



Produced by David Widger





                           THE POETICAL WORKS

                                   OF

                         OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

                 [Volume 3 of the 1893 three volume set]



                     VERSES FROM THE OLDEST PORTFOLIO

          FROM THE "COLLEGIAN," 1830, ILLUSTRATED ANNUALS, ETC.




     FIRST VERSES: TRANSLATION FROM THE THE MEETING OF THE DRYADS
     THE MYSTERIOUS VISITOR
     THE TOADSTOOL
     THE SPECTRE PIG
     TO A CAGED LION
     THE STAR AND THE WATER-LILY
     ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE: "A SPANISH GIRL REVERIE"
     A ROMAN AQUEDUCT
     FROM A BACHELOR'S PRIVATE JOURNAL
     LA GRISETTE
     OUR YANKEE GIRLS
     L'INCONNUE
     STANZAS
     LINES BY A CLERK
     THE PHILOSOPHER TO HIS LOVE
     THE POET'S LOT
     TO A BLANK SHEET OF PAPER
     TO THE PORTRAIT OF "A GENTLEMAN" IN THE ATHENAEUM GALLERY
     THE BALLAD OF THE OYSTERMAN
     A NOONTIDE LYRIC
     THE HOT SEASON
     A PORTRAIT
     AN EVENING THOUGHT.  WRITTEN AT SEA
     THE WASP AND THE HORNET
     "QUI VIVE?"




VERSES FROM THE OLDEST PORTFOLIO

     Nescit vox missa reverti.--Horat. Ars Poetica.
     Ab lis qua non adjuvant quam mollissime oportet pedem referre.--
     Quintillian, L. VI. C. 4.


These verses have always been printed in my collected poems, and as the
best of them may bear a single reading, I allow them to appear, but in a
less conspicuous position than the other productions.  A chick, before
his shell is off his back, is hardly a fair subject for severe criticism.
If one has written anything worth preserving, his first efforts may be
objects of interest and curiosity.  Other young authors may take
encouragement from seeing how tame, how feeble, how commonplace were the
rudimentary attempts of the half-fledged poet. If the boy or youth had
anything in him, there will probably be some sign of it in the midst of
his imitative mediocrities and ambitious failures.  These "first verses"
of mine, written before I was sixteen, have little beyond a common
academy boy's ordinary performance.  Yet a kindly critic said there was
one line which showed a poetical quality:--

                 "The boiling ocean trembled into calm."

One of these poems--the reader may guess which--won fair words from
Thackeray. The Spectre Pig was a wicked suggestion which came into my
head after reading Dana's Buccaneer. Nobody seemed to find it out, and
I never mentioned it to the venerable poet, who might not have been
pleased with the parody.  This is enough to say of these unvalued copies
of verses.


                               FIRST VERSES

              PHILLIPS ACADEMY, ANDOVER, MASS., 1824 OR 1825


TRANSLATION FROM THE ENEID, BOOK I.

THE god looked out upon the troubled deep
Waked into tumult from its placid sleep;
The flame of anger kindles in his eye
As the wild waves ascend the lowering sky;
He lifts his head above their awful height
And to the distant fleet directs his sight,
Now borne aloft upon the billow's crest,
Struck by the bolt or by the winds oppressed,
And well he knew that Juno's vengeful ire
Frowned from those clouds and sparkled in that fire.
On rapid pinions as they whistled by
He calls swift Zephyrus and Eurus nigh
Is this your glory in a noble line
To leave your confines and to ravage mine?
Whom I--but let these troubled waves subside--
Another tempest and I'll quell your pride!
Go--bear our message to your master's ear,
That wide as ocean I am despot here;
Let him sit monarch in his barren caves,
I wield the trident and control the waves
He said, and as the gathered vapors break
The swelling ocean seemed a peaceful lake;
To lift their ships the graceful nymphs essayed
And the strong trident lent its powerful aid;
The dangerous banks are sunk beneath the main,
And the light chariot skims the unruffled plain.
As when sedition fires the public mind,
And maddening fury leads the rabble blind,
The blazing torch lights up the dread alarm,
Rage points the steel and fury nerves the arm,
Then, if some reverend Sage appear in sight,
They stand--they gaze, and check their headlong flight,--
He turns the current of each wandering breast
And hushes every passion into rest,--
Thus by the