OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
[Born in 1809. A Physician, and Professor of Anatomy in Harvard University. Well known as author of The Autocrat of the Breakfast-table and other prose writings, as well as of poems,— humorous, critical, or occasional, for the most part].
THE PHILOSOPHER TO HIS LOVE.
DEAREST, a look is but a ray
Reflected in a certain way;
A word, whatever tone it wear,
Is but a trembling wave of air;
A touch, obedience to a clause
In Nature's pure material laws.
The very flowers that bend and meet,
In sweetening others, grow more sweet;
The clouds by day, the stars by night,
Inweave their floating locks of light;
The rainbow, Heaven's own forehead's braid,
Is but the embrace of sun and shade.
How few that love us have we found!
How wide the world that girds them round!
Like mountain-streams we meet and part,
Each living in the other's heart,
Our course unknown, our hope to be
Yet mingled in the distant sea.
But Ocean coils and heaves in vain,
Bound in the subtle moonbeam's chain;
And love and hope do but obey
Some cold, capricious planet's ray,
Which lights and leads the tide it charms
To Death's dark caves and icy arms.
Alas! one narrow line is drawn,
That links our sunset with our dawn;
In mist and shade life's morning rose,
And clouds are round it at its close;
But ah! no twilight beam ascends
To whisper where that evening ends.
Oh! in the hour when I shall feel
Those shadows round my senses steal,
When gentle eyes are weeping o'er
The clay that feels their tears no more,
Then let thy spirit with me be,
Or some sweet angel, likest thee!
THE LAST READER.
I SOMETIMES sit beneath a tree,
And read my own sweet songs;
Though nought they may to others be,
Each humble line prolongs
A tone that might have passed away
But for that scarce-remembered lay.
I keep them like a lock or leaf
That some dear girl has given ; Frail record of an hour as brief
As sunset-clouds in heaven, But spreading purple twilight still High over memory's shadowed hill.
They lie upon my pathway bleak,
Those flowers that once ran wild,
As on a father's care-worn cheek
The ringlets of his child;
The golden mingling with the grey,
And stealing half its snows away.
What care I though the dust is spread
Around these yellow leaves,
Or o'er them his sarcastic thread
Oblivion's insect weaves?
Though weeds are tangled on the stream,
It still reflects my morning's beam.
And therefore love I such as smile
On these neglected songs,
Nor deem that flattery's needless wile
My opening bosom wrongs;
For who would trample, at my side,
A few pale buds, my garden's pride?
It may be that my scanty ore
Long years have washed away, And where were golden sands before, Is nought but common clay; Still something sparkles in the sun For memory to look back upon.
And when my name no more is heard,
My lyre no more is known,
Still let me, like a winter's bird,
In silence and alone,
Fold over them the weary wing
Once flashing through the dews of spring.
Yes, let my fancy fondly wrap
My youth in its decline,
And riot in the rosy lap
Of thoughts that once were mine,—
And give the worm my little store
When the last reader reads no more!
STRANGE that one lightly-whispered tone
Is far, far sweeter unto me
Than all the sounds that kiss the earth,
Or breathe along the sea!
But, lady, when thy voice I greet,
Not heavenly music seems so sweet.
I look upon the fair blue skies,
And nought but empty air I see;
But, when I turn me to thine eyes,
It seemeth unto me
Ten thousand angels spread their wings
Within those little azure rings.
The lily hath the softest leaf
That ever western breeze hath fanned,
But thou shalt have the tender flower,
So I may take thy hand;
That little hand to me doth yield
More joy than all the broidered field.
O lady! there be many things
That seem right fair, below, above;
But sure not one among them all
Is half so sweet as love ;-
Let us not pay our vows alone,
But join two altars both in one.
[Born in 1809.1 Beginning as a school-teacher, he made a wandering journey about the United States; became a journalist; and ultimately a barrister. A volume of Hymns to the Gods, written at an early period, is one of his most noted poetical works].
O THOU the leaden-eyed! with drooping lid
Hanging upon thy sight, and eye half-hid
By matted hair: that, with a constant train
Of empty dreams, all shadowless and vain
As the dim wind, dost sleep in thy dark cave
With poppies at the mouth, which night-winds wave,
Sending their breathings downward-on thy bed,
Thine only throne, with darkness overspread,
And curtains black as are the eyes of Night:
Thou, who dost come at time of waning light,
And sleep among the woods, where Night doth hide
And tremble at the sun, and shadows glide
1 An American friend whom I have consulted in various matters connected with this book believes (without however vouching for it as a certainty) that Mr. Pike was a General in the Confederate army during the Civil War, and was killed in the course of that struggle.
Among the waving tree-tops; if now there
Thou sleepest in a current of cool air,
Within some nook, amid thick flowers and moss
Grey-coloured as thine eyes, while thy dreams toss
Their fantasies about the silent earth,
In waywardness of mirth—
Oh come! and hear the hymn that we are chanting Amid the starlight through the thick leaves slanting.
Thou lover of the banks of idle streams
O'ershaded by broad oaks, with scattered gleams
From the few stars upon them; of the shore
Of the broad sea, with silence hovering o'er,—
The great moon hanging out her lamps to gild
The murmuring waves with hues all pure and mild,—
Where thou dost lie upon the sounding sands,
While winds come dancing on from southern lands
With dreams upon their backs, and unseen waves
Of odours in their hands: thou, in the caves
Of the star-lighted clouds, on summer eves
Reclining lazily, while Silence leaves
Her influence about thee: in the sea
That liest, hearing the monotony
Of waves far-off above thee, like the wings
Of passing dreams, while the great ocean swings
His bulk above thy sand-supported head :—
As chained upon his bed
Some giant, with an idleness of motion,
So swings the still and sleep-enthrallèd ocean.
Thou who dost bless the weary with thy touch,
And makest Agony relax his clutch
Upon the bleeding fibres of the heart;
Pale Disappointment lose her constant smart,
And Sorrow dry her tears, and cease to weep
Her life away, and gain new cheer in sleep:
Thou who dost bless the birds, in every place
Where they have sung their songs with wondrous grace
Throughout the day, and now, with drooping wing,
Amid the leaves receive thy welcoming:-
|