For aught I know or care; 'tis enough that I look On the author of 'Margaret,' the first Yankee book With the soul of Down East in't, and things farther East, As far as the threshold of morning, at least, Where awaits the fair dawn of the simple and true, Of the day that comes slowly to make all things new. 'T has a smack of pine woods; of bare field and bleak hill Such as only the breed of the Mayflower could till; The Puritan's shown in it, tough to the core, Such as prayed, smiting Agag on red Marston With an unwilling humor, half-choked by the drouth Hamadryad-like, under the coarse, shaggy bark; That sees visions, knows wrestlings of God with the Will, And has its own Sinais and thunderings still." Here," Forgive me, Apollo,” I cried, “ while I pour My heart out to my birthplace: O, loved more and more Dear Baystate, from whose rocky bosom thy sons Should suck milk, strong-will-giving, brave, such as runs In the veins of old Graylock,-who is it that dares Call thee peddler, a soul wrapt in bank-books and shares ? It is false! She's a Poet! I see, as I write, Along the far railroad the steam-snake glide white, The cataract-throb of her mill-hearts I hear, Blocks swing to their place, beetles drive home the beams: It is songs such as these that she croons to the din Of her fast-flying shuttles, year out and year in, While from earth's farthest corner there comes not a breeze But wafts her the buzz of her gold-gleaning bees: What though those horn hands have as yet found small time For painting and sculpture and music and rhyme? These will come in due order, the need that pressed sorest Was to vanquish the seasons, the ocean, the forest, To bridle and harness the rivers, the steam, Making that whirl her mill-wheels, this tug in her team, To vassalize old tyrant Winter, and make Him delve surlily for her on river and lake ;When this New World was parted, she strove not to shirk Her lot in the heirdom, the tough, silent Work, Crowned the Maker and Builder, that glory is thine ! Thy songs are right epic, they tell how this rude Rock-rib of our earth here was tamed and sub dued; Thou hast written them plain on the face of the planet In brave, deathless letters of iron and granite; Thou hast printed them deep for all time; they are set From the same runic type-fount and alphabet They are staves from the burly old Mayflower lay. Or, if they deny these are Letters and Art, Toil on with the same old invincible heart; Thou art rearing the pedestal broad-based and grand Whereon the fair shapes of the Artist shall stand, And creating, through labors undaunted and long, The theme for all Sculpture and Painting and Song! "But my good mother Baystate wants no praise of mine, She learned from her mother a precept divine About something that butters no parsnips, her forte In another direction lies, work is her sport, (Though she'll curtsey and set her cap straight, that she will, If you talk about Plymouth and one Bunker's hill.) Dear, notable goodwife! by this time of night, bright, And she sits in a chair (of home plan and make) rocking, Musing much, all the while, as she darns on a stocking, ་ Whether turkeys will come pretty high next Thanksgiving, Whether flour 'll be so dear, for, as sure as she's living, She will use rye-and-injun then, whether the pig By this time ain't got pretty tolerable big, And whether to sell it outright will be best, Or to smoke hams and shoulders and salt down the rest,- ་ At this minute, she'd swop all my verses, ah, cruel! For the last patent stove that is saving of fuel; Shows I've kept him awaiting too long as it is." "If our friend, there, who seems a reporter, is done With his burst of emotion, why, I will go on," "There's Holmes, who is matchless among you for wit; A Leyden-jar always full-charged, from which flit In long poems 'tis painful sometimes and invites As if you got more than you'd title to rightfully, And you find yourself hoping its wild father Lightning Would flame in for a second and give you a fright'ning. He has perfect sway of what I call a sham metre, With less nerve, swing, and fire in the same kind of verse, Nor e'er achieved aught in't so worthy of praise laise. You went crazy last year over Bulwer's New Timon ; Why, if B., to the day of his dying, should rhyme. on, Heaping verses on verses and tomes upon tomes, He could ne'er reach the best point and vigor of Holmes. His are just the fine hands, too, to weave you a lyric Full of fancy, fun, feeling, or spiced with satyric That are trodden upon are your own or your foes'. "There is Lowell, who's striving Parnassus to climb With a whole bale of isms tied together with rhyme, He might get on alone, spite of brambles and boulders, But he can't with that bundle he has on his shoulders, The top of the hill he will ne'er come nigh reach ing Till he learns the distinction 'twixt singing and preaching; His lyre has some chords that would ring pretty well, But he'd rather by half make a drum of the shell, And rattle away till he's old as Methusalem, At the head of a march to the last new Jerusa lem. . |