Chapter VII: Introduction (5)

O, for festal dainties spread,
Like my bowl of milk and bread,
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood,
On the door-stone, gray and rude!
O’er me like a regal tent,
Cloudy ribbed, the sunset bent,
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold,
Looped in many a wind-swung fold;
While for music came the play
Of the pied frogs’ orchestra;
And, to light the noisy choir,
Lit the fly his lamp of fire.
I was monarch; pomp and joy
Waited on the barefoot boy!
Cheerily, then, my little man!
Live and laugh as boyhood can;
Though the flinty slopes be hard,
Stubble-speared the new-mown sward,
Every morn shall lead thee through
Fresh baptisms of the dew;
Every evening from thy feet
Shall the cool wind kiss the heat;
All too soon these feet must hide
In the prison cells of pride,
Lose the freedom of the sod,
Like a colt’s for work be shod,
Made to tread the mills of toil,
Up and down in ceaseless moil,
Happy if their track be found
Never on forbidden ground;
Happy if they sink not in
Quick and treacherous sands of sin.
Ah! that thou couldst know thy joy,
Ere it passes, barefoot boy!

* * * * *

MAUD MULLER.

MAUD MULLER, on a summer’s day,
Raked the meadow sweet with hay.

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.

Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.

But, when she glanced to the far off town,
White from its hill-slope looking down,

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast――

A wish, that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.

The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse’s chestnut mane.

He drew his bridle in the shade
Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid.

And ask a draught from the spring that flowed
Through the meadow across the road.

She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,
And filled for him her small tin cup,

And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.

“Thanks!” said the Judge, “a sweeter draught
From a fairer hand was never quaffed.”

He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees,
Of the singing birds and the humming bees;

Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.

And Maud forgot her briar-torn gown,
And her graceful ankles bare and brown;

And listened, while a pleased surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.

At last, like one who for delay
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.

Maud Muller looked and sighed: “Ah me!
That I the Judge’s bride might be!

“He would dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine.

“My father should wear a broadcloth coat;
My brother should sail a painted boat.

“I’d dress my mother so grand and gay,
And the baby should have a new toy each day.

“And I’d feed the hungry and clothe the poor,
And all should bless me who left our door.”

The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill,
And saw Maud Muller standing still.

“A form more fair, a face more sweet,
Ne’er hath it been my lot to meet.

“And her modest answer and graceful air
Show her wise and good as she is fair.

“Would she were mine, and I to-day,
Like her, a harvester of hay:

“No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs,
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,

“But low of cattle, and song of birds,
And health, and quiet, and loving words.”

But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold,
And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love-tune;

And the young girl mused beside the well,
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.

He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.

Yet oft, in his marble hearth’s bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go;

And sweet Maud Muller’s hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.

Oft when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead;

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms,
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.

And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain,
“Ah, that I were free again!

“Free as when I rode that day,
Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay.”

She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.

But care and sorrow, and child-birth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new mown hay in the meadow lot,

And she heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,

In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein,

And gazing down with timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;

The weary wheel to a spinnet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned;

And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o’er pipe and mug,

A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty and love was law.

Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, “It might have been.”

Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!

God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: “It might have been!”

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;

And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away!

* * * * *

MEMORIES.

A BEAUTIFUL and happy girl
With step as soft as summer air,
And fresh young lip and brow of pearl
Shadow’d by many a careless curl
Of unconfined and flowing hair:
A seeming child in every thing
Save thoughtful brow, and ripening charms,
As nature wears the smile of spring
When sinking into summer’s arms.

A mind rejoicing in the light
Which melted through its graceful bower,
Leaf after leaf serenely bright
And stainless in its holy white
Unfolding like a morning flower:
A heart, which, like a fine-toned lute
With every breath of feeling woke,
And, even when the tongue was mute,
From eye and lip in music spoke.

How thrills once more the lengthening chain
Of memory at the thought of thee!――
Old hopes which long in dust have lain,
Old dreams come thronging back again,
And boyhood lives again in me;
I feel its glow upon my cheek,
Its fulness of the heart is mine,
As when I lean’d to hear thee speak,
Or raised my doubtful eye to thine.

I hear again thy low replies,
I feel thy arm within my own,
And timidly again uprise
The fringed lids of hazel eyes
With soft brown tresses overblown.
Ah! memories of sweet summer eves,
Of moonlit wave and willowy way,
Of stars and flowers and dewy leaves,
And smiles and tones more dear than they!

Ere this thy quiet eye hath smiled
My picture of thy youth to see,
When half a woman, half a child,
Thy very artlessness beguiled,
And folly’s self seem’d wise in thee.
I too can smile, when o’er that hour
The lights of memory backward stream,
Yet feel the while that manhood’s power
Is vainer than my boyhood’s dream.

Years have pass’d on, and left their trace
Of graver care and deeper thought;
And unto me the calm, cold face
Of manhood, and to thee the grace
Of woman’s pensive beauty brought,
On life’s rough blasts for blame or praise
The schoolboy’s name has widely flown;
Thine in the green and quiet ways
Of unobtrusive goodness known.

And wider yet in thought and deed
Our still diverging thoughts incline,
Thine the Genevan’s sternest creed,
While answers to my spirit’s need
The Yorkshire peasant’s simple line.
For thee the priestly rite and prayer,
And holy day and solemn psalm,
For me the silent reverence where
My brethren gather, slow and calm.

Yet hath thy spirit left on me
An impress time has not worn out,
And something of myself in thee,
A shadow from the past, I see
Lingering even yet thy way about;
Not wholly can the heart unlearn
That lesson of its better hours,
Not yet has Time’s dull footstep worn
To common dust that path of flowers.

Thus, while at times before our eye
The clouds about the present part,
And, smiling through them, round us lie
Soft hues of memory’s morning sky――
The Indian summer of the heart,
In secret sympathies of mind,
In founts of feeling which retain
Their pure, fresh flow, we yet may find
Our early dreams not wholly vain!

* * * * *

THE PRISONER FOR DEBT.

LOOK on him――through his dungeon-grate,
Feebly and cold, the morning light
Comes stealing round him, dim and late,
As if it loathed the sight.
Reclining on his strawy bed,
His hand upholds his drooping head――
His bloodless cheek is seam’d and hard,
Unshorn his gray, neglected beard;
And o’er his bony fingers flow
His long, dishevell’d locks of snow.

No grateful fire before him glows,――
And yet the winter’s breath is chill:
And o’er his half-clad person goes
The frequent ague-thrill!
Silent――save ever and anon,
A sound, half-murmur and half-groan,
Forces apart the painful grip
Of the old sufferer’s bearded lip:
O, sad and crushing is the fate
Of old age chain’d and desolate!

Just GOD! why lies that old man there?
A murderer shares his prison-bed,
Whose eyeballs, through his horrid hair,
Gleam on him fierce and red;
And the rude oath and heartless jeer
Fall ever on his loathing ear,
And, or in wakefulness or sleep
Nerve, flesh, and fibre thrill and creep,
Whene’er that ruffian’s tossing limb,
Crimson’d with murder, touches him!

What has the gray-hair’d prisoner done?
Has murder stain’d his hands with gore?
Not so: his crime’s a fouler one:
_God made the old man poor!_
For this he shares a felon’s cell――
The fittest earthly type of hell!
For this――the boon for which he pour’d
His young blood on the invader’s sword,
And counted light the fearful cost――
His blood-gain’d liberty is lost!

And so, for such a place of rest,
Old prisoner, pour’d thy blood as rain
On Concord’s field, and Bunker’s crest,
And Saratoga’s plain?
Look forth, thou man of many scars,
Through thy dim dungeon’s iron bars!
It must be joy, in sooth, to see
Yon monument uprear’d to thee――
Piled granite and a prison cell――
The land repays thy service well!

Go, ring the bells and fire the guns,
And fling the starry banner out;
Shout “Freedom!” till your lisping ones
Give back their cradle-shout:
Let boasted eloquence declaim
Of honor, liberty, and fame;
Still let the poet’s strain be heard,
With “glory” for each second word,
And everything with breath agree
To praise, “our glorious liberty!”

And when the patriot cannon jars
That prison’s cold and gloomy wall,
And through its grates the stripes and stars
Rise on the wind, and fall――
Think ye that prisoner’s aged ear
Rejoices in the general cheer!
Think ye his dim and failing eye
Is kindled at your pageantry?
Sorrowing of soul, and chain’d of limb,
What is your carnival to him?

Down with the law that binds him thus!
Unworthy freemen, let it find
No refuge from the withering curse
Of GOD and human kind!
Open the prisoner’s living tomb,
And usher from its brooding gloom
The victims of your savage code,
To the free sun and air of GOD!
No longer dare as crime to brand,
The chastening of the Almighty’s hand!

* * * * *

THE STORM.

FROM “SNOW-BOUND.”

Snow-bound is regarded as Whittier’s master-piece, as a
descriptive and reminiscent poem. It is a New England Fireside
Idyl, which in its faithfulness recalls, “The Winter Evening,”
of Cowper, and Burns’ “Cotter’s Saturday Night”; but in
sweetness and animation, it is superior to either of these.
Snow-bound is a faithful description of a winter scene,
familiar in the country surrounding Whittier’s home in
Connecticut. The complete poem is published in illustrated form
by Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., by whose ♦permission this
extract is here inserted.

♦ ‘permisssion’ replaced with ‘permission’

UNWARNED by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag wavering to and fro
Crossed and recrossed the winged snow;
And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

So all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature’s geometric signs,
In starry flake, and pellicle,
All day the hoary meteor fell;
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below,――
A universe of sky and snow!
The old familiar sight of ours
Took marvelous shapes; strange domes and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden wall, or belt of wood;
A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,
A fenceless drift what once was road;
The bridle-post an old man sat
With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;
The well-curb had a Chinese roof;
And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant splendor, seemed to tell
Of Pisa’s leaning miracle.

A prompt, decisive man, no breath
Our father wasted: “Boys, a path!”
Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy
Count such a summons less than joy?)
Our buskins on our feet we drew;
With mittened hands, and caps drawn low,
To guard our necks and ears from snow,
We cut the solid whiteness through,
And, where the drift was deepest, made
A tunnel walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare Aladdin’s wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave,
With many a wish the luck were ours
To test his lamp’s supernal powers.

* * * * *

ICHABOD.

The following poem was written on hearing of Daniel Webster’s
course in supporting the “Compromise Measure,” including the
“Fugitive Slave Law”. This speech was delivered in the United
States Senate on the 7th of March, 1850, and greatly incensed
the Abolitionists. Mr. Whittier, in common with many New
Englanders, regarded it as the certain downfall of Mr. Webster.
The lines are full of tender regret, deep grief and touching
pathos.

SO fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
For evermore!

Revile him not,――the Tempter hath
A snare for all!
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
Befit his fall.

Oh! dumb be passion’s stormy rage,
When he who might
Have lighted up and led his age
Falls back in night.

Scorn! would the angels laugh to mark
A bright soul driven,
Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark,
From hope and heaven?

Let not the land, once proud of him,
Insult him now,
Nor brand with deeper shame his dim
Dishonor’d brow.

But let its humbled sons, instead,
From sea to lake,
A long lament, as for the dead,
In sadness make.

Of all we loved and honor’d, nought
Save power remains,――
A fallen angel’s pride of thought
Still strong in chains.

All else is gone; from those great eyes
The soul has fled:
When faith is lost, when honor dies,
The man is dead!

Then pay the reverence of old days
To his dead fame;
Walk backward with averted gaze,
And hide the shame!

Illustration: SOUVENIR OF WHITTIER

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

POET, ESSAYIST AND HUMORIST.

THIS distinguished author, known and admired throughout the English speaking world for the rich vein of philosophy, good fellowship and pungent humor that runs through his poetry and prose, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, August 29th, 1809, and died in Boston, October 27th, 1894, at the ripe old age of eighty-five――the “last leaf on the tree” of that famous group, Whittier, Longfellow, Lowell, Emerson, Bryant, Poe, Willis, Hawthorne, Richard Henry Dana, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller and others who laid the foundation of our national literature, and with all of whom he was on intimate terms as a co-laborer at one time or another.

Holmes graduated at Harvard College in 1829. His genial disposition made him a favorite with his fellows, to whom some of his best early poems are dedicated. One of his classmates said of him:――“He made you feel like you were the best fellow in the world and he was the next best.” Benjamin Pierce, the astronomer, and Rev. Samuel F. Smith, the author of our National Hymn, were his class-mates and have been wittily described in his poem “The Boys.” Dr. Holmes once humorously said that he supposed “the three people whose poems were best known were himself, one Smith and one Brown. As for himself, everybody knew who he was; the one Brown was author of ‘I love to Steal a While Away,’ and the one Smith was author of ‘My Country ’Tis of Thee.’”

After graduation Holmes studied medicine in the schools of Europe, but returned to finish his course and take his degree at Harvard. For nine years he was Professor of Physiology and Anatomy at Dartmouth College, and in 1847 he accepted a similar position in Harvard University, to which his subsequent professional labors were devoted. He also published several works on medicine, the last being a volume of medical essays, issued in 1883.

Holmes’ first poetic publication was a small volume published in 1836, including three poems which still remain favorites, namely, “My Aunt,” “The height of the Ridiculous” and “The Last Leaf on the Tree.” Other volumes of his poems were issued in 1846, 1850, 1861, 1875 and 1880.

Dr. Holmes is popularly known as the poet of society, this title attaching because most of his productions were called forth by special occasions. About one hundred of them were prepared for his Harvard class re-unions and his fraternity (Phi Beta Kappa) social and anniversary entertainments. The poems which will preserve his fame, however, are those of a general interest, like “The Deacon’s Masterpiece,” in which the Yankee spirit speaks out, “The Voiceless,” “The Living Temple,” “The Chambered Nautilus,” in which we find a truly exalted treatment of a lofty theme; “The Last Leaf on the Tree,” which is a remarkable combination of pathos and humor; “The Spectre Pig” and “The Ballad of an Oysterman,” showing to what extent he can play in real fun. In fact, Dr. Holmes was a many-sided man, and equally presentable on all sides. It has been truthfully said of him, “No other American versifier has rhymed so easily and so gracefully.” We might further add, no other in his personality, has been more universally esteemed and beloved by those who knew him.

As a prose writer Holmes was equally famous. His “Autocrat at the Breakfast Table,” “Professor at the Breakfast Table” and “Poet at the Breakfast Table,” published respectively in 1858, 1859 and 1873, are everywhere known, and not to have read them is to have neglected something important in literature. The “Autocrat” is especially a masterpiece. An American boarding house with its typical characters forms the scene. The Autocrat is the hero, or rather leader, of the sparkling conversations which make up the threads of the book. Humor, satire and scholarship are skilfully mingled in its graceful literary formation. In this work will also be found “The Wonderful One Horse Shay” and “The Chambered Nautilus,” two of the author’s best poems.

Holmes wrote two novels, “Elsie Venner” and “The Guardian Angel,” which in their romance rival the weirdness of Hawthorne and show his genius in this line of literature. “Mechanism in Thought and Morals” (1871), is a scholarly essay on the function of the brain. As a biographer Dr. Holmes has also given us excellent memoirs of John Lothrop Motley, the historian, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Among his later products may be mentioned “A Mortal Antipathy,” which appeared in 1885, and “One Hundred Days in Europe” (1887).

Holmes was one of the projectors of “The Atlantic Monthly,” which was started in 1857, in conjunction with Longfellow, Lowell and Emerson, Lowell being its editor. It was to this periodical that the “Autocrat” and “The Professor at the Breakfast Table” were contributed. These papers did much to secure the permanent fame of this magazine. It is said that its name was suggested by Holmes, and he is also credited with first attributing to Boston the distinction of being the “Hub of the solar system,” which he, with a mingling of humor and local pride, declared was “located exactly at the Boston State House.”

Unlike other authors, the subject of this sketch was very much himself at all times and under all conditions. Holmes the man, Holmes the professor of physiology, the poet, philosopher, and essayist, were all one and the same genial soul. His was the most companionable of men, whose warm flow of fellowship and good cheer the winters of four score years and five could not chill,――“The last Leaf on the Tree,” whose greenness the frost could not destroy. He passed away at the age of eighty-five still verdantly young in spirit, and the world will smile for many generations good naturedly because he lived. Such lives are a benediction to the race.

Finally, to know Holmes’ writings well, is to be made acquainted with a singularly lovable nature. The charms of his personality are irresistible. Among the poor, among the literary, and among the society notables, he was ever the most welcome of guests. His geniality, humor, frank, hearty manliness, generosity and readiness to amuse and be amused, together with an endless store of anecdotes, his tact and union of sympathy and originality, make him the best of companions for an hour or for a lifetime. His friendship is generous and enduring. All of these qualities of mind and heart are felt as the reader runs through his poems or his prose writings. We feel that Holmes has lived widely and found life good. It is precisely for this reason that the reading of his writings is a good tonic. It sends the blood more courageously through the veins. After reading Holmes, we feel that life is easier and simpler and a finer affair altogether and more worth living for than we had been wont to regard it.

The following paragraph published in a current periodical shortly after the death of Mr. Holmes throws further light upon the personality of this distinguished author:

“Holmes himself must have harked back to forgotten ancestors for his brightness. His father was a dry as dust Congregational preacher, of whom some one said that he fed his people sawdust out of a spoon. But from his childhood Holmes was bright and popular. One of his college friends said of him at Harvard, that ‘he made you think you were the best fellow in the world, and he was the next best.’”

Dr. Holmes was first and foremost a conversationalist. He talked even on paper. There was never the dullness of the written word. His sentences whether in prose or verse were so full of color that they bore the charm of speech.

One of his most quoted poems “Dorothy Q,” is full of this sparkle, and carries a suggestion of his favorite theme:

Grandmother’s mother: her age I guess
Thirteen summers, or something less;
Girlish bust, but womanly air;
Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair;
Lips that lover has never kissed;
Taper fingers and slender wrist;
Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade;
So they painted the little maid.

* * * * *

What if a hundred years ago
Those close shut lips had answered No,
When forth the tremulous question came
That cost the maiden her Norman name,
And under the folds that looked so still
The bodice swelled with the bosom’s thrill?
Should I be I, or would it be
One tenth another to nine tenths me?

* * * * *

BILL AND JOE.

COME, dear old comrade, you and I
Will steal an hour from days gone by――
The shining days when life was new,
And all was bright as morning dew,
The lusty days of long ago,
When you were Bill and I was Joe.

Your name may flaunt a titled trail,
Proud as a cockerel’s rainbow tail:
And mine as brief appendix wear
As Tam O’Shanter’s luckless mare;
To-day, old friend, remember still
That I am Joe and you are Bill.

You’ve won the great world’s envied prize,
And grand you look in people’s eyes,
With HON. and LL.D.,
In big brave letters, fair to see――
Your fist, old fellow! off they go!――
How are you, Bill? How are you, Joe?

You’ve worn the judge’s ermined robe;
You’ve taught your name to half the globe;
You’ve sung mankind a deathless strain;
You’ve made the dead past live again;
The world may call you what it will,
But you and I are Joe and Bill.

The chaffing young folks stare and say,
“See those old buffers, bent and gray;
They talk like fellows in their teens!
Mad, poor old boys! That’s what it means”――
And shake their heads; they little know
The throbbing hearts of Bill and Joe――

How Bill forgets his hour of pride,
While Joe sits smiling at his side;
How Joe, in spite of time’s disguise,
Finds the old schoolmate in his eyes――
Those calm, stern eyes that melt and fill
As Joe looks fondly up at Bill.

Ah, pensive scholar! what is fame?
A fitful tongue of leaping flame;
A giddy whirlwind’s fickle gust,
That lifts a pinch of mortal dust;
A few swift years, and who can show
Which dust was Bill, and which was Joe?

The weary idol takes his stand,
Holds out his bruised and aching hand,
While gaping thousands come and go――
How vain it seems, this empty show――
Till all at once his pulses thrill:
’Tis poor old Joe’s “God bless you, Bill!”

And shall we breathe in happier spheres
The names that pleased our mortal ears,――
In some sweet lull of harp and song,
For earth-born spirits none too long,
Just whispering of the world below,
Where this was Bill, and that was Joe?

No matter; while our home is here
No sounding name is half so dear;
When fades at length our lingering day,
Who cares what pompous tombstones say?
Read on the hearts that love us still
_Hic jacet_ Joe. _Hic jacet_ Bill.

* * * * *

UNION AND LIBERTY.

FLAG of the heroes who left us their glory,
Borne through their battle-fields’ thunder and flame,
Blazoned in song and illuminated in story,
Wave o’er us all who inherit their fame.
Up with our banner bright,
Sprinkled with starry light,
Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore,
While through the sounding sky
Loud rings the Nation’s cry――
UNION AND LIBERTY! ONE EVERMORE!

Light of our firmament, guide of our Nation,
Pride of her children, and honored afar,
Let the wide beams of thy full constellation
Scatter each cloud that would darken a star!
Empire unsceptred! What foe shall assail thee
Bearing the standard of Liberty’s van?
Think not the God of thy fathers shall fail thee,
Striving with men for the birthright of man!
Yet if, by madness and treachery blighted,
Dawns the dark hour when the sword thou must draw,
Then with the arms to thy million united,
Smite the bold traitors to Freedom and Law!

Lord of the universe! shield us and guide us,
Trusting Thee always, through shadow and sun!
Thou hast united us, who shall divide us?
Keep us, O keep us the MANY IN ONE!
Up with our banner bright,
Sprinkled with starry light,
Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore,
While through the sounding sky
Loud rings the Nation’s cry――
Union and Liberty! One Evermore!

* * * * *

OLD IRON SIDES.

The following poem has become a National Lyric. It was first
printed in the “Boston Daily Advertiser,” when the Frigate
“Constitution” lay in the navy-yard at Charlestown. The
department had resolved upon breaking her up; but she was
preserved from this fate by the following verses, which ran
through the newspapers with universal applause; and, according
to “Benjamin’s American Monthly Magazine,” of January, 1837,
it was printed in the form of hand-bills, and circulated in the
city of Washington.

AY, tear her tatter’d ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle-shout,
And burst the cannon’s roar;
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more!

Her deck, once red with heroes’ blood,
Where knelt the vanquish’d foe,
When winds were hurrying o’er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor’s tread,
Or know the conquer’d knee;
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!

O, better that her shatter’d hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,――
The lightning and the gale!

* * * * *

MY AUNT.

MY aunt! my dear unmarried aunt!
Long years have o’er her flown;
Yet still she strains the aching clasp
That binds her virgin zone;
I know it hurts her,――though she looks
As cheerful as she can:
Her waist is ampler than her life,
For life is but a span.

My aunt, my poor deluded aunt!
Her hair is almost gray;
Why will she train that winter curl
In such a spring-like way?
How can she lay her glasses down,
And say she reads as well,
When, through a double convex lens,
She just makes out to spell?

Her father――grandpapa! forgive
This erring lip its smiles――
Vow’d she would make the finest girl
Within a hundred miles.
He sent her to a stylish school;
’Twas in her thirteenth June;
And with her, as the rules required,
“Two towels and a spoon.”

They braced my aunt against a board,
To make her straight and tall;
They laced her up, they starved her down,
To make her light and small;
They pinch’d her feet, they singed her hair,
They screw’d it up with pins,――
Oh, never mortal suffer’d more
In penance for her sins.

So, when my precious aunt was done,
My grandsire brought her back
(By daylight, lest some rabid youth
Might follow on the track);
“Ah!” said my grandsire, as he shook
Some powder in his pan,
“What could this lovely creature do
Against a desperate man!”

Alas! nor chariot, nor barouche,
Nor bandit cavalcade
Tore from the trembling father’s arms
His all-accomplish’d maid.
For her how happy had it been!
And Heaven had spared to me
To see one sad, ungather’d rose
On my ancestral tree.

* * * * *

THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS.

I WROTE some lines once on a time
In wondrous merry mood,
And thought, as usual, men would say
They were exceeding good.

They were so queer, so very queer,
I laugh’d as I would die;
Albeit, in the general way,
A sober man am I.

I call’d my servant, and he came:
How kind it was of him,
To mind a slender man like me,
He of the mighty limb!

“These to the printer,” I exclaim’d,
And, in my humorous way,
I added (as a trifling jest),
“There’ll be the devil to pay.”

He took the paper, and I watch’d,
And saw him peep within;
At the first line he read, his face
Was all upon the grin.

He read the next; the grin grew broad,
And shot from ear to ear;
He read the third; a chuckling noise
I now began to hear.

The fourth; he broke into a roar;
The fifth, his waistband split;
The sixth, he burst five buttons off,
And tumbled in a fit.

Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,
I watch’d that wretched man,
And since, I never dare to write
As funny as I can.

* * * * *

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS.

THIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadow’d main,――
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wreck’d is the ship of pearl!
And every chamber’d cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies reveal’d,――
Its iris’d ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unseal’d!

Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretch’d in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:――

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!

* * * * *

OLD AGE AND THE PROFESSOR.

Mr. Holmes is as famous for his prose as for his poetry. The
following sketches are characteristic of his happy and varied
style.

OLD AGE, this is Mr. Professor; Mr. Professor, this is Old Age.

_Old Age._――Mr. Professor, I hope to see you well. I have known you for some time, though I think you did not know me. Shall we walk down the street together?

_Professor_ (drawing back a little).――We can talk more quietly, perhaps, in my study. Will you tell me how it is you seem to be acquainted with everybody you are introduced to, though he evidently considers you an entire stranger?

_Old Age._――I make it a rule never to force myself upon a person’s recognition until I have known him at least _five years_.

_Professor._――Do you mean to say that you have known me so long as that?

_Old Age._――I do. I left my card on you longer ago than that, but I am afraid you never read it; yet I see you have it with you.

_Professor._――Where?

_Old Age._――There, between your eyebrows,――three straight lines running up and down; all the probate courts know that token,――“Old Age, his mark.” Put your forefinger on the inner end of one eyebrow, and your middle finger on the inner end of the other eyebrow; now separate the fingers, and you will smooth out my sign manual; that’s the way you used to look before I left my card on you.

_Professor._――What message do people generally send back when you first call on them?

_Old Age._――_Not at home._ Then I leave a card and go. Next year I call; get the same answer; leave another card. So for five or six――sometimes ten――years or more. At last, if they don’t let me in, I break in through the front door or the windows.

We talked together in this way some time. Then Old Age said again,――Come, let us walk down the street together,――and offered me a cane,――an eye-glass, a tippet, and a pair of overshoes.――No, much obliged to you, said I. I don’t want those things, and I had a little rather talk with you here, privately, in my study. So I dressed myself up in a jaunty way and walked out alone;――got a fall, caught a cold, was laid up with a lumbago, and had time to think over this whole matter.

* * * * *

THE BRAIN.

OUR brains are seventy-year clocks. The Angel of Life winds them up once for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the hands of the Angel of the Resurrection.

Tic-tac! tic-tac! go the wheels of thought; our will cannot stop them; they cannot stop themselves; sleep cannot still them; madness only makes them go faster; death alone can break into the case, and, seizing the ever-swinging pendulum, which we call the heart, silence at last the clicking of the terrible escapement we have carried so long beneath our wrinkled foreheads.

* * * * *

MY LAST WALK WITH THE SCHOOL-MISTRESS.

I CAN’T say just how many walks she and I had taken before this one. I found the effect of going out every morning was decidedly favorable on her health. Two pleasing dimples, the places for which were just marked when she came, played, shadowy, in her freshening cheeks when she smiled and nodded good-morning to me from the schoolhouse steps.

* * * * *

The schoolmistress had tried life. Once in a while one meets with a single soul greater than all the living pageant that passes before it. As the pale astronomer sits in his study with sunken eyes and thin fingers, and weighs Uranus or Neptune as in a balance, so there are meek, slight women who have weighed all which this planetary life can offer, and hold it like a bauble in the palm of their slender hands. This was one of them. Fortune had left her, sorrow had baptized her; the routine of labor and the loneliness of almost friendless city-life were before her. Yet, as I looked upon her tranquil face, gradually regaining a cheerfulness which was often sprightly, as she became interested in the various matters we talked about and places we visited, I saw that eye and lip and every shifting lineament were made for love,――unconscious of their sweet office as yet, and meeting the cold aspect of Duty with the natural graces which were meant for the reward of nothing less than the Great Passion.

It was on the Common that we were walking. The _mall_, or boulevard of our Common, you know, has various branches leading from it in different directions. One of these runs downward from opposite Joy Street southward across the whole length of the Common to Boylston Street. We called it the long path, and were fond of it.

I felt very weak indeed (though of a tolerably robust habit) as we came opposite the head of this path on that morning. I think I tried to speak twice without making myself distinctly audible. At last I got out the question,――Will you take the long path with me? Certainly,――said the schoolmistress,――with much pleasure. Think,――I said,――before you answer: if you take the long path with me now, I shall interpret it that we are to part no more! The schoolmistress stepped back with a sudden movement, as if an arrow had struck her.

One of the long granite blocks used as seats was hard by,――the one you may still see close by the Gingko-tree. Pray, sit down,――I said. No, no,――she answered softly,――I will walk the _long path_ with you!

The old gentleman who sits opposite met us walking, arm in arm, about the middle of the long path, and said, very charmingly,――“Good-morning, my dears!”

* * * * *

A RANDOM CONVERSATION

ON OLD MAXIMS, BOSTON AND OTHER TOWNS.

(_From “The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.”_)

SIN has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.

I think Sir,――said the divinity student,――you must intend that for one of the sayings of the Seven Wise men of Boston you were speaking of the other day.

I thank you, my young friend,――was the reply,――but I must say something better than that, before I could pretend to fill out the number.

The schoolmistress wanted to know how many of these sayings there were on record, and what, and by whom said.

Why, let us see,――there is that one of Benjamin Franklin, “the great Bostonian,” after whom this land was named. To be sure, he said a great many wise things,――and I don’t feel sure he didn’t borrow this,――he speaks as if it were old. But then he applied it so neatly!――

“He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged.”

Then there is that glorious Epicurean paradox, uttered by my friend, the Historian, in one of his flashing moments:――

“Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its necessaries.”

To these must certainly be added that other saying of one of the wittiest of men:――

“Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris.”

The divinity student looked grave at her, but said nothing.

The schoolmistress spoke out, and said she didn’t think the wit meant any irreverence. It was only another way of saying, Paris is a heavenly place after New York or Boston.

A jaunty looking person, who had come in with the young fellow they call John,――evidently a stranger,――said there was one more wise man’s saying that he had heard; it was about our place, but he didn’t know who said it.――A civil curiosity was manifested by the company to hear the fourth wise saying. I heard him distinctly whispering to the young fellow who brought him to dinner, _Shall I tell it?_ To which the answer was, _Go ahead!_――Well,――he said,――this was what I heard:――

“Boston State-House is the hub of the solar system. You couldn’t pry that out of a Boston man, if you had the tire of all creation straightened out for a crow-bar.”

Sir,――said I,――I am gratified with your remark. It expresses with pleasing vivacity that which I have sometimes heard uttered with malignant dullness. The satire of the remark is essentially true of Boston,――and of all other considerable――and inconsiderable――places with which I have had the privilege of being acquainted. Cockneys think London is the only place in the world. Frenchmen――you remember the line about Paris, the Court, the World, etc.――I recollect well, by the way, a sign in that city which ran thus: “Hotel de l’Univers et des États Unis;” and as Paris _is_ the universe to a Frenchman, of course the United States are outside of it. “See Naples and then die.” It is quite as bad with smaller places. I have been about lecturing, you know, and have found the following propositions to hold true of all of them.

1. The axis of the earth sticks out visibly through the center of each and every town or city.

2. If more than fifty years have passed since its foundation, it is affectionately styled by the inhabitants the “_good old_ town of ――――” (whatever its name may happen to be).

3. Every collection of its inhabitants that comes together to listen to a stranger is invariably declared to be a “remarkably intelligent audience.”

4. The climate of the place is particularly favorable to longevity.

5. It contains several persons of vast talent little known to the world. (One or two of them, you may perhaps chance to remember, sent short pieces to the “Pactolian” some time since, which were “respectfully declined.”)

Boston is just like other places of its size――only, perhaps, considering its excellent fish-market, paid fire department, superior monthly publications, and correct habit of spelling the English language, it has some right to look down on the mob of cities. I’ll tell you, though, if you want to know it, what is the real offense of Boston. It drains a large water-shed of its intellect, and will not itself be drained. If it would only send away its first-rate men instead of its second-rate ones (no offense to the well-known exceptions, of which we are always proud), we should be spared such epigrammatic remarks as that the gentleman has quoted. There can never be a real metropolis in this country until the biggest centre can drain the lesser ones of their talent and wealth. I have observed, by the way, that the people who really live in two great cities are by no means so jealous of each other, as are those of smaller cities situated within the intellectual basin, or _suction_ range, of one large one, of the pretensions of any other. Don’t you see why? Because their promising young author and rising lawyer and large capitalist have been drained off to the neighboring big city,――their prettiest girls have exported to the same market; all their ambition points there, and all their thin gilding of glory comes from there. I hate little, toad-eating cities.

Would I be so good as to specify any particular example?――Oh,――an example? Did you ever see a bear trap? Never? Well, shouldn’t you like to see me put my foot into one? With sentiments of the highest consideration I must beg leave to be excused.

Besides, some of the smaller cities are charming. If they have an old church or two, a few stately mansions of former grandees, here and there an old dwelling with the second story projecting (for the convenience of shooting the Indians knocking at the front-door with their tomahawks)――if they have, scattered about, those mighty square houses built something more than half a century ago, and standing like architectural boulders dropped by the former diluvium of wealth, whose refluent wave has left them as its monument,――if they have gardens with elbowed apple-trees that push their branches over the high board-fence and drop their fruit on the sidewalk,――if they have a little grass in their side-streets, enough to betoken quiet without proclaiming decay,――I think I could go to pieces, after my life’s tranquil places, as sweetly as in any cradle that an old man may be rocked to sleep in. I visit such spots always with infinite delight. My friend, the Poet, says, that rapidly growing towns are most unfavorable to the imaginative and reflective faculties. Let a man live in one of these old quiet places, he says, and the wine of his soul, which is kept thick and turbid by the rattle of busy streets, settles, and as you hold it up, you may see the sun through it by day and the stars by night.

Do I think that the little villages have the conceit of the great towns? I don’t believe there is much difference. You know how they read Pope’s line in the smallest town in our State of Massachusetts? Well, they read it,――

“All are but parts of one stupendous _Hull_!”

Illustration: SOUVENIR OF HOLMES

Illustration: (‡ decoration)

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

POET, CRITIC, AND ESSAYIST.

WHILE the popularity of Lowell has not been so great as that of Whittier, Longfellow or Holmes, his poetry expresses a deeper thought and a truer culture than that of any one of these; or, indeed, of any other American poet, unless the exception be the “transcendental philosopher,” Emerson. As an anti-slavery poet, he was second only to Whittier.

James Russell Lowell was born in Cambridge, Mass., February 22, 1819, and died in the same city on August 12, 1891, in the seventy-third year of his age. He was the youngest son of the Rev. Charles Lowell, an eminent Congregational clergyman, and was descended from the English settlers of 1639. He entered Harvard in his seventeenth year and graduated in 1838, before he was twenty. He began to write verses early. In his junior year in college he wrote the anniversary poem, and, in his senior year, was editor of the college magazine. Subsequently, he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1840; but, it seems, never entered upon the practice of his profession. If he did it is doubtful if he ever had even that _first client_ whom he afterwards described in a humorous sketch.

His first appearance in literature was the publication, in 1839, of the class poem which he had written, but was not permitted to recite on account of his temporary suspension from College for neglect of certain studies in the curriculum for which he had a distaste. In this poem he satirized the Abolitionists, and the transcendental school of writers, of which Emerson was the prophet and leader. This poem, while faulty, contained much sharp wit and an occasional burst of feeling which portended future prominence for its author.

Two years later, in 1841, the first volume of Lowell’s verse appeared, entitled “A Year’s Life.” This production was so different from that referred to above that critics would have regarded it as emanating from an entirely different mind had not the same name been attached to both. It illustrated entirely different feelings, thoughts and habits, evinced a complete change of heart and an entire revolution in his mode of thinking. His observing and suggestive imagination had caught the tone and spirit of the new and mystical philosophy, which his first publication had ridiculed. Henceforth, he aimed to make Nature the representative and minister of his feelings and desires. Lowell was not alone, however, in showing how capricious a young author’s character may be. A notable parallel is found in the great Englishman, Carlyle whose “Life of Schiller” and his “Sator Resartus,” are equally as unlike himself as were Lowell’s first two publications. In 1844, came another volume of poems, manifesting a still further mark of advancement. The longest in this collection――“The Legend of Brittany”――is, in imagination and artistic finish, one of his best and secured the first general consent for the author’s admission into the company of men of genius.

During this same year (1844) Mr. Lowell married the poetess, Maria White, an ardent Abolitionist, whose anti-slavery convictions influenced his after career. Two of Mrs. Lowell’s poems, “The Alpine Sheep” and the “Morning Glory” are especially popular. Lowell was devotedly attached to his singularly beautiful and sympathetic poet wife and made her the subject of some of his most exquisite verses. They were both contributors to the “Liberty Bell” and “Anti-slavery Standard,” thus enjoying companionship in their labors.

Illustration: HOME OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

In 1845, appeared Lowell’s “Conversation on Some Old Poets,” consisting of a series of criticisms, and discussions which evince a careful and delicate study. This was the beginning of the critical work in which he afterward became so famous, that he was styled “The First Critic of America.”

Lowell was also a humorist by nature. His irrepressible perception of the comical and the funny find expression everywhere, both in his poetry and prose. His “Fable for Critics” was a delight to those whom he both satirized and criticised in a good-natured manner. Bryant, Poe, Hawthorne and Whittier, each are made to pass in procession for their share of criticism――which is as excellent as amusing――and Carlyle and Emerson are contrasted admirably. This poem, however, is faulty in execution and does not do its author justice. His masterpiece in humor is the famous “Biglow Papers.” These have been issued in two parts; the first being inspired by the Mexican War, and the latter by the Civil War between the states. Hosea Biglow, the country Yankee philosopher and supposed author of the papers, and the Rev. Homer Wilber, his learned commentator and pastor of the first church at Jaalem, reproduce the Yankee dialect, and portray the Yankee character as faithfully as they are amusing and funny to the reader.

In 1853, Mrs. Lowell died, on the same night in which a daughter was born to the poet Longfellow, who was a neighbor and a close friend to Lowell. The coincident inspired Longfellow to write a beautiful poem, “The Two Angels,” which he sent to Mr. Lowell with his expression of sympathy:

“’Twas at thy door, O friend, and not at mine
The angel with the amaranthine wreath,
Pausing, descended, and with voice divine
Uttered a word that had a sound like death.

“Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom,
A ♦shaddow on those features fair and thin,
And slowly, from that hushed and darkened room,
Two angels issued, where but one went in.

“Angels of life and death alike are His;
Without His leave, they pass no threshold o’er:
Who then would wish, or dare, believing this,
Against His messengers to shut the door?”

♦ spelling not corrected: artifact of poem

Quite in contrast with Lowell, the humorist, is Lowell, the serious and dignified author. His patriotic poems display a courage and manliness in adhering to the right and cover a wide range in history. But it is in his descriptions of nature that his imagination manifests its greatest range of subtilty and power. “The Vision of Sir Launfal” is, perhaps, more remarkable for its descriptions of the months of June and December than for the beautiful story it tells of the search for the “Holy Grail” (the cup) which held the wine which Christ and the Apostles drank at the last supper.