OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

 

*

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 deck, 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!

 

O 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 Voiceless

 

We count the broken lyres that rest

Where the sweet wailing singers slumber,

But o’er their silent sister’s breast

The wild-flowers who will stoop to number?

A few can touch the magic string,

And noisy Fame is proud to win them:—

Alas for those that never sing,

But die with all their music in them!

 

Nay, grieve not for the dead alone

Whose song has told their hearts’ sad story,—

Weep for the voiceless, who have known

The cross without the crown of glory!

Not where Leucadian breezes sweep

O’er Sappho’s memory-haunted billow,

But where the glistening night-dews weep

On nameless sorrow’s churchyard pillow.

 

O hearts that break and give no sign

Save whitening lip and fading tresses,

Till Death pours out his cordial wine

Slow-dropped from Misery’s crushing presses,—

If singing breath or echoing chord

To every hidden pang were given,

What endless melodies were poured,

As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven!

 

*

The Promise

 

Not charity we ask,

Nor yet thy gift refuse;

Please thy light fancy with the easy task

Only to look and choose.

 

The little-heeded toy

That wins thy treasured gold

May be the dearest memory, holiest joy,

Of coming years untold.

 

Heaven rains on every heart,

But there its showers divide,

The drops of mercy choosing as they part

The dark or glowing side.

 

One kindly deed may turn

The fountain of thy soul

To love’s sweet day-star, that shall o’er thee burn

Long as its currents roll!

 

The pleasures thou hast planned,—

Where shall their memory be

“When the white angel with the freezing hand

Shall sit and watch by thee?

 

Living, thou dost not live,

If mercy’s spring run dry;

What Heaven has lent thee wilt thou freely give,

Dying, thou shalt not die!

 

He promised even so!

To thee His lips repeat,—

Behold, the tears that soothed thy sister’s woe

Have washed thy Master’s feet!

 

*

The Living Temple

 

Not in the world of light alone,

Where God has built his blazing throne

Nor yet alone in earth below,

With belted seas that come and go,

And endless isles of sunlit green,

Is all thy Maker’s glory seen:

Look in upon thy wondrous frame,—

Eternal wisdom still the same!

 

The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves

Flows murmuring through its hidden caves,

Whose streams of brightening purple rush,

Fired with a new and livelier blush,

While all their burden of decay

The ebbing current steals away,

And red with Nature’s flame they start

From the warm fountains of the heart.

 

No rest that throbbing slave may ask,

Forever quivering o’er his task,

While far and wide a crimson jet

Leaps forth to fill the woven net

Which in unnumbered crossing tides

The flood of burning life divides,

Then, kindling each decaying part,

Creeps back to find the throbbing heart.

 

But warmed with that unchanging flame

Behold the outward moving frame,

Its living marbles jointed strong

With glistening band and silvery thong,

And linked to reason’s guiding reins

By myriad rings in trembling chains,

Each graven with the threaded zone

Which claims it as the master’s own.

 

See how yon beam of seeming white

Is braided out of seven-hued light,

Yet in those lucid globes no ray

By any chance shall break astray.

Hark how the rolling surge of sound,

Arches and spirals circling round,

Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear

With music it is heaven to hear.

 

Then mark the cloven sphere that holds

All thought in its mysterious folds.

That feels sensations faintest thrill,

And flashes forth the sovereign will;

Think on the stormy world that dwells

Locked in its dim and clustering cells!

The lightning gleams of power it sheds

Along its hollow glassy threads!

 

O Father! grant thy love divine

To make these mystic temples thine!

When wasting age and wearying strife

Have sapped the leaning walls of life,

When darkness gathers over all,

And the last tottering pillars fall,

Take the poor dust thy mercy warms,

And mould it into heavenly forms!

 

*

The Chambered Nautilus

 

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,

Sails the unshadowed main,—

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings

In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,

And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

 

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;

Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,

As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,

Before thee lies revealed,—

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

 

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,

Stole with soft step its shining archway through,

Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

 

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born

Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:—

 

Build thee more stately mansions, my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!

 

*

Contentment

 

Man wants but little here below.

 

 

Little I ask; my wants are few;

I only wish a hut of stone,

(A very plain brown stone will do,)

That I may call my own;—

And close at hand is such a one,

In yonder street that fronts the sun.

 

Plain food is quite enough for me;

Three courses are as good as ten;—

If Nature can subsist on three,

Thank Heaven for three. Amen!

I always thought cold victual nice;—

My choice would be vanilla-ice.

 

I care not much for gold or land;—

Give me a mortgage here and there,—

Some good bank -stock, some note of hand,

Or trifling railroad share,—

I only ask that Fortune send

A little more than I shall spend.

 

Honors are silly toys, I know,

And titles are but empty names;

I would, perhaps, be Plenipo,—

But only near St. James;

I ‘m very sure I should not care

To fill our Gubernator’s chair.

 

Jewels are bawbles; ’tis a sin

To care for such unfruitful things;—

One good-sized diamond in a pin,—

Some, not so large, in rings,—

A ruby, and a pearl, or so,

Will do for me;—I laugh at show.

 

My dame should dress in cheap attire;

(Good, heavy silks are never dear;)—

I own perhaps I might desire

Some shawls of true Cashmere,—

Some marrowy crapes of China silk,

Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk.

 

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,—a foreground 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!

 

*

The Deacon’s Masterpiece;

Or, the Wonderful “One-Hoss Shay”

A Logical Story

 

Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,

That was built in such a logical way

It ran a hundred years to a day,

And then, of a sudden, it—ah, but stay,

I’l1 tell you what happened without delay,

Scaring the parson into fits,

Frightening people out of their wits, —

Have you ever heard of that, I say?

 

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.

Georgius Secundus was then alive,—

Snuffy old drone from the German hive.

That was the year when Lisbon-town

Saw the earth open and gulp her down,

And Braddock’s army was done so brown,

Left without a scalp to its crown.

It was on the terrible Earthquake-day

That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.

 

Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,

There is always somewhere a weakest spot,—

In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,

In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,

In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,—lurk ing still,

Find it somewhere you must and will,—

Above or below, or within or without,—

And that’s the reason, beyond a doubt,

That a chaise breaks down, but doesn’t wear out.

 

But the Deacon swore, (as Deacons do,

With an “I dew vum,” or an “ I tell yeou,”)

He would build one shay to beat the taown

’n’ the keounty ‘n’ all the kentry raoun’;

It should be so built that it couldn’ break daown:

—“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, Is only jest

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 gray,

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;

Take it.—You ‘re welcome.—No extra charge.)

 

First of November,—the Earthquake-day—

There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,

A general flavor 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.

 

*

Nearing the Snow-Line

 

Slow toiling upward from the misty vale,

I leave the bright enamelled zones below;

No more for me their beauteous bloom shall glow,

Their lingering sweetness load the morning gale;

Few are the slender flowerets, scentless, pale,

That on their ice-clad stems all trembling blow

Along the margin of unmelting snow;

Yet with unsaddened voice thy verge I hail,

White realm of peace above the flowering line;

Welcome thy frozen domes, thy rocky spires!

O’er thee undimmed the moon-girt planets shine,

On thy majestic altars fade the fires

That filled the air with smoke of vain desires,

And all the unclouded blue of heaven is thine!