The Early Poems of Oliver Wendell Holmes Author:Oliver Wendell Holmes Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: NOTES. Note i. Page i. " Scenes of my youth" This poem was commenced a few months subsequently to the author's return to his native village, after an abse... more »nce of nearly three years. Note 2. Page 9. A few lines, perhaps deficient in dignity, were introduced at this point, in delivering the poem, and are appended in this clandestine manner for the gratification of some of my audience. How many a stanza, blushing like the rose, Would turn to fustian if resolved to prose ! How many an epic, like a gilded crown, If some cold critic dared to melt it down, Roll in his crucible a shapeless mass, A grain of gold-leaf to a pound of brass! Shorn of their plumes, our moonstruck sonneteers Would seem but jackdaws croaking to the spheres r Our gay Lotharios, with their Byron curls, Would pine like oysters cheated of their pearls 1 Wo to the spectres of Parnassus' shade, If truth should mingle in the masquerade. Lo, as the songster's pale creations pass, Off come at once the " Dearest" and " Alas! " Crack go the lines and levers used to prop Top-heavy thoughts, and down at once they drop. Flowers weep for hours ; Love, shrieking for his dove, Finds not the solace that he seeks — above. Fast in the mire, through which in happier time He ambled dryshod on the stilts of rhyme, The prostrate poet finds at length a tongue To curse in prose the thankless stars he sung. And though, perchance, the haughty muse it shames, How deep the magic of harmonious names! How sure the story of romance to please, Whose rounded stanza ends with Heloise! How rich and full our intonations ride " On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side " ! But were her name some vulgar " proper noun," And Pambamarca changed to Belchertown, She might be pilloried for her doubtful fame, And no enthusiast would arise...« less