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Above thy head our flag shall spread,
Our ocean path be thine!

The bark sails on; the Pilgrim's cape
Lies low along her lee,

Whose headland crooks its anchor-flukes
To lock the shore and sea.

No treason here! it cost too dear

To win this barren realm!

And true and free the hands must be
That hold the whaler's helm!

Still on! Manhattan's narrowing bay
No Rebel cruiser scars;
Her waters feel no pirate's keel

That flaunts the fallen stars!

But watch the light on yonder height,—
Ay, pilot, have a care!

Some lingering cloud in mist may shroud
The capes of Delaware!

Say, pilot, what this fort may be,

Whose sentinels look down

From moated walls that show the sea
Their deep embrasures' frown?
The Rebel host claims all the coast,
But these are friends, we know,

Whose footprints spoil the "sacred soil,"
And this is?-Fort Monroe!

The breakers roar,-how bears the shore?
The traitorous wreckers' hands

Have quenched the blaze that poured its rays

Along the Hatteras sands.

Ha! say not so! I see its glow!

Again the shoals display

The beacon light that shines by night,

The Union Stars by day!

The good ship flies to milder skies,

The wave more g 1.tly flows,

The softening breeze wafts o'er the seas
The breath of Beaufort's rose.

What fold is this the sweet winds kiss,
Fair-striped and many-starred,

Whose shadow palls these orphaned walls,
The twins of Beauregard?

What! heard you not Port Royal's doom?
How the black war-ships came

And turned the Beaufort's roses' bloom

To redder wreaths of fame?
How from Rebellion's broken reed
We saw his emblem fall,

As soon his cursed poison-weed
Shall drop from Sumter's wall?

On! on! Pulaski's iron hail

Falls harmless on Tybee!

Her topsails feel the freshening gale,
She strikes the open sea;

She rounds the point, she threads the keys
That guard the Land of Flowers,
And rides at last where firm and fast
Her own Gibraltar towers!

The good ship Union's voyage is o'er,
At anchor safe she swings,

And loud and clear with cheer on cheer
Her joyous welcome rings:

Hurrah! Hurrah! it shakes the wave,

It thunders on the shore,

One flag, one land, one heart, one hand,
One Nation, evermore!

Our poet's pen is still active, employing itself now in prose, And now in verse, both grave and gay, or tender and caustic, as may be seen from month to month on the pages of our leading periodicals. His latest work is Mechanism in Thought and Morals.*

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"The muse of Holmes is a foe to humbug. He clears the moral atmosphere of the morbid literary and other pretences afloat. People breathe freer for his verse. They shake the cobwebs out of the system, and keep up in * See Supplement G.

12

the world that brisk, healthy current of common sense, which is to the mind what circulation is to the body."* We present the following as one of his most literally rejuvenating poems.

"THE BOYS."

HAS there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?
If there has, take him out, without making a noise.
Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite!
Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night!

We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more?
He's tipsy,-young jackanapes!-show him the door!
“Gray temples at twenty?—Yes! white if we please;
Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze!

Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake!
Look close, you will see not a sign of a flake!

We want some new garlands for those we have shed—
And these are white roses in place of the red.

We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told,
Of talking (in public) as if we were old:-

That boy we call "Doctor," and this we call "Judge;"
It's a neat little fiction,-of course it's all fudge.

That fellow's the "Speaker," the one on the right; 'Mr. Mayor," my young one, how are you to-night? That's our 66 Member of Congress," we say when we chaff; There's the "Reverend" What's his name?-don't make me laugh.

That boy with the grave mathematical look

Made believe he had written a wonderful book,

And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was true!

So they chose him right in,-a good joke it was too!

There's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain,
That could harness a team with a logical chain;
When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire,
We called him "The Justice," but now he's "The Squize.”
* Duyckinck's Cyclopædia of American Literature.

And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith,-
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith;
But he shouted a song for the brave and the free,-
Just read on his medal, “My country," "of thee!"

You hear that boy laughing?-You think he's all fun;
But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done;
The children laugh loud as they troop at his call,
And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all!
Yes, we're boys,-always playing with tongue or with pen;
And I sometimes have asked, Shall we ever be men?
Shall we always be youthful, and laughing and gay,
Till the last dear companion drops smiling away?

Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray!
The stars of its winter, the dews of its May!
And when we have done with our life-lasting toys,
Dear Father, take care of thy children, THE BOYS!

It is not a little singular to note with what unanimity critics, both American and English, agree as touching Holmes' literary character, not only as a whole, but in respect also to its minor qualities. Let us briefly instance the testimony of a few.

"The most concise, apt, and effective poet of the school of Pope this country has produced is Oliver Wendell Holmes.'

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"He possesses Swift's quaintness and motley merri. ment, Pope's polish and graceful point, and the solemn pathos and allied excruciating mirth of Hood."†/

"His fancy teems with bright and appropriate images, and these are woven into his plan usually with exquisite finish and grace." ‡

"His lyrics ring and sparkle like cataracts of silver, and his serious pieces-as successful in their way as those mirthful frolics of his muse for which he is best honored-arrest the attention by touches of the most genuine pathos and tenderness."§ As, for instance,

*H. T. Tuckerman.

‡ North American Review, Jan., 1847.

+ Irish Quarterly Review.

2 R. W. Griswold.

UNDER THE VIOLETS.

HER hands are cold; her face is white;
No more her pulses come and go;
Her eyes are shut to life and light;
Fold the white vesture, snow on snow,
And lay her where the violets blow.

But not beneath a graven stone,

To plead for tears with alien eyes;
A slender cross of wood alone

Shall say, that here a maiden lies
In peace beneath the peaceful skies.

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 drops 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,

The acorns and the chestnuts fall,
Doubt not that she will heed them all.

For her the morning choir shall sing
Its matins from the branches high,
And every minstrel voice of Spring,
That thrills beneath the April sky,
Shall greet her with its earliest cry.

When, turning round their dial-track,
Eastward the lengthening shadows pass,
Her little mourners, clad in black,
The crickets, sliding through the grass,
Shall pipe for her an evening mass.

At last the rootlets of the trees

Shall find the prison where she lies,
And bear the buried dust they seize
In leaves and blossoms to the skies.
So may the soul that warmed it rise'

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