Part 1

Produced by David Widger

THE POETICAL WORKS

OF

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

[Volume 3 of the 1893 three volume set]

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

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 6,1885.

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, While with thy griefs our weaker hearts are aching, Firm as thine equatorial's rock-based pier.

The souls that voyaged the azure depths before thee Watch with thy tireless vigils, all unseen,-- Tycho and Kepler bend benignant o'er thee, And with his toy-like tube the Florentine,--

He at whose word the orb that bore him shivered To find her central sovereignty disowned, While the wan lips of priest and pontiff quivered, Their jargon stilled, their Baal disenthroned.

Flamsteed and Newton look with brows unclouded, Their strife forgotten with its faded scars,-- (Titans, who found the world of space too crowded To walk in peace among its myriad stars.)

All cluster round thee,--seers of earliest ages, Persians, Ionians, Mizraim's learned kings, From the dim days of Shinar's hoary sages To his who weighed the planet's fluid rings.

And we, for whom the northern heavens are lighted, For whom the storm has passed, the sun has smiled, Our clouds all scattered, all our stars united, We claim thee, clasp thee, like a long-lost child.

Fresh from the spangled vault's o'er-arching splendor, Thy lonely pillar, thy revolving dome, In heartfelt accents, proud, rejoicing, tender, We bid thee welcome to thine earthly home!

TO FREDERICK HENRY HEDGE

AT A DINNER GIVEN HIM ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1885

With a bronze statuette of John of Bologna's Mercury, presented by a few friends.

FIT emblem for the altar's side, And him who serves its daily need, The stay, the solace, and the guide Of mortal men, whate'er his creed!

Flamen or Auspex, Priest or Bonze, He feeds the upward-climbing fire, Still teaching, like the deathless bronze, Man's noblest lesson,--to aspire.

Hermes lies prone by fallen Jove, Crushed are the wheels of Krishna's car, And o'er Dodona's silent grove Streams the white, ray from Bethlehem's star.

Yet snatched from Time's relentless clutch, A godlike shape, that human hands Have fired with Art's electric touch, The herald of Olympus stands.

Ask not what ore the furnace knew; Love mingled with the flowing mass, And lends its own unchanging hue, Like gold in Corinth's molten brass.

Take then our gift; this airy form Whose bronze our benedictions gild, The hearts of all its givers warm With love by freezing years unchilled.

With eye undimmed, with strength unworn, Still toiling in your Master's field, Before you wave the growths unshorn, Their ripened harvest yet to yield.

True servant of the Heavenly Sire, To you our tried affection clings, Bids you still labor, still aspire, But clasps your feet and steals their wings.

TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

THIS is your month, the month of "perfect days," Birds in full song and blossoms all ablaze. Nature herself your earliest welcome breathes, Spreads every leaflet, every bower inwreathes; Carpets her paths for your returning feet, Puts forth her best your coming steps to greet; And Heaven must surely find the earth in tune When Home, sweet Home, exhales the breath of June. These blessed days are waning all too fast, And June's bright visions mingling with the past;

Lilacs have bloomed and faded, and the rose Has dropped its petals, but the clover blows, And fills its slender tubes with honeyed sweets; The fields are pearled with milk-white margarites; The dandelion, which you sang of old, Has lost its pride of place, its crown of gold, But still displays its feathery-mantled globe, Which children's breath, or wandering winds unrobe. These were your humble friends; your opened eyes Nature had trained her common gifts to prize; Not Cam nor Isis taught you to despise Charles, with his muddy margin and the harsh, Plebeian grasses of the reeking marsh. New England's home-bred scholar, well you knew Her soil, her speech, her people, through and through, And loved them ever with the love that holds All sweet, fond memories in its fragrant folds. Though far and wide your winged words have flown, Your daily presence kept you all our own, Till, with a sorrowing sigh, a thrill of pride, We heard your summons, and you left our side For larger duties and for tasks untried.

How pleased the Spaniards for a while to claim This frank Hidalgo with the liquid name, Who stored their classics on his crowded shelves And loved their Calderon as they did themselves! Before his eyes what changing pageants pass! The bridal feast how near the funeral mass! The death-stroke falls,--the Misereres wail; The joy-bells ring,--the tear-stained cheeks unveil, While, as the playwright shifts his pictured scene, The royal mourner crowns his second queen.

From Spain to Britain is a goodly stride,-- Madrid and London long-stretched leagues divide. What if I send him, "Uncle S., says he," To my good cousin whom he calls "J. B."? A nation's servants go where they are sent,-- He heard his Uncle's orders, and he went. By what enchantments, what alluring arts, Our truthful James led captive British hearts,-- Whether his shrewdness made their statesmen halt, Or if his learning found their Dons at fault, Or if his virtue was a strange surprise, Or if his wit flung star-dust in their eyes,-- Like honest Yankees we can simply guess; But that he did it all must needs confess. England herself without a blush may claim Her only conqueror since the Norman came. Eight years an exile! What a weary while Since first our herald sought the mother isle! His snow-white flag no churlish wrong has soiled,--- He left unchallenged, he returns unspoiled.

Here let us keep him, here he saw the light,-- His genius, wisdom, wit, are ours by right; And if we lose him our lament will be We have "five hundred"--_not_ "as good as he."

TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY

1887

FRIEND, whom thy fourscore winters leave more dear Than when life's roseate summer on thy cheek Burned in the flush of manhood's manliest year, Lonely, how lonely! is the snowy peak Thy feet have reached, and mine have climbed so near! Close on thy footsteps 'mid the landscape drear I stretch my hand thine answering grasp to seek, Warm with the love no rippling rhymes can speak! Look backward! From thy lofty height survey Thy years of toil, of peaceful victories won, Of dreams made real, largest hopes outrun! Look forward! Brighter than earth's morning ray Streams the pure light of Heaven's unsetting sun, The unclouded dawn of life's immortal day!

PRELUDE TO A VOLUME PRINTED IN RAISED LETTERS FOR THE BLIND

DEAR friends, left darkling in the long eclipse That veils the noonday,--you whose finger-tips A meaning in these ridgy leaves can find Where ours go stumbling, senseless, helpless, blind. This wreath of verse how dare I offer you To whom the garden's choicest gifts are due? The hues of all its glowing beds are ours, Shall you not claim its sweetest-smelling flowers?

Nay, those I have I bring you,--at their birth Life's cheerful sunshine warmed the grateful earth; If my rash boyhood dropped some idle seeds, And here and there you light on saucy weeds Among the fairer growths, remember still Song comes of grace, and not of human will: We get a jarring note when most we try, Then strike the chord we know not how or why; Our stately verse with too aspiring art Oft overshoots and fails to reach the heart, While the rude rhyme one human throb endears Turns grief to smiles, and softens mirth to tears. Kindest of critics, ye whose fingers read, From Nature's lesson learn the poet's creed; The queenly tulip flaunts in robes of flame, The wayside seedling scarce a tint may claim, Yet may the lowliest leaflets that unfold A dewdrop fresh from heaven's own chalice hold.

BOSTON TO FLORENCE

Sent to "The Philological Circle" of Florence for its meeting in commemoration of Dante, January 27, 1881, the anniversary of his first condemnation.

PROUD of her clustering spires, her new-built towers, Our Venice, stolen from the slumbering sea, A sister's kindliest greeting wafts to thee, Rose of Val d' Arno, queen of all its flowers! Thine exile's shrine thy sorrowing love embowers, Yet none with truer homage bends the knee, Or stronger pledge of fealty brings, than we, Whose poets make thy dead Immortal ours. Lonely the height, but ah, to heaven how near! Dante, whence flowed that solemn verse of thine Like the stern river from its Apennine Whose name the far-off Scythian thrilled with fear: Now to all lands thy deep-toned voice is dear, And every language knows the Song Divine!

AT THE UNITARIAN FESTIVAL

MARCH 8, 1882