Initial Studies in American Letters Part 16

And hark! from thy deserted fields Are sadder warnings spoken, From quenched hearths, where thy exiled sons Their household G.o.ds have broken.

The curse is on thee--wolves for men, And briers for corn-sheaves giving!

O! more than all thy dead renown Were now one hero living.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

OLD IRONSIDES.

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!

Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky; Beneath it rung the battle shout, And burst the cannon's roar; The meteor of the ocean air Shall sweep the clouds no more.

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, Where knelt the vanquished foe, When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, And waves were white below, No more shall feel the victor's tread, Or know the conquered knee,-- The harpies of the sh.o.r.e shall pluck The eagle of the sea.

O, better that her shattered hulk Should sink beneath the wave; Her thunders shook the mighty deep, And there should be her grave; Nail to the mast her holy flag, Set every threadbare sail, And give her to the G.o.d of storms, The lightning and the gale!

THE LAST LEAF.

I saw him once before, As he pa.s.sed by the door, And again The pavement stones resound, As he totters o'er the ground With his cane.

They say that in his prime, Ere the pruning-knife of time Cut him down, Not a better man was found By the Crier on his round Through the town.

But now he walks the streets, And he looks at all he meets Sad and wan, And he shakes his feeble head, That it seems as if he said, "They are gone."

The mossy marbles rest On the lips that he has pressed In their bloom, And the names he loved to hear Have been carved for many a year On the tomb.

My grandmamma has said-- Poor old lady, she is dead Long ago-- That he had a Roman nose, And his cheek was like a rose In the snow.

But now his nose is thin, And it rests upon his chin Like a staff, And a crook is in his back, And a melancholy crack In his laugh.

I know it is a sin For me to sit and grin At him here; But the old three-cornered hat, And the breeches, and all that, Are so queer!

And if I should live to be The last leaf upon the tree In the spring, Let them smile, as I do now, At the old forsaken bough Where I cling.

MY AUNT.

My aunt! my dear, unmarried aunt!

Long years have o'er her flown; Yet still she strains the aching clasp That binds her virgin zone; I know it hurts her, though she looks As cheerful as she can; Her waist is ampler than her life, For life is but a span.

My aunt! my poor deluded aunt!

Her hair is almost gray; Why will she train that winter curl In such a spring-like way?

How can she lay her gla.s.ses down, And say she reads as well, When, through a double convex lens, She just makes out to spell?

Her father--grandpapa! forgive This erring lip its smiles-- Vowed she should make the finest girl Within a hundred miles; He sent her to a stylish school; 'Twas in her thirteenth June; And with her, as the rules required, "Two towels and a spoon."

They braced my aunt against a board, To make her straight and tall; They laced her up, they starved her down, To make her light and small; They pinched her feet, they singed her hair, They screwed it up with pins; O, never mortal suffered more In penance for her sins.

So when my precious aunt was done, My grandsire brought her back (By daylight, lest some rabid youth Might follow on the track); "Ah!" said my grandsire, as he shook Some powder in his pan, "What could this lovely creature do Against a desperate man?"

Alas! nor chariot, nor barouche, Nor bandit cavalcade, Tore from the trembling father's arms His all-accomplished maid.

For her how happy had it been!

And Heaven had spared to me To see one sad ungathered rose On my ancestral tree.

EDGAR ALLAN POE.

TO HELEN.

Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, wayworn wanderer bore To his own native sh.o.r.e.

On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy cla.s.sic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand!

Ah! Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy Land!

TO ONE IN PARADISE.

Thou wast that all to me, love, For which my soul did pine: A green isle in the sea, love, A fountain and a shrine All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!

Ah, starry hope! that did'st arise But to be overcast!

A voice from out the future cries On! on! But o'er the past (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies, Mute, motionless, aghast!

For, alas! alas! with me The light of life is o'er.

"No more--no more--no more--"

(Such language holds the solemn sea To the sands upon the sh.o.r.e) Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my days are trances, And all my nightly dreams Are where thy dark eye glances, And where thy footstep gleams,-- In what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams!

FROM "THE FALL OP THE HOUSE OF USHER."

At the termination of this sentence I started, and for a moment paused; for it appeared to me (although I at once concluded that my excited fancy had deceived me)--it appeared to me that, from some very remote portion of the mansion there came, indistinctly, to my ears what might have been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo (but a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very cracking and ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond doubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for amid the rattling of the sashes of the cas.e.m.e.nts, and, the ordinary commingled noises of the still-increasing storm, the sound, in itself, had nothing, surely, which should have interested or disturbed me. I continued the story.

Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wild amazement--for there could be no doubt whatever that, in this instance, I did actually hear (although from what direction it proceeded I found it impossible to say) a low and apparently distant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming or grating sound, the exact counterpart of what my fancy had already conjured up for the dragon's unnatural shriek, as described by the romancer. Oppressed, as I certainly was, upon the occurrence of this second and most extraordinary coincidence, by a thousand conflicting sensations, in which wonder and extreme terror were predominant, I still retained sufficient presence of mind to avoid exciting, by any observation, the sensitive nervousness of my companion. I was by no means certain that he had noticed the sounds in question; although, a.s.suredly, a strange alteration had, during the last few minutes, taken place in his demeanor. From a position fronting my own he had gradually brought round his chair so as to sit with his face to the door of the chamber, and thus I could but partially perceive his features, although I saw that his lips trembled as if he were murmuring inaudibly. His head had dropped upon his breast; yet I knew that he was not asleep, from the wide and rigid opening of the eye as I caught a glance of it in profile. The motion of his body, too, was at variance with this idea; for he rocked from side to side with a gentle yet constant and uniform sway. Having rapidly taken notice of all this I resumed the narrative of Sir Launcelot.