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

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       Just in the focus of a nervous race,

       Fretful to change and rabid to discuss,

       Full of excitements, always in a fuss.

       Think of the patriarchs; then compare as men

       These lean-cheeked maniacs of the tongue and pen!

       Run, if you like, but try to keep your breath;

       Work like a man, but don't be worked to death;

       And with new notions—let me change the rule—

       Don't strike the iron till it 's slightly cool.

      Choose well your set; our feeble nature seeks

       The aid of clubs, the countenance of cliques;

       And with this object settle first of all

       Your weight of metal and your size of ball.

       Track not the steps of such as hold you cheap,

       Too mean to prize, though good enough to keep;

       The "real, genuine, no-mistake Tom Thumbs"

       Are little people fed on great men's crumbs.

       Yet keep no followers of that hateful brood

       That basely mingles with its wholesome food

       The tumid reptile, which, the poet said,

       Doth wear a precious jewel in his head.

      If the wild filly, "Progress," thou wouldst ride,

       Have young companions ever at thy side;

       But wouldst thou stride the stanch old mare, "Success,"

       Go with thine elders, though they please thee less.

       Shun such as lounge through afternoons and eves,

       And on thy dial write, "Beware of thieves!"

       Felon of minutes, never taught to feel

       The worth of treasures which thy fingers steal,

       Pick my left pocket of its silver dime,

       But spare the right—it holds my golden time!

      Does praise delight thee? Choose some ultra side— A sure old recipe, and often tried; Be its apostle, congressman, or bard, Spokesman or jokesman, only drive it hard; But know the forfeit which thy choice abides, For on two wheels the poor reformer rides— One black with epithets the anti throws, One white with flattery painted by the pros.

      Though books on MANNERS are not out of print,

       An honest tongue may drop a harmless hint.

       Stop not, unthinking, every friend you meet,

       To spin your wordy fabric in the street;

       While you are emptying your colloquial pack,

       The fiend Lumbago jumps upon his back.

       Nor cloud his features with the unwelcome tale

       Of how he looks, if haply thin and pale;

       Health is a subject for his child, his wife,

       And the rude office that insures his life.

       Look in his face, to meet thy neighbor's soul,

       Not on his garments, to detect a hole;

       "How to observe" is what thy pages show,

       Pride of thy sex, Miss Harriet Martineau!

       Oh, what a precious book the one would be

       That taught observers what they 're NOT to see!

      I tell in verse—'t were better done in prose—

       One curious trick that everybody knows;

       Once form this habit, and it's very strange

       How long it sticks, how hard it is to change.

       Two friendly people, both disposed to smile,

       Who meet, like others, every little while,

       Instead of passing with a pleasant bow,

       And "How d' ye do?" or "How 's your uncle now?"

      Impelled by feelings in their nature kind,

       But slightly weak and somewhat undefined,

       Rush at each other, make a sudden stand,

       Begin to talk, expatiate, and expand;

       Each looks quite radiant, seems extremely struck,

       Their meeting so was such a piece of luck;

       Each thinks the other thinks he 's greatly pleased

       To screw the vice in which they both are squeezed;

       So there they talk, in dust, or mud, or snow,

       Both bored to death, and both afraid to go!

       Your hat once lifted, do not hang your fire,

       Nor, like slow Ajax, fighting still, retire;

       When your old castor on your crown you clap,

       Go off; you've mounted your percussion cap.

      Some words on LANGUAGE may be well applied,

       And take them kindly, though they touch your pride.

       Words lead to things; a scale is more precise—

       Coarse speech, bad grammar, swearing, drinking, vice.

       Our cold Northeaster's icy fetter clips

       The native freedom of the Saxon lips;

       See the brown peasant of the plastic South,

       How all his passions play about his mouth!

       With us, the feature that transmits the soul,

       A frozen, passive, palsied breathing-hole.

       The crampy shackles of the ploughboy's walk

       Tie the small muscles when he strives to talk;

       Not all the pumice of the polished town

       Can smooth this roughness of the barnyard down;

       Rich, honored, titled, he betrays his race

       By this one mark—he's awkward in the face;—

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