The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes — Volume 10: Before the Curfew

ALONE, beneath the darkened sky, With saddened heart and unstrung lyre, I heap the spoils of years gone by, And leave them with a long-drawn sigh, Like drift-wood brands that glimmering lie, Before the ashes hide the fire.

Let not these slow declining days The rosy light of dawn outlast; Still round my lonely hearth it plays, And gilds the east with borrowed rays, While memory's mirrored sunset blaze Flames on the windows of the past.

March 1, 1888.

AT THE SATURDAY CLUB THIS is our place of meeting; opposite That towered and pillared building: look at it; King's Chapel in the Second George's day, Rebellion stole its regal name away,-- Stone Chapel sounded better; but at last The poisoned name of our provincial past Had lost its ancient venom; then once more Stone Chapel was King's Chapel as before. (So let rechristened North Street, when it can, Bring back the days of Marlborough and Queen Anne!) Next the old church your wandering eye will meet-- A granite pile that stares upon the street-- Our civic temple; slanderous tongues have said Its shape was modelled from St. Botolph's head, Lofty, but narrow; jealous passers-by Say Boston always held her head too high. Turn half-way round, and let your look survey The white facade that gleams across the way,-- The many-windowed building, tall and wide, The palace-inn that shows its northern side In grateful shadow when the sunbeams beat The granite wall in summer's scorching heat. This is the place; whether its name you spell Tavern, or caravansera, or hotel. Would I could steal its echoes! you should find Such store of vanished pleasures brought to mind Such feasts! the laughs of many a jocund hour That shook the mortar from King George's tower; Such guests! What famous names its record boasts, Whose owners wander in the mob of ghosts! Such stories! Every beam and plank is filled With juicy wit the joyous talkers spilled, Ready to ooze, as once the mountain pine The floors are laid with oozed its turpentine!

A month had flitted since The Club had met; The day came round; I found the table set, The waiters lounging round the marble stairs, Empty as yet the double row of chairs. I was a full half hour before the rest, Alone, the banquet-chamber's single guest. So from the table's side a chair I took, And having neither company nor book To keep me waking, by degrees there crept A torpor over me,--in short, I slept.

Loosed from its chain, along the wreck-strown track Of the dead years my soul goes travelling back; My ghosts take on their robes of flesh; it seems Dreaming is life; nay, life less life than dreams, So real are the shapes that meet my eyes. They bring no sense of wonder, no surprise, No hint of other than an earth-born source; All seems plain daylight, everything of course.

How dim the colors are, how poor and faint This palette of weak words with which I paint! Here sit my friends; if I could fix them so As to my eyes they seem, my page would glow Like a queen's missal, warm as if the brush Of Titian or Velasquez brought the flush Of life into their features. Ay de mi! If syllables were pigments, you should see Such breathing portraitures as never man Found in the Pitti or the Vatican.

Here sits our POET, Laureate, if you will. Long has he worn the wreath, and wears it still. Dead? Nay, not so; and yet they say his bust Looks down on marbles covering royal dust, Kings by the Grace of God, or Nature's grace; Dead! No! Alive! I see him in his place, Full-featured, with the bloom that heaven denies Her children, pinched by cold New England skies, Too often, while the nursery's happier few Win from a summer cloud its roseate hue. Kind, soft-voiced, gentle, in his eye there shines The ray serene that filled Evangeline's. Modest he seems, not shy; content to wait Amid the noisy clamor of debate The looked-for moment when a peaceful word Smooths the rough ripples louder tongues have stirred. In every tone I mark his tender grace And all his poems hinted in his face; What tranquil joy his friendly presence gives! How could. I think him dead? He lives! He lives!

There, at the table's further end I see In his old place our Poet's vis-a-vis, The great PROFESSOR, strong, broad-shouldered, square, In life's rich noontide, joyous, debonair. His social hour no leaden care alloys, His laugh rings loud and mirthful as a boy's,-- That lusty laugh the Puritan forgot,-- What ear has heard it and remembers not? How often, halting at some wide crevasse Amid the windings of his Alpine pass, High up the cliffs, the climbing mountaineer, Listening the far-off avalanche to hear, Silent, and leaning on his steel-shod staff, Has heard that cheery voice, that ringing laugh, From the rude cabin whose nomadic walls Creep with the moving glacier as it crawls How does vast Nature lead her living train In ordered sequence through that spacious brain, As in the primal hour when Adam named The new-born tribes that young creation claimed!-- How will her realm be darkened, losing thee, Her darling, whom we call our AGASSIZ!

But who is he whose massive frame belies The maiden shyness of his downcast eyes? Who broods in silence till, by questions pressed, Some answer struggles from his laboring breast? An artist Nature meant to dwell apart, Locked in his studio with a human heart, Tracking its eaverned passions to their lair, And all its throbbing mysteries laying bare. Count it no marvel that he broods alone Over the heart he studies,--'t is his own; So in his page, whatever shape it wear, The Essex wizard's shadowed self is there,-- The great ROMANCER, hid beneath his veil Like the stern preacher of his sombre tale; Virile in strength, yet bashful as a girl, Prouder than Hester, sensitive as Pearl.

From his mild throng of worshippers released, Our Concord Delphi sends its chosen priest, Prophet or poet, mystic, sage, or seer, By every title always welcome here. Why that ethereal spirit's frame describe? You know the race-marks of the Brahmin tribe, The spare, slight form, the sloping shoulders' droop, The calm, scholastic mien, the clerkly stoop, The lines of thought the sharpened features wear, Carved by the edge of keen New England air. List! for he speaks! As when a king would choose The jewels for his bride, he might refuse This diamond for its flaw,--find that less bright Than those, its fellows, and a pearl less white Than fits her snowy neck, and yet at last, The fairest gems are chosen, and made fast In golden fetters; so, with light delays He seeks the fittest word to fill his phrase; Nor vain nor idle his fastidious quest, His chosen word is sure to prove the best. Where in the realm of thought, whose air is song, Does he, the Buddha of the West, belong? He seems a winged Franklin, sweetly wise, Born to unlock the secrets of the skies; And which the nobler calling,--if 't is fair Terrestrial with celestial to compare,-- To guide the storm-cloud's elemental flame, Or walk the chambers whence the lightning came, Amidst the sources of its subtile fire, And steal their effluence for his lips and lyre? If lost at times in vague aerial flights, None treads with firmer footstep when he lights; A soaring nature, ballasted with sense, Wisdom without her wrinkles or pretence, In every Bible he has faith to read, And every altar helps to shape his creed. Ask you what name this prisoned spirit bears While with ourselves this fleeting breath it shares? Till angels greet him with a sweeter one In heaven, on earth we call him EMERSON.

I start; I wake; the vision is withdrawn; Its figures fading like the stars at dawn; Crossed from the roll of life their cherished names, And memory's pictures fading in their frames; Yet life is lovelier for these transient gleams Of buried friendships; blest is he who dreams!