CONTENTMENT

'Man wants but little here below.'

LITTLE I ask; my wants are few;
I only wish a hut of stone
(A very plain brown stone will do)
That I may call my own;-
And close at hand is such a one,
In yonder street that fronts the sun.

Plain food is quite enough for me;
Three courses are as good as ten;-
If Nature can subsist on three,

Thank Heaven for three. Amen! I always thought cold victual nice; My choice would be vanilla-ice.

120

1858.

Busts, cameos, gems, such things as these,

Which others often show for pride, I value for their power to please,

And selfish churls deride;One Stradivarius, I confess,

Two Meerschaums, I would fain possess. 60

Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn,

Nor ape the glittering upstart fool;Shall not carved tables serve my turn,

But all must be of buhl ?

Give grasping pomp its double share, — I ask but one recumbent chair.

Thus humble let me live and die,
Nor long for Midas' golden touch;
If Heaven more generous gifts deny,
I shall not miss them much,-
Too grateful for the blessing lent
Of simple tastes and mind content!

70

1858.

374

Not where Leucadian breezes sweep

O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, But where the glistening night-dews weep On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow.

O hearts that break and give no sign

Save whitening lip and fading tresses, Till Death pours out his longed-for wine Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses,

If singing breath or echoing chord

To every hidden pang were given, What endless melodies were poured,

As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven!

1858.

No soul could sink beneath his love,—
Not even angel blasted;
No mortal power could soar above
The pride that all outlasted!

Ay! Heaven had set one living man
Beyond the pedant's tether,-
His virtues, frailties, HE may scan,
Who weighs them all together!

I fling my pebble on the cairn
Of him, though dead, undying;
Sweet Nature's nursling, bonniest bairn
Beneath her daisies lying.

The waning suns, the wasting globe,
Shall spare the minstrel's story,
The centuries weave his purple robe,
The mountain-mist of glory!

1859.

THE BOYS 1

40

50

(1861.)

HAS there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?

If there has, take him out, without making a noise.

1 For nearly forty years, from 1851 to 1889, Holmes never failed to bring a poem to the annual reunion of his college class. These poems, merely occasional,' and local as they were in origin, form a section in his collected works which is perhaps the most important, and, except for his best humorous narratives and his two finest lyrics, the most likely to survive; for, with all Holmes's characteristic wit and humor, they celebrate feelings that are broadly and typically American -class loyalty and college loyalty, and growing out of these, the loyalty of man's enduring friendship, and loyalty to country.

The famous class of '29' counted among its members a chief-justice of Massachusetts, George T. Bigelow (the 'Judge' of this poem); a justice of the United

Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At what the Moses was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill.
First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill,
And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half past nine by the meet'n'-house
clock,-

Just the hour of the Earthquake shock! 110
What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!
You see, of course, if you're not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once,
All at once, and nothing first,
Just as bubbles do when they burst.

End of the wonderful one-hoss shay Logic is logic. That's all I say.

CONTENTMENT

'Man wants but little here below.'

LITTLE I ask; my wants are few;
I only wish a hut of stone
(A very plain brown stone will do)
That I may call my own;—
And close at hand is such a one,
In yonder street that fronts the sun.

Plain food is quite enough for me;
Three courses are as good as ten;
If Nature can subsist on three,

Thank Heaven for three. Amen! I always thought cold victual nice; My choice would be vanilla-ice.

I care not much for gold or land;

Give me a mortgage here and there, Some good bank-stock, some note of hand, Or trifling railroad share,

I only ask that Fortune send
A little more than I shall spend.

Honors are silly toys, I know,
And titles are but empty names;
I would, perhaps, be Plenipo, —

But only near St. James;
I'm very sure I should not care
To fill our Gubernator's chair.

Jewels are baubles; 't is a sin

To care for such unfruitful things;

20

Smith transferred it to one of the BROWNS,
And took his money,-five silver crowns.
Brown delivered it up to MOORE,

Who paid, it is plain, not five, but four.
Moore made over the chair to LEE,

Who gave him crowns of silver three.
Lee conveyed it unto DREW,

And now the payment, of course, was two.
Drew gave up the chair to DUNN, -
All he got, as you see, was one.
Dunn released the chair to HALL,
And got by the bargain no crown at all.

80

And so the sum kept gathering still Till after the battle of Bunker's Hill.

When paper money became so cheap,
Folks would n't count it, but said 'a heap,'
A certain RICHARDS, the books de-
clare

--

(A. M. in '90? I've looked with care
Through the Triennial, name not there),—
This person, Richards, was offered then
Eightscore pounds, but would have ten; 100
Nine, I think, was the sum he took,
Not quite certain, but see the book.
By and by the wars were still,
But nothing had altered the Parson's will.
The old arm-chair was solid yet,
But saddled with such a monstrous debt!
Things grew quite too bad to bear,
Paying such sums to get rid of the chair!
But dead men's fingers hold awful tight,
And there was the will in black and white,
Plain enough for a child to spell.

III

What should be done no man could tell, For the chair was a kind of nightmare

About those conditions?' Well, now you

140

go
And do as I tell you, and then you'll know.
Once a year, on Commencement day,
If you'll only take the pains to stay,
You'll see the President in the CHAIR,
Likewise the Governor sitting there.
The President rises; both old and young
May hear his speech in a foreign tongue,
The meaning whereof, as lawyers swear,
Is this: Can I keep this old arm-chair?
And then his Excellency bows,

As much as to say that he allows.
The Vice-Gub. next is called by name;
He bows like t' other, which means the