Bunker Hill and Other Poems | Page 7

sinners,
You go and are
welcome wherever you please;
You're a privileged guest at all
manner of dinners,
You've a seat on the platform among the grandees.
At length your mere presence becomes a sensation,
Your cup of
enjoyment is filled to its brim
With the pleasure Horatian of
digitmonstration,
As the whisper runs round of "That's he!" or "That
Is him!"
But remember, O dealer in phrases sonorous,
So daintily chosen, so
tunefully matched,
Though you soar with the wings of the cherubim
o'er us,
The ovum was human from which you were hatched.
No will of your own with its puny compulsion
Can summon the spirit
that quickens the lyre;
It comes, if at all, like the Sibyl's convulsion

And touches the brain with a finger of fire.

So perhaps, after all, it's as well to be quiet,
If you've nothing you
think is worth saying in prose,
As to furnish a meal of their cannibal
diet
To the critics, by publishing, as you propose.
But it's all of no use, and I 'm sorry I've written,--
I shall see your thin
volume some day on my shelf;
For the rhyming tarantula surely has
bitten,
And music must cure you, so pipe it yourself.
UNSATISFIED
"ONLY a housemaid!" She looked from the kitchen,--
Neat was the
kitchen and tidy was she;
There at her window a sempstress sat
stitching;
"Were I a sempstress, how happy I'd be!"
"Only a Queen!" She looked over the waters,--
Fair was her kingdom
and mighty was she;
There sat an Empress, with Queens for her
daughters;
Were I an Empress, how happy I'd be!"
Still the old frailty they all of them trip in!
Eve in her daughters is
ever the same;
Give her all Eden, she sighs for a pippin;
Give her an
Empire, she pines for a name!
May 8, 1876.
HOW THE OLD HORSE WON THE BET
DEDICATED BY A CONTRIBUTOR TO THE COLLEGIAN,

1830, TO THE EDITORS OF THE HARVARD ADVOCATE,
1876.
'T WAS on the famous trotting-ground,
The betting men were
gathered round
From far and near; the "cracks" were there
Whose
deeds the sporting prints declare
The swift g. m., Old Hiram's nag,

The fleet s. h., Dan Pfeiffer's brag,
With these a third--and who is he

That stands beside his fast b. g.?
Budd Doble, whose catarrhal
name
So fills the nasal trump of fame.
There too stood many a

noted steed
Of Messenger and Morgan breed;
Green horses also,
not a few;
Unknown as yet what they could do;
And all the hacks
that know so well
The scourgings of the Sunday swell.
Blue are the skies of opening day;
The bordering turf is green with
May;
The sunshine's golden gleam is thrown
On sorrel, chestnut,
bay, and roan;
The horses paw and prance and neigh,
Fillies and
colts like kittens play,
And dance and toss their rippled manes

Shining and soft as silken skeins;
Wagons and gigs are ranged about,

And fashion flaunts her gay turn-out;
Here stands--each youthful
Jehu's dream
The jointed tandem, ticklish team!
And there in
ampler breadth expand
The splendors of the four-in-hand;
On
faultless ties and glossy tiles
The lovely bonnets beam their smiles;

(The style's the man, so books avow;
The style's the woman, anyhow);

From flounces frothed with creamy lace
Peeps out the pug-dog's
smutty face,
Or spaniel rolls his liquid eye,
Or stares the wiry pet of
Skye,--
O woman, in your hours of ease
So shy with us, so free
with these!
"Come on! I 'll bet you two to one
I 'll make him do it!" "Will you?
Done!"
What was it who was bound to do?
I did not hear and can't tell you,--

Pray listen till my story's through.
Scarce noticed, back behind the rest,
By cart and wagon rudely prest,

The parson's lean and bony bay
Stood harnessed in his one-horse
shay--
Lent to his sexton for the day;
(A funeral--so the sexton said;

His mother's uncle's wife was dead.)
Like Lazarus bid to Dives' feast,
So looked the poor forlorn old beast;

His coat was rough, his tail was bare,
The gray was sprinkled in his
hair;

Sportsmen and jockeys knew him not,
And yet they say he
once could trot
Among the fleetest of the town,
Till something

cracked and broke him down,--
The steed's, the statesman's, common
lot!
"And are we then so soon forgot?"
Ah me! I doubt if one of you

Has ever heard the name "Old Blue,"
Whose fame through all this
region rung
In those old days when I was young!
"Bring forth the horse!" Alas! he showed
Not like the one Mazeppa
rode;
Scant-maned, sharp-backed, and shaky-kneed,
The wreck of
what was once a steed,
Lips thin, eyes hollow, stiff in joints;
Yet
not without his knowing points.
The sexton laughing in his sleeve,

As if 't were all a make-believe,
Led forth the horse, and as he
laughed
Unhitched the breeching from a shaft,
Unclasped the rusty
belt beneath,
Drew forth the snaffle from his teeth,
Slipped off his
head-stall, set him free
From strap and rein,--a sight to see!
So worn, so lean in every limb,
It can't be they are saddling him!
It
is! his back the pig-skin strides
And flaps his lank, rheumatic sides;

With look of mingled scorn and mirth
They buckle round the
saddle-girth;
With horsey wink and saucy toss
A youngster throws
his leg across,
And so,