354 



HOLMES, OLIVER, WENDELL. 



with the prose. In the pages of the " Autocrat " 

 first appeared the thrice familiar poems entitled 

 " The Chambered Nautilus," " Sun and Shadow," 

 "Mare Rubrum," "What we all think," "Con- 

 tentment," " ^Estivation," " The One-hoss Shay," 

 and the " Ode for a Social Meeting, with Slight 

 Alterations by a Teetotaler." 



Another poem that appeared in the "Auto- 

 crat " may stand as at once characteristic in its 

 smooth versification and its spirit as a notable 

 specimen of a kind for which Holmes stands 

 supreme that of occasion. Much of the history 

 of New England during his day might be read 

 in his verse. No anniversary, literary, civic, or 

 patriotic, no arrival or departure of genius, was 

 properly celebrated without his tactful, genial 

 rhyme, which was also reason, and generally 

 poetry. The stanzas entitled "A Good Time 

 going" celebrated the departure for his home 

 of Charles Mackay, author of the song, " There's 

 a Good Time coming." Holmes's lines run : 



Brave singer of the coming time, 



Sweet minstrel of the joyous present, 

 Crowned with the noblest wreath of rhyme, 



The holly-leaf of Ayrshire's peasant, 

 Good-by ! good-by ! Our hearts and hands, 



Our lips, in honest Saxon phrases, 

 Cry, God be with him till he stands 



His feet among the English daisies 1 



His home ! The Western giant smiles, 



And twirls the spotty globe to tind it; 

 This little speck, the British Isles ? 



'Tis but a freckle never mind it ! 

 He laughs, and all his prairies roll, 



Each gurgling cataract roars and chuckles ; 

 And ridges stretched from pole to pole 



Heave till they crack their iron knuckles ! 



But Memory blushes at the sneer, 



And Honor turns with frown defiant ; 

 And Freedom, leaning on her spear, 



Laughs louder than the laughing giant : 

 "An islet is a world," she said, 



" When glory with its dust has blended ; 

 And Britain keeps her noble dead 



Till earth and seas and skies are rended !" 



Beneath each swinging forest bough 



Some arm as stout in death reposes ; 

 From wave washed foot to heaven-kissed brow, 



Her valor's life-blood runs in roses. 

 Nay, let our brothers of the West 



Write smiling in their florid pages, 

 One half her soil has walked the rest 



In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages ! 



In "The Professor at the Breakfast Table" 

 and " The Poet at the Breakfast Table " Holmes 

 tried the dangerous experiment of following a 

 successful volume with what was essentially a 

 continuation. But his writing was his thinking 

 aloud, and he thought in the vein of these books. 

 He was himself, in daily conversation and meth- 

 od, the Autocrat, the Professor, and the Poet. 

 Experience and statement were allowed to go 

 hand in hand, and the work gained in depth 

 what it lost in exuberance. 



The poetry of the breakfast-table poet does 

 not yet seem to have won its fair recognition. 

 "Wind Clouds and Star Drifts" presents the 

 most earnest and mature work of the poetical 

 side of Holmes. Here is a single quotation 

 from its various phases : 



Something I find in me that well might claim 



The love of beings in a sphere above 



This doubtful twilight world of right and wrong ; 



Something that shows me of the selfsame clay 



That creeps or swims or flies in humblest form. 



Had I been asked before 1 left my bed 



Of shapeless dust what clothing I would wear, 



I would have said more angel and less worm : 



But for their sake who are even such as I, 



Of the same mingled blood, I would not choose 



To hate that meaner portion of myself 



Which makes me brother to the least of men. 



I dare not be a coward with my lips 



Who dare to question all things in my soul ; 



Some men may find their wisdom on their knees, 



Some prone and groveling in the dust like slaves; 



Let the meek glowworm glisten in the dew ; 



I ask to lift my taper to the sky 



As they who hold their lamps above their heads, 



Trusting the larger currents up aloft, 



Kather than crossing eddies round their breast, 



Threatening with every puff the flickering blaze. 



My life shall be a challenge, not a truce ! 



This is my homage to the mightier powers, 



To ask my boldest question, undismayed 



By murmured threats that some hysteric sense 



Of wrong or insult will convulse the throne 



Where wisdom reigns supreme ; and if I err, 



They all must err who have to feel their way 



As bats that fly at noon ; for what are we 



But creatures of the night, dragged forth by day, 



Who needs must stumble, and with stammering steps 



Spell out their paths in syllables of pain ? 



Thou wilt not hold in scorn the child who dares 

 Look up to thee, the Father dares to ask 

 More than thy wisdom answers. From thy hand 

 The worlds were cast ; yet every leaflet claims 

 From that same hand its little shining sphere 

 Of starlit dew ; thine image, the great sun, 

 Girt with his mantle of tempestuous flame, 

 Glares in mid-heaven ; but to his noontide blaze 

 The slender violet lifts its lidless eye, 

 And from its splendor steals its fairest hue, 

 Its sweetest perfume from its scorching tire. 



The fourth and last of this remarkable series 

 of books is entitled " Over the Teacups." In 

 speaking of it great tenderness comes over the 

 feeling, not toward the last work of a man past 

 eighty years of age but toward a soul strong 

 with immortal youth, a spirit that enjoyed length 

 of days with apparently the freshness of a short, 

 crisp existence cut off in its full power. He 

 does indeed seem to fulfill his own ideal set 

 forth in this volume : 



Oh, if we could all go out of flower as gracefully, 

 as pleasingly, as we come into blossom ! I always 

 think of the morning-glory as the loveliest example 

 of a graceful yielding to the inevitable. It is beauti- 

 ful before its twisted corolla opens ; it is comely as it 

 folds its petals inward when its brief hours of pertVr- 

 tion are over. 



But the old writer, I said to " The Teacups. 1 ' 1 say 

 to you, my readers, labors under one special difficulty, 

 which I am thinking of and exemplifying at this 

 moment. He is constantly tending to reflect upon 

 and discourse about his own particular stage of life. 

 He feels that he must apologize for his intrusion upon 

 the time and thoughts of a generation which he nat- 

 urally supposes must be tired of him, if tbey ever 

 had any considerable regard for him. Now, ii 

 world of readers hates anything it sees in print, it is 

 apology. 



Dear, faithful reader, whose patient eyes have fol- 

 lowed my reports through these long months, you and 

 I are about parting company. Perhaps you are one 



