Poetry of Oliver Wendell Holmes | Page 9

cried,--
"My breeches! Oh my
breeches!"
That night I saw them in my dreams,
How changed from what I knew
them!
The dews had steeped their faded threads,
The winds had
whistled through them
I saw the wide and ghastly rents
Where
demon claws had torn them;
A hole was in their amplest part,
As if
an imp had worn them.
I have had many happy years,

And tailors kind and clever,
But
those young pantaloons have gone
Forever and forever!
And not till
fate has cut the last
Of all my earthly stitches,
This aching heart

shall cease to mourn
My loved, my long-lost breeches!
THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS
I WROTE some lines once on a time
In wondrous merry mood,

And thought, as usual, men would say
They were exceeding good.
They were so queer, so very queer,
I laughed as I would die;
Albeit,
in the general way,
A sober man am I.
I called my servant, and he came;
How kind it was of him
To mind
a slender man like me,
He of the mighty limb.
"These to the printer," I exclaimed,
And, in my humorous way,
I
added, (as a trifling jest,)
"There'll be the devil to pay."
He took the paper, and I watched,
And saw him peep within;
At the
first line he read, his face
Was all upon the grin.
He read the next; the grin grew broad,
And shot from ear to ear;
He
read the third; a chuckling noise
I now began to hear.
The fourth; he broke into a roar;
The fifth; his waistband split;
The
sixth; he burst five buttons off,
And tumbled in a fit.
Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,
I watched that wretched man,

And since, I never dare to write
As funny as I can.
THE LAST READER
I SOMETIMES sit beneath a tree
And read my own sweet songs;

Though naught they may to others be,
Each humble line prolongs
A
tone that might have passed away
But for that scarce remembered lay.
I keep them like a lock or leaf
That some dear girl has given;
Frail
record of an hour, as brief
As sunset clouds in heaven,
But

spreading purple twilight still
High over memory's shadowed hill.
They lie upon my pathway bleak,
Those flowers that once ran wild,

As on a father's careworn cheek
The ringlets of his child;
The
golden mingling with the gray,
And stealing half its snows away.
What care I though the dust is spread
Around these yellow leaves,

Or o'er them his sarcastic thread
Oblivion's insect weaves
Though
weeds are tangled on the stream,
It still reflects my morning's beam.
And therefore love I such as smile
On these neglected songs,
Nor
deem that flattery's needless wile
My opening bosom wrongs;
For
who would trample, at my side,
A few pale buds, my garden's pride?
It may be that my scanty ore
Long years have washed away,
And
where were golden sands before
Is naught but common clay;
Still
something sparkles in the sun
For memory to look back upon.
And when my name no more is heard,
My lyre no more is known,

Still let me, like a winter's bird,
In silence and alone,
Fold over
them the weary wing
Once flashing through the dews of spring.
Yes, let my fancy fondly wrap
My youth in its decline,
And riot in
the rosy lap
Of thoughts that once were mine,
And give the worm
my little store
When the last reader reads no more!
POETRY:
A METRICAL ESSAY, READ BEFORE THE PHI BETA KAPPA
SOCIETY,
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, AUGUST, 1836
TO CHARLES WENTWORTH UPHAM, THE FOLLOWING
METRICAL ESSAY IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.

This Academic Poem presents the simple and partial views of a young
person trained after the schools of classical English verse as
represented by Pope, Goldsmith, and Campbell, with whose lines his
memory was early stocked. It will be observed that it deals chiefly with
the constructive side of the poet's function. That which makes him a
poet is not the power of writing melodious rhymes, it is not the
possession of ordinary human sensibilities nor even of both these
qualities in connection with each other. I should rather say, if I were
now called upon to define it, it is the power of transfiguring the
experiences and shows of life into an aspect which comes from his
imagination and kindles that of others. Emotion is its stimulus and
language furnishes its expression; but these are not all, as some might
infer was the doctrine of the poem before the reader.
A common mistake made by young persons who suppose themselves to
have the poetical gift is that their own spiritual exaltation finds a true
expression in the conventional phrases which are borrowed from the
voices of the singers whose inspiration they think they share.
Looking at this poem as an expression of some aspects of the /ars
poetica/, with some passages which I can read even at this mature
period of life without blushing for them, it may stand as the most
serious representation of my early efforts. Intended as it was for public
delivery, many of its paragraphs may betray the fact by their somewhat
rhetorical and sonorous character.
SCENES of