XXIII

Then leapt heaven’s portals wide apart,
  And at their golden thunder
With sudden start I woke, my heart
  Still throbbing-full of wonder. 180
‘Father,’ I said, ’’tis known to Thee
  How Thou thy Saints preparest;
But this I see,—­Saint Charity
  Is still the first and fairest!’

XXIV

Dear Bard and Brother! let who may
  Against thy faults be railing,
(Though far, I pray, from us be they
  That never had a failing!)
One toast I’ll give, and that not long,
  Which thou wouldst pledge if present, 190
To him whose song, in nature strong,
  Makes man of prince and peasant!

IN AN ALBUM

The misspelt scrawl, upon the wall
By some Pompeian idler traced,
In ashes packed (ironic fact!)
Lies eighteen centuries uneffaced,
While many a page of bard and sage,
Deemed once mankind’s immortal gain,
Lost from Time’s ark, leaves no more mark
Than a keel’s furrow through the main.

O Chance and Change! our buzz’s range
Is scarcely wider than a fly’s;
Then let us play at fame to-day,
To-morrow be unknown and wise;
And while the fair beg locks of hair,
And autographs, and Lord knows what,
Quick! let us scratch our moment’s match,
Make our brief blaze, and be forgot!

Too pressed to wait, upon her slate
Fame writes a name or two in doubt;
Scarce written, these no longer please,
And her own finger rubs them out: 
It may ensue, fair girl, that you
Years hence this yellowing leaf may see,
And put to task, your memory ask
In vain, ‘This Lowell, who was he?’

AT THE COMMENCEMENT DINNER, 1866

IN ACKNOWLEDGING A TOAST TO THE SMITH PROFESSOR

I rise, Mr. Chairman, as both of us know,
With the impromptu I promised you three weeks ago,
Dragged up to my doom by your might and my mane,
To do what I vowed I’d do never again: 
And I feel like your good honest dough when possest
By a stirring, impertinent devil of yeast. 
‘You must rise,’ says the leaven.  ‘I can’t,’ says the dough;
‘Just examine my bumps, and you’ll see it’s no go.’ 
‘But you must,’ the tormentor insists, ’’tis all right;
You must rise when I bid you, and, what’s more, be light.’ 10

’Tis a dreadful oppression, this making men speak
What they’re sure to be sorry for all the next week;
Some poor stick requesting, like Aaron’s, to bud
Into eloquence, pathos, or wit in cold blood,
As if the dull brain that you vented your spite on
Could be got, like an ox, by mere poking, to Brighton.