Earlier Poems (1830-1836) | Page 2

cut the Victory, a one-hundred gun ship (which it will be
recollected bore the flag of Lord Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar,)
down to a seventy-four, but so loud were the lamentations of the people
upon the proposed measure that the intention was abandoned. We

confidently anticipate that the Secretary of the Navy will in like manner
consult the general wish in regard to the Constitution, and either let her
remain in ordinary or rebuild her whenever the public service may
require."--New York Journal of Commerce.
The poem was an impromptu outburst of feeling and was published on
the next day but one after reading the above paragraph.

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!
Oh 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 LAST LEAF
This poem was suggested by the appearance in one of our
streets of a
venerable relic of the Revolution, said to be one of the party who threw
the tea overboard in Boston Harbor. He was a fine monumental
specimen in his cocked hat and knee
breeches, with his buckled shoes
and his sturdy cane. The smile with which I, as a young man, greeted
him, meant no disrespect to an honored fellow-citizen whose costume
was out of date, but whose patriotism never changed with years. I do
not recall any earlier example of this form of verse, which was
commended by the fastidious Edgar Allan Poe, who made a copy of the
whole poem which I have in his own handwriting. Good Abraham
Lincoln had a great liking for the poem, and repeated it from memory
to Governor Andrew, as the governor himself told me.
I SAW him once before,
As he passed by the door,
And again
The
pavement stones resound,
As he totters o'er the ground
With his
cane.
They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
Cut him

down,
Not a better man was found
By the Crier on his round

Through the town.
But now he walks the streets,
And he looks at all he meets
Sad and
wan,
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,

"They are gone."
The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom,

And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year

On the tomb.
My grandmamma has said--
Poor old lady, she is dead
Long ago--

That he had a Roman nose,
And his cheek was like a rose
In 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,