The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes Part 81

The bell--can you recall its clang?

And how the seats would slam and bang?

The voices high and low?

The ba.s.so'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 sc.u.m 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 sh.e.l.l,-- 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 friends.h.i.+ps 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 rehea.r.s.es, Her alb.u.m 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 publis.h.i.+ng, 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