Poetry of Oliver Wendell Holmes | Page 4

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 CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD
OUR ancient church! its lowly tower,?Beneath the loftier spire,?Is shadowed when the sunset hour?Clothes the tall shaft in fire;?It sinks beyond the distant eye?Long ere the glittering vane,?High wheeling in the western sky,?Has faded o'er the plain.
Like Sentinel and Nun, they keep?Their vigil on the green;?One seems to guard, and one to weep,?The dead that lie between;?And both roll out, so full and near,?Their music's mingling waves,?They shake the grass, whose pennoned spear?Leans on the narrow graves.
The stranger parts the flaunting weeds,?Whose seeds the winds have strown?So thick, beneath the line he reads,?They shade the sculptured stone;?The child unveils his clustered brow,?And ponders for a while?The graven willow's pendent bough,?Or rudest cherub's smile.
But what to them the dirge, the knell??These were the mourner's share,--?The sullen clang, whose heavy swell?Throbbed through the beating air;?The rattling cord, the rolling stone,?The shelving sand that slid,?And, far beneath, with hollow tone?Rung on the coffin's lid.
The slumberer's mound grows fresh and green,?Then slowly disappears;?The mosses creep, the gray stones lean,?Earth hides his date and years;?But, long before the once-loved name?Is sunk or worn away,?No lip the silent dust may claim,?That pressed the breathing clay.
Go where the ancient pathway guides,?See where our sires laid down?Their smiling babes, their cherished brides,?The patriarchs of the town;?Hast thou a tear for buried love??A sigh for transient power??All that a century left above,?Go, read it in an hour!
The Indian's shaft, the Briton's ball,?The sabre's thirsting edge,?The hot shell, shattering in its fall,?The bayonet's rending wedge,--?Here scattered death; yet, seek the spot,?No trace thine eye can see,?No altar,--and they need it not?Who leave their children free!
Look where the turbid rain-drops stand?In many a chiselled square;?The knightly crest, the shield, the brand?Of honored names were there;--?Alas! for every tear is dried?Those blazoned tablets knew,?Save when the icy marble's side?Drips with the evening dew.
Or gaze upon yon pillared stone,?The empty urn of pride;?There stand the Goblet and the Sun,--?What need of more beside??Where lives the memory of the dead,?Who made their tomb a toy??Whose ashes press that nameless bed??Go, ask the village boy!
Lean o'er the slender western wall,?Ye ever-roaming girls;?The breath that bids the blossom fall?May lift your floating curls,?To sweep the simple lines that tell?An exile's date and doom;?And sigh, for where his daughters dwell,?They wreathe the stranger's tomb.
And one amid these shades was born,?Beneath this turf who lies,?Once beaming as the summer's morn,?That closed her gentle eyes;?If sinless angels love as we,?Who stood thy grave beside,?Three seraph welcomes waited thee,?The daughter, sister, bride
I wandered to thy buried mound?When earth was hid below?The level of the glaring ground,?Choked to its gates with snow,?And when with summer's flowery waves?The lake of verdure rolled,?As if a Sultan's white-robed slaves?Had scattered pearls and gold.
Nay, the soft pinions of the air,?That lift this trembling tone,?Its breath of love may almost bear?To kiss thy funeral stone;?And, now thy smiles have passed away,?For all the joy they gave,?May sweetest dews and warmest ray?Lie on thine early grave!
When damps beneath and storms above?Have bowed these fragile towers,?Still o'er the graves yon locust grove?Shall swing its Orient flowers;?And I would ask no mouldering bust,?If e'er this humble line,?Which breathed a sigh o'er other's dust,?Might call a tear on mine.
TO AN INSECT
The Katydid is "a species of grasshopper found in the United States, so called from the sound which it makes."--Worcester. I used to hear this insect in Providence, Rhode Island, but I do not remember hearing it in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I passed my boyhood. It is well known in other towns in the neighborhood of Boston.
I LOVE to hear thine earnest voice,?Wherever thou art hid,?Thou testy little dogmatist,?Thou pretty Katydid?Thou mindest me of gentlefolks,--?Old gentlefolks are they,--?Thou say'st an undisputed thing?In such a solemn way.
Thou art a female, Katydid?I know it by the trill?That quivers through thy piercing notes,?So petulant and shrill;?I think there is a knot of you?Beneath the hollow tree,--?A knot of spinster Katydids,---?Do Katydids drink tea?
Oh tell me where did Katy live,?And what did Katy do??And was she very fair and young,?And yet so wicked, too??Did Katy love a naughty man,?Or kiss more cheeks than one??I warrant Katy did no more?Than many a Kate has done.
Dear me! I'll tell you all about?My fuss with little Jane,?And Ann, with whom I used to walk?So often down the lane,?And all that tore their locks of black,?Or wet their eyes of blue,--?Pray tell me, sweetest