The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes Part 5

If to embody in a breathing word Tones that the spirit trembled when it heard; To fix the image all unveiled and warm, And carve in language its ethereal form, So pure, so perfect, that the lines express No meagre shrinking, no unlaced excess; To feel that art, in living truth, has taught Ourselves, reflected in the sculptured thought;-- If this alone bestow the right to claim The deathless garland and the sacred name, Then none are poets save the saints on high, Whose harps can murmur all that words deny!

But though to none is granted to reveal In perfect semblance all that each may feel, As withered flowers recall forgotten love, So, warmed to life, our faded pa.s.sions move In every line, where kindling fancy throws The gleam of pleasures or the shade of woes.

When, schooled by time, the stately queen of art Had smoothed the pathways leading to the heart, a.s.sumed her measured tread, her solemn tone, And round her courts the clouds of fable thrown, The wreaths of heaven descended on her shrine, And wondering earth proclaimed the Muse divine.

Yet if her votaries had but dared profane The mystic symbols of her sacred reign, How had they smiled beneath the veil to find What slender threads can chain the mighty mind!

Poets, like painters, their machinery claim, And verse bestows the varnish and the frame; Our grating English, whose Teutonic jar Shakes the racked axle of Art's rattling car, Fits like mosaic in the lines that gird Fast in its place each many-angled word; From Saxon lips Anacreon's numbers glide, As once they melted on the Teian tide, And, fresh transfused, the Iliad thrills again From Albion's cliffs as o'er Achaia's plain The proud heroic, with, its pulse-like beat, Rings like the cymbals clas.h.i.+ng as they meet; The sweet Spenserian, gathering as it flows, Sweeps gently onward to its dying close, Where waves on waves in long succession pour, Till the ninth billow melts along the sh.o.r.e; The lonely spirit of the mournful lay, Which lives immortal as the verse of Gray, In sable plumage slowly drifts along, On eagle pinion, through the air of song; The glittering lyric bounds elastic by, With flas.h.i.+ng ringlets and exulting eye, While every image, in her airy whirl, Gleams like a diamond on a dancing girl!

Born with mankind, with man's expanded range And varying fates the poet's numbers change; Thus in his history may we hope to find Some clearer epochs of the poet's mind, As from the cradle of its birth we trace, Slow wandering forth, the patriarchal race.

I.

When the green earth, beneath the zephyr's wing, Wears on her breast the varnished buds of Spring; When the loosed current, as its folds uncoil, Slides in the channels of the mellowed soil; When the young hyacinth returns to seek The air and suns.h.i.+ne with her emerald beak; When the light snowdrops, starting from their cells, Hang each paG.o.da with its silver bells; When the frail willow twines her trailing bow With pallid leaves that sweep the soil below; When the broad elm, sole empress of the plain, Whose circling shadow speaks a century's reign, Wreathes in the clouds her regal diadem,-- A forest waving on a single stem;-- Then mark the poet; though to him unknown The quaint-mouthed t.i.tles, such as scholars own, See how his eye in ecstasy pursues The steps of Nature tracked in radiant hues; Nay, in thyself, whate'er may be thy fate, Pallid with toil or surfeited with state, Mark how thy fancies, with the vernal rose, Awake, all sweetness, from their long repose; Then turn to ponder o'er the cla.s.sic page, Traced with the idyls of a greener age, And learn the instinct which arose to warm Art's earliest essay and her simplest form.

To themes like these her narrow path confined The first-born impulse moving in the mind; In vales unshaken by the trumpet's sound, Where peaceful Labor tills his fertile ground, The silent changes of the rolling years, Marked on the soil or dialled on the spheres, The crested forests and the colored flowers, The dewy grottos and the blus.h.i.+ng bowers,-- These, and their guardians, who, with liquid names, Strephons and Chloes, melt in mutual flames, Woo the young Muses from their mountain shade, To make Arcadias in the lonely glade.

Nor think they visit only with their smiles The fabled valleys and Elysian isles; He who is wearied of his village plain May roam the Edens of the world in vain.

'T is not the star-crowned cliff, the cataract's flow, The softer foliage or the greener glow, The lake of sapphire or the spar-hung cave, The brighter sunset or the broader wave, Can warm his heart whom every wind has blown To every sh.o.r.e, forgetful of his own.

Home of our childhood! how affection clings And hovers round thee with her seraph wings!

Dearer thy hills, though clad in autumn brown, Than fairest summits which the cedars crown!

Sweeter the fragrance of thy summer breeze Than all Arabia breathes along the seas!

The stranger's gale wafts home the exile's sigh, For the heart's temple is its own blue sky!

Oh happiest they, whose early love unchanged, Hopes undissolved, and friends.h.i.+p unestranged, Tired of their wanderings, still can deign to see Love, hopes, and friends.h.i.+p, centring all in thee!

And thou, my village! as again I tread Amidst thy living and above thy dead; Though some fair playmates guard with charter fears Their cheeks, grown holy with the lapse of years; Though with the dust some reverend locks may blend, Where life's last mile-stone marks the journey's end; On every bud the changing year recalls, The brightening glance of morning memory falls, Still following onward as the months unclose The balmy lilac or the bridal rose; And still shall follow, till they sink once more Beneath the snow-drifts of the frozen sh.o.r.e, As when my bark, long tossing in the gale, Furled in her port her tempest-rended sail!

What shall I give thee? Can a simple lay, Flung on thy bosom like a girl's bouquet, Do more than deck thee for an idle hour, Then fall unheeded, fading like the flower?

Yet, when I trod, with footsteps wild and free, The crackling leaves beneath yon linden-tree, Panting from play or dripping from the stream, How bright the visions of my boyish dream Or, modest Charles, along thy broken edge, Black with soft ooze and fringed with arrowy sedge, As once I wandered in the morning sun, With reeking sandal and superfluous gun, How oft, as Fancy whispered in the gale, Thou wast the Avon of her flattering tale!

Ye hills, whose foliage, fretted on the skies, Prints shadowy arches on their evening dyes, How should my song with holiest charm invest Each dark ravine and forest-lifting crest!

How clothe in beauty each familiar scene, Till all was cla.s.sic on my native green!

As the drained fountain, filled with autumn leaves, The field swept naked of its garnered sheaves, So wastes at noon the promise of our dawn, The springs all choking, and the harvest gone.

Yet hear the lay of one whose natal star Still seemed the brightest when it shone afar; Whose cheek, grown pallid with ungracious toil, Glows in the welcome of his parent soil; And ask no garlands sought beyond the tide, But take the leaflets gathered at your side.

II.

But times were changed; the torch of terror came, To light the summits with the beacon's flame; The streams ran crimson, the tall mountain pines Rose a new forest o'er embattled lines; The bloodless sickle lent the warrior's steel, The harvest bowed beneath his chariot wheel; Where late the wood-dove sheltered her repose The raven waited for the conflict's close; The cuira.s.sed sentry walked his sleepless round Where Daphne smiled or Amaryllis frowned; Where timid minstrels sung their blus.h.i.+ng charms, Some wild Tyrtaeus called aloud, "To arms!"

When Glory wakes, when fiery spirits leap, Roused by her accents from their tranquil sleep, The ray that flashes from the soldier's crest Lights, as it glances, in the poet's breast;-- Not in pale dreamers, whose fantastic lay Toys with smooth trifles like a child at play, But men, who act the pa.s.sions they inspire, Who wave the sabre as they sweep the lyre!

Ye mild enthusiasts, whose pacific frowns Are lost like dew-drops caught in burning towns, Pluck as ye will the radiant plumes of fame, Break Caesar's bust to make yourselves a name; But if your country bares the avenger's blade For wrongs unpunished or for debts unpaid, When the roused nation bids her armies form, And screams her eagle through the gathering storm, When from your ports the bannered frigate rides, Her black bows scowling to the crested tides, Your hour has past; in vain your feeble cry As the babe's wailings to the thundering sky!

Scourge of mankind! with all the dread array That wraps in wrath thy desolating way, As the wild tempest wakes the slumbering sea, Thou only teachest all that man can be.

Alike thy tocsin has the power to charm The toil-knit sinews of the rustic's arm, Or swell the pulses in the poet's veins, And bid the nations tremble at his strains.

The city slept beneath the moonbeam's glance, Her white walls gleaming through the vines of France, And all was hushed, save where the footsteps fell, On some high tower, of midnight sentinel.

But one still watched; no self-encircled woes Chased from his lids the angel of repose; He watched, he wept, for thoughts of bitter years Bowed his dark lashes, wet with burning tears His country's sufferings and her children's shame Streamed o'er his memory like a forest's flame; Each treasured insult, each remembered wrong, Rolled through his heart and kindled into song.

His taper faded; and the morning gales Swept through the world the war-song of Ma.r.s.eilles!

Now, while around the smiles of Peace expand, And Plenty's wreaths festoon the laughing land; While France s.h.i.+ps outward her reluctant ore, And half our navy basks upon the sh.o.r.e; From ruder themes our meek-eyed Muses turn To crown with roses their enamelled urn.

If e'er again return those awful days Whose clouds were crimsoned with the beacon's blaze, Whose gra.s.s was trampled by the soldier's heel, Whose tides were reddened round the rus.h.i.+ng keel, G.o.d grant some lyre may wake a n.o.bler strain To rend the silence of our tented plain!

When Gallia's flag its triple fold displays, Her marshalled legions peal the Ma.r.s.eillaise; When round the German close the war-clouds dim, Far through their shadows floats his battle-hymn; When, crowned with joy, the camps' of England ring, A thousand voices shout, "G.o.d save the King!"

When victory follows with our eagle's glance, Our nation's anthem pipes a country dance!

Some prouder Muse, when comes the hour at last, May shake our hillsides with her bugle-blast; Not ours the task; but since the lyric dress Relieves the statelier with its sprightliness, Hear an old song, which some, perchance, have seen In stale gazette or cobwebbed magazine.

There was an hour when patriots dared profane The mast that Britain strove to bow in vain; And one, who listened to the tale of shame, Whose heart still answered to that sacred name, Whose eye still followed o'er his country's tides Thy glorious flag, our brave Old Ironsides From yon lone attic, on a smiling morn, Thus mocked the spoilers with his school-boy scorn.

III.

When florid Peace resumed her golden reign, And arts revived, and valleys bloomed again, While War still panted on his-broken blade, Once more the Muse her heavenly wing essayed.

Rude was the song: some ballad, stern and wild, Lulled the light slumbers of the soldier's child; Or young romancer, with his threatening glance And fearful fables of his bloodless lance, Scared the soft fancy of the clinging girls, Whose snowy fingers smoothed his raven curls.

But when long years the stately form had bent, And faithless Memory her illusions lent, So vast the outlines of Tradition grew That History wondered at the shapes she drew, And veiled at length their too ambitious hues Beneath the pinions of the Epic Muse.

Far swept her wing; for stormier days had brought With darker pa.s.sions deeper tides of thought.

The camp's harsh tumult and the conflict's glow, The thrill of triumph and the gasp of woe, The tender parting and the glad return, The festal banquet and the funeral urn, And all the drama which at once uprears Its spectral shadows through the clash of spears, From camp and field to echoing verse transferred, Swelled the proud song that listening nations heard.

Why floats the amaranth in eternal bloom O'er Ilium's turrets and Achilles' tomb?

Why lingers fancy where the sunbeams smile On Circe's gardens and Calypso's isle?

Why follows memory to the gate of Troy Her plumed defender and his trembling boy?

Lo! the blind dreamer, kneeling on the sand To trace these records with his doubtful hand; In fabled tones his own emotion flows, And other lips repeat his silent woes; In Hector's infant see the babes that shun Those deathlike eyes, unconscious of the sun, Or in his hero hear himself implore, "Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more!"

Thus live undying through the lapse of time The solemn legends of the warrior's clime; Like Egypt's pyramid or Paestum's fane, They stand the heralds of the voiceless plain.

Yet not like them, for Time, by slow degrees, Saps the gray stone and wears the embroidered frieze, And Isis sleeps beneath her subject Nile, And crumbled Neptune strews his Dorian pile; But Art's fair fabric, strengthening as it rears Its laurelled columns through the mist of years, As the blue arches of the bending skies Still gird the torrent, following as it flies, Spreads, with the surges bearing on mankind, Its starred pavilion o'er the tides of mind!

In vain the patriot asks some lofty lay To dress in state our wars of yesterday.

The cla.s.sic days, those mothers of romance, That roused a nation for a woman's glance; The age of mystery, with its h.o.a.rded power, That girt the tyrant in his storied tower, Have pa.s.sed and faded like a dream of youth, And riper eras ask for history's truth.

On other sh.o.r.es, above their mouldering towns, In sullen pomp the tall cathedral frowns, Pride in its aisles and paupers at the door, Which feeds the beggars whom it fleeced of yore.

Simple and frail, our lowly temples throw Their slender shadows on the paths below; Scarce steal the winds, that sweep his woodland tracks, The larch's perfume from the settler's axe, Ere, like a vision of the morning air, His slight--framed steeple marks the house of prayer; Its planks all reeking and its paint undried, Its rafters sprouting on the shady side, It sheds the raindrops from its s.h.i.+ngled eaves Ere its green brothers once have changed their leaves.

Yet Faith's pure hymn, beneath its shelter rude, Breathes out as sweetly to the tangled wood As where the rays through pictured glories pour On marble shaft and tessellated floor;-- Heaven asks no surplice round the heart that feels, And all is holy where devotion kneels.

Thus on the soil the patriot's knee should bend Which holds the dust once living to defend; Where'er the hireling shrinks before the free, Each pa.s.s becomes "a new Thermopylae"!

Where'er the battles of the brave are won, There every mountain "looks on Marathon"!

Our fathers live; they guard in glory still The gra.s.s-grown bastions of the fortressed hill; Still ring the echoes of the trampled gorge, With _G.o.d and Freedom. England and Saint George_!

The royal cipher on the captured gun Mocks the sharp night-dews and the blistering sun; The red-cross banner shades its captor's bust, Its folds still loaded with the conflict's dust; The drum, suspended by its tattered marge, Once rolled and rattled to the Hessian's charge; The stars have floated from Britannia's mast, The redcoat's trumpets blown the rebel's blast.

Point to the summits where the brave have bled, Where every village claims its glorious dead; Say, when their bosoms met the bayonet's shock, Their only corselet was the rustic frock; Say, when they mustered to the gathering horn, The t.i.tled chieftain curled his lip in scorn, Yet, when their leader bade his lines advance, No musket wavered in the lion's glance; Say, when they fainted in the forced retreat, They tracked the snow-drifts with their bleeding feet, Yet still their banners, tossing in the blast, Bore Ever Ready, faithful to the last, Through storm and battle, till they waved again On Yorktown's hills and Saratoga's plain.