Poetry of Oliver Wendell Holmes | Page 4

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, read it in an hour!
The Indian's shaft, the Briton's ball,
The sabre's thirsting edge,
The
hot shell, shattering in its fall,
The bayonet's rending wedge,--
Here
scattered death; yet, seek the spot,
No trace thine eye can see,
No
altar,--and they need it not
Who leave their children free!
Look where the turbid rain-drops stand
In many a chiselled square;

The knightly crest, the shield, the brand
Of honored names were
there;--
Alas! for every tear is dried
Those blazoned tablets knew,

Save when the icy marble's side
Drips with the evening dew.
Or gaze upon yon pillared stone,
The empty urn of pride;
There
stand the Goblet and the Sun,--
What need of more beside?
Where

lives the memory of the dead,
Who made their tomb a toy?
Whose
ashes press that nameless bed?
Go, ask the village boy!
Lean o'er the slender western wall,
Ye ever-roaming girls;
The
breath that bids the blossom fall
May lift your floating curls,
To
sweep the simple lines that tell
An exile's date and doom;
And sigh,
for where his daughters dwell,
They wreathe the stranger's tomb.
And one amid these shades was born,
Beneath this turf who lies,

Once beaming as the summer's morn,
That closed her gentle eyes;

If sinless angels love as we,
Who stood thy grave beside,
Three
seraph welcomes waited thee,
The daughter, sister, bride
I wandered to thy buried mound
When earth was hid below
The
level of the glaring ground,
Choked to its gates with snow,
And
when with summer's flowery waves
The lake of verdure rolled,
As
if a Sultan's white-robed slaves
Had scattered pearls and gold.
Nay, the soft pinions of the air,
That lift this trembling tone,
Its
breath of love may almost bear
To kiss thy funeral stone;
And, now
thy smiles have passed away,
For all the joy they gave,
May
sweetest dews and warmest ray
Lie on thine early grave!
When damps beneath and storms above
Have bowed these fragile
towers,
Still o'er the graves yon locust grove
Shall swing its Orient
flowers;
And I would ask no mouldering bust,
If e'er this humble
line,
Which breathed a sigh o'er other's dust,
Might call a tear on
mine.
TO AN INSECT
The Katydid is "a species of grasshopper found in the United States, so
called from the sound which it makes."--Worcester. I used to hear this
insect in Providence, Rhode Island, but I do not remember hearing it in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I passed my boyhood. It is well

known in other towns in the neighborhood of Boston.
I LOVE to hear thine earnest voice,
Wherever thou art hid,
Thou
testy little dogmatist,
Thou pretty Katydid
Thou mindest me of
gentlefolks,--
Old gentlefolks are they,--
Thou say'st an undisputed
thing
In such a solemn way.
Thou art a