The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes Part 107

Not all the owner's efforts could restrain The wild vagaries of the squinting brain,-- Last of the listeners Number Five alone The patient reader still could call his own.

"Teacups, arouse!" 'T was thus the spell I broke; The drowsy started and the slumberers woke.

"The sleep I promised you have now enjoyed, Due to your hour of labor well employed.

Swiftly the busy moments have been pa.s.sed; This, our first 'Teacups,' must not be our last.

Here, on this spot, now consecrated ground, The Order of 'The Teacups' let us found!

By winter's fireside and in summer's bower Still shall it claim its ever-welcome hour, In distant regions where our feet may roam The magic teapot find or make a home; Long may its floods their bright infusion pour, Till time and teacups both shall be no more!"

VERSES FROM THE OLDEST PORTFOLIO

FROM THE "COLLEGIAN," 1830, ILl.u.s.tRATED ANNUALS, ETC.

Nescit vox missa reverti.--Horat. Ars Poetica.

Ab lis qua non adjuvant quam mollissime oportet pedem referre.-- Quintillian, L. VI. C. 4.

These verses have always been printed in my collected poems, and as the best of them may bear a single reading, I allow them to appear, but in a less conspicuous position than the other productions. A chick, before his sh.e.l.l is off his back, is hardly a fair subject for severe criticism.

If one has written anything worth preserving, his first efforts may be objects of interest and curiosity. Other young authors may take encouragement from seeing how tame, how feeble, how commonplace were the rudimentary attempts of the half-fledged poet. If the boy or youth had anything in him, there will probably be some sign of it in the midst of his imitative mediocrities and ambitious failures. These "first verses"

of mine, written before I was sixteen, have little beyond a common academy boy's ordinary performance. Yet a kindly critic said there was one line which showed a poetical quality:--

"The boiling ocean trembled into calm."

One of these poems--the reader may guess which--won fair words from Thackeray. The Spectre Pig was a wicked suggestion which came into my head after reading Dana's Buccaneer. n.o.body seemed to find it out, and I never mentioned it to the venerable poet, who might not have been pleased with the parody. This is enough to say of these unvalued copies of verses.

FIRST VERSES

PHILLIPS ACADEMY, ANDOVER, Ma.s.s., 1824 OR 1825

TRANSLATION FROM THE ENEID, BOOK I.

THE G.o.d looked out upon the troubled deep Waked into tumult from its placid sleep; The flame of anger kindles in his eye As the wild waves ascend the lowering sky; He lifts his head above their awful height And to the distant fleet directs his sight, Now borne aloft upon the billow's crest, Struck by the bolt or by the winds oppressed, And well he knew that Juno's vengeful ire Frowned from those clouds and sparkled in that fire.

On rapid pinions as they whistled by He calls swift Zephyrus and Eurus nigh Is this your glory in a n.o.ble line To leave your confines and to ravage mine?

Whom I--but let these troubled waves subside-- Another tempest and I'll quell your pride!

Go--bear our message to your master's ear, That wide as ocean I am despot here; Let him sit monarch in his barren caves, I wield the trident and control the waves He said, and as the gathered vapors break The swelling ocean seemed a peaceful lake; To lift their s.h.i.+ps the graceful nymphs essayed And the strong trident lent its powerful aid; The dangerous banks are sunk beneath the main, And the light chariot skims the unruffled plain.

As when sedition fires the public mind, And maddening fury leads the rabble blind, The blazing torch lights up the dread alarm, Rage points the steel and fury nerves the arm, Then, if some reverend Sage appear in sight, They stand--they gaze, and check their headlong flight,-- He turns the current of each wandering breast And hushes every pa.s.sion into rest,-- Thus by the power of his imperial arm The boiling ocean trembled into calm; With flowing reins the father sped his way And smiled serene upon rekindled day.

THE MEETING OF THE DRYADS

Written after a general pruning of the trees around Harvard College.

A little poem, on a similar occasion, may be found in the works of Swift, from which, perhaps, the idea was borrowed; although I was as much surprised as amused to meet with it some time after writing the following lines.

IT was not many centuries since, When, gathered on the moonlit green, Beneath the Tree of Liberty, A ring of weeping sprites was seen.

The freshman's lamp had long been dim, The voice of busy day was mute, And tortured Melody had ceased Her sufferings on the evening flute.

They met not as they once had met, To laugh o'er many a jocund tale But every pulse was beating low, And every cheek was cold and pale.

There rose a fair but faded one, Who oft had cheered them with her song; She waved a mutilated arm, And silence held the listening throng.

"Sweet friends," the gentle nymph began, "From opening bud to withering leaf, One common lot has bound us all, In every change of joy and grief.

"While all around has felt decay, We rose in ever-living prime, With broader shade and fresher green, Beneath the crumbling step of Time.

"When often by our feet has past Some biped, Nature's walking whim, Say, have we trimmed one awkward shape, Or lopped away one crooked limb?

"Go on, fair Science; soon to thee Shall. Nature yield her idle boast; Her vulgar fingers formed a tree, But thou halt trained it to a post.

"Go, paint the birch's silver rind, And quilt the peach with softer down; Up with the willow's trailing threads, Off with the sunflower's radiant crown!

"Go, plant the lily on the sh.o.r.e, And set the rose among the waves, And bid the tropic bud unbind Its silken zone in arctic caves;

"Bring bellows for the panting winds, Hang up a lantern by the moon, And give the nightingale a fife, And lend the eagle a balloon!

"I cannot smile,--the tide of scorn, That rolled through every bleeding vein, Comes kindling fiercer as it flows Back to its burning source again.

"Again in every quivering leaf That moment's agony I feel, When limbs, that spurned the northern blast, Shrunk from the sacrilegious steel.

"A curse upon the wretch who dared To crop us with his felon saw!

May every fruit his lip shall taste Lie like a bullet in his maw.

"In every julep that he drinks, May gout, and bile, and headache be; And when he strives to calm his pain, May colic mingle with his tea.

"May nightshade cl.u.s.ter round his path, And thistles shoot, and brambles cling; May blistering ivy scorch his veins, And dogwood burn, and nettles sting.

"On him may never shadow fall, When fever racks his throbbing brow, And his last s.h.i.+lling buy a rope To hang him on my highest bough!"

She spoke;--the morning's herald beam Sprang from the bosom of the sea, And every mangled sprite returned In sadness to her wounded tree.

THE MYSTERIOUS VISITOR

THERE was a sound of hurrying feet, A tramp on echoing stairs, There was a rush along the aisles,-- It was the hour of prayers.

And on, like Ocean's midnight wave, The current rolled along, When, suddenly, a stranger form Was seen amidst the throng.

He was a dark and swarthy man, That uninvited guest; A faded coat of bottle-green Was b.u.t.toned round his breast.

There was not one among them all Could say from whence he came; Nor beardless boy, nor ancient man, Could tell that stranger's name.