The toast "Our Guest," was prefaced by the following quotation from Emerson:
"One would say here is a man with such an abundance of thought! He is never dull, never insincere, and has the genius to make the reader care for all that he cares for."
As Doctor Holmes rose, the room fairly shook with applause. Without any prefatory remarks, he then read the following poem:
Have I deserved your kindness? Nay, my friends;
While the fair banquet its illusion lends,
Let me believe it, though the blood may rush
And to my cheek recall the maiden blush
That o'er it flamed with momentary blaze
When first I heard the honeyed words of praise;
Let me believe it while the roses wear
Their bloom unwithering in the heated air;
Too soon, too soon their glowing leaves must fall,
The laughing echoes leave the silent hall,
Joy drop his garland, turn his empty cup,
And weary labor take his burden up,—
How weigh that burden they can tell alone
Whose dial marks no moment as their own.
Am I your creditor? Too well I know
How Friendship pays the debt it does not owe,
Shapes a poor semblance fondly to its mind,
Adds all the virtues that it fails to find,
Adorns with graces to its heart's content,
Borrows from love what nature never lent,
Till what with halo, jewels, gilding, paint,
The veriest sinner deems himself a saint.
Thus while you pay these honors as my due,
I owe my value's larger part to you;
And in the tribute of the hour I see
Not what I am, but what I ought to be.
Friends of the Muse, to you of right belong
The first staid footsteps of my square-toed song;
Full well I know the strong heroic line
Has lost its fashion since I made it mine;
But there are tricks old singers will not learn,
And this grave measure still must serve my turn,
So the old bird resumes the self-same note
His first young summer wakened in his throat;
The self-same tune the old canary sings,
And all unchanged the bobolink's carol rings;
When the tired songsters of the day are still,
The thrush repeats his long-remembered trill;
Age alters not the crow's persistent caw,
The Yankee's "Haow," the stammering Briton's "Haw;"
And so the hand that takes the lyre for you
Plays the old tune on strings that once were new,
Nor let the rhymester of the hour deride
The straight-backed measure with its stately stride;
It gave the mighty voice of Dryden scope:
It sheathed the steel-bright epigrams of Pope;
In Goldsmith's verse it learned a sweeter strain,
Byron and Campbell wore its clanking chain;
I smile to listen while the critic's scorn
Flouts the proud purple kings have nobly worn;
Bid each new rhymer try his dainty skill
And mould his frozen phrases as he will;
We thank the artist for his neat device—
The shape is pleasing though the stuff is ice.
Fashions will change—the new costume allures—
Unfading still the better type endures;
While the slashed doublet of the cavalier
Gave the old knight the pomp of chanticleer,
Our last-hatched dandy with his glass and stick
Recalls the semblance of a new-born chick
(To match the model he is aiming at
He ought to wear an eggshell for a hat),
Which of these objects would a painter choose,
And which Velasquez or Vandyke refuse?
When your kind summons reached my calm retreat,
Who are the friends, I questioned, I shall meet?
Some in young manhood, shivering with desire
To feel the genial warmth of Fortune's fire—
Each with his bellows ready in his hand
To puff the flame just waiting to be fanned;
Some heads half-silvered, some with snow-white hair;
A crown ungarnished glistening here and there,
The mimic moonlight gleaming on the scalps
As evening's empress lights the shining Alps.
But count the crowds that throng your festal scenes—
How few that knew the century in its teens!
Save for the lingering handful fate befriends,
Life's busy day the Sabbath decade ends;
When that is over, how with what remains
Of Nature's outfit—muscle, nerve and brains?
Were this a pulpit, I should doubtless preach;
Were this a platform, I should gravely teach;
But to no solemn duties I pretend
In my vocation at the table's end,
So as my answer let me tell instead
What Landlord Porter—rest his soul—once said.
A feast it was that none might scorn to share;
Cambridge and Concord demigods were there—
And who were they? You know as well as I
The stars long glittering in our Eastern sky—
The names that blazon our provincial scroll
Ring round the world with Britain's drumbeat roll!
Good was the dinner, better was the talk;
Some whispered, devious was the homeward walk;
The story came from some reporting spy—
They lie, those fellows—Oh, how they do lie!
Not ours those foot tracks in the new fallen snow—
Poets and sages never zigzagged so!