Verses from the Oldest Poolio | Page 2

as the gathered
vapors break
The swelling ocean seemed a peaceful lake;
To lift
their ships the graceful nymphs essayed
And the strong trident lent its
powerful aid;
The dangerous banks are sunk beneath the main,
And
the light chariot skims the unruffled plain.
As when sedition fires the
public mind,
And maddening fury leads the rabble blind,
The
blazing torch lights up the dread alarm,
Rage points the steel and fury
nerves the arm,
Then, if some reverend Sage appear in sight,
They
stand--they gaze, and check their headlong flight,--
He turns the
current of each wandering breast
And hushes every passion into
rest,--
Thus by the power of his imperial arm
The boiling ocean
trembled into calm;
With flowing reins the father sped his way
And
smiled serene upon rekindled day.
THE MEETING OF THE DRYADS
Written after a general pruning of the trees around Harvard College. A
little poem, on a similar occasion, may be found in the works of Swift,
from which, perhaps, the idea was borrowed; although I was as much
surprised as amused to meet with it some time after writing the
following lines.
IT was not many centuries since,
When, gathered on the moonlit
green,
Beneath the Tree of Liberty,
A ring of weeping sprites was
seen.
The freshman's lamp had long been dim,
The voice of busy day was

mute,
And tortured Melody had ceased
Her sufferings on the
evening flute.
They met not as they once had met,
To laugh o'er many a jocund tale

But every pulse was beating low,
And every cheek was cold and
pale.
There rose a fair but faded one,
Who oft had cheered them with her
song;
She waved a mutilated arm,
And silence held the listening
throng.
"Sweet friends," the gentle nymph began,
"From opening bud to
withering leaf,
One common lot has bound us all,
In every change
of joy and grief.
"While all around has felt decay,
We rose in ever-living prime,

With broader shade and fresher green,
Beneath the crumbling step of
Time.
"When often by our feet has past
Some biped, Nature's walking whim,

Say, have we trimmed one awkward shape,
Or lopped away one
crooked limb?
"Go on, fair Science; soon to thee
Shall. Nature yield her idle boast;

Her vulgar fingers formed a tree,
But thou halt trained it to a post.
"Go, paint the birch's silver rind,
And quilt the peach with softer
down;
Up with the willow's trailing threads,
Off with the
sunflower's radiant crown!
"Go, plant the lily on the shore,
And set the rose among the waves,

And bid the tropic bud unbind
Its silken zone in arctic caves;
"Bring bellows for the panting winds,
Hang up a lantern by the moon,

And give the nightingale a fife,
And lend the eagle a balloon!

"I cannot smile,--the tide of scorn,
That rolled through every bleeding
vein,
Comes kindling fiercer as it flows
Back to its burning source
again.
"Again in every quivering leaf
That moment's agony I feel,
When
limbs, that spurned the northern blast,
Shrunk from the sacrilegious
steel.
"A curse upon the wretch who dared
To crop us with his felon saw!

May every fruit his lip shall taste
Lie like a bullet in his maw.
"In every julep that he drinks,
May gout, and bile, and headache be;

And when he strives to calm his pain,
May colic mingle with his
tea.
"May nightshade cluster round his path,
And thistles shoot, and
brambles cling;
May blistering ivy scorch his veins,
And dogwood
burn, and nettles sting.
"On him may never shadow fall,
When fever racks his throbbing
brow,
And his last shilling buy a rope
To hang him on my highest
bough!"
She spoke;--the morning's herald beam
Sprang from the bosom of the
sea,
And every mangled sprite returned
In sadness to her wounded
tree.
THE MYSTERIOUS VISITOR
THERE was a sound of hurrying feet,
A tramp on echoing stairs,

There was a rush along the aisles,--
It was the hour of prayers.
And on, like Ocean's midnight wave,
The current rolled along,

When, suddenly, a stranger form
Was seen amidst the throng.
He was a dark and swarthy man,
That uninvited guest;
A faded coat

of bottle-green
Was buttoned round his breast.
There was not one among them all
Could say from whence he came;

Nor beardless boy, nor ancient man,
Could tell that stranger's
name.
All silent as the sheeted dead,
In spite of sneer and frown,
Fast by a
gray-haired senior's side
He sat him boldly down.
There was a look of horror flashed
From out the tutor's eyes;
When
all around him rose to pray,
The stranger did not rise!
A murmur broke along the crowd,
The prayer was at an end;
With
ringing heels and measured tread,
A hundred forms descend.
Through sounding aisle, o'er grating stair,
The long procession
poured,
Till all were gathered on the seats
Around the Commons
board.
That fearful stranger! down he sat,
Unasked, yet undismayed;
And
on his lip a rising smile
Of scorn or pleasure played.
He took his hat and hung it up,
With slow but earnest air;
He
stripped his coat from off his back,
And placed it on a chair.
Then from his nearest neighbor's side
A knife and plate he drew;

And, reaching out his hand again,
He took his teacup too.
How fled the sugar from the bowl
How sunk the azure