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 | The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes |  |
The well-known weakness of the rhyming race
Is to be ready in and out of place;
No bashful glow, no timid begging off,
No sudden hoarseness, no discordant cough
(Those coy excuses which your singers plead,
When faintly uttering: “No, I can't, indeed”)
Impedes your rhymster in his prompt career.
Give him but hint; and won't the muse appear!
Is to be ready in and out of place;
No bashful glow, no timid begging off,
No sudden hoarseness, no discordant cough
(Those coy excuses which your singers plead,
When faintly uttering: “No, I can't, indeed”)
Impedes your rhymster in his prompt career.
Give him but hint; and won't the muse appear!
So, without blushing, when they asked, I came—
I whom the plough-share, not the quill, should claim—
The rural nymphs that on my labors smile
May mend my fence, but cannot mend my style.
The winged horse disdains my sober team,
And teeming fancy must forget to dream.
I harrow fields and not the hearts of men;
Pigs, and not poems, claim my humble pen.
And then to enter on so new a stage,
With the fair critics of this captious age,
Might lead a sceptic to the rude surmise
That cits, turned rustics, are not otherwise;
Or the bright verdure of the pastoral scene
Had changed my hue, and made me very green.
I whom the plough-share, not the quill, should claim—
The rural nymphs that on my labors smile
May mend my fence, but cannot mend my style.
The winged horse disdains my sober team,
And teeming fancy must forget to dream.
I harrow fields and not the hearts of men;
Pigs, and not poems, claim my humble pen.
And then to enter on so new a stage,
With the fair critics of this captious age,
338
That cits, turned rustics, are not otherwise;
Or the bright verdure of the pastoral scene
Had changed my hue, and made me very green.
A few brief words that, fading as they fall,
Like the frail garlands of a banquet hall,
May lend one glow, one breath of fragrance pour,
Ere swept ungathered from the silent floor.
Such is my offering for your festal day:
These sprigs of rhyme; this metrical bouquet.
Like the frail garlands of a banquet hall,
May lend one glow, one breath of fragrance pour,
Ere swept ungathered from the silent floor.
Such is my offering for your festal day:
These sprigs of rhyme; this metrical bouquet.
| The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes | |