Bold in speech and bold in action Which fulfils life's mission best. Scorn the threat that bids thee fear: Speak!-no matter what betide thee; Let them strike, but make them hear! Be thou like the first apostles Be thou like heroic PAUL: Scorn the prison, rack, or rod; Speak, and leave the rest to GoD! AUGUST. DUST on thy mantle! dust, Bright Summer, on thy livery of green! A tarnish, as of rust, Dims thy late-brilliant sheen: And thy young glories-leaf, and bud, and flowerChange cometh over them with every hour. Thee hath the August sun Look'd on with hot, and fierce, and brassy face; And still and lazily run, Scarce whispering in their pace, The half-dried rivulets, that lately sent With not so much of sweet air as hath stirr'd The fleecy flock, fly-scourged and restless, rush Madly from fence to fence, from bush to bush. Tediously pass the hours, And vegetation wilts, with blister'd root, Faster, along the plain, Moves now the shade, and on the meadow's edge: The bird flits in the hedge. Pleasantly comest thou, Dew of the evening, to the crisp'd-up grass; As the light breezes pass, That their parch'd lips may feel thee, and expand, So, to the thirsting soul, To where the spirit freely may expand, SPRING VERSES. How with the song of every bird, Some recollection dear is stirr'd Of many a long-departed hour, Whose course, though shrouded now in night, I know not if, when years have cast Which burns before me constantly; Yet coldly shines it on my brow; And in my breast it wakes to life None of the holy feelings now, With which my boyhood's heart was rife: It cannot touch that secret spring Which erst made life so bless'd a thing. Give me, then give me birds and flowers, Which are the voice and breath of Spring! For those the songs of life's young hours With thrilling touch recall and sing: And these, with their sweet breath, impart Old tales, whose memory warms the heart. MAY. WOULD that thou couldst last for aye, Made of sun-gleams, shade, and showers, Would that thou couldst last for aye! Out beneath thy morning sky Glistening, early flowers among- Is fairy's diamond glass, and monad's dew-drop And quickly to destruction hurl'd Out beneath thy noontide sky, Giving fancy ample play; Steals o'er Nature's worshipper Silent, yet so eloquent, That we feel 't is heaven-sent! Waking thoughts, that long have slumber'd, Passion-dimm'd and earth-encumber'd Bearing soul and sense away, To revel in the perfect day But hath swept the green earth's bosom; They are in life's May-month hours, And those wild bursts of joy, what are they but life's flowers! Would that thou couldst last for aye, Made of sun-gleams, shade, and showers, Festoon'd with the dewy vine: Would that thou couldst last for aye! OUR EARLY DAYS. OUR early days!-How often back A boy-my truant steps were seen And now, its streams are dry; and sere A youth-the mountain-torrent made And Windsor's haunted "alleys green" A man the thirst for fame was mine, Time, health, hope, peace-and madly striven, Is oftenest but an empty sound. And I have worshipp'd!-even yet But it hath found so much to be But hollowness and mockery, Our early days! They haunt us ever— THE LABOURER. STAND up-erect! Thou hast the form, And pure, as breast e'er wore. What then?-Thou art as true a man Who is thine enemy? the high In station, or in wealth the chief? The great, who coldly pass thee by, With proud step and averted eye? Nay! nurse not such belief. If true unto thyself thou wast, What were the proud one's scorn to thee? A feather, which thou mightest cast Aside, as idly as the blast The light leaf from the tree. No:-uncurb'd passions, low desires, Forever, till thus check'd; THE mothers of our forest-land! Our rough land had no braver, In its days of blood and strife- The mothers of our forest-land! They shrank not from the foeman They quail'd not in the fightBut cheer'd their husbands through the day, And soothed them through the night. The mothers of our forest-land! And proud were they by such to stand, To load the sure, old rifle To run the leaden ball To watch a battling husband's place, The mothers of our forest-land! Such were their daily deeds. Their monument!-where does it stand? No nobler matrons Rome- The mothers of our forest-land! They sleep in unknown graves: And had they borne and nursed a band Of ingrates, or of slaves, They had not been more neglected! But their graves shall yet be found. And their monuments dot here and there "The Dark and Bloody Ground." OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. [Born, 1809.] OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES is a son of the late ABIEL HOLMES, D. D., and was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the twenty-ninth day of August, 1809. He received his early education at the Phillips Exeter Academy, and entered Harvard University in 1825. On being graduated he commenced the study of the law, but relinquished it, after one year's appplication, for the more congenial pursuit of medicine, to which he devoted himself with ardour and industry. For the more successful prosecution of his studies, he visited Europe in the spring of 1833, passing the principal portion of his residence abroad at Paris, where he attended the hospitals, acquired an intimate knowledge of the language, and became personally acquainted with many of the most eminent physicians of France. He returned to Boston near the close of 1835, and in the following spring commenced the practice of medicine in that city. In the autumn of the same year he delivered a poem before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University, which was received with extraordinary and merited applause. In 1838 he was elected Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in the medical institution connected with Dartmouth College, but resigned the place on his marriage, two years afterward. Devoting all his attention to his profession, he soon acquired a large and lucrative practice, and in 1847 he succeeded Dr. WARREN as Professor of Anatomy in the medical department of Harvard University. His principal medical writings are comprised in his" Boylston Prize Essays," "Lectures on Popular Delusions in Medicine," and the "Theory and Practice," by himself and Dr. BIGELOW. His other compositions in prose consist of occasional addresses, and papers in the North American Review. The earlier poems of Dr. HOLMES appeared in "The Collegian."* They were little less distinguished for correct and melodious versification than his more recent and most elaborate productions. They attracted attention by their humour and originality, and were widely republished in the periodicals. But a small portion of them have been printed under his proper signature. In 1831 a small volume appeared in Boston, entitled "Illustrations of the Athenæum Gallery of Paintings," and composed of metrical pieces, chiefly satirical, written by Dr. HOLMES and EPES SARGENT. It embraced many of our author's best humorous verses, afterward printed among his ac "The Collegian" was a monthly miscellany published in 1830, by the undergraduates at Cambridge. Among the editors were HOLMES, the late WILLIAM H. SIMMONS, who will be remembered for his admirable lectures on the poets and orators of England, and JOHN O. SARGENT, who has distinguished himself as a lawyer and as a political writer. knowledged works. His "Poetry, a Metrical Essay," was delivered before a literary society at Cambridge. It is in the heroic measure, and in its versification it is not surpassed by any poem written in this country. It relates to the nature and offices of poetry, and is itself a series of brilliant illustrations of the ideas of which it is an expression. Of the universality of the poetical feeling he says: There breathes no being but has some pretence He, whose thoughts differing not in shape, but dress, In another part of the essay is the following In 1843 Dr. HOLMES published Terpsichore,” a poem read at the annual dinner of the Phi Beta Kappa Society in that year; and in 1846, « Urania, a Rhymed Lesson," pronounced before the 360 Mercantile Library Association. The last is a collection of brilliant thoughts, with many local allusions, in compact but flowing and harmonious versification, and is the longest poem Dr. HOLMES has published since the appearance of his " Metrical Essay" in 1835. Dr. HOLMES is a poet of art and humour and genial sentiment, with a style remarkable for its purity, terseness, and point, and for an exquisite ON LENDING A PUNCH-BOWL. Tais ancient silver bowl of mine-it tells of good old times Of joyous days, and jolly nights, and merry Christmas chimes; They were a free and jovial race, but honest, brave, and true, That dipp'd their ladle in the punch when this old bowl was new. A Spanish galleon brought the bar—so runs the ancient tale; 'Twas hammer'd 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 quaff'd a cup of good old Flemish ale. 'Twas purchased by an English squire to please his loving dame, Who saw the cherubs, and conceived a longing for the same; And oft, as on the ancient stock another twig was found, 'Twas fill'd with caudle spiced and hot, and handed smoking round. But, changing hands, it reach'd at length a Puritan divine, Who used to follow Timothy, and take a little wine, But hated punch and prelacy; and so it was, perhaps, He went to Leyden, where he found conventicles and schnaps. And then, of course, you know what's next: it left the Dutchman's shore With those that in the May-Flower came-a hundred souls and more Along with all the furniture, to fill their new abodes To judge by what is still on hand, at least a hundred loads. "T was on a dreary winter's eve, the night was closing dim, When old MILES STANDISH took the bowl, and fill'd it to the brim; The little captain stood and stirr'd the posset with his sword, And all his sturdy men-at-arms were ranged about the board. He pour'd the fiery Hollands in-the man that never fear'd He took a long and solemn draught, and wiped his yellow beard; 46 finish and grace. His lyrics ring and sparkle like cataracts of silver, and his serious pieces-as successful in their way as those mirthful frolics of his muse for which he is best known-arrest the attention by touches of the most genuine pathos and tenderness. All his poems illustrate a manly feeling, and have in them a current of good sense, the more charming because somewhat out of fashion now in works of imagination and fancy. And one by one the musketeers-the men that fought and pray'd All drank as 't were their mother's milk, and not a man afraid. That night, affrighted from his nest, the screaming eagle flew: He heard the Pequot's ringing whoop, the soldier's wild halloo; And there the sachem learn'd the rule he taught to kith and kin: "Run from the white man when you find he smells of Hollands gin!" A hundred years, and fifty more, had spread their leaves and snows, A thousand rubs had flatten'd down each little cherub's nose; When once again the bowl was fill'd, but not in mirth or joy 'Twas mingled by a mother's hand to cheer her parting boy. "Drink, JOHN," she said, "'t will do you good; poor child, you'll never bear This working in the dismal trench, out in the midnight air; And if God bless me-you were hurt, 't would keep away the chill.". So JOHN did drink-and well he wrought that night at Bunker's hill! I tell you, there was generous warmth in good old English cheer; I tell you, 't was a pleasant thought to drink its symbol here. "Tis but the fool that loves excess: hast thou a drunken soul? Thy bane is in thy shallow skull-not in my silver bowl! I love the memory of the past-its press'd yet fragrant flowers The moss that clothes its broken walls, the ivy on its towers Nay, this poor bauble it bequeath'd: my eyes grow moist and dim, To think of all the vanish'd joys that danced around its brim. |