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

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      But what sad music fills the quiet hall,

       If on her back a feline rival fall!

       And oh, what noises shake the tranquil house

       If old Self-interest cheats her of a mouse.

      Thou, O my country, hast thy foolish ways,

       Too apt to purr at every stranger's praise;

       But if the stranger touch thy modes or laws,

       Off goes the velvet and out come the claws!

       And thou, Illustrious! but too poorly paid

       In toasts from Pickwick for thy great crusade,

       Though, while the echoes labored with thy name,

       The public trap denied thy little game,

       Let other lips our jealous laws revile—

       The marble Talfourd or the rude Carlyle—

       But on thy lids, which Heaven forbids to close

       Where'er the light of kindly nature glows,

       Let not the dollars that a churl denies

       Weigh like the shillings on a dead man's eyes!

       Or, if thou wilt, be more discreetly blind,

       Nor ask to see all wide extremes combined.

       Not in our wastes the dainty blossoms smile

       That crowd the gardens of thy scanty isle.

       There white-cheeked Luxury weaves a thousand charms;

       Here sun-browned Labor swings his naked arms.

       Long are the furrows he must trace between

       The ocean's azure and the prairie's green;

       Full many a blank his destined realm displays,

       Yet sees the promise of his riper days

       Far through yon depths the panting engine moves,

       His chariots ringing in their steel-shod grooves;

       And Erie's naiad flings her diamond wave

       O'er the wild sea-nymph in her distant cave!

       While tasks like these employ his anxious hours,

       What if his cornfields are not edged with flowers?

       Though bright as silver the meridian beams

       Shine through the crystal of thine English streams,

       Turbid and dark the mighty wave is whirled

       That drains our Andes and divides a world!

      But lo! a PARCHMENT! Surely it would seem

       The sculptured impress speaks of power supreme;

       Some grave design the solemn page must claim

       That shows so broadly an emblazoned name.

       A sovereign's promise! Look, the lines afford

       All Honor gives when Caution asks his word:

       There sacred Faith has laid her snow-white hands,

       And awful Justice knit her iron bands;

       Yet every leaf is stained with treachery's dye,

       And every letter crusted with a lie.

       Alas! no treason has degraded yet

       The Arab's salt, the Indian's calumet;

       A simple rite, that bears the wanderer's pledge,

       Blunts the keen shaft and turns the dagger's edge;

       While jockeying senates stop to sign and seal,

       And freeborn statesmen legislate to steal.

       Rise, Europe, tottering with thine Atlas load,

       Turn thy proud eye to Freedom's blest abode,

       And round her forehead, wreathed with heavenly flame,

       Bind the dark garland of her daughter's shame!

       Ye ocean clouds, that wrap the angry blast,

       Coil her stained ensign round its haughty mast,

       Or tear the fold that wears so foul a scar,

       And drive a bolt through every blackened star!

       Once more—once only— we must stop so soon:

       What have we here? A GERMAN-SILVER SPOON;

       A cheap utensil, which we often see

       Used by the dabblers in aesthetic tea,

       Of slender fabric, somewhat light and thin,

       Made of mixed metal, chiefly lead and tin;

       The bowl is shallow, and the handle small,

       Marked in large letters with the name JEAN PAUL.

       Small as it is, its powers are passing strange,

       For all who use it show a wondrous change;

       And first, a fact to make the barbers stare,

       It beats Macassar for the growth of hair.

       See those small youngsters whose expansive ears

       Maternal kindness grazed with frequent shears;

       Each bristling crop a dangling mass becomes,

       And all the spoonies turn to Absaloms

       Nor this alone its magic power displays,

       It alters strangely all their works and ways;

       With uncouth words they tire their tender lungs,

       The same bald phrases on their hundred tongues

       "Ever" "The Ages" in their page appear,

       "Alway" the bedlamite is called a "Seer;"

       On every leaf the "earnest" sage may scan,

       Portentous bore! their "many-sided" man—

       A weak eclectic, groping vague and dim,

       Whose every angle is a half-starved whim,

       Blind as a mole and curious as a lynx,

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