The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes Part 25

Not silent! no, the radiant stars Still singing as they s.h.i.+ne, Unheard through earth's imprisoning bars, Have voices sweet as thine.

Wake, then, in happier realms above, The songs of bygone years, Till angels learn those airs of love That ravished mortal ears!

AFTER A LECTURE ON KEATS

"Purpureos spargam flores."

THE wreath that star-crowned Sh.e.l.ley gave Is lying on thy Roman grave, Yet on its turf young April sets Her store of slender violets; Though all the G.o.ds their garlands shower, I too may bring one purple flower.

Alas! what blossom shall I bring, That opens in my Northern spring?

The garden beds have all run wild, So trim when I was yet a child; Flat plantains and unseemly stalks Have crept across the gravel walks; The vines are dead, long, long ago, The almond buds no longer blow.

No more upon its mound I see The azure, plume-bound fleur-de-lis; Where once the tulips used to show, In straggling tufts the pansies grow; The gra.s.s has quenched my white-rayed gem, The flowering "Star of Bethlehem,"

Though its long blade of glossy green And pallid stripe may still be seen.

Nature, who treads her n.o.bles down, And gives their birthright to the clown, Has sown her base-born weedy things Above the garden's queens and kings.

Yet one sweet flower of ancient race Springs in the old familiar place.

When snows were melting down the vale, And Earth unlaced her icy mail, And March his stormy trumpet blew, And tender green came peeping through, I loved the earliest one to seek That broke the soil with emerald beak, And watch the trembling bells so blue Spread on the column as it grew.

Meek child of earth! thou wilt not shame The sweet, dead poet's holy name; The G.o.d of music gave thee birth, Called from the crimson-spotted earth, Where, sobbing his young life away, His own fair Hyacinthus lay.

The hyacinth my garden gave Shall lie upon that Roman grave!

AFTER A LECTURE ON Sh.e.l.lEY

ONE broad, white sail in Spezzia's treacherous bay On comes the blast; too daring bark, beware I The cloud has clasped her; to! it melts away; The wide, waste waters, but no sail is there.

Morning: a woman looking on the sea; Midnight: with lamps the long veranda burns; Come, wandering sail, they watch, they burn for thee!

Suns come and go, alas! no bark returns.

And feet are thronging on the pebbly sands, And torches flaring in the weedy caves, Where'er the waters lay with icy hands The shapes uplifted from their coral graves.

Vainly they seek; the idle quest is o'er; The coa.r.s.e, dark women, with their hanging locks, And lean, wild children gather from the sh.o.r.e To the black hovels bedded in the rocks.

But Love still prayed, with agonizing wail, "One, one last look, ye heaving waters, yield!"

Till Ocean, clas.h.i.+ng in his jointed mail, Raised the pale burden on his level s.h.i.+eld.

Slow from the sh.o.r.e the sullen waves retire; His form a n.o.bler element shall claim; Nature baptized him in ethereal fire, And Death shall crown him with a wreath of flame.

Fade, mortal semblance, never to return; Swift is the change within thy crimson shroud; Seal the white ashes in the peaceful urn; All else has risen in yon silvery cloud.

Sleep where thy gentle Adonais lies, Whose open page lay on thy dying heart, Both in the smile of those blue-vaulted skies, Earth's fairest dome of all divinest art.

Breathe for his wandering soul one pa.s.sing sigh, O happier Christian, while thine eye grows dim,-- In all the mansions of the house on high, Say not that Mercy has not one for him!

AT THE CLOSE OF A COURSE OF LECTURES

As the voice of the watch to the mariner's dream, As the footstep of Spring on the ice-girdled stream, There comes a soft footstep, a whisper, to me,-- The vision is over,--the rivulet free.

We have trod from the threshold of turbulent March, Till the green scarf of April is hung on the larch, And down the bright hillside that welcomes the day, We hear the warm panting of beautiful May.

We will part before Summer has opened her wing, And the bosom of June swells the bodice of Spring, While the hope of the season lies fresh in the bud, And the young life of Nature runs warm in our blood.

It is but a word, and the chain is unbound, The bracelet of steel drops unclasped to the ground; No hand shall replace it,--it rests where it fell,--- It is but one word that we all know too well.

Yet the hawk with the wildness untamed in his eye, If you free him, stares round ere he springs to the sky; The slave whom no longer his fetters restrain Will turn for a moment and look at his chain.

Our parting is not as the friends.h.i.+p of years, That chokes with the blessing it speaks through its tears; We have walked in a garden, and, looking around, Have plucked a few leaves from the myrtles we found.

But now at the gate of the garden we stand, And the moment has come for unclasping the hand; Will you drop it like lead, and in silence retreat Like the twenty crushed forms from an omnibus seat?

Nay! hold it one moment,--the last we may share,-- I stretch it in kindness, and not for my fare; You may pa.s.s through the doorway in rank or in file, If your ticket from Nature is stamped with a smile.

For the sweetest of smiles is the smile as we part, When the light round the lips is a ray from the heart; And lest a stray tear from its fountain might swell, We will seal the bright spring with a quiet farewell.

THE HUDSON

AFTER A LECTURE AT ALBANY

'T WAS a vision of childhood that came with its dawn, Ere the curtain that covered life's day-star was drawn; The nurse told the tale when the shadows grew long, And the mother's soft lullaby breathed it in song.

"There flows a fair stream by the hills of the West,"-- She sang to her boy as he lay on her breast; "Along its smooth margin thy fathers have played; Beside its deep waters their ashes are laid."

I wandered afar from the land of my birth, I saw the old rivers, renowned upon earth, But fancy still painted that wide-flowing stream With the many-hued pencil of infancy's dream.

I saw the green banks of the castle-crowned Rhine, Where the grapes drink the moonlight and change it to wine; I stood by the Avon, whose waves as they glide Still whisper his glory who sleeps at their side.

But my heart would still yearn for the sound of the waves That sing as they flow by my forefathers' graves; If manhood yet honors my cheek with a tear, I care not who sees it,--no blush for it here!

Farewell to the deep-bosomed stream of the West!

I fling this loose blossom to float on its breast; Nor let the dear love of its children grow cold, Till the channel is dry where its waters have rolled!

December, 1854.