Clasp, Angel of the backward look
And folded wings of ashen gray
And voice of echoes far away,
The brazen covers of thy book;
The weird palimpsest old and vast,
Wherein thou hid'st the spectral past;
Where, closely mingling, pale and glow
The characters of joy and woe;
The monographs of outlived years,
Or smile-illumed or dim with tears,
Green hills of life that slope to death,
And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees
Shade off to mournful cypresses

With the white amaranths underneath.
Even while I look, I can but heed
The restless sands' incessant fall,
Importunate hours that hours succeed,
Each clamorous with its own sharp need,
And duty keeping pace with all.
Shut down and clasp the heavy lids;
I hear again the voice that bids
The dreamer leave his dream midway

For larger hopes and graver fears:
Life greatens in these later years,
The century's aloe flowers to-day!

Yet, haply, in some lull of life,

Some Truce of God which breaks its strife,
The worldling's eyes shall gather dew,
Dreaming in throngful city ways
Of winter joys his boyhood knew;
And dear and early friends — the few
Who yet remain shall pause to view
These Flemish pictures of old days;
Sit with me by the homestead hearth,

And stretch the hands of memory forth

To warm them at the wood-fire's blaze!
And thanks untraced to lips unknown
Shall greet me like the odors blown
From unseen meadows newly mown,
Or lilies floating in some pond,
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond;
The traveller owns the grateful sense
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence,
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare
The benediction of the air.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

[Born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, August 29, 1809; died at Cambridge, October 7, 1894]

OLD IRONSIDES

Ay, tear her tattered 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 decks, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished 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 conquered knee; -
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!

Oh, better that her shattered 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!

THE LAST LEAF

I saw him once before,
As he passed by the door,
And again

The pavement stones resound,
As he totters o'er the ground
With his cane.

They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
Cut him down,

Not a better man was found
By the Crier on his round.
Through the town.

But now he walks the streets,

And he looks at all he meets
Sad and wan,

And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
"They are gone."

The mossy marbles rest

On the lips that he has prest

In their bloom,

And the names he loved to hear

Have been carved for many a year

On the tomb.

My grandmamma has said

Poor old lady, she is dead
Long ago -

That he had a Roman nose,

And his cheek was like a rose
In the snow;

But now his nose is thin,

And it rests upon his chin
Like a staff,

And a crook is in his back,
And a melancholy crack
In his laugh.

I know it is a sin

For me to sit and grin
At him here;

But the old three-cornered hat,
And the breeches, and all that,
Are so queer!

And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,

Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.

THE BOYS

1859

Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?

If there has, take him out, without making a noise. Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite! Old time is a liar! We're twenty to-night!

We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more?
He's tipsy, young jackanapes!-show him the door!

Gray temples at twenty?"-Yes! white if we please! Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze!

Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake!

Look close, you will not see a sign of a flake!

We want some new garlands for those we have shed, -
And these are white roses in place of the red.

We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told,
Of talking (in public) as if we were old :-

That boy we call "Doctor," and this we call "Judge ";
It's a neat little fiction, of course it's all fudge.

That fellow's the "Speaker," - the one on the right;

"Mr. Mayor," my young one, how are you to-night? That's our "Member of Congress," we say when we chaff; There's the "Reverend" what's his name?-don't make me laugh.

That boy with the grave mathematical look
Made believe he had written a wonderful book,
And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was true!

So they chose him right in; a good joke it was, too!

There's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain,
That could harness a team with a logical chain;
When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire,
We called him "The Justice," but now he 's "The Squire."

And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith,
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith;
But he shouted a song for the brave and the free,
Just read on his medal, "My country," " of thee!"

You hear that boy laughing?- -You think he's all fun;
But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done;