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

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      You clerk, on whose ears are a couple of pens,

       And whose head is an ant-hill of units and tens,

       Though Plato denies you, we welcome you still

       As a featherless biped, in spite of your quill.

      Poor drudge of the city! how happy he feels,

       With the burs on his legs and the grass at his heels

       No dodger behind, his bandannas to share,

       No constable grumbling, "You must n't walk there!"

      In yonder green meadow, to memory dear,

       He slaps a mosquito and brushes a tear;

       The dew-drops hang round him on blossoms and shoots,

       He breathes but one sigh for his youth and his boots.

      There stands the old school-house, hard by the old church;

       That tree at its side had the flavor of birch;

       Oh, sweet were the days of his juvenile tricks,

       Though the prairie of youth had so many "big licks."

      By the side of yon river he weeps and he slumps,

       The boots fill with water, as if they were pumps,

       Till, sated with rapture, he steals to his bed,

       With a glow in his heart and a cold in his head.

      'T is past—he is dreaming—I see him again;

       The ledger returns as by legerdemain;

       His neckcloth is damp with an easterly flaw,

       And he holds in his fingers an omnibus straw.

      He dreams the chill gust is a blossomy gale,

       That the straw is a rose from his dear native vale;

       And murmurs, unconscious of space and of time,

       "A 1. Extra super. Ah, is n't it PRIME!"

      Oh, what are the prizes we perish to win

       To the first little "shiner" we caught with a pin!

       No soil upon earth is so dear to our eyes

       As the soil we first stirred in terrestrial pies!

      Then come from all parties and parts to our feast;

       Though not at the "Astor," we'll give you at least

       A bite at an apple, a seat on the grass,

       And the best of old—water—at nothing a glass.

NUX POSTCOENATICA

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      I WAS sitting with my microscope, upon my parlor rug,

       With a very heavy quarto and a very lively bug;

       The true bug had been organized with only two antennae,

       But the humbug in the copperplate would have them twice as many.

      And I thought, like Dr. Faustus, of the emptiness of art,

       How we take a fragment for the whole, and call the whole a part,

       When I heard a heavy footstep that was loud enough for two,

       And a man of forty entered, exclaiming, "How d' ye do?"

      He was not a ghost, my visitor, but solid flesh and bone;

       He wore a Palo Alto hat, his weight was twenty stone;

       (It's odd how hats expand their brims as riper years invade,

       As if when life had reached its noon it wanted them for shade!)

      I lost my focus—dropped my book—the bug, who was a flea,

       At once exploded, and commenced experiments on me.

       They have a certain heartiness that frequently appalls—

       Those mediaeval gentlemen in semilunar smalls!

      "My boy," he said, (colloquial ways—the vast, broad-hatted man,)

       "Come dine with us on Thursday next—you must, you know you can;

       We're going to have a roaring time, with lots of fun and noise,

       Distinguished guests, et cetera, the JUDGE, and all the boys."

      Not so—I said—my temporal bones are showing pretty clear.

       It 's time to stop—just look and see that hair above this ear;

       My golden days are more than spent—and, what is very strange,

       If these are real silver hairs, I'm getting lots of change.

      Besides—my prospects—don't you know that people won't employ

       A man that wrongs his manliness by laughing like a boy?

       And suspect the azure blossom that unfolds upon a shoot,

       As if wisdom's old potato could not flourish at its root?

      It's a very fine reflection, when you 're etching out a smile

       On a copperplate of faces that would stretch at least a mile,

       That, what with sneers from enemies and cheapening shrugs of friends,

       It will cost you all the earnings that a month of labor lends!

      It's a vastly pleasing prospect, when you're screwing out a laugh,

       That your very next year's income is diminished by a half,

       And a little boy trips barefoot that Pegasus may go,

       And the baby's milk is watered that your Helicon may flow!

      No;—the joke has been a good one—but I'm getting fond of quiet,

       And I don't like deviations from my customary diet;

       So I think I will not go with you to hear the toasts and speeches,

       But stick to old Montgomery Place, and have some pig and peaches.

      The fat man answered: Shut your mouth, and hear the genuine creed;

       The true essentials of a feast are only fun and feed;

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