Give her an Empire, she pines for a name! + +May 8, 1876. + + + + + +HOW THE OLD HORSE WON THE BET + +DEDICATED BY A CONTRIBUTOR TO THE COLLEGIAN, +1830, TO THE EDITORS OF THE HARVARD ADVOCATE, 1876. + +'T WAS on the famous trotting-ground, +The betting men were gathered round +From far and near; the "cracks" were there +Whose deeds the sporting prints declare +The swift g. m., Old Hiram's nag, +The fleet s. h., Dan Pfeiffer's brag, +With these a third--and who is he +That stands beside his fast b. g.? +Budd Doble, whose catarrhal name +So fills the nasal trump of fame. +There too stood many a noted steed +Of Messenger and Morgan breed; +Green horses also, not a few; +Unknown as yet what they could do; +And all the hacks that know so well +The scourgings of the Sunday swell. + +Blue are the skies of opening day; +The bordering turf is green with May; +The sunshine's golden gleam is thrown +On sorrel, chestnut, bay, and roan; +The horses paw and prance and neigh, +Fillies and colts like kittens play, +And dance and toss their rippled manes +Shining and soft as silken skeins; +Wagons and gigs are ranged about, +And fashion flaunts her gay turn-out; +Here stands--each youthful Jehu's dream +The jointed tandem, ticklish team! +And there in ampler breadth expand +The splendors of the four-in-hand; +On faultless ties and glossy tiles +The lovely bonnets beam their smiles; +(The style's the man, so books avow; +The style's the woman, anyhow); +From flounces frothed with creamy lace +Peeps out the pug-dog's smutty face, +Or spaniel rolls his liquid eye, +Or stares the wiry pet of Skye,-- +O woman, in your hours of ease +So shy with us, so free with these! + +"Come on! I 'll bet you two to one +I 'll make him do it!" "Will you? Done!" + +What was it who was bound to do? +I did not hear and can't tell you,-- +Pray listen till my story's through. + +Scarce noticed, back behind the rest, +By cart and wagon rudely prest, +The parson's lean and bony bay +Stood harnessed in his one-horse shay-- +Lent to his sexton for the day; +(A funeral--so the sexton said; +His mother's uncle's wife was dead.) + +Like Lazarus bid to Dives' feast, +So looked the poor forlorn old beast; +His coat was rough, his tail was bare, +The gray was sprinkled in his hair; +Sportsmen and jockeys knew him not, +And yet they say he once could trot +Among the fleetest of the town, +Till something cracked and broke him down,-- +The steed's, the statesman's, common lot! +"And are we then so soon forgot?" +Ah me! I doubt if one of you +Has ever heard the name "Old Blue," +Whose fame through all this region rung +In those old days when I was young! + +"Bring forth the horse!" Alas! he showed +Not like the one Mazeppa rode; +Scant-maned, sharp-backed, and shaky-kneed, +The wreck of what was once a steed, +Lips thin, eyes hollow, stiff in joints; +Yet not without his knowing points. +The sexton laughing in his sleeve, +As if 't were all a make-believe, +Led forth the horse, and as he laughed +Unhitched the breeching from a shaft, +Unclasped the rusty belt beneath, +Drew forth the snaffle from his teeth, +Slipped off his head-stall, set him free +From strap and rein,--a sight to see! + +So worn, so lean in every limb, +It can't be they are saddling him! +It is! his back the pig-skin strides +And flaps his lank, rheumatic sides; +With look of mingled scorn and mirth +They buckle round the saddle-girth; +With horsey wink and saucy toss +A youngster throws his leg across, +And so, his rider on his back, +They lead him, limping, to the track, +Far up behind the starting-point, +To limber out each stiffened joint. + +As through the jeering crowd he past, +One pitying look Old Hiram cast; +"Go it, ye cripple, while ye can!" +Cried out unsentimental Dan; +"A Fast-Day dinner for the crows!" +Budd Doble's scoffing shout arose. + +Slowly, as when the walking-beam +First feels the gathering head of steam, +With warning cough and threatening wheeze +The stiff old charger crooks his knees; +At first with cautious step sedate, +As if he dragged a coach of state +He's not a colt; he knows full well +That time is weight and sure to tell; +No horse so sturdy but he fears +The handicap of twenty years. + +As through the throng on either hand +The old horse nears the judges' stand, +Beneath his jockey's feather-weight +He warms a little to his gait, +And now and then a step is tried +That hints of something like a stride. + +"Go!"--Through his ear the summons stung +As if a battle-trump had rung; +The slumbering instincts long unstirred +Start at the old familiar word; +It thrills like flame through every limb,-- +What mean his twenty years to him? +The savage blow his rider dealt +Fell on his hollow flanks unfelt; +The spur that pricked his staring hide +Unheeded tore his bleeding side; +Alike to him are spur and rein,-- +He steps a five-year-old again! + +Before the quarter pole was past, +Old Hiram said, "He's going fast." +Long ere the quarter was a half, +The chuckling crowd had ceased to laugh; +Tighter his frightened jockey clung +As in a mighty stride he swung, +The gravel flying in his track, +His neck stretched out, his ears laid back, +His tail extended all the while +Behind him like a rat-tail file! +Off went a shoe,--away it spun, +Shot like a bullet from a gun; + +The quaking jockey shapes a prayer +From scraps of oaths he used to swear; +He drops his whip, he drops his rein, +He clutches fiercely for a mane; +He'll lose his hold--he sways and reels-- +He'll slide beneath those trampling heels! +The knees of many a horseman quake, +The flowers on many a bonnet shake, +And shouts arise from left and right, +"Stick on! Stick on!" "Hould tight! Hould tight!" +"Cling round his neck and don't let go-- +"That pace can't hold--there! steady! whoa!" +But like the sable steed that bore +The spectral lover of Lenore, +His nostrils snorting foam and fire, +No stretch his bony limbs can tire; +And now the stand he rushes by, +And "Stop him!--stop him!" is the cry. +Stand back! he 's only just begun-- +He's having out three heats in one! + +"Don't rush in front! he'll smash your brains; +But follow up and grab the reins!" +Old Hiram spoke. Dan Pfeiffer heard, +And sprang impatient at the word; +Budd Doble started on his bay, +Old Hiram followed on his gray, +And off they spring, and round they go, +The fast ones doing "all they know." +Look! twice they follow at his heels, +As round the circling course he wheels, +And whirls with him that clinging boy +Like Hector round the walls of Troy; +Still on, and on, the third time round +They're tailing off! they're losing ground! +Budd Doble's nag begins to fail! +Dan Pfeiffer's sorrel whisks his tail! +And see! in spite of whip and shout, +Old Hiram's mare is giving out! +Now for the finish! at the turn, +The old horse--all the rest astern-- +Comes swinging in, with easy trot; +By Jove! he's distanced all the lot! + +That trot no mortal could explain; +Some said, "Old Dutchman come again!" +Some took his time,--at least they tried, +But what it was could none decide; +One said he couldn't understand +What happened to his second hand; +One said 2.10; that could n't be-- +More like two twenty-two or three; +Old Hiram settled it at last; +"The time was two--too dee-vel-ish fast!" + +The parson's horse had won the bet; +It cost him something of a sweat; +Back in the one-horse shay he went; +The parson wondered what it meant, +And murmured, with a mild surprise +And pleasant twinkle of the eyes, +That funeral must have been a trick, +Or corpses drive at double-quick; +I should n't wonder, I declare, +If brother--Jehu--made the prayer! + +And this is all I have to say +About that tough old trotting bay, +Huddup! Huddup! G'lang! Good day! +Moral for which this tale is told +A horse can trot, for all he 's old. + + + + + +AN APPEAL FOR "THE OLD SOUTH" + +"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; +When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall." + +FULL sevenscore years our city's pride-- +The comely Southern spire-- +Has cast its shadow, and defied +The storm, the foe, the fire; +Sad is the sight our eyes behold; +Woe to the three-hilled town, +When through the land the tale is told-- +"The brave 'Old South' is down!" + +Let darkness blot the starless dawn +That hears our children tell, +"Here rose the walls, now wrecked and gone, +Our fathers loved so well; +Here, while his brethren stood aloof, +The herald's blast was blown +That shook St. Stephen's pillared roof +And rocked King George's throne! + +"The home-bound wanderer of the main +Looked from his deck afar, +To where the gilded, glittering vane +Shone like the evening star, +And pilgrim feet from every clime +The floor with reverence trod, +Where holy memories made sublime +The shrine of Freedom's God!" + +The darkened skies, alas! have seen +Our monarch tree laid low, +And spread in ruins o'er the green, +But Nature struck the blow; +No scheming thrift its downfall planned, +It felt no edge of steel, +No soulless hireling raised his hand +The deadly stroke to deal. + +In bridal garlands, pale and mute, +Still pleads the storied tower; +These are the blossoms, but the fruit +Awaits the golden shower; +The spire still greets the morning sun,-- +Say, shall it stand or fall? +Help, ere the spoiler has begun! +Help, each, and God help all! + + + + + +THE FIRST FAN + +READ AT A MEETING OF THE BOSTON BRIC-A-BRAC +CLUB, FEBRUARY 21, 1877 + +WHEN rose the cry "Great Pan is dead!" +And Jove's high palace closed its portal, +The fallen gods, before they fled, +Sold out their frippery to a mortal. + +"To whom?" you ask. I ask of you. +The answer hardly needs suggestion; +Of course it was the Wandering Jew,-- +How could you put me such a question? + +A purple robe, a little worn, +The Thunderer deigned himself to offer; +The bearded wanderer laughed in scorn,-- +You know he always was a scoffer. + +"Vife shillins! 't is a monstrous price; +Say two and six and further talk shun." +"Take it," cried Jove; "we can't be nice,-- +'T would fetch twice that at Leonard's auction." + +The ice was broken; up they came, +All sharp for bargains, god and goddess, +Each ready with the price to name +For robe or head-dress, scarf or bodice. + +First Juno, out of temper, too,-- +Her queenly forehead somewhat cloudy; +Then Pallas in her stockings blue, +Imposing, but a little dowdy. + +The scowling queen of heaven unrolled +Before the Jew a threadbare turban +"Three shillings." "One. 'T will suit some old +Terrific feminine suburban." + +But as for Pallas,--how to tell +In seemly phrase a fact so shocking? +She pointed,--pray excuse me,--well, +She pointed to her azure stocking. + +And if the honest truth were told, +Its heel confessed the need of darning; +"Gods!" low-bred Vulcan cried, "behold! +There! that's what comes of too much larning!" + +Pale Proserpine came groping round, +Her pupils dreadfully dilated +With too much living underground,-- +A residence quite overrated; + +This kerchief's what you want, I know,-- +Don't cheat poor Venus of her cestus,-- +You'll find it handy when you go +To--you know where; it's pure asbestus. + +Then Phoebus of the silverr bow, +And Hebe, dimpled as a baby, +And Dian with the breast of snow, +Chaser and chased--and caught, it may be: + +One took the quiver from her back, +One held the cap he spent the night in, +And one a bit of bric-a-brac, +Such as the gods themselves delight in. + +Then Mars, the foe of human kind, +Strode up and showed his suit of armor; +So none at last was left behind +Save Venus, the celestial charmer. + +Poor Venus! What had she to sell? +For all she looked so fresh and jaunty, +Her wardrobe, as I blush' to tell, +Already seemed but quite too scanty. + +Her gems were sold, her sandals gone,-- +She always would be rash and flighty,-- +Her winter garments all in pawn, +Alas for charming Aphrodite + +The lady of a thousand loves, +The darling of the old religion, +Had only left of all the doves +That drew her car one fan-tailed pigeon. + +How oft upon her finger-tips +He perched, afraid of Cupid's arrow, +Or kissed her on the rosebud lips, +Like Roman Lesbia's loving sparrow! + +"My bird, I want your train," she cried; +"Come, don't let's have a fuss about it; +I'll make it beauty's pet and pride, +And you'll be better off without it. + +"So vulgar! Have you noticed, pray, +An earthly belle or dashing bride walk, +And how her flounces track her way, +Like slimy serpents on the sidewalk? + +"A lover's heart it quickly cools; +In mine it kindles up enough rage +To wring their necks. How can such fools +Ask men to vote for woman suffrage?" + +The goddess spoke, and gently stripped +Her bird of every caudal feather; +A strand of gold-bright hair she clipped, +And bound the glossy plumes together, + +And lo, the Fan! for beauty's hand, +The lovely queen of beauty made it; +The price she named was hard to stand, +But Venus smiled: the Hebrew paid it. + +Jove, Juno, Venus, where are you? +Mars, Mercury, Phoebus, Neptune, Saturn? +But o'er the world the Wandering Jew +Has borne the Fan's celestial pattern. + +So everywhere we find the Fan,-- +In lonely isles of the Pacific, +In farthest China and Japan,-- +Wherever suns are sudorific. + +Nay, even the oily Esquimaux +In summer court its cooling breezes,-- +In fact, in every clime 't is so, +No matter if it fries or freezes. + +And since from Aphrodite's dove +The pattern of the fan was given, +No wonder that it breathes of love +And wafts the perfumed gales of heaven! + +Before this new Pandora's gift +In slavery woman's tyrant kept her, +But now he kneels her glove to lift,-- +The fan is mightier than the sceptre. + +The tap it gives how arch and sly! +The breath it wakes how fresh and grateful! +Behind its shield how soft the sigh! +The whispered tale of shame how fateful! + +Its empire shadows every throne +And every shore that man is tost on; +It rules the lords of every zone, +Nay, even the bluest blood of Boston! + +But every one that swings to-night, +Of fairest shape, from farthest region, +May trace its pedigree aright +To Aphrodite's fan-tailed pigeon. + + + + +TO R. B. H. + +AT THE DINNER TO THE PRESIDENT, +BOSTON, JUNE 26, 1877 + +How to address him? awkward, it is true +Call him "Great Father," as the Red Men do? +Borrow some title? this is not the place +That christens men Your Highness and Your Grace; +We tried such names as these awhile, you know, +But left them off a century ago. + +His Majesty? We've had enough of that +Besides, that needs a crown; he wears a hat. +What if, to make the nicer ears content, +We say His Honesty, the President? + +Sir, we believed you honest, truthful, brave, +When to your hands their precious trust we gave, +And we have found you better than we knew, +Braver, and not less honest, not less true! +So every heart has opened, every hand +Tingles with welcome, and through all the land +All voices greet you in one broad acclaim, +Healer of strife! Has earth a nobler name? + +What phrases mean you do not need to learn; +We must be civil, and they serve our turn +"Your most obedient humble" means--means what? +Something the well-bred signer just is not. + +Yet there are tokens, sir, you must believe; +There is one language never can deceive +The lover knew it when the maiden smiled; +The mother knows it when she clasps her child; +Voices may falter, trembling lips turn pale, +Words grope and stumble; this will tell their tale +Shorn of all rhetoric, bare of all pretence, +But radiant, warm, with Nature's eloquence. +Look in our eyes! Your welcome waits you there,-- +North, South, East, West, from all and everywhere! + + + + + +THE SHIP OF STATE + +A SENTIMENT + +This "sentiment" was read on the same occasion as the "Family Record," +which immediately follows it. The latter poem is the dutiful tribute of a +son to his father and his father's ancestors, residents of Woodstock from +its first settlement. + +THE Ship of State! above her skies are blue, +But still she rocks a little, it is true, +And there are passengers whose faces white +Show they don't feel as happy as they might; +Yet on the whole her crew are quite content, +Since its wild fury the typhoon has spent, +And willing, if her pilot thinks it best, +To head a little nearer south by west. +And this they feel: the ship came too near wreck, +In the long quarrel for the quarter-deck, +Now when she glides serenely on her way,-- +The shallows past where dread explosives lay,-- +The stiff obstructive's churlish game to try +Let sleeping dogs and still torpedoes lie! +And so I give you all the Ship of State; +Freedom's last venture is her priceless freight; +God speed her, keep her, bless her, while she steers +Amid the breakers of unsounded years; +Lead her through danger's paths with even keel, +And guide the honest hand that holds her wheel! + +WOODSTOCK, CONN., July 4, 1877. + + + + + +A FAMILY RECORD + +WOODSTOCK, CONN., JULY 4, 1877 + +NOT to myself this breath of vesper song, +Not to these patient friends, this kindly throng, +Not to this hallowed morning, though it be +Our summer Christmas, Freedom's jubilee, +When every summit, topmast, steeple, tower, +That owns her empire spreads her starry flower, +Its blood-streaked leaves in heaven's benignant dew +Washed clean from every crimson stain they knew,-- +No, not to these the passing thrills belong +That steal my breath to hush themselves with song. +These moments all are memory's; I have come +To speak with lips that rather should be dumb; +For what are words? At every step I tread +The dust that wore the footprints of the dead +But for whose life my life had never known +This faded vesture which it calls its own. +Here sleeps my father's sire, and they who gave +That earlier life here found their peaceful grave. +In days gone by I sought the hallowed ground; +Climbed yon long slope; the sacred spot I found +Where all unsullied lies the winter snow, +Where all ungathered spring's pale violets blow, +And tracked from stone to stone the Saxon name +That marks the blood I need not blush to claim, +Blood such as warmed the Pilgrim sons of toil, +Who held from God the charter of the soil. +I come an alien to your hills and plains, +Yet feel your birthright tingling in my veins; +Mine are this changing prospect's sun and shade, +In full-blown summer's bridal pomp arrayed; +Mine these fair hillsides and the vales between; +Mine the sweet streams that lend their brightening green; +I breathed your air--the sunlit landscape smiled; +I touch your soil--it knows its children's child; +Throned in my heart your heritage is mine; +I claim it all by memory's right divine +Waking, I dream. Before my vacant eyes +In long procession shadowy forms arise; +Far through the vista of the silent years +I see a venturous band; the pioneers, +Who let the sunlight through the forest's gloom, +Who bade the harvest wave, the garden bloom. +Hark! loud resounds the bare-armed settler's axe, +See where the stealthy panther left his tracks! +As fierce, as stealthy creeps the skulking foe +With stone-tipped shaft and sinew-corded bow; +Soon shall he vanish from his ancient reign, +Leave his last cornfield to the coming train, +Quit the green margin of the wave he drinks, +For haunts that hide the wild-cat and the lynx. + +But who the Youth his glistening axe that swings +To smite the pine that shows a hundred rings? +His features?--something in his look I find +That calls the semblance of my race to mind. +His name?--my own; and that which goes before +The same that once the loved disciple bore. +Young, brave, discreet, the father of a line +Whose voiceless lives have found a voice in mine; +Thinned by unnumbered currents though they be, +Thanks for the ruddy drops I claim from thee! + +The seasons pass; the roses come and go; +Snows fall and melt; the waters freeze and flow; +The boys are men; the girls, grown tall and fair, +Have found their mates; a gravestone here and there +Tells where the fathers lie; the silvered hair +Of some bent patriarch yet recalls the time +That saw his feet the northern hillside climb, +A pilgrim from the pilgrims far away, +The godly men, the dwellers by the bay. +On many a hearthstone burns the cheerful fire; +The schoolhouse porch, the heavenward pointing spire +Proclaim in letters every eye can read, +Knowledge and Faith, the new world's simple creed. +Hush! 't is the Sabbath's silence-stricken morn +No feet must wander through the tasselled corn; +No merry children laugh around the door, +No idle playthings strew the sanded floor; +The law of Moses lays its awful ban +On all that stirs; here comes the tithing-man +At last the solemn hour of worship calls; +Slowly they gather in the sacred walls; +Man in his strength and age with knotted staff, +And boyhood aching for its week-day laugh, +The toil-worn mother with the child she leads, +The maiden, lovely in her golden beads,-- +The popish symbols round her neck she wears, +But on them counts her lovers, not her prayers,-- +Those youths in homespun suits and ribboned queues, +Whose hearts are beating in the high-backed pews. +The pastor rises; looks along the seats +With searching eye; each wonted face he meets; +Asks heavenly guidance; finds the chapter's place +That tells some tale of Israel's stubborn race; +Gives out the sacred song; all voices join, +For no quartette extorts their scanty coin; +Then while both hands their black-gloved palms display, +Lifts his gray head, and murmurs, "Let us pray!" +And pray he does! as one that never fears +To plead unanswered by the God that hears; +What if he dwells on many a fact as though +Some things Heaven knew not which it ought to know,-- +Thanks God for all his favors past, and yet, +Tells Him there's something He must not forget; +Such are the prayers his people love to hear,-- +See how the Deacon slants his listening ear! +What! look once more! Nay, surely there I trace +The hinted outlines of a well-known face! +Not those the lips for laughter to beguile, +Yet round their corners lurks an embryo smile, +The same on other lips my childhood knew +That scarce the Sabbath's mastery could subdue. +Him too my lineage gives me leave to claim,-- +The good, grave man that bears the Psalmist's name. + +And still in ceaseless round the seasons passed; +Spring piped her carol; Autumn blew his blast; +Babes waxed to manhood; manhood shrunk to age; +Life's worn-out players tottered off the stage; +The few are many; boys have grown to men +Since Putnam dragged the wolf from Pomfret's den; +Our new-old Woodstock is a thriving town; +Brave are her children; faithful to the crown; +Her soldiers' steel the savage redskin knows; +Their blood has crimsoned his Canadian snows. +And now once more along the quiet vale +Rings the dread call that turns the mothers pale; +Full well they know the valorous heat that runs +In every pulse-beat of their loyal sons; +Who would not bleed in good King George's cause +When England's lion shows his teeth and claws? +With glittering firelocks on the village green +In proud array a martial band is seen; +You know what names those ancient rosters hold,-- +Whose belts were buckled when the drum-beat rolled,-- +But mark their Captain! tell us, who is he? +On his brown face that same old look I see +Yes! from the homestead's still retreat he came, +Whose peaceful owner bore the Psalmist's name; +The same his own. Well, Israel's glorious king +Who struck the harp could also whirl the sling,-- +Breathe in his song a penitential sigh +And smite the sons of Amalek hip and thigh: +These shared their task; one deaconed out the psalm, +One slashed the scalping hell-hounds of calm; +The praying father's pious work is done, +Now sword in hand steps forth the fighting son. +On many a field he fought in wilds afar; +See on his swarthy cheek the bullet's scar! +There hangs a murderous tomahawk; beneath, +Without its blade, a knife's embroidered sheath; +Save for the stroke his trusty weapon dealt +His scalp had dangled at their owner's belt; +But not for him such fate; he lived to see +The bloodier strife that made our nation free, +To serve with willing toil, with skilful hand, +The war-worn saviors of the bleeding land. +His wasting life to others' needs he gave,-- +Sought rest in home and found it in the grave. +See where the stones life's brief memorials keep, +The tablet telling where he "fell on sleep,"-- +Watched by a winged cherub's rayless eye,-- +A scroll above that says we all must die,-- +Those saddening lines beneath, the "Night-Thoughts" lent: +So stands the Soldier's, Surgeon's monument. +Ah! at a glance my filial eye divines +The scholar son in those remembered lines. + +The Scholar Son. His hand my footsteps led. +No more the dim unreal past I tread. +O thou whose breathing form was once so dear, +Whose cheering voice was music to my ear, +Art thou not with me as my feet pursue +The village paths so well thy boyhood knew, +Along the tangled margin of the stream +Whose murmurs blended with thine infant dream, +Or climb the hill, or thread the wooded vale, +Or seek the wave where gleams yon distant sail, +Or the old homestead's narrowed bounds explore, +Where sloped the roof that sheds the rains no more, +Where one last relic still remains to tell +Here stood thy home,--the memory-haunted well, +Whose waters quench a deeper thirst than thine, +Changed at my lips to sacramental wine,-- +Art thou not with me, as I fondly trace +The scanty records of thine honored race, +Call up the forms that earlier years have known, +And spell the legend of each slanted stone? +With thoughts of thee my loving verse began, +Not for the critic's curious eye to scan, +Not for the many listeners, but the few +Whose fathers trod the paths my fathers knew; +Still in my heart thy loved remembrance burns; +Still to my lips thy cherished name returns; +Could I but feel thy gracious presence near +Amid the groves that once to thee were dear +Could but my trembling lips with mortal speech +Thy listening ear for one brief moment reach! +How vain the dream! The pallid voyager's track +No sign betrays; he sends no message back. +No word from thee since evening's shadow fell +On thy cold forehead with my long farewell,-- +Now from the margin of the silent sea, +Take my last offering ere I cross to thee! + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY OF O. W. HOLMES, V8 *** + +******* This file should be named ohp0810.txt or ohp0810.zip ******** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, ohp0811.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, ohp0810a.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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