diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 7397.txt | 2616 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 7397.zip | bin | 0 -> 41325 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/ohp1010.txt | 2600 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/ohp1010.zip | bin | 0 -> 41159 bytes |
7 files changed, 5232 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7397.txt b/7397.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..641fdf3 --- /dev/null +++ b/7397.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2616 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell +Holmes, Vol. 10, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vol. 10 + Before The Curfew + +Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +Release Date: September 30, 2004 [EBook #7397] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY OF HOLMES, VOL. 10 *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + THE POETICAL WORKS + + OF + + OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + + [Volume 3 of the 1893 three volume set] + + + + + BEFORE THE CURFEW + + + + + AT MY FIRESIDE + AT THE SATURDAY CLUB + OUR DEAD SINGER. H. W. L. + TWO POEMS TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE ON HER SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY. + I. AT THE SUMMIT + II. THE WORLD'S HOMAGE + A WELCOME TO DR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD + TO FREDERICK HENRY HEDGE ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY + TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL + TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY + PRELUDE TO A VOLUME PRINTED IN RAISED LETTERS + FOR THE BLIND + BOSTON TO FLORENCE + AT THE UNITARIAN FESTIVAL, MARCH 8, 1882 + POEM FOR THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF + HARVARD COLLEGE + POST-PRANDIAL: PHI BETA KAPPA, 1881 + THE FLANEUR: DURING THE TRANSIT OF VENUS, 1882 + AVE + KING'S CHAPEL READ AT THE TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY + HYMN FOR THE SAME OCCASION + HYMN.--THE WORD OF PROMISE + HYMN READ AT THE DEDICATION OF THE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES HOSPITAL AT + HUDSON, WISCONSIN, JUNE 7, 1887 + ON THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD + THE GOLDEN FLOWER + HAIL, COLUMBIA! + POEM FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE FOUNTAIN AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON, + PRESENTED + BY GEORGE CHILDS, OF PHILADELPHIA + TO THE POETS WHO ONLY READ AND LISTEN + FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE NEW CITY LIBRARY + FOR THE WINDOW IN ST. MARGARET'S + JAMES RUSSELL LO WELL: 1819-1891 + + + + +AT MY FIRESIDE + +ALONE, beneath the darkened sky, +With saddened heart and unstrung lyre, +I heap the spoils of years gone by, +And leave them with a long-drawn sigh, +Like drift-wood brands that glimmering lie, +Before the ashes hide the fire. + +Let not these slow declining days +The rosy light of dawn outlast; +Still round my lonely hearth it plays, +And gilds the east with borrowed rays, +While memory's mirrored sunset blaze +Flames on the windows of the past. + +March 1, 1888. + + + + + +AT THE SATURDAY CLUB +THIS is our place of meeting; opposite +That towered and pillared building: look at it; +King's Chapel in the Second George's day, +Rebellion stole its regal name away,-- +Stone Chapel sounded better; but at last +The poisoned name of our provincial past +Had lost its ancient venom; then once more +Stone Chapel was King's Chapel as before. +(So let rechristened North Street, when it can, +Bring back the days of Marlborough and Queen Anne!) +Next the old church your wandering eye will meet-- +A granite pile that stares upon the street-- +Our civic temple; slanderous tongues have said +Its shape was modelled from St. Botolph's head, +Lofty, but narrow; jealous passers-by +Say Boston always held her head too high. +Turn half-way round, and let your look survey +The white facade that gleams across the way,-- +The many-windowed building, tall and wide, +The palace-inn that shows its northern side +In grateful shadow when the sunbeams beat +The granite wall in summer's scorching heat. +This is the place; whether its name you spell +Tavern, or caravansera, or hotel. +Would I could steal its echoes! you should find +Such store of vanished pleasures brought to mind +Such feasts! the laughs of many a jocund hour +That shook the mortar from King George's tower; +Such guests! What famous names its record boasts, +Whose owners wander in the mob of ghosts! +Such stories! Every beam and plank is filled +With juicy wit the joyous talkers spilled, +Ready to ooze, as once the mountain pine +The floors are laid with oozed its turpentine! + +A month had flitted since The Club had met; +The day came round; I found the table set, +The waiters lounging round the marble stairs, +Empty as yet the double row of chairs. +I was a full half hour before the rest, +Alone, the banquet-chamber's single guest. +So from the table's side a chair I took, +And having neither company nor book +To keep me waking, by degrees there crept +A torpor over me,--in short, I slept. + +Loosed from its chain, along the wreck-strown track +Of the dead years my soul goes travelling back; +My ghosts take on their robes of flesh; it seems +Dreaming is life; nay, life less life than dreams, +So real are the shapes that meet my eyes. +They bring no sense of wonder, no surprise, +No hint of other than an earth-born source; +All seems plain daylight, everything of course. + +How dim the colors are, how poor and faint +This palette of weak words with which I paint! +Here sit my friends; if I could fix them so +As to my eyes they seem, my page would glow +Like a queen's missal, warm as if the brush +Of Titian or Velasquez brought the flush +Of life into their features. Ay de mi! +If syllables were pigments, you should see +Such breathing portraitures as never man +Found in the Pitti or the Vatican. + +Here sits our POET, Laureate, if you will. +Long has he worn the wreath, and wears it still. +Dead? Nay, not so; and yet they say his bust +Looks down on marbles covering royal dust, +Kings by the Grace of God, or Nature's grace; +Dead! No! Alive! I see him in his place, +Full-featured, with the bloom that heaven denies +Her children, pinched by cold New England skies, +Too often, while the nursery's happier few +Win from a summer cloud its roseate hue. +Kind, soft-voiced, gentle, in his eye there shines +The ray serene that filled Evangeline's. +Modest he seems, not shy; content to wait +Amid the noisy clamor of debate +The looked-for moment when a peaceful word +Smooths the rough ripples louder tongues have stirred. +In every tone I mark his tender grace +And all his poems hinted in his face; +What tranquil joy his friendly presence gives! +How could. I think him dead? He lives! He lives! + +There, at the table's further end I see +In his old place our Poet's vis-a-vis, +The great PROFESSOR, strong, broad-shouldered, square, +In life's rich noontide, joyous, debonair. +His social hour no leaden care alloys, +His laugh rings loud and mirthful as a boy's,-- +That lusty laugh the Puritan forgot,-- +What ear has heard it and remembers not? +How often, halting at some wide crevasse +Amid the windings of his Alpine pass, +High up the cliffs, the climbing mountaineer, +Listening the far-off avalanche to hear, +Silent, and leaning on his steel-shod staff, +Has heard that cheery voice, that ringing laugh, +From the rude cabin whose nomadic walls +Creep with the moving glacier as it crawls +How does vast Nature lead her living train +In ordered sequence through that spacious brain, +As in the primal hour when Adam named +The new-born tribes that young creation claimed!-- +How will her realm be darkened, losing thee, +Her darling, whom we call _our_ AGASSIZ! + +But who is he whose massive frame belies +The maiden shyness of his downcast eyes? +Who broods in silence till, by questions pressed, +Some answer struggles from his laboring breast? +An artist Nature meant to dwell apart, +Locked in his studio with a human heart, +Tracking its eaverned passions to their lair, +And all its throbbing mysteries laying bare. +Count it no marvel that he broods alone +Over the heart he studies,--'t is his own; +So in his page, whatever shape it wear, +The Essex wizard's shadowed self is there,-- +The great ROMANCER, hid beneath his veil +Like the stern preacher of his sombre tale; +Virile in strength, yet bashful as a girl, +Prouder than Hester, sensitive as Pearl. + +From his mild throng of worshippers released, +Our Concord Delphi sends its chosen priest, +Prophet or poet, mystic, sage, or seer, +By every title always welcome here. +Why that ethereal spirit's frame describe? +You know the race-marks of the Brahmin tribe, +The spare, slight form, the sloping shoulders' droop, +The calm, scholastic mien, the clerkly stoop, +The lines of thought the sharpened features wear, +Carved by the edge of keen New England air. +List! for he speaks! As when a king would choose +The jewels for his bride, he might refuse +This diamond for its flaw,--find that less bright +Than those, its fellows, and a pearl less white +Than fits her snowy neck, and yet at last, +The fairest gems are chosen, and made fast +In golden fetters; so, with light delays +He seeks the fittest word to fill his phrase; +Nor vain nor idle his fastidious quest, +His chosen word is sure to prove the best. +Where in the realm of thought, whose air is song, +Does he, the Buddha of the West, belong? +He seems a winged Franklin, sweetly wise, +Born to unlock the secrets of the skies; +And which the nobler calling,--if 't is fair +Terrestrial with celestial to compare,-- +To guide the storm-cloud's elemental flame, +Or walk the chambers whence the lightning came, +Amidst the sources of its subtile fire, +And steal their effluence for his lips and lyre? +If lost at times in vague aerial flights, +None treads with firmer footstep when he lights; +A soaring nature, ballasted with sense, +Wisdom without her wrinkles or pretence, +In every Bible he has faith to read, +And every altar helps to shape his creed. +Ask you what name this prisoned spirit bears +While with ourselves this fleeting breath it shares? +Till angels greet him with a sweeter one +In heaven, on earth we call him EMERSON. + +I start; I wake; the vision is withdrawn; +Its figures fading like the stars at dawn; +Crossed from the roll of life their cherished names, +And memory's pictures fading in their frames; +Yet life is lovelier for these transient gleams +Of buried friendships; blest is he who dreams! + + + + + +OUR DEAD SINGER + +H. W. L. + +PRIDE of the sister realm so long our own, +We claim with her that spotless fame of thine, +White as her snow and fragrant as her pine! +Ours was thy birthplace, but in every zone +Some wreath of song thy liberal hand has thrown +Breathes perfume from its blossoms, that entwine +Where'er the dewdrops fall, the sunbeams shine, +On life's long path with tangled cares o'ergrown. +Can Art thy truthful counterfeit command,-- +The silver-haloed features, tranquil, mild,-- +Soften the lips of bronze as when they smiled, +Give warmth and pressure to the marble hand? +Seek the lost rainbow in the sky it spanned +Farewell, sweet Singer! Heaven reclaims its child. + +Carved from the block or cast in clinging mould, +Will grateful Memory fondly try her best +The mortal vesture from decay to wrest; +His look shall greet us, calm, but ah, how cold! +No breath can stir the brazen drapery's fold, +No throb can heave the statue's stony breast; +"He is not here, but risen," will stand confest +In all we miss, in all our eyes behold. +How Nature loved him! On his placid brow, +Thought's ample dome, she set the sacred sign +That marks the priesthood of her holiest shrine, +Nor asked a leaflet from the laurel's bough +That envious Time might clutch or disallow, +To prove her chosen minstrel's song divine. + +On many a saddened hearth the evening fire +Burns paler as the children's hour draws near,-- +That joyous hour his song made doubly dear,-- +And tender memories touch the faltering choir. +He sings no more on earth; our vain desire +Aches for the voice we loved so long to hear +In Dorian flute-notes breathing soft and clear,-- +The sweet contralto that could never tire. +Deafened with listening to a harsher strain, +The Maenad's scream, the stark barbarian's cry, +Still for those soothing, loving tones we sigh; +Oh, for our vanished Orpheus once again! +The shadowy silence hears us call in vain! +His lips are hushed; his song shall never die. + + + + + +TWO POEMS TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE + +ON HER SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY, JUNE 14, 1882 + + +I. AT THE SUMMIT + +SISTER, we bid you welcome,--we who stand +On the high table-land; +We who have climbed life's slippery Alpine slope, +And rest, still leaning on the staff of hope, +Looking along the silent Mer de Glace, +Leading our footsteps where the dark crevasse +Yawns in the frozen sea we all must pass,-- +Sister, we clasp your hand! + +Rest with us in the hour that Heaven has lent +Before the swift descent. +Look! the warm sunbeams kiss the glittering ice; +See! next the snow-drift blooms the edelweiss; +The mated eagles fan the frosty air; +Life, beauty, love, around us everywhere, +And, in their time, the darkening hours that bear +Sweet memories, peace, content. + +Thrice welcome! shining names our missals show +Amid their rubrics' glow, +But search the blazoned record's starry line, +What halo's radiance fills the page like thine? +Thou who by some celestial clue couldst find +The way to all the hearts of all mankind, +On thee, already canonized, enshrined, +What more can Heaven bestow! + + +II. THE WORLD'S HOMAGE + +IF every tongue that speaks her praise +For whom I shape my tinkling phrase +Were summoned to the table, +The vocal chorus that would meet +Of mingling accents harsh or sweet, +From every land and tribe, would beat +The polyglots at Babel. + +Briton and Frenchman, Swede and Dane, +Turk, Spaniard, Tartar of Ukraine, +Hidalgo, Cossack, Cadi, +High Dutchman and Low Dutchman, too, +The Russian serf, the Polish Jew, +Arab, Armenian, and Mantchoo, +Would shout, "We know the lady!" + +Know her! Who knows not Uncle Tom +And her he learned his gospel from +Has never heard of Moses; +Full well the brave black hand we know +That gave to freedom's grasp the hoe +That killed the weed that used to grow +Among the Southern roses. + +When Archimedes, long ago, +Spoke out so grandly, "_dos pou sto_-- +Give me a place to stand on, +I'll move your planet for you, now,"-- +He little dreamed or fancied how +The _sto_ at last should find its _pou_ +For woman's faith to land on. + +Her lever was the wand of art, +Her fulcrum was the human heart, +Whence all unfailing aid is; +She moved the earth! Its thunders pealed, +Its mountains shook, its temples reeled, +The blood-red fountains were unsealed, +And Moloch sunk to Hades. + +All through the conflict, up and down +Marched Uncle Tom and Old John Brown, +One ghost, one form ideal; +And which was false and which was true, +And which was mightier of the two, +The wisest sibyl never knew, +For both alike were real. + +Sister, the holy maid does well +Who counts her beads in convent cell, +Where pale devotion lingers; +But she who serves the sufferer's needs, +Whose prayers are spelt in loving deeds, +May trust the Lord will count her beads +As well as human fingers. + +When Truth herself was Slavery's slave, +Thy hand the prisoned suppliant gave +The rainbow wings of fiction. +And Truth who soared descends to-day +Bearing an angel's wreath away, +Its lilies at thy feet to lay +With Heaven's own benediction. + + + + + +A WELCOME TO DR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD + +ON HIS RETURN FROM SOUTH AMERICA + +AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS DEVOTED TO CATALOGUING THE +STARS OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE + +Read at the Dinner given at the Hotel Vendome, May 6,1885. + +ONCE more Orion and the sister Seven +Look on thee from the skies that hailed thy birth,-- +How shall we welcome thee, whose home was heaven, +From thy celestial wanderings back to earth? + +Science has kept her midnight taper burning +To greet thy coming with its vestal flame; +Friendship has murmured, "When art thou returning?" +"Not yet! Not yet!" the answering message came. + +Thine was unstinted zeal, unchilled devotion, +While the blue realm had kingdoms to explore,-- +Patience, like his who ploughed the unfurrowed ocean, +Till o'er its margin loomed San Salvador. + +Through the long nights I see thee ever waking, +Thy footstool earth, thy roof the hemisphere, +While with thy griefs our weaker hearts are aching, +Firm as thine equatorial's rock-based pier. + +The souls that voyaged the azure depths before thee +Watch with thy tireless vigils, all unseen,-- +Tycho and Kepler bend benignant o'er thee, +And with his toy-like tube the Florentine,-- + +He at whose word the orb that bore him shivered +To find her central sovereignty disowned, +While the wan lips of priest and pontiff quivered, +Their jargon stilled, their Baal disenthroned. + +Flamsteed and Newton look with brows unclouded, +Their strife forgotten with its faded scars,-- +(Titans, who found the world of space too crowded +To walk in peace among its myriad stars.) + +All cluster round thee,--seers of earliest ages, +Persians, Ionians, Mizraim's learned kings, +From the dim days of Shinar's hoary sages +To his who weighed the planet's fluid rings. + +And we, for whom the northern heavens are lighted, +For whom the storm has passed, the sun has smiled, +Our clouds all scattered, all our stars united, +We claim thee, clasp thee, like a long-lost child. + +Fresh from the spangled vault's o'er-arching splendor, +Thy lonely pillar, thy revolving dome, +In heartfelt accents, proud, rejoicing, tender, +We bid thee welcome to thine earthly home! + + + + + +TO FREDERICK HENRY HEDGE + +AT A DINNER GIVEN HIM ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY, +DECEMBER 12, 1885 + +With a bronze statuette of John of Bologna's Mercury, +presented by a few friends. + +FIT emblem for the altar's side, +And him who serves its daily need, +The stay, the solace, and the guide +Of mortal men, whate'er his creed! + +Flamen or Auspex, Priest or Bonze, +He feeds the upward-climbing fire, +Still teaching, like the deathless bronze, +Man's noblest lesson,--to aspire. + +Hermes lies prone by fallen Jove, +Crushed are the wheels of Krishna's car, +And o'er Dodona's silent grove +Streams the white, ray from Bethlehem's star. + +Yet snatched from Time's relentless clutch, +A godlike shape, that human hands +Have fired with Art's electric touch, +The herald of Olympus stands. + +Ask not what ore the furnace knew; +Love mingled with the flowing mass, +And lends its own unchanging hue, +Like gold in Corinth's molten brass. + +Take then our gift; this airy form +Whose bronze our benedictions gild, +The hearts of all its givers warm +With love by freezing years unchilled. + +With eye undimmed, with strength unworn, +Still toiling in your Master's field, +Before you wave the growths unshorn, +Their ripened harvest yet to yield. + +True servant of the Heavenly Sire, +To you our tried affection clings, +Bids you still labor, still aspire, +But clasps your feet and steals their wings. + + + + +TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL + +THIS is your month, the month of "perfect days," +Birds in full song and blossoms all ablaze. +Nature herself your earliest welcome breathes, +Spreads every leaflet, every bower inwreathes; +Carpets her paths for your returning feet, +Puts forth her best your coming steps to greet; +And Heaven must surely find the earth in tune +When Home, sweet Home, exhales the breath of June. +These blessed days are waning all too fast, +And June's bright visions mingling with the past; + +Lilacs have bloomed and faded, and the rose +Has dropped its petals, but the clover blows, +And fills its slender tubes with honeyed sweets; +The fields are pearled with milk-white margarites; +The dandelion, which you sang of old, +Has lost its pride of place, its crown of gold, +But still displays its feathery-mantled globe, +Which children's breath, or wandering winds unrobe. +These were your humble friends; your opened eyes +Nature had trained her common gifts to prize; +Not Cam nor Isis taught you to despise +Charles, with his muddy margin and the harsh, +Plebeian grasses of the reeking marsh. +New England's home-bred scholar, well you knew +Her soil, her speech, her people, through and through, +And loved them ever with the love that holds +All sweet, fond memories in its fragrant folds. +Though far and wide your winged words have flown, +Your daily presence kept you all our own, +Till, with a sorrowing sigh, a thrill of pride, +We heard your summons, and you left our side +For larger duties and for tasks untried. + +How pleased the Spaniards for a while to claim +This frank Hidalgo with the liquid name, +Who stored their classics on his crowded shelves +And loved their Calderon as they did themselves! +Before his eyes what changing pageants pass! +The bridal feast how near the funeral mass! +The death-stroke falls,--the Misereres wail; +The joy-bells ring,--the tear-stained cheeks unveil, +While, as the playwright shifts his pictured scene, +The royal mourner crowns his second queen. + +From Spain to Britain is a goodly stride,-- +Madrid and London long-stretched leagues divide. +What if I send him, "Uncle S., says he," +To my good cousin whom he calls "J. B."? +A nation's servants go where they are sent,-- +He heard his Uncle's orders, and he went. +By what enchantments, what alluring arts, +Our truthful James led captive British hearts,-- +Whether his shrewdness made their statesmen halt, +Or if his learning found their Dons at fault, +Or if his virtue was a strange surprise, +Or if his wit flung star-dust in their eyes,-- +Like honest Yankees we can simply guess; +But that he did it all must needs confess. +England herself without a blush may claim +Her only conqueror since the Norman came. +Eight years an exile! What a weary while +Since first our herald sought the mother isle! +His snow-white flag no churlish wrong has soiled,--- +He left unchallenged, he returns unspoiled. + +Here let us keep him, here he saw the light,-- +His genius, wisdom, wit, are ours by right; +And if we lose him our lament will be +We have "five hundred"--_not_ "as good as he." + + + + + +TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER + +ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY + +1887 + +FRIEND, whom thy fourscore winters leave more dear +Than when life's roseate summer on thy cheek +Burned in the flush of manhood's manliest year, +Lonely, how lonely! is the snowy peak +Thy feet have reached, and mine have climbed so near! +Close on thy footsteps 'mid the landscape drear +I stretch my hand thine answering grasp to seek, +Warm with the love no rippling rhymes can speak! +Look backward! From thy lofty height survey +Thy years of toil, of peaceful victories won, +Of dreams made real, largest hopes outrun! +Look forward! Brighter than earth's morning ray +Streams the pure light of Heaven's unsetting sun, +The unclouded dawn of life's immortal day! + + + + + +PRELUDE TO A VOLUME PRINTED IN +RAISED LETTERS FOR THE BLIND + +DEAR friends, left darkling in the long eclipse +That veils the noonday,--you whose finger-tips +A meaning in these ridgy leaves can find +Where ours go stumbling, senseless, helpless, blind. +This wreath of verse how dare I offer you +To whom the garden's choicest gifts are due? +The hues of all its glowing beds are ours, +Shall you not claim its sweetest-smelling flowers? + +Nay, those I have I bring you,--at their birth +Life's cheerful sunshine warmed the grateful earth; +If my rash boyhood dropped some idle seeds, +And here and there you light on saucy weeds +Among the fairer growths, remember still +Song comes of grace, and not of human will: +We get a jarring note when most we try, +Then strike the chord we know not how or why; +Our stately verse with too aspiring art +Oft overshoots and fails to reach the heart, +While the rude rhyme one human throb endears +Turns grief to smiles, and softens mirth to tears. +Kindest of critics, ye whose fingers read, +From Nature's lesson learn the poet's creed; +The queenly tulip flaunts in robes of flame, +The wayside seedling scarce a tint may claim, +Yet may the lowliest leaflets that unfold +A dewdrop fresh from heaven's own chalice hold. + + + + + +BOSTON TO FLORENCE + +Sent to "The Philological Circle" of Florence for its +meeting in commemoration of Dante, January 27, 1881, +the anniversary of his first condemnation. + +PROUD of her clustering spires, her new-built towers, +Our Venice, stolen from the slumbering sea, +A sister's kindliest greeting wafts to thee, +Rose of Val d' Arno, queen of all its flowers! +Thine exile's shrine thy sorrowing love embowers, +Yet none with truer homage bends the knee, +Or stronger pledge of fealty brings, than we, +Whose poets make thy dead Immortal ours. +Lonely the height, but ah, to heaven how near! +Dante, whence flowed that solemn verse of thine +Like the stern river from its Apennine +Whose name the far-off Scythian thrilled with fear: +Now to all lands thy deep-toned voice is dear, +And every language knows the Song Divine! + + + + + +AT THE UNITARIAN FESTIVAL + +MARCH 8, 1882 + +THE waves unbuild the wasting shore; +Where mountains towered the billows sweep, +Yet still their borrowed spoils restore, +And build new empires from the deep. +So while the floods of thought lay waste +The proud domain of priestly creeds, +Its heaven-appointed tides will haste +To plant new homes for human needs. +Be ours to mark with hearts unchilled +The change an outworn church deplores; +The legend sinks, but Faith shall build +A fairer throne on new-found shores. + + + + +POEM + +FOR THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY +OF THE FOUNDING OF HARVARD COLLEGE + +TWICE had the mellowing sun of autumn crowned +The hundredth circle of his yearly round, +When, as we meet to-day, our fathers met: +That joyous gathering who can e'er forget, +When Harvard's nurslings, scattered far and wide, +Through mart and village, lake's and ocean's side, +Came, with one impulse, one fraternal throng, +And crowned the hours with banquet, speech, and song? + +Once more revived in fancy's magic glass, +I see in state the long procession pass +Tall, courtly, leader as by right divine, +Winthrop, our Winthrop, rules the marshalled line, +Still seen in front, as on that far-off day +His ribboned baton showed the column's way. +Not all are gone who marched in manly pride +And waved their truncheons at their leader's side; +Gray, Lowell, Dixwell, who his empire shared, +These to be with us envious Time has spared. + +Few are the faces, so familiar then, +Our eyes still meet amid the haunts of men; +Scarce one of all the living gathered there, +Whose unthinned locks betrayed a silver hair, +Greets us to-day, and yet we seem the same +As our own sires and grandsires, save in name. +There are the patriarchs, looking vaguely round +For classmates' faces, hardly known if found; +See the cold brow that rules the busy mart; +Close at its side the pallid son of art, +Whose purchased skill with borrowed meaning clothes, +And stolen hues, the smirking face he loathes. +Here is the patient scholar; in his looks +You read the titles of his learned books; +What classic lore those spidery crow's-feet speak! +What problems figure on that wrinkled cheek! +For never thought but left its stiffened trace, +Its fossil footprint, on the plastic face, +As the swift record of a raindrop stands, +Fixed on the tablet of the hardening sands. +On every face as on the written page +Each year renews the autograph of age; +One trait alone may wasting years defy,-- +The fire still lingering in the poet's eye, +While Hope, the siren, sings her sweetest strain,-- +_Non omnis moriar_ is its proud refrain. + +Sadly we gaze upon the vacant chair; +He who should claim its honors is not there,-- +Otis, whose lips the listening crowd enthrall +That press and pack the floor of Boston's hall. +But Kirkland smiles, released from toil and care +Since the silk mantle younger shoulders wear,-- +Quincy's, whose spirit breathes the selfsame fire +That filled the bosom of his youthful sire, +Who for the altar bore the kindled torch +To freedom's temple, dying in its porch. + +Three grave professions in their sons appear, +Whose words well studied all well pleased will hear +Palfrey, ordained in varied walks to shine, +Statesman, historian, critic, and divine; +Solid and square behold majestic Shaw, +A mass of wisdom and a mine of law; +Warren, whose arm the doughtiest warriors fear, +Asks of the startled crowd to lend its ear,-- +Proud of his calling, him the world loves best, +Not as the coming, but the parting guest. + +Look on that form,--with eye dilating scan +The stately mould of nature's kingliest man! +Tower-like he stands in life's unfaded prime; +Ask you his name? None asks a second time +He from the land his outward semblance takes, +Where storm-swept mountains watch o'er slumbering lakes. +See in the impress which the body wears +How its imperial might the soul declares +The forehead's large expansion, lofty, wide, +That locks unsilvered vainly strive to hide; +The lines of thought that plough the sober cheek; +Lips that betray their wisdom ere they speak +In tones like answers from Dodona's grove; +An eye like Juno's when she frowns on Jove. +I look and wonder; will he be content-- +This man, this monarch, for the purple meant-- +The meaner duties of his tribe to share, +Clad in the garb that common mortals wear? +Ah, wild Ambition, spread thy restless wings, +Beneath whose plumes the hidden cestrum stings; + +Thou whose bold flight would leave earth's vulgar crowds, +And like the eagle soar above the clouds, +Must feel the pang that fallen angels know +When the red lightning strikes thee from below! + +Less bronze, more silver, mingles in the mould +Of him whom next my roving eyes behold; +His, more the scholar's than the statesman's face, +Proclaims him born of academic race. +Weary his look, as if an aching brain +Left on his brow the frozen prints of pain; +His voice far-reaching, grave, sonorous, owns +A shade of sadness in its plaintive tones, +Yet when its breath some loftier thought inspires +Glows with a heat that every bosom fires. +Such Everett seems; no chance-sown wild flower knows +The full-blown charms of culture's double rose,-- +Alas, how soon, by death's unsparing frost, +Its bloom is faded and its fragrance lost! + +Two voices, only two, to earth belong, +Of all whose accents met the listening throng: +Winthrop, alike for speech and guidance framed, +On that proud day a twofold duty claimed; +One other yet,--remembered or forgot,-- +Forgive my silence if I name him not. +Can I believe it? I, whose youthful voice +Claimed a brief gamut,--notes not over choice, +Stood undismayed before the solemn throng, +And _propria voce_ sung that saucy song +Which even in memory turns my soul aghast,-- +_Felix audacia_ was the verdict cast. + +What were the glory of these festal days +Shorn of their grand illumination's blaze? +Night comes at last with all her starry train +To find a light in every glittering pane. +From "Harvard's" windows see the sudden flash,-- +Old "Massachusetts" glares through every sash; +From wall to wall the kindling splendors run +Till all is glorious as the noonday sun. + +How to the scholar's mind each object brings +What some historian tells, some poet sings! +The good gray teacher whom we all revered-- +Loved, honored, laughed at, and by freshmen feared, +As from old "Harvard," where its light began, +From hall to hall the clustering splendors ran-- +Took down his well-worn Eschylus and read, +Lit by the rays a thousand tapers shed, +How the swift herald crossed the leagues between +Mycenae's monarch and his faithless queen; +And thus he read,--my verse but ill displays +The Attic picture, clad in modern phrase. + +On Ida's summit flames the kindling pile, +And Lemnos answers from his rocky isle; +From Athos next it climbs the reddening skies, +Thence where the watch-towers of Macistus rise. +The sentries of Mesapius in their turn +Bid the dry heath in high piled masses burn, +Cithoeron's crag the crimson billows stain, +Far AEgiplanctus joins the fiery train. +Thus the swift courier through the pathless night +Has gained at length the Arachnoean height, +Whence the glad tidings, borne on wings offlame, +"Ilium has fallen!" reach the royal dame. + +So ends the day; before the midnight stroke +The lights expiring cloud the air with smoke; +While these the toil of younger hands employ, +The slumbering Grecian dreams of smouldering Troy. + +As to that hour with backward steps I turn, +Midway I pause; behold a funeral urn! +Ah, sad memorial! known but all too well +The tale which thus its golden letters tell: + +This dust, once breathing, changed its joyous life +For toil and hunger, wounds and mortal strife; +Love, friendship, learning's all prevailing charms, +For the cold bivouac and the clash of arms. +The cause of freedom won, a race enslaved +Called back to manhood, and a nation saved, +These sons of Harvard, falling ere their prime, +Leave their proud memory to the coming time. + +While in their still retreats our scholars turn +The mildewed pages of the past, to learn +With endless labor of the sleepless brain +What once has been and ne'er shall be again, +We reap the harvest of their ceaseless toil +And find a fragrance in their midnight oil. +But let a purblind mortal dare the task +The embryo future of itself to ask, +The world reminds him, with a scornful laugh, +That times have changed since Prospero broke his staff. +Could all the wisdom of the schools foretell +The dismal hour when Lisbon shook and fell, +Or name the shuddering night that toppled down +Our sister's pride, beneath whose mural crown +Scarce had the scowl forgot its angry lines, +When earth's blind prisoners fired their fatal mines? + +New realms, new worlds, exulting Science claims, +Still the dim future unexplored remains; +Her trembling scales the far-off planet weigh, +Her torturing prisms its elements betray,-- +We know what ores the fires of Sirius melt, +What vaporous metals gild Orion's belt; +Angels, archangels, may have yet to learn +Those hidden truths our heaven-taught eyes discern; +Yet vain is Knowledge, with her mystic wand, +To pierce the cloudy screen and read beyond; +Once to the silent stars the fates were known, +To us they tell no secrets but their own. + +At Israel's altar still we humbly bow, +But where, oh where, are Israel's prophets now? +Where is the sibyl with her hoarded leaves? +Where is the charm the weird enchantress weaves? +No croaking raven turns the auspex pale, +No reeking altars tell the morrow's tale; +The measured footsteps of the Fates are dumb, +Unseen, unheard, unheralded, they come, +Prophet and priest and all their following fail. +Who then is left to rend the future's veil? +Who but the poet, he whose nicer sense +No film can baffle with its slight defence, +Whose finer vision marks the waves that stray, +Felt, but unseen, beyond the violet ray?-- +Who, while the storm-wind waits its darkening shroud, +Foretells the tempest ere he sees the cloud,-- +Stays not for time his secrets to reveal, +But reads his message ere he breaks the seal. +So Mantua's bard foretold the coming day +Ere Bethlehem's infant in the manger lay; +The promise trusted to a mortal tongue +Found listening ears before the angels sung. +So while his load the creeping pack-horse galled, +While inch by inch the dull canal-boat crawled, +Darwin beheld a Titan from "afar +Drag the slow barge or drive the rapid car," +That panting giant fed by air and flame, +The mightiest forges task their strength to tame. + +Happy the poet! him no tyrant fact +Holds in its clutches to be chained and racked; +Him shall no mouldy document convict, +No stern statistics gravely contradict; +No rival sceptre threats his airy throne; +He rules o'er shadows, but he reigns alone. +Shall I the poet's broad dominion claim +Because you bid me wear his sacred name +For these few moments? Shall I boldly clash +My flint and steel, and by the sudden flash +Read the fair vision which my soul descries +Through the wide pupils of its wondering eyes? +List then awhile; the fifty years have sped; +The third full century's opened scroll is spread, +Blank to all eyes save his who dimly sees +The shadowy future told in words like these. + +How strange the prospect to my sight appears, +Changed by the busy hands of fifty years! +Full well I know our ocean-salted Charles, +Filling and emptying through the sands and marls +That wall his restless stream on either bank, +Not all unlovely when the sedges rank +Lend their coarse veil the sable ooze to hide +That bares its blackness with the ebbing tide. +In other shapes to my illumined eyes +Those ragged margins of our stream arise +Through walls of stone the sparkling waters flow, +In clearer depths the golden sunsets glow, +On purer waves the lamps of midnight gleam, +That silver o'er the unpolluted stream. +Along his shores what stately temples rise, +What spires, what turrets, print the shadowed skies! +Our smiling Mother sees her broad domain +Spread its tall roofs along the western plain; +Those blazoned windows' blushing glories tell +Of grateful hearts that loved her long and well; +Yon gilded dome that glitters in the sun +Was Dives' gift,--alas, his only one! +These buttressed walls enshrine a banker's name, +That hallowed chapel hides a miser's shame; +Their wealth they left,--their memory cannot fade +Though age shall crumble every stone they laid. + +Great lord of millions,--let me call thee great, +Since countless servants at thy bidding wait,-- +Richesse oblige: no mortal must be blind +To all but self, or look at human kind +Laboring and suffering,--all its want and woe,-- +Through sheets of crystal, as a pleasing show +That makes life happier for the chosen few +Duty for whom is something not to do. +When thy last page of life at length is filled, +What shall thine heirs to keep thy memory build? +Will piles of stone in Auburn's mournful shade +Save from neglect the spot where thou art laid? +Nay, deem not thus; the sauntering stranger's eye +Will pass unmoved thy columned tombstone by, +No memory wakened, not a teardrop shed, +Thy name uncared for and thy date unread. +But if thy record thou indeed dost prize, +Bid from the soil some stately temple rise,-- +Some hall of learning, some memorial shrine, +With names long honored to associate thine: +So shall thy fame outlive thy shattered bust +When all around thee slumber in the dust. +Thus England's Henry lives in Eton's towers, +Saved from the spoil oblivion's gulf devours; +Our later records with as fair a fame +Have wreathed each uncrowned benefactor's name; +The walls they reared the memories still retain +That churchyard marbles try to keep in vain. +In vain the delving antiquary tries +To find the tomb where generous Harvard lies +Here, here, his lasting monument is found, +Where every spot is consecrated ground! +O'er Stoughton's dust the crumbling stone decays, +Fast fade its lines of lapidary praise; +There the wild bramble weaves its ragged nets, +There the dry lichen spreads its gray rosettes; +Still in yon walls his memory lives unspent, +Nor asks a braver, nobler monument. +Thus Hollis lives, and Holden, honored, praised, +And good Sir Matthew, in the halls they raised; +Thus live the worthies of these later times, +Who shine in deeds, less brilliant, grouped in rhymes. +Say, shall the Muse with faltering steps retreat, +Or dare these names in rhythmic form repeat? +Why not as boldly as from Homer's lips +The long array, of Argive battle-ships? +When o'er our graves a thousand years have past +(If to such date our threatened globe shall last) +These classic precincts, myriad feet have pressed, +Will show on high, in beauteous garlands dressed, +Those honored names that grace our later day,-- +Weld, Matthews, Sever, Thayer, Austin, Gray, +Sears, Phillips, Lawrence, Hemenway,--to the list +Add Sanders, Sibley,--all the Muse has missed. + +Once more I turn to read the pictured page +Bright with the promise of the coming age. +Ye unborn sons of children yet unborn, +Whose youthful eyes shall greet that far-off morn, +Blest are those eyes that all undimmed behold +The sights so longed for by the wise of old. +From high-arched alcoves, through resounding halls, +Clad in full robes majestic Science calls, +Tireless, unsleeping, still at Nature's feet, +Whate'er she utters fearless to repeat, +Her lips at last from every cramp released +That Israel's prophet caught from Egypt's priest. +I see the statesman, firm, sagacious, bold, +For life's long conflict cast in amplest mould; +Not his to clamor with the senseless throng +That shouts unshamed, "Our party, right or wrong," +But in the patriot's never-ending fight +To side with Truth, who changes wrong to right. +I see the scholar; in that wondrous time +Men, women, children, all can write in rhyme. +These four brief lines addressed to youth inclined +To idle rhyming in his notes I find: + +Who writes in verse that should have writ in prose +Is like a traveller walking on his toes; +Happy the rhymester who in time has found +The heels he lifts were made to touch the ground. + +I see gray teachers,--on their work intent, +Their lavished lives, in endless labor spent, +Had closed at last in age and penury wrecked, +Martyrs, not burned, but frozen in neglect, +Save for the generous hands that stretched in aid +Of worn-out servants left to die half paid. +Ah, many a year will pass, I thought, ere we +Such kindly forethought shall rejoice to see,-- +Monarchs are mindful of the sacred debt +That cold republics hasten to forget. +I see the priest,--if such a name he bears +Who without pride his sacred vestment wears; +And while the symbols of his tribe I seek +Thus my first impulse bids me think and speak: + +Let not the mitre England's prelate wears +Next to the crown whose regal pomp it shares, +Though low before it courtly Christians bow, +Leave its red mark on Younger England's brow. +We love, we honor, the maternal dame, +But let her priesthood wear a modest name, +While through the waters of the Pilgrim's bay +A new-born Mayflower shows her keels the way. +Too old grew Britain for her mother's beads,-- +Must we be necklaced with her children's creeds? +Welcome alike in surplice or in gown +The loyal lieges of the Heavenly Crown! +We greet with cheerful, not submissive, mien +A sister church, but not a mitred Queen! + +A few brief flutters, and the unwilling Muse, +Who feared the flight she hated to refuse, +Shall fold the wings whose gayer plumes are shed, +Here where at first her half-fledged pinions spread. +Well I remember in the long ago +How in the forest shades of Fontainebleau, +Strained through a fissure in a rocky cell, +One crystal drop with measured cadence fell. +Still, as of old, forever bright and clear, +The fissured cavern drops its wonted tear, +And wondrous virtue, simple folk aver, +Lies in that teardrop of la roche qui pleure. + +Of old I wandered by the river's side +Between whose banks the mighty waters glide, +Where vast Niagara, hurrying to its fall, +Builds and unbuilds its ever-tumbling wall; +Oft in my dreams I hear the rush and roar +Of battling floods, and feel the trembling shore, +As the huge torrent, girded for its leap, +With bellowing thunders plunges down the steep. +Not less distinct, from memory's pictured urn, +The gray old rock, the leafy woods, return; +Robed in their pride the lofty oaks appear, +And once again with quickened sense I hear, +Through the low murmur of the leaves that stir, +The tinkling teardrop of _la roche qui pleure_. + +So when the third ripe century stands complete, +As once again the sons of Harvard meet, +Rejoicing, numerous as the seashore sands, +Drawn from all quarters,--farthest distant lands, +Where through the reeds the scaly saurian steals, +Where cold Alaska feeds her floundering seals, +Where Plymouth, glorying, wears her iron crown, +Where Sacramento sees the suns go down; +Nay, from the cloisters whence the refluent tide +Wafts their pale students to our Mother's side,-- +Mid all the tumult that the day shall bring, +While all the echoes shout, and roar, and ring, +These tinkling lines, oblivion's easy prey, +Once more emerging to the light of day, +Not all unpleasing to the listening ear +Shall wake the memories of this bygone year, +Heard as I hear the measured drops that flow +From the gray rock of wooded Fontainebleau. + +Yet, ere I leave, one loving word for all +Those fresh young lives that wait our Mother's call: +One gift is yours, kind Nature's richest dower,-- +Youth, the fair bud that holds life's opening flower, +Full of high hopes no coward doubts enchain, +With all the future throbbing in its brain, +And mightiest instincts which the beating heart +Fills with the fire its burning waves impart. + +O joyous youth, whose glory is to dare,-- +Thy foot firm planted on the lowest stair, +Thine eye uplifted to the loftiest height +Where Fame stands beckoning in the rosy light, +Thanks for thy flattering tales, thy fond deceits, +Thy loving lies, thy cheerful smiling cheats +Nature's rash promise every day is broke,-- +A thousand acorns breed a single oak, +The myriad blooms that make the orchard gay +In barren beauty throw their lives away; +Yet shall we quarrel with the sap that yields +The painted blossoms which adorn the fields, +When the fair orchard wears its May-day suit +Of pink-white petals, for its scanty fruit? +Thrice happy hours, in hope's illusion dressed, +In fancy's cradle nurtured and caressed, +Though rich the spoils that ripening years may bring, +To thee the dewdrops of the Orient cling,-- +Not all the dye-stuffs from the vats of truth +Can match the rainbow on the robes of youth! + +Dear unborn children, to our Mother's trust +We leave you, fearless, when we lie in dust: +While o'er these walls the Christian banner waves +From hallowed lips shall flow the truth that saves; +While o'er those portals Veritas you read +No church shall bind you with its human creed. +Take from the past the best its toil has won, +But learn betimes its slavish ruts to shun. +Pass the old tree whose withered leaves are shed, +Quit the old paths that error loved to tread, +And a new wreath of living blossoms seek, +A narrower pathway up a loftier peak; +Lose not your reverence, but unmanly fear +Leave far behind you, all who enter here! + +As once of old from Ida's lofty height +The flaming signal flashed across the night, +So Harvard's beacon sheds its unspent rays +Till every watch-tower shows its kindling blaze. +Caught from a spark and fanned by every gale, +A brighter radiance gilds the roofs of Yale; +Amherst and Williams bid their flambeaus shine, +And Bowdoin answers through her groves of pine; +O'er Princeton's sands the far reflections steal, +Where mighty Edwards stamped his iron heel; +Nay, on the hill where old beliefs were bound +Fast as if Styx had girt them nine times round, +Bursts such a light that trembling souls inquire +If the whole church of Calvin is on fire! +Well may they ask, for what so brightly burns +As a dry creed that nothing ever learns? +Thus link by link is knit the flaming chain +Lit by the torch of Harvard's hallowed plain. + +Thy son, thy servant, dearest Mother mine, +Lays this poor offering on thy holy shrine, +An autumn leaflet to the wild winds tost, +Touched by the finger of November's frost, +With sweet, sad memories of that earlier day, +And all that listened to my first-born lay. +With grateful heart this glorious morn I see,-- +Would that my tribute worthier were of thee! + + + + +POST-PRANDIAL + +PHI BETA KAPPA + +WENDELL PHILLIPS, ORATOR; CHARLES GODFREY LELAND, POET + +1881 + +"THE Dutch have taken Holland,"--so the schoolboys used to say; +The Dutch have taken Harvard,--no doubt of that to-day! +For the Wendells were low Dutchmen, and all their vrows were Vans; +And the Breitmanns are high Dutchmen, and here is honest Hans. + +Mynheers, you both are welcome! Fair cousin Wendell P., +Our ancestors were dwellers beside the Zuyder Zee; +Both Grotius and Erasmus were countrymen of we, +And Vondel was our namesake, though he spelt it with a V. + +It is well old Evert Jansen sought a dwelling over sea +On the margin of the Hudson, where he sampled you and me +Through our grandsires and great-grandsires, for you would n't quite +agree +With the steady-going burghers along the Zuyder Zee. + +Like our Motley's John of Barnveld, you have always been inclined +To speak,--well,--somewhat frankly,--to let us know your mind, +And the Mynheers would have told you to be cautious what you said, +Or else that silver tongue of yours might cost your precious head. + +But we're very glad you've kept it; it was always Freedom's own, +And whenever Reason chose it she found a royal throne; +You have whacked us with your sceptre; our backs were little harmed, +And while we rubbed our bruises we owned we had been charmed. + +And you, our quasi Dutchman, what welcome should be yours +For all the wise prescriptions that work your laughter-cures? +"Shake before taking"?--not a bit,--the bottle-cure's a sham; +Take before shaking, and you 'll find it shakes your diaphragm. + +"Hans Breitmann gif a barty,--vhere is dot barty now?" +On every shelf where wit is stored to smooth the careworn brow +A health to stout Hans Breitmann! How long before we see +Another Hans as handsome,--as bright a man as he! + + + + +THE FLANEUR + +BOSTON COMMON, DECEMBER 6, 1882 + +DURING THE TRANSIT OF VENUS + +I LOVE all sights of earth and skies, +From flowers that glow to stars that shine; +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 glass 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 shores; +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 shine"-- +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 "ILLUSTRATED 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 passed 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 sunshine gild this virgin leaf, + +The joyous, blessed sunshine of the past, +Still with me, though the heavens are overcast,-- +The light that shines 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 classic 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 breasts? + +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 Shirley's beauty and on Vassall'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? +They shaped our future; we but carve their names. + + + + +HYMN + +FOR THE SAME OCCASION + +SUNG BY THE CONGREGATION TO THE TUNE OF +TALLIS'S EVENING HYMN + +O'ERSHADOWED by the walls that climb, +Piled up in air by living hands, +A rock amid the waves of time, +Our gray old house of worship stands. + +High o'er the pillared aisles we love +The symbols of the past look down; +Unharmed, unharming, throned above, +Behold the mitre and the crown! + +Let not our younger faith forget +The loyal souls that held them dear; +The prayers we read their tears have wet, +The hymns we sing they loved to hear. + +The memory of their earthly throne +Still to our holy temple clings, +But here the kneeling suppliants own +One only Lord, the King of kings. + +Hark! while our hymn of grateful praise +The solemn echoing vaults prolong, +The far-off voice of earlier days +Blends with our own in hallowed song: + +To Him who ever lives and reigns, +Whom all the hosts of heaven adore, +Who lent the life His breath sustains, +Be glory now and evermore! + + + + +HYMN.--THE WORD OF PROMISE + +(by supposition) + +An Hymn set forth to be sung by the Great Assembly +at Newtown, [Mass.] Mo. 12. 1. 1636. + +[Written by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, eldest son of Rev. +ABIEL HOLMES, eighth Pastor of the First Church in +Cambridge, Massachusetts.] + +LORD, Thou hast led us as of old +Thine Arm led forth the chosen Race +Through Foes that raged, through Floods that roll'd, +To Canaan's far-off Dwelling-Place. + +Here is Thy bounteous Table spread, +Thy Manna falls on every Field, +Thy Grace our hungering Souls hath fed, +Thy Might hath been our Spear and Shield. + +Lift high Thy Buckler, Lord of Hosts! +Guard Thou Thy Servants, Sons and Sires, +While on the Godless heathen Coasts +They light Thine Israel's Altar-fires! + +The salvage Wilderness remote +Shall hear Thy Works and Wonders sung; +So from the Rock that Moses smote +The Fountain of the Desart sprung. + +Soon shall the slumbering Morn awake, +From wandering Stars of Errour freed, +When Christ the Bread of Heaven shall break +For Saints that own a common Creed. + +The Walls that fence His Flocks apart +Shall crack and crumble in Decay, +And every Tongue and every Heart +Shall welcome in the new-born Day. + +Then shall His glorious Church rejoice +His Word of Promise to recall,-- +ONE SHELTERING FOLD, ONE SHEPHERD'S VOICE, +ONE GOD AND FATHER OVER ALL! + + + + +HYMN + +READ AT THE DEDICATION OF THE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES +HOSPITAL AT HUDSON, WISCONSIN + +JUNE 7, 1877 + +ANGEL of love, for every grief +Its soothing balm thy mercy brings, +For every pang its healing leaf, +For homeless want, thine outspread, wings. + +Enough for thee the pleading eye, +The knitted brow of silent pain; +The portals open to a sigh +Without the clank of bolt or chain. + +Who is our brother? He that lies +Left at the wayside, bruised and sore +His need our open hand supplies, +His welcome waits him at our door. + +Not ours to ask in freezing tones +His race, his calling, or his creed; +Each heart the tie of kinship owns, +When those are human veins that bleed. + +Here stand the champions to defend +From every wound that flesh can feel; +Here science, patience, skill, shall blend +To save, to calm, to help, to heal. + +Father of Mercies! Weak and frail, +Thy guiding hand Thy children ask; +Let not the Great Physician fail +To aid us in our holy task. + +Source of all truth, and love, and light, +That warm and cheer our earthly days, +Be ours to serve Thy will aright, +Be Thine the glory and the praise! + + + + +ON THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD + +I. + +FALLEN with autumn's falling leaf +Ere yet his summer's noon was past, +Our friend, our guide, our trusted chief,-- +What words can match a woe so vast! + +And whose the chartered claim to speak +The sacred grief where all have part, +Where sorrow saddens every cheek +And broods in every aching heart? + +Yet Nature prompts the burning phrase +That thrills the hushed and shrouded hall, +The loud lament, the sorrowing praise, +The silent tear that love lets fall. + +In loftiest verse, in lowliest rhyme, +Shall strive unblamed the minstrel choir,--- +The singers of the new-born time, +And trembling age with outworn lyre. + +No room for pride, no place for blame,-- +We fling our blossoms on the grave, +Pale,--scentless,--faded,--all we claim, +This only,--what we had we gave. + +Ah, could the grief of all who mourn +Blend in one voice its bitter cry, +The wail to heaven's high arches borne +Would echo through the caverned sky. + + +II. + +O happiest land, whose peaceful choice +Fills with a breath its empty throne! +God, speaking through thy people's voice, +Has made that voice for once His own. + +No angry passion shakes the state +Whose weary servant seeks for rest; +And who could fear that scowling hate +Would strike at that unguarded breast? + +He stands, unconscious of his doom, +In manly strength, erect, serene; +Around him Summer spreads her bloom; +He falls,--what horror clothes the scene! + +How swift the sudden flash of woe +Where all was bright as childhood's dream! +As if from heaven's ethereal bow +Had leaped the lightning's arrowy gleam. + +Blot the foul deed from history's page; +Let not the all-betraying sun +Blush for the day that stains an age +When murder's blackest wreath was won. + + +III. + +Pale on his couch the sufferer lies, +The weary battle-ground of pain +Love tends his pillow; Science tries +Her every art, alas! in vain. + +The strife endures how long! how long! +Life, death, seem balanced in the scale, +While round his bed a viewless throng +Await each morrow's changing tale. + +In realms the desert ocean parts +What myriads watch with tear-filled eyes, +His pulse-beats echoing in their hearts, +His breathings counted with their sighs! + +Slowly the stores of life are spent, +Yet hope still battles with despair; +Will Heaven not yield when knees are bent? +Answer, O thou that hearest prayer. + +But silent is the brazen sky; +On sweeps the meteor's threatening train, +Unswerving Nature's mute reply, +Bound in her adamantine chain. + +Not ours the verdict to decide +Whom death shall claim or skill shall save; +The hero's life though Heaven denied, +It gave our land a martyr's grave. + +Nor count the teaching vainly sent +How human hearts their griefs may share,-- +The lesson woman's love has lent, +What hope may do, what faith can bear! + +Farewell! the leaf-strown earth enfolds +Our stay, our pride, our hopes, our fears, +And autumn's golden sun beholds +A nation bowed, a world in tears. + + + + +THE GOLDEN FLOWER + +WHEN Advent dawns with lessening days, +While earth awaits the angels' hymn; +When bare as branching coral sways +In whistling winds each leafless limb; +When spring is but a spendthrift's dream, +And summer's wealth a wasted dower, +Nor dews nor sunshine may redeem,-- +Then autumn coins his Golden Flower. + +Soft was the violet's vernal hue, +Fresh was the rose's morning red, +Full-orbed the stately dahlia grew,-- +All gone! their short-lived splendors shed. +The shadows, lengthening, stretch at noon; +The fields are stripped, the groves are dumb; +The frost-flowers greet the icy moon,-- +Then blooms the bright chrysanthemum. + +The stiffening turf is white with snow, +Yet still its radiant disks are seen +Where soon the hallowed morn will show +The wreath and cross of Christmas green; +As if in autumn's dying days +It heard the heavenly song afar, +And opened all its glowing rays, +The herald lamp of Bethlehem's star. + +Orphan of summer, kindly sent +To cheer the fading year's decline, +In all that pitying Heaven has lent +No fairer pledge of hope than thine. +Yes! June lies hid beneath the snow, +And winter's unborn heir shall claim +For every seed that sleeps below +A spark that kindles into flame. + +Thy smile the scowl of winter braves +Last of the bright-robed, flowery train, +Soft sighing o'er the garden graves, +"Farewell! farewell! we meet again!" +So may life's chill November bring +Hope's golden flower, the last of all, +Before we hear the angels sing +Where blossoms never fade and fall! + + + + +HAIL, COLUMBIA! + +1798 + +THE FIRST VERSE OF THE SONG + +BY JOSEPH HOPKINSON + + "HAIL, Columbia! Happy land! + Hail, ye heroes, heaven-born band, + Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, + Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, + And when the storm of war was gone + Enjoy'd the peace your valor won. + Let independence be our boast, + Ever mindful what it cost; + Ever grateful for the prize, + Let its altar reach the skies. + + "Firm--united--let us be, + Rallying round our Liberty; + As a band of brothers join'd, + Peace and safety we shall find." + + +ADDITIONAL VERSES + +WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF THE COMMITTEE FOR THE +CONSTITUTIONAL CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AT PHILADELPHIA, + +1887 + +LOOK our ransomed shores around, +Peace and safety we have found! +Welcome, friends who once were foes! +Welcome, friends who once were foes, +To all the conquering years have gained,-- +A nation's rights, a race unchained! + +Children of the day new-born, +Mindful of its glorious morn, +Let the pledge our fathers signed +Heart to heart forever bind! + +While the stars of heaven shall burn, +While the ocean tides return, +Ever may the circling sun +Find the Many still are One! + +Graven deep with edge of steel, +Crowned with Victory's crimson seal, +All the world their names shall read! +All the world their names shall read, +Enrolled with his, the Chief that led +The hosts whose blood for us was shed. +Pay our sires their children's debt, +Love and honor, nor forget +Only Union's golden key +Guards the Ark of Liberty! + +While the stars of heaven shall burn, +While the ocean tides return, +Ever may the circling sun +Find the Many still are One! + +Hail, Columbia! strong and free, +Throned in hearts from sea to sea +Thy march triumphant still pursue! +Thy march triumphant still pursue +With peaceful stride from zone to zone, +Till Freedom finds the world her own. + +Blest in Union's holy ties, +Let our grateful song arise, +Every voice its tribute lend, +All in loving chorus blend! + +While the stars in heaven shall burn, +While the ocean tides return, +Ever shall the circling sun +Find the Many still are One! + + + + +POEM + +FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE FOUNTAIN AT +STRATFORD-ON-AVON, PRESENTED BY +GEORGE W. CHILDS, OF PHILADELPHIA + +WELCOME, thrice welcome is thy silvery gleam, +Thou long-imprisoned stream! +Welcome the tinkle of thy crystal beads +As plashing raindrops to the flowery meads, +As summer's breath to Avon's whispering reeds! +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 shores, +Starry with spangles washed from golden ores, +Nor glassy 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 lustrous 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 friendship, 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 Horeb's rock the God 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 clustering 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 shine +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 passed 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? + +Friends of his studious hours, who thronged to teach +The deep-read scholar all your varied lore, +Shall he no longer seek your shelves to reach +The treasure missing from his world-wide store? + +This singer whom we long have held so dear +Was Nature's darling, shapely, strong, and fair; +Of keenest wit, of judgment crystal-clear, +Easy of converse, courteous, debonair, + +Fit for the loftiest or the lowliest lot, +Self-poised, imperial, yet of simplest ways; +At home alike in castle or in cot, +True to his aim, let others blame or praise. + +Freedom he found an heirloom from his sires; +Song, letters, statecraft, shared his years in turn; +All went to feed the nation's altar-fires +Whose mourning children wreathe his funeral urn. + +He loved New England,--people, language, soil, +Unweaned by exile from her arid breast. +Farewell awhile, white-handed son of toil, +Go with her brown-armed laborers to thy rest. + +Peace to thy slumber in the forest shade! +Poet and patriot, every gift was thine; +Thy name shall live while summers bloom and fade, +And grateful Memory guard thy leafy shrine! + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell +Holmes, Vol. 10, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY OF HOLMES, VOL. 10 *** + +***** This file should be named 7397.txt or 7397.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/7/3/9/7397/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/7397.zip b/7397.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..38d81b9 --- /dev/null +++ b/7397.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8c6b2a6 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #7397 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7397) diff --git a/old/ohp1010.txt b/old/ohp1010.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9ddb6cb --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ohp1010.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2600 @@ +Project Gutenberg EBook The Poetical Works of O. W. Holmes, Volume 10. +Before the Curfew +#24 in our series by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + + +Title: The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Volume 10. + Before the Curfew + +Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. + +Release Date: January, 2005 [Etext #7397] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[Most recently updated: April 22, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY OF O. W. HOLMES, V10 *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] + + + + + + THE POETICAL WORKS + + OF + + OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + + + 1893 + (Printed in three volumes) + + + + +CONTENTS: + +BEFORE THE CURFEW + AT MY FIRESIDE + AT THE SATURDAY CLUB + OUR DEAD SINGER. H. W. L. + TWO POEMS TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE ON HER SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY. + I. AT THE SUMMIT + II. THE WORLD'S HOMAGE + A WELCOME TO DR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD + TO FREDERICK HENRY HEDGE ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY + TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL + TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY + PRELUDE TO A VOLUME PRINTED IN RAISED LETTERS + FOR THE BLIND + BOSTON TO FLORENCE + AT THE UNITARIAN FESTIVAL, MARCH 8, 1882 + POEM FOR THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF + HARVARD COLLEGE + POST-PRANDIAL: PHI BETA KAPPA, 1881 + THE FLANEUR: DURING THE TRANSIT OF VENUS, 1882 + AVE + KING'S CHAPEL READ AT THE TWO HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY + HYMN FOR THE SAME OCCASION + HYMN.--THE WORD OF PROMISE + HYMN READ AT THE DEDICATION OF THE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES HOSPITAL AT + HUDSON, WISCONSIN, JUNE 7, 1887 + ON THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD + THE GOLDEN FLOWER + HAIL, COLUMBIA! + POEM FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE FOUNTAIN AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON, + PRESENTED + BY GEORGE CHILDS, OF PHILADELPHIA + TO THE POETS WHO ONLY READ AND LISTEN + FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE NEW CITY LIBRARY + FOR THE WINDOW IN ST. MARGARET'S + JAMES RUSSELL LO WELL: 1819-1891 + + + + + BEFORE THE CURFEW + + +AT MY FIRESIDE + +ALONE, beneath the darkened sky, +With saddened heart and unstrung lyre, +I heap the spoils of years gone by, +And leave them with a long-drawn sigh, +Like drift-wood brands that glimmering lie, +Before the ashes hide the fire. + +Let not these slow declining days +The rosy light of dawn outlast; +Still round my lonely hearth it plays, +And gilds the east with borrowed rays, +While memory's mirrored sunset blaze +Flames on the windows of the past. + +March 1, 1888. + + + + + +AT THE SATURDAY CLUB +THIS is our place of meeting; opposite +That towered and pillared building: look at it; +King's Chapel in the Second George's day, +Rebellion stole its regal name away,-- +Stone Chapel sounded better; but at last +The poisoned name of our provincial past +Had lost its ancient venom; then once more +Stone Chapel was King's Chapel as before. +(So let rechristened North Street, when it can, +Bring back the days of Marlborough and Queen Anne!) +Next the old church your wandering eye will meet-- +A granite pile that stares upon the street-- +Our civic temple; slanderous tongues have said +Its shape was modelled from St. Botolph's head, +Lofty, but narrow; jealous passers-by +Say Boston always held her head too high. +Turn half-way round, and let your look survey +The white facade that gleams across the way,-- +The many-windowed building, tall and wide, +The palace-inn that shows its northern side +In grateful shadow when the sunbeams beat +The granite wall in summer's scorching heat. +This is the place; whether its name you spell +Tavern, or caravansera, or hotel. +Would I could steal its echoes! you should find +Such store of vanished pleasures brought to mind +Such feasts! the laughs of many a jocund hour +That shook the mortar from King George's tower; +Such guests! What famous names its record boasts, +Whose owners wander in the mob of ghosts! +Such stories! Every beam and plank is filled +With juicy wit the joyous talkers spilled, +Ready to ooze, as once the mountain pine +The floors are laid with oozed its turpentine! + +A month had flitted since The Club had met; +The day came round; I found the table set, +The waiters lounging round the marble stairs, +Empty as yet the double row of chairs. +I was a full half hour before the rest, +Alone, the banquet-chamber's single guest. +So from the table's side a chair I took, +And having neither company nor book +To keep me waking, by degrees there crept +A torpor over me,--in short, I slept. + +Loosed from its chain, along the wreck-strown track +Of the dead years my soul goes travelling back; +My ghosts take on their robes of flesh; it seems +Dreaming is life; nay, life less life than dreams, +So real are the shapes that meet my eyes. +They bring no sense of wonder, no surprise, +No hint of other than an earth-born source; +All seems plain daylight, everything of course. + +How dim the colors are, how poor and faint +This palette of weak words with which I paint! +Here sit my friends; if I could fix them so +As to my eyes they seem, my page would glow +Like a queen's missal, warm as if the brush +Of Titian or Velasquez brought the flush +Of life into their features. Ay de mi! +If syllables were pigments, you should see +Such breathing portraitures as never man +Found in the Pitti or the Vatican. + +Here sits our POET, Laureate, if you will. +Long has he worn the wreath, and wears it still. +Dead? Nay, not so; and yet they say his bust +Looks down on marbles covering royal dust, +Kings by the Grace of God, or Nature's grace; +Dead! No! Alive! I see him in his place, +Full-featured, with the bloom that heaven denies +Her children, pinched by cold New England skies, +Too often, while the nursery's happier few +Win from a summer cloud its roseate hue. +Kind, soft-voiced, gentle, in his eye there shines +The ray serene that filled Evangeline's. +Modest he seems, not shy; content to wait +Amid the noisy clamor of debate +The looked-for moment when a peaceful word +Smooths the rough ripples louder tongues have stirred. +In every tone I mark his tender grace +And all his poems hinted in his face; +What tranquil joy his friendly presence gives! +How could. I think him dead? He lives! He lives! + +There, at the table's further end I see +In his old place our Poet's vis-a-vis, +The great PROFESSOR, strong, broad-shouldered, square, +In life's rich noontide, joyous, debonair. +His social hour no leaden care alloys, +His laugh rings loud and mirthful as a boy's,-- +That lusty laugh the Puritan forgot,-- +What ear has heard it and remembers not? +How often, halting at some wide crevasse +Amid the windings of his Alpine pass, +High up the cliffs, the climbing mountaineer, +Listening the far-off avalanche to hear, +Silent, and leaning on his steel-shod staff, +Has heard that cheery voice, that ringing laugh, +From the rude cabin whose nomadic walls +Creep with the moving glacier as it crawls +How does vast Nature lead her living train +In ordered sequence through that spacious brain, +As in the primal hour when Adam named +The new-born tribes that young creation claimed!-- +How will her realm be darkened, losing thee, +Her darling, whom we call _our_ AGASSIZ! + +But who is he whose massive frame belies +The maiden shyness of his downcast eyes? +Who broods in silence till, by questions pressed, +Some answer struggles from his laboring breast? +An artist Nature meant to dwell apart, +Locked in his studio with a human heart, +Tracking its eaverned passions to their lair, +And all its throbbing mysteries laying bare. +Count it no marvel that he broods alone +Over the heart he studies,--'t is his own; +So in his page, whatever shape it wear, +The Essex wizard's shadowed self is there,-- +The great ROMANCER, hid beneath his veil +Like the stern preacher of his sombre tale; +Virile in strength, yet bashful as a girl, +Prouder than Hester, sensitive as Pearl. + +From his mild throng of worshippers released, +Our Concord Delphi sends its chosen priest, +Prophet or poet, mystic, sage, or seer, +By every title always welcome here. +Why that ethereal spirit's frame describe? +You know the race-marks of the Brahmin tribe, +The spare, slight form, the sloping shoulders' droop, +The calm, scholastic mien, the clerkly stoop, +The lines of thought the sharpened features wear, +Carved by the edge of keen New England air. +List! for he speaks! As when a king would choose +The jewels for his bride, he might refuse +This diamond for its flaw,--find that less bright +Than those, its fellows, and a pearl less white +Than fits her snowy neck, and yet at last, +The fairest gems are chosen, and made fast +In golden fetters; so, with light delays +He seeks the fittest word to fill his phrase; +Nor vain nor idle his fastidious quest, +His chosen word is sure to prove the best. +Where in the realm of thought, whose air is song, +Does he, the Buddha of the West, belong? +He seems a winged Franklin, sweetly wise, +Born to unlock the secrets of the skies; +And which the nobler calling,--if 't is fair +Terrestrial with celestial to compare,-- +To guide the storm-cloud's elemental flame, +Or walk the chambers whence the lightning came, +Amidst the sources of its subtile fire, +And steal their effluence for his lips and lyre? +If lost at times in vague aerial flights, +None treads with firmer footstep when he lights; +A soaring nature, ballasted with sense, +Wisdom without her wrinkles or pretence, +In every Bible he has faith to read, +And every altar helps to shape his creed. +Ask you what name this prisoned spirit bears +While with ourselves this fleeting breath it shares? +Till angels greet him with a sweeter one +In heaven, on earth we call him EMERSON. + +I start; I wake; the vision is withdrawn; +Its figures fading like the stars at dawn; +Crossed from the roll of life their cherished names, +And memory's pictures fading in their frames; +Yet life is lovelier for these transient gleams +Of buried friendships; blest is he who dreams! + + + + + +OUR DEAD SINGER + +H. W. L. + +PRIDE of the sister realm so long our own, +We claim with her that spotless fame of thine, +White as her snow and fragrant as her pine! +Ours was thy birthplace, but in every zone +Some wreath of song thy liberal hand has thrown +Breathes perfume from its blossoms, that entwine +Where'er the dewdrops fall, the sunbeams shine, +On life's long path with tangled cares o'ergrown. +Can Art thy truthful counterfeit command,-- +The silver-haloed features, tranquil, mild,-- +Soften the lips of bronze as when they smiled, +Give warmth and pressure to the marble hand? +Seek the lost rainbow in the sky it spanned +Farewell, sweet Singer! Heaven reclaims its child. + +Carved from the block or cast in clinging mould, +Will grateful Memory fondly try her best +The mortal vesture from decay to wrest; +His look shall greet us, calm, but ah, how cold! +No breath can stir the brazen drapery's fold, +No throb can heave the statue's stony breast; +"He is not here, but risen," will stand confest +In all we miss, in all our eyes behold. +How Nature loved him! On his placid brow, +Thought's ample dome, she set the sacred sign +That marks the priesthood of her holiest shrine, +Nor asked a leaflet from the laurel's bough +That envious Time might clutch or disallow, +To prove her chosen minstrel's song divine. + +On many a saddened hearth the evening fire +Burns paler as the children's hour draws near,-- +That joyous hour his song made doubly dear,-- +And tender memories touch the faltering choir. +He sings no more on earth; our vain desire +Aches for the voice we loved so long to hear +In Dorian flute-notes breathing soft and clear,-- +The sweet contralto that could never tire. +Deafened with listening to a harsher strain, +The Maenad's scream, the stark barbarian's cry, +Still for those soothing, loving tones we sigh; +Oh, for our vanished Orpheus once again! +The shadowy silence hears us call in vain! +His lips are hushed; his song shall never die. + + + + + +TWO POEMS TO HARRIET BEECHER STOWE + +ON HER SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY, JUNE 14, 1882 + + +I. AT THE SUMMIT + +SISTER, we bid you welcome,--we who stand +On the high table-land; +We who have climbed life's slippery Alpine slope, +And rest, still leaning on the staff of hope, +Looking along the silent Mer de Glace, +Leading our footsteps where the dark crevasse +Yawns in the frozen sea we all must pass,-- +Sister, we clasp your hand! + +Rest with us in the hour that Heaven has lent +Before the swift descent. +Look! the warm sunbeams kiss the glittering ice; +See! next the snow-drift blooms the edelweiss; +The mated eagles fan the frosty air; +Life, beauty, love, around us everywhere, +And, in their time, the darkening hours that bear +Sweet memories, peace, content. + +Thrice welcome! shining names our missals show +Amid their rubrics' glow, +But search the blazoned record's starry line, +What halo's radiance fills the page like thine? +Thou who by some celestial clue couldst find +The way to all the hearts of all mankind, +On thee, already canonized, enshrined, +What more can Heaven bestow! + + +II. THE WORLD'S HOMAGE + +IF every tongue that speaks her praise +For whom I shape my tinkling phrase +Were summoned to the table, +The vocal chorus that would meet +Of mingling accents harsh or sweet, +From every land and tribe, would beat +The polyglots at Babel. + +Briton and Frenchman, Swede and Dane, +Turk, Spaniard, Tartar of Ukraine, +Hidalgo, Cossack, Cadi, +High Dutchman and Low Dutchman, too, +The Russian serf, the Polish Jew, +Arab, Armenian, and Mantchoo, +Would shout, "We know the lady!" + +Know her! Who knows not Uncle Tom +And her he learned his gospel from +Has never heard of Moses; +Full well the brave black hand we know +That gave to freedom's grasp the hoe +That killed the weed that used to grow +Among the Southern roses. + +When Archimedes, long ago, +Spoke out so grandly, "_dos pou sto_-- +Give me a place to stand on, +I'll move your planet for you, now,"-- +He little dreamed or fancied how +The _sto_ at last should find its _pou_ +For woman's faith to land on. + +Her lever was the wand of art, +Her fulcrum was the human heart, +Whence all unfailing aid is; +She moved the earth! Its thunders pealed, +Its mountains shook, its temples reeled, +The blood-red fountains were unsealed, +And Moloch sunk to Hades. + +All through the conflict, up and down +Marched Uncle Tom and Old John Brown, +One ghost, one form ideal; +And which was false and which was true, +And which was mightier of the two, +The wisest sibyl never knew, +For both alike were real. + +Sister, the holy maid does well +Who counts her beads in convent cell, +Where pale devotion lingers; +But she who serves the sufferer's needs, +Whose prayers are spelt in loving deeds, +May trust the Lord will count her beads +As well as human fingers. + +When Truth herself was Slavery's slave, +Thy hand the prisoned suppliant gave +The rainbow wings of fiction. +And Truth who soared descends to-day +Bearing an angel's wreath away, +Its lilies at thy feet to lay +With Heaven's own benediction. + + + + + +A WELCOME TO DR. BENJAMIN APTHORP GOULD + +ON HIS RETURN FROM SOUTH AMERICA + +AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS DEVOTED TO CATALOGUING THE +STARS OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE + +Read at the Dinner given at the Hotel Vendome, May 6,1885. + +ONCE more Orion and the sister Seven +Look on thee from the skies that hailed thy birth,-- +How shall we welcome thee, whose home was heaven, +From thy celestial wanderings back to earth? + +Science has kept her midnight taper burning +To greet thy coming with its vestal flame; +Friendship has murmured, "When art thou returning?" +"Not yet! Not yet!" the answering message came. + +Thine was unstinted zeal, unchilled devotion, +While the blue realm had kingdoms to explore,-- +Patience, like his who ploughed the unfurrowed ocean, +Till o'er its margin loomed San Salvador. + +Through the long nights I see thee ever waking, +Thy footstool earth, thy roof the hemisphere, +While with thy griefs our weaker hearts are aching, +Firm as thine equatorial's rock-based pier. + +The souls that voyaged the azure depths before thee +Watch with thy tireless vigils, all unseen,-- +Tycho and Kepler bend benignant o'er thee, +And with his toy-like tube the Florentine,-- + +He at whose word the orb that bore him shivered +To find her central sovereignty disowned, +While the wan lips of priest and pontiff quivered, +Their jargon stilled, their Baal disenthroned. + +Flamsteed and Newton look with brows unclouded, +Their strife forgotten with its faded scars,-- +(Titans, who found the world of space too crowded +To walk in peace among its myriad stars.) + +All cluster round thee,--seers of earliest ages, +Persians, Ionians, Mizraim's learned kings, +From the dim days of Shinar's hoary sages +To his who weighed the planet's fluid rings. + +And we, for whom the northern heavens are lighted, +For whom the storm has passed, the sun has smiled, +Our clouds all scattered, all our stars united, +We claim thee, clasp thee, like a long-lost child. + +Fresh from the spangled vault's o'er-arching splendor, +Thy lonely pillar, thy revolving dome, +In heartfelt accents, proud, rejoicing, tender, +We bid thee welcome to thine earthly home! + + + + + +TO FREDERICK HENRY HEDGE + +AT A DINNER GIVEN HIM ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY, +DECEMBER 12, 1885 + +With a bronze statuette of John of Bologna's Mercury, +presented by a few friends. + +FIT emblem for the altar's side, +And him who serves its daily need, +The stay, the solace, and the guide +Of mortal men, whate'er his creed! + +Flamen or Auspex, Priest or Bonze, +He feeds the upward-climbing fire, +Still teaching, like the deathless bronze, +Man's noblest lesson,--to aspire. + +Hermes lies prone by fallen Jove, +Crushed are the wheels of Krishna's car, +And o'er Dodona's silent grove +Streams the white, ray from Bethlehem's star. + +Yet snatched from Time's relentless clutch, +A godlike shape, that human hands +Have fired with Art's electric touch, +The herald of Olympus stands. + +Ask not what ore the furnace knew; +Love mingled with the flowing mass, +And lends its own unchanging hue, +Like gold in Corinth's molten brass. + +Take then our gift; this airy form +Whose bronze our benedictions gild, +The hearts of all its givers warm +With love by freezing years unchilled. + +With eye undimmed, with strength unworn, +Still toiling in your Master's field, +Before you wave the growths unshorn, +Their ripened harvest yet to yield. + +True servant of the Heavenly Sire, +To you our tried affection clings, +Bids you still labor, still aspire, +But clasps your feet and steals their wings. + + + + +TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL + +THIS is your month, the month of "perfect days," +Birds in full song and blossoms all ablaze. +Nature herself your earliest welcome breathes, +Spreads every leaflet, every bower inwreathes; +Carpets her paths for your returning feet, +Puts forth her best your coming steps to greet; +And Heaven must surely find the earth in tune +When Home, sweet Home, exhales the breath of June. +These blessed days are waning all too fast, +And June's bright visions mingling with the past; + +Lilacs have bloomed and faded, and the rose +Has dropped its petals, but the clover blows, +And fills its slender tubes with honeyed sweets; +The fields are pearled with milk-white margarites; +The dandelion, which you sang of old, +Has lost its pride of place, its crown of gold, +But still displays its feathery-mantled globe, +Which children's breath, or wandering winds unrobe. +These were your humble friends; your opened eyes +Nature had trained her common gifts to prize; +Not Cam nor Isis taught you to despise +Charles, with his muddy margin and the harsh, +Plebeian grasses of the reeking marsh. +New England's home-bred scholar, well you knew +Her soil, her speech, her people, through and through, +And loved them ever with the love that holds +All sweet, fond memories in its fragrant folds. +Though far and wide your winged words have flown, +Your daily presence kept you all our own, +Till, with a sorrowing sigh, a thrill of pride, +We heard your summons, and you left our side +For larger duties and for tasks untried. + +How pleased the Spaniards for a while to claim +This frank Hidalgo with the liquid name, +Who stored their classics on his crowded shelves +And loved their Calderon as they did themselves! +Before his eyes what changing pageants pass! +The bridal feast how near the funeral mass! +The death-stroke falls,--the Misereres wail; +The joy-bells ring,--the tear-stained cheeks unveil, +While, as the playwright shifts his pictured scene, +The royal mourner crowns his second queen. + +From Spain to Britain is a goodly stride,-- +Madrid and London long-stretched leagues divide. +What if I send him, "Uncle S., says he," +To my good cousin whom he calls "J. B."? +A nation's servants go where they are sent,-- +He heard his Uncle's orders, and he went. +By what enchantments, what alluring arts, +Our truthful James led captive British hearts,-- +Whether his shrewdness made their statesmen halt, +Or if his learning found their Dons at fault, +Or if his virtue was a strange surprise, +Or if his wit flung star-dust in their eyes,-- +Like honest Yankees we can simply guess; +But that he did it all must needs confess. +England herself without a blush may claim +Her only conqueror since the Norman came. +Eight years an exile! What a weary while +Since first our herald sought the mother isle! +His snow-white flag no churlish wrong has soiled,--- +He left unchallenged, he returns unspoiled. + +Here let us keep him, here he saw the light,-- +His genius, wisdom, wit, are ours by right; +And if we lose him our lament will be +We have "five hundred"--_not_ "as good as he." + + + + + +TO JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER + +ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY + +1887 + +FRIEND, whom thy fourscore winters leave more dear +Than when life's roseate summer on thy cheek +Burned in the flush of manhood's manliest year, +Lonely, how lonely! is the snowy peak +Thy feet have reached, and mine have climbed so near! +Close on thy footsteps 'mid the landscape drear +I stretch my hand thine answering grasp to seek, +Warm with the love no rippling rhymes can speak! +Look backward! From thy lofty height survey +Thy years of toil, of peaceful victories won, +Of dreams made real, largest hopes outrun! +Look forward! Brighter than earth's morning ray +Streams the pure light of Heaven's unsetting sun, +The unclouded dawn of life's immortal day! + + + + + +PRELUDE TO A VOLUME PRINTED IN +RAISED LETTERS FOR THE BLIND + +DEAR friends, left darkling in the long eclipse +That veils the noonday,--you whose finger-tips +A meaning in these ridgy leaves can find +Where ours go stumbling, senseless, helpless, blind. +This wreath of verse how dare I offer you +To whom the garden's choicest gifts are due? +The hues of all its glowing beds are ours, +Shall you not claim its sweetest-smelling flowers? + +Nay, those I have I bring you,--at their birth +Life's cheerful sunshine warmed the grateful earth; +If my rash boyhood dropped some idle seeds, +And here and there you light on saucy weeds +Among the fairer growths, remember still +Song comes of grace, and not of human will: +We get a jarring note when most we try, +Then strike the chord we know not how or why; +Our stately verse with too aspiring art +Oft overshoots and fails to reach the heart, +While the rude rhyme one human throb endears +Turns grief to smiles, and softens mirth to tears. +Kindest of critics, ye whose fingers read, +From Nature's lesson learn the poet's creed; +The queenly tulip flaunts in robes of flame, +The wayside seedling scarce a tint may claim, +Yet may the lowliest leaflets that unfold +A dewdrop fresh from heaven's own chalice hold. + + + + + +BOSTON TO FLORENCE + +Sent to "The Philological Circle" of Florence for its +meeting in commemoration of Dante, January 27, 1881, +the anniversary of his first condemnation. + +PROUD of her clustering spires, her new-built towers, +Our Venice, stolen from the slumbering sea, +A sister's kindliest greeting wafts to thee, +Rose of Val d' Arno, queen of all its flowers! +Thine exile's shrine thy sorrowing love embowers, +Yet none with truer homage bends the knee, +Or stronger pledge of fealty brings, than we, +Whose poets make thy dead Immortal ours. +Lonely the height, but ah, to heaven how near! +Dante, whence flowed that solemn verse of thine +Like the stern river from its Apennine +Whose name the far-off Scythian thrilled with fear: +Now to all lands thy deep-toned voice is dear, +And every language knows the Song Divine! + + + + + +AT THE UNITARIAN FESTIVAL + +MARCH 8, 1882 + +THE waves unbuild the wasting shore; +Where mountains towered the billows sweep, +Yet still their borrowed spoils restore, +And build new empires from the deep. +So while the floods of thought lay waste +The proud domain of priestly creeds, +Its heaven-appointed tides will haste +To plant new homes for human needs. +Be ours to mark with hearts unchilled +The change an outworn church deplores; +The legend sinks, but Faith shall build +A fairer throne on new-found shores. + + + + +POEM + +FOR THE TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY +OF THE FOUNDING OF HARVARD COLLEGE + +TWICE had the mellowing sun of autumn crowned +The hundredth circle of his yearly round, +When, as we meet to-day, our fathers met: +That joyous gathering who can e'er forget, +When Harvard's nurslings, scattered far and wide, +Through mart and village, lake's and ocean's side, +Came, with one impulse, one fraternal throng, +And crowned the hours with banquet, speech, and song? + +Once more revived in fancy's magic glass, +I see in state the long procession pass +Tall, courtly, leader as by right divine, +Winthrop, our Winthrop, rules the marshalled line, +Still seen in front, as on that far-off day +His ribboned baton showed the column's way. +Not all are gone who marched in manly pride +And waved their truncheons at their leader's side; +Gray, Lowell, Dixwell, who his empire shared, +These to be with us envious Time has spared. + +Few are the faces, so familiar then, +Our eyes still meet amid the haunts of men; +Scarce one of all the living gathered there, +Whose unthinned locks betrayed a silver hair, +Greets us to-day, and yet we seem the same +As our own sires and grandsires, save in name. +There are the patriarchs, looking vaguely round +For classmates' faces, hardly known if found; +See the cold brow that rules the busy mart; +Close at its side the pallid son of art, +Whose purchased skill with borrowed meaning clothes, +And stolen hues, the smirking face he loathes. +Here is the patient scholar; in his looks +You read the titles of his learned books; +What classic lore those spidery crow's-feet speak! +What problems figure on that wrinkled cheek! +For never thought but left its stiffened trace, +Its fossil footprint, on the plastic face, +As the swift record of a raindrop stands, +Fixed on the tablet of the hardening sands. +On every face as on the written page +Each year renews the autograph of age; +One trait alone may wasting years defy,-- +The fire still lingering in the poet's eye, +While Hope, the siren, sings her sweetest strain,-- +_Non omnis moriar_ is its proud refrain. + +Sadly we gaze upon the vacant chair; +He who should claim its honors is not there,-- +Otis, whose lips the listening crowd enthrall +That press and pack the floor of Boston's hall. +But Kirkland smiles, released from toil and care +Since the silk mantle younger shoulders wear,-- +Quincy's, whose spirit breathes the selfsame fire +That filled the bosom of his youthful sire, +Who for the altar bore the kindled torch +To freedom's temple, dying in its porch. + +Three grave professions in their sons appear, +Whose words well studied all well pleased will hear +Palfrey, ordained in varied walks to shine, +Statesman, historian, critic, and divine; +Solid and square behold majestic Shaw, +A mass of wisdom and a mine of law; +Warren, whose arm the doughtiest warriors fear, +Asks of the startled crowd to lend its ear,-- +Proud of his calling, him the world loves best, +Not as the coming, but the parting guest. + +Look on that form,--with eye dilating scan +The stately mould of nature's kingliest man! +Tower-like he stands in life's unfaded prime; +Ask you his name? None asks a second time +He from the land his outward semblance takes, +Where storm-swept mountains watch o'er slumbering lakes. +See in the impress which the body wears +How its imperial might the soul declares +The forehead's large expansion, lofty, wide, +That locks unsilvered vainly strive to hide; +The lines of thought that plough the sober cheek; +Lips that betray their wisdom ere they speak +In tones like answers from Dodona's grove; +An eye like Juno's when she frowns on Jove. +I look and wonder; will he be content-- +This man, this monarch, for the purple meant-- +The meaner duties of his tribe to share, +Clad in the garb that common mortals wear? +Ah, wild Ambition, spread thy restless wings, +Beneath whose plumes the hidden cestrum stings; + +Thou whose bold flight would leave earth's vulgar crowds, +And like the eagle soar above the clouds, +Must feel the pang that fallen angels know +When the red lightning strikes thee from below! + +Less bronze, more silver, mingles in the mould +Of him whom next my roving eyes behold; +His, more the scholar's than the statesman's face, +Proclaims him born of academic race. +Weary his look, as if an aching brain +Left on his brow the frozen prints of pain; +His voice far-reaching, grave, sonorous, owns +A shade of sadness in its plaintive tones, +Yet when its breath some loftier thought inspires +Glows with a heat that every bosom fires. +Such Everett seems; no chance-sown wild flower knows +The full-blown charms of culture's double rose,-- +Alas, how soon, by death's unsparing frost, +Its bloom is faded and its fragrance lost! + +Two voices, only two, to earth belong, +Of all whose accents met the listening throng: +Winthrop, alike for speech and guidance framed, +On that proud day a twofold duty claimed; +One other yet,--remembered or forgot,-- +Forgive my silence if I name him not. +Can I believe it? I, whose youthful voice +Claimed a brief gamut,--notes not over choice, +Stood undismayed before the solemn throng, +And _propria voce_ sung that saucy song +Which even in memory turns my soul aghast,-- +_Felix audacia_ was the verdict cast. + +What were the glory of these festal days +Shorn of their grand illumination's blaze? +Night comes at last with all her starry train +To find a light in every glittering pane. +From "Harvard's" windows see the sudden flash,-- +Old "Massachusetts" glares through every sash; +From wall to wall the kindling splendors run +Till all is glorious as the noonday sun. + +How to the scholar's mind each object brings +What some historian tells, some poet sings! +The good gray teacher whom we all revered-- +Loved, honored, laughed at, and by freshmen feared, +As from old "Harvard," where its light began, +From hall to hall the clustering splendors ran-- +Took down his well-worn Eschylus and read, +Lit by the rays a thousand tapers shed, +How the swift herald crossed the leagues between +Mycenae's monarch and his faithless queen; +And thus he read,--my verse but ill displays +The Attic picture, clad in modern phrase + +On Ida's summit flames the kindling pile, +And Lemnos answers from his rocky isle; +From Athos next it climbs the reddening skies, +Thence where the watch-towers of Macistus rise. +The sentries of Mesapius in their turn +Bid the dry heath in high piled masses burn, +Cithoeron's crag the crimson billows stain, +Far AEgiplanctus joins the fiery train. +Thus the swift courier through the pathless night +Has gained at length the Arachnoean height, +Whence the glad tidings, borne on wings offlame, +"Ilium has fallen!" reach the royal dame. + +So ends the day; before the midnight stroke +The lights expiring cloud the air with smoke; +While these the toil of younger hands employ, +The slumbering Grecian dreams of smouldering Troy. + +As to that hour with backward steps I turn, +Midway I pause; behold a funeral urn! +Ah, sad memorial! known but all too well +The tale which thus its golden letters tell: + +This dust, once breathing, changed its joyous life +For toil and hunger, wounds and mortal strife; +Love, friendship, learning's all prevailing charms, +For the cold bivouac and the clash of arms. +The cause of freedom won, a race enslaved +Called back to manhood, and a nation saved, +These sons of Harvard, falling ere their prime, +Leave their proud memory to the coming time. + +While in their still retreats our scholars turn +The mildewed pages of the past, to learn +With endless labor of the sleepless brain +What once has been and ne'er shall be again, +We reap the harvest of their ceaseless toil +And find a fragrance in their midnight oil. +But let a purblind mortal dare the task +The embryo future of itself to ask, +The world reminds him, with a scornful laugh, +That times have changed since Prospero broke his staff. +Could all the wisdom of the schools foretell +The dismal hour when Lisbon shook and fell, +Or name the shuddering night that toppled down +Our sister's pride, beneath whose mural crown +Scarce had the scowl forgot its angry lines, +When earth's blind prisoners fired their fatal mines? + +New realms, new worlds, exulting Science claims, +Still the dim future unexplored remains; +Her trembling scales the far-off planet weigh, +Her torturing prisms its elements betray,-- +We know what ores the fires of Sirius melt, +What vaporous metals gild Orion's belt; +Angels, archangels, may have yet to learn +Those hidden truths our heaven-taught eyes discern; +Yet vain is Knowledge, with her mystic wand, +To pierce the cloudy screen and read beyond; +Once to the silent stars the fates were known, +To us they tell no secrets but their own. + +At Israel's altar still we humbly bow, +But where, oh where, are Israel's prophets now? +Where is the sibyl with her hoarded leaves? +Where is the charm the weird enchantress weaves? +No croaking raven turns the auspex pale, +No reeking altars tell the morrow's tale; +The measured footsteps of the Fates are dumb, +Unseen, unheard, unheralded, they come, +Prophet and priest and all their following fail. +Who then is left to rend the future's veil? +Who but the poet, he whose nicer sense +No film can baffle with its slight defence, +Whose finer vision marks the waves that stray, +Felt, but unseen, beyond the violet ray?-- +Who, while the storm-wind waits its darkening shroud, +Foretells the tempest ere he sees the cloud,-- +Stays not for time his secrets to reveal, +But reads his message ere he breaks the seal. +So Mantua's bard foretold the coming day +Ere Bethlehem's infant in the manger lay; +The promise trusted to a mortal tongue +Found listening ears before the angels sung. +So while his load the creeping pack-horse galled, +While inch by inch the dull canal-boat crawled, +Darwin beheld a Titan from "afar +Drag the slow barge or drive the rapid car," +That panting giant fed by air and flame, +The mightiest forges task their strength to tame. + +Happy the poet! him no tyrant fact +Holds in its clutches to be chained and racked; +Him shall no mouldy document convict, +No stern statistics gravely contradict; +No rival sceptre threats his airy throne; +He rules o'er shadows, but he reigns alone. +Shall I the poet's broad dominion claim +Because you bid me wear his sacred name +For these few moments? Shall I boldly clash +My flint and steel, and by the sudden flash +Read the fair vision which my soul descries +Through the wide pupils of its wondering eyes? +List then awhile; the fifty years have sped; +The third full century's opened scroll is spread, +Blank to all eyes save his who dimly sees +The shadowy future told in words like these + +How strange the prospect to my sight appears, +Changed by the busy hands of fifty years! +Full well I know our ocean-salted Charles, +Filling and emptying through the sands and marls +That wall his restless stream on either bank, +Not all unlovely when the sedges rank +Lend their coarse veil the sable ooze to hide +That bares its blackness with the ebbing tide. +In other shapes to my illumined eyes +Those ragged margins of our stream arise +Through walls of stone the sparkling waters flow, +In clearer depths the golden sunsets glow, +On purer waves the lamps of midnight gleam, +That silver o'er the unpolluted stream. +Along his shores what stately temples rise, +What spires, what turrets, print the shadowed skies! +Our smiling Mother sees her broad domain +Spread its tall roofs along the western plain; +Those blazoned windows' blushing glories tell +Of grateful hearts that loved her long and well; +Yon gilded dome that glitters in the sun +Was Dives' gift,--alas, his only one! +These buttressed walls enshrine a banker's name, +That hallowed chapel hides a miser's shame; +Their wealth they left,--their memory cannot fade +Though age shall crumble every stone they laid. + +Great lord of millions,--let me call thee great, +Since countless servants at thy bidding wait,-- +Richesse oblige: no mortal must be blind +To all but self, or look at human kind +Laboring and suffering,--all its want and woe,-- +Through sheets of crystal, as a pleasing show +That makes life happier for the chosen few +Duty for whom is something not to do. +When thy last page of life at length is filled, +What shall thine heirs to keep thy memory build? +Will piles of stone in Auburn's mournful shade +Save from neglect the spot where thou art laid? +Nay, deem not thus; the sauntering stranger's eye +Will pass unmoved thy columned tombstone by, +No memory wakened, not a teardrop shed, +Thy name uncared for and thy date unread. +But if thy record thou indeed dost prize, +Bid from the soil some stately temple rise,-- +Some hall of learning, some memorial shrine, +With names long honored to associate thine: +So shall thy fame outlive thy shattered bust +When all around thee slumber in the dust. +Thus England's Henry lives in Eton's towers, +Saved from the spoil oblivion's gulf devours; +Our later records with as fair a fame +Have wreathed each uncrowned benefactor's name; +The walls they reared the memories still retain +That churchyard marbles try to keep in vain. +In vain the delving antiquary tries +To find the tomb where generous Harvard lies +Here, here, his lasting monument is found, +Where every spot is consecrated ground! +O'er Stoughton's dust the crumbling stone decays, +Fast fade its lines of lapidary praise; +There the wild bramble weaves its ragged nets, +There the dry lichen spreads its gray rosettes; +Still in yon walls his memory lives unspent, +Nor asks a braver, nobler monument. +Thus Hollis lives, and Holden, honored, praised, +And good Sir Matthew, in the halls they raised; +Thus live the worthies of these later times, +Who shine in deeds, less brilliant, grouped in rhymes. +Say, shall the Muse with faltering steps retreat, +Or dare these names in rhythmic form repeat? +Why not as boldly as from Homer's lips +The long array, of Argive battle-ships? +When o'er our graves a thousand years have past +(If to such date our threatened globe shall last) +These classic precincts, myriad feet have pressed, +Will show on high, in beauteous garlands dressed, +Those honored names that grace our later day,-- +Weld, Matthews, Sever, Thayer, Austin, Gray, +Sears, Phillips, Lawrence, Hemenway,--to the list +Add Sanders, Sibley,--all the Muse has missed. + +Once more I turn to read the pictured page +Bright with the promise of the coming age. +Ye unborn sons of children yet unborn, +Whose youthful eyes shall greet that far-off morn, +Blest are those eyes that all undimmed behold +The sights so longed for by the wise of old. +From high-arched alcoves, through resounding halls, +Clad in full robes majestic Science calls, +Tireless, unsleeping, still at Nature's feet, +Whate'er she utters fearless to repeat, +Her lips at last from every cramp released +That Israel's prophet caught from Egypt's priest. +I see the statesman, firm, sagacious, bold, +For life's long conflict cast in amplest mould; +Not his to clamor with the senseless throng +That shouts unshamed, "Our party, right or wrong," +But in the patriot's never-ending fight +To side with Truth, who changes wrong to right. +I see the scholar; in that wondrous time +Men, women, children, all can write in rhyme. +These four brief lines addressed to youth inclined +To idle rhyming in his notes I find: + +Who writes in verse that should have writ in prose +Is like a traveller walking on his toes; +Happy the rhymester who in time has found +The heels he lifts were made to touch the ground. + +I see gray teachers,--on their work intent, +Their lavished lives, in endless labor spent, +Had closed at last in age and penury wrecked, +Martyrs, not burned, but frozen in neglect, +Save for the generous hands that stretched in aid +Of worn-out servants left to die half paid. +Ah, many a year will pass, I thought, ere we +Such kindly forethought shall rejoice to see,-- +Monarchs are mindful of the sacred debt +That cold republics hasten to forget. +I see the priest,--if such a name he bears +Who without pride his sacred vestment wears; +And while the symbols of his tribe I seek +Thus my first impulse bids me think and speak: + +Let not the mitre England's prelate wears +Next to the crown whose regal pomp it shares, +Though low before it courtly Christians bow, +Leave its red mark on Younger England's brow. +We love, we honor, the maternal dame, +But let her priesthood wear a modest name, +While through the waters of the Pilgrim's bay +A new-born Mayflower shows her keels the way. +Too old grew Britain for her mother's beads,-- +Must we be necklaced with her children's creeds? +Welcome alike in surplice or in gown +The loyal lieges of the Heavenly Crown! +We greet with cheerful, not submissive, mien +A sister church, but not a mitred Queen! + +A few brief flutters, and the unwilling Muse, +Who feared the flight she hated to refuse, +Shall fold the wings whose gayer plumes are shed, +Here where at first her half-fledged pinions spread. +Well I remember in the long ago +How in the forest shades of Fontainebleau, +Strained through a fissure in a rocky cell, +One crystal drop with measured cadence fell. +Still, as of old, forever bright and clear, +The fissured cavern drops its wonted tear, +And wondrous virtue, simple folk aver, +Lies in that teardrop of la roche qui pleure. + +Of old I wandered by the river's side +Between whose banks the mighty waters glide, +Where vast Niagara, hurrying to its fall, +Builds and unbuilds its ever-tumbling wall; +Oft in my dreams I hear the rush and roar +Of battling floods, and feel the trembling shore, +As the huge torrent, girded for its leap, +With bellowing thunders plunges down the steep. +Not less distinct, from memory's pictured urn, +The gray old rock, the leafy woods, return; +Robed in their pride the lofty oaks appear, +And once again with quickened sense I hear, +Through the low murmur of the leaves that stir, +The tinkling teardrop of _la roche qui pleure_. + +So when the third ripe century stands complete, +As once again the sons of Harvard meet, +Rejoicing, numerous as the seashore sands, +Drawn from all quarters,--farthest distant lands, +Where through the reeds the scaly saurian steals, +Where cold Alaska feeds her floundering seals, +Where Plymouth, glorying, wears her iron crown, +Where Sacramento sees the suns go down; +Nay, from the cloisters whence the refluent tide +Wafts their pale students to our Mother's side,-- +Mid all the tumult that the day shall bring, +While all the echoes shout, and roar, and ring, +These tinkling lines, oblivion's easy prey, +Once more emerging to the light of day, +Not all unpleasing to the listening ear +Shall wake the memories of this bygone year, +Heard as I hear the measured drops that flow +From the gray rock of wooded Fontainebleau. + +Yet, ere I leave, one loving word for all +Those fresh young lives that wait our Mother's call: +One gift is yours, kind Nature's richest dower,-- +Youth, the fair bud that holds life's opening flower, +Full of high hopes no coward doubts enchain, +With all the future throbbing in its brain, +And mightiest instincts which the beating heart +Fills with the fire its burning waves impart. + +O joyous youth, whose glory is to dare,-- +Thy foot firm planted on the lowest stair, +Thine eye uplifted to the loftiest height +Where Fame stands beckoning in the rosy light, +Thanks for thy flattering tales, thy fond deceits, +Thy loving lies, thy cheerful smiling cheats +Nature's rash promise every day is broke,-- +A thousand acorns breed a single oak, +The myriad blooms that make the orchard gay +In barren beauty throw their lives away; +Yet shall we quarrel with the sap that yields +The painted blossoms which adorn the fields, +When the fair orchard wears its May-day suit +Of pink-white petals, for its scanty fruit? +Thrice happy hours, in hope's illusion dressed, +In fancy's cradle nurtured and caressed, +Though rich the spoils that ripening years may bring, +To thee the dewdrops of the Orient cling,-- +Not all the dye-stuffs from the vats of truth +Can match the rainbow on the robes of youth! + +Dear unborn children, to our Mother's trust +We leave you, fearless, when we lie in dust: +While o'er these walls the Christian banner waves +From hallowed lips shall flow the truth that saves; +While o'er those portals Veritas you read +No church shall bind you with its human creed. +Take from the past the best its toil has won, +But learn betimes its slavish ruts to shun. +Pass the old tree whose withered leaves are shed, +Quit the old paths that error loved to tread, +And a new wreath of living blossoms seek, +A narrower pathway up a loftier peak; +Lose not your reverence, but unmanly fear +Leave far behind you, all who enter here! + +As once of old from Ida's lofty height +The flaming signal flashed across the night, +So Harvard's beacon sheds its unspent rays +Till every watch-tower shows its kindling blaze. +Caught from a spark and fanned by every gale, +A brighter radiance gilds the roofs of Yale; +Amherst and Williams bid their flambeaus shine, +And Bowdoin answers through her groves of pine; +O'er Princeton's sands the far reflections steal, +Where mighty Edwards stamped his iron heel; +Nay, on the hill where old beliefs were bound +Fast as if Styx had girt them nine times round, +Bursts such a light that trembling souls inquire +If the whole church of Calvin is on fire! +Well may they ask, for what so brightly burns +As a dry creed that nothing ever learns? +Thus link by link is knit the flaming chain +Lit by the torch of Harvard's hallowed plain. + +Thy son, thy servant, dearest Mother mine, +Lays this poor offering on thy holy shrine, +An autumn leaflet to the wild winds tost, +Touched by the finger of November's frost, +With sweet, sad memories of that earlier day, +And all that listened to my first-born lay. +With grateful heart this glorious morn I see,-- +Would that my tribute worthier were of thee! + + + + +POST-PRANDIAL + +PHI BETA KAPPA + +WENDELL PHILLIPS, ORATOR; CHARLES GODFREY LELAND, POET + +1881 + +"THE Dutch have taken Holland,"--so the schoolboys used to say; +The Dutch have taken Harvard,--no doubt of that to-day! +For the Wendells were low Dutchmen, and all their vrows were Vans; +And the Breitmanns are high Dutchmen, and here is honest Hans. + +Mynheers, you both are welcome! Fair cousin Wendell P., +Our ancestors were dwellers beside the Zuyder Zee; +Both Grotius and Erasmus were countrymen of we, +And Vondel was our namesake, though he spelt it with a V. + +It is well old Evert Jansen sought a dwelling over sea +On the margin of the Hudson, where he sampled you and me +Through our grandsires and great-grandsires, for you would n't quite +agree +With the steady-going burghers along the Zuyder Zee. + +Like our Motley's John of Barnveld, you have always been inclined +To speak,--well,--somewhat frankly,--to let us know your mind, +And the Mynheers would have told you to be cautious what you said, +Or else that silver tongue of yours might cost your precious head. + +But we're very glad you've kept it; it was always Freedom's own, +And whenever Reason chose it she found a royal throne; +You have whacked us with your sceptre; our backs were little harmed, +And while we rubbed our bruises we owned we had been charmed. + +And you, our quasi Dutchman, what welcome should be yours +For all the wise prescriptions that work your laughter-cures? +"Shake before taking"?--not a bit,--the bottle-cure's a sham; +Take before shaking, and you 'll find it shakes your diaphragm. + +"Hans Breitmann gif a barty,--vhere is dot barty now?" +On every shelf where wit is stored to smooth the careworn brow +A health to stout Hans Breitmann! How long before we see +Another Hans as handsome,--as bright a man as he! + + + + +THE FLANEUR + +BOSTON COMMON, DECEMBER 6, 1882 + +DURING THE TRANSIT OF VENUS + +I LOVE all sights of earth and skies, +From flowers that glow to stars that shine; +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 glass 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 shores; +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 shine "- +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 "ILLUSTRATED 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 passed 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 sunshine gild this virgin leaf, + +The joyous, blessed sunshine of the past, +Still with me, though the heavens are overcast,-- +The light that shines 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 classic 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 breasts? + +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 Shirley's beauty and on Vassall'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? +They shaped our future; we but carve their names. + + + + +HYMN + +FOR THE SAME OCCASION + +SUNG BY THE CONGREGATION TO THE TUNE OF +TALLIS'S EVENING HYMN + +O'ERSHADOWED by the walls that climb, +Piled up in air by living hands, +A rock amid the waves of time, +Our gray old house of worship stands. + +High o'er the pillared aisles we love +The symbols of the past look down; +Unharmed, unharming, throned above, +Behold the mitre and the crown! + +Let not our younger faith forget +The loyal souls that held them dear; +The prayers we read their tears have wet, +The hymns we sing they loved to hear. + +The memory of their earthly throne +Still to our holy temple clings, +But here the kneeling suppliants own +One only Lord, the King of kings. + +Hark! while our hymn of grateful praise +The solemn echoing vaults prolong, +The far-off voice of earlier days +Blends with our own in hallowed song: + +To Him who ever lives and reigns, +Whom all the hosts of heaven adore, +Who lent the life His breath sustains, +Be glory now and evermore! + + + + +HYMN.--THE WORD OF PROMISE + +(by supposition) + +An Hymn set forth to be sung by the Great Assembly +at Newtown, [Mass.] Mo. 12. 1. 1636. + +[Written by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, eldest son of Rev. +ABIEL HOLMES, eighth Pastor of the First Church in +Cambridge, Massachusetts.] + +LORD, Thou hast led us as of old +Thine Arm led forth the chosen Race +Through Foes that raged, through Floods that roll'd, +To Canaan's far-off Dwelling-Place. + +Here is Thy bounteous Table spread, +Thy Manna falls on every Field, +Thy Grace our hungering Souls hath fed, +Thy Might hath been our Spear and Shield. + +Lift high Thy Buckler, Lord of Hosts! +Guard Thou Thy Servants, Sons and Sires, +While on the Godless heathen Coasts +They light Thine Israel's Altar-fires! + +The salvage Wilderness remote +Shall hear Thy Works and Wonders sung; +So from the Rock that Moses smote +The Fountain of the Desart sprung. + +Soon shall the slumbering Morn awake, +From wandering Stars of Errour freed, +When Christ the Bread of Heaven shall break +For Saints that own a common Creed. + +The Walls that fence His Flocks apart +Shall crack and crumble in Decay, +And every Tongue and every Heart +Shall welcome in the new-born Day. + +Then shall His glorious Church rejoice +His Word of Promise to recall,-- +ONE SHELTERING FOLD, ONE SHEPHERD'S VOICE, +ONE GOD AND FATHER OVER ALL! + + + + +HYMN + +READ AT THE DEDICATION OF THE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES +HOSPITAL AT HUDSON, WISCONSIN + +JUNE 7, 1877 + +ANGEL of love, for every grief +Its soothing balm thy mercy brings, +For every pang its healing leaf, +For homeless want, thine outspread, wings. + +Enough for thee the pleading eye, +The knitted brow of silent pain; +The portals open to a sigh +Without the clank of bolt or chain. + +Who is our brother? He that lies +Left at the wayside, bruised and sore +His need our open hand supplies, +His welcome waits him at our door. + +Not ours to ask in freezing tones +His race, his calling, or his creed; +Each heart the tie of kinship owns, +When those are human veins that bleed. + +Here stand the champions to defend +From every wound that flesh can feel; +Here science, patience, skill, shall blend +To save, to calm, to help, to heal. + +Father of Mercies! Weak and frail, +Thy guiding hand Thy children ask; +Let not the Great Physician fail +To aid us in our holy task. + +Source of all truth, and love, and light, +That warm and cheer our earthly days, +Be ours to serve Thy will aright, +Be Thine the glory and the praise! + + + + +ON THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD + +I. + +FALLEN with autumn's falling leaf +Ere yet his summer's noon was past, +Our friend, our guide, our trusted chief,-- +What words can match a woe so vast! + +And whose the chartered claim to speak +The sacred grief where all have part, +Where sorrow saddens every cheek +And broods in every aching heart? + +Yet Nature prompts the burning phrase +That thrills the hushed and shrouded hall, +The loud lament, the sorrowing praise, +The silent tear that love lets fall. + +In loftiest verse, in lowliest rhyme, +Shall strive unblamed the minstrel choir,--- +The singers of the new-born time, +And trembling age with outworn lyre. + +No room for pride, no place for blame,-- +We fling our blossoms on the grave, +Pale,--scentless,--faded,--all we claim, +This only,--what we had we gave. + +Ah, could the grief of all who mourn +Blend in one voice its bitter cry, +The wail to heaven's high arches borne +Would echo through the caverned sky. + + +II. + +O happiest land, whose peaceful choice +Fills with a breath its empty throne! +God, speaking through thy people's voice, +Has made that voice for once His own. + +No angry passion shakes the state +Whose weary servant seeks for rest; +And who could fear that scowling hate +Would strike at that unguarded breast? + +He stands, unconscious of his doom, +In manly strength, erect, serene; +Around him Summer spreads her bloom; +He falls,--what horror clothes the scene! + +How swift the sudden flash of woe +Where all was bright as childhood's dream! +As if from heaven's ethereal bow +Had leaped the lightning's arrowy gleam. + +Blot the foul deed from history's page; +Let not the all-betraying sun +Blush for the day that stains an age +When murder's blackest wreath was won. + + +III. + +Pale on his couch the sufferer lies, +The weary battle-ground of pain +Love tends his pillow; Science tries +Her every art, alas! in vain. + +The strife endures how long! how long! +Life, death, seem balanced in the scale, +While round his bed a viewless throng +Await each morrow's changing tale. + +In realms the desert ocean parts +What myriads watch with tear-filled eyes, +His pulse-beats echoing in their hearts, +His breathings counted with their sighs! + +Slowly the stores of life are spent, +Yet hope still battles with despair; +Will Heaven not yield when knees are bent? +Answer, O thou that hearest prayer + +But silent is the brazen sky; +On sweeps the meteor's threatening train, +Unswerving Nature's mute reply, +Bound in her adamantine chain. + +Not ours the verdict to decide +Whom death shall claim or skill shall save; +The hero's life though Heaven denied, +It gave our land a martyr's grave. + +Nor count the teaching vainly sent +How human hearts their griefs may share,-- +The lesson woman's love has lent, +What hope may do, what faith can bear! + +Farewell! the leaf-strown earth enfolds +Our stay, our pride, our hopes, our fears, +And autumn's golden sun beholds +A nation bowed, a world in tears. + + + + +THE GOLDEN FLOWER + +WHEN Advent dawns with lessening days, +While earth awaits the angels' hymn; +When bare as branching coral sways +In whistling winds each leafless limb; +When spring is but a spendthrift's dream, +And summer's wealth a wasted dower, +Nor dews nor sunshine may redeem,-- +Then autumn coins his Golden Flower. + +Soft was the violet's vernal hue, +Fresh was the rose's morning red, +Full-orbed the stately dahlia grew,-- +All gone! their short-lived splendors shed. +The shadows, lengthening, stretch at noon; +The fields are stripped, the groves are dumb; +The frost-flowers greet the icy moon,-- +Then blooms the bright chrysanthemum. + +The stiffening turf is white with snow, +Yet still its radiant disks are seen +Where soon the hallowed morn will show +The wreath and cross of Christmas green; +As if in autumn's dying days +It heard the heavenly song afar, +And opened all its glowing rays, +The herald lamp of Bethlehem's star. + +Orphan of summer, kindly sent +To cheer the fading year's decline, +In all that pitying Heaven has lent +No fairer pledge of hope than thine. +Yes! June lies hid beneath the snow, +And winter's unborn heir shall claim +For every seed that sleeps below +A spark that kindles into flame. + +Thy smile the scowl of winter braves +Last of the bright-robed, flowery train, +Soft sighing o'er the garden graves, +"Farewell! farewell! we meet again!" +So may life's chill November bring +Hope's golden flower, the last of all, +Before we hear the angels sing +Where blossoms never fade and fall! + + + + +HAIL, COLUMBIA! + +1798 + +THE FIRST VERSE OF THE SONG + +BY JOSEPH HOPKINSON + + "HAIL, Columbia! Happy land! + Hail, ye heroes, heaven-born band, + Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, + Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, + And when the storm of war was gone + Enjoy'd the peace your valor won. + Let independence be our boast, + Ever mindful what it cost; + Ever grateful for the prize, + Let its altar reach the skies. + + "Firm--united--let us be, + Rallying round our Liberty; + As a band of brothers join'd, + Peace and safety we shall find." + + +ADDITIONAL VERSES + +WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF THE COMMITTEE FOR THE +CONSTITUTIONAL CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AT PHILADELPHIA, + +1887 + +LOOK our ransomed shores around, +Peace and safety we have found! +Welcome, friends who once were foes! +Welcome, friends who once were foes, +To all the conquering years have gained,-- +A nation's rights, a race unchained! + +Children of the day new-born, +Mindful of its glorious morn, +Let the pledge our fathers signed +Heart to heart forever bind! + +While the stars of heaven shall burn, +While the ocean tides return, +Ever may the circling sun +Find the Many still are One! + +Graven deep with edge of steel, +Crowned with Victory's crimson seal, +All the world their names shall read! +All the world their names shall read, +Enrolled with his, the Chief that led +The hosts whose blood for us was shed. +Pay our sires their children's debt, +Love and honor, nor forget +Only Union's golden key +Guards the Ark of Liberty! + +While the stars of heaven shall burn, +While the ocean tides return, +Ever may the circling sun +Find the Many still are One! + +Hail, Columbia! strong and free, +Throned in hearts from sea to sea +Thy march triumphant still pursue! +Thy march triumphant still pursue +With peaceful stride from zone to zone, +Till Freedom finds the world her own + +Blest in Union's holy ties, +Let our grateful song arise, +Every voice its tribute lend, +All in loving chorus blend! + +While the stars in heaven shall burn, +While the ocean tides return, +Ever shall the circling sun +Find the Many still are One! + + + + +POEM + +FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE FOUNTAIN AT +STRATFORD-ON-AVON, PRESENTED BY +GEORGE W. CHILDS, OF PHILADELPHIA + +WELCOME, thrice welcome is thy silvery gleam, +Thou long-imprisoned stream! +Welcome the tinkle of thy crystal beads +As plashing raindrops to the flowery meads, +As summer's breath to Avon's whispering reeds! +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 shores, +Starry with spangles washed from golden ores, +Nor glassy 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 lustrous 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 friendship, 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 Horeb's rock the God 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 clustering 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 shine +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 passed 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? + +Friends of his studious hours, who thronged to teach +The deep-read scholar all your varied lore, +Shall he no longer seek your shelves to reach +The treasure missing from his world-wide store? + +This singer whom we long have held so dear +Was Nature's darling, shapely, strong, and fair; +Of keenest wit, of judgment crystal-clear, +Easy of converse, courteous, debonair, + +Fit for the loftiest or the lowliest lot, +Self-poised, imperial, yet of simplest ways; +At home alike in castle or in cot, +True to his aim, let others blame or praise. + +Freedom he found an heirloom from his sires; +Song, letters, statecraft, shared his years in turn; +All went to feed the nation's altar-fires +Whose mourning children wreathe his funeral urn. + +He loved New England,--people, language, soil, +Unweaned by exile from her arid breast. +Farewell awhile, white-handed son of toil, +Go with her brown-armed laborers to thy rest. + +Peace to thy slumber in the forest shade! +Poet and patriot, every gift was thine; +Thy name shall live while summers bloom and fade, +And grateful Memory guard thy leafy shrine! + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY OF O. W. HOLMES, V10 *** + +******** This file should be named ohp1010.txt or ohp1010.zip ******** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, ohp1011.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, ohp1010a.txt + +This eBook was produced by David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +http://gutenberg.net or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/ohp1010.zip b/old/ohp1010.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fb0c214 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ohp1010.zip |