I would not have the horse I drive
So fast that folks must stop and stare;
An easy gait-two, forty-five-
Suits me; I do not care ;
Perhaps, for just a single spurt,
Some seconds less would do no hurt.
Of pictures, I should like to own
Titians and Raphaels three or four,―
I love so much their style and tone,-
One Turner, and no more,
(A landscape,-foregound golden dirt,—
The sunshine painted with a squirt.)
Of books but few,- -some fifty score
For daily use, and bound for wear;
The rest upon an upper floor ;-
Some little luxury there
Of red morocco's gilded gleam,
And vellum rich as country cream.
Busts, cameos, gems,-such things as these,
Which others often show for pride,
I value for their power to please,
And selfish churls deride ;
One Stradivarius, I confess,
Two Meerschaums, I would fain possess.
Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn
Nor ape the glittering upstart fool ;—
Shall not carved tables serve my turn,
But all must be of buhl?
Give grasping pomp its double share,—
I ask but one recumbent chair.
Thus humble let me live and die,
Nor long for Midas' golden touch;
If Heaven more generous gifts deny,
I shall not miss them much,-
Too grateful for the blessing lent
Of simple tastes and mind content!
AN UNPUBLISHED POEM, BY MY LATE LATIN TUTOR.
IN candent ire the solar splendour flames;
The foles, languescent, pend from arid rames;
His humid front the cive, anheling, wipes,
And dreams of erring on ventiferous ripes.
How dulce to vive occult to mortal-eyes,
Dorm on the herb with none to supervise,
-"Fur," said the Deacon, "'t's mighty plain Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain ; 'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,
T' make that place uz strong uz the rest.”
So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke,-
That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thills;
The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees,
The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;
The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum,"-
Last of its timber,-they couldn't sell 'em,
Never an axe had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he "put her through.”—
"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew!"
Do! I tell you, I rather guess
She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turned grey,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,
Children and grandchildren-where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!
EIGHTEEN HUNDRED ;-it came and found
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hundred increased by ten ;-
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came ;-
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive,
And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.
Little of all we value here
Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;
You're welcome.-No extra charge.)
FIRST OF NOVEMBER,-the Earthquake-day— There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,
A general flavour of mild decay,
But nothing local, as one may say.
There couldn't be,-for the Deacon's art
Had made it so like in every part
That there wasn't a chance for one to start.
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,
And the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And the panels just as strong as the floor,
And the whipple-tree neither less nor more,
And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore,
And spring and axle and hub encore.
And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt
In another hour it will be worn out !
First of November, 'Fifty-five!
This morning the parson takes a drive.
Now, small boys, get out of the way!
Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay,
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.
Huddup!" said the parson.-Off went they.
The parson was working his Sunday's text,-
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At what the-Moses-was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill.
-First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill,—
And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half-past nine by the meet'n'-house clock,—
Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!
-What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!
You see, of course, if you're not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once,—
All at once, and nothing first,—
Just as bubbles do when they burst.
End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.
Logic is logic. That's all I say.
Parson Turell's Legacy;
OR, THE PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR.
A MATHEMATICAL STORY.
FACTS respecting an old arm-chair.
At Cambridge. Is kept in the College there.
Seems but little the worse for wear.
That's remarkable when I say
It was old in President Holyoke's day.
(One of his boys, perhaps you know,
Died, at one hundred, years ago.)
He took lodgings for rain or shine
Under green bed-clothes in '69.
Know old Cambridge? Hope you do.-
Born there? Don't say so! I was, too.
(Born in a house with a gambrel-roof,-
Standing still, if you must have proof.-
"Gambrel ?-Gambrel?"-Let me beg
You'll look at a horse's hinder leg,-
First great angle above the hoof,-
That's the gambrel; hence gambrel-roof.)
-Nicest place that ever was seen,—
Colleges red and Common green,
Sidewalks brownish with trees between.
Sweetest spot beneath the skies
When the canker-worms don't rise,
When the dust, that sometimes flies
Into your mouth and ears and eyes,
In a quiet slumber lies,
Not in the shape of unbaked pies
Such as barefoot children prize.
A kind of harbour it seems to be,
Facing the flow of a boundless sea.
Rows of gray old Tutors stand
Ranged like rocks above the sand;
Rolling beneath them, soft and green,
Breaks the tide of bright sixteen,
One wave, two waves, three waves, four,Sliding up the sparkling floor:
Then it ebbs to flow no more,
Wandering off from shore to shore
With its freight of golden ore!
-Pleasant place for boys to play ;—
Better keep your girls away;
Hearts get rolled as pebbles do
Which countless fingering waves pursue,
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