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

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СКАЧАТЬ but, ever fresh and clear,

       No rank malaria stains thine atmosphere;

       No fungous weeds invade thy scanty soil,

       Scarred by the ploughshares of unslumbering toil.

       Long may the doctrines by thy sages taught,

       Raised from the quarries where their sires have wrought,

       Be like the granite of thy rock-ribbed land—

       As slow to rear, as obdurate to stand;

       And as the ice that leaves thy crystal mine

       Chills the fierce alcohol in the Creole's wine,

       So may the doctrines of thy sober school

       Keep the hot theories of thy neighbors cool!

      If ever, trampling on her ancient path,

       Cankered by treachery or inflamed by wrath,

       With smooth "Resolves" or with discordant cries,

       The mad Briareus of disunion rise,

       Chiefs of New England! by your sires' renown,

       Dash the red torches of the rebel down!

       Flood his black hearthstone till its flames expire,

       Though your old Sachem fanned his council-fire!

      But if at last, her fading cycle run,

       The tongue must forfeit what the arm has won,

       Then rise, wild Ocean! roll thy surging shock

       Full on old Plymouth's desecrated rock!

       Scale the proud shaft degenerate hands have hewn,

       Where bleeding Valor stained the flowers of June!

       Sweep in one tide her spires and turrets down,

       And howl her dirge above Monadnock's crown!

      List not the tale; the Pilgrim's hallowed shore,

       Though strewn with weeds, is granite at the core;

       Oh, rather trust that He who made her free

       Will keep her true as long as faith shall be!

       Farewell! yet lingering through the destined hour,

       Leave, sweet Enchantress, one memorial flower!

      An Angel, floating o'er the waste of snow

       That clad our Western desert, long ago,

       (The same fair spirit who, unseen by day,

       Shone as a star along the Mayflower's way,)—

       Sent, the first herald of the Heavenly plan,

       To choose on earth a resting-place for man—

       Tired with his flight along the unvaried field,

       Turned to soar upwards, when his glance revealed

       A calm, bright bay enclosed in rocky bounds,

       And at its entrance stood three sister mounds.

      The Angel spake: "This threefold hill shall be

       The home of Arts, the nurse of Liberty!

       One stately summit from its shaft shall pour

       Its deep-red blaze along the darkened shore;

       Emblem of thoughts that, kindling far and wide,

       In danger's night shall be a nation's guide.

       One swelling crest the citadel shall crown,

       Its slanted bastions black with battle's frown,

       And bid the sons that tread its scowling heights

       Bare their strong arms for man and all his rights!

       One silent steep along the northern wave

       Shall hold the patriarch's and the hero's grave;

       When fades the torch, when o'er the peaceful scene

       The embattled fortress smiles in living green,

       The cross of Faith, the anchor staff of Hope,

       Shall stand eternal on its grassy slope;

       There through all time shall faithful Memory tell,

       'Here Virtue toiled, and Patriot Valor fell;

       Thy free, proud fathers slumber at thy side;

       Live as they lived, or perish as they died!'"

AN AFTER-DINNER POEM

       Table of Contents

      (TERPSICHORE)

      Read at the Annual Dinner of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at

       Cambridge, August 24, 1843.

      IN narrowest girdle, O reluctant Muse,

       In closest frock and Cinderella shoes,

       Bound to the foot-lights for thy brief display,

       One zephyr step, and then dissolve away!

      … … . …

      Short is the space that gods and men can spare

       To Song's twin brother when she is not there.

       Let others water every lusty line,

       As Homer's heroes did their purple wine;

       Pierian revellers! Know in strains like these

       The native juice, the real honest squeeze—

       Strains that, diluted to the twentieth power,

       In yon grave temple might have filled an hour.

       Small room for Fancy's many-chorded lyre,

       For Wit's bright rockets with their trains of fire,

       For Pathos, struggling vainly to surprise

       The iron tutor's tear-denying eyes,

       For Mirth, whose finger with delusive wile

       Turns the grim key of many a rusty smile,

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