The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes Part 97

DURING THE TRANSIT OF VENUS

I LOVE all sights of earth and skies, From flowers that glow to stars that s.h.i.+ne; The comet and the penny show, All curious things, above, below, Hold each in turn my wandering eyes: I claim the Christian Pagan's line, _Humani nihil_,--even so,-- And is not human life divine?

When soft the western breezes blow, And strolling youths meet sauntering maids, I love to watch the stirring trades Beneath the Vallombrosa shades Our much-enduring elms bestow; The vender and his rhetoric's flow, That lambent stream of liquid lies; The bait he dangles from his line, The gudgeon and his gold-washed prize.

I halt before the blazoned sign That bids me linger to admire The drama time can never tire, The little hero of the hunch, With iron arm and soul of fire, And will that works his fierce desire,-- Untamed, unscared, unconquered Punch My ear a pleasing torture finds In tones the withered sibyl grinds,-- The dame sans merci's broken strain, Whom I erewhile, perchance, have known, When Orleans filled the Bourbon throne, A siren singing by the Seine.

But most I love the tube that spies The orbs celestial in their march; That shows the comet as it whisks Its tail across the planets' disks, As if to blind their blood-shot eyes; Or wheels so close against the sun We tremble at the thought of risks Our little spinning ball may run, To pop like corn that children parch, From summer something overdone, And roll, a cinder, through the skies.

Grudge not to-day the scanty fee To him who farms the firmament, To whom the Milky Way is free; Who holds the wondrous crystal key, The silent Open Sesame That Science to her sons has lent; Who takes his toll, and lifts the bar That shuts the road to sun and star.

If Venus only comes to time, (And prophets say she must and shall,) To-day will hear the tinkling chime Of many a ringing silver dime, For him whose optic gla.s.s supplies The crowd with astronomic eyes,-- The Galileo of the Mall.

Dimly the transit morning broke; The sun seemed doubting what to do, As one who questions how to dress, And takes his doublets from the press, And halts between the old and new.

Please Heaven he wear his suit of blue, Or don, at least, his ragged cloak, With rents that show the azure through!

I go the patient crowd to join That round the tube my eyes discern, The last new-comer of the file, And wait, and wait, a weary while,

And gape, and stretch, and shrug, and smile, (For each his place must fairly earn, Hindmost and foremost, in his turn,) Till hitching onward, pace by pace, I gain at last the envied place, And pay the white exiguous coin: The sun and I are face to face; He glares at me, I stare at him; And lo! my straining eye has found A little spot that, black and round, Lies near the crimsoned fire-orb's rim.

O blessed, beauteous evening star, Well named for her whom earth adores,-- The Lady of the dove-drawn car,-- I know thee in thy white simar; But veiled in black, a rayless spot, Blank as a careless scribbler's blot, Stripped of thy robe of silvery flame,-- The stolen robe that Night restores When Day has shut his golden doors,-- I see thee, yet I know thee not; And canst thou call thyself the same?

A black, round spot,--and that is all; And such a speck our earth would be If he who looks upon the stars Through the red atmosphere of Mars Could see our little creeping ball Across the disk of crimson crawl As I our sister planet see.

And art thou, then, a world like ours, Flung from the orb that whirled our own A molten pebble from its zone?

How must thy burning sands absorb The fire-waves of the blazing orb, Thy chain so short, thy path so near, Thy flame-defying creatures hear The maelstroms of the photosphere!

And is thy bosom decked with flowers That steal their bloom from scalding showers?

And bast thou cities, domes, and towers, And life, and love that makes it dear, And death that fills thy tribes with fear?

Lost in my dream, my spirit soars Through paths the wandering angels know; My all-pervading thought explores The azure ocean's lucent sh.o.r.es; I leave my mortal self below, As up the star-lit stairs I climb, And still the widening view reveals In endless rounds the circling wheels That build the horologe of time.

New spheres, new suns, new systems gleam; The voice no earth-born echo hears Steals softly on my ravished ears I hear them "singing as they s.h.i.+ne"-- A mortal's voice dissolves my dream: My patient neighbor, next in line, Hints gently there are those who wait.

O guardian of the starry gate, What coin shall pay this debt of mine?

Too slight thy claim, too small the fee That bids thee turn the potent key.

The Tuscan's hand has placed in thine.

Forgive my own the small affront, The insult of the proffered dime; Take it, O friend, since this thy wont, But still shall faithful memory be A bankrupt debtor unto thee, And pay thee with a grateful rhyme.

AVE

PRELUDE TO "ILl.u.s.tRATED POEMS"

FULL well I know the frozen hand has come That smites the songs of grove and garden dumb, And chills sad autumn's last chrysanthemum;

Yet would I find one blossom, if I might, Ere the dark loom that weaves the robe of white Hides all the wrecks of summer out of sight.

Sometimes in dim November's narrowing day, When all the season's pride has pa.s.sed away, As mid the blackened stems and leaves we stray,

We spy in sheltered nook or rocky cleft A starry disk the hurrying winds have left, Of all its blooming sisterhood bereft.

Some pansy, with its wondering baby eyes Poor wayside nursling!--fixed in blank surprise At the rough welcome of unfriendly skies;

Or golden daisy,--will it dare disclaim The lion's tooth, to wear this gentler name?

Or blood-red salvia, with its lips aflame.

The storms have stripped the lily and the rose, Still on its cheek the flush of summer glows, And all its heart-leaves kindle as it blows.

So had I looked some bud of song to find The careless winds of autumn left behind, With these of earlier seasons' growth to bind.

Ah me! my skies are dark with sudden grief, A flower lies faded on my garnered sheaf; Yet let the suns.h.i.+ne gild this virgin leaf,

The joyous, blessed suns.h.i.+ne of the past, Still with me, though the heavens are overcast,-- The light that s.h.i.+nes while life and memory last.

Go, pictured rhymes, for loving readers meant; Bring back the smiles your jocund morning lent, And warm their hearts with sunbeams yet unspent!

BEVERLY FARMS, July 24, 1884.

KING'S CHAPEL

READ AT THE TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY

Is it a weanling's weakness for the past That in the stormy, rebel-breeding town, Swept clean of relics by the levelling blast,

Still keeps our gray old chapel's name of "King's,"

Still to its outworn symbols fondly clings,-- Its unchurched mitres and its empty crown?

Poor harmless emblems! All has shrunk away That made them gorgons in the patriot's eyes; The priestly plaything harms us not to-day; The gilded crown is but a pleasing show, An old-world heirloom, left from long ago, Wreck of the past that memory bids us prize,

Lightly we glance the fresh-cut marbles o'er; Those two of earlier date our eyes enthrall: The proud old Briton's by the western door, And hers, the Lady of Colonial days, Whose virtues live in long-drawn cla.s.sic phrase,-- The fair Francesca of the southern wall.

Ay! those were goodly men that Reynolds drew, And stately dames our Copley's canvas holds, To their old Church, their Royal Master, true, Proud of the claim their valiant sires had earned, That "gentle blood," not lightly to be spurned, Save by the churl ungenerous Nature moulds.

All vanished! It were idle to complain That ere the fruits shall come the flowers must fall; Yet somewhat we have lost amidst our gain, Some rare ideals time may not restore,-- The charm of courtly breeding, seen no more, And reverence, dearest ornament of all.

Thus musing, to the western wall I came, Departing: lo! a tablet fresh and fair, Where glistened many a youth's remembered name In golden letters on the snow-white stone,-- Young lives these aisles and arches once have known, Their country's bleeding altar might not spare.

These died that we might claim a soil unstained, Save by the blood of heroes; their bequests A realm unsevered and a race unchained.

Has purer blood through Norman veins come down From the rough knights that clutched the Saxon's crown Than warmed the pulses in these faithful b.r.e.a.s.t.s?

These, too, shall live in history's deathless page, High on the slow-wrought pedestals of fame, Ranged with the heroes of remoter age; They could not die who left their nation free, Firm as the rock, unfettered as the sea, Its heaven unshadowed by the cloud of shame.

While on the storied past our memory dwells, Our grateful tribute shall not be denied,-- The wreath, the cross of rustling immortelles; And willing hands shall clear each darkening bust, As year by year sifts down the clinging dust On s.h.i.+rley's beauty and on Va.s.sall's pride.

But for our own, our loved and lost, we bring With throbbing hearts and tears that still must flow, In full-heaped hands, the opening flowers of spring, Lilies half-blown, and budding roses, red As their young cheeks, before the blood was shed That lent their morning bloom its generous glow.

Ah, who shall count a rescued nation's debt, Or sum in words our martyrs' silent claims?

Who shall our heroes' dread exchange forget,-- All life, youth, hope, could promise to allure For all that soul could brave or flesh endure?