A Poem For The Meeting Of The American Medical Association At New York, May 5, 1853

I hold a letter in my hand, -     A flattering letter, more's the pity, -     By some contriving junto planned,     And signed per order of Committee.     It touches every tenderest spot, -     My patriotic predilections,     My well-known-something - don't ask what, -     My poor old songs, my kind affections.     They make a feast on Thursday next,     And hope to make the feasters merry;     They own they're something more perplexed     For poets than for port and sherry.     They want the men of - (word torn out);     Our friends will come with anxious faces,     (To see our blankets off, no doubt,     And trot us out and show our paces.)     They hint that papers by the score     Are rather musty kind of rations, -     They don't exactly mean a bore,     But only trying to the patience;     That such as - you know who I mean -     Distinguished for their - what d' ye call 'em -     Should bring the dews of Hippocrene     To sprinkle on the faces solemn.      - The same old story: that's the chaff     To catch the birds that sing the ditties;     Upon my soul, it makes me laugh     To read these letters from Committees!     They're all so loving and so fair, -     All for your sake such kind compunction;     'T would save your carriage half its wear     To touch its wheels with such an unction!     Why, who am I, to lift me here     And beg such learned folk to listen,     To ask a smile, or coax a tear     Beneath these stoic lids to glisten?     As well might some arterial thread     Ask the whole frame to feel it gushing,     While throbbing fierce from heel to head     The vast aortic tide was rushing.     As well some hair-like nerve might strain     To set its special streamlet going,     While through the myriad-channelled brain     The burning flood of thought was flowing;     Or trembling fibre strive to keep     The springing haunches gathered shorter,     While the scourged racer, leap on leap,     Was stretching through the last hot quarter!     Ah me! you take the bud that came     Self-sown in your poor garden's borders,     And hand it to the stately dame     That florists breed for, all she orders.     She thanks you, - it was kindly meant, -     (A pale afair, not worth the keeping,) -     Good morning; and your bud is sent     To join the tea-leaves used for sweeping.     Not always so, kind hearts and true, -     For such I know are round me beating;     Is not the bud I offer you,     Fresh gathered for the hour of meeting,     Pale though its outer leaves may be,     Rose-red in all its inner petals? -     Where the warm life we cannot see -     The life of love that gave it - settles.     We meet from regions far away,     Like rills from distant mountains streaming;     The sun is on Francisco's bay,     O'er Chesapeake the lighthouse gleaming;     While summer girds the still bayou     In chains of bloom, her bridal token,     Monadnock sees the sky grow blue,     His crystal bracelet yet unbroken.     Yet Nature bears the selfsame heart     Beneath her russet-mantled bosom     As where, with burning lips apart,     She breathes and white magnolias blossom;     The selfsame founts her chalice fill     With showery sunlight running over,     On fiery plain and frozen hill,     On myrtle-beds and fields of clover.     I give you Home! its crossing lines     United in one golden suture,     And showing every day that shines     The present growing to the future, -     A flag that bears a hundred stars     In one bright ring, with love for centre,     Fenced round with white and crimson bars     No prowling treason dares to enter!     O brothers, home may be a word     To make affection's living treasure,     The wave an angel might have stirred,     A stagnant pool of selfish pleasure;     HOME! It is where the day-star springs     And where the evening sun reposes,     Where'er the eagle spreads his wings,     From northern pines to southern roses!