The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes

Column on column one eternal speech;
Now I had rather read your pirate-stories,
Of men minced up and shovelled overboard,
Your slitting throats, and knocking out of brains,
And such well-spiced misdoings—
(Enter TOM.)
Save you, Tom,
How goes your nothingship,—and gentle Julia,
How does she fare,—the lady of thy love.

Tom.
Her good old grandam's dead—

Dick.
Why then the devil
May sharpen up his claws to deal with her;
She was a potent vixen in her day.

Tom.
Be pleased to tread less rudely on the ashes
Of one that was a woman. You are wont
To speak unfitly of the fairest thing
That stepped on Eden's roses. Why should man
Scoff at the creatures he was made to love?
It is as if the iron-fibred oak
Should tear the clasping tendrils.—

Dick.
Save your nonsense
To feed your starving poetry withal;
I hate to see resuscitated thoughts
Come sneaking back to life in ladies's albums.
Pray talk to me as if I were a man,—
Look,—do I wear a petticoat or breeches?
Have I long locks? Is this a woman's foot?
Is aught of silver in these brazen tones?
Fill up your glass,—here's to thy sanity.

Tom.
O beast! You drink as if you were a Titan,
Just hot from Etna. What would Julia say,
If she could dream of such abominations!

Dick.
Would she might taste this punch! I much opine
She'd soon forswear her ghostly milk and water.
O thou art good! 't would vivify a statue,
Could statue but its marble lips unclose:
I would I were upon an ocean of thee—
A bowl my boat—a ladle for mine oar:
Green islands in the ever-blooming south
Should scatter flowers upon thee—and the fires
That roll and flash in earth's unfathomed bosom,
Should keep thee steaming hot. That's poetry.

Tom.
Insensate wretch; can nothing stir thy soul,
But tempests brewed from earthly elements?
No light break through thy darkness, save a gleam,
The offspring of corruption? Is there nought
Can cheat thee for a moment of thy grossness?

Dick.
He's talking big,—I'll wake the imp within him. (Aside.)

I cannot blame thee—nay, I pity thee
For such unseemly license of thy tongue;
Touched in the brain,—I feared it might be so;
'T was wrong—it was most cruel in the girl,
To play so false a game. Who would have thought it,—
A coach, a parson, and a man in whiskers.

Tom.
Oh devil! what! speak, let me hear it all—
Not Julia! Parson! whiskers! tell me all,
And I will love thee.

Dick.
Who has spoke of Julia?
Are there no women in the world but Julia?
I was but thinking of an ancient spinster,
Miss Sally or Miss Celia Somebody,
That ran away from Time to play with Cupid.

Tom.
Lend me your kerchief—I am much exhausted:
What if I'd drawn that razor—

Dick.
There'd have been
Another tombstone, and a lie upon it.
I would have dressed you an obituary,
That should be really decent, and have written
With mine own hands a fancy epitaph.

Tom.
Come, you are caustic,—but you know my nature.
I'll show thee something for thine age to dream of,
A token of her beauty and her love;
Look at that auburn ringlet, boy, and think
On what a peerless brow it must have floated!
Her own white fingers did unweave the ray
From the soft coronal of light and beauty.

Dick.
Call you that auburn? it is hardly crimson.
There is a something of Aurora red—
A something like to filaments of flame,—
And yet they are not cobwebs in their texture,
Right thick and rosy.

Tom.
Ha! what is't you say?
Take that to help you in your rhetoric.

(Striking DICK.)
Dick.
Infant! I will not beat thee. Here's a chair.
And here's a neckcloth—yes, and here's a towel,
And I will truss thee like a callow goose.
(Trying him to the chair.)
So, thou art fixed, thou paralytic tiger—
I'm sorry to have been so rough with thee,
How is it, do you call it auburn still?

Tom.
Were every muscle beaten to a pulp,
And my bones powdered, I would call it auburn.

Dick.
There's tragedy! It shall be auburn, then.
Hark, there's a step with something leaden in it,
As one that is not full of merriment,—
I'll fling my cloak upon you—there, keep still.

Tom.
I'm d---dly battered, an' it please the Tutor.

(Enter TUTOR.)
Tutor.
Men ye are troublous,—there has been a noise,
As of exceeding vehement discussion.

397

If ye must talk of controverted things,
Wait till your beards do give you gravity.

(Exit.)

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