The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes Part 1

The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete.

by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

TO MY READERS

NAY, blame me not; I might have spared Your patience many a trivial verse, Yet these my earlier welcome shared, So, let the better shield the worse.

And some might say, "Those ruder songs Had freshness which the new have lost; To spring the opening leaf belongs, The chestnut-burs await the frost."

When those I wrote, my locks were brown, When these I write--ah, well a-day!

The autumn thistle's silvery down Is not the purple bloom of May.

Go, little book, whose pages hold Those garnered years in loving trust; How long before your blue and gold Shall fade and whiten in the dust?

O s.e.xton of the alcoved tomb, Where souls in leathern cerements lie, Tell me each living poet's doom!

How long before his book shall die?

It matters little, soon or late, A day, a month, a year, an age,-- I read oblivion in its date, And Finis on its t.i.tle-page.

Before we sighed, our griefs were told; Before we smiled, our joys were sung; And all our pa.s.sions shaped of old In accents lost to mortal tongue.

In vain a fresher mould we seek,-- Can all the varied phrases tell That Babel's wandering children speak How thrushes sing or lilacs smell?

Caged in the poet's lonely heart, Love wastes unheard its tenderest tone; The soul that sings must dwell apart, Its inward melodies unknown.

Deal gently with us, ye who read Our largest hope is unfulfilled,-- The promise still outruns the deed,-- The tower, but not the spire, we build.

Our whitest pearl we never find; Our ripest fruit we never reach; The flowering moments of the mind Drop half their petals in our speech.

These are my blossoms; if they wear One streak of morn or evening's glow, Accept them; but to me more fair The buds of song that never blow.

April 8, 1862.

EARLIER POEMS

1830-1836 OLD IRONSIDES

This was the popular name by which the frigate Const.i.tution was known. The poem was first printed in the Boston Daily Advertiser, at the time when it was proposed to break up the old ship as unfit for service. I subjoin the paragraph which led to the writing of the poem. It is from the Advertiser of Tuesday, September 14, 1830:--

"Old Ironsides.--It has been affirmed upon good authority that the Secretary of the Navy has recommended to the Board of Navy Commissioners to dispose of the frigate Const.i.tution. Since it has been understood that such a step was in contemplation we have heard but one opinion expressed, and that in decided disapprobation of the measure. Such a national object of interest, so endeared to our national pride as Old Ironsides is, should never by any act of our government cease to belong to the Navy, so long as our country is to be found upon the map of nations.

In England it was lately determined by the Admiralty to cut the Victory, a one-hundred gun ship (which it will be recollected bore the flag of Lord Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar,) down to a seventy-four, but so loud were the lamentations of the people upon the proposed measure that the intention was abandoned. We confidently antic.i.p.ate that the Secretary of the Navy will in like manner consult the general wish in regard to the Const.i.tution, and either let her remain in ordinary or rebuild her whenever the public service may require."--New York Journal of Commerce.

The poem was an impromptu outburst of feeling and was published on the next day but one after reading the above paragraph.

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!

Oh 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

This poem was suggested by the appearance in one of our streets of a venerable relic of the Revolution, said to be one of the party who threw the tea overboard in Boston Harbor. He was a fine monumental specimen in his c.o.c.ked hat and knee breeches, with his buckled shoes and his st.u.r.dy cane. The smile with which I, as a young man, greeted him, meant no disrespect to an honored fellow-citizen whose costume was out of date, but whose patriotism never changed with years. I do not recall any earlier example of this form of verse, which was commended by the fastidious Edgar Allan Poe, who made a copy of the whole poem which I have in his own handwriting. Good Abraham Lincoln had a great liking for the poem, and repeated it from memory to Governor Andrew, as the governor himself told me.

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 prest 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.

THE CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD

OUR ancient church! its lowly tower, Beneath the loftier spire, Is shadowed when the sunset hour Clothes the tall shaft in fire; It sinks beyond the distant eye Long ere the glittering vane, High wheeling in the western sky, Has faded o'er the plain.

Like Sentinel and Nun, they keep Their vigil on the green; One seems to guard, and one to weep, The dead that lie between; And both roll out, so full and near, Their music's mingling waves, They shake the gra.s.s, whose pennoned spear Leans on the narrow graves.

The stranger parts the flaunting weeds, Whose seeds the winds have strown So thick, beneath the line he reads, They shade the sculptured stone; The child unveils his cl.u.s.tered brow, And ponders for a while The graven willow's pendent bough, Or rudest cherub's smile.

But what to them the dirge, the knell?

These were the mourner's share,-- The sullen clang, whose heavy swell Throbbed through the beating air; The rattling cord, the rolling stone, The shelving sand that slid, And, far beneath, with hollow tone Rung on the coffin's lid.

The slumberer's mound grows fresh and green, Then slowly disappears; The mosses creep, the gray stones lean, Earth hides his date and years; But, long before the once-loved name Is sunk or worn away, No lip the silent dust may claim, That pressed the breathing clay.

Go where the ancient pathway guides, See where our sires laid down Their smiling babes, their cherished brides, The patriarchs of the town; Hast thou a tear for buried love?

A sigh for transient power?

All that a century left above, Go, read it in an hour!