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The Height of the Ridiculous by Oliver Wendell Holmes
I WROTE some lines once on a time
In wondrous merry mood,
And thought, as usual, men would say
They were exceeding good.
They were so queer, so very queer,
I laughed as I would die;
Albeit, in the general way,
A sober man am I.
I called my servant, and he came;
How kind it was of him
To mind a slender man like me,
He of the mighty limb.
'These to the printer,' I exclaimed,
And, in my humorous way,
I added, (as a trifling jest,)
'There'll be the devil to pay.'
He took the paper, and I watched,
And saw him peep within;
At the first line he read, his face
Was all upon the grin.
He read the next; the grin grew broad,
And shot from ear to ear;
He read the third; a chuckling noise
I now began to hear.
The fourth; he broke into a roar;
The fifth; his waistband split;
The sixth; he burst five buttons off,
And tumbled in a fit.
Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,
I watched that wretched man,
And since, I never dare to write
As funny as I can.
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Rise, O Days by Walt Whitman
Rise, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer
sweep!
Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devour'd what the earth gave
me;
Long I roam'd the woods of the north--long I watch'd Niagara pouring;
I travel'd the prairies over, and slept on their breast--I cross'd
the Nevadas, I cross'd the plateaus;
I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sail'd out to sea;
I sail'd through the storm, I was refresh'd by the storm;
I watch'd with joy the threatening maws of the waves;
I mark'd the white combs where they career'd so high, curling over;
I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds;
Saw from below what arose and mounted, (O superb! O wild as my heart,
and powerful!)
Heard the continuous thunder, as it bellow'd after the lightning;
Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning, as sudden and fast
amid the din they chased each other across the sky;
--These, and such as these, I, elate, saw--saw with wonder, yet
pensive and masterful;
All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me;
Yet there with my soul I fed--I fed content, supercilious.
'Twas well, O soul! 'twas a good preparation you gave me!
Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill;
Now we go forth to receive what the earth and the sea never gave us;
Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the mightier cities;
Something for us is pouring now, more than Niagara pouring;
Torrents of men, (sources and rills of the Northwest, are you indeed
inexhaustible?)
What, to pavements and homesteads here--what were those storms of the
mountains and sea?
What, to passions I witness around me to-day? Was the sea risen?
Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds?
Lo! from deeps more unfathomable, something more deadly and savage;
Manhattan, rising, advancing with menacing front--Cincinnati,
Chicago, unchain'd;
--What was that swell I saw on the ocean? behold what comes here!
How it climbs with daring feet and hands! how it dashes!
How the true thunder bellows after the lightning! how bright the
flashes of lightning!
How DEMOCRACY, with desperate vengeful port strides on, shown through
the dark by those flashes of lightning!
(Yet a mournful wail and low sob I fancied I heard through the dark,
In a lull of the deafening confusion.)
Thunder on! stride on, Democracy! strike with vengeful stroke!
And do you rise higher than ever yet, O days, O cities!
Crash heavier, heavier yet, O storms! you have done me good;
My soul, prepared in the mountains, absorbs your immortal strong
nutriment;
--Long had I walk'd my cities, my country roads, through farms, only
half-satisfied;
One doubt, nauseous, undulating like a snake, crawl'd on the ground
before me,
Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically
hissing low;
--The cities I loved so well, I abandon'd and left--I sped to the
certainties suitable to me;
Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies, and Nature's
dauntlessness,
I refresh'd myself with it only, I could relish it only;
I waited the bursting forth of the pent fire--on the water and air I
waited long;
--But now I no longer wait--I am fully satisfied--I am glutted;
I have witness'd the true lightning--I have witness'd my cities
electric;
I have lived to behold man burst forth, and warlike America rise;
Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern solitary wilds,
No more on the mountains roam, or sail the stormy sea.
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There was an Old Man of Quebec by Edward Lear
There was an Old Man of Quebec,
A beetle ran over his neck;
But he cried, 'With a needle,
I'll slay you, O beadle!'
That angry Old Man of Quebec.
= = = = = = = = = =
To A Stranger by Walt Whitman
Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me,
as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate,
chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me,
I ate with you, and slept with you--your body has become not yours
only, nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass--you
take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you--I am to think of you when I sit alone, or
wake at night alone,
I am to wait--I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
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