The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes — Complete. Oliver Wendell Holmes

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СКАЧАТЬ The boys and their mother set up a shout,

       Said he, "You 're in, and you can't get out,

       Bellow as loud as you may."

      Off he went, and he growled a tune

       As he strode the fields along;

       'T is said a buffalo fainted away,

       And fell as cold as a lump of clay,

       When he heard the giant's song.

      But whether the story 's true or not,

       It is n't for me to show;

       There 's many a thing that 's twice as queer

       In somebody's lectures that we hear,

       And those are true, you know.

      What are those lone ones doing now,

       The wife and the children sad?

       Oh, they are in a terrible rout,

       Screaming, and throwing their pudding about,

       Acting as they were mad.

      They flung it over to Roxbury hills,

       They flung it over the plain,

       And all over Milton and Dorchester too

       Great lumps of pudding the giants threw;

       They tumbled as thick as rain.

      Giant and mammoth have passed away,

       For ages have floated by;

       The suet is hard as a marrow-bone,

       And every plum is turned to a stone,

       But there the puddings lie.

      And if, some pleasant afternoon,

       You 'll ask me out to ride,

       The whole of the story I will tell,

       And you shall see where the puddings fell,

       And pay for the punch beside.

TO THE PORTRAIT OF "A LADY" IN THE ATHENAEUM GALLERY

       Table of Contents

      WELL, Miss, I wonder where you live,

       I wonder what's your name,

       I wonder how you came to be

       In such a stylish frame;

       Perhaps you were a favorite child,

       Perhaps an only one;

       Perhaps your friends were not aware

       You had your portrait done.

      Yet you must be a harmless soul;

       I cannot think that Sin

       Would care to throw his loaded dice,

       With such a stake to win;

       I cannot think you would provoke

       The poet's wicked pen,

       Or make young women bite their lips,

       Or ruin fine young men.

      Pray, did you ever hear, my love,

       Of boys that go about,

       Who, for a very trifling sum,

       Will snip one's picture out?

       I'm not averse to red and white,

       But all things have their place,

       I think a profile cut in black

       Would suit your style of face!

      I love sweet features; I will own

       That I should like myself

       To see my portrait on a wall,

       Or bust upon a shelf;

       But nature sometimes makes one up

       Of such sad odds and ends,

       It really might be quite as well

       Hushed up among one's friends!

THE COMET

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      THE Comet! He is on his way,

       And singing as he flies;

       The whizzing planets shrink before

       The spectre of the skies;

       Ah! well may regal orbs burn blue,

       And satellites turn pale,

       Ten million cubic miles of head,

       Ten billion leagues of tail!

      On, on by whistling spheres of light

       He flashes and he flames;

       He turns not to the left nor right,

       He asks them not their names;

       One spurn from his demoniac heel—

       Away, away they fly,

       Where darkness might be bottled up

       And sold for "Tyrian dye."

      And what would happen to the land,

       And how would look the sea,

       If in the bearded devil's path

       Our earth should chance to be?

       Full hot and high the sea would boil,

       Full red the forests gleam;

       Methought I saw and heard it all

       In a dyspeptic dream!

      I saw a tutor take his tube

       The Comet's course to spy;

       I heard a scream—the gathered rays

       Had stewed the tutor's eye;

       I saw a fort—the СКАЧАТЬ