Bunker Hill and Other Poems | Page 6

of debts we owe;
How sad to think such stuff should be

Our Wendell's cure-all recipe,--
Not Wendell H., but Wendell P.,--

The one you all must know!
I question--but you answer not--
Dear me! and have I quite forgot

How fivescore years ago,
Just on this very blessed spot,
The
summer leaves below,
Before his homespun ranks arrayed
In green
New England's elmbough shade
The great Virginian drew the blade

King George full soon should know!
O George the Third! you found it true
Our George was more than
double you,
For nature made him so.
Not much an empire's crown
can do
If brains are scant and slow,--
Ah, not like that his laurel
crown
Whose presence gilded with renown
Our brave old
Academic town,
As all her children know!
So here we meet with loud acclaim
To tell mankind that here he came,

With hearts that throb and glow;
Ours is a portion of his fame

Our trumpets needs must blow!

On yonder hill the Lion fell,
But
here was chipped the eagle's shell,--
That little hatchet did it well,

As all the world shall know!

WELCOME TO THE NATIONS
PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4, 1876
BRIGHT on the banners of lily and rose
Lo! the last sun of our
century sets!
Wreathe the black cannon that scowled on our foes,

All but her friendships the nation forgets
All but her friends and their
welcome forgets!
These are around her; but where are her foes?
Lo,
while the sun of her century sets,
Peace with her garlands of lily and
rose!
Welcome! a shout like the war trumpet's swell
Wakes the wild echoes
that slumber around
Welcome! it quivers from Liberty's bell;

Welcome! the walls of her temple resound!
Hark! the gray walls of
her temple resound
Fade the far voices o'er hillside and dell;

Welcome! still whisper the echoes around;
Welcome I still trembles
on Liberty's bell!
Thrones of the continents! isles of the sea
Yours are the garlands of
peace we entwine;
Welcome, once more, to the land of the free,

Shadowed alike by the pahn and the pine;
Softly they murmur, the
palm and the pine,
"Hushed is our strife, in the land of the free";

Over your children their branches entwine,
Thrones of the continents!
isles of the sea!
A FAMILIAR LETTER
TO SEVERAL CORRESPONDENTS
YES, write, if you want to, there's nothing like trying;
Who knows
what a treasure your casket may hold?
I'll show you that rhyming's as
easy as lying,
If you'll listen to me while the art I unfold.
Here's a book full of words; one can choose as he fancies,
As a
painter his tint, as a workman his tool;
Just think! all the poems and

plays and romances
Were drawn out of this, like the fish from a pool!
You can wander at will through its syllabled mazes,
And take all you
want,--not a copper they cost,--
What is there to hinder your picking
out phrases
For an epic as clever as "Paradise Lost"?
Don't mind if the index of sense is at zero,
Use words that run
smoothly, whatever they mean;
Leander and Lilian and Lillibullero

Are much the same thing in the rhyming machine.
There are words so delicious their sweetness will smother
That
boarding-school flavor of which we 're afraid,--
There is "lush" is a
good one, and "swirl" another,--
Put both in one stanza, its fortune is
made.
With musical murmurs and rhythmical closes
You can cheat us of
smiles when you've nothing to tell;
You hand us a nosegay of
milliner's roses,
And we cry with delight, "Oh, how sweet they do
smell!"
Perhaps you will answer all needful conditions
For winning the
laurels to which you aspire,
By docking the tails of the two
prepositions
I' the style o' the bards you so greatly admire.
As for subjects of verse, they are only too plenty
For ringing the
changes on metrical chimes;
A maiden, a moonbeam, a lover of
twenty
Have filled that great basket with bushels of rhymes.
Let me show you a picture--'tis far from irrelevant--
By a famous old
hand in the arts of design;
'T is only a photographed sketch of an
elephant,--
The name of the draughtsman was Rembrandt of Rhine.
How easy! no troublesome colors to lay on,
It can't have fatigued
him,--no, not in the least,--
A dash here and there with a hap-hazard
crayon,
And there stands the wrinkled-skinned, baggy-limbed beast.

Just so with your verse,--'t is as easy as sketching,--
You--can reel off
a song without knitting your brow,
As lightly as Rembrandt a
drawing or etching;
It is nothing at all, if you only know how.
Well; imagine you've printed your volume of verses:
Your forehead
is wreathed with the garland of fame,
Your poems the eloquent
school-boy rehearses,
Her album the school-girl presents for your
name;
Each morning the post brings you autograph letters;
You'll answer
them promptly,--an hour is n't much
For the honor of sharing a page
with your betters,
With magistrates, members of Congress, and such.
Of course you're delighted to serve the committees
That come with
requests from the country all round,
You would grace the occasion
with poems and ditties
When they've got a new schoolhouse, or
poor-house, or pound.
With a hymn for the saints and a song for the