The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes Part 80

A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE

READ AT THE MEETING HELD AT MUSIC HALL, FEBRUARY 8, 1876, IN MEMORY OF DR. SAMUEL G. HOWE

I.

LEADER of armies, Israel's G.o.d, Thy soldier's fight is won!

Master, whose lowly path he trod, Thy servant's work is done!

No voice is heard from Sinai's steep Our wandering feet to guide; From h.o.r.eb's rock no waters leap; No Jordan's waves divide;

No prophet cleaves our western sky On wheels of whirling fire; No shepherds hear the song on high Of heaven's angelic choir.

Yet here as to the patriarch's tent G.o.d's angel comes a guest; He comes on heaven's high errand sent, In earth's poor raiment drest.

We see no halo round his brow Till love its own recalls, And, like a leaf that quits the bough, The mortal vesture falls.

In autumn's chill declining day, Ere winter's killing frost, The message came; so pa.s.sed away The friend our earth has lost.

Still, Father, in thy love we trust; Forgive us if we mourn The saddening hour that laid in dust His robe of flesh outworn.

II.

How long the wreck-strewn journey seems To reach the far-off past That woke his youth from peaceful dreams With Freedom's trumpet-blast.

Along her cla.s.sic hillsides rung The Paynim's battle-cry, And like a red-cross knight he sprung For her to live or die.

No trustier service claimed the wreath For Sparta's bravest son; No truer soldier sleeps beneath The mound of Marathon;

Yet not for him the warrior's grave In front of angry foes; To lift, to s.h.i.+eld, to help, to save, The holier task he chose.

He touched the eyelids of the blind, And lo! the veil withdrawn, As o'er the midnight of the mind He led the light of dawn.

He asked not whence the fountains roll No traveller's foot has found, But mapped the desert of the soul Untracked by sight or sound.

What prayers have reached the sapphire throne, By silent fingers spelt, For him who first through depths unknown His doubtful pathway felt,

Who sought the slumbering sense that lay Close shut with bolt and bar, And showed awakening thought the ray Of reason's morning star.

Where'er he moved, his shadowy form The sightless...o...b.. would seek, And smiles of welcome light and warm The lips that could not speak.

No labored line, no sculptor's art, Such hallowed memory needs; His tablet is the human heart, His record loving deeds.

III.

The rest that earth denied is thine,-- Ah, is it rest? we ask, Or, traced by knowledge more divine, Some larger, n.o.bler task?

Had but those boundless fields of blue One darkened sphere like this; But what has heaven for thee to do In realms of perfect bliss?

No cloud to lift, no mind to clear, No rugged path to smooth, No struggling soul to help and cheer, No mortal grief to soothe!

Enough; is there a world of love, No more we ask to know; The hand will guide thy ways above That shaped thy task below.

JOSEPH WARREN, M. D.

TRAINED in the holy art whose lifted s.h.i.+eld Wards off the darts a never-slumbering foe, By hearth and wayside lurking, waits to throw, Oppression taught his helpful arm to wield The slayer's weapon: on the murderous field The fiery bolt he challenged laid him low, Seeking its n.o.blest victim. Even so The charter of a nation must be sealed!

The healer's brow the hero's honors crowned, From lowliest duty called to loftiest deed.

Living, the oak-leaf wreath his temples bound; Dying, the conqueror's laurel was his meed, Last on the broken ramparts' turf to bleed Where Freedom's victory in defeat was found.

June 11, 1875.

OLD CAMBRIDGE

JULY 3, 1875

AND can it be you've found a place Within this consecrated s.p.a.ce, That makes so fine a show, For one of Rip Van Winkle's race?

And is it really so?

Who wants an old receipted bill?

Who fishes in the Frog-pond still?

Who digs last year's potato hill?-- That's what he'd like to know!

And were it any spot on earth Save this dear home that gave him birth Some scores of years ago, He had not come to spoil your mirth And chill your festive glow; But round his baby-nest he strays, With tearful eye the scene surveys, His heart unchanged by changing days, That's what he'd have you know.

Can you whose eyes not yet are dim Live o'er the buried past with him, And see the roses blow When white-haired men were Joe and Jim Untouched by winter's snow?

Or roll the years back one by one As Judah's monarch backed the sun, And see the century just begun?-- That's what he'd like to know!

I come, but as the swallow dips, Just touching with her feather-tips The s.h.i.+ning wave below, To sit with pleasure-murmuring lips And listen to the flow Of Elmwood's sparkling Hippocrene, To tread once more my native green, To sigh unheard, to smile unseen,-- That's what I'd have you know.

But since the common lot I've shared (We all are sitting "unprepared,"

Like culprits in a row, Whose heads are down, whose necks are bared To wait the headsman's blow), I'd like to s.h.i.+ft my task to you, By asking just a thing or two About the good old times I knew,-- Here's what I want to know.

The yellow meetin' house--can you tell Just where it stood before it fell Prey of the vandal foe,-- Our dear old temple, loved so well, By ruthless hands laid low?

Where, tell me, was the Deacon's pew?

Whose hair was braided in a queue?

(For there were pig-tails not a few,)-- That's what I'd like to know.