There's _Holmes_, who is matchless among you for wit, A Leyden jar always full-charged, from which flit The electrical tingles of hit after hit. In long poems 'tis painful sometimes, and invites A thought of the way the new telegraph writes, Which pricks down its little sharp sentences spitefully, As if you got more than you'd title to rightfully. And you find yourself hoping its wild father Lightning Would flame in for a second and give you a fright'ning. He has perfect sway of what I call a sham metre, But many admire it, the English pentameter, And Campbell, I think, wrote most commonly worse. With less nerve, swing and fire, in the same kind of verse. Nor e'er achieved aught in 't so worthy of praise As the tribute of Holmes to the grand _Marseillaise_. You went crazy last year over Bulwer's _New Simon_; Why, if B., to the day of his dying should rhyme on, Heaping verses on verses and tomes upon tomes, He could ne'er reach the best point and vigor of Holmes! His are just the fine hands, too, to weave you a lyric Full of fancy, fun, feeling, or spiced with satyric In a measure so kindly, you doubt if the toes That are trodden upon, are your own or your foes. This tribute of Holmes to the grand Marseillaise is indeed one of the finest passages in a poem abounding in point and vigor, as well as in fancy and feeling. Who can read these stirring lines without a sympathetic thrill for the watching, weeping Rouget de l'Isle, composing in one night both music and words of the nameless song? The city slept beneath the moonbeam's glance, Her white walls gleaming through the vines of France, And all was hushed save where the footsteps fell On some high tower, of midnight sentinel. But one still watched; no self-encircled woes Chased from his lids the angel of repose; He watched, he wept, for thoughts of bitter years Bowed his dark lashes, wet with burning tears; His country's sufferings and her children's shame Streamed o'er his memory like a forest's flame, Each treasured insult, each remembered wrong, Rolled through his heart and kindled into song; His taper faded; and the morning gales Swept through the world the war song of Marseilles! In this same Phi Beta Kappa poem may be found that beautiful pastoral, _The Cambridge Churchyard_, and Since the lyric dress Relieves the statelier with its sprightliness, the stirring verses on _Old Ironsides_ are here repeated. Said one who heard young Holmes deliver this poem in the college church: "Extremely youthful in his appearance, bubbling over with the mingled humor and pathos that have always marked his poetry, and sparkling with the coruscations of his peculiar genius, he delivered the poem with a clear, ringing enunciation which imparted to the hearers his own enjoyment of his thoughts and expressions." CHAPTER VI.