The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes Part 79

But the words have scarce been spoken, when the ominous calm is broken, And a bellowing crash has emptied all the vengeance of the storm!

So again, with murderous slaughter, pelted backwards to the water, Fly Pigot's running heroes and the frightened braves of Howe; And we shout, "At last they're done for, it's their barges they have run for: They are beaten, beaten, beaten; and the battle 's over now!"

And we looked, poor timid creatures, on the rough old soldier's features, Our lips afraid to question, but he knew what we would ask: "Not sure," he said; "keep quiet,--once more, I guess, they 'll try it-- Here's d.a.m.nation to the cut-throats!"--then he handed me his flask,

Saying, "Gal, you're looking shaky; have a drop of old Jamaiky; I 'm afeard there 'll be more trouble afore the job is done"; So I took one scorching swallow; dreadful faint I felt and hollow, Standing there from early morning when the firing was begun.

All through those hours of trial I had watched a calm clock dial, As the hands kept creeping, creeping,--they were creeping round to four, When the old man said, "They're forming with their bagonets fixed for storming: It 's the death-grip that's a coming,--they will try the works once more."

With brazen trumpets blaring, the flames behind them glaring, The deadly wall before them, in close array they come; Still onward, upward toiling, like a dragon's fold uncoiling,-- Like the rattlesnake's shrill warning the reverberating drum.

Over heaps all torn and gory--shall I tell the fearful story, How they surged above the breastwork, as a sea breaks over a deck; How, driven, yet scarce defeated, our worn-out men retreated, With their powder-horns all emptied, like the swimmers from a wreck?

It has all been told and painted; as for me, they say I fainted, And the wooden-legged old Corporal stumped with me down the stair: When I woke from dreams affrighted the evening lamps were lighted,-- On the floor a youth was lying; his bleeding breast was bare.

And I heard through all the flurry, "Send for WARREN! hurry! hurry!

Tell him here's a soldier bleeding, and he 'll come and dress his wound!"

Ah, we knew not till the morrow told its tale of death and sorrow, How the starlight found him stiffened on the dark and b.l.o.o.d.y ground.

Who the youth was, what his name was, where the place from which he came was, Who had brought him from the battle, and had left him at our door, He could not speak to tell us; but 't was one of our brave fellows, As the homespun plainly showed us which the dying soldier wore.

For they all thought he was dying, as they gathered round him crying,-- And they said, "Oh, how they'll miss him!" and, "What will his mother do?"

Then, his eyelids just unclosing like a child's that has been dozing, He faintly murmured, "Mother!"--and--I saw his eyes were blue.

"Why, grandma, how you 're winking!" Ah, my child, it sets me thinking Of a story not like this one. Well, he somehow lived along; So we came to know each other, and I nursed him like a--mother, Till at last he stood before me, tall, and rosy-checked, and strong.

And we sometimes walked together in the pleasant summer weather,-- "Please to tell us what his name was?" Just your own, my little dear,-- There's his picture Copley painted: we became so well acquainted, That--in short, that's why I 'm grandma, and you children all are here!

AT THE "ATLANTIC" DINNER

DECEMBER 15, 1874

I SUPPOSE it's myself that you're making allusion to And bringing the sense of dismay and confusion to.

Of course some must speak,--they are always selected to, But pray what's the reason that I am expected to?

I'm not fond of wasting my breath as those fellows do; That want to be blowing forever as bellows do; Their legs are uneasy, but why will you jog any That long to stay quiet beneath the mahogany?

Why, why call me up with your battery of flatteries?

You say "He writes poetry,"--that 's what the matter is "It costs him no trouble--a pen full of ink or two And the poem is done in the time of a wink or two; As for thoughts--never mind--take the ones that lie uppermost, And the rhymes used by Milton and Byron and Tupper most; The lines come so easy! at one end he jingles 'em, At the other with capital letters he s.h.i.+ngles 'em,-- Why, the thing writes itself, and before he's half done with it He hates to stop writing, he has such good fun with it!"

Ah, that is the way in which simple ones go about And draw a fine picture of things they don't know about!

We all know a kitten, but come to a catamount The beast is a stranger when grown up to that amount, (A stranger we rather prefer should n't visit us, A _felis_ whose advent is far from felicitous.) The boy who can boast that his trap has just got a mouse Must n't draw it and write underneath "hippopotamus"; Or say unveraciously, "This is an elephant,"-- Don't think, let me beg, these examples irrelevant,-- What they mean is just this--that a thing to be painted well Should always be something with which we're acquainted well.

You call on your victim for "things he has plenty of,-- Those copies of verses no doubt at least twenty of; His desk is crammed full, for he always keeps writing 'em And reading to friends as his way of delighting 'em!"

I tell you this writing of verses means business,-- It makes the brain whirl in a vortex of dizziness You think they are scrawled in the languor of laziness-- I tell you they're squeezed by a spasm of craziness, A fit half as bad as the staggering vertigos That seize a poor fellow and down in the dirt he goes!

And therefore it chimes with the word's etytology That the sons of Apollo are great on apology, For the writing of verse is a struggle mysterious And the gayest of rhymes is a matter that's serious.

For myself, I'm relied on by friends in extremities, And I don't mind so much if a comfort to them it is; 'T is a pleasure to please, and the straw that can tickle us Is a source of enjoyment though slightly ridiculous.

I am up for a--something--and since I 've begun with it, I must give you a toast now before I have done with it.

Let me pump at my wits as they pumped the Cochituate That moistened--it may be--the very last bit you ate: Success to our publishers, authors and editors To our debtors good luck,--pleasant dreams to our creditors; May the monthly grow yearly, till all we are groping for Has reached the fulfilment we're all of us hoping for; Till the bore through the tunnel--it makes me let off a sigh To think it may possibly ruin my prophecy-- Has been punned on so often 't will never provoke again One mild adolescent to make the old joke again; Till abstinent, all-go-to-meeting society Has forgotten the sense of the word inebriety; Till the work that poor Hannah and Bridget and Phillis do The humanized, civilized female gorillas do; Till the roughs, as we call them, grown loving and dutiful, Shall wors.h.i.+p the true and the pure and the beautiful, And, preying no longer as tiger and vulture do, All read the "Atlantic" as persons of culture do!

"LUCY"

FOR HER GOLDEN WEDDING, OCTOBER 18, 1875

"Lucy."--The old familiar name Is now, as always, pleasant, Its liquid melody the same Alike in past or present; Let others call you what they will, I know you'll let me use it; To me your name is Lucy still, I cannot bear to lose it.

What visions of the past return With Lucy's image blended!

What memories from the silent urn Of gentle lives long ended!

What dreams of childhood's fleeting morn, What starry aspirations, That filled the misty days unborn With fancy's coruscations!

Ah, Lucy, life has swiftly sped From April to November; The summer blossoms all are shed That you and I remember; But while the vanished years we share With mingling recollections, How all their shadowy features wear The hue of old affections!

Love called you. He who stole your heart Of suns.h.i.+ne half bereft us; Our household's garland fell apart The morning that you left us; The tears of tender girlhood streamed Through sorrow's opening sluices; Less sweet our garden's roses seemed, Less blue its flower-de-luces.

That old regret is turned to smiles, That parting sigh to greeting; I send my heart-throb fifty miles Through every line 't is beating; G.o.d grant you many and happy years, Till when the last has crowned you The dawn of endless day appears, And heaven is s.h.i.+ning round you!

October 11, 1875.

HYMN

FOR THE INAUGURATION OF THE STATUE OF GOVERNOR ANDREW, HINGHAM, OCTOBER 7, 1875

BEHOLD the shape our eyes have known!

It lives once more in changeless stone; So looked in mortal face and form Our guide through peril's deadly storm.

But hushed the beating heart we knew, That heart so tender, brave, and true, Firm as the rooted mountain rock, Pure as the quarry's whitest block!

Not his beneath the blood-red star To win the soldier's envied sear; Unarmed he battled for the right, In Duty's never-ending fight.

Unconquered will, unslumbering eye, Faith such as bids the martyr die, The prophet's glance, the master's hand To mould the work his foresight planned,

These were his gifts; what Heaven had lent For justice, mercy, truth, he spent, First to avenge the traitorous blow, And first to lift the vanquished foe.

Lo, thus he stood; in danger's strait The pilot of the Pilgrim State!

Too large his fame for her alone,-- A nation claims him as her own!