The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes Part 72

FOR THE COMMEMORATION SERVICES

CAMBRIDGE, JULY 21, 1865

FOUR summers coined their golden light in leaves, Four wasteful autumns flung them to the gale, Four winters wore the shroud the tempest weaves, The fourth wan April weeps o'er hill and vale;

And still the war-clouds scowl on sea and land, With the red gleams of battle staining through, When lo! as parted by an angel's hand, They open, and the heavens again are blue!

Which is the dream, the present or the past?

The night of anguish or the joyous morn?

The long, long years with horrors overcast, Or the sweet promise of the day new-born?

Tell us, O father, as thine arms infold Thy belted first-born in their fast embrace, Murmuring the prayer the patriarch breathed of old,-- "Now let me die, for I have seen thy face!"

Tell us, O mother,--nay, thou canst not speak, But thy fond eyes shall answer, brimmed with joy,-- Press thy mute lips against the sunbrowned cheek, Is this a phantom,--thy returning boy?

Tell us, O maiden,--ah, what canst thou tell That Nature's record is not first to teach,-- The open volume all can read so well, With its twin rose-hued pages full of speech?

And ye who mourn your dead,--how sternly true The crus.h.i.+ng hour that wrenched their lives away, Shadowed with sorrow's midnight veil for you, For them the dawning of immortal day!

Dream-like these years of conflict, not a dream!

Death, ruin, ashes tell the awful tale, Read by the flaming war-track's lurid gleam No dream, but truth that turns the nations pale.

For on the pillar raised by martyr hands Burns the rekindled beacon of the right,

Sowing its seeds of fire o'er all the lands,-- Thrones look a century older in its light!

Rome had her triumphs; round the conqueror's car The ensigns waved, the brazen clarions blew, And o'er the reeking spoils of bandit war With outspread wings the cruel eagles flew;

Arms, treasures, captives, kings in clanking chains Urged on by trampling cohorts bronzed and scarred, And wild-eyed wonders snared on Lybian plains, Lion and ostrich and camelopard.

Vain all that praetors clutched, that consuls brought When Rome's returning legions crowned their lord; Less than the least brave deed these hands have wrought, We clasp, unclinching from the b.l.o.o.d.y sword.

Theirs was the mighty work that seers foretold; They know not half their glorious toil has won, For this is Heaven's same battle,-joined of old When Athens fought for us at Marathon!

Behold a vision none hath understood!

The breaking of the Apocalyptic seal; Twice rings the summons.--Hail and fire and blood!

Then the third angel blows his trumpet-peal.

Loud wail the dwellers on the myrtled coasts, The green savannas swell the maddened cry, And with a yell from all the demon hosts Falls the great star called Wormwood from the sky!

Bitter it mingles with the poisoned flow Of the warm rivers winding to the sh.o.r.e, Thousands must drink the waves of death and woe, But the star Wormwood stains the heavens no more!

Peace smiles at last; the Nation calls her sons To sheathe the sword; her battle-flag she furls, Speaks in glad thunders from unspotted guns, No terror shrouded in the smoke-wreath's curls.

O ye that fought for Freedom, living, dead, One sacred host of G.o.d's anointed Queen, For every holy, drop your veins have shed We breathe a welcome to our bowers of green!

Welcome, ye living! from the foeman's gripe Your country's banner it was yours to wrest,-- Ah, many a forehead shows the banner-stripe, And stars, once crimson, hallow many a breast.

And ye, pale heroes, who from glory's bed Mark when your old battalions form in line, Move in their marching ranks with noiseless tread, And shape unheard the evening countersign,

Come with your comrades, the returning brave; Shoulder to shoulder they await you here; These lent the life their martyr-brothers gave,-- Living and dead alike forever dear!

EDWARD EVERETT

"OUR FIRST CITIZEN"

Read at the meeting of the Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Society, January 30, 1865.

WINTER'S cold drift lies glistening o'er his breast; For him no spring shall bid the leaf unfold What Love could speak, by sudden grief oppressed, What swiftly summoned Memory tell, is told.

Even as the bells, in one consenting chime, Filled with their sweet vibrations all the air, So joined all voices, in that mournful time, His genius, wisdom, virtues, to declare.

What place is left for words of measured praise, Till calm-eyed History, with her iron pen, Grooves in the unchanging rock the final phrase That shapes his image in the souls of men?

Yet while the echoes still repeat his name, While countless tongues his full-orbed life rehea.r.s.e, Love, by his beating pulses taught, will claim The breath of song, the tuneful throb of verse,--

Verse that, in ever-changing ebb and flow, Moves, like the laboring heart, with rush and rest, Or swings in solemn cadence, sad and slow, Like the tired heaving of a grief-worn breast.

This was a mind so rounded, so complete, No partial gift of Nature in excess, That, like a single stream where many meet, Each separate talent counted something less.

A little hillock, if it lonely stand, Holds o'er the fields an undisputed reign; While the broad summit of the table-land Seems with its belt of clouds a level plain.

Servant of all his powers, that faithful slave, Unsleeping Memory, strengthening with his toils, To every ruder task his shoulder gave, And loaded every day with golden spoils.

Order, the law of Heaven, was throned supreme O'er action, instinct, impulse, feeling, thought; True as the dial's shadow to the beam, Each hour was equal to the charge it brought.

Too large his compa.s.s for the nicer skill That weighs the world of science grain by grain; All realms of knowledge owned the mastering will That claimed the franchise of its whole domain.

Earth, air, sea, sky, the elemental fire, Art, history, song,--what meanings lie in each Found in his cunning hand a stringless lyre, And poured their mingling music through his speech.

Thence flowed those anthems of our festal days, Whose ravis.h.i.+ng division held apart The lips of listening throngs in sweet amaze, Moved in all b.r.e.a.s.t.s the selfsame human heart.

Subdued his accents, as of one who tries To press some care, some haunting sadness down; His smile half shadow; and to stranger eyes The kingly forehead wore an iron crown.

He was not armed to wrestle with the storm, To fight for homely truth with vulgar power; Grace looked from every feature, shaped his form, The rose of Academe,--the perfect flower!

Such was the stately scholar whom we knew In those ill days of soul-enslaving calm, Before the blast of Northern vengeance blew Her snow-wreathed pine against the Southern palm.

Ah, G.o.d forgive us! did we hold too cheap The heart we might have known, but would not see, And look to find the nation's friend asleep Through the dread hour of her Gethsemane?