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THE POETICAL WORKS OF OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES - VOLUME 5.
THE POETICAL WORKS OF OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES - VOLUME 5. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES THE POETICAL WORKS
OF
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
CONTENTS:
POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29 (1851-1889)
BILL AND JOE
A SONG OF "TWENTY-NINE"
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
AN IMPROMPTU
THE OLD MAN DREAMS
REMEMBER--FORGET
OUR INDIAN SUMMER
MARE RUBRUM
THE Boys
LINES
A VOICE OF THE LOYAL NORTH
J. D. R.
VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP UNION
"CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE"
F. W. C.
THE LAST CHARGE
OUR OLDEST FRIEND
SHERMAN 'S IN SAVANNAH
MY ANNUAL
ALL HERE
ONCE MORE
THE OLD CRUISER
HYMN FOR THE CLASS-MEETING
EVEN-SONG
THE SMILING LISTENER
OUR SWEET SINGER: J. A.
H. C. M. H. S. J. K. W.
WHAT I HAVE COME FOR
OUR BANKER
FOR CLASS-MEETING
"AD AMICOS "
HOW NOT TO SETTLE IT
THE LAST SURVIVOR
THE ARCHBISHOP AND GIL BLAS
THE SHADOWS
BENJAMIN PEIRCE
IN THE TWILIGHT
A LOVING-CUP SONG
THE GIRDLE OF FRIENDSHIP
THE LYRE OF ANACREON
THE OLD TUNE
THE BROKEN CIRCLE
THE ANGEL-THIEF
AFTER THE CURFEW
POEMS OF THE CLASS OF '29
1851-1889
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 with 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 H O N. and L L. 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;--
'T is 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.
A SONG OF "TWENTY-NINE "
1851
THE summer dawn is breaking
On Auburn's tangled bowers
The golden light is waking
On Harvard's ancient towers;
The sun is in the sky
That must see us do or die
Ere it shine on the line
Of the CLASS OF '29.
At last the day is ended
The tutor screws no more
By doubt and fear attended
Each hovers round the door
Till the good old Praeses cries
While the tears stand in his eyes
"You have passed and are classed
With the Boys of '29."
Not long are they in making
The college halls their own
Instead of standing shaking
Too bashful to be known;
But they kick the Seniors' shins
Ere the second week begins
When they stray in the way
Of the BOYS OF '29.
If a jolly set is trolling
The last /Der Freischutz/ airs
Or a "cannon bullet" rolling
Comes bouncing down the stairs
The tutors looking out
Sigh "Alas! there is no doubt
'T is the noise of the Boys
Of the CLASS OF '29."
Four happy years together
By storm and sunshine tried
In changing wind and weather
They rough it side by side
Till they hear their Mother cry
"You are fledged and you must fly"
And the bell tolls the knell
Of the days of '29.
Since then in peace or trouble
Full many a year has rolled
And life has counted double
The days that then we told;
Yet we'll end as we've begun
For though scattered we are one
While each year sees us here
Round the board of '29.
Though fate may throw between us
The mountains or the sea
No time shall ever wean us
No distance set us free;
But around the yearly board
When the flaming pledge is poured
It shall claim every name
On the roll of '29.
To yonder peaceful ocean
That glows with sunset fires
Shall reach the warm emotion
This welcome day inspires
Beyond the ridges cold
Where a brother toils for gold
Till it shine through the mine
Round the Boy of '29.
If one whom fate has broken
Shall lift a moistened eye
We'll say before he 's spoken--
"Old Classmate don't you cry!
Here take the purse I hold
There 's a tear upon the gold--
It was mine-it is thine--
A'n't we BOYS OF '29?"
As nearer still and nearer
The fatal stars appear
The living shall be dearer
With each encircling year
Till a few old men shall say
"We remember 't is the day--
Let it pass with a glass
For the CLASS OF '29."
As one by one is falling
Beneath the leaves or snows
Each memory still recalling
The broken ring shall close
Till the nightwinds softly pass
O'er the green and growing grass
Where it waves on the graves
Of the BOYS OF '29!
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
1852
WHERE oh where are the visions of morning
Fresh as the dews of our prime?
Gone like tenants that quit without warning
Down the back entry of time.
Where oh where are life's lilies and roses
Nursed in the golden dawn's smile?
Dead as the bulrushes round little Moses
On the old banks of the Nile.
Where are the Marys and Anns and Elizas
Loving and lovely of yore?
Look in the columns of old Advertisers--
Married and dead by the score.
Where the gray colts and the ten-year-old fillies
Saturday's triumph and joy?
Gone like our friend --Greek-- Achilles
Homer's ferocious old boy.
Die-away dreams of ecstatic emotion
Hopes like young eagles at play
Vows of unheard-of and endless devotion
How ye have faded away!
Yet through the ebbing of Time's mighty river
Leave our young blossoms to die
Let him roll smooth in his current forever
Till the last pebble is dry.
AN IMPROMPTU
Not premeditated
1853
THE clock has struck noon; ere it thrice tell the hours
We shall meet round the table that blushes with flowers
And I shall blush deeper with shame-driven blood
That I came to the banquet and brought not a bud.
Who cares that his verse is a beggar in art
If you see through its rags the full throb of his heart?
Who asks if his comrade is battered and tanned
When he feels his warm soul in the clasp of his hand?
No! be it an epic or be it a line
The Boys will all love it because it is mine;
I sung their last song on the morn of the day
That tore from their lives the last blossom of May.
It is not the sunset that glows in the wine
But the smile that beams over it makes it divine;
I scatter these drops and behold as they fall
The day-star of memory shines through them all!
And these are the last; they are drops that I stole
From a wine-press that crushes the life from the soul
But they ran through my heart and they sprang to my brain
Till our twentieth sweet summer was smiling again!
THE OLD MAN DREAMS
1854
OH for one hour of youthful joy!
Give back my twentieth spring!
I'd rather laugh a bright-haired boy
Than reign a gray-beard king.
Off with the spoils of wrinkled age!
Away with Learning's crown!
Tear out life's Wisdom-written page
And dash its trophies down!
One moment let my life-blood stream
From boyhood's fount of flame!
Give me one giddy reeling dream
Of life all love and fame
My listening angel heard the prayer
And calmly smiling said
"If I but touch thy silvered hair
Thy hasty wish hath sped.
"But is there nothing in thy track
To bid thee fondly stay
While the swift seasons hurry back
To find the wished-for day? "
"Ah truest soul of womankind!
Without thee what were life?
One bliss I cannot leave behind:
I'll take--my--precious--wife!"
The angel took a sapphire pen
And wrote in rainbow dew
/The man would be a boy again
And be a husband too!/
"And is there nothing yet unsaid
Before the change appears?
Remember all their gifts have fled
With those dissolving years."
"Why yes;" for memory would recall
My fond paternal joys;
"I could not bear to leave them all
I'll take--my--girl--and--boys."
The smiling angel dropped his pen--
"Why this will never do;
The man would be a boy again
And be a father too!"
And so I laughed--my laughter woke
The household with its noise--
And wrote my dream when morning broke
To please the gray-haired boys.
REMEMBER--FORGET
1855
AND what shall be the song to-night
If song there needs must be?
If every year that brings us here
Must steal an hour from me?
Say shall it ring a merry peal
Or heave a mourning sigh
O'er shadows cast by years long past
On moments flitting by?
Nay take the first unbidden line
The idle hour may send
No studied grace can mend the face
That smiles as friend on friend;
The balsam oozes from the pine
The sweetness from the rose
And so unsought a kindly thought
Finds language as it flows.
The years rush by in sounding flight
I hear their ceaseless wings;
Their songs I hear some far some near
And thus the burden rings
"The morn has fled the noon has past
The sun will soon be set
The twilight fade to midnight shade;
Remember-and Forget!"
Remember all that time has brought--
The starry hope on high
The strength attained the courage gained
The love that cannot die.
Forget the bitter brooding thought--
The word too harshly said
The living blame love hates to name
The frailties of the dead!
We have been younger so they say
But let the seasons roll
He doth not lack an almanac
Whose youth is in his soul.
The snows may clog life's iron track
But does the axle tire
While bearing swift through bank and drift
The engine's heart of fire?
I lift a goblet in my hand;
If good old wine it hold
An ancient skin to keep it in
Is just the thing we 're told.
We 're grayer than the dusty flask--
We 're older than our wine;
Our corks reveal the "white top" seal
The stamp of '29.
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