 | The complete poetical works of Oliver Wendell Holmes |  |
POEMS FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE
1857–1858
[The collection under this heading is not complete, since a few of the poems had been placed by the author in other divisions. Inasmuch as the poems when first printed were in many cases introduced by a prose passage, these introductions are here reproduced, without the editorial brackets. The same method has been followed with the two succeeding groups.]
THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS
I have now and then found a naturalist who still worried over the distinction between the Pearly Nautilus and the Paper Nautilus, or Argonauta. As the stories about both are mere fables, attaching to the Physalia, or Portuguese man-of-war, as well as to these two molluses, it seems over-nice to quarrel with the poetical handling of a fiction sufficiently justified by the name commonly applied to the ship of pearl as well as the ship of paper.
I have now and then found a naturalist who still worried over the distinction between the Pearly Nautilus and the Paper Nautilus, or Argonauta. As the stories about both are mere fables, attaching to the Physalia, or Portuguese man-of-war, as well as to these two molluses, it seems over-nice to quarrel with the poetical handling of a fiction sufficiently justified by the name commonly applied to the ship of pearl as well as the ship of paper.
We need not trouble ourselves about the distinction between this [the Pearly Nautilus] and the Paper Nautilus, the Argonauta of the ancients. The name applied to both shows that each has long been compared to a ship, as you may see more fully in Webster's Dictionary or the Encyclopedia, to which he refers. If you will look into Roget's Bridgewater Treatise you will find a figure of one of these shells and a section of it. The last will show you the series of enlarging compartments successively dwelt in by the animal that inhabits the shell, which is built in a widening spiral. [This poem seemed to share with Dorothy Q. Dr. Holmes's interest, if one may judge by the frequency with which he chose it for reading or for autograph albums. He says on receipt of an album from the Princess of Wales, “I copied into it the last verse of a poem of mine called The Chambered Nautilus, as I have often done for plain republican albums.”]
Sails the unshadowed main,—
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,—
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:—
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
SUN AND SHADOW
[The isle where this poem was written was Naushon, already celebrated in the poems To Governor Swain and The Island Hunting-Song.] How can a man help writing poetry in such a place? When the sun is in the west, vessels sailing in an easterly direction look bright or dark to one who observes them from the north or south, according to the tack they are sailing upon. Watching them from one of the windows of the great mansion, I saw these perpetual changes, and moralized thus:—
To the billows of foam-crested blue,
Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen,
Half dreaming, my eyes will pursue:
Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray
As the chaff in the stroke of the flail;
Now white as the sea-gull, she flies on her way,
The sun gleaming bright on her sail.
Of breakers that whiten and roar;
How little he cares, if in shadow or sun
They see him who gaze from the shore!
He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef,
To the rock that is under his lee,
As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf,
O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea.
Where life and its ventures are laid,
The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves
May see us in sunshine or shade;
Yet true to our course, though the shadows grow dark,
We'll trim our broad sail as before,
And stand by the rudder that governs the bark,
Nor ask how we look from the shore!
MUSA
The throbbing flushes of the poetical intermittent have been coming over me from time to time of late. Did you ever see that electrical experiment which consists in passing a flash through letters of goldleaf in a darkened room, whereupon some name or legend springs out of the darkness in characters of fire? There are songs all written out in my soul, which I could read, if the flash might pass through them,—but the fire must come down from heaven. Ah! but what if the stormy nimbus of youthful passion has blown by, and one asks for lightning from the ragged cirrus of dissolving aspirations, or the silvered cumulus of sluggish satiety? I will call on her whom the dead poets believed in, whom living ones no longer worship,—the immortal maid, who, name her what you will,—Goddess, Muse, Spirit of Beauty,—sits by the pillow of every youthful poet and bends over his pale forehead until her tresses lie upon his cheek and rain their gold into his dream.
Thy wings of morning light
Beyond those iron gates
Where Life crowds hurrying to the haggard Fates,
And Age upon his mound of ashes waits
To chill our fiery dreams,
Hot from the heart of youth plunged in his icy streams?
Whose flowers are silvered hair!
Have I not loved thee long,
Though my young lips have often done thee wrong,
And vexed thy heaven-tuned ear with careless song?
Ah, wilt thou yet return,
Bearing thy rose-hued torch, and bid thine altar burn?
With my soul's sacred wine,
And heap thy marble floors
As the wild spice-trees waste their fragrant stores,
In leafy islands walled with madrepores
When all their feathery palms toss, plume-like, in the breeze.
Sweeter than song of birds;—
No wailing bulbul's throat,
No melting dulcimer's melodious note
When o'er the midnight wave its murmurs float,
Thy ravished sense might soothe
With flow so liquid-soft, with strain so velvet smooth.
Sought in those bowers of green
Where loop the clustered vines
And the close-clinging dulcamara twines,—
Pure pearls of Maydew where the moonlight shines,
And Summer's fruited gems,
And coral pendants shorn from Autumn's berried stems.
Or stretched by grass-grown graves,
Whose gray, high-shouldered stones,
Carved with old names Life's time-worn roll disowns,
Lean, lichen-spotted, o'er the crumbled bones
Still slumbering where they lay
While the sad Pilgrim watched to scare the wolf away.
Still let me dream and sing,—
Dream of that winding shore
Where scarlet cardinals bloom—for me no more,—
The stream with heaven beneath its liquid floor,
And clustering nenuphars
Sprinkling its mirrored blue like golden-chaliced stars!
Come while the rose is red,—
While blue-eyed Summer smiles
On the green ripples round yon sunken piles
Washed by the moon-wave warm from Indian isles,
And on the sultry air
The chestnuts spread their palms like holy men in prayer!
With thrills of wild, sweet pain!—
On life's autumnal blast,
Like shrivelled leaves, youth's passion-flowers are cast,—
Once loving thee, we love thee to the last!—
Behold thy new-decked shrine,
And hear once more the voice that breathed “Forever thine!”
A PARTING HEALTH
TO J. L. MOTLEY
[Upon his return to England after the publication of the History of the Dutch Republic in 1857.]
To blend her green leaves with the laurels of fame;
Though fondly, at parting, we call him our own,
'T is the whisper of love when the bugle has blown.
As the guardsman that sleeps in his corselet of steel,
As the archer that stands with his shaft on the string,
He stoops from his toil to the garland we bring.
Till their warriors shall breathe and their beauties shall bloom,
While the tapestry lengthens the life-glowing dyes
That caught from our sunsets the stain of their skies!
There are triumphs untold, there are martyrs unsung,
There are heroes yet silent to speak with his tongue!
From lips that are warm with the freedom they breathed!
Let him summon its tyrants, and tell us their doom,
Though he sweep the black past like Van Tromp with his broom!
On pampas, on prairie, o'er mountain and lake,
To bathe the swift bark, like a sea-girdled shrine,
With incense they stole from the rose and the pine.
When the dead summer's jewels were trampled and crushed:
The true Knight of Learning,—the world holds him dear,—
Love bless him, Joy crown him, God speed his career!
WHAT WE ALL THINK
I think few persons have a greater disgust for plagiarism than myself. If I had even suspected that the idea in question was borrowed, I should have disclaimed originality, or mentioned the coincidence, as I once did in a case where I had happened to hit on an idea of Swift's.—But what shall I do with these verses I was going to read you? I am afraid that half mankind would accuse me of stealing their thoughts, if I printed them. I am convinced that several of you, especially if you are getting a little on in life, will recognize some of these sentiments as having passed through your consciousness at some time. I can't help it,—it is too late now. The verses are written, and you must have them.
In spite of locks untimely shed,
Or silvered on the youthful brow;
That babes make love and children wed.
Which faded with those “good old days”
When winters came with deeper snow,
And autumns with a softer haze.
The “best of women” each has known.
Were school-boys ever half so wild?
How young the grandpapas have grown!
And but for that our lives were blest;
That in some season yet to be
Our cares will leave us time to rest.
Some common ailment of the race,—
Though doctors think the matter plain,—
That ours is “a peculiar case.”
We count one bitter maxim more,
Our lesson all the world has learned,
And men are wiser than before.
The angels hovering overhead
Count every pitying drop that flows,
And love us for the tears we shed.
And turn the beggar from our door
They still approve us when we sigh,
“Ah, had I but one thousand more!”
O'erhanging truth's eternal flow,
Their tablets bold with what we think,
Their echoes dumb to what we know;
All doubt beyond, all fear above,
Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed
Can burn or blot it: God is Love!
SPRING HAS COME
INTRA MUROS
Slant through my pane their morning rays;
The east blows in its thin blue haze.
Then close against the sheltering wall
The tulip's horn of dusky green,
The peony's dark unfolding ball.
The long narcissus-blades appear;
The cone-beaked hyacinth returns
To light her blue-flamed chandelier.
By the wild winds of gusty March,
With sallow leaflets lightly strung,
Are swaying by the tufted larch.
With full-blown flower and embryo leaf;
Wide o'er the clasping arch of day
Soars like a cloud their hoary chief.
That flames in glory for an hour,—
Behold it withering,—then look up,—
How meek the forest monarch's flower!
When sprout the elm-buds, Spring is near;
When lilacs blossom, Summer cries,
“Bud, little roses! Spring is here!”
Cut with their Maydew on the lips;
The radish all its bloom displays,
Pink as Aurora's finger-tips.
On beauty's changed corolla-shades,—
The walks are gay as bridal bowers
With rows of many-petalled maids.
In the blue barrow where they slide;
The horseman, proud of streak and splash,
Creeps homeward from his morning ride.
With neck in rope and tail in knot,—
Rough colts, with careless country-swing,
In lazy walk or slouching trot.
Doomed to the close and chafing thills,
Lend me thy long, untiring stride
To seek with thee thy western hills!
The thrush's trill, the robin's cry,
Like some poor bird with prisoned wing
That sits and sings, but longs to fly.
One little spot where leaves can grow,—
To love unblamed, to walk unseen,
To dream above, to sleep below!
PROLOGUE
Of course I wrote the prologue I was asked to write. I did not see the play, though. I knew there was a young lady in it, and that somebody was in love with her, and she was in love with him, and somebody (an old tutor, I believe) wanted to interfere, and, very naturally, the young lady was too sharp for him. The play of course ends charmingly; there is a general reconciliation, and all concerned form a line and take each other's hands, as people always do after they have made up their quarrels, —and then the curtain falls,—if it does not stick, as it commonly does at private theatrical exhibitions, in which case a boy is detailed to pull it down, which he does, blushing violently.
Now, then, for my prologue. I am not going to change my cæsuras and cadences for anybody; so if you do not like the heroic, or iambic trimeter brachycatalectic, you had better not wait to hear it.
I have my doubts. No matter,—here we go!
What is a Prologue? Let our Tutor teach:
Pro means beforehand; logos stands for speech.
'T is like the harper's prelude on the strings,
The prima donna's courtesy ere she sings;
Prologues in metre are to other pros
As worsted stockings are to engine-hose.
“The world's a stage,”—as Shakespeare said, one day;
The stage a world—was what he meant to say.
The real world that Nature meant is here.
Here every foundling finds its lost mamma;
Each rogue, repentant, melts his stern papa;
Misers relent, the spendthrift's debts are paid,
The cheats are taken in the traps they laid;
One after one the troubles all are past
Till the fifth act comes right side up at last,
When the young couple, old folks, rogues, and all,
Join hands, so happy at the curtain's fall.
Here suffering virtue ever finds relief,
And black-browed ruffians always come to grief.
When the lorn damsel, with a frantic screech,
And cheeks as hueless as a brandy-peach,
Cries, “Help, kyind Heaven!” and drops upon her knees
On the green—baize,—beneath the (canvas) trees,—
See to her side avenging Valor fly:—
“Ha! Villain! Draw! Now, Terraitorr, yield or die!”
When the poor hero flounders in despair,
Some dear lost uncle turns up millionaire,
Clasps the young scapegrace with paternal joy,
Sobs on his neck, “My boy! My boy!! MY BOY!!!”
Of love that conquers in disaster's spite.
Ladies, attend! While woeful cares and doubt
Wrong the soft passion in the world without,
Though fortune scowl, though prudence interfere,
One thing is certain: Love will triumph here!
Lords of creation, whom your ladies rule,—
The world's great masters, when you're out of school,—
Learn the brief moral of our evening's play:
Man has his will,—but woman has her way!
While man's dull spirit toils in smoke and fire,
Woman's swift instinct threads the electric wire,—
The magic bracelet stretched beneath the waves
Beats the black giant with his score of slaves.
All earthly powers confess your sovereign art
But that one rebel,—woman's wilful heart.
All foes you master, but a woman's wit
Lets daylight through you ere you know you're hit.
So, just to picture what her art can do,
Hear an old story, made as good as new.
Alike was famous for his arm and blade.
One day a prisoner Justice had to kill
Knelt at the block to test the artist's skill.
Bare-armed, swart-visaged, gaunt, and shaggy-browed,
Rudolph the headsman rose above the crowd.
His falchion lighted with a sudden gleam,
As the pike's armor flashes in the stream.
He sheathed his blade; he turned as if to go;
The victim knelt, still waiting for the blow.
“Why strikest not? Perform thy murderous act,”
The prisoner said. (His voice was slightly cracked.)
“Friend, I have struck,” the artist straight replied;
“Wait but one moment, and yourself decide.”
He held his snuff-box,—“Now then, if you please!”
The prisoner sniffed, and, with a crashing sneeze,
Off his head tumbled,—bowled along the floor,—
Bounced down the steps;—the prisoner said no more!
Woman! thy falchion is a glittering eye;
If death lurk in it, oh how sweet to die!
Thou takest hearts as Rudolph took the head;
We die with love, and never dream we're dead!
LATTER-DAY WARNINGS
I should have felt more nervous about the late comet, if I had thought the world was ripe. But it is very green yet, if I am not mistaken; and besides, there is a great deal
When banks dispense with bolts and locks,
When berries—whortle, rasp, and straw—
Grow bigger downwards through the box,—
Shows leak in roof or flaw in right,—
When haberdashers choose the stand
Whose window hath the broadest light,—
And party leaders all they mean,—
When what we pay for, that we drink,
From real grape and coffee-bean,—
And doctors give what they would take,—
When city fathers eat to live,
Save when they fast for conscience' sake,—
Shall bring his merit to the proof,
Without a lie for every nail
That holds the iron on the hoof,—
Our gloves are stitched with special care,
And guarded well the whalebone tips
Where first umbrellas need repair,—
The power of suction to resist,
And claret-bottles harbor not
Such dimples as would hold your fist,—
And pay for what they stole before,—
When the first locomotive's wheel
Rolls through the Hoosac Tunnel's bore;—
And Miller's saints blow up the globe;
But when you see that blessed day,
Then order your ascension robe!
ALBUM VERSES
And Cain had killed his brother,
The stars and flowers, the poets say,
Agreed with one another
And teach the race its duty
By keeping on its wicked heart
Their eyes of light and beauty.
Will be at least a warning;
And so the flowers would watch by day,
The stars from eve to morning.
Their dewy eyes upturning,
The flowers still watch from reddening dawn
Till western skies are burning.
A tale of shame so crushing,
That some turn white as sea-bleached shells,
And some are always blushing.
On all their light discovers,
The traitor's smile, the murderer's frown,
The lips of lying lovers,
And in the vain endeavor
We see them twinkling in the skies,
And so they wink forever.
A GOOD TIME GOING!
Sweet minstrel of the joyous present,
Crowned with the noblest wreath of rhyme,
The holly-leaf of Ayrshire's peasant,
Good by! Good by!—Our hearts and hands,
Our lips in honest Saxon phrases,
Cry, God be with him, till he stands
His feet among the English daisies!
The busy deck, the fluttering streamer,
The dripping arms that plunge and rise,
The waves in foam, the ship in tremor,
The kerchiefs waving from the pier,
The cloudy pillar gliding o'er him,
The deep blue desert, lone and drear,
With heaven above and home before him!
And twirls the spotty globe to find it;—
This little speck the British Isles?
'T is but a freckle,—never mind it!
He laughs, and all his prairies roll,
Each gurgling cataract roars and chuckles,
And ridges stretched from pole to pole
Heave till they crack their iron knuckles!
And Honor turns with frown defiant,
And Freedom, leaning on her spear,
Laughs louder than the laughing giant:
“An islet is a world,” she said,
“When glory with its dust has blended,
And Britain keeps her noble dead
Till earth and seas and skies are rended!”
Some arm as stout in death reposes,—
From wave-washed foot to heaven-kissed brow
Her valor's life-blood runs in roses;
Nay, let our brothers of the West
Write smiling in their florid pages,
One half her soil has walked the rest
In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages!
From sea-weed fringe to mountain heather,
The British oak with rooted grasp
Her slender handful holds together;—
With cliffs of white and bowers of green,
And Ocean narrowing to caress her,
And hills and threaded streams between,—
Our little mother isle, God bless her!
Fanned by the eastern gales that brought us,
We hold the missal in our hand,
Bright with the lines our Mother taught us.
Where'er its blazoned page betrays
The glistening links of gilded fetters,
Behold, the half-turned leaf displays
Her rubric stained in crimson letters!
'Tis vain alike to speak and listen;—
Yet stay,—these feeble accents blend
With rays of light from eyes that glisten.
Good by! once more,—and kindly tell
In words of peace the young world's story,—
And say, besides, we love too well
Our mothers' soil, our fathers' glory!
THE LAST BLOSSOM
Of beauty's dear deluding wiles;
The leagues of life to graybeards seem
Shorter than boyhood's lingering miles.
It played with Goethe's silvered hair,
And many a Holy Father's “niece”
Has softly smoothed the papal chair.
To melt the heart of sweet sixteen,
We think upon those ladies twain
Who loved so well the tough old Dean.
The maid of Egypt's dusky glow,
And dream that Youth and Age embrace,
As April violets fill with snow.
His lotus-loving Memphian lies,—
The musky daughter of the Nile,
With plaited hair and almond eyes.
Ere life's autumnal blossoms fall,
And Earth's brown, clinging lips impress
The long cold kiss that waits us all!
The morning of that blissful day,
When Rose, the flower of spring, I met,
And gave my raptured soul away.
A lasso, with its leaping chain,
Light as a loop of larkspurs, flew
O'er sense and spirit, heart and brain.
Sweet vision, waited for so long!
Dove that would seek the poet's cage
Lured by the magic breath of song!
Love's drapeau rouge the truth has told!
O'er girlhood's yielding barricade
Floats the great Leveller's crimson fold!
No frost the bud of passion knows.
Ha! what is this my frenzy hears?
A voice behind me uttered,—Rose!
Alas! when woman looks too kind,
Just turn your foolish head and see,—
Some youth is walking close behind!
CONTENTMENT
Should you like to hear what moderate wishes life brings one to at last? I used to be very ambitious,—wasteful, extravagant, and luxurious in all my fancies. Read too much in the Arabian Nights. Must have the lamp,—could n't do without the ring. Exercise every morning on the brazen horse. Plump down into castles as full of little milk-white princesses as a nest is of young sparrows. All love me dearly at once.—Charming idea of life, but too high-colored for the reality. I have outgrown all this; my tastes have become exceedingly primitive,—almost, perhaps, ascetic. We carry happiness into our condition, but must not hope to find it there. I think you will be willing to hear some lines which embody the subdued and limited desires of my maturity.
I only wish a hut of stone,
(A very plain brown stone will do,)
That I may call my own;—
And close at hand is such a one,
In yonder street that fronts the sun.
Three courses are as good as ten;—
If Nature can subsist on three,
Thank Heaven for three. Amen!
I always thought cold victual nice;—
My choice would be vanilla-ice.
Give me a mortgage here and there,—
Some good bank-stock, some note of hand,
Or trifling railroad share,—
I only ask that Fortune send
A little more than I shall spend.
And titles are but empty names;
I would, perhaps, be Plenipo,—
But only near St. James;
I'm very sure I should not care
To fill our Gubernator's chair.
To care for such unfruitful things;—
One good-sized diamond in a pin,—
Some, not so large, in rings,—
A ruby, and a pearl, or so,
Will do for me;—I laugh at show.
(Good, heavy silks are never dear;)—
I own perhaps I might desire
Some shawls of true Cashmere,—
Some marrowy crapes of China silk,
Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk.
So fast that folks must stop and stare;
An easy gait—two forty-five—
Suits me; I do not care;—
Perhaps, for just a single spurt,
Some seconds less would do no hurt.
Titians and Raphaels three or four,—
I love so much their style and tone,
One Turner, and no more,
(A landscape,—foreground golden dirt,—
The sunshine painted with a squirt.)
For daily use, and bound for wear;
The rest upon an upper floor;—
Some little luxury there
Of red morocco's gilded gleam
And vellum rich as country cream.
Which others often show for pride,
I value for their power to please,
And selfish churls deride;—
One Stradivarius, I confess,
Two Meerschaums, I would fain possess.
Nor ape the glittering upstart fool;—
Shall not carved tables serve my turn,
But all must be of buhl?
Give grasping pomp its double share,—
I ask but one recumbent chair.
Nor long for Midas' golden touch;
If Heaven more generous gifts deny,
I shall not miss them much,—
Too grateful for the blessing lent
Of simple tastes and mind content!
ÆSTIVATION
AN UNPUBLISHED POEM, BY MY LATE LATIN TUTOR
Your talking Latin—said I—reminds me of an odd trick of one of my old tutors. He read so much of that language, that his English half turned into it. He got caught in town, one hot summer, in pretty close quarters, and wrote, or began to write, a series of city pastorals. Eclogues he called them, and meant to have published them by subscription. I remember some of his verses, if you want to hear them.—You, Sir (addressing myself to the divinity-student), and all such as have been through college, or what is the same thing, received an honorary degree, will understand them without a dictionary. The old man had a great deal to say about “æstivation,” as he called it, in opposition, as one might say, to hibernation. Intramural æstivation, or town-life in summer, he would say, is a peculiar form of suspended existence, or semi-asphyxia. One wakes up from it about the beginning of the last week in September. This is what I remember of his poem:—
The foles, languescent, pend from arid rames;
His humid front the cive, anheling, wipes,
And dreams of erring on ventiferous ripes.
Dorm on the herb with none to supervise,
Carp the suave berries from the crescent vine,
And bibe the flow from longicaudate kine!
Save yon exiguous pool's conferva-scum,—
No concave vast repeats the tender hue
That laves my milk-jug with celestial blue!
Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids!
Oh, might I vole to some umbrageous clump,—
Depart,—be off,—excede,—evade,—erump!
THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE
OR, THE WONDERFUL “ONE-HOSS SHAY”
A LOGICAL STORY
“The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay” is a perfectly intelligible conception, whatever material difficulties it presents. It is conceivable that a being of an order superior to humanity should so understand the conditions of matter that he could construct a machine which should go to pieces, if not into its constituent atoms, at a given moment of the future. The mind may take a certain pleasure in this picture of the impossible. The event follows as a logical consequence of the presupposed condition of things.
There is a practical lesson to be got out of the story. Observation shows us in what point any particular mechanism is most likely to give way. In a wagon, for instance, the weak point is where the axle enters the hub or nave. When the wagon breaks down, three times out of four, I think, it is at this point that the accident occurs. The workman should see to it that this part should never give way; then find the next vulnerable place, and so on, until he arrives logically at the perfect result attained by the deacon.
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits,—
Have you ever heard of that, I say?
Georgius Secundus was then alive,—
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
And Braddock's army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on the terrible Earthquake-day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.
There is always somewhere a weakest spot,—
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,—lurking still,
Find it somewhere you must and will,—
Above or below, or within or without,—
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
That a chaise breaks down, but does n't wear out.
With an “I dew vum,” or an “I tell yeou”)
He would build one shay to beat the taown
'N' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';
It should be so built that it could n' break daown:
“Fur,” said the Deacon, “'t 's mighty plain
Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain;
'N' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,
Is only jest
T' make that place uz strong uz the rest.”
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That could n't be split nor bent nor broke,—
That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thills;
The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees,
The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;
The hubs of logs from the “Settler's ellum,”—
Last of its timber,—they could n't sell 'em,
And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he “put her through.”
“There!” said the Deacon, “naow she'll dew!”
She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,
Children and grandchildren—where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hundred increased by ten;—
“Hahnsum kerridge” they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came;—
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive,
And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.
Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;
Take it.—You 're welcome.—No extra charge.)
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,
A general flavor of mild decay,
But nothing local, as one may say.
There could n't be,—for the Deacon's art
Had made it so like in every part
That there was n't a chance for one to start.
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,
And the panels just as strong as the floor,
And the whipple-tree neither less nor more,
And the back crossbar as strong as the fore,
And spring and axle and hub encore.
And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt
In another hour it will be worn out!
This morning the parson takes a drive.
Now, small boys, get out of the way!
Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay,
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.
“Huddup!” said the parson.—Off went they.
The parson was working his Sunday's text,—
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At what the—Moses—was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill.
First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill,—
And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half past nine by the meet'n'-house clock,—
Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!
What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!
You see, of course, if you're not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once,—
All at once, and nothing first,—
Just as bubbles do when they burst.
Logic is logic. That's all I say.
PRELUDE
[In introducing Parson Turell's Legacy, the Autocrat amused his readers with an account of his friend the Professor's experiments in chloroform. The Professor was about to read the poem, but upon the delivering the Prelude, his MS. was taken from him by the Autocrat, who finished the reading.]
The tale of the won'erful one-hoss-shay.
Wan' to hear another? Say.
—Funny, was n' it? Made me laugh,—
I'm too modest, I am, by half,—
Made me laugh 's though I sh'd split,—
Cahn' a fellah like fellah's own wit?
—Fellahs keep sayin',—“Well, now that's nice:
Did it once, but cahn' do it twice.”—
Dōn' you b'lieve the' 'z no more fat;
Lots in the kitch'n 'z good 'z that.
Fus'-rate throw, 'n' no mistake,—
Han' us the props for another shake;—
Know I'll try, 'n' guess I'll win;
Here sh' goes for hit 'm ag'in!
PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY
OR, THE PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR A MATHEMATICAL STORY
At Cambridge. Is kept in the College there.
Seems but little the worse for wear.
That 's remarkable when I say
It was old in President Holyoke's day.
(One of his boys, perhaps you know,
Died, at one hundred, years ago.)
He took lodgings for rain or shine
Under green bed-clothes in '69.
Born there? Don't say so! I was, too.
(Born in a house with a gambrel-roof,—
Standing still, if you must have proof.—
“Gambrel?—Gambrel?”—Let me beg
You'll look at a horse's hinder leg,—
First great angle above the hoof,—
That's the gambrel; hence gambrel-roof.)
Nicest place that ever was seen,—
Colleges red and Common green,
Sidewalks brownish with trees between.
Sweetest spot beneath the skies
When the canker-worms don't rise,—
When the dust, that sometimes flies
Into your mouth and ears and eyes,
In a quiet slumber lies,
Not in the shape of unbaked pies
Such as barefoot children prize.
Facing the flow of a boundless sea.
Rows of gray old Tutors stand
Ranged like rocks above the sand;
Rolling beneath them, soft and green,
Breaks the tide of bright sixteen,—
One wave, two waves, three waves, four,—
Sliding up the sparkling floor:
Wandering off from shore to shore
With its freight of golden ore!
Pleasant place for boys to play;—
Better keep your girls away;
Hearts get rolled as pebbles do
Which countless fingering waves pursue,
And every classic beach is strown
With heart-shaped pebbles of blood-red stone.
I'm talking about an old arm-chair.
You've heard, no doubt, of Parson Turell?
Over at Medford he used to dwell;
Married one of the Mathers' folk;
Got with his wife a chair of oak,—
Funny old chair with seat like wedge,
Sharp behind and broad front edge,—
One of the oddest of human things,
Turned all over with knobs and rings,—
But heavy, and wide, and deep, and grand,—
Fit for the worthies of the land,—
Chief Justice Sewall a cause to try in,
Or Cotton Mather to sit—and lie—in.
Parson Turell bequeathed the same
To a certain student,—Smith by name;
These were the terms, as we are told:
“Saide Smith saide Chaire to have and holde;
When he doth graduate, then to passe
To ye oldest Youth in ye Senior Classe.
On payment of”—(naming a certain sum)—
“By him to whom ye Chaire shall come;
He to ye oldest Senior next,
And soe forever,”—(thus runs the text,)—
“But one Crown lesse than he gave to claime,
That being his Debte for use of same.”
And took his money,—five silver crowns.
Brown delivered it up to Moore,
Who paid, it is plain, not five, but four.
Moore made over the chair to Lee,
Who gave him crowns of silver three.
Lee conveyed it unto Drew,
And now the payment, of course, was two.
Drew gave up the chair to Dunn,—
All he got, as you see, was one.
Dunn released the chair to Hall,
And got by the bargain no crown at all.
And now it passed to a second Brown,
Who took it and likewise claimed a crown.
When Brown conveyed it unto Ware,
Having had one crown, to make it fair,
He paid him two crowns to take the chair;
And Ware, being honest, (as all Wares be,)
He paid one Potter, who took it, three.
Four got Robinson; five got Dix;
Johnson primus demanded six;
And so the sum kept gathering still
Till after the battle of Bunker's Hill.
Folks would n't count it, but said “a heap,”
A certain Richards,—the books declare,—
(A. M. in '90? I've looked with care
Through the Triennial,—name not there,)—
This person, Richards, was offered then
Eightscore pounds, but would have ten;
Nine, I think, was the sum he took,—
Not quite certain,—but see the book.
By and by the wars were still,
But nothing had altered the Parson's will.
The old arm-chair was solid yet,
But saddled with such a monstrous debt!
Things grew quite too bad to bear,
Paying such sums to get rid of the chair!
But dead men's fingers hold awful tight,
And there was the will in black and white,
Plain enough for a child to spell.
What should be done no man could tell,
For the chair was a kind of nightmare curse,
And every season but made it worse.
They got old Governor Hancock out.
The Governor came with his Lighthorse Troop
And his mounted truckmen, all cock-a-hoop;
Halberds glittered and colors flew,
French horns whinnied and trumpets blew,
The yellow fifes whistled between their teeth,
And the bumble-bee bass-drums boomed beneath;
So he rode with all his band,
Till the President met him, cap in hand.
The Governor “hefted” the crowns, and said,—
“A will is a will, and the Parson's dead.”
The Governor hefted the crowns. Said he,—
These are the terms you must fulfil,—
On such conditions I break the will!”
The Governor mentioned what these should be.
(Just wait a minute and then you'll see.)
The President prayed. Then all was still,
And the Governor rose and BROKE THE WILL!
“About those conditions?” Well, now you go
And do as I tell you, and then you'll know.
Once a year, on Commencement day,
If you'll only take the pains to stay,
You'll see the President in the Chair,
Likewise the Governor sitting there.
The President rises; both old and young
May hear his speech in a foreign tongue,
The meaning whereof, as lawyers swear,
Is this: Can I keep this old arm-chair?
And then his Excellency bows,
As much as to say that he allows.
The Vice-Gub. next is called by name;
He bows like t' other, which means the same.
And all the officers round 'em bow,
As much as to say that they allow.
And a lot of parchments about the chair
Are handed to witnesses then and there,
And then the lawyers hold it clear
That the chair is safe for another year.
Money to colleges while you live.
Don't be silly and think you'll try
To bother the colleges, when you die,
With codicil this, and codicil that,
That Knowledge may starve while Law grows fat;
For there never was pitcher that would n't spill,
And there's always a flaw in a donkey's will!
ODE FOR A SOCIAL MEETING
I recollect a British criticism of the poem “with the slight alterations,” in which the writer was quite indignant at the treatment my convivial song had received. No committee, he thought, would dare treat a Scotch author in that way. I could not help being reminded of Sydney Smith, and the surgical operation he proposed, in order to get a pleasantry into the head of a North Briton.
I recollect a British criticism of the poem “with the slight alterations,” in which the writer was quite indignant at the treatment my convivial song had received. No committee, he thought, would dare treat a Scotch author in that way. I could not help being reminded of Sydney Smith, and the surgical operation he proposed, in order to get a pleasantry into the head of a North Briton.
WITH SLIGHT ALTERATIONS BY A TEETOTALER
Here is a little poem I sent a short time since to a committee for a certain celebration. I understood that it was to be a festive and convivial occasion, and ordered myself accordingly. It seems the president of the day was what is called a “teetotaler.” I received a note from him in the following words, containing the copy subjoined, with the emendations annexed to it.
“Dear Sir,—Your poem gives good satisfaction to the committee. The sentiments expressed with reference to liquor are not, however, those generally entertained by this community. I have therefore consulted the clergyman of this place, who has made some slight changes, which he thinks will remove all objections, and keep the valuable portions of the poem. Please to inform me of your charge for said poem. Our means are limited, etc., etc., etc.
“Yours with respect.”Here it is with the slight alterations.
While the logwood still reddens our cups as they flow?
Pour out the decoction still bright with the sun,
Till o'er the brimmed crystal the dye-stuff shall run.
How sweet is the taste of the sugar of lead.
For summer's rank poisons lie hid in the wines!!!
That were garnered by stable-boys smoking long-nines.
For all strychnine and whiskey, and ratsbane and beer!
In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall,
Down, down with the tyrant that masters us all!
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