Poems from The Teacups | Page 9

Oliver Wendell Holmes
here," "A constant beating there."
Who ordered bathing
for his aches and ails?
"Charmis, the water-doctor from Marseilles."

What was the last prescription in his case?
"A draught of wine with
powdered chrysoprase."
Had he no secret grief he nursed alone?
A
pause; a little tremor; answer,--"None."
Thoughtful, a moment, sat
the cunning leech,
And muttered " Eros! " in his native speech.
In
the broad atrium various friends await
The last new utterance from
the lips of fate;
Men, matrons, maids, they talk the question o'er,

And, restless, pace the tessellated floor.
Not unobserved the youth so
long had pined
By gentle-hearted dames and damsels kind;
One
with the rest, a rich Patrician's pride,
The lady Hermia, called "the
golden-eyed";
The same the old Proconsul fain must woo,
Whom,
one dark night, a masked sicarius slew;
The same black Crassus over
roughly pressed
To hear his suit,--the Tiber knows the rest.

(Crassus was missed next morning by his set;
Next week the fishers
found him in their net.)
She with the others paced the ample hall,

Fairest, alas! and saddest of them all.
At length the Greek declared, with puzzled face,
Some strange
enchantment mingled in the case,
And naught would serve to act as
counter-charm
Save a warm bracelet from a maiden's arm.
Not
every maiden's,--many might be tried;
Which not in vain, experience
must decide.
Were there no damsels willing to attend
And do such
service for a suffering friend?
The message passed among the waiting
crowd,
First in a whisper, then proclaimed aloud.
Some wore no
jewels; some were disinclined,
For reasons better guessed at than
defined;
Though all were saints,--at least professed to be,--

The list
all counted, there were named but three.
The leech, still seated by the
patient's side,
Held his thin wrist, and watched him, eagle-eyed.

Aurelia first, a fair-haired Tuscan girl,
Slipped off her golden asp,
with eyes of pearl.
His solemn head the grave physician shook;
The

waxen features thanked her with a look.
Olympia next, a creature half
divine,
Sprung from the blood of old Evander's line,
Held her white
arm, that wore a twisted chain
Clasped with an opal-sheeny
cymophane.
In vain, O daughter I said the baffled Greek.
The
patient sighed the thanks he could not speak.
Last, Hermia entered; look, that sudden start!
The pallium heaves
above his leaping heart;
The beating pulse, the cheek's rekindled
flame,
Those quivering lips, the secret all proclaim.
The deep
disease long throbbing in the breast,
The dread enchantment, all at
once confessed!
The case was plain; the treatment was begun;
And
Love soon cured the mischief he had done.
Young Love, too oft thy treacherous bandage slips
Down from the
eyes it blinded to the lips!
Ask not the Gods, O youth, for clearer
sight,
But the bold heart to plead thy cause aright.
And thou, fair
maiden, when thy lovers sigh,
Suspect thy flattering ear, but trust
thine eye;
And learn this secret from the tale of old
No love so true
as love that dies untold.
. . . . . . . . . .
"Bravo, Annex!" they shouted, every one,--
"Not Mrs. Kemble's self
had better done."
"Quite so," she stammered in her awkward way,--

Not just the thing, but something she must say.
The teaspoon chorus tinkled to its close
When from his chair the
MAN OF LAW arose,
Called by her voice whose mandate all obeyed,

And took the open volume she displayed.
Tall, stately, strong, his
form begins to own
Some slight exuberance in its central zone,--

That comely fulness of the growing girth
Which fifty summers lend
the sons of earth.
A smooth, round disk about whose margin stray,

Above the temples, glistening threads of gray;
Strong, deep-cut
grooves by toilsome decades wrought
On brow and mouth, the

battle-fields of thought;
A voice that lingers in the listener's ear,

Grave, calm, far-reaching, every accent clear,--
(Those tones
resistless many a foreman knew
That shaped their verdict ere the
twelve withdrew;)
A statesman's forehead, athlete's throat and jaw,

Such the proud semblance of the Man of Law.
His eye just lighted on
the printed leaf,
Held as a practised pleader holds his brief.
One
whispered softly from behind his cup,
"He does not read,--his book is
wrong side up!
He knows the story that it holds by heart,--
So like
his own! How well he'll act his part!"
Then all were silent; not a
rustling fan
Stirred the deep stillness as the voice began.
THE STATESMAN'S SECRET
WHO of all statesmen is his country's pride,
Her councils' prompter
and her leaders' guide?
He speaks; the nation holds its breath to hear;

He nods, and shakes the sunset hemisphere.
Born where the primal
fount of Nature springs
By the rude cradles of her throneless kings,

In his proud eye her royal signet flames,
By his own lips her Monarch
she proclaims.
Why name his countless triumphs, whom to meet
Is
to be famous, envied in defeat?
The keen debaters, trained to brawls
and strife,
Who fire one shot, and finish with the knife,
Tried him
but once, and, cowering in their shame,
Ground their hacked blades to
strike at meaner game.
The lordly chief, his party's central stay,

Whose lightest word a hundred votes obey,
Found a new listener
seated at his side,
Looked in his eye, and felt himself defied,
Flung
his rash gauntlet on the startled floor,
Met the all-conquering,
fought,--and ruled no
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