The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes Part 57

HIS TEMPTATION

No fear lest praise should make us proud!

We know how cheaply that is won; The idle homage of the crowd Is proof of tasks as idly done.

A surface-smile may pay the toil That follows still the conquering Right, With soft, white hands to dress the spoil That sun-browned valor clutched in fight.

Sing the sweet song of other days, Serenely placid, safely true, And o'er the present's parching ways The verse distils like evening dew.

But speak in words of living power,-- They fall like drops of scalding rain That plashed before the burning shower Swept o' er the cities of the plain!

Then scowling Hate turns deadly pale,-- Then Pa.s.sion's half-coiled adders spring, And, smitten through their leprous mail, Strike right and left in hope to sting.

If thou, unmoved by poisoning wrath, Thy feet on earth, thy heart above, Canst walk in peace thy kingly path, Unchanged in trust, unchilled in love,--

Too kind for bitter words to grieve, Too firm for clamor to dismay, When Faith forbids thee to believe, And Meekness calls to disobey,--

Ah, then beware of mortal pride!

The smiling pride that calmly scorns Those foolish fingers, crimson dyed In laboring on thy crown of thorns!

THE OPENING OF THE PIANO

IN the little southern parlor of the house you may have seen With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the green, At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right, Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of to-night!

Ah me I how I remember the evening when it came!

What a cry of eager voices, what a group of cheeks in flame, When the wondrous box was opened that had come from over seas, With its smell of mastic-varnish and its flash of ivory keys!

Then the children all grew fretful in the restlessness of joy, For the boy would push his sister, and the sister crowd the boy, Till the father asked for quiet in his grave paternal way, But the mother hushed the tumult with the words, "Now, Mary, play."

For the dear soul knew that music was a very sovereign balm; She had sprinkled it over Sorrow and seen its brow grow calm, In the days of slender harpsichords with tapping tinkling quills, Or carolling to her spinet with its thin metallic thrills.

So Mary, the household minstrel, who always loved to please, Sat down to the new "Clementi," and struck the glittering keys.

Hushed were the children's voices, and every eye grew dim, As, floating from lip and finger, arose the "Vesper Hymn."

Catharine, child of a neighbor, curly and rosy-red, (Wedded since, and a widow,--something like ten years dead,) Hearing a gush of music such as none before, Steals from her mother's chamber and peeps at the open door.

Just as the "Jubilate" in threaded whisper dies, "Open it! open it, lady!" the little maiden cries, (For she thought 't was a singing creature caged in a box she heard,) "Open it! open it, lady! and let me see the _bird!_"

MIDSUMMER

HERE! sweep these foolish leaves away, I will not crush my brains to-day!

Look! are the southern curtains drawn?

Fetch me a fan, and so begone!

Not that,--the palm-tree's rustling leaf Brought from a parching coral-reef Its breath is heated;--I would swing The broad gray plumes,--the eagle's wing.

I hate these roses' feverish blood!

Pluck me a half-blown lily-bud, A long-stemmed lily from the lake, Cold as a coiling water-snake.

Rain me sweet odors on the air, And wheel me up my Indian chair, And spread some book not overwise Flat out before my sleepy eyes.

Who knows it not,--this dead recoil Of weary fibres stretched with toil,-- The pulse that flutters faint and low When Summer's seething breezes blow!

O Nature! bare thy loving breast, And give thy child one hour of rest,-- One little hour to lie unseen Beneath thy scarf of leafy green!

So, curtained by a singing pine, Its murmuring voice shall blend with mine, Till, lost in dreams, my faltering lay In sweeter music dies away.

DE SAUTY

AN ELECTRO-CHEMICAL ECLOGUE

The first messages received through the submarine cable were sent by an electrical expert, a mysterious personage who signed himself De Sauty.

Professor Blue-Nose

PROFESSOR TELL me, O Provincial! speak, Ceruleo-Nasal!

Lives there one De Sauty extant now among you, Whispering Boanerges, son of silent thunder, Holding talk with nations?

Is there a De Sauty ambulant on Tellus, Bifid-cleft like mortals, dormient in nightcap, Having sight, smell, hearing, food-receiving feature Three times daily patent?

Breathes there such a being, O Ceruleo-Nasal?

Or is he a _mythus_,--ancient word for "humbug"-- Such as Livy told about the wolf that wet-nursed Romulus and Remus?

Was he born of woman, this alleged De Sauty?

Or a living product of galvanic action, Like the acarus bred in Crosse's flint-solution?

Speak, thou Cyano-Rhinal!

BLUE-NOSE Many things thou askest, jackknife-bearing stranger, Much-conjecturing mortal, pork-and-treacle-waster!

Pretermit thy whittling, wheel thine ear-flap toward me, Thou shall hear them answered.

When the charge galvanic tingled through the cable, At the polar focus of the wire electric Suddenly appeared a white-faced man among us Called himself "DE SAUTY."

As the small opossum held in pouch maternal Grasps the nutrient organ whence the term mammalia, So the unknown stranger held the wire electric, Sucking in the current.

When the current strengthened, bloomed the pale-faced stranger,-- Took no drink nor victual, yet grew fat and rosy,-- And from time to time, in sharp articulation, Said, "All right! DE SAUTY."

From the lonely station pa.s.sed the utterance, spreading Through the pines and hemlocks to the groves of steeples, Till the land was filled with loud reverberations Of "_All right_ DE SAUTY."