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 | The complete poetical works of Oliver Wendell Holmes |  |
Who is the patriot? He who deftly bends
To every shift that serves his private ends,
His face all smiling while his conscience squirms,
His back as limber as a canker worm's;
Who sees his country floundering through a drift,
Nor stirs a hand the laboring wheel to lift,
But trusts to Nature's leisure-loving law,
And waits with patience for the snow to thaw?
To every shift that serves his private ends,
His face all smiling while his conscience squirms,
His back as limber as a canker worm's;
Who sees his country floundering through a drift,
Nor stirs a hand the laboring wheel to lift,
But trusts to Nature's leisure-loving law,
And waits with patience for the snow to thaw?
Or is he one who, called to conflict, draws
His trusty weapon in his country's cause;
Who, born a poet, grasps his trenchant rhymes
And strikes unshrinking at the nation's crimes;
Who in the days of peril learns to teach
The wisest lessons in the homeliest speech;
Whose plain good sense, alive with tingling wit,
Can always find a handle that will fit;
Who touches lightly with Ithuriel spear
The toad close squatting at the people's ear,
And bids the laughing, scornful world descry
The masking demon, the incarnate lie?
This, this is he his country well may say
Is fit to share her savior's natal day!
His trusty weapon in his country's cause;
Who, born a poet, grasps his trenchant rhymes
And strikes unshrinking at the nation's crimes;
Who in the days of peril learns to teach
The wisest lessons in the homeliest speech;
Whose plain good sense, alive with tingling wit,
295
Who touches lightly with Ithuriel spear
The toad close squatting at the people's ear,
And bids the laughing, scornful world descry
The masking demon, the incarnate lie?
This, this is he his country well may say
Is fit to share her savior's natal day!
Think not the date a worn-out king assigned
As Life's full measure holds for all mankind;
Shall Gladstone, crowned with eighty years, withdraw?
See, nearer home, the Lion of the Law—
How Court Street trembles when he leaves his den,
Clad in the pomp of four score years and ten!
As Life's full measure holds for all mankind;
Shall Gladstone, crowned with eighty years, withdraw?
See, nearer home, the Lion of the Law—
How Court Street trembles when he leaves his den,
Clad in the pomp of four score years and ten!
| The complete poetical works of Oliver Wendell Holmes | |