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admiring it. “
Dorothy Q.”
is perhaps the best of his short poems, as it is the most widely known.
The name itself is slightly humorous, but it is a perfect work of art, and the line,
Soft and low is a maiden's “Yes,”
has the beautiful hush of a sanctuary in it. A finer verse could not be written.
Also for a comic piece nothing equal to “The wonderful one-hoss
Shay” has appeared since
Burns's “Tam O'Shanter.”
It is based on a logical illusion which brings it down to recent times; and the gravity with which the story is narrated makes its impossibility all the more amusing.
The building of the chaise is described with a practical accuracy of detail, and yet with a poetical turn to every verse:
The hubs of logs from the “ Settler's ellum” ,--
Last of its timber,--they couldn't sell 'em;
Never an axe had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celerly-tips;
I believe that even cultivated readers have found more real satisfaction in the “One-
Hoss Shay” than in many a more celebrated lyric.
Doctor Holmes lived amid a comparatively narrow circle of friends and acquaintances.
He attended the
Saturday Club, but
Lowell appears to have been the only member of it with whom he was on confidential terms.
He was rarely
