Chapter 1

Produced by David Widger

THE POETICAL WORKS

OF

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

[1893 three volume set]

CONTENTS:

TO MY READERS

EARLIER POEMS (1830-1836). OLD IRONSIDES THE LAST LEAF THE CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD TO AN INSECT THE DILEMMA MY AUNT REFLECTIONS OF A PROUD PEDESTRIAN DAILY TRIALS, BY A SENSITIVE MAN EVENING, BY A TAILOR THE DORCHESTER GIANT TO THE PORTRAIT OF "A LADY" THE COMET THE Music-GRINDERS THE TREADMILL SONG THE SEPTEMBER GALE THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS THE LAST READER POETRY: A METRICAL ESSAY

TO MY READERS

NAY, blame me not; I might have spared Your patience many a trivial verse, Yet these my earlier welcome shared, So, let the better shield the worse.

And some might say, "Those ruder songs Had freshness which the new have lost; To spring the opening leaf belongs, The chestnut-burs await the frost."

When those I wrote, my locks were brown, When these I write--ah, well a-day! The autumn thistle's silvery down Is not the purple bloom of May.

Go, little book, whose pages hold Those garnered years in loving trust; How long before your blue and gold Shall fade and whiten in the dust?

O sexton of the alcoved tomb, Where souls in leathern cerements lie, Tell me each living poet's doom! How long before his book shall die?

It matters little, soon or late, A day, a month, a year, an age,-- I read oblivion in its date, And Finis on its title-page.

Before we sighed, our griefs were told; Before we smiled, our joys were sung; And all our passions shaped of old In accents lost to mortal tongue.

In vain a fresher mould we seek,-- Can all the varied phrases tell That Babel's wandering children speak How thrushes sing or lilacs smell?

Caged in the poet's lonely heart, Love wastes unheard its tenderest tone; The soul that sings must dwell apart, Its inward melodies unknown.

Deal gently with us, ye who read Our largest hope is unfulfilled,-- The promise still outruns the deed,-- The tower, but not the spire, we build.

Our whitest pearl we never find; Our ripest fruit we never reach; The flowering moments of the mind Drop half their petals in our speech.

These are my blossoms; if they wear One streak of morn or evening's glow, Accept them; but to me more fair The buds of song that never blow. April 8, 1862.

EARLIER POEMS

1830-1836 OLD IRONSIDES

This was the popular name by which the frigate Constitution was known. The poem was first printed in the Boston Daily Advertiser, at the time when it was proposed to break up the old ship as unfit for service. I subjoin the paragraph which led to the writing of the poem. It is from the Advertiser of Tuesday, September 14, 1830:--

"Old Ironsides.--It has been affirmed upon good authority that the Secretary of the Navy has recommended to the Board of Navy Commissioners to dispose of the frigate Constitution. Since it has been understood that such a step was in contemplation we have heard but one opinion expressed, and that in decided disapprobation of the measure. Such a national object of interest, so endeared to our national pride as Old Ironsides is, should never by any act of our government cease to belong to the Navy, so long as our country is to be found upon the map of nations. In England it was lately determined by the Admiralty to cut the Victory, a one-hundred gun ship (which it will be recollected bore the flag of Lord Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar,) down to a seventy-four, but so loud were the lamentations of the people upon the proposed measure that the intention was abandoned. We confidently anticipate that the Secretary of the Navy will in like manner consult the general wish in regard to the Constitution, and either let her remain in ordinary or rebuild her whenever the public service may require."--New York Journal of Commerce.

The poem was an impromptu outburst of feeling and was published on the next day but one after reading the above paragraph.

AY, tear her tattered ensign down Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky; Beneath it rung the battle shout, And burst the cannon's roar;-- The meteor of the ocean air Shall sweep the clouds no more.

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, Where knelt the vanquished foe, When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, And waves were white below, No more shall feel the victor's tread, Or know the conquered knee;-- The harpies of the shore shall pluck The eagle of the sea!

Oh better that her shattered hulk Should sink beneath the wave; Her thunders shook the mighty deep, And there should be her grave; Nail to the mast her holy flag, Set every threadbare sail, And give her to the god of storms, The lightning and the gale!

THE LAST LEAF

This poem was suggested by the appearance in one of our streets of a venerable relic of the Revolution, said to be one of the party who threw the tea overboard in Boston Harbor. He was a fine monumental specimen in his cocked hat and knee breeches, with his buckled shoes and his sturdy cane. The smile with which I, as a young man, greeted him, meant no disrespect to an honored fellow-citizen whose costume was out of date, but whose patriotism never changed with years. I do not recall any earlier example of this form of verse, which was commended by the fastidious Edgar Allan Poe, who made a copy of the whole poem which I have in his own handwriting. Good Abraham Lincoln had a great liking for the poem, and repeated it from memory to Governor Andrew, as the governor himself told me.

I SAW him once before, As he passed by the door, And again The pavement stones resound, As he totters o'er the ground With his cane.

They say that in his prime, Ere the pruning-knife of Time Cut him down, Not a better man was found By the Crier on his round Through the town.

But now he walks the streets, And he looks at all he meets Sad and wan, And he shakes his feeble head, That it seems as if he said, "They are gone."

The mossy marbles rest On the lips that he has prest In their bloom, And the names he loved to hear Have been carved for many a year On the tomb.

My grandmamma has said-- Poor old lady, she is dead Long ago-- That he had a Roman nose, And his cheek was like a rose In the snow.

But now his nose is thin, And it rests upon his chin Like a staff, And a crook is in his back, And a melancholy crack In his laugh.

I know it is a sin For me to sit and grin At him here; But the old three-cornered hat, And the breeches, and all that, Are so queer!

And if I should live to be The last leaf upon the tree In the spring, Let them smile, as I do now, At the old forsaken bough Where I cling.

THE CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD

OUR ancient church! its lowly tower, Beneath the loftier spire, Is shadowed when the sunset hour Clothes the tall shaft in fire; It sinks beyond the distant eye Long ere the glittering vane, High wheeling in the western sky, Has faded o'er the plain.

Like Sentinel and Nun, they keep Their vigil on the green; One seems to guard, and one to weep, The dead that lie between; And both roll out, so full and near, Their music's mingling waves, They shake the grass, whose pennoned spear Leans on the narrow graves.

The stranger parts the flaunting weeds, Whose seeds the winds have strown So thick, beneath the line he reads, They shade the sculptured stone; The child unveils his clustered brow, And ponders for a while The graven willow's pendent bough, Or rudest cherub's smile.

But what to them the dirge, the knell? These were the mourner's share,-- The sullen clang, whose heavy swell Throbbed through the beating air; The rattling cord, the rolling stone, The shelving sand that slid, And, far beneath, with hollow tone Rung on the coffin's lid.

The slumberer's mound grows fresh and green, Then slowly disappears; The mosses creep, the gray stones lean, Earth hides his date and years; But, long before the once-loved name Is sunk or worn away, No lip the silent dust may claim, That pressed the breathing clay.

Go where the ancient pathway guides, See where our sires laid down Their smiling babes, their cherished brides, The patriarchs of the town; Hast thou a tear for buried love? A sigh for transient power? All that a century left above, Go, read it in an hour!

The Indian's shaft, the Briton's ball, The sabre's thirsting edge, The hot shell, shattering in its fall, The bayonet's rending wedge,-- Here scattered death; yet, seek the spot, No trace thine eye can see, No altar,--and they need it not Who leave their children free!

Look where the turbid rain-drops stand In many a chiselled square; The knightly crest, the shield, the brand Of honored names were there;-- Alas! for every tear is dried Those blazoned tablets knew, Save when the icy marble's side Drips with the evening dew.

Or gaze upon yon pillared stone, The empty urn of pride; There stand the Goblet and the Sun,-- What need of more beside? Where lives the memory of the dead, Who made their tomb a toy? Whose ashes press that nameless bed? Go, ask the village boy!

Lean o'er the slender western wall, Ye ever-roaming girls; The breath that bids the blossom fall May lift your floating curls, To sweep the simple lines that tell An exile's date and doom; And sigh, for where his daughters dwell, They wreathe the stranger's tomb.

And one amid these shades was born, Beneath this turf who lies, Once beaming as the summer's morn, That closed her gentle eyes; If sinless angels love as we, Who stood thy grave beside, Three seraph welcomes waited thee, The daughter, sister, bride.

I wandered to thy buried mound When earth was hid below The level of the glaring ground, Choked to its gates with snow, And when with summer's flowery waves The lake of verdure rolled, As if a Sultan's white-robed slaves Had scattered pearls and gold.

Nay, the soft pinions of the air, That lift this trembling tone, Its breath of love may almost bear To kiss thy funeral stone; And, now thy smiles have passed away, For all the joy they gave, May sweetest dews and warmest ray Lie on thine early grave!

When damps beneath and storms above Have bowed these fragile towers, Still o'er the graves yon locust grove Shall swing its Orient flowers; And I would ask no mouldering bust, If e'er this humble line, Which breathed a sigh o'er other's dust, Might call a tear on mine.

TO AN INSECT

The Katydid is "a species of grasshopper found in the United States, so called from the sound which it makes."--Worcester. I used to hear this insect in Providence, Rhode Island, but I do not remember hearing it in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I passed my boyhood. It is well known in other towns in the neighborhood of Boston.

I LOVE to hear thine earnest voice, Wherever thou art hid, Thou testy little dogmatist, Thou pretty Katydid Thou mindest me of gentlefolks,-- Old gentlefolks are they,-- Thou say'st an undisputed thing In such a solemn way.

Thou art a female, Katydid I know it by the trill That quivers through thy piercing notes, So petulant and shrill; I think there is a knot of you Beneath the hollow tree,-- A knot of spinster Katydids,--- Do Katydids drink tea?

Oh tell me where did Katy live, And what did Katy do? And was she very fair and young, And yet so wicked, too? Did Katy love a naughty man, Or kiss more cheeks than one? I warrant Katy did no more Than many a Kate has done.

Dear me! I'll tell you all about My fuss with little Jane, And Ann, with whom I used to walk So often down the lane, And all that tore their locks of black, Or wet their eyes of blue,-- Pray tell me, sweetest Katydid, What did poor Katy do?

Ah no! the living oak shall crash, That stood for ages still, The rock shall rend its mossy base And thunder down the hill, Before the little Katydid Shall add one word, to tell The mystic story of the maid Whose name she knows so well.

Peace to the ever-murmuring race! And when the latest one Shall fold in death her feeble wings Beneath the autumn sun, Then shall she raise her fainting voice, And lift her drooping lid, And then the child of future years Shall hear what Katy did.

THE DILEMMA

Now, by the blessed Paphian queen, Who heaves the breast of sweet sixteen; By every name I cut on bark Before my morning star grew dark; By Hymen's torch, by Cupid's dart, By all that thrills the beating heart; The bright black eye, the melting blue,-- I cannot choose between the two.

I had a vision in my dreams;-- I saw a row of twenty beams; From every beam a rope was hung, In every rope a lover swung; I asked the hue of every eye That bade each luckless lover die; Ten shadowy lips said, heavenly blue, And ten accused the darker hue.

I asked a matron which she deemed With fairest light of beauty beamed; She answered, some thought both were fair,-- Give her blue eyes and golden hair. I might have liked her judgment well, But, as she spoke, she rung the bell, And all her girls, nor small nor few, Came marching in,--their eyes were blue.

I asked a maiden; back she flung The locks that round her forehead hung, And turned her eye, a glorious one, Bright as a diamond in the sun, On me, until beneath its rays I felt as if my hair would blaze; She liked all eyes but eyes of green; She looked at me; what could she mean?

Ah! many lids Love lurks between, Nor heeds the coloring of his screen; And when his random arrows fly, The victim falls, but knows not why. Gaze not upon his shield of jet, The shaft upon the string is set; Look not beneath his azure veil, Though every limb were cased in mail.

Well, both might make a martyr break The chain that bound him to the stake; And both, with but a single ray, Can melt our very hearts away; And both, when balanced, hardly seem To stir the scales, or rock the beam; But that is dearest, all the while, That wears for us the sweetest smile.

MY AUNT

MY aunt! my dear unmarried aunt! Long years have o'er her flown; Yet still she strains the aching clasp That binds her virgin zone; I know it hurts her,--though she looks As cheerful as she can; Her waist is ampler than her life, For life is but a span.

My aunt! my poor deluded aunt! Her hair is almost gray; Why will she train that winter curl In such a spring-like way? How can she lay her glasses down, And say she reads as well, When through a double convex lens She just makes out to spell?

Her father--grandpapa I forgive This erring lip its smiles-- Vowed she should make the finest girl Within a hundred miles; He sent her to a stylish school; 'T was in her thirteenth June; And with her, as the rules required, "Two towels and a spoon."

They braced my aunt against a board, To make her straight and tall; They laced her up, they starved her down, To make her light and small; They pinched her feet, they singed her hair, They screwed it up with pins;-- Oh never mortal suffered more In penance for her sins.

So, when my precious aunt was done, My grandsire brought her back; (By daylight, lest some rabid youth Might follow on the track;) "Ah!" said my grandsire, as he shook Some powder in his pan, "What could this lovely creature do Against a desperate man!"

Alas! nor chariot, nor barouche, Nor bandit cavalcade, Tore from the trembling father's arms His all-accomplished maid. For her how happy had it been And Heaven had spared to me To see one sad, ungathered rose On my ancestral tree.

REFLECTIONS OF A PROUD PEDESTRIAN

I SAW the curl of his waving lash, And the glance of his knowing eye, And I knew that he thought he was cutting a dash, As his steed went thundering by.

And he may ride in the rattling gig, Or flourish the Stanhope gay, And dream that he looks exceeding big To the people that walk in the way;

But he shall think, when the night is still, On the stable-boy's gathering numbers, And the ghost of many a veteran bill Shall hover around his slumbers;

The ghastly dun shall worry his sleep, And constables cluster around him, And he shall creep from the wood-hole deep Where their spectre eyes have found him!

Ay! gather your reins, and crack your thong, And bid your steed go faster; He does not know, as he scrambles along, That he has a fool for his master;

And hurry away on your lonely ride, Nor deign from the mire to save me; I will paddle it stoutly at your side With the tandem that nature gave me!

DAILY TRIALS

BY A SENSITIVE MAN

OH, there are times When all this fret and tumult that we hear Do seem more stale than to the sexton's ear His own dull chimes.

Ding dong! ding dong! The world is in a simmer like a sea Over a pent volcano,--woe is me All the day long!

From crib to shroud! Nurse o'er our cradles screameth lullaby, And friends in boots tramp round us as we die, Snuffling aloud.

At morning's call The small-voiced pug-dog welcomes in the sun, And flea-bit mongrels, wakening one by one, Give answer all.

When evening dim Draws round us, then the lonely caterwaul, Tart solo, sour duet, and general squall,-- These are our hymn.

Women, with tongues Like polar needles, ever on the jar; Men, plugless word-spouts, whose deep fountains are Within their lungs.

Children, with drums Strapped round them by the fond paternal ass; Peripatetics with a blade of grass Between their thumbs.

Vagrants, whose arts Have caged some devil in their mad machine, Which grinding, squeaks, with husky groans between, Come out by starts.

Cockneys that kill Thin horses of a Sunday,--men, with clams, Hoarse as young bisons roaring for their dams From hill to hill.

Soldiers, with guns, Making a nuisance of the blessed air, Child-crying bellmen, children in despair, Screeching for buns.

Storms, thunders, waves! Howl, crash, and bellow till ye get your fill; Ye sometimes rest; men never can be still But in their graves.

EVENING

BY A TAILOR

DAY hath put on his jacket, and around His burning bosom buttoned it with stars. Here will I lay me on the velvet grass, That is like padding to earth's meagre ribs, And hold communion with the things about me. Ah me! how lovely is the golden braid That binds the skirt of night's descending robe! The thin leaves, quivering on their silken threads, Do make a music like to rustling satin, As the light breezes smooth their downy nap.

Ha! what is this that rises to my touch, So like a cushion? Can it be a cabbage? It is, it is that deeply injured flower, Which boys do flout us with;--but yet I love thee, Thou giant rose, wrapped in a green surtout. Doubtless in Eden thou didst blush as bright As these, thy puny brethren; and thy breath Sweetened the fragrance of her spicy air; But now thou seemest like a bankrupt beau, Stripped of his gaudy hues and essences, And growing portly in his sober garments.

Is that a swan that rides upon the water? Oh no, it is that other gentle bird, Which is the patron of our noble calling. I well remember, in my early years, When these young hands first closed upon a goose; I have a scar upon my thimble finger, Which chronicles the hour of young ambition. My father was a tailor, and his father, And my sire's grandsire, all of them were tailors; They had an ancient goose,--it was an heirloom From some remoter tailor of our race. It happened I did see it on a time When none was near, and I did deal with it, And it did burn me,--oh, most fearfully!

It is a joy to straighten out one's limbs, And leap elastic from the level counter, Leaving the petty grievances of earth, The breaking thread, the din of clashing shears, And all the needles that do wound the spirit, For such a pensive hour of soothing silence. Kind Nature, shuffling in her loose undress, Lays bare her shady bosom;--I can feel With all around me;--I can hail the flowers That sprig earth's mantle,--and yon quiet bird, That rides the stream, is to me as a brother. The vulgar know not all the hidden pockets, Where Nature stows away her loveliness. But this unnatural posture of the legs Cramps my extended calves, and I must go Where I can coil them in their wonted fashion.

THE DORCHESTER GIANT

The "pudding-stone" is a remarkable conglomerate found very abundantly in the towns mentioned, all of which are in the neighborhood of Boston. We used in those primitive days to ask friends to _ride_ with us when we meant to take them to _drive_ with us.

THERE was a giant in time of old, A mighty one was he; He had a wife, but she was a scold, So he kept her shut in his mammoth fold; And he had children three.

It happened to be an election day, And the giants were choosing a king The people were not democrats then, They did not talk of the rights of men, And all that sort of thing.

Then the giant took his children three, And fastened them in the pen; The children roared; quoth the giant, "Be still!" And Dorchester Heights and Milton Hill Rolled back the sound again.

Then he brought them a pudding stuffed with plums, As big as the State-House dome; Quoth he, "There 's something for you to eat; So stop your mouths with your 'lection treat, And wait till your dad comes home."

So the giant pulled him a chestnut stout, And whittled the boughs away; The boys and their mother set up a shout, Said he, "You 're in, and you can't get out, Bellow as loud as you may."

Off he went, and he growled a tune As he strode the fields along; 'T is said a buffalo fainted away, And fell as cold as a lump of clay, When he heard the giant's song.

But whether the story 's true or not, It is n't for me to show; There 's many a thing that 's twice as queer In somebody's lectures that we hear, And those are true, you know.

What are those lone ones doing now, The wife and the children sad? Oh, they are in a terrible rout, Screaming, and throwing their pudding about, Acting as they were mad.

They flung it over to Roxbury hills, They flung it over the plain, And all over Milton and Dorchester too Great lumps of pudding the giants threw; They tumbled as thick as rain.

Giant and mammoth have passed away, For ages have floated by; The suet is hard as a marrow-bone, And every plum is turned to a stone, But there the puddings lie.

And if, some pleasant afternoon, You 'll ask me out to ride, The whole of the story I will tell, And you shall see where the puddings fell, And pay for the punch beside.

TO THE PORTRAIT OF "A LADY" IN THE ATHENAEUM GALLERY

WELL, Miss, I wonder where you live, I wonder what's your name, I wonder how you came to be In such a stylish frame; Perhaps you were a favorite child, Perhaps an only one; Perhaps your friends were not aware You had your portrait done.

Yet you must be a harmless soul; I cannot think that Sin Would care to throw his loaded dice, With such a stake to win; I cannot think you would provoke The poet's wicked pen, Or make young women bite their lips, Or ruin fine young men.

Pray, did you ever hear, my love, Of boys that go about, Who, for a very trifling sum, Will snip one's picture out? I'm not averse to red and white, But all things have their place, I think a profile cut in black Would suit your style of face!

I love sweet features; I will own That I should like myself To see my portrait on a wall, Or bust upon a shelf; But nature sometimes makes one up Of such sad odds and ends, It really might be quite as well Hushed up among one's friends!

THE COMET

THE Comet! He is on his way, And singing as he flies; The whizzing planets shrink before The spectre of the skies; Ah! well may regal orbs burn blue, And satellites turn pale, Ten million cubic miles of head, Ten billion leagues of tail!

On, on by whistling spheres of light He flashes and he flames; He turns not to the left nor right, He asks them not their names; One spurn from his demoniac heel,-- Away, away they fly, Where darkness might be bottled up And sold for "Tyrian dye."

And what would happen to the land, And how would look the sea, If in the bearded devil's path Our earth should chance to be? Full hot and high the sea would boil, Full red the forests gleam; Methought I saw and heard it all In a dyspeptic dream!