The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes Part 24

It may not be; I strive in vain To break my slender household chain,-- Three pairs of little clasping hands, One voice, that whispers, not commands.

Even while my spirit flies away, My gentle jailers murmur nay; All shapes of elemental wrath They raise along my threatened path; The storm grows black, the waters rise, The mountains mingle with the skies, The mad tornado scoops the ground, The midnight robber prowls around,-- Thus, kissing every limb they tie, They draw a knot and heave a sigh, Till, fairly netted in the toil, My feet are rooted to the soil.

Only the soaring wish is free!-- And that, dear Governor, flies to thee!

PITTSFIELD, 1851.

TO AN ENGLISH FRIEND

THE seed that wasteful autumn cast To waver on its stormy blast, Long o'er the wintry desert tost, Its living germ has never lost.

Dropped by the weary tempest's wing, It feels the kindling ray of spring, And, starting from its dream of death, Pours on the air its perfumed breath.

So, parted by the rolling flood, The love that springs from common blood Needs but a single sunlit hour Of mingling smiles to bud and flower; Unharmed its slumbering life has flown, From sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, from zone to zone, Where summer's falling roses stain The tepid waves of Pontchartrain, Or where the lichen creeps below Katahdin's wreaths of whirling snow.

Though fiery sun and stiffening cold May change the fair ancestral mould, No winter chills, no summer drains The life-blood drawn from English veins, Still bearing wheresoe'er it flows The love that with its fountain rose, Unchanged by s.p.a.ce, unwronged by time, From age to age, from clime to clime!

1852.

AFTER A LECTURE ON WORDSWORTH

COME, spread your wings, as I spread mine, And leave the crowded hall For where the eyes of twilight s.h.i.+ne O'er evening's western wall.

These are the pleasant Berks.h.i.+re hills, Each with its leafy crown; Hark! from their sides a thousand rills Come singing sweetly down.

A thousand rills; they leap and s.h.i.+ne, Strained through the shadowy nooks, Till, clasped in many a gathering twine, They swell a hundred brooks.

A hundred brooks, and still they run With ripple, shade, and gleam, Till, cl.u.s.tering all their braids in one, They flow a single stream.

A bracelet spun from mountain mist, A silvery sash unwound, With ox-bow curve and sinuous twist It writhes to reach the Sound.

This is my bark,--a pygmy's s.h.i.+p; Beneath a child it rolls; Fear not,--one body makes it dip, But not a thousand souls.

Float we the gra.s.sy banks between; Without an oar we glide; The meadows, drest in living green, Unroll on either side.

Come, take the book we love so well, And let us read and dream We see whate'er its pages tell, And sail an English stream.

Up to the clouds the lark has sprung, Still trilling as he flies; The linnet sings as there he sung; The unseen cuckoo cries,

And daisies strew the banks along, And yellow kingcups s.h.i.+ne, With cowslips, and a primrose throng, And humble celandine.

Ah foolish dream! when Nature nursed Her daughter in the West, The fount was drained that opened first; She bared her other breast.

On the young planet's orient sh.o.r.e Her morning hand she tried; Then turned the broad medallion o'er And stamped the sunset side.

Take what she gives, her pine's tall stem, Her elm with hanging spray; She wears her mountain diadem Still in her own proud way.

Look on the forests' ancient kings, The hemlock's towering pride Yon trunk had thrice a hundred rings, And fell before it died.

Nor think that Nature saves her bloom And slights our gra.s.sy plain; For us she wears her court costume,-- Look on its broidered train;

The lily with the sprinkled dots, Brands of the noontide beam; The cardinal, and the blood-red spots, Its double in the stream,

As if some wounded eagle's breast, Slow throbbing o'er the plain, Had left its airy path impressed In drops of scarlet rain.

And hark! and hark! the woodland rings; There thrilled the thrush's soul; And look! that flash of flamy wings,-- The fire-plumed oriole!

Above, the hen-hawk swims and swoops, Flung from the bright, blue sky; Below, the robin hops, and whoops His piercing, Indian cry.

Beauty runs virgin in the woods Robed in her rustic green, And oft a longing thought intrudes, As if we might have seen.

Her every finger's every joint Ringed with some golden line, Poet whom Nature did anoint Had our wild home been thine.

Yet think not so; Old England's blood Runs warm in English veins; But wafted o'er the icy flood Its better life remains.

Our children know each wildwood smell, The bayberry and the fern, The man who does not know them well Is all too old to learn.

Be patient! On the breathing page Still pants our hurried past; Pilgrim and soldier, saint and sage, The poet comes the last!

Though still the lark-voiced matins ring The world has known so long; The wood-thrush of the West shall sing Earth's last sweet even-song!

AFTER A LECTURE ON MOORE

s.h.i.+NE soft, ye trembling tears of light That strew the mourning skies; Hushed in the silent dews of night The harp of Erin lies.

What though her thousand years have past Of poets, saints, and kings,-- Her echoes only hear the last That swept those golden strings.

Fling o'er his mound, ye star-lit bowers, The balmiest wreaths ye wear, Whose breath has lent your earth-born flowers Heaven's own ambrosial air.

Breathe, bird of night, thy softest tone, By shadowy grove and rill; Thy song will soothe us while we own That his was sweeter still.

Stay, pitying Time, thy foot for him Who gave thee swifter wings, Nor let thine envious shadow dim The light his glory flings.

If in his cheek unholy blood Burned for one youthful hour, 'T was but the flus.h.i.+ng of the bud That blooms a milk-white flower.

Take him, kind mother, to thy breast, Who loved thy smiles so well, And spread thy mantle o'er his rest Of rose and asphodel.

The bark has sailed the midnight sea, The sea without a sh.o.r.e, That waved its parting sign to thee,-- "A health to thee, Tom Moore!"

And thine, long lingering on the strand, Its bright-hued streamers furled, Was loosed by age, with trembling hand, To seek the silent world.