The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes Part 51

Oh for thy burning lips to fire my brain With thrills of wild, sweet pain!-- On life's autumnal blast, Like shrivelled leaves, youth's pa.s.sion-flowers are cast,-- Once loving thee, we love thee to the last!-- Behold thy new-decked shrine, And hear once more the voice that breathed "Forever thine!"

A PARTING HEALTH

TO J. L. MOTLEY

YES, we knew we must lose him,--though friends.h.i.+p may claim To blend her green leaves with the laurels of fame; Though fondly, at parting, we call him our own, 'T is the whisper of love when the bugle has blown.

As the rider that rests with the spur on his heel, As the guardsman that sleeps in his corselet of steel, As the archer that stands with his shaft on the string, He stoops from his toil to the garland we bring.

What pictures yet slumber unborn in his loom, Till their warriors shall breathe and their beauties shall bloom, While the tapestry lengthens the life-glowing dyes That caught from our sunsets the stain of their skies!

In the alcoves of death, in the charnels of timid, Where flit the gaunt spectres of pa.s.sion and crime, There are triumphs untold, there are martyrs unsung, There are heroes yet silent to speak with his tongue!

Let us hear the proud story which time has bequeathed!

From lips that are warm with the freedom they breathed!

Let him summon its tyrants, and tell us their doom, Though he sweep the black past like Van Tromp with his broom!

The dream flashes by, for the west-winds awake On pampas, on prairie, o'er mountain and lake, To bathe the swift bark, like a sea-girdled shrine, With incense they stole from the rose and the pine.

So fill a bright cup with the sunlight that gushed When the dead summer's jewels were trampled and crushed: THE TRUE KNIGHT OF LEARNING,--the world holds him dear,-- Love bless him, Joy crown him, G.o.d speed his career!

1857.

WHAT WE ALL THINK

THAT age was older once than now, In spite of locks untimely shed, Or silvered on the youthful brow; That babes make love and children wed.

That suns.h.i.+ne had a heavenly glow, Which faded with those "good old days"

When winters came with deeper snow, And autumns with a softer haze.

That--mother, sister, wife, or child-- The "best of women" each has known.

Were school-boys ever half so wild?

How young the grandpapas have grown!

That but for this our souls were free, And but for that our lives were blest; That in some season yet to be Our cares will leave us time to rest.

Whene'er we groan with ache or pain,-- Some common ailment of the race,-- Though doctors think the matter plain,-- That ours is "a peculiar case."

That when like babes with fingers burned We count one bitter maxim more, Our lesson all the world has learned, And men are wiser than before.

That when we sob o'er fancied woes, The angels hovering overhead Count every pitying drop that flows, And love us for the tears we shed.

That when we stand with tearless eye And turn the beggar from our door, They still approve us when we sigh, "Ah, had I but one thousand more!"

Though temples crowd the crumbled brink O'erhanging truth's eternal flow, Their tablets bold with what we think, Their echoes dumb to what we know;

That one unquestioned text we read, All doubt beyond, all fear above, Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed Can burn or blot it: G.o.d IS LOVE!

SPRING HAS COME

INTRA MUROS

THE sunbeams, lost for half a year, Slant through my pane their morning rays; For dry northwesters cold and clear, The east blows in its thin blue haze.

And first the snowdrop's bells are seen, Then close against the sheltering wall The tulip's horn of dusky green, The peony's dark unfolding ball.

The golden-chaliced crocus burns; The long narcissus-blades appear; The cone-beaked hyacinth returns To light her blue-flamed chandelier.

The willow's whistling lashes, wrung By the wild winds of gusty March, With sallow leaflets lightly strung, Are swaying by the tufted larch.

The elms have robed their slender spray With full-blown flower and embryo leaf; Wide o'er the clasping arch of day Soars like a cloud their h.o.a.ry chief.

See the proud tulip's flaunting cup, That flames in glory for an hour,-- Behold it withering,--then look up,-- How meek the forest monarch's flower!

When wake the violets, Winter dies; When sprout the elm-buds, Spring is near: When lilacs blossom, Summer cries, "Bud, little roses! Spring is here!"

The windows blush with fresh bouquets, Cut with the May-dew on their lips; The radish all its bloom displays, Pink as Aurora's finger-tips.

Nor less the flood of light that showers On beauty's changed corolla-shades,-- The walks are gay as bridal bowers With rows of many-petalled maids.

The scarlet sh.e.l.l-fish click and clash In the blue barrow where they slide; The horseman, proud of streak and splash, Creeps homeward from his morning ride.

Here comes the dealer's awkward string, With neck in rope and tail in knot,-- Rough colts, with careless country-swing, In lazy walk or slouching trot.

Wild filly from the mountain-side, Doomed to the close and chafing thills, Lend me thy long, untiring stride To seek with thee thy western hills!

I hear the whispering voice of Spring, The thrush's trill, the robin's cry, Like some poor bird with prisoned wing That sits and sings, but longs to fly.

Oh for one spot of living greed,-- One little spot where leaves can grow,-- To love unblamed, to walk unseen, To dream above, to sleep below!