The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes

Tart solo, sour duet, and general squall,- His burning bosom buttoned it with stars.

These are our hymn.

Women, with tongues

Like polar needles, ever on the jar ;
Men, plugless word-spouts, whose deep
fountains are
Within their lungs.

Children, with drums Strapped round them by the fond pater

nal ass ;

Peripatetics with a blade of grass Between their thumbs.

Here will I lay me on the velvet grass, That is like padding to earth's meagre

lence.

Ha! what is this that rises to my touch, | For such a pensive hour of soothing siSo like a cushion? Can it be a cabbage? It is, it is that deeply injured flower, Which boys do flout us with ;

but yet

Kind Nature, shuffling in her loose un-
dress,
Lays bare her shady bosom ;

I love thee, I can feel Thou giant rose, wrapped in a green sur- With all around me ; - I can hail the flowers

tout.

Doubtless in Eden thou didst blush as That sprig earth's mantle, and yon quiet bird,

bright As these, thy puny brethren; and thy That rides the stream, is to me as a breath brother.

Sweetened the fragrance of her spicy air; The vulgar know not all the hidder But now thou seemest like a bankrupt

beau,

Stripped of his gaudy hues and essences,
And growing portly in his sober garments.

Is that a swan that rides upon the

water?

O no, it is that other gentle bird,
Which is the patron of our noble calling.
I well remember, in my early years,
When these young hands first closed
upon a goose;

I have a scar upon my thimble finger,
Which chronicles the hour of young am-
bition.

My father was a tailor, and his father, And my sire's grandsire, all of them were tailors;

pockets,

Where Nature stows away her loveliness.
But this unnatural posture of the legs
Cramps my extended calves, and I must go
Where I can coil them in their wonted
fashion.

THE DORCHESTER GIANT.

THERE was a giant in time of old,
A mighty one was he;

He had a wife, but she was a scold,
So he kept her shut in his mammoth fold;
And he had children three.

It happened to be an election day,

And the giants were choosing a king; The people were not democrats then,

They had an ancient goose, it was an They did not talk of the rights of men,

heirloom

From some remoter tailor of our race.
It happened I did see it on a time
When none was near, and I did deal

with it,

And it did burn me, -O, most fearfully!

It is a joy to straighten out one's limbs, And leap elastic from the level counter, Leaving the petty grievances of earth, The breaking thread, the din of clashing shears,

And all that sort of thing.

Then the giant took his children three,
And fastened them in the pen;
The children roared; quoth the giant,
"Be still! !"

And Dorchester Heights and Milton Hill
Rolled back the sound again.

Then he brought them a pudding stuffed
with plums,

As big as the State-House dome;

And all the needles that do wound the Quoth he, "There's something for you

So stop your mouths with your 'lection The whole of the story I will tell,

Giant and mammoth have passed away, I love sweet features; I will own

For ages have floated by ; The suet is hard as a marrow-bone, And every plum is turned to a stone, But there the puddings lie.

And if, some pleasant afternoon, You'll ask me out to ride,

That I should like myself

To see my portrait on a wall,
Or bust upon a shelf;
But nature sometimes makes one up
Of such sad odds and ends,
It really might be quite as well

Hushed up among one's friends!

THE COMET.

THE Comet! He is on his way,
And singing as he flies;
The whizzing planets shrink before
The spectre of the skies;
Ah! well may regal orbs burn blue,
And satellites turn pale,

Ten million cubic miles of head,

Ten billion leagues of tail!

On, on by whistling spheres of light
He flashes and he flames;
He turns not to the left nor right,

He asks them not their names; One spurn from his demoniac heel,

Away, away they fly, Where darkness might be bottled up

And sold for "Tyrian dye."

And what would happen to the land, And how would look the sea,

If in the bearded devil's path

Our earth should chance to be? Full hot and high the sea would boil, Full red the forests gleam; Methought I saw and heard it all In a dyspeptic dream!

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I saw the scalding pitch roll down
The crackling, sweating pines,
And streams of smoke, like water-spouts,
Burst through the rumbling mines;
I asked the firemen why they made
Such noise about the town;
They answered not, - but all the while
The brakes went up and down.

I saw a roasting pullet sit
Upon a baking egg;

I saw a cripple scorch his hand
Extinguishing his leg;

I saw nine geese upon the wing
Towards the frozen pole,
And every mother's gosling fell

Crisped to a crackling coal.

I saw the ox that browsed the grass
Writhe in the blistering rays,
The herbage in his shrinking jaws
Was all a frery blaze;

I saw huge fishes, boiled to rags,

Bob through the bubbling brine; And thoughts of supper crossed my soul; I had been rash at mine.

Strange sights! strange sounds! O fearful dream!

Its memory haunts me still, The steaming sea, the crimson glare, That wreathed each wooded hill; Stranger! if through thy reeling brain Such midnight visions sweep, Spare, spare, O, spare thine evening meal, And sweet shall be thy sleep!

THE MUSIC-GRINDERS.

THERE are three ways in which men take One's money from his purse,

And very hard it is to tell

Which of the three is worse; But all of them are bad enough To make a body curse.

Your "auld acquaintance" all at once Is altered in the face;

Their discords sting through Burns and
Moore,

Like hedgehogs dressed in lace.
You think they are crusaders, sent
From some infernal clime,
To pluck the eyes of Sentiment,

And dock the tail of Rhyme,
To crack the voice of Melody,

And break the legs of Time.
But hark! the air again is still,
The music all is ground,
And silence, like a poultice, comes
To heal the blows of sound;
It cannot be, - it is, — it is,

A hat is going round!

No! Pay the dentist when he leaves A fracture in your jaw,

And pay the owner of the bear

That stunned you with his paw, And buy the lobster that has had Your knuckles in his claw;

But if you are a portly man,

Put on your fiercest frown,

And talk about a constable

To turn them out of town; Then close your sentence with an oath, And shut the window down!

And if you are a slender man,

Not big enough for that, Or, if you cannot make a speech, Because you are a flat,

Go very quietly and drop

A button in the hat!

THE TREADMILL SONG. THE stars are rolling in the sky, The earth rolls on below, And we can feel the rattling wheel Revolving as we go.

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The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes: With Illustrations