The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes — Volume 09 The Iron Gate and Other Poems

AMERICAN ACADEMY CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AMERICAN ACADEMY CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION MAY 26, 1880 SIRE, son, and grandson; so the century glides; Three lives, three strides, three foot-prints in the sand; Silent as midnight's falling meteor slides Into the stillness of the far-off land; How dim the space its little arc has spanned! See on this opening page the names renowned Tombed in these records on our dusty shelves, Scarce on the scroll of living memory found, Save where the wan-eyed antiquarian delves; Shadows they seem; ab, what are we ourselves? Pale ghosts of Bowdoin, Winthrop, Willard, West, Sages of busy brain and wrinkled brow, Searchers of Nature's secrets unconfessed, Asking of all things Whence and Why and How— What problems meet your larger vision now? Has Gannett tracked the wild Aurora's path? Has Bowdoin found his all-surrounding sphere? What question puzzles ciphering Philomath? Could Williams make the hidden causes clear Of the Dark Day that filled the land with fear? Dear ancient school-boys! Nature taught to them The simple lessons of the star and flower, Showed them strange sights; how on a single stem,— Admire the marvels of Creative Power!— Twin apples grew, one sweet, the other sour; How from the hill-top where our eyes beheld In even ranks the plumed and bannered maize Range its long columns, in the days of old The live volcano shot its angry blaze,— Dead since the showers of Noah's watery days; How, when the lightning split the mighty rock, The spreading fury of the shaft was spent! How the young scion joined the alien stock, And when and where the homeless swallows went To pass the winter of their discontent. Scant were the gleanings in those years of dearth; No Cuvier yet had clothed the fossil bones That slumbered, waiting for their second birth; No Lyell read the legend of the stones; Science still pointed to her empty thrones. Dreaming of orbs to eyes of earth unknown, Herschel looked heavenwards in the starlight pale; Lost in those awful depths he trod alone, Laplace stood mute before the lifted veil; While home-bred Humboldt trimmed his toy ship's sail. No mortal feet these loftier heights had gained Whence the wide realms of Nature we descry; In vain their eyes our longing fathers strained To scan with wondering gaze the summits high That far beneath their children's footpaths lie. Smile at their first small ventures as we may, The school-boy's copy shapes the scholar's hand, Their grateful memory fills our hearts to-day; Brave, hopeful, wise, this bower of peace they planned, While war's dread ploughshare scarred the suffering land. Child of our children's children yet unborn, When on this yellow page you turn your eyes, Where the brief record of this May-day morn In phrase antique and faded letters lies, How vague, how pale our flitting ghosts will rise! Yet in our veins the blood ran warm and red, For us the fields were green, the skies were blue, Though from our dust the spirit long has fled, We lived, we loved, we toiled, we dreamed like you, Smiled at our sires and thought how much we knew. Oh might our spirits for one hour return, When the next century rounds its hundredth ring, All the strange secrets it shall teach to learn, To hear the larger truths its years shall bring, Its wiser sages talk, its sweeter minstrels sing! THE SCHOOL-BOY Read at the Centennial Celebration of the foundation of Phillips Academy, Andover. 1778-1878 THESE hallowed precincts, long to memory dear, Smile with fresh welcome as our feet draw near; With softer gales the opening leaves are fanned, With fairer hues the kindling flowers expand, The rose-bush reddens with the blush of June, The groves are vocal with their minstrels' tune, The mighty elm, beneath whose arching shade The wandering children of the forest strayed, Greets the bright morning in its bridal dress, And spreads its arms the gladsome dawn to bless. Is it an idle dream that nature shares Our joys, our griefs, our pastimes, and our cares? Is there no summons when, at morning's call, The sable vestments of the darkness fall? Does not meek evening's low-voiced Ave blend With the soft vesper as its notes ascend? Is there no whisper in the perfumed air When the sweet bosom of the rose is bare? Does not the sunshine call us to rejoice? Is there no meaning in the storm-cloud's voice? No silent message when from midnight skies Heaven looks upon us with its myriad eyes? Or shift the mirror; say our dreams diffuse O'er life's pale landscape their celestial hues, Lend heaven the rainbow it has never known, And robe the earth in glories not its own, Sing their own music in the summer breeze, With fresher foliage clothe the stately trees, Stain the June blossoms with a livelier dye And spread a bluer azure on the sky,— Blest be the power that works its lawless will And finds the weediest patch an Eden still; No walls so fair as those our fancies build,— No views so bright as those our visions gild! So ran my lines, as pen and paper met, The truant goose-quill travelling like Planchette; Too ready servant, whose deceitful ways Full many a slipshod line, alas! betrays; Hence of the rhyming thousand not a few Have builded worse—a great deal—than they knew. What need of idle fancy to adorn Our mother's birthplace on her birthday morn? Hers are the blossoms of eternal spring, From these green boughs her new-fledged birds take wing, These echoes hear their earliest carols sung, In this old nest the brood is ever young. If some tired wanderer, resting from his flight, Amid the gay young choristers alight, These gather round him, mark his faded plumes That faintly still the far-off grove perfumes, And listen, wondering if some feeble note Yet lingers, quavering in his weary throat:— I, whose fresh voice yon red-faced temple knew, What tune is left me, fit to sing to you? Ask not the grandeurs of a labored song, But let my easy couplets slide along; Much could I tell you that you know too well; Much I remember, but I will not tell; Age brings experience; graybeards oft are wise, But oh! how sharp a youngster's ears and eyes! My cheek was bare of adolescent down When first I sought the academic town; Slow rolls the coach along the dusty road, Big with its filial and parental load; The frequent hills, the lonely woods are past, The school-boy's chosen home is reached at last. I see it now, the same unchanging spot, The swinging gate, the little garden plot, The narrow yard, the rock that made its floor, The flat, pale house, the knocker-garnished door, The small, trim parlor, neat, decorous, chill, The strange, new faces, kind, but grave and still; Two, creased with age,—or what I then called age,— Life's volume open at its fiftieth page; One, a shy maiden's, pallid, placid, sweet As the first snow-drop, which the sunbeams greet; One, the last nursling's; slight she was, and fair, Her smooth white forehead warmed with auburn hair; Last came the virgin Hymen long had spared, Whose daily cares the grateful household shared, Strong, patient, humble; her substantial frame Stretched the chaste draperies I forbear to name. Brave, but with effort, had the school-boy come To the cold comfort of a stranger's home; How like a dagger to my sinking heart Came the dry summons, "It is time to part; Good-by!" "Goo-ood-by!" one fond maternal kiss. . . . Homesick as death! Was ever pang like this? Too young as yet with willing feet to stray From the tame fireside, glad to get away,— Too old to let my watery grief appear,— And what so bitter as a swallowed tear! One figure still my vagrant thoughts pursue; First boy to greet me, Ariel, where are you? Imp of all mischief, heaven alone knows how You learned it all,—are you an angel now, Or tottering gently down the slope of years, Your face grown sober in the vale of tears? Forgive my freedom if you are breathing still; If in a happier world, I know you will. You were a school-boy—what beneath the sun So like a monkey? I was also one. Strange, sure enough, to see what curious shoots The nursery raises from the study's roots! In those old days the very, very good Took up more room—a little—than they should; Something too much one's eyes encountered then Of serious youth and funeral-visaged men; The solemn elders saw life's mournful half,— Heaven sent this boy, whose mission was to laugh, Drollest of buffos, Nature's odd protest, A catbird squealing in a blackbird's nest. Kind, faithful Nature! While the sour-eyed Scot— Her cheerful smiles forbidden or forgot— Talks only of his preacher and his kirk,— Hears five-hour sermons for his Sunday work,— Praying and fasting till his meagre face Gains its due length, the genuine sign of grace,— An Ayrshire mother in the land of Knox Her embryo poet in his cradle rocks;— Nature, long shivering in her dim eclipse, Steals in a sunbeam to those baby lips; So to its home her banished smile returns, And Scotland sweetens with the song of Burns! The morning came; I reached the classic hall; A clock-face eyed me, staring from the wall; Beneath its hands a printed line I read YOUTH IS LIFE'S SEED-TIME: so the clock-face said: Some took its counsel, as the sequel showed,— Sowed,—their wild oats,—and reaped as they had sowed. How all comes back! the upward slanting floor,— The masters' thrones that flank the central door,— The long, outstretching alleys that divide The rows of desks that stand on either side,— The staring boys, a face to every desk, Bright, dull, pale, blooming, common, picturesque. Grave is the Master's look; his forehead wears Thick rows of wrinkles, prints of worrying cares; Uneasy lie the heads of all that rule, His most of all whose kingdom is a school. Supreme he sits; before the awful frown That bends his brows the boldest eye goes down; Not more submissive Israel heard and saw At Sinai's foot the Giver of the Law. Less stern he seems, who sits in equal Mate On the twin throne and shares the empire's weight; Around his lips the subtle life that plays Steals quaintly forth in many a jesting phrase; A lightsome nature, not so hard to chafe, Pleasant when pleased; rough-handled, not so safe; Some tingling memories vaguely I recall, But to forgive him. God forgive us all! One yet remains, whose well-remembered name Pleads in my grateful heart its tender claim; His was the charm magnetic, the bright look That sheds its sunshine on the dreariest book; A loving soul to every task he brought That sweetly mingled with the lore he taught; Sprung from a saintly race that never could From youth to age be anything but good, His few brief years in holiest labors spent, Earth lost too soon the treasure heaven had lent. Kindest of teachers, studious to divine Some hint of promise in my earliest line, These faint and faltering words thou canst not hear Throb from a heart that holds thy memory dear. As to the traveller's eye the varied plain Shows through the window of the flying train, A mingled landscape, rather felt than seen, A gravelly bank, a sudden flash of green, A tangled wood, a glittering stream that flows Through the cleft summit where the cliff once rose, All strangely blended in a hurried gleam, Rock, wood, waste, meadow, village, hill-side, stream,— So, as we look behind us, life appears, Seen through the vista of our bygone years. Yet in the dead past's shadow-filled domain, Some vanished shapes the hues of life retain; Unbidden, oft, before our dreaming eyes From the vague mists in memory's path they rise. So comes his blooming image to my view, The friend of joyous days when life was new, Hope yet untamed, the blood of youth unchilled, No blank arrear of promise unfulfilled, Life's flower yet hidden in its sheltering fold, Its pictured canvas yet to be unrolled. His the frank smile I vainly look to greet, His the warm grasp my clasping hand should meet; How would our lips renew their school-boy talk, Our feet retrace the old familiar walk! For thee no more earth's cheerful morning shines Through the green fringes of the tented pines; Ah me! is heaven so far thou canst not hear, Or is thy viewless spirit hovering near, A fair young presence, bright with morning's glow, The fresh-cheeked boy of fifty years ago? Yes, fifty years, with all their circling suns, Behind them all my glance reverted runs; Where now that time remote, its griefs, its joys, Where are its gray-haired men, its bright-haired boys? Where is the patriarch time could hardly tire,— The good old, wrinkled, immemorial "squire "? (An honest treasurer, like a black-plumed swan, Not every day our eyes may look upon.) Where the tough champion who, with Calvin's sword, In wordy conflicts battled for the Lord? Where the grave scholar, lonely, calm, austere, Whose voice like music charmed the listening ear, Whose light rekindled, like the morning star Still shines upon us through the gates ajar? Where the still, solemn, weary, sad-eyed man, Whose care-worn face and wandering eyes would scan,— His features wasted in the lingering strife With the pale foe that drains the student's life? Where my old friend, the scholar, teacher, saint, Whose creed, some hinted, showed a speck of taint; He broached his own opinion, which is not Lightly to be forgiven or forgot; Some riddle's point,—I scarce remember now,— Homoi-, perhaps, where they said homo-ou. (If the unlettered greatly wish to know Where lies the difference betwixt oi and o, Those of the curious who have time may search Among the stale conundrums of their church.) Beneath his roof his peaceful life I shared, And for his modes of faith I little cared,— I, taught to judge men's dogmas by their deeds, Long ere the days of india-rubber creeds. Why should we look one common faith to find, Where one in every score is color-blind? If here on earth they know not red from green, Will they see better into things unseen! Once more to time's old graveyard I return And scrape the moss from memory's pictured urn. Who, in these days when all things go by steam, Recalls the stage-coach with its four-horse team? Its sturdy driver,—who remembers him? Or the old landlord, saturnine and grim, Who left our hill-top for a new abode And reared his sign-post farther down the road? Still in the waters of the dark Shawshine Do the young bathers splash and think they're clean? Do pilgrims find their way to Indian Ridge, Or journey onward to the far-off bridge, And bring to younger ears the story back Of the broad stream, the mighty Merrimac? Are there still truant feet that stray beyond These circling bounds to Pomp's or Haggett's Pond, Or where the legendary name recalls The forest's earlier tenant,—"Deerjump Falls"? Yes, every nook these youthful feet explore, Just as our sires and grand sires did of yore; So all life's opening paths, where nature led Their father's feet, the children's children tread. Roll the round century's fivescore years away, Call from our storied past that earliest day When great Eliphalet (I can see him now,— Big name, big frame, big voice, and beetling brow), Then young Eliphalet,—ruled the rows of boys In homespun gray or old-world corduroys,— And save for fashion's whims, the benches show The self-same youths, the very boys we know. Time works strange marvels: since I trod the green And swung the gates, what wonders I have seen! But come what will,—the sky itself may fall,— As things of course the boy accepts them all. The prophet's chariot, drawn by steeds of flame, For daily use our travelling millions claim; The face we love a sunbeam makes our own; No more the surgeon hears the sufferer's groan; What unwrit histories wrapped in darkness lay Till shovelling Schliemann bared them to the day! Your Richelieu says, and says it well, my lord, The pen is (sometimes) mightier than the sword; Great is the goosequill, say we all; Amen! Sometimes the spade is mightier than the pen; It shows where Babel's terraced walls were raised, The slabs that cracked when Nimrod's palace blazed, Unearths Mycenee, rediscovers Troy,— Calmly he listens, that immortal boy. A new Prometheus tips our wands with fire, A mightier Orpheus strains the whispering wire, Whose lightning thrills the lazy winds outrun And hold the hours as Joshua stayed the sun,— So swift, in truth, we hardly find a place For those dim fictions known as time and space. Still a new miracle each year supplies,— See at his work the chemist of the skies, Who questions Sirius in his tortured rays And steals the secret of the solar blaze; Hush! while the window-rattling bugles play The nation's airs a hundred miles away! That wicked phonograph! hark! how it swears! Turn it again and make it say its prayers! And was it true, then, what the story said Of Oxford's friar and his brazen head? While wondering Science stands, herself perplexed At each day's miracle, and asks "What next?" The immortal boy, the coming heir of all, Springs from his desk to "urge the flying ball," Cleaves with his bending oar the glassy waves, With sinewy arm the dashing current braves, The same bright creature in these haunts of ours That Eton shadowed with her "antique towers." Boy! Where is he? the long-limbed youth inquires, Whom his rough chin with manly pride inspires; Ah, when the ruddy cheek no longer glows, When the bright hair is white as winter snows, When the dim eye has lost its lambent flame, Sweet to his ear will be his school-boy name Nor think the difference mighty as it seems Between life's morning and its evening dreams; Fourscore, like twenty, has its tasks and toys; In earth's wide school-house all are girls and boys. Brothers, forgive my wayward fancy. Who Can guess beforehand what his pen will do? Too light my strain for listeners such as these, Whom graver thoughts and soberer speech shall please. Is he not here whose breath of holy song Has raised the downcast eyes of Faith so long? Are they not here, the strangers in your gates, For whom the wearied ear impatient waits,— The large-brained scholars whom their toils release,— The bannered heralds of the Prince of Peace? Such was the gentle friend whose youth unblamed In years long past our student-benches claimed; Whose name, illumined on the sacred page, Lives in the labors of his riper age; Such he whose record time's destroying march Leaves uneffaced on Zion's springing arch Not to the scanty phrase of measured song, Cramped in its fetters, names like these belong; One ray they lend to gild my slender line,— Their praise I leave to sweeter lips than mine. Homes of our sires, where Learning's temple rose, While vet they struggled with their banded foes, As in the West thy century's sun descends, One parting gleam its dying radiance lends. Darker and deeper though the shadows fall From the gray towers on Doubting Castle's wall, Though Pope and Pagan re-array their hosts, And her new armor youthful Science boasts, Truth, for whose altar rose this holy shrine, Shall fly for refuge to these bowers of thine; No past shall chain her with its rusted vow, No Jew's phylactery bind her Christian brow, But Faith shall smile to find her sister free, And nobler manhood draw its life from thee. Long as the arching skies above thee spread, As on thy groves the dews of heaven are shed, With currents widening still from year to year, And deepening channels, calm, untroubled, clear, Flow the twin streamlets from thy sacred hill— Pieria's fount and Siloam's shaded rill! THE SILENT MELODY "BRING me my broken harp," he said; "We both are wrecks,—but as ye will,— Though all its ringing tones have fled, Their echoes linger round it still; It had some golden strings, I know, But that was long—how long!—ago. "I cannot see its tarnished gold, I cannot hear its vanished tone, Scarce can my trembling fingers hold The pillared frame so long their own; We both are wrecks,—a while ago It had some silver strings, I know, "But on them Time too long has played The solemn strain that knows no change, And where of old my fingers strayed The chords they find are new and strange,— Yes! iron strings,—I know,—I know,— We both are wrecks of long ago. "We both are wrecks,—a shattered pair,— Strange to ourselves in time's disguise. What say ye to the lovesick air That brought the tears from Marian's eyes? Ay! trust me,—under breasts of snow Hearts could be melted long ago! "Or will ye hear the storm-song's crash That from his dreams the soldier woke, And bade him face the lightning flash When battle's cloud in thunder broke? . . . Wrecks,—nought but wrecks!—the time was when We two were worth a thousand men!" And so the broken harp they bring With pitying smiles that none could blame; Alas! there's not a single string Of all that filled the tarnished frame! But see! like children overjoyed, His fingers rambling through the void! "I clasp thee! Ay . . . mine ancient lyre . . . Nay, guide my wandering fingers. . . There They love to dally with the wire As Isaac played with Esau's hair. Hush! ye shall hear the famous tune That Marian called the Breath of June!" And so they softly gather round Rapt in his tuneful trance he seems His fingers move: but not a sound! A silence like the song of dreams. . . . "There! ye have heard the air," he cries, "That brought the tears from Marian's eyes!" Ah, smile not at his fond conceit, Nor deem his fancy wrought in vain; To him the unreal sounds are sweet,— No discord mars the silent strain Scored on life's latest, starlit page— The voiceless melody of age. Sweet are the lips, of all that sing, When Nature's music breathes unsought, But never yet could voice or string So truly shape our tenderest thought As when by life's decaying fire Our fingers sweep the stringless lyre! OUR HOME—OUR COUNTRY FOR THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE SETTLEMENT OF CAMBRIDGE, MASS., DECEMBER 28, 1880 YOUR home was mine,—kind Nature's gift; My love no years can chill; In vain their flakes the storm-winds sift, The snow-drop hides beneath the drift, A living blossom still. Mute are a hundred long-famed lyres, Hushed all their golden strings; One lay the coldest bosom fires, One song, one only, never tires While sweet-voiced memory sings. No spot so lone but echo knows That dear familiar strain; In tropic isles, on arctic snows, Through burning lips its music flows And rings its fond refrain. From Pisa's tower my straining sight Roamed wandering leagues away, When lo! a frigate's banner bright, The starry blue, the red, the white, In far Livorno's bay. Hot leaps the life-blood from my heart, Forth springs the sudden tear; The ship that rocks by yonder mart Is of my land, my life, a part,— Home, home, sweet home, is here! Fades from my view the sunlit scene,— My vision spans the waves; I see the elm-encircled green, The tower,—the steeple,—and, between, The field of ancient graves. There runs the path my feet would tread When first they learned to stray; There stands the gambrel roof that spread Its quaint old angles o'er my head When first I saw the day. The sounds that met my boyish ear My inward sense salute,— The woodnotes wild I loved to hear,— The robin's challenge, sharp and clear,— The breath of evening's flute. The faces loved from cradle days,— Unseen, alas, how long! As fond remembrance round them plays, Touched with its softening moonlight rays, Through fancy's portal throng. And see! as if the opening skies Some angel form had spared Us wingless mortals to surprise, The little maid with light-blue eyes, White necked and golden haired! . . . . . . . . . . So rose the picture full in view I paint in feebler song; Such power the seamless banner knew Of red and white and starry blue For exiles banished long. Oh, boys, dear boys, who wait as men To guard its heaven-bright folds, Blest are the eyes that see again That banner, seamless now, as then,— The fairest earth beholds! Sweet was the Tuscan air and soft In that unfading hour, And fancy leads my footsteps oft Up the round galleries, high aloft On Pisa's threatening tower. And still in Memory's holiest shrine I read with pride and joy, "For me those stars of empire shine; That empire's dearest home is mine; I am a Cambridge boy!" POEM AT THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY DINNER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY, JUNE 8, 1881 THREE paths there be where Learning's favored sons, Trained in the schools which hold her favored ones, Follow their several stars with separate aim; Each has its honors, each its special claim. Bred in the fruitful cradle of the East, First, as of oldest lineage, comes the Priest; The Lawyer next, in wordy conflict strong, Full armed to battle for the right,—or wrong; Last, he whose calling finds its voice in deeds, Frail Nature's helper in her sharpest needs. Each has his gifts, his losses and his gains, Each his own share of pleasures and of pains; No life-long aim with steadfast eye pursued Finds a smooth pathway all with roses strewed; Trouble belongs to man of woman born,— Tread where he may, his foot will find its thorn. Of all the guests at life's perennial feast, Who of her children sits above the Priest? For him the broidered robe, the carven seat, Pride at his beck, and beauty at his feet, For him the incense fumes, the wine is poured, Himself a God, adoring and adored! His the first welcome when our hearts rejoice, His in our dying ear the latest voice, Font, altar, grave, his steps on all attend, Our staff, our stay, our all but heavenly friend! Where is the meddling hand that dares to probe The secret grief beneath his sable robe? How grave his port! how every gesture tells Here truth abides, here peace forever dwells; Vex not his lofty soul with comments vain; Faith asks no questions; silence, ye profane! Alas! too oft while all is calm without The stormy spirit wars with endless doubt; This is the mocking spectre, scarce concealed Behind tradition's bruised and battered shield. He sees the sleepless critic, age by age, Scrawl his new readings on the hallowed page, The wondrous deeds that priests and prophets saw Dissolved in legend, crystallized in law, And on the soil where saints and martyrs trod Altars new builded to the Unknown God; His shrines imperilled, his evangels torn,— He dares not limp, but ah! how sharp his thorn! Yet while God's herald questions as he reads The outworn dogmas of his ancient creeds, Drops from his ritual the exploded verse, Blots from its page the Athanasian curse, Though by the critic's dangerous art perplexed, His holy life is Heaven's unquestioned text; That shining guidance doubt can never mar,— The pillar's flame, the light of Bethlehem's star! Strong is the moral blister that will draw Laid on the conscience of the Man of Law Whom blindfold Justice lends her eyes to see Truth in the scale that holds his promised fee. What! Has not every lie its truthful side, Its honest fraction, not to be denied? Per contra,—ask the moralist,—in sooth Has not a lie its share in every truth? Then what forbids an honest man to try To find the truth that lurks in every lie, And just as fairly call on truth to yield The lying fraction in its breast concealed? So the worst rogue shall claim a ready friend His modest virtues boldly to defend, And he who shows the record of a saint See himself blacker than the devil could paint. What struggles to his captive soul belong Who loves the right, yet combats for the wrong, Who fights the battle he would fain refuse, And wins, well knowing that he ought to lose, Who speaks with glowing lips and look sincere In spangled words that make the worse appear The better reason; who, behind his mask, Hides his true self and blushes at his task,— What quips, what quillets cheat the inward scorn That mocks such triumph? Has he not his thorn? Yet stay thy judgment; were thy life the prize, Thy death the forfeit, would thy cynic eyes See fault in him who bravely dares defend The cause forlorn, the wretch without a friend Nay, though the rightful side is wisdom's choice, Wrong has its rights and claims a champion's voice; Let the strong arm be lifted for the weak, For the dumb lips the fluent pleader speak;— When with warm "rebel" blood our street was dyed Who took, unawed, the hated hirelings' side? No greener civic wreath can Adams claim, No brighter page the youthful Quincy's name! How blest is he who knows no meaner strife Than Art's long battle with the foes of life! No doubt assails him, doing still his best, And trusting kindly Nature for the rest; No mocking conscience tears the thin disguise That wraps his breast, and tells him that he lies. He comes: the languid sufferer lifts his head And smiles a welcome from his weary bed; He speaks: what music like the tones that tell, "Past is the hour of danger,—all is well!" How can he feel the petty stings of grief Whose cheering presence always brings relief? What ugly dreams can trouble his repose Who yields himself to soothe another's woes? Hour after hour the busy day has found The good physician on his lonely round; Mansion and hovel, low and lofty door, He knows, his journeys every path explore,— Where the cold blast has struck with deadly chill The sturdy dweller on the storm-swept hill, Where by the stagnant marsh the sickening gale Has blanched the poisoned tenants of the vale, Where crushed and maimed the bleeding victim lies, Where madness raves, where melancholy sighs, And where the solemn whisper tells too plain That all his science, all his art, were vain. How sweet his fireside when the day is done And cares have vanished with the setting sun! Evening at last its hour of respite brings And on his couch his weary length he flings. Soft be thy pillow, servant of mankind, Lulled by an opiate Art could never find; Sweet be thy slumber,—thou hast earned it well,— Pleasant thy dreams! Clang! goes the midnight bell! Darkness and storm! the home is far away That waits his coming ere the break of day; The snow-clad pines their wintry plumage toss,— Doubtful the frozen stream his road must cross; Deep lie the drifts, the slanted heaps have shut The hardy woodman in his mountain hut,— Why should thy softer frame the tempest brave? Hast thou no life, no health, to lose or save? Look! read the answer in his patient eyes,— For him no other voice when suffering cries; Deaf to the gale that all around him blows, A feeble whisper calls him,—and he goes. Or seek the crowded city,—summer's heat Glares burning, blinding, in the narrow street, Still, noisome, deadly, sleeps the envenomed air, Unstirred the yellow flag that says "Beware!" Tempt not thy fate,—one little moment's breath Bears on its viewless wing the seeds of death; Thou at whose door the gilded chariots stand, Whose dear-bought skill unclasps the miser's hand, Turn from thy fatal quest, nor cast away That life so precious; let a meaner prey Feed the destroyer's hunger; live to bless Those happier homes that need thy care no less! Smiling he listens; has he then a charm Whose magic virtues peril can disarm? No safeguard his; no amulet he wears, Too well he knows that Nature never spares Her truest servant, powerless to defend From her own weapons her unshrinking friend. He dares the fate the bravest well might shun, Nor asks reward save only Heaven's "Well done!" Such are the toils, the perils that he knows, Days without rest and nights without repose, Yet all unheeded for the love he bears His art, his kind, whose every grief he shares. Harder than these to know how small the part Nature's proud empire yields to striving Art; How, as the tide that rolls around the sphere Laughs at the mounds that delving arms uprear,— Spares some few roods of oozy earth, but still Wastes and rebuilds the planet at its will, Comes at its ordered season, night or noon, Led by the silver magnet of the moon,— So life's vast tide forever comes and goes, Unchecked, resistless, as it ebbs and flows. Hardest of all, when Art has done her best, To find the cuckoo brooding in her nest; The shrewd adventurer, fresh from parts unknown, Kills off the patients Science thought her own; Towns from a nostrum-vender get their name, Fences and walls the cure-all drug proclaim, Plasters and pads the willing world beguile, Fair Lydia greets us with astringent smile, Munchausen's fellow-countryman unlocks His new Pandora's globule-holding box, And as King George inquired, with puzzled grin, "How—how the devil get the apple in?" So we ask how,—with wonder-opening eyes,— Such pygmy pills can hold such giant lies! Yes, sharp the trials, stern the daily tasks That suffering Nature from her servant asks; His the kind office dainty menials scorn, His path how hard,—at every step a thorn! What does his saddening, restless slavery buy? What save a right to live, a chance to die,— To live companion of disease and pain, To die by poisoned shafts untimely slain? Answer from hoary eld, majestic shades,— From Memphian courts, from Delphic colonnades, Speak in the tones that Persia's despot heard When nations treasured every golden word The wandering echoes wafted o'er the seas, From the far isle that held Hippocrates; And thou, best gift that Pergamus could send Imperial Rome, her noblest Caesar's friend, Master of masters, whose unchallenged sway Not bold Vesalius dared to disobey; Ye who while prophets dreamed of dawning times Taught your rude lessons in Salerno's rhymes, And ye, the nearer sires, to whom we owe The better share of all the best we know, In every land an ever-growing train, Since wakening Science broke her rusted chain,— Speak from the past, and say what prize was sent To crown the toiling years so freely spent! List while they speak: In life's uneven road Our willing hands have eased our brothers' load; One forehead smoothed, one pang of torture less, One peaceful hour a sufferer's couch to bless, The smile brought back to fever's parching lips, The light restored to reason in eclipse, Life's treasure rescued like a burning brand Snatched from the dread destroyer's wasteful hand; Such were our simple records day by day, For gains like these we wore our lives away. In toilsome paths our daily bread we sought, But bread from heaven attending angels brought; Pain was our teacher, speaking to the heart, Mother of pity, nurse of pitying art; Our lesson learned, we reached the peaceful shore Where the pale sufferer asks our aid no more,— These gracious words our welcome, our reward Ye served your brothers; ye have served your Lord! RHYMES OF A LIFE-TIME FROM the first gleam of morning to the gray Of peaceful evening, lo, a life unrolled! In woven pictures all its changes told, Its lights, its shadows, every flitting ray, Till the long curtain, falling, dims the day, Steals from the dial's disk the sunlight's gold, And all the graven hours grow dark and cold Where late the glowing blaze of noontide lay. Ah! the warm blood runs wild in youthful veins,— Let me no longer play with painted fire; New songs for new-born days! I would not tire The listening ears that wait for fresher strains In phrase new-moulded, new-forged rhythmic chains, With plaintive measures from a worn-out lyre. August 2, 1881. *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POETICAL WORKS OF OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES — VOLUME 09 *** Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed. 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