God hath anointed thee to free the oppressed
And crush the oppressor.
_Hymn to Death._
Seek’st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?
_To a Waterfall._
Thou unrelenting Past!
Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain
And fetters, sure and fast,
Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.
_The Past._
Upon the mountain’s distant head
With trackless snows forever white,
Where all is still, and cold, and dead,
Late shines the day’s departing light.
“_Upon the Mountain’s Distant Head._”
Violets spring in the soft May shower;
There, in the summer breezes, wave
Crimson phlox and moccasin flower.
_The Maiden’s Sorrow._
Welcome to grasp of friendly hands; to prayers
Offered where crowds in reverent worship come
Or softly breathed amid the tender cares
And loving inmates of thy quiet home.
_The Life that Is._
Alexis calls me cruel;
The rifted crags that hold
The gathered ice of winter,
He says, are not more cold.
_Song from the Spanish._
Yet these sweet sounds of the early season
And these fair sights of its sunny days,
Are only sweet when we fondly listen,
And only fair when we fondly gaze.
_An Invitation to the Country._
Leave Zelinda altogether,
Whom thou leavest oft and long,
And in the life thou lovest
Forget whom thou dost wrong.
_The Alcayde of Molina._
THE THIRD OF NOVEMBER.
On my cornice linger the ripe, black grapes ungathered;
Children fill the groves with the echoes of their glee,
Gathering tawny chestnuts, and shouting when beside them
Drop the heavy fruit of the tall black walnut tree.
Glorious are the woods in their latest gold and crimson,
Yet our full-leaved willows are in their freshest green,
Such a kindly autumn, so mercifully dealing
With the growths of summer, I never yet have seen.
Like this kindly season may life’s decline come o’er me;
Past is manhood’s summer, the frosty months are here;
Yet be genial airs, and a pleasant sunshine left me,
Leaf, and fruit, and blossom, to mark the closing year.
THE NIGHT JOURNEY OF A RIVER.
O darkling River! Through the night I hear
Thy wavelets rippling on the pebbly beach;
I hear thy current stir the rustling sedge
That skirts thy bed; thou intermittest not
Thine everlasting journey, drawing on
A silvery train from many a woodland spring
And mountain brook. The dweller by thy side,
Who moored his little boat upon thy beach,
Though all the waters that upbore it then
Have slid away o’er night, shall find, at noon
Thy channels filled with waters freshly drawn
From distant cliffs and hollows, where the rill
Comes up amid the water-flags. All night
Thou givest moisture to the thirsty roots
Of the lithe willow and overhanging plane,
And cherishest the herbage of thy bank,
Spotted with little flowers, and sendeth up
Perpetually the vapors from thy face,
To steep the hills with dew, or darken heaven
With drifting clouds, that trail the shadowy shower.
THE HURRICANE.
Lord of the winds! I feel thee nigh,
I know thy breath in the burning sky!
And I wait, with a thrill in every vein,
For the coming of the hurricane!
And lo! on the wing of the heavy gales,
Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails.
Silent and slow, and terribly strong,
The mighty shadow is borne along,
Like the dark eternity to come;
While the world below, dismayed and dumb,
Through the calm of the thick, hot atmosphere
Looks up at its gloomy folds with fear.
* * * * *
He is come! he is come! Do ye not behold
His ample robes on the wind unrolled?
Giant of air! we bid thee hail!—
How his gray skirts toss in the whirling gale!
How his huge and writhing arms are bent
To clasp the zone of the firmament,
And fold, at length, in their dark embrace,
From mountain to mountain the visible space!
Darker—still darker! the whirlwinds bear
The dust of the plains to the middle air;
And hark to the crashing, long and loud,
Of the chariot of God in the thunder-cloud!
You may trace its path by the flashes that start
From the rapid wheels where’er they dart,
As the fire-bolts leap to the world below,
And flood the skies with a lurid glow.
GREEN RIVER.
Yet pure its waters—its shallows are bright
With colored pebbles and sparkles of light,
And clear the depth where its eddies play,
And dimples deepen and whirl away,
And the plane-tree’s speckled arms o’ershoot
The swifter current that mines its root,
Through whose shifting waves as you walk the hill,
The quivering glimmer of sun and rill
With a sudden flash on the eye is thrown,
Like the ray that streams from the diamond stone!
Oh, loveliest there the spring days come,
With blossoms, and birds, and wild bees’ hum;
The flowers of summer are fairest there,
And freshest the breath of the summer air;
And sweetest the golden autumn day
In silence and sunshine glides away.
THE VIOLET.
When birchen buds begin to swell,
And woods the bluebirds’ warble know,
The little violet’s modest bell
Peeps from the last year’s leaves below.
Oft in the sunless April day
Thy early smile has stayed my walk;
But midst the gorgeous blooms of May
I passed thee on thy humble stalk.
So they who climb to wealth forget
The friends in darker fortunes tried;
I copied them, but I regret
That I should ape the ways of pride.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
Born May 25, 1803. Died April 27, 1882.
EMERSON.
MRS. E. C. KINNEY.
Dear Nature’s child, he nestled close to her!
She to his heart had whispered deeper things
Than science from the wells of learning brings.
His still small voice the human soul could stir,
For Nature made him her interpreter.
And gave her favorite son far-reaching wings;
He soared and sang as Heaven’s lark only sings,
Devout in praise, Truth’s truest worshiper.
With eyes anointed, in his upward flight
He quick discerned what was divine in men,
Reading the humblest spirit’s tongue aright.
O Prophet, Poet, Leader! in thy light
How many saw beyond their natural ken,
Who follow now the star that led thee then!
* * * * *
Emerson’s writings call for thought in the reader. They demand that one
should stop and ask questions, should translate what one has read into
one’s own ordinary speech, and inquire again if it is true. No one should
read Emerson who is not willing to have his own weakness disclosed to
him, and who is not prepared also to test what he finds by a standard
which is above both writer and reader.—HORACE E. SCUDDER.
* * * * *
There are living organisms so transparent that we can see their hearts
beating and their blood flowing through their glassy tissues. So
transparent was the life of Emerson; so clearly did the true nature of
the man show through it. What he taught others to be he was himself. His
deep and sweet humanity won him love and reverence everywhere among those
whose natures were capable of responding to the highest manifestations of
character.—OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
* * * * *
Though Emerson had reached a great age, we were not ready to part with
him. He was an important friend, companion, kinsman, fellow-citizen, to
the last; a wayfarer everybody was glad to meet; one whose enemy none
could continue to be; a charmer whose spell was not to be escaped. With
his imagination for an eye, Emerson was a perceiver, and he respected
perception in himself and others, being as quick and glad to quote their
perceptions as to announce his own. He notes, cites, and lauds every
scrap of insight, or ripple of tidings over the ocean that heaves from
the unknown shore towards which he sails.—REV. C. A. BARTOL.
* * * * *
Emerson’s faith in America is justified whether we trust in the
capacities of the individual soul, or whether our expectation grows from
the promises of a new civilization. America brings together the races
of the world as no nation or time ever did before, and Emerson’s hope
for America may yet be justified by a literature in harmony with the new
time.—GEORGE WILLIS COOKE.
* * * * *
Long, long had we heard in India of his name and reputation. We wondered
what manner of man he was. When at last I landed on your continent, how
glad I should have been to sit at his feet and unfold before him the tale
of our woe and degradation! But he had gone to his rest, and instead of
touching his warm hand which had blessed so many pilgrims, I could but
kiss the cold dust of his nameless grave at the Concord cemetery.—PROTAP
CHUNDER MOZOOMDAR.
AN EMERSON ALPHABET.
All right activity is amiable. I never feel that any man occupies my
place, but that the reason why I do not have what I wish is, that I
want the faculty which entitles. All spiritual or real power makes
its own place.—_Aristocracy._
By right or wrong,
Lands and goods go to the strong,
Property will brutely draw
Still to the proprietor;
Silver to silver creep and wind,
And kind to kind.
_The Celestial Love._
Come see the northwind’s masonry:
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof.
_The Snow-storm._
Do not spare to put novels into the hands of young people as an
occasional holiday and experiment; but, above all, good poetry in all
kinds, epic, tragedy, lyric.—_Education._
Europe has always owed to Oriental genius its divine impulses.
What those holy bards said, all sane men found agreeable and
true.—_Address to Divinity Students._
For Nature ever faithful is
To such as trust her faithfulness.
_Woodnotes._
Gentle pilgrim, if thou know
The gamut old of Pan,
And how the hills began,
The frank blessings of the hill
Fall on thee, as fall they will.
_Monadnoc._
He is great who confers the most benefits. He is base—and that is
the one base thing in the universe—to receive favors and render
none.—_Compensation._
Insect lover of the sun,
Joy of thy dominion;
Sailor of the atmosphere,
Swimmer through the waves of air.
_The Humble-bee._
Jesus astonishes and overpowers sensual people. They cannot unite Him
to history, or reconcile Him with themselves.—_History._
Knowest thou that wove yon wood-bird’s nest
Of leaves, and feathers from her breast?
Or how the fish outbuilt her shell,
Painting with morn each annual shell?
_The Problem._
Let a man control the habit of expense. Let him see that as much
wisdom may be expended on a private economy as on an empire, and as
much wisdom be drawn from it.—_Prudence._
Man was made of solid earth,
Child and brother from his birth;
Tethered by a liquid cord
Of blood through veins of kindred poured.
_The Celestial Love._
No man can learn what he has not preparation for learning, however
near to his eyes is the object. A chemist may tell his most precious
secrets to a carpenter, and he shall never be the wiser.—_Spiritual
Laws._
One harvest from thy field
Homeward brought the oxen strong;
A second crop thine acres yield
Which I gather in a song.
_The Apology._
People say sometimes, “See what I have overcome; see how cheerful I
am; see how completely I have triumphed over these black events.” Not
if they still remind me of the black event.—_Circles._
Queen of things! I dare not die
In Being’s deeps past ear and eye;
Lest there I find the same deceiver
And be the sport of Fate forever.
_Ode to Beauty._
River and rose and crag and bird,
Frost and sun and eldest night,
To me their aid preferred,
To me their comfort plight.
_Hermione._
Spartans, stoics, heroes, saints, and gods use a short and positive
speech. They are never off their centers. As soon as they swell and
paint and find truth not enough for them, softening of the brain has
already begun.—_The Superlative._
Teach me your mood, O patient stars!
Who climb each night the ancient sky,
Leaving on space no shade, no scars,
No trace of age, no fear to die.
_The Poet._
Upborne and surrounded as we are by this all-creating nature, soft
and fluid as a cloud or the air, why should we be such hard pedants
and magnify a few forms?—_History._
Virtue runs before the Muse,
And defies her skill;
She is rapt, and doth refuse
To wait a painters will.
_Loss and Gain._
Wise, cultivated, genial conversation is the last flower of
civilization, and the best result which life has to offer us,—a cup
for gods, which has no repentance. Conversation is our account of
ourselves.—_Woman._
EXTRACT FROM “COMPENSATION.”
The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to
make water run up-hill, to twist a rope of sand. It makes no difference
whether the actors be many or one, a tyrant or a mob. The martyr cannot
be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of flame; every prison, a
more illustrious abode; every burned book or house enlightens the world;
every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from
side to side. Hours of sanity and consideration are always arriving to
communities as to individuals, when the truth is seen, and the martyrs
are justified.
THE CONCORD FIGHT.
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled.
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe has long in silence slept:
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone,
That memory may their deed redeem,
When like our sires our sons are gone.
EXTRACT FROM “WORKS AND DAYS.”
’Tis a fine fable for the advantage of character over talent, the Greek
legend of the strife of Jove and Phœbus. Phœbus challenged the gods and
said, “Who will outshoot the far-darting Apollo?” Zeus said, “I will.”
Mars shook the lots in his helmet, and that of Apollo leaped out first.
Apollo stretched his bow and shot his arrow into the extreme west. Then
Zeus arose, and with one stride cleared the whole distance, and said,
“Where shall I shoot? There is no space left.” So the bowman’s prize was
adjudged to him who drew no bow.
ART.
Give to barrows, trays, and pans
Grace and glimmer of romance;
Bring the moonlight into noon
Hid in gleaming piles of stone;
On the city’s pavèd street
Plant gardens lined with lilac sweet,
Let spouting fountains cool the air,
Singing in the sun-baked square;
Let statue, picture, park, and hall,
Ballad, flag, and festival,
The past restore, the day adorn,
And make each morrow a new morn.
’Tis the privilege of Art
Thus to play its cheerful part.
THE RHODORA.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing
Then beauty is its own excuse for being.
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask; I never knew,
But in my simple ignorance suppose
The self-same Power that brought me here, brought you.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
Born Aug. 29, 1809.
OUR AUTOCRAT.
JOHN G. WHITTIER.
His laurels fresh from song and lay,
Romance and art, so young withal
At heart, we scarcely dare to say
We keep his seventieth festival.
His still the keen analysis
Of men and moods, electric wit,
Free play of mirth, and tenderness
To heal the slightest wound from it.
And his the pathos touching all
Life’s sins and sorrows and regrets,
Its hopes and fears, its final call
And rest beneath the violets.
His sparkling surface scarce betrays
The thoughtful tide beneath it rolled;
The wisdom of the latter days
And tender memories of the old.
Though now unnumbered guests surround
The table that he rules at will,
Its autocrat, however crowned,
Is but our friend and comrade still.
Long may he live to sing for us
The songs that stay the flight of time,
And like his Chambered Nautilus,
To holier heights of beauty climb.
Dec. 3, 1879.
* * * * *
I think that none of us can understand the meaning and scope of Dr.
Holmes’s writings unless we have observed that the main work of his
life has been to study and teach an exact science, the noble science of
anatomy. And let us honor him to-day, not forgetting, as they can never
be forgotten, his poems, his essays, as a noble representative of the
profession of the scientific student and teacher.—CHARLES W. ELIOT.
* * * * *
What one does easily is apt to be his forte, though years may pass
before he finds this out. Holmes’s early pieces, mostly college-verse,
were better of their kind than those of a better kind written in youth
by some of his contemporaries. The humbler the type, the sooner the
development. The young poet had the aid of a suitable habitat; life at
Harvard was the precise thing to bring out his talent. There was nothing
of the hermit-thrush in him; his temper was not of the withdrawing and
reflective kind, nor moodily introspective,—it throve on fellowship, and
he looked to his mates for an audience as readily as they to him for a
toast-master.—FRANCES H. UNDERWOOD.
* * * * *
One finds nowhere in Holmes’s volumes crude and unformed thoughts.
He writes as clearly as he thinks. His sentences come from his pen
clean-cut. The language of his prose is pure classical English. His style
is simple, direct, forcible; affluent, in the sense that it apparently
never fails to come spontaneously at need, and in the fittest form; but
not exuberant to the obscuring of the thought. Whether he be discussing a
medical thesis or reading a lyric to classmates and literary friends at
an anniversary dinner, or sketching character in the romance, or playing
the autocrat at the breakfast-table, it is sure to be found acting
effectively on those who hear or read them.—REV. RAY PALMER.
* * * * *
It is as a writer of humorous poetry that Holmes excels. His non-humorous
poems are full of beautiful passages, as we shall see, but they have not
the same unique flavor of originality. In one of the great London papers
it was editorially stated, not long since, that no contemporary American
writer had so amused and instructed the insular mind as Holmes had done.
The one most charming feature of his printed and spoken conversation
is that he establishes a relation of sympathy between himself and his
listeners, by expressing for them those common, every-day thoughts that
we all think but rarely say.—WM. SLOANE KENNEDY.
* * * * *
The grace and gayety, the pathos and melody, the wit, the earnestness
and shrewd sense of his writings, have given Holmes a place, and a sunny
place, in the popular heart. On his happy birthday it was not Boston
that sat at table, but the whole country. It was not a town meeting,
but a national congress. The Autocrat is not a mayor, but an emperor,
and the toast of the day was the toast of appreciative hearts and
generous souls far beyond the sound of the Atlantic. “The Autocrat of the
Breakfast-table; O king, live forever!”—GEO. WM. CURTIS.
A HOLMES ALPHABET.
Along its front no sabers shine,
No blood-red pennons wave;
Its banner bears the single line,
“Our duty is to save.”
_The Two Armies._
Bring bellows for the panting winds,
Hang up a lantern by the moon;
And give the nightingale a fife,
And lend the eagle a balloon.
_The Meeting of the Dryads._
Child of the plowshare, smile;
Boy of the counter, grieve not,
Though muses round thy trundle-bed
Their broidered tissue weave not.
_The Poet’s Lot._
Dear friends, who are listening so sweetly the while
With your lips double-reefed in a snug little smile,
I leave you two fables, both drawn from the deep,—
The shells you can drop, but the pearls you may keep.
_Verses for After-dinner._
Each moment fainter wave the fields
And wider rolls the sea;
The mist grows dark,—the sun goes down,—
Day breaks,—and where are we?
_Departed Days._
Flowers will bloom over and over again in poems as in the summer
fields, to the end of time, always old and always new. Why
should we be more shy of repeating ourselves than the spring be
tired of blossoms or the night of stars?—_The Autocrat of the
Breakfast-table._
God of all nations! Sovereign Lord!
In Thy dread name we draw the sword,
We lift the starry flag on high
That fills with light our stormy sky.
_Army Hymn._
How patient Nature smiles at Fame!
The weeds that strewed the victor’s way,
Feed on his dust to shroud his name,
Green where his proudest towers decay.
_A Roman Aqueduct._
It is likely that the language will shape itself by larger forces
than phonography and dictionary-making. You may spade up the ocean
as much as you like, and harrow it afterward if you can, but the
moon will still lead the tides, and the winds will form their
surface.—_The Professor at the Breakfast-table._
Joy smiles in the fountain,
Health flows in the rills,
As their ribbons of silver
Unwind from the hills.
_Song for a Temperance Dinner._
Know old Cambridge? Hope you do.
Born there? Don’t say so! I was too.
_Parson Turrell’s Legacy._
Let each unhallowed cause that brings
The stern destroyer cease,
Thy flaming angel fold his wings
And seraphs whisper Peace!
_Parting Hymn._
Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than
in the one where they sprang up. That which was a weed in one
intelligence becomes a flower in the other. A flower, on the other
hand, may dwindle down to a mere weed by the same change.—_The Poet
at the Breakfast-table._
None wept,—none pitied;—they who knelt
At morning by the despot’s throne
At evening dashed the laureled bust
And spurned the wreaths themselves had strewn.
_The Dying Seneca._
Over the hill-sides the wild knell is tolling,
From their far hamlets the yeomanry come;
As through the storm-clouds the thunder-burst rolling,
Circles the beat of the mustering drum.
_Lexington._
Poor conquered monarch! though that haughty glance
Still speaks thy courage unsubdued by time,
And in the grandeur of thy sullen tread
Lives the proud spirit of thy burning clime.
_To a Caged Lion._
Questioning all things: Why her Lord had sent her?
What were these torturing gifts, and wherefore lent her?
Scornful as spirit fallen, its own tormentor.
_Iris, Her Book._
Rain me sweet odors on the air
And wheel me up my Indian chair,
And spread some book not overwise
Flat out before my sleepy eyes.
_Midsummer._
Scenes of my youth! awake, its slumbering fire!
Ye winds of Memory, sweep the silent lyre!
Ray of the past, if yet thou canst appear,
Break through the clouds of Fancy’s waning year.
_A Metrical Essay._
Trees as we see them, love them, adore them in the fields, where they
are alive, holding their green sunshades over our heads, talking
to us with their hundred thousand whispering tongues, looking down
on us with that sweet meekness which belongs to huge but limited
organisms.—_The Autocrat of the Breakfast-table._
Unscathed, she treads the wreck-piled street
Whose narrow gaps afford
A pathway for her bleeding feet,
To seek her absent lord.
_Agnes._
Virtue—the guide that men and nations own;
And Law—the bulwark that protects her throne;
And Health—to all its happiest charm that lends,—
These and their servants, man’s untiring friends.
_A Modest Request._
Wan-visaged thing! thy virgin leaf
To me looks more than deadly pale,
Unknowing what may stain thee yet,—
A poem or a tale.
_To a Blank Sheet of Paper._
“It ain’t jest the thing to grease your ex with ile o’ vitrul,” said
the Member.—_The Poet at the Breakfast-table._
Ye know not,—but the hour is nigh;
Ye will not heed the warning breath;
No vision strikes your clouded eye,
To break the sleep that wakes in death.
_The Last Prophecy of Cassandra._
“By Zhorzhe!” as friend Sales is accustomed to cry,
You tell me they’re dead, but I know it’s a lie;
Is Jackson not President? What was’t you said?
It can’t be; you’re joking; what,—all of ’em dead?
_Once More._
UNDER THE WASHINGTON ELM, CAMBRIDGE.
April 27, 1861.
Eighty years have passed, and more,
Since under the brave old tree
Our fathers gathered in arms, and swore
They would follow the sign their banners bore,
And fight till the land was free.
Half of their work was done,
Half is left to do,—
Cambridge, and Concord, and Lexington!
When the battle is fought and won,
What shall be told of you?
Hark!—’tis the south-wind moans,—
Who are the martyrs down?
Ah, the marrow was true in your children’s bones
That sprinkled with blood the cursèd stones
Of the murder-haunted town!
What if the storm-clouds blow?
What if the green leaves fall?
Better the crashing tempest’s throe
Than the army of worms that gnawed below;
Trample them one and all!
Then, when the battle is won,
And the land from traitors free,
Our children shall tell of the strife begun
When Liberty’s second April sun
Was bright on our brave old tree!
THE TWO STREAMS.