Share:
  Guess poet | Poets | Poets timeline | Isles | Contacts

Oliver Wendell Holmes - A Memorial tributeOliver Wendell Holmes - A Memorial tribute
Work rating: Low


READ AT THE MEETING HELD AT MUSIC HALL, FEBRUARY 8, 1876, IN MEMORY OF DR. SAMUEL G. HOWE I. LEADER of armies, Israel`s God, 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 Horeb`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 God`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 passed 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 classic 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 shield, 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 the veil withdrawn, As o`er the midnight of the mind He led the light of dawn.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 orbs 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, nobler 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.
Source

The script ran 0.002 seconds.