[Poems by Lowell in] American Literature :: :: University of Virginia Library

As I arise Mr. Autocrat grim with despair
And bow to you smiling complacently there
May I ask while I cant my trained mind for its dregs
Whats the good of a chair which tilts folks on their legs
When they feel from the top of their skulls to the floor
As sure as a gimlet to turn out a bore
Can I hope, fishing out my dried jokes from my pocket
'Cause I rise like a stick, I may come down like a rocket.

Has a man any right who comes after some folks
To dream of success with his verses or jokes.
Will Fancy's sprites aid him, or thoughts ruining gnomes
Who speaks after Emerson, rymes [sic] after Holmes.
Two wizards from whom if it had any nous
An Earthquake might learn how to bring down a house.

When Harvard has men here, savans of such fame
They'd give nature a bishop and then win the game
What can I hope to say, seeing those all around
On whose speech wisdom waits as the echo on sound.
Whose silence is not the dull thought-sleep of churls
But the shells of the secret, thats Mother of Pearls.
Is not Agassiz here with his great dome of thought
The State House where Nature's own statutes seem wrought.

Then what am I here for? I came with the rest,
To take a good stare at our eminent guest,
For mine an owl's notion, that looks make us wise
As if wit, like potatoes, were bred by the eyes.
Besides I had also some right to expect
Met-a-morphysis here which I would not neglect.
I might come as a bore, and believe me a scion
Of the lion's own stock, if I drink with the lion.

A true dinner-speech I conceive is a way
Of gracefully having your nothing to say
And when you have said it, of knowing tis said,
And so without bother just shutting your head.

327

I know I've said mine, and will give up the ghost
After one little mouthful of rhyme-buttered Toast.
I give you the men, whereso'er born and bred,
Who win in the tough race of life by a head,
Who prove the times coming, how'er far away,
When the forehead thats broadest will carry the day.
And chiefly our guest, who has shown that the wreath
Need not turn, as so often the head underneath
That a poison of jealousy, meanness or quarrel
Is not always distilled from the leaves of the laurel.
I give you the man who can think out and dare
His bloodless Marengos on twelve inches square
Yet, so modest the conquered all feel that they meet
With a Morphy-and not Morti-fying defeat.
Who, give but a scale, can construct you the shark
That turned up his side-long pig-eye at the Ark,
With a hope that his jaws, as they shut with a slam
Might sandwich a leg or a shoulder of Ham.
And who'd make a green turtle (he talks as persuasively)
Rush off to the pot for the good of his race.
Is not Pierce there beside him, whose soul is all ears
For the rythmical [sic] cadence of balancing spheres
Who traces God's footprints, on Star-sands, that beach
Lone Gulfs of the Infinite baffling thoughts reach,
Who on night's golden rosary, planet-impearled
Tells his aves and credas, each least bead a world.
And who, the first term of the problem but given
Could predict every move on the Chess-board of Heaven.

I'll confess since you said to me James you'll be there
And be ready to answer a Call from the Chair,
I have tried my poor skull with perpetual scratch
To as little avail as an old sulphur match,
The ingredient was wanting, whatever it is
(You know Mr. Chairman) that goes with a fizz,
One should have a percussion cap over his hair
When come down on like this by one Cocks in the Chair
To go off with a pop, at the very first hint,
Nor wait to shake priming, nor pick at the flint.
Whereas my brains planned like an ancient queens arm
That thinks before starting, and then does no harm,

328

Except to the lad who contrives to unhitch
The rusty old trigger, and stands at the breech,
As we bards on Compulsion, are floored oftentimes
By the heavy recoil of their lead laden rhymes.
Once I thought for a change in the programe, suppose
You give them a bit of palaver in prose.
For though morphine should chance to surcharge the oration
Twould be all the better and suit the occasion.
But the muse jogged my elbow with Counsel averse
And Weller-like, whispered me, you could werse
So verse I've begun with, though whose I bring up
Is a matter at present between lip and cup.
I am more in the dark as to where I am bound
Than the good prophet Jonah of old, when he found
He was being dead-headed (some comfort at least)
By the Whales alimentary canal, for the East,
First instance on record, and last too, I guess,
Of the great Belly Transit performed with success.