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Oliver Wendell Holmes - Astraea: The Balance Of IllusionsOliver Wendell Holmes - Astraea: The Balance Of Illusions
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WHAT secret charm, long whispering in mine ear, Allures, attracts, compels, and chains me here, Where murmuring echoes call me to resign Their sacred haunts to sweeter lips than mine; Where silent pathways pierce the solemn shade, In whose still depths my feet have never strayed; Here, in the home where grateful children meet And I, half alien, take the stranger`s seat, Doubting, yet hoping that the gift I bear May keep its bloom in this unwonted air? Hush, idle fancy, with thy needless art, Speak from thy fountains, O my throbbing heart! Say, shall I trust these trembling lips to tell The fireside tale that memory knows so well? How, in the days of Freedom`s dread campaign, A home-bred schoolboy left his village plain, Slow faring southward, till his wearied feet Pressed the worn threshold of this fair retreat; How, with his comely face and gracious mien, He joined the concourse of the classic green, Nameless, unfriended, yet by nature blest With the rich tokens that she loves the best; The flowing locks, his youth`s redundant crown, Smoothed o`er a brow unfurrowed by a frown; The untaught smile that speaks so passing plain A world all hope, a past without a stain; The clear-hued cheek, whose burning current glows Crimson in action, carmine in repose; Gifts such as purchase, with unminted gold, Smiles from the young and blessings from the old. Say, shall my hand with pious love restore The faint, far pictures time beholds no more? How the grave Senior, he whose later fame Stamps on our laws his own undying name, Saw from on high, with half paternal joy, Some spark of promise in the studious boy, And bade him enter, with benignant tone, Those stately precincts which he called his own, Where the fresh student and the youthful sage Read by one taper from the common page; How the true comrade, whose maturer date Graced the Urge honors of his ancient State, Sought his young friendship, which through every change No time could weaken, no remove estrange; How the great MASTER, reverend, solemn, wise, Fixed on his face those calm, majestic eyes, Full of grave meaning, where a child might read The Hebraist`s patience and the Pilgrim`s creed, But warm with flashes of parental fire That drew the stripling to his second sire; How kindness ripened, till the youth might dare Take the low seat beside his sacred chair, While the gray scholar, bending o`er the young, Spelled the square types of Abraham`s ancient tongue, Or with mild rapture stooped devoutly o`er His small coarse leaf, alive with curious lore: Tales of grim judges, at whose awful beck Flashed the broad blade across a royal neck, Or learned dreams of Israel`s long lost child Found in the wanderer of the western wild. Dear to his age were memories such as these, Leaves of his June in life`s autumnal breeze; Such were the tales that won my boyish ear, Told in low tones that evening loves to hear. Thus in the scene I pass so lightly o`er, Trod for a moment, then beheld no more, Strange shapes and dim, unseen by other eyes, Through the dark portals of the past arise; I see no more the fair embracing throng, I hear no echo to my saddened song, No more I heed the kind or curious gaze, The voice of blame, the rustling thrill of praise; Alone, alone, the awful past I tread White with the marbles of the slumbering dead; One shadowy form my dreaming eyes behold That leads my footsteps as it led of old, One floating voice, amid the silence heard, Breathes in my ear love`s long unspoken word: These are the scenes thy youthful eyes have known; My heart`s warm pulses claim them as its own! The sapling, compassed in thy fingers` clasp, My arms scarce circle in their twice-told grasp, Vet in each leaf of yon o`ershadowing tree I read a legend that was traced by thee. Year after year the living: wave has beat These smooth-worn channels with its trampling feet, Yet in each line that scores the grassy sod I see the pathway where thy feet have trod. Though from the scene that hears my faltering lay. The few that loved thee long have passed away, Thy sacred presence all the landscape tills, Its groves and plains and adamantine hills! Ye who have known the sudden tears that flow, Sad tears, yet sweet, the dews of twilight woe, When, led by chance, your wandering eye has crossed Some poor memorial of the loved and lost, Bear with my weakness as I look around On the dear relics of this holy ground, These bowery cloisters, shadowed and serene, My dreams have pictured ere mine eyes have seen. And oh, forgive me, if the flower I brought Droops in my hand beside this burning thought; The hopes and fears that marked this destined hour, The chill of doubt, the startled throb of power, The flush of pride, the trembling glow of shame, All fade away and leave my FATHER`S name! What life is this, that spreads in sudden birth Its plumes of light around a new-born earth? Is this the sun that brought the unwelcome day, Pallid and glimmering with hi- lifeless ray, Or through the sash that bars yon narrow cage Slanted, intrusive, on the opened page? Is this soft breath the same complaining gale That filled my slumbers with its murmuring wail? Is this green mantle of elastic sod The same brown desert with its frozen clod, Where the last ridges of the dingy snow Lie till the windflower blooms unstained below? Thus to my heart its wonted tides return When sullen Winter breaks his crystal urn, And o`er the turf in wild profusion showers Its dewy leaflets and ambrosial flowers. In vacant rapture for a while I range Through the wide scene of universal change, Till, as the statue in its nerves of stone Felt the new senses wakening one by one, Each long closed inlet finds its destined ray Through the dark curtain Spring has rent away. I crush the buds the clustering lilacs bear; The same sweet fragrance that I loved is there; The same fresh hues each opening disk reveals; Soft as of old each silken petal feels; The birch`s rind its flavor still retains, Its boughs still ringing with the self-same strains; Above, around, rekindling Nature claims Her glorious altars wreathed in living flames; Undimmed, unshadowed, far as morning shines Feeds with fresh incense her eternal shrines. Lost in her arms, her burning life I share, Breathe the wild freedom of her perfumed air, From Heaven`s fair face the long-drawn shadows roll, And all its sunshine floods my opening soul! See, while I speak, my fireside joys return, The lamp rekindles and the ashes burn, The dream of summer fades before their ray, As in red firelight sunshine dies away. A two-fold picture; ere the first was gone, The deepening outline of the next was drawn, And wavering fancy hardly dares to choose The first or last of her dissolving views. No Delphic sage is wanted to divine The shape of Truth beneath my gauzy line; Yet there are truths, like schoolmates, once well known, But half remembered, not enough to own, That, lost from sight in life`s bewildering train, May be, like strangers, introduced again, Dressed in new feathers, as from time to time May please our friends, the milliners of rhyme. Trust not, it says, the momentary hue Whose false complexion paints the present view; Red, yellow, violet stain the rainbow`s light, The prism dissolves, and all again is white. But how, alas! among our eager race, Shall smiling candor show her girlish face? What place is secret to the meddling crew. Whose trade is settling what we all shall do? What verdict sacred from the busy fools, That sell the jargon of their outlaw schools? What pulpit certain to be never vexed With libels sanctioned by a holy text? Where, my country, is the spot that yields The freedom fought for on a hundred fields? Not one strong tyrant holds the servile chain, Where all may vote and each may hope to reign; One sturdy cord a single limb may bind. And leave the captive only half confined, But the free spirit finds its legs and wings Tied with unnumbered Lilliputian strings, Which, like the spider`s undiscovered fold, In countless meshes round the prisoner rolled, With silken pressure that he scarce can feel, Clamp every fibre as in bands of steel! Hard is the task to point in civil phrase One`s own dear people s foolish works or ways; Woe to the friend that marks a touchy fault, Himself obnoxious to the world`s assault! Think what an earthquake is a nation`s hiss. That takes its circuit through a land like this; Count with the census, would you be precise, From sea to sea, from oranges to ice; A thousand myriads are its virile lungs, A thousand myriads its contralto tongues! And oh, remember the indignant press; Honey is bitter to its fond caress, But the black venom that its hate lets fall Would shame to sweetness the hyena`s gall! Briefly and gently let the task be tried To touch some frailties on their tender side; Not to dilate on each imagined wrong, And spoil at once our temper and our song, But once or twice a passing gleam to throw On some rank failings ripe enough to show, Patterns of others, made of common stuff, The world will furnish parallels enough, Such as bewilder their contracted view, Who make one pupil do the work of two: Who following nature, where her tracks divide. Drive all their passions on the narrower side, And pour the phials of their virtuous wrath On half mankind that take the wider path. Nature is liberal to her inmost soul, She loves alike the tropic and the pole, The storm`s wild anthem, and the sunshine`s calm, The arctic fungus, and the desert palm; Loves them alike, and wills that each maintain Its destined share of her divided reign; No creeping moss refuse her crystal gem, No soaring pine her cloudy diadem! Alas! her children, borrowing but in part The flowing pulses of her generous heart, Shame their kind mother with eternal strife At all the crossings of their mingled life ; Each age, each people finds its ready shifts To quarrel stoutly o`er her choicest gifts. History can tell of early ages dim, When man`s chief glory was in strength of limb; Then the best patriot gave the hardest knocks, The height of virtue was to fell an ox; Ill fared the babe of questionable mould, Whom its stern father happened to behold; In vain the mother with her ample vest Hid the poor nursling on her throbbing breast; No tears could save him from the kitten`s fate. To live an insult to the warlike state. This weakness passed, and nations owned once more, Man was still human, measuring five feet four, The anti-cripples ceased to domineer. And owned Napoleon worth a grenadier. In these mild times the ancient bully`s sport Would lead its hero to a well known court; Olympian athletes, though the pride of Greece, Must face the Justice if they broke the peace. And valor find some inconvenient checks. If strolling Thesens met Policeman X. Yet when thy champion`s stormy task is done, The frigate silenced and the fortress won, When toil-worn valor claims his laurel wreath. His reeking cutlass slumbering in its sheath, The fierce declaimer shall be heard once more. Whose twang was smothered by the conflict`s roar; Heroes shall fall that strode unharmed away Through the red heaps of many a doubtful day, Hacked in his sermons, riddled in his prayers, The broadcloth slashing what the broadsword spares! Untaught by trial, ignorance might suppose That all our fighting must be done with blows; Alas! not so; between the lips and brain A dread artillery masks its loaded train; The smooth portcullis of the smiling face Veils the grim battery with deceptive grace, But in the flashes of its opened fire, Truth, Honor, Justice, Peace and Love expire. If generous fortune give me leave to choose My saucy neighbors barefoot or in shoes, I leave the hero blustering while he dares On platforms furnished with posterior stairs, Till prudence drives him to his "earnest" legs With large bequest of disappointed eggs, And take the brawler whose unstudied dress Becomes him better, and protects him less; Give me the bullying of the scoundrel crew, If swaggering virtue won`t insult me too! Come, let us breathe; a something not divine Has mingled, bitter, with the flowing line. Pause for a moment while our soul forgets The noisy tribe in panta-loons or -lets; Nor pass, ungrateful, by the debt we owe To those who teach us half of all we know, Not in rude license, or unchristian scorn, But hoping, loving, pitying, while they warn! Sweep out the pieces! Hound a careless room The feather-duster follows up the broom; If the last target took a round of grape To knock its beauty something out of shape, The next asks only, if the listener please, A schoolboy`s blowpipe and a gill of peas. This creeping object, caught upon the brink Of an old teacup, filled with muddy ink, Lives on a leaf that buds from time to time In certain districts of a temperate clime. O`er this he toils in silent corners snug, And leaves a track behind him, like a slug; The leaves he stains a humbler tribe devours, Thrown off in monthly or in weekly showers; Himself kept savage on a starving fare, Of such exuviae as his friends can spare. Let the bug drop, and view him if we can In his true aspect as a quasi man. The little wretch, whose terebrating powers Would bore a Paixhan in a dozen hours, Is called a CRITIC by the heavy friends That help to pay his minus dividends. The pseudo-critic-editorial race Owns no allegiance but the law of place; Each to his region sticks through thick and thin, Stiff as a beetle spiked upon a pin. Plant him in Boston, and his sheet he fills With all the slipslop of his threefold hills, Talks as if Nature Kept her choicest smiles Within his radius of a dozen miles, And nations waited till his next Review Had made it plain what Providence must do. Would you believe him, water is not damp Except in buckets with the Hingham stamp. And Heaven should build the walls of Paradise Of Quincy granite lined with Wenham ice. But Hudson`s banks, with more congenial skies, Swell the small creature to alarming size: A gayer pattern wraps his flowery chest, A sham more brilliant sparkles on his breast, An eyeglass, hanging from a gilded chain, Taps the white leg that tips his rakish cane; Strings of new names, the glories of the age, Hang up to dry on his exterior page, Titanic pygmies, shining lights obscure, His favored sheets have managed to secure, Whose wide renown beyond their own abode Extends for miles along the Harlaem road; New radiance lights his patronizing smile, New airs distinguish his patrician style, New sounds are mingled with his fatal hiss, Oftenest "provincial" and "metropolis." He cry "provincial" with imperious brow! The half-bred rogue, that groomed his mother`s cow! Fed on coarse tubers and Aeolian beans Till clownish manhood crept among his teens, When, after washing and unheard of pains To lard with phrases his refractory brains, A third-rate college licked him to the shape, Not of the scholar, but the scholar`s ape! God bless Manhattan! Let her fairly claim, With all the honors due her ancient name, Worth, wisdom, wealth, abounding and to spare, Rags, riots, rogues, at least her honest share; But not presume, because, by sad mischance, The mobs of Paris wring the neck of France, Fortune has ordered she shall turn the poise Of thirty Empires with her Bowery boys! The poorest hamlet on the mountain`s side Looks on her glories with a sister`s pride; When the first babes her fruitful ship-yards wean Play round the breasts of Ocean`s conquered queen, The shout of millions, borne on every breeze, Sweeps with EXCELSIOR o`er the enfranchised seas! Yet not too rashly let her think to bind Beneath her circlet all the nation`s mind; Our star-crowned mother, whose informing soul Clings to no fragment, but pervades the whole, Views with a smile the clerk of Maiden Lane, Who takes her ventral ganglion for her brain! No fables tell us of Minervas born From bags of cotton or from sacks of corn; The halls of Leyden Science used to cram, While dulness snored in purse-proud Amsterdam! But those old burghers had a foggy clime, And better luck may come the second time; What though some churls of doubtful sense declare That poison lurks in her commercial air, Her buds of genius dying premature, From some malaria draining cannot cure; Nay, that so dangerous is her golden soil, Wnate`er she borrows she contrives to spoil; That drooping minstrels in a few brief years Lose their sweet voice, the gift of other spheres; That wafted singing from their native shore, They touch the Battery, and are heard no more; By those twinned waves that wear the varied gleams Beryl or sapphire mingles in their streams, Till the fair sisters o`er her yellow sands, Clasping their soft and snowy ruffled hands, Lay on her footstool with their silver keys Strength from the mountains, freedom from the seas, Some future day may see her rise sublime Above her counters, only give her time! When our first Soldiers` swords of honor gild The stately mansions that her tradesmen build; When our first Statesmen take the Broadway track, Our first Historians following at their back; When our first Painters, dying, leave behind On her proud walls the shadows of their mind; When our first Poets flock from farthest scenes To take in hand her pictured Magazines; When our first Scholars are content to dwell Where their own printers teach them how to spell; When world-known Science crowds toward her gates, Then shall the children of our hundred States Hail her a true METROPOLIS of men, The nation`s centre. Then, and not till then! The song is failing. Yonder clanging tower Shakes in its cup the more than brimming hour; The full-length gallery which the fates deny, A colored Moral briefly must supply. The song is passing. Let its meaning rise To loftier notes before its echo dies, Nor leave, ungracious, in its parting train. A trivial flourish or discordant strain. These lines may teach, rough-spoken though they be, Thy gentle creed, divinest Charity! Truth is at heart not always as she seems, Judged by our sleeping or our waking dreams. The song is hushed. Another moment parts This breathing zone, this belt of living hearts; Ah, think not thus the parting moment ends The soul`s embrace of new discovered friends. Sleep on my heart, thou long expected hour, Time`s new-born daughter, with thine infant dower, One sad, sweet look from those expiring charms The clasping centuries strangle in their arms, Dreams of old halls, and shadowy arches green, And kindly faces loved as soon as seen! Sleep, till the fires of manhood fade away, The sprinkled locks have saddened into gray, And age, oblivious, blends thy memories old With hoary legends that his sire has told!
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