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

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      —Fired at the thought of all the present shows,

       My kindling fancy down the future flows:

       I see the glory of the coming days

       O'er Time's horizon shoot its streaming rays;

       Near and more near the radiant morning draws

       In living lustre (rapturous applause);

       From east to west the blazing heralds run,

       Loosed from the chariot of the ascending sun,

       Through the long vista of uncounted years

       In cloudless splendor (three tremendous cheers).

       My eye prophetic, as the depths unfold,

       Sees a new advent of the age of gold;

       While o'er the scene new generations press,

       New heroes rise the coming time to bless—

       Not such as Homer's, who, we read in Pope,

       Dined without forks and never heard of soap—

       Not such as May to Marlborough Chapel brings,

       Lean, hungry, savage, anti-everythings,

       Copies of Luther in the pasteboard style—

       But genuine articles, the true Carlyle;

       While far on high the blazing orb shall shed

       Its central light on Harvard's holy head,

       And learning's ensigns ever float unfurled

       Here in the focus of the new-born world

       The speaker stops, and, trampling down the pause,

       Roars through the hall the thunder of applause,

       One stormy gust of long-suspended Ahs!

       One whirlwind chaos of insane hurrahs!

      … . … .

      THE SONG. But this demands a briefer line—

       A shorter muse, and not the old long Nine;

       Long metre answers for a common song,

       Though common metre does not answer long.

      She came beneath the forest dome

       To seek its peaceful shade,

       An exile from her ancient home,

       A poor, forsaken maid;

       No banner, flaunting high above,

       No blazoned cross, she bore;

       One holy book of light and love

       Was all her worldly store.

      The dark brown shadows passed away,

       And wider spread the green,

       And where the savage used to stray

       The rising mart was seen;

       So, when the laden winds had brought

       Their showers of golden rain,

       Her lap some precious gleanings caught,

       Like Ruth's amid the grain.

      But wrath soon gathered uncontrolled

       Among the baser churls,

       To see her ankles red with gold,

       Her forehead white with pearls.

       "Who gave to thee the glittering bands

       That lace thine azure veins?

       Who bade thee lift those snow-white hands

       We bound in gilded chains?"

      "These are the gems my children gave,"

       The stately dame replied;

       "The wise, the gentle, and the brave,

       I nurtured at my side.

       If envy still your bosom stings,

       Take back their rims of gold;

       My sons will melt their wedding-rings,

       And give a hundred-fold!"

      … . … .

      THE TOAST. Oh tell me, ye who thoughtless ask

       Exhausted nature for a threefold task,

       In wit or pathos if one share remains,

       A safe investment for an ounce of brains!

       Hard is the job to launch the desperate pun,

       A pun-job dangerous as the Indian one.

       Turned by the current of some stronger wit

       Back from the object that you mean to hit,

       Like the strange missile which the Australian throws,

       Your verbal boomerang slaps you on the nose.

       One vague inflection spoils the whole with doubt,

       One trivial letter ruins all, left out;

       A knot can choke a felon into clay,

       A not will save him, spelt without the k;

       The smallest word has some unguarded spot,

       And danger lurks in i without a dot.

      Thus great Achilles, who had shown his zeal

       In healing wounds, died of a wounded heel;

       Unhappy chief, who, when in childhood doused,

       Had saved his bacon had his feet been soused

       Accursed heel that killed a hero stout

       Oh, had your mother known that you were out,

       Death had not entered at the trifling part

       That still defies the small chirurgeon's art

       With corns and bunions—not the glorious John,

       Who wrote the book we all have pondered on,

       But other bunions, bound in fleecy hose,

       To "Pilgrim's Progress" unrelenting foes!

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