Poetry of Oliver Wendell Holmes | Page 7

the plain,?And all over Milton and Dorchester too?Great lumps of pudding the giants threw;?They tumbled as thick as rain.
Giant and mammoth have passed away,?For ages have floated by;?The suet is hard as a marrow-bone,?And every plum is turned to a stone,?But there the puddings lie.
And if, some pleasant afternoon,?You 'll ask me out to ride,?The whole of the story I will tell,?And you shall see where the puddings fell,?And pay for the punch beside.
TO THE PORTRAIT OF "A LADY"?IN THE ATHENAEUM GALLERY
WELL, Miss, I wonder where you live,?I wonder what's your name,?I wonder how you came to be?In such a stylish frame;?Perhaps you were a favorite child,?Perhaps an only one;?Perhaps your friends were not aware?You had your portrait done
Yet you must be a harmless soul;?I cannot think that Sin?Would care to throw his loaded dice,?With such a stake to win;?I cannot think you would provoke?The poet's wicked pen,?Or make young women bite their lips,?Or ruin fine young men.
Pray, did you ever hear, my love,?Of boys that go about,?Who, for a very trifling sum,?Will snip one's picture out??I'm not averse to red and white,?But all things have their place,?I think a profile cut in black?Would suit your style of face!
I love sweet features; I will own?That I should like myself?To see my portrait on a wall,?Or bust upon a shelf;?But nature sometimes makes one up?Of such sad odds and ends,?It really might be quite as well?Hushed up among one's friends!
THE COMET
THE Comet! He is on his way,?And singing as he flies;?The whizzing planets shrink before?The spectre of the skies;?Ah! well may regal orbs burn blue,?And satellites turn pale,?Ten million cubic miles of head,?Ten billion leagues of tail!
On, on by whistling spheres of light?He flashes and he flames;?He turns not to the left nor right,?He asks them not their names;?One spurn from his demoniac heel,--?Away, away they fly,?Where darkness might be bottled up?And sold for "Tyrian dye."
And what would happen to the land,?And how would look the sea,?If in the bearded devil's path?Our earth should chance to be??Full hot and high the sea would boil,?Full red the forests gleam;?Methought I saw and heard it all?In a dyspeptic dream!
I saw a tutor take his tube?The Comet's course to spy;?I heard a scream,--the gathered rays?Had stewed the tutor's eye;?I saw a fort,--the soldiers all?Were armed with goggles green;?Pop cracked the guns! whiz flew the balls!?Bang went the magazine!
I saw a poet dip a scroll?Each moment in a tub,?I read upon the warping back,?"The Dream of Beelzebub;"?He could not see his verses burn,?Although his brain was fried,?And ever and anon he bent?To wet them as they dried.
I saw the scalding pitch roll down?The crackling, sweating pines,?And streams of smoke, like water-spouts,?Burst through the rumbling mines;?I asked the firemen why they made?Such noise about the town;?They answered not,--but all the while?The brakes went up and down.
I saw a roasting pullet sit?Upon a baking egg;?I saw a cripple scorch his hand?Extinguishing his leg;?I saw nine geese upon the wing?Towards the frozen pole,?And every mother's gosling fell?Crisped to a crackling coal.
I saw the ox that browsed the grass?Writhe in the blistering rays,?The herbage in his shrinking jaws?Was all a fiery blaze;?I saw huge fishes, boiled to rags,?Bob through the bubbling brine;?And thoughts of supper crossed my soul;?I had been rash at mine.
Strange sights! strange sounds! Oh fearful dream!?Its memory haunts me still,?The steaming sea, the crimson glare,?That wreathed each wooded hill;?Stranger! if through thy reeling brain?Such midnight visions sweep,?Spare, spare, oh, spare thine evening meal,?And sweet shall be thy sleep!
THE MUSIC-GRINDERS
THERE are three ways in which men take?One's money from his purse,?And very hard it is to tell?Which of the three is worse;?But all of them are bad enough?To make a body curse.
You're riding out some pleasant day,?And counting up your gains;?A fellow jumps from out a bush,?And takes your horse's reins,?Another hints some words about?A bullet in your brains.
It's hard to meet such pressing friends?In such a lonely spot;?It's very hard to lose your cash,?But harder to be shot;?And so you take your wallet out,?Though you would rather not.
Perhaps you're going out to dine,--?Some odious creature begs?You'll hear about the cannon-ball?That carried off his pegs,?And says it is a dreadful thing?For men to lose their legs.
He tells you of his starving wife,?His children to be fed,?Poor little, lovely innocents,?All clamorous for bread,--?And so you kindly help to put?A bachelor to bed.
You're sitting on your window-seat,?Beneath a cloudless moon;?You hear a sound, that seems to wear?The semblance of a tune,?As if a broken fife should strive?To drown a cracked bassoon.
And nearer, nearer still, the tide?Of music seems to come,?There's something like a human voice,?And something like a drum;?You sit in speechless agony,?Until your ear is numb.
Poor "home, sweet home" should seem to be?A very dismal place;?Your "auld acquaintance" all at once?Is altered in the face;?Their discords sting through