A TAILOR'S POEM ON EVENING.

445

love. About and around him we call up no dissentient and discordant and dissatisfied elements-no sectional prejudice nor bias-no party, no creed, no dogma of politics. None of these shall assail him. Yes; when the storm of battle blows darkest and rages highest, the memory of Washington shall nerve every American arm, and cheer every American heart. It shall relume that Promethean fire, that sublime flame of patriotism, that devoted love of country which his words have commended, which his example has consecrated:

"Where may the wearied eye repose,

When gazing on the great;
Where neither guilty glory glows
Nor despicable state?
Yes-one-the first, the last, the best,
The Cincinnatus of the West,

Whom envy dared not hate,

Bequeathed the name of Washington,
To make man blush there was but one."

A TAILOR'S POEM ON EVENING.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

SAY hath put on his jacket, and
around

His burning bosom buttoned it with

stars.

Here will I lay me on the velvet grass,
That is like padding to earth's meagre
ribs,

And hold communion with the things about

me.

Ah me! how lovely is the golden braid
That binds the skirt of night's descending
robe!

The thin leaves, quivering on their silken
threads,

Do make a music like to rustling satin,
As the light breezes smooth their downy nap.

Ha! what is this that rises to my touch,
So like a cushion? Can it be a cabbage?
It is, it is that deeply injured flower,
Which boys do flout us with ;-but yet I love
thee,

Thou giant rose, wrapped in a green surtout.
Doubtless in Eden thou didst blush as bright
As these, thy puny brethren; and thy breath
Sweetened the fragrance of her spicy air;
But now thou seemest like a bankrupt beau,
Stripped of his gaudy hues and essences,
And growing portly in his sober garments.

Is that a swan that rides upon the water?
O no, it is that other gentle bird,
Which is the patron of our noble calling.
I well remember, in my early years,
When these young hands first closed upon a
goose;

I have a scar upon my thimble finger,
Which chronicles the hour of young ambition.
My father was a tailor, and his father,
And my sire's grandsire, all of them were
tailors;

They had an ancient goose,-it was an heir-
loom

From some remoter tailor of our race.

446

THE PELICAN.

It happened I did see it on a time
When none was near, and I did deal with it,
And it did burn me,-O, most fearfully!

It is a joy to straighten out one's limbs,
And leap elastic from the level counter,
Leaving the petty grievances of earth,
The breaking thread, the din of clashing
shears,

And all the needles that do wound the spirit.
For such a pensive hour of soothing silence,
Kind Nature, shuffling in her loose undress,

Lays bare her shady bosom;-I can feel
With all around me;-I can hail the flowers
That spring earth's mantle, and yon quiet
bird,

That rides the stream, is to me as a brother
The vulgar know not all the hidden pockets,
Where Nature stows away her loveliness.
But this unnatural posture of the legs
Cramps my extended calves, and I must go
Where I can coil them in their wonted
fashion.

A

THE PELICAN.

JAMES MONTGOMERY.

T early dawn I marked them in the | With terrible voracity, they plunged

sky,

Catching the morning colors on their

plumes;

Not in voluptuous pastime reveling

there,

Their heads among the affrighted shoals, and beat

A tempest on the surges with their wings, Till flashing clouds of foam and spray concealed them.

Among the rosy clouds, while orient Nimbly they seized and secreted their prey,

heaven

Flamed like the opening gates of Paradise,
Whence issued forth the angel of the sun,
And gladdened nature with returning day :
-Eager for food, their searching eyes they
fixed

On ocean's unrolled volume, from a height
That brought immensity within their scope;
Yet with such power of vision looked they
down,

Alive and wriggling in the elastic net;
Which Nature hung beneath their grasping

beaks,

Till, swollen with captures, the unwieldy

burden

Clogged their slow flight, as heavily to land
These mighty hunters of the deep returned.
There on the cragged cliffs they perched at

ease,

Gorging their helpless victims one by one; As though they watched the shell-fish slowly Then, full and weary, side by side they slept, gliding

O'er sunken rocks, or climbing trees of coral.
On indefatigable wing upheld,

Till evening roused them to the chase again.

Love found that lonely couple on their isle,

Breath, pulse, existence, seemed suspended And soon surrounded them with blithe com

in them:

They were as pictures painted on the sky;
Till suddenly, aslant, away they shot,

panions.

The noble birds, with skill spontaneous framed

Like meteors changed from stars to gleams of A nest of reeds among the giant-grass,

lightning,

And struck upon the deep, where, in wild play,

Their quarry floundered, unsuspecting harm;

That waved in lights and shadows o'er the soil.

There, in sweet thraldom, yet unweening why,

N the course of a voyage from England, I once fell in with a convoy of merchant ships, bound for the West Indies. The weather was uncommonly bland; and the ships vied with each other in spreading sail to catch a light, favorable breeze, until their hulls were almost hidden beneath a cloud of canvass. The breeze went down with the sun, and his last yellow rays shone upon a thousand sails, idly flapping against the masts.

I exulted in the beauty of the scene, and augured a prosperous voyage; but the veteran master of the ship shook his head, and pronounced this halcyon calm a "weather-breeder." And so it proved. A storm burst forth in the night; the sea roared and raged; and when the day broke, I beheld the gallant convoy scattered in every direction; some dismasted, others scudding under bare poles, and many firing signals of distress.

I have since been occasionally reminded of this scene by those calm, sunny seasons in the commercial world, which are known by the name of "times of unexampled prosperity." They are the sure weather-breeders of traffic. Every now and then the world is visited by one of these delusive seasons, when the "credit system," as it is called, expands to full luxuriance: everybody trusts everybody; a bad debt is a thing unheard of; the broad way to certain and sudden wealth lies plain and open; and men are tempted to dash forward boldly, from the facility of borrowing.

Promissory notes, interchanged between scheming individuals, are liberally discounted at the banks, which become so many mints to coin words into cash; and as the supply of words is inexhaustible, it may readily be supposed what a vast amount of promissory capital is soon in circulation. Everyone now talks in thousands; nothing is heard but

A TIME OF UNEXAMPLED PROSPERITY.

44

gigantic operations in trade; great purchases and sales of real property, and immense sums made at every transfer. All, to be sure, as yet exists in promise; but the believer in promises calculates the aggregate as solid capital, and falls back in amazement at the amount of public wealth, the unexampled state of public prosperity!"

Now is the time for speculative and dreaming or designing men. They relate their dreams and projects to the ignorant and credulous, dazzle them with golden visions, and set them maddening after shadows. The example of one stimulates another; speculation rises on speculation; bubble rises on bubble; everyone helps with his breath to swell the windy superstructure, and admires and wonders at the magnitude of the inflation he has contributed to produce.

Speculation is the romance of trade, and casts contempt upon all its sober realities. It renders the stock-jobber a magician, and the exchange a region of enchantment. It elevates the merchant into a kind of knighterrant, or rather a commercial Quixote. The slow but sure gains of snug percentage become despicable in his eyes: no "operation" is thought worthy of attention that does not double or treble the investment. No business is worth following that does not promise an immense fortune. As he sits musing over his ledger, with pen behind his ear, he is like La Mancha's hero, in his study, dreaming over his books of chivalry. His dusty counting-house fades before his eyes, or changes into a Spanish mine; he gropes after diamonds, or dives after pearls. The subterranean garden of Aladdin is nothing to the realms of wealth that break upon his imagina

tion.

Could this delusion always last, the life of a merchant would indeed be a golden dream; but it is as short as it is brilliant. Let but a doubt enter, and the "season of unexampled prosperity" is at an end. The coinage of words is suddenly curtailed; the promissory capital begins to vanish into smoke; a panic succeeds, and the whole superstructure, built upon credit, and reared by speculation, crumbles to the ground, leaving scarce a wreck behind.

"It is such stuff as dreams are made of." When a man of business, therefore, hears on every side rumors of fortunes suddenly acquired; when he finds banks liberal, and brokers busy; when he sees adventurers flush of paper capital, and full of scheme and enterprise; when he perceives a greater disposition to buy than to sell; when trade overflows its accustomed channels, and deluges the country; when he hears of new regions of commercial adventure; of distant marts and distant mines swallowing merchandise, and disgorging gold; when he finds joint stock companies of all kinds