This erring lip its smiles Vowed she should make the finest girl He sent her to a stylish school; They braced my aunt against a board, They laced her up, they starved her down, They pinched her feet, they singed her hair, Oh, never mortal suffered more So, when my precious aunt was done, "What could this lovely creature do Against a desperate man!” Alas! nor chariot, nor barouche, Nor bandit cavalcade, Tore from the trembling father's arms His all-accomplished maid. For her how happy had it been! -Oliver Wendell Holmes THE LAST LEAF I saw him once before, As he passed by the door, The pavement stones resound, They say that in his prime, Not a better man was found But now he walks the streets, And he shakes his feeble head, That it seems as if he said, The mossy marbles rest On the lips that he has pressed THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS FROM The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; Wrecked is the ship of pearl! And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies revealed, Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and 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 wreathed horn! While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! - Oliver Wendell Holmes OLD IRONSIDES Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! And burst the cannon's roar; — The meteor of the ocean air Shall sweep the clouds no more. Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, No more shall feel the victor's tread, Oh, better that her shattered hulk Her thunders shook the mighty deep, |