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THE POETICAL WORKS OF OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES - VOLUME 10.
THE POETICAL WORKS OF OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES - VOLUME 10. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES THE POETICAL WORKS
OF
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
1893
(Printed in three volumes)
CONTENTS:
BEFORE THE CURFEW
AT MY FIRESIDE
AT THE SATURDAY CLUB
OUR DEAD SINGER. H. W. L.
TWO POEMS TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE ON HER SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY.
I. AT THE SUMMIT
II. THE WORLD'S HOMAGE
A WELCOME TO DR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
TO FREDERICK HENRY HEDGE ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY
TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY
PRELUDE TO A VOLUME PRINTED IN RAISED LETTERS
FOR THE BLIND
BOSTON TO FLORENCE
AT THE UNITARIAN FESTIVAL MARCH 8 1882
POEM FOR THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF
HARVARD COLLEGE
POST-PRANDIAL: PHI BETA KAPPA 1881
THE FLANEUR: DURING THE TRANSIT OF VENUS 1882
AVE
KING'S CHAPEL READ AT THE TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY
HYMN FOR THE SAME OCCASION
HYMN.--THE WORD OF PROMISE
HYMN READ AT THE DEDICATION OF THE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES HOSPITAL AT
HUDSON WISCONSIN JUNE 7 1887
ON THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD
THE GOLDEN FLOWER
HAIL COLUMBIA!
POEM FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE FOUNTAIN AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON
PRESENTED
BY GEORGE CHILDS OF PHILADELPHIA
TO THE POETS WHO ONLY READ AND LISTEN
FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE NEW CITY LIBRARY
FOR THE WINDOW IN ST. MARGARET'S
JAMES RUSSELL LO WELL: 1819-1891
BEFORE THE CURFEW
AT MY FIRESIDE
ALONE beneath the darkened sky
With saddened heart and unstrung lyre
I heap the spoils of years gone by
And leave them with a long-drawn sigh
Like drift-wood brands that glimmering lie
Before the ashes hide the fire.
Let not these slow declining days
The rosy light of dawn outlast;
Still round my lonely hearth it plays
And gilds the east with borrowed rays
While memory's mirrored sunset blaze
Flames on the windows of the past.
March 1 1888.
AT THE SATURDAY CLUB
THIS is our place of meeting; opposite
That towered and pillared building: look at it;
King's Chapel in the Second George's day
Rebellion stole its regal name away--
Stone Chapel sounded better; but at last
The poisoned name of our provincial past
Had lost its ancient venom; then once more
Stone Chapel was King's Chapel as before.
(So let rechristened North Street when it can
Bring back the days of Marlborough and Queen Anne!)
Next the old church your wandering eye will meet--
A granite pile that stares upon the street--
Our civic temple; slanderous tongues have said
Its shape was modelled from St. Botolph's head
Lofty but narrow; jealous passers-by
Say Boston always held her head too high.
Turn half-way round and let your look survey
The white facade that gleams across the way--
The many-windowed building tall and wide
The palace-inn that shows its northern side
In grateful shadow when the sunbeams beat
The granite wall in summer's scorching heat.
This is the place; whether its name you spell
Tavern or caravansera or hotel.
Would I could steal its echoes! you should find
Such store of vanished pleasures brought to mind
Such feasts! the laughs of many a jocund hour
That shook the mortar from King George's tower;
Such guests! What famous names its record boasts
Whose owners wander in the mob of ghosts!
Such stories! Every beam and plank is filled
With juicy wit the joyous talkers spilled
Ready to ooze as once the mountain pine
The floors are laid with oozed its turpentine!
A month had flitted since The Club had met;
The day came round; I found the table set
The waiters lounging round the marble stairs
Empty as yet the double row of chairs.
I was a full half hour before the rest
Alone the banquet-chamber's single guest.
So from the table's side a chair I took
And having neither company nor book
To keep me waking by degrees there crept
A torpor over me--in short I slept.
Loosed from its chain along the wreck-strown track
Of the dead years my soul goes travelling back;
My ghosts take on their robes of flesh; it seems
Dreaming is life; nay life less life than dreams
So real are the shapes that meet my eyes.
They bring no sense of wonder no surprise
No hint of other than an earth-born source;
All seems plain daylight everything of course.
How dim the colors are how poor and faint
This palette of weak words with which I paint!
Here sit my friends; if I could fix them so
As to my eyes they seem my page would glow
Like a queen's missal warm as if the brush
Of Titian or Velasquez brought the flush
Of life into their features. Ay de mi!
If syllables were pigments you should see
Such breathing portraitures as never man
Found in the Pitti or the Vatican.
Here sits our POET Laureate if you will.
Long has he worn the wreath and wears it still.
Dead? Nay not so; and yet they say his bust
Looks down on marbles covering royal dust
Kings by the Grace of God or Nature's grace;
Dead! No! Alive! I see him in his place
Full-featured with the bloom that heaven denies
Her children pinched by cold New England skies
Too often while the nursery's happier few
Win from a summer cloud its roseate hue.
Kind soft-voiced gentle in his eye there shines
The ray serene that filled Evangeline's.
Modest he seems not shy; content to wait
Amid the noisy clamor of debate
The looked-for moment when a peaceful word
Smooths the rough ripples louder tongues have stirred.
In every tone I mark his tender grace
And all his poems hinted in his face;
What tranquil joy his friendly presence gives!
How could. I think him dead? He lives! He lives!
There at the table's further end I see
In his old place our Poet's vis-a-vis
The great PROFESSOR strong broad-shouldered square
In life's rich noontide joyous debonair.
His social hour no leaden care alloys
His laugh rings loud and mirthful as a boy's--
That lusty laugh the Puritan forgot--
What ear has heard it and remembers not?
How often halting at some wide crevasse
Amid the windings of his Alpine pass
High up the cliffs the climbing mountaineer
Listening the far-off avalanche to hear
Silent and leaning on his steel-shod staff
Has heard that cheery voice that ringing laugh
From the rude cabin whose nomadic walls
Creep with the moving glacier as it crawls
How does vast Nature lead her living train
In ordered sequence through that spacious brain
As in the primal hour when Adam named
The new-born tribes that young creation claimed!--
How will her realm be darkened losing thee
Her darling whom we call _our_ AGASSIZ!
But who is he whose massive frame belies
The maiden shyness of his downcast eyes?
Who broods in silence till by questions pressed
Some answer struggles from his laboring breast?
An artist Nature meant to dwell apart
Locked in his studio with a human heart
Tracking its eaverned passions to their lair
And all its throbbing mysteries laying bare.
Count it no marvel that he broods alone
Over the heart he studies--'t is his own;
So in his page whatever shape it wear
The Essex wizard's shadowed self is there--
The great ROMANCER hid beneath his veil
Like the stern preacher of his sombre tale;
Virile in strength yet bashful as a girl
Prouder than Hester sensitive as Pearl.
From his mild throng of worshippers released
Our Concord Delphi sends its chosen priest
Prophet or poet mystic sage or seer
By every title always welcome here.
Why that ethereal spirit's frame describe?
You know the race-marks of the Brahmin tribe
The spare slight form the sloping shoulders' droop
The calm scholastic mien the clerkly stoop
The lines of thought the sharpened features wear
Carved by the edge of keen New England air.
List! for he speaks! As when a king would choose
The jewels for his bride he might refuse
This diamond for its flaw--find that less bright
Than those its fellows and a pearl less white
Than fits her snowy neck and yet at last
The fairest gems are chosen and made fast
In golden fetters; so with light delays
He seeks the fittest word to fill his phrase;
Nor vain nor idle his fastidious quest
His chosen word is sure to prove the best.
Where in the realm of thought whose air is song
Does he the Buddha of the West belong?
He seems a winged Franklin sweetly wise
Born to unlock the secrets of the skies;
And which the nobler calling--if 't is fair
Terrestrial with celestial to compare--
To guide the storm-cloud's elemental flame
Or walk the chambers whence the lightning came
Amidst the sources of its subtile fire
And steal their effluence for his lips and lyre?
If lost at times in vague aerial flights
None treads with firmer footstep when he lights;
A soaring nature ballasted with sense
Wisdom without her wrinkles or pretence
In every Bible he has faith to read
And every altar helps to shape his creed.
Ask you what name this prisoned spirit bears
While with ourselves this fleeting breath it shares?
Till angels greet him with a sweeter one
In heaven on earth we call him EMERSON.
I start; I wake; the vision is withdrawn;
Its figures fading like the stars at dawn;
Crossed from the roll of life their cherished names
And memory's pictures fading in their frames;
Yet life is lovelier for these transient gleams
Of buried friendships; blest is he who dreams!
OUR DEAD SINGER
H. W. L.
PRIDE of the sister realm so long our own
We claim with her that spotless fame of thine
White as her snow and fragrant as her pine!
Ours was thy birthplace but in every zone
Some wreath of song thy liberal hand has thrown
Breathes perfume from its blossoms that entwine
Where'er the dewdrops fall the sunbeams shine
On life's long path with tangled cares o'ergrown.
Can Art thy truthful counterfeit command--
The silver-haloed features tranquil mild--
Soften the lips of bronze as when they smiled
Give warmth and pressure to the marble hand?
Seek the lost rainbow in the sky it spanned
Farewell sweet Singer! Heaven reclaims its child.
Carved from the block or cast in clinging mould
Will grateful Memory fondly try her best
The mortal vesture from decay to wrest;
His look shall greet us calm but ah how cold!
No breath can stir the brazen drapery's fold
No throb can heave the statue's stony breast;
"He is not here but risen" will stand confest
In all we miss in all our eyes behold.
How Nature loved him! On his placid brow
Thought's ample dome she set the sacred sign
That marks the priesthood of her holiest shrine
Nor asked a leaflet from the laurel's bough
That envious Time might clutch or disallow
To prove her chosen minstrel's song divine.
On many a saddened hearth the evening fire
Burns paler as the children's hour draws near--
That joyous hour his song made doubly dear--
And tender memories touch the faltering choir.
He sings no more on earth; our vain desire
Aches for the voice we loved so long to hear
In Dorian flute-notes breathing soft and clear--
The sweet contralto that could never tire.
Deafened with listening to a harsher strain
The Maenad's scream the stark barbarian's cry
Still for those soothing loving tones we sigh;
Oh for our vanished Orpheus once again!
The shadowy silence hears us call in vain!
His lips are hushed; his song shall never die.
TWO POEMS TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
ON HER SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY JUNE 14 1882
I. AT THE SUMMIT
SISTER we bid you welcome--we who stand
On the high table-land;
We who have climbed life's slippery Alpine slope
And rest still leaning on the staff of hope
Looking along the silent Mer de Glace
Leading our footsteps where the dark crevasse
Yawns in the frozen sea we all must pass--
Sister we clasp your hand!
Rest with us in the hour that Heaven has lent
Before the swift descent.
Look! the warm sunbeams kiss the glittering ice;
See! next the snow-drift blooms the edelweiss;
The mated eagles fan the frosty air;
Life beauty love around us everywhere
And in their time the darkening hours that bear
Sweet memories peace content.
Thrice welcome! shining names our missals show
Amid their rubrics' glow
But search the blazoned record's starry line
What halo's radiance fills the page like thine?
Thou who by some celestial clue couldst find
The way to all the hearts of all mankind
On thee already canonized enshrined
What more can Heaven bestow!
II. THE WORLD'S HOMAGE
IF every tongue that speaks her praise
For whom I shape my tinkling phrase
Were summoned to the table
The vocal chorus that would meet
Of mingling accents harsh or sweet
From every land and tribe would beat
The polyglots at Babel.
Briton and Frenchman Swede and Dane
Turk Spaniard Tartar of Ukraine
Hidalgo Cossack Cadi
High Dutchman and Low Dutchman too
The Russian serf the Polish Jew
Arab Armenian and Mantchoo
Would shout "We know the lady!"
Know her! Who knows not Uncle Tom
And her he learned his gospel from
Has never heard of Moses;
Full well the brave black hand we know
That gave to freedom's grasp the hoe
That killed the weed that used to grow
Among the Southern roses.
When Archimedes long ago
Spoke out so grandly "_dos pou sto_--
Give me a place to stand on
I'll move your planet for you now"--
He little dreamed or fancied how
The _sto_ at last should find its _pou_
For woman's faith to land on.
Her lever was the wand of art
Her fulcrum was the human heart
Whence all unfailing aid is;
She moved the earth! Its thunders pealed
Its mountains shook its temples reeled
The blood-red fountains were unsealed
And Moloch sunk to Hades.
All through the conflict up and down
Marched Uncle Tom and Old John Brown
One ghost one form ideal;
And which was false and which was true
And which was mightier of the two
The wisest sibyl never knew
For both alike were real.
Sister the holy maid does well
Who counts her beads in convent cell
Where pale devotion lingers;
But she who serves the sufferer's needs
Whose prayers are spelt in loving deeds
May trust the Lord will count her beads
As well as human fingers.
When Truth herself was Slavery's slave
Thy hand the prisoned suppliant gave
The rainbow wings of fiction.
And Truth who soared descends to-day
Bearing an angel's wreath away
Its lilies at thy feet to lay
With Heaven's own benediction.
A WELCOME TO DR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD
ON HIS RETURN FROM SOUTH AMERICA
AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS DEVOTED TO CATALOGUING THE
STARS OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE
Read at the Dinner given at the Hotel Vendome May 61885.
ONCE more Orion and the sister Seven
Look on thee from the skies that hailed thy birth--
How shall we welcome thee whose home was heaven
From thy celestial wanderings back to earth?
Science has kept her midnight taper burning
To greet thy coming with its vestal flame;
Friendship has murmured "When art thou returning?"
"Not yet! Not yet!" the answering message came.
Thine was unstinted zeal unchilled devotion
While the blue realm had kingdoms to explore--
Patience like his who ploughed the unfurrowed ocean
Till o'er its margin loomed San Salvador.
Through the long nights I see thee ever waking
Thy footstool earth thy roof the hemisphere
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