The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell Part 101

Too pressed to wait, upon her slate Fame writes a name or two in doubt; Scarce written, these no longer please, And her own finger rubs them out: It may ensue, fair girl, that you Years hence this yellowing leaf may see, And put to task, your memory ask In vain, 'This Lowell, who was he?'

AT THE COMMENCEMENT DINNER, 1866

IN ACKNOWLEDGING A TOAST TO THE SMITH PROFESSOR

I rise, Mr. Chairman, as both of us know, With the impromptu I promised you three weeks ago, Dragged up to my doom by your might and my mane, To do what I vowed I'd do never again: And I feel like your good honest dough when possest By a stirring, impertinent devil of yeast.

'You must rise,' says the leaven. 'I can't,' says the dough; 'Just examine my b.u.mps, and you'll see it's no go.'

'But you must,' the tormentor insists, ''tis all right; You must rise when I bid you, and, what's more, be light.' 10

'Tis a dreadful oppression, this making men speak What they're sure to be sorry for all the next week; Some poor stick requesting, like Aaron's, to bud Into eloquence, pathos, or wit in cold blood, As if the dull brain that you vented your spite on Could be got, like an ox, by mere poking, to Brighton.

They say it is wholesome to rise with the sun, And I dare say it may be if not overdone; (I think it was Thomson who made the remark 'Twas an excellent thing in its way--for a lark;) 20 But to rise after dinner and look down the meeting On a distant (as Gray calls it) prospect of Eating, With a stomach half full and a cerebrum hollow As the tortoise-sh.e.l.l ere it was strung for Apollo, Undercontract to raise anerithmon gelasma With rhymes so hard hunted they gasp with the asthma, And jokes not much younger than Jethro's phylacteries, Is something I leave you yourselves to characterize.

I've a notion, I think, of a good dinner speech, Tripping light as a sandpiper over the beach, 30 Swerving this way and that as the wave of the moment Washes out its slight trace with a dash of whim's foam on 't, And leaving on memory's rim just a sense Something graceful had gone by, a live present tense; Not poetry,--no, not quite that, but as good, A kind of winged prose that could fly if it would.

'Tis a time for gay fancies as fleeting and vain As the whisper of foam-beads on fresh-poured champagne, Since dinners were not perhaps strictly designed For manoeuvring the heavy dragoons of the mind. 40 When I hear your set speeches that start with a pop, Then wander and maunder, too feeble to stop, With a vague apprehension from popular rumor There used to be something by mortals called humor, Beginning again when you thought they were done, Respectable, sensible, weighing a ton, And as near to the present occasions of men As a Fast Day discourse of the year eighteen ten, I--well, I sit still, and my sentiments smother, For am I not also a bore and a brother? 50

And a toast,--what should that, be? Light, airy, and free, The foam-Aphrodite of Bacchus's sea, A fancy-tinged bubble, an orbed rainbow-stain, That floats for an instant 'twixt goblet and brain; A breath-born perfection, half something, half naught, And breaks if it strike the hard edge of a thought.

Do you ask me to make such? Ah no, not so simple; Ask Apelles to paint you the ravis.h.i.+ng dimple Whose s.h.i.+fting enchantment lights Venus's cheek, And the artist will tell you his skill is to seek; 60 Once fix it, 'tis naught, for the charm of it rises From the sudden bopeeps of its smiling surprises.

I've tried to define it, but what mother's son Could ever yet do what he knows should be done?

My rocket has burst, and I watch in the air Its fast-fading heart's-blood drop back in despair; Yet one chance is left me, and, if I am quick, I can palm off, before you suspect me, the stick.

Now since I've succeeded--I pray do not frown-- To Ticknor's and Longfellow's cla.s.sical gown, 70 And profess four strange languages, which, luckless elf, I speak like a native (of Cambridge) myself, Let me beg, Mr. President, leave to propose A sentiment treading on n.o.body's toes, And give, in such ale as with pump-handles _we_ brew, Their memory who saved us from all talking Hebrew,-- A toast that to deluge with water is good, For in Scripture they come in just after the flood: I give you the men but for whom, as I guess, sir, Modern languages ne'er could have had a professor, 80 The builders of Babel, to whose zeal the lungs Of the children of men owe confusion of tongues; And a name all-embracing I couple therewith, Which is that of my founder--the late Mr. Smith.

A PARABLE

An a.s.s munched thistles, while a nightingale From pa.s.sion's fountain flooded all the vale.

'Hee-haw!' cried he, 'I hearken,' as who knew For such ear-largess humble thanks were due.

'Friend,' said the winged pain, 'in vain you bray, Who tunnels bring, not cisterns, for my lay; None but his peers the poet rightly hear, Nor mete we listeners by their length of ear.'

V. EPIGRAMS

SAYINGS

1.

In life's small things be resolute and great To keep thy muscle trained: know'st thou when Fate Thy measure takes, or when she'll say to thee, 'I find thee worthy; do this deed for me'?

2.

A camel-driver, angry with his drudge, Beating him, called him hunchback; to the hind Thus spake a dervish: 'Friend, the Eternal Judge Dooms not his work, but ours, the crooked mind.'

3.

Swiftly the politic goes: is it dark?--he borrows a lantern; Slowly the statesman and sure, guiding his steps by the stars.

4.

'Where lies the capital, pilgrim, seat of who governs the Faithful?'

'Thither my footsteps are bent: it is where Saadi is lodged.'

INSCRIPTIONS

FOR A BELL AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY

I call as fly the irrevocable hours, Futile as air or strong as fate to make Your lives of sand or granite; awful powers, Even as men choose, they either give or take.

FOR A MEMORIAL WINDOW TO SIR WALTER RALEIGH, SET UP IN ST. MARGARET'S, WESTMINSTER, BY AMERICAN CONTRIBUTORS

The New World's sons, from England's b.r.e.a.s.t.s we drew Such milk as bids remember whence we came; Proud of her Past, wherefrom our Present grew, This window we inscribe with Raleigh's name.

PROPOSED FOR A SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' MONUMENT IN BOSTON

To those who died for her on land and sea, That she might have a country great and free, Boston builds this: build ye her monument In lives like theirs, at duty's summons spent.

A MISCONCEPTION

B, taught by Pope to do his good by stealth, 'Twixt participle and noun no difference feeling, In office placed to serve the Commonwealth, Does himself all the good he can by stealing.

THE BOSS

Skilled to pull wires, he baffles Nature's hope, Who sure intended him to stretch a rope.

SUN-WORs.h.i.+P

If I were the rose at your window, Happiest rose of its crew, Every blossom I bore would bend inward, _They'd_ know where the suns.h.i.+ne grew.