Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At what the Moses - was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill.
First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill, -
And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half past nine by the meet'n'-house
clock,-

Just the hour of the Earthquake shock! 110
What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!
You see, of course, if you 're not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once,
All at once, and nothing first,
Just as bubbles do when they burst.

End of the wonderful one-hoss shay
Logic is logic. That's all I say.

120

1858.

10

Busts, cameos, gems, such things as these,

Which others often show for pride, I value for their power to please,

And selfish churls deride;

One Stradivarius, I confess,
Two Meerschaums, I would fain possess. 60

Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn,

Nor ape the glittering upstart fool:Shall not carved tables serve my turn,

But all must be of buhl?

Give grasping pomp its double share, —
I ask but one recumbent chair.

Thus humble let me live and die,
Nor long for Midas' golden touch;
If Heaven more generous gifts deny,
I shall not miss them much,
Too grateful for the blessing lent
Of simple tastes and mind content!

70

1858.

Nicest place that ever was seen,Colleges red and Common green,

Sidewalks brownish with trees between. 20
Sweetest spot beneath the skies
When the canker-worms don't rise,
When the dust, that sometimes flies
Into your mouth and ears and eyes,
In a quiet slumber lies,

Not in the shape of unbaked pies
Such as barefoot children prize.

A kind of harbor it seems to be,
Facing the flow of a boundless sea.
Rows of gray old Tutors stand
Ranged like rocks above the sand;
Rolling beneath them, soft and green,
Breaks the tide of bright sixteen,

One wave, two waves, three waves, four, -
Sliding up the sparkling floor:
Then it ebbs to flow no more,
Wandering off from shore to shore
With its freight of golden ore !

Pleasant place for boys to play;—

Better keep your girls away;

Hearts get rolled as pebbles do

30

40

Which countless fingering waves pursue,
And
every classic beach is strown
With heart-shaped pebbles of blood-red

stone.

Smith transferred it to one of the BROWNS,
And took his money, five silver crowns.
Brown delivered it up to MOORE,

Who paid, it is plain, not five, but four.
Moore made over the chair to LEE,
Who gave him crowns of silver three.
Lee conveyed it unto DREW,

And now the payment, of course, was two.
Drew gave up the chair to Dunn, -
All he got, as you see, was one.
Dunn released the chair to HALL,
And got by the bargain no crown at all.

80

(A. M. in '90? I've looked with care
Through the Triennial, name not there),—
This person, Richards, was offered then
Eightscore pounds, but would have ten; 100
Nine, I think, was the sum he took,
Not quite certain, but see the book.
By and by the wars were still,

But nothing had altered the Parson's will.
The old arm-chair was solid yet,
But saddled with such a monstrous debt!
Things grew quite too bad to bear,
Paying such sums to get rid of the chair!
But dead men's fingers hold awful tight,
And there was the will in black and white,
Plain enough for a child to spell.

What should be done no man could tell, For the chair was a kind of nightmare

'About those conditions?' Well, now you

go

140

And do as I tell you, and then you'll know.
Once a year, on Commencement day,
If you'll only take the pains to stay,
You'll see the President in the CHAIR,
Likewise the Governor sitting there.
The President rises; both old and young
May hear his speech in a foreign tongue,
The meaning whereof, as lawyers swear,
Is this: Can I keep this old arm-chair?
And then his Excellency bows,

As much as to say that he allows.
The Vice-Gub. next is called by name;
He bows like t' other, which means the

1 For nearly forty years, from 1851 to 1889, Holmes never failed to bring a poem to the annual reunion of his college class. These poems, merely occasional,' and local as they were in origin, form a section in his collected works which is perhaps the most important, and, except for his best humorous narratives and his two finest lyrics, the most likely to survive; for, with all Holmes's characteristic wit and humor, they celebrate feelings that are broadly and typically American -class loyalty and college loyalty, and growing out of these, the loyalty of man's enduring friendship, and loyalty to country.

The famous class of '29' counted among its members a chief-justice of Massachusetts, George T. Bigelow (the 'Judge' of this poem); a justice of the United

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!

States Supreme Court, B. R. Curtis (the boy with the three-decker brain'); the great preacher, James Freeman Clarke; Professor Benjamin Peirce ('that boy with the grave mathematical look'); and the author of America,' S. F. Smith. For a full list of members of the class, see the Cambridge Edition of Holmes's Poetical Works, p. 340.

1 Hon. Francis B. Crowninshield, Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

2 G. W. Richardson, of Worcester, Massachusetts. Hon. George L. Davis.