OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. ROBINSON OF LEYDEN. HE sleeps not here; in hope and prayer His wandering flock had gone before, But he, the shepherd, might not share Their sorrows on the wintry shore. Before the Speedwell's anchor swung, Ere yet the Mayflower's sail was spread, 221 Still cry them, and the world shall hear, Ye dwellers by the storm-swept sea! Ye have not built by Haerlem Meer, Nor on the land-locked Zuyder-Zee! THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE; While round his feet the Pilgrims clung, OR, THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY." The pastor spake, and thus he said : "Men, brethren, sisters, children dear! "Ye go to bear the saving word "Yet think not unto them was lent All light for all the coming days, And Heaven's eternal wisdom spent In making straight the ancient ways: "The living fountain overflows For every flock, for every lamb, Nor heeds, though angry creeds oppose, With Luther's dike or Calvin's dam." He spake with lingering, long embrace, With tears of love and partings fond, They floated down the creeping Maas, Along the isle of Ysselmond. They passed the frowning towers of Briel, The "Hook of Holland's" shelf of sand, And grated soon with lifting keel The sullen shores of Fatherland. No home for these!-too well they knew The mitred king behind the throne;The sails were set, the pennons flew, And westward ho! for worlds unknown. And these were they who gave us birth, The Pilgrims of the sunset wave, Who won for us this virgin earth, And freedom with the soil they gave. The pastor slumbers by the Rhine, - A LOGICAL STORY. HAVE you heard of the wonderful onehoss shay, That was built in such a logical way Seventeen hundred and fifty-five. Now in building of chaises, I tell you what, There is always somewhere a weakest spot, In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill, Find it somewhere you must and will, - Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the Little of all we value here Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year Without both feeling and looking queer. In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth, So far as I know, but a tree and truth. (This is a moral that runs at large; Take it. -You're welcome. -No extra charge.) The parson was working his Sunday's text, Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed - 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! 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,→ OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. All at once, and nothing first, 223 Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. THIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main, In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies revealed, Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! UNDER THE VIOLETS. HER hands are cold; her face is white; But not beneath a graven stone, To plead for tears with alien eyes; Shall say, that here a maiden lies And gray old trees of hugest limb Shall wheel their circling shadows round To make the scorching sunlight dim That drinks the greenness from the ground, And drop their dead leaves on her mound. When o'er their boughs the squirrels run, And through their leaves the robins call, And, ripening in the autumn sun, Stretched in his last-found home, and For her the morning choir shall sing knew the old no more. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathéd horn! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: Its matins from the branches high, When, turning round their dial-track, At last the rootlets of the trees Build thee more stately mansions, O my And bear the buried dust they seize soul, As the swift seasons roll! In leaves and blossoms to the skies. So may the soul that warmed it rise! If any, born of kindlier blood, That tried to blossom in the snow, JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. [U. S. A.] THE HERITAGE. THE rich man's son inherits lands, And tender flesh that fears the cold, The rich man's son inherits cares; The bank may break, the factory burn, A breath may burst his bubble shares, And soft, white hands could hardly earn A living that would serve his turn; A heritage, it seems to me, One scarce would wish to hold in fee. The rich man's son inherits wants, His stomach craves for dainty fare; With sated heart, he hears the pants Of toiling hinds with brown arms bare, And wearies in his easy chair; A heritage, it seems to me, One scarce would wish to hold in fee. What doth the poor man's son inherit? Stout muscles and a sinewy heart, A hardy frame, a hardier spirit; King of two hands, he does his part A heritage, it seems to me, What doth the poor man's son inherit? What doth the poor man's son inherit? A patience learned by being poor, Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it, poor man's son scorn not thy state; There is worse weariness than thine, In merely being rich and great; Toil only gives the soul to shine, And makes rest fragrant and benign; A heritage, it seems to me, Worth being poor to hold in fee. Both, heirs to some six feet of sod, Are equal in the earth at last; |