The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes Part 100

From rock-walled channels, drowned in rayless night, Leap forth to life and light; Wake from the darkness of thy troubled dream, And greet with answering smile the morning's beam!

No purer lymph the white-limbed Naiad knows Than from thy chalice flows; Not the bright spring of Afric's sunny sh.o.r.es, Starry with spangles washed from golden ores, Nor gla.s.sy stream Bandusia's fountain pours, Nor wave translucent where Sabrina fair Braids her loose-flowing hair, Nor the swift current, stainless as it rose Where chill Arveiron steals from Alpine snows.

Here shall the traveller stay his weary feet To seek thy calm retreat; Here at high noon the brown-armed reaper rest; Here, when the shadows, lengthening from the west, Call the mute song-bird to his leafy nest, Matron and maid shall chat the cares away That brooded o'er the day, While flocking round them troops of children meet, And all the arches ring with laughter sweet.

Here shall the steed, his patient life who spends In toil that never ends, Hot from his thirsty tramp o'er hill and plain, Plunge his red nostrils, while the torturing rein Drops in loose loops beside his floating mane; Nor the poor brute that shares his master's lot Find his small needs forgot,-- Truest of humble, long-enduring friends, Whose presence cheers, whose guardian care defends!

Here lark and thrush and nightingale shall sip, And skimming swallows dip, And strange shy wanderers fold their l.u.s.trous plumes Fragrant from bowers that lent their sweet perfumes Where Paestum's rose or Persia's lilac blooms; Here from his cloud the eagle stoop to drink At the full basin's brink, And whet his beak against its rounded lip, His glossy feathers glistening as they drip.

Here shall the dreaming poet linger long, Far from his listening throng,-- Nor lute nor lyre his trembling hand shall bring; Here no frail Muse shall imp her crippled wing, No faltering minstrel strain his throat to sing!

These hallowed echoes who shall dare to claim Whose tuneless voice would shame, Whose jangling chords with jarring notes would wrong The nymphs that heard the Swan if Avon's song?

What visions greet the pilgrim's raptured eyes!

What ghosts made real rise!

The dead return,--they breathe,--they live again, Joined by the host of Fancy's airy train, Fresh from the springs of Shakespeare's quickening brain!

The stream that slakes the soul's diviner thirst Here found the sunbeams first; Rich with his fame, not less shall memory prize The gracious gift that humbler wants supplies.

O'er the wide waters reached the hand that gave To all this bounteous wave, With health and strength and joyous beauty fraught; Blest be the generous pledge of friends.h.i.+p, brought From the far home of brothers' love, unbought!

Long may fair Avon's fountain flow, enrolled With storied shrines of old, Castalia's spring, Egeria's dewy cave, And h.o.r.eb's rock the G.o.d of Israel slave!

Land of our fathers, ocean makes us two, But heart to heart is true!

Proud is your towering daughter in the West, Yet in her burning life-blood reign confest Her mother's pulses beating in her breast.

This holy fount, whose rills from heaven descend, Its gracious drops shall lend,-- Both foreheads bathed in that baptismal dew, And love make one the old home and the new!

August 29, 1887.

TO THE POETS WHO ONLY READ AND LISTEN

WHEN evening's shadowy fingers fold The flowers of every hue, Some shy, half-opened bud will hold Its drop of morning's dew.

Sweeter with every sunlit hour The trembling sphere has grown, Till all the fragrance of the flower Becomes at last its own.

We that have sung perchance may find Our little meed of praise, And round our pallid temples bind The wreath of fading bays.

Ah, Poet, who hast never spent Thy breath in idle strains, For thee the dewdrop morning lent Still in thy heart remains;

Unwasted, in its perfumed cell It waits the evening gale; Then to the azure whence it fell Its lingering sweets exhale.

FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE NEW CITY LIBRARY, BOSTON

PROUDLY, beneath her glittering dome, Our three-hilled city greets the morn; Here Freedom found her virgin home,-- The Bethlehem where her babe was born.

The lordly roofs of traffic rise Amid the smoke of household fires; High o'er them in the peaceful skies Faith points to heaven her cl.u.s.tering spires.

Can Freedom breathe if ignorance reign?

Shall Commerce thrive where anarchs rule?

Will Faith her half-fledged brood retain If darkening counsels cloud the school?

Let in the light! from every age Some gleams of garnered wisdom pour, And, fixed on thought's electric page, Wait all their radiance to restore.

Let in the light! in diamond mines Their gems invite the hand that delves; So learning's treasured jewels s.h.i.+ne Ranged on the alcove's ordered shelves.

From history's scroll the splendor streams, From science leaps the living ray; Flashed from the poet's glowing dreams The opal fires of fancy play.

Let in the light! these windowed walls Shall brook no shadowing colonnades, But day shall flood the silent halls Till o'er yon hills the sunset fades.

Behind the ever open gate No pikes shall fence a crumbling throne, No lackeys cringe, no courtiers wait, This palace is the people's own!

Heirs of our narrow-girdled past, How fair the prospect we survey, Where howled unheard the wintry blast, And rolled unchecked the storm-swept bay!

These chosen precincts, set apart For learned toil and holy shrines, Yield willing homes to every art That trains, or strengthens, or refines.

Here shall the sceptred mistress reign Who heeds her meanest subject's call, Sovereign of all their vast domain, The queen, the handmaid of them all!

November 26, 1888.

FOR THE WINDOW IN ST. MARGARET'S IN MEMORY OF A SON OF ARCHDEACON FARRAR

AFAR he sleeps whose name is graven here, Where loving hearts his early doom deplore; Youth, promise, virtue, all that made him dear Heaven lent, earth borrowed, sorrowing to restore.

BOSTON, April 12, 1891.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

1819-1891

THOU shouldst have sung the swan-song for the choir That filled our groves with music till the day Lit the last hilltop with its reddening fire, And evening listened for thy lingering lay.

But thou hast found thy voice in realms afar Where strains celestial blend their notes with thine; Some cloudless sphere beneath a happier star Welcomes the bright-winged spirit we resign.

How Nature mourns thee in the still retreat Where pa.s.sed in peace thy love-enchanted hours!

Where shall she find an eye like thine to greet Spring's earliest footprints on her opening flowers?

Have the pale wayside weeds no fond regret For him who read the secrets they enfold?

Shall the proud spangles of the field forget The verse that lent new glory to their gold?

And ye whose carols wooed his infant ear, Whose chants with answering woodnotes he repaid, Have ye no song his spirit still may hear From Elmwood's vaults of overarching shade?