The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes Part 29

Yet what has holy page more sweet, Or what had woman's love more fair, When Mary clasped her Saviour's feet With flowing eyes and streaming hair?

Meek child of sorrow, walk unknown, The Angel of that earthly throng, And let thine image live alone To hallow this unstudied song!

THE LIVING TEMPLE

NOT in the world of light alone, Where G.o.d has built his blazing throne, Nor yet alone in earth below, With belted seas that come and go, And endless isles of sunlit green, Is all thy Maker's glory seen: Look in upon thy wondrous frame,-- Eternal wisdom still the same!

The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves Flows murmuring through its hidden caves, Whose streams of brightening purple rush, Fired with a new and livelier blush, While all their burden of decay The ebbing current steals away, And red with Nature's flame they start From the warm fountains of the heart.

No rest that throbbing slave may ask, Forever quivering o'er his task, While far and wide a crimson jet Leaps forth to fill the woven net Which in unnumbered crossing tides The flood of burning life divides, Then, kindling each decaying part, Creeps back to find the throbbing heart.

But warmed with that unchanging flame Behold the outward moving frame, Its living marbles jointed strong With glistening band and silvery thong, And linked to reason's guiding reins By myriad rings in trembling chains, Each graven with the threaded zone Which claims it as the master's own.

See how yon beam of seeming white Is braided out of seven-hued light, Yet in those lucid globes no ray By any chance shall break astray.

Hark how the rolling surge of sound, Arches and spirals circling round, Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear With music it is heaven to hear.

Then mark the cloven sphere that holds All thought in its mysterious folds; That feels sensation's faintest thrill, And flashes forth the sovereign will; Think on the stormy world that dwells Locked in its dim and cl.u.s.tering cells!

The lightning gleams of power it sheds Along its hollow gla.s.sy threads!

O Father! grant thy love divine To make these mystic temples thine!

When wasting age and wearying strife Have sapped the leaning walls of life, When darkness gathers over all, And the last tottering pillars fall, Take the poor dust thy mercy warms, And mould it into heavenly forms!

AT A BIRTHDAY FESTIVAL

TO J. R. LOWELL

WE will not speak of years to-night,-- For what have years to bring But larger floods of love and light, And sweeter songs to sing?

We will not drown in wordy praise The kindly thoughts that rise; If Friends.h.i.+p own one tender phrase, He reads it in our eyes.

We need not waste our school-boy art To gild this notch of Time;-- Forgive me if my wayward heart Has throbbed in artless rhyme.

Enough for him the silent grasp That knits us hand in hand, And he the bracelet's radiant clasp That locks our circling band.

Strength to his hours of manly toil!

Peace to his starlit dreams!

Who loves alike the furrowed soil, The music-haunted streams!

Sweet smiles to keep forever bright The suns.h.i.+ne on his lips, And faith that sees the ring of light Round nature's last eclipse!

February 22, 1859.

A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE

TO J. F. CLARKE

WHO is the shepherd sent to lead, Through pastures green, the Master's sheep?

What guileless "Israelite indeed"

The folded flock may watch and keep?

He who with manliest spirit joins The heart of gentlest human mould, With burning light and girded loins, To guide the flock, or watch the fold;

True to all Truth the world denies, Not tongue-tied for its gilded sin; Not always right in all men's eyes, But faithful to the light within;

Who asks no meed of earthly fame, Who knows no earthly master's call, Who hopes for man, through guilt and shame, Still answering, "G.o.d is over all";

Who makes another's grief his own, Whose smile lends joy a double cheer; Where lives the saint, if such be known?-- Speak softly,--such an one is here!

O faithful shepherd! thou hast borne The heat and burden of the clay; Yet, o'er thee, bright with beams unshorn, The sun still shows thine onward way.

To thee our fragrant love we bring, In buds that April half displays, Sweet first-born angels of the spring, Caught in their opening hymn of praise.

What though our faltering accents fail, Our captives know their message well, Our words unbreathed their lips exhale, And sigh more love than ours can tell.

April 4, 1860.

THE GRAY CHIEF

FOR THE MEETING OF THE Ma.s.sACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY, 1859

'T is sweet to fight our battles o'er, And crown with honest praise The gray old chief, who strikes no more The blow of better days.

Before the true and trusted sage With willing hearts we bend, When years have touched with hallowing age Our Master, Guide, and Friend.

For all his manhood's labor past, For love and faith long tried, His age is honored to the last, Though strength and will have died.

But when, untamed by toil and strife, Full in our front he stands, The torch of light, the s.h.i.+eld of life, Still lifted in his hands,

No temple, though its walls resound With bursts of ringing cheers, Can hold the honors that surround His manhood's twice-told years!