The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes Part 96

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 coa.r.s.e 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 sh.o.r.es 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 b.u.t.tressed 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sociate 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, n.o.bler 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 cla.s.sic 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 pa.s.s, 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 seash.o.r.e 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.

Pa.s.s 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 G.o.dFREY 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