The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes Part 73

That wrong is past; we gave him up to Death With all a hero's honors round his name; As martyrs coin their blood, he coined his breath, And dimmed the scholar's in the patriot's fame.

So shall we blazon on the shaft we raise,-- Telling our grief, our pride, to unborn years,-- "He who had lived the mark of all men's praise Died with the tribute of a Nation's tears."

SHAKESPEARE

TERCENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

APRIL 23, 1864

"Who claims our Shakespeare from that realm unknown, Beyond the storm-vexed islands of the deep, Where Genoa's roving mariner was blown?

Her twofold Saint's-day let our England keep; Shall warring aliens share her holy task?"

The Old World echoes ask.

O land of Shakespeare! ours with all thy past, Till these last years that make the sea so wide; Think not the jar of battle's trumpet-blast Has dulled our aching sense to joyous pride In every n.o.ble word thy sons bequeathed The air our fathers breathed!

War-wasted, haggard, panting from the strife, We turn to other days and far-off lands,

Live o'er in dreams the Poet's faded life, Come with fresh lilies in our fevered hands To wreathe his bust, and scatter purple flowers,-- Not his the need, but ours!

We call those poets who are first to mark Through earth's dull mist the coming of the dawn,-- Who see in twilight's gloom the first pale spark, While others only note that day is gone; For him the Lord of light the curtain rent That veils the firmament.

The greatest for its greatness is half known, Stretching beyond our narrow quadrant-lines,-- As in that world of Nature all outgrown Where Calaveras lifts his awful pines, And cast from Mariposa's mountain-wall Nevada's cataracts fall.

Yet heaven's remotest orb is partly ours, Throbbing its radiance like a beating heart; In the wide compa.s.s of angelic powers The instinct of the blindworm has its part; So in G.o.d's kingliest creature we behold The flower our buds infold.

With no vain praise we mock the stone-carved name Stamped once on dust that moved with pulse and breath, As thinking to enlarge that amplest fame Whose undimmed glories gild the night of death: We praise not star or sun; in these we see Thee, Father, only thee!

Thy gifts are beauty, wisdom, power, and love: We read, we reverence on this human soul,-- Earth's clearest mirror of the light above,-- Plain as the record on thy prophet's scroll, When o'er his page the effluent splendors poured, Thine own "Thus saith the Lord!"

This player was a prophet from on high, Thine own elected. Statesman, poet, sage, For him thy sovereign pleasure pa.s.sed them by; Sidney's fair youth, and Raleigh's ripened age, Spenser's chaste soul, and his imperial mind Who taught and shamed mankind.

Therefore we bid our hearts' Te Deum rise, Nor fear to make thy wors.h.i.+p less divine, And hear the shouted choral shake the skies, Counting all glory, power, and wisdom thine; For thy great gift thy greater name adore, And praise thee evermore!

In this dread hour of Nature's utmost need, Thanks for these unstained drops of freshening dew!

Oh, while our martyrs fall, our heroes bleed, Keep us to every sweet remembrance true, Till from this blood-red sunset springs new-born Our Nation's second morn!

IN MEMORY OF JOHN AND ROBERT WARE

Read at the annual meeting of the Ma.s.sachusetts Medical Society, May 25, 1864.

No mystic charm, no mortal art, Can bid our loved companions stay; The bands that clasp them to our heart Snap in death's frost and fall apart; Like shadows fading with the day, They pa.s.s away.

The young are stricken in their pride, The old, long tottering, faint and fall; Master and scholar, side by side, Through the dark portals silent glide, That open in life's mouldering wall And close on all.

Our friend's, our teacher's task was done, When Mercy called him from on high; A little cloud had dimmed the sun, The saddening hours had just begun, And darker days were drawing nigh: 'T was time to die.

A whiter soul, a fairer mind, A life with purer course and aim, A gentler eye, a voice more kind, We may not look on earth to find.

The love that lingers o'er his name Is more than fame.

These blood-red summers ripen fast; The sons are older than the sires; Ere yet the tree to earth is cast, The sapling falls before the blast; Life's ashes keep their covered fires,-- Its flame expires.

Struck by the noiseless, viewless foe, Whose deadlier breath than shot or sh.e.l.l Has laid the best and bravest low, His boy, all bright in morning's glow, That high-souled youth he loved so well, Untimely fell.

Yet still he wore his placid smile, And, trustful in the cheering creed That strives all sorrow to beguile, Walked calmly on his way awhile Ah, breast that leans on breaking reed Must ever bleed!

So they both left us, sire and son, With opening leaf, with laden bough The youth whose race was just begun, The wearied man whose course was run, Its record written on his brow, Are brothers now.

Brothers!--The music of the sound Breathes softly through my closing strain; The floor we tread is holy ground, Those gentle spirits hovering round, While our fair circle joins again Its broken chain.

1864.

HUMBOLDT'S BIRTHDAY

CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, SEPTEMBER 14, 1869

BONAPARTE, AUGUST 15, 1769.-HUMBOLDT, SEPTEMBER 14, 1769

ERE yet the warning chimes of midnight sound, Set back the flaming index of the year, Track the swift-s.h.i.+fting seasons in their round Through fivescore circles of the swinging sphere!

Lo, in yon islet of the midland sea That cleaves the storm-cloud with its snowy crest, The embryo-heir of Empires yet to be, A month-old babe upon his mother's breast.

Those little hands that soon shall grow so strong In their rude grasp great thrones shall rock and fall, Press her soft bosom, while a nursery song Holds the world's master in its slender thrall.

Look! a new crescent bends its silver bow; A new-lit star has fired the eastern sky; Hark! by the river where the lindens blow A waiting household hears an infant's cry.

This, too, a conqueror! His the vast domain, Wider than widest sceptre-shadowed lands; Earth and the weltering kingdom of the main Laid their broad charters in his royal hands.

His was no taper lit in cloistered cage, Its glimmer borrowed from the grove or porch; He read the record of the planet's page By Etna's glare and Cotopaxi's torch.

He heard the voices of the pathless woods; On the salt steppes he saw the starlight s.h.i.+ne; He scaled the mountain's windy solitudes, And trod the galleries of the breathless mine.

For him no fingering of the love-strung lyre, No problem vague, by torturing schoolmen vexed; He fed no broken altar's dying fire, Nor skulked and scowled behind a Rabbi's text.

For G.o.d's new truth he claimed the kingly robe That priestly shoulders counted all their own, Unrolled the gospel of the storied globe And led young Science to her empty throne.

While the round planet on its axle spins One fruitful year shall boast its double birth, And show the cradles of its mighty twins, Master and Servant of the sons of earth.