The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes Part 87

AT THE PAPYRUS CLUB

A LOVELY show for eyes to see I looked upon this morning,-- A bright-hued, feathered company Of nature's own adorning; But ah! those minstrels would not sing A listening ear while I lent,-- The lark sat still and preened his wing, The nightingale was silent; I longed for what they gave me not-- Their warblings sweet and fluty, But grateful still for all I got I thanked them for their beauty.

A fairer vision meets my view Of Claras, Margarets, Marys, In silken robes of varied hue, Like bluebirds and canaries; The roses blush, the jewels gleam, The silks and satins glisten, The black eyes flash, the blue eyes beam, We look--and then we listen Behold the flock we cage to-night-- Was ever such a capture?

To see them is a pure delight; To hear them--ah! what rapture!

Methinks I hear Delilah's laugh At Samson bound in fetters; "We captured!" shrieks each lovelier half, "Men think themselves our betters!

We push the bolt, we turn the key On warriors, poets, sages, Too happy, all of them, to be Locked in our golden cages!"

Beware! the boy with bandaged eyes Has flung away his blinder;

He 's lost his mother--so he cries-- And here he knows he'll find her: The rogue! 't is but a new device,-- Look out for flying arrows Whene'er the birds of Paradise Are perched amid the sparrows!

FOR WHITTIER'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY

DECEMBER 17, 1877

I BELIEVE that the copies of verses I've spun, Like Scheherezade's tales, are a thousand and one; You remember the story,--those mornings in bed,-- 'T was the turn of a copper,--a tale or a head.

A doom like Scheherezade's falls upon me In a mandate as stern as the Sultan's decree I'm a florist in verse, and what would people say If I came to a banquet without my bouquet?

It is trying, no doubt, when the company knows Just the look and the smell of each lily and rose, The green of each leaf in the sprigs that I bring, And the shape of the bunch and the knot of the string.

Yes,--"the style is the man," and the nib of one's pen Makes the same mark at twenty, and threescore and ten; It is so in all matters, if truth may be told; Let one look at the cast he can tell you the mould.

How we all know each other! no use in disguise; Through the holes in the mask comes the flash of the eyes; We can tell by his--somewhat--each one of our tribe, As we know the old hat which we cannot describe.

Though in Hebrew, in Sanscrit, in Choctaw you write, Sweet singer who gave us the Voices of Night, Though in buskin or slipper your song may be shod; Or the velvety verse that Evangeline trod,

We shall say, "You can't cheat us,--we know it is you,"

There is one voice like that, but there cannot be two, Maestro, whose chant like the dulcimer rings And the woods will be hushed while the nightingale sings.

And he, so serene, so majestic, so true, Whose temple hypethral the planets s.h.i.+ne through, Let us catch but five words from that mystical pen, We should know our one sage from all children of men.

And he whose bright image no distance can dim, Through a hundred disguises we can't mistake him, Whose play is all earnest, whose wit is the edge (With a beetle behind) of a sham-splitting wedge.

Do you know whom we send you, Hidalgos of Spain?

Do you know your old friends when you see them again?

Hosea was Sancho! you Dons of Madrid, But Sancho that wielded the lance of the Cid!

And the wood-thrush of Ess.e.x,--you know whom I mean, Whose song echoes round us while he sits unseen, Whose heart-throbs of verse through our memories thrill Like a breath from the wood, like a breeze from the hill,

So fervid, so simple, so loving, so pure, We hear but one strain and our verdict is sure,-- Thee cannot elude us,--no further we search,-- 'T is Holy George Herbert cut loose from his church!

We think it the voice of a seraph that sings,-- Alas! we remember that angels have wings,-- What story is this of the day of his birth?

Let him live to a hundred! we want him on earth!

One life has been paid him (in gold) by the sun; One account has been squared and another begun; But he never will die if he lingers below Till we've paid him in love half the balance we owe!

TWO SONNETS: HARVARD

At the meeting of the New York Harvard Club, February 21, 1878.

"CHRISTO ET ECCLESLE." 1700

To G.o.d'S ANOINTED AND HIS CHOSEN FLOCK So ran the phrase the black-robed conclave chose To guard the sacred cloisters that arose Like David's altar on Moriah's rock.

Unshaken still those ancient arches mock The ram's-horn summons of the windy foes Who stand like Joshua's army while it blows And wait to see them toppling with the shock.

Christ and the Church. Their church, whose narrow door Shut out the many, who if overbold Like hunted wolves were driven from the fold, Bruised with the flails these G.o.dly zealots bore, Mindful that Israel's altar stood of old Where echoed once Araunah's thres.h.i.+ng-floor.

1643 "VERITAS." 1878

TRUTH: So the frontlet's older legend ran, On the brief record's opening page displayed; Not yet those clear-eyed scholars were afraid Lest the fair fruit that wrought the woe of man By far Euphrates--where our sire began His search for truth, and, seeking, was betrayed-- Might work new treason in their forest shade, Doubling the curse that brought life's shortened span.

Nurse of the future, daughter of the past, That stern phylactery best becomes thee now Lift to the morning star thy marble brow Cast thy brave truth on every warring blast!

Stretch thy white hand to that forbidden bough, And let thine earliest symbol be thy last!

THE COMING ERA

THEY tell us that the Muse is soon to fly hence, Leaving the bowers of song that once were dear, Her robes bequeathing to her sister, Science, The groves of Pindus for the axe to clear.

Optics will claim the wandering eye of fancy, Physics will grasp imagination's wings, Plain fact exorcise fiction's necromancy, The workshop hammer where the minstrel sings,

No more with laugher at Thalia's frolics Our eyes shall twinkle till the tears run down, But in her place the lecturer on hydraulics Spout forth his watery science to the town.

No more our foolish pa.s.sions and affections The tragic Muse with mimic grief shall try, But, n.o.bler far, a course of vivisections Teach what it costs a tortured brute to die.

The unearthed monad, long in buried rocks hid, Shall tell the secret whence our being came; The chemist show us death is life's black oxide, Left when the breath no longer fans its flame.

Instead of crack-brained poets in their attics Filling thin volumes with their flowery talk, There shall be books of wholesome mathematics; The tutor with his blackboard and his chalk.

No longer bards with madrigal and sonnet Shall woo to moonlight walks the ribboned s.e.x, But side by side the beaver and the bonnet Stroll, calmly pondering on some problem's x.

The sober bliss of serious calculation Shall mock the trivial joys that fancy drew, And, oh, the rapture of a solved equation,-- One self-same answer on the lips of two!

So speak in solemn tones our youthful sages, Patient, severe, laborious, slow, exact, As o'er creation's protoplasmic pages They browse and munch the thistle crops of fact.