Verses from the Oldest Poolio | Page 8

folks, that on the first of May?Wore winter coats and hose,?Began to say, the first of June,?"Good Lord! how hot it grows!"?At last two Fahrenheits blew up,?And killed two children small,?And one barometer shot dead?A tutor with its ball!
Now all day long the locusts sang?Among the leafless trees;?Three new hotels warped inside out,?The pumps could only wheeze;?And ripe old wine, that twenty years?Had cobwebbed o'er in vain,?Came spouting through the rotten corks?Like Joly's best champagne
The Worcester locomotives did?Their trip in half an hour;?The Lowell cars ran forty miles?Before they checked the power;?Roll brimstone soon became a drug,?And loco-focos fell;?All asked for ice, but everywhere?Saltpetre was to sell.
Plump men of mornings ordered tights,?But, ere the scorching noons,?Their candle-moulds had grown as loose?As Cossack pantaloons!?The dogs ran mad,--men could not try?If water they would choose;?A horse fell dead,--he only left?Four red-hot, rusty shoes!
But soon the people could not bear?The slightest hint of fire;?Allusions to caloric drew?A flood of savage ire;
The leaves on heat were all torn out?From every book at school,?And many blackguards kicked and caned,?Because they said, "Keep cool!"
The gas-light companies were mobbed,?The bakers all were shot,?The penny press began to talk?Of lynching Doctor Nott;?And all about the warehouse steps?Were angry men in droves,?Crashing and splintering through the doors?To smash the patent stoves!
The abolition men and maids?Were tanned to such a hue,?You scarce could tell them from their friends,?Unless their eyes were blue;?And, when I left, society?Had burst its ancient guards,?And Brattle Street and Temple Place?Were interchanging cards
A PORTRAIT
A STILL, sweet, placid, moonlight face,?And slightly nonchalant,?Which seems to claim a middle place?Between one's love and aunt,?Where childhood's star has left a ray?In woman's sunniest sky,?As morning dew and blushing day?On fruit and blossom lie.
And yet,--and yet I cannot love?Those lovely lines on steel;?They beam too much of heaven above,?Earth's darker shades to feel;?Perchance some early weeds of care?Around my heart have grown,?And brows unfurrowed seem not fair,?Because they mock my own.
Alas! when Eden's gates were sealed,?How oft some sheltered flower?Breathed o'er the wanderers of the field,?Like their own bridal bower;?Yet, saddened by its loveliness,?And humbled by its pride,?Earth's fairest child they could not bless,?It mocked them when they sighed.
AN EVENING THOUGHT
WRITTEN AT SEA
IF sometimes in the dark blue eye,?Or in the deep red wine,?Or soothed by gentlest melody,?Still warms this heart of mine,?Yet something colder in the blood,?And calmer in the brain,?Have whispered that my youth's bright flood?Ebbs, not to flow again.
If by Helvetia's azure lake,?Or Arno's yellow stream,?Each star of memory could awake,?As in my first young dream,?I know that when mine eye shall greet?The hillsides bleak and bare,?That gird my home, it will not meet?My childhood's sunsets there.
Oh, when love's first, sweet, stolen kiss?Burned on my boyish brow,?Was that young forehead worn as this??Was that flushed cheek as now??Were that wild pulse and throbbing heart?Like these, which vainly strive,?In thankless strains of soulless art,?To dream themselves alive?
Alas! the morning dew is gone,?Gone ere the full of day;?Life's iron fetter still is on,?Its wreaths all torn away;?Happy if still some casual hour?Can warm the fading shrine,?Too soon to chill beyond the power?Of love, or song, or wine!
THE WASP AND THE HORNET
THE two proud sisters of the sea,?In glory and in doom!--?Well may the eternal waters be?Their broad, unsculptured tomb!?The wind that rings along the wave,?The clear, unshadowed sun,?Are torch and trumpet o'er the brave,?Whose last green wreath is won!
No stranger-hand their banners furled,?No victor's shout they heard;?Unseen, above them ocean curled,?Safe by his own pale bird;?The gnashing billows heaved and fell;?Wild shrieked the midnight gale;?Far, far beneath the morning swell?Were pennon, spar, and sail.
The land of Freedom! Sea and shore?Are guarded now, as when?Her ebbing waves to victory bore?Fair barks and gallant men;?Oh, many a ship of prouder name?May wave her starry fold,?Nor trail, with deeper light of fame,?The paths they swept of old!
"QUI VIVE?"
"Qui vive?" The sentry's musket rings,?The channelled bayonet gleams;?High o'er him, like a raven's wings?The broad tricolored banner flings?Its shadow, rustling as it swings?Pale in the moonlight beams;?Pass on! while steel-clad sentries keep?Their vigil o'er the monarch's sleep,?Thy bare, unguarded breast?Asks not the unbroken, bristling zone?That girds yon sceptred trembler's throne;--?Pass on, and take thy rest!
"Qui vive?" How oft the midnight air?That startling cry has borne!?How oft the evening breeze has fanned?The banner of this haughty land,?O'er mountain snow and desert sand,?Ere yet its folds were torn!?Through Jena's carnage flying red,?Or tossing o'er Marengo's dead,?Or curling on the towers?Where Austria's eagle quivers yet,?And suns the ruffled plumage, wet?With battle's crimson showers!
"Qui vive?" And is the sentry's cry,--?The sleepless soldier's hand,--?Are these--the painted folds that fly?And lift their emblems, printed high?On morning mist and sunset sky--?The guardians of a land??No! If the patriot's pulses sleep,?How vain the watch that hirelings keep,?The idle flag that waves,?When Conquest, with his iron heel,?Treads down the standards and the steel?That belt