1 The poem was suggested by the sight of a figure well known to Bostonians [in 1831 or 1832], that of Major Thomas Melville, the last of the cocked hats,' as he was sometimes called. The Major had been a personable young man, very evidently, and retained evidence of it in The monumental pomp of age which had something imposing and something odd about it for youthful eyes like mine. He was often pointed at as one of the Indians of the famous Boston Tea Party' of 1774. His aspect among the crowds of a later generation reminded me of a withered leaf which has held to its stem through the storms of autumn and winter, and finds itself still clinging to its bough while the new growths of spring are bursting their buds and spreading their foliage all around it. I make this explanation for the benefit of those who have been puzzled by the lines, The way in which it came to be written in a somewhat singular measure was this. I had become a little known as a versifier, and I thought that one or two other young writers were following my efforts with imitations, not meant as parodies and hardly to be considered improvements on their models. I determined to write in a measure which would at once betray any copyist. So far as it was suggested by any previous poem, the echo must have come from Campbell's 'Battle of the Baltic,' with its short terminal lines, such as the last of these two, But I do not remember any poem in the same measure, except such as have been written since its publication. (HOLMES.) Holmes wrote to his publishers in 1894: 'I have lasted long enough to serve as an illustration of my own poem. . . It was with a smile on my lips that I wrote it; I cannot read it without a sigh of tender remembrance. I hope it will not sadden my older readers, while it may amuse some of the younger ones to whom its experiences are as yet only floating fancies.' Lincoln called the poem 'inexpressibly touching," and knew it by heart. Holmes possessed a copy of it written out by Edgar Allan Poe. Whittier (Prose Works, vol. iii, p. 381) called it a unique compound of humor and pathos.' 1831 or 1832. LA GRISETTE 20 30 1833.2 AH, Clemence ! when I saw thee last I dreamed not in that idle glance 2 Just when it was written I cannot exactly say, nor in what paper or periodical it was first published. It must have been written before April, 1833; probably in 1831 or 1832. It was republished in the first edition of my poems in 1836. (HOLMES.) It was in fact published in The Harbinger, Boston, 1833. And only left to memory's trance A shadow and a name. The few strange words my lips had taught Their gentler signs, which often brought All, all returned, more sweet, more fair; I walked where saint and virgin keep I knew that thou hadst woes to weep, I watched where Genevieve was laid, And when the morning sun was bright, When wind and wave were calm, And flamed, in thousand-tinted light, The rose of Notre Dame, I wandered through the haunts of men, Till, frowning o'er Saint Etienne, In vain, in vain; we meet no more, Nor dream what fates befall; And long upon the stranger's shore My voice on thee may call, 10 20 30 Of joyous days and jolly nights, and merry Christmas chimes; When years have clothed the line in They were a free and jovial race, but honest, brave, and true, Who dipped their ladle in the punch when this old bowl was new. A Spanish galleon brought the bar,- so runs the ancient tale; 'Twas hammered by an Antwerp smith, whose arm was like a flail; And now and then between the strokes, for fear his strength should fail, He wiped his brow and quaffed a cup of good old Flemish ale. 'Twas purchased by an English squire ta please his loving dame, 1 This punch-bowl' was, according to old family tradition, a caudle-cup. It is a massive piece of silver, its cherubs and other ornaments of coarse repoussé work, and has two handles like a loving-cup, by which it was held, or passed from guest to guest. (HOLMES.) Flung his rash gauntlet on the startled floor, Met the all-conquering, fought, — and ruled no more. 20 See where he moves, what eager crowds attend! What shouts of thronging multitudes ascend ! If this is life, to mark with every hour The purple deepening in his robes of power, To see the painted fruits of honor fall Thick at his feet, and choose among them all, To hear the sounds that shape his spreading name Peal through the myriad organ-stops of fame, Stamp the lone isle that spots the seaman's chart, And crown the pillared glory of the mart, 30 To count as peers the few supremely wise Who mark their planet in the angels' |