A Metrical Essay, Read Before The Phi Beta Kappa Society, Harvard University, August, 1836 Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: A BCDDEE FFFFGGHH IIEEJJKKLLMN OOPPQQJJRRSTUU VVWXJJYYPPZZ JJJJJJA2A2B2B2 BCC2C2JJJJA2A2PP A2A2JJJJD2D2JJNNZZE2 E2DDF2F2G2G2A2A2 JJH2H2A2A2I2I2JJJJOO JJJ2J2A2A2JJG2G2H2H2 K2K2RL2A2A2 JJZZZZZZJJ G2G2M2M2JJJJZZJJA2A2 N2N2JJO2O2H2H2P2P2 Q2Q2JJA2A2 H2 R2R2YYS2S2A2A2T2JZZB 2B2ZZA2A2JJA2A2U2U2J 2J2 JJJJA2A2A2A2A2A2JJ A2A2ZZJJOOZZ A2A2ZZA2A2H2H2 JJA2A2 JJA2A2JJA2A2A2A2N2N2 V2V2 JJBBA2A2W2W2X2X2ZZV2 V2A2A2JJZZ A2A2ZZ M2M2YYJJ H2 G2G2A2A2K2K2A2A2JJA2 A2 Y2Y2JJJJCC A2A2G2G2JJJ2J2A2A2H2 H2 JJA2A2C2C2A2A2 A2A2Z2A3A2A2A2A2G2G2 O2O2A2A2 JJN2N2ZZ A2A2K2K2ZZA2A2E2E2R2 R2A2A2 JJA2A2ZZZZG2G2A2A2ZZ H2 ZZJJJJA2A2A2A2JJHHA2 A2 JJJJZZA2A2JJB3B3C3C3 D3D3JJA2A2ZZN2N2 GGZZA2A2C3C3A2A2A2A2 JJ JJA2A2BBE3E3 A2A2N2N2JJA2A2F2F2JJ A2A2 JJN2N2A2A2JJA2JZZ JJF3F3ZZJJD2D2JJ JJG3G3ZZA2A2JJJJZZ GGU2U2ZZ H2 H2H2HHO2O2A2A2 JJZZJJGGZZJJH3H3N2N2 ZZ U2U2A2A2O2O2A2A2 GGM2M2JJA2A2 H2 ZZJJJJHHJJ A2A2JJBB H2H2GGJJJJ JJH2H2 A2A2JJJJA2A2ZZ A2A2ZZA2A2HHZZA2A2BB JJA2A2JJ CCA2A2A2A2 A2A2A2A2F2F2 A2A2GGZZJJN2N2 T2T2ZZJJH2H2 A2A2JJZH2H2H2JJ A2A2A2A2ZZGG H2H2I3I3JJJJJJF2F2ZZ A2A2DD

To Charles Wentworth Upham The Following Metrical Essay Is Affectionately Inscribed	A
	-
Scenes of my youth awake its slumbering fire	B
Ye winds of Memory sweep the silent lyre	C
Ray of the past if yet thou canst appear	D
Break through the clouds of Fancy's waning year	D
Chase from her breast the thin autumnal snow	E
If leaf or blossom still is fresh below	E
	-
Long have I wandered the returning tide	F
Brought back an exile to his cradle's side	F
And as my bark her time worn flag unrolled	F
To greet the land breeze with its faded fold	F
So in remembrance of my boyhood's time	G
I lift these ensigns of neglected rhyme	G
Oh more than blest that all my wanderings through	H
My anchor falls where first my pennons flew	H
	-
	-
	-
The morning light which rains its quivering beams	I
Wide o'er the plains the summits and the streams	I
In one broad blaze expands its golden glow	E
On all that answers to its glance below	E
Yet changed on earth each far reflected ray	J
Braids with fresh hues the shining brow of day	J
Now clothed in blushes by the painted flowers	K
Tracks on their cheeks the rosy fingered hours	K
Now lost in shades whose dark entangled leaves	L
Drip at the noontide from their pendent eaves	L
Fades into gloom or gleams in light again	M
From every dew drop on the jewelled plain	N
	-
	-
We like the leaf the summit or the wave	O
Reflect the light our common nature gave	O
But every sunbeam falling from her throne	P
Wears on our hearts some coloring of our own	P
Chilled in the slave and burning in the free	Q
Like the sealed cavern by the sparkling sea	Q
Lost like the lightning in the sullen clod	J
Or shedding radiance like the smiles of God	J
Pure pale in Virtue as the star above	R
Or quivering roseate on the leaves of Love	R
Glaring like noontide where it glows upon	S
Ambition's sands the desert in the sun	T
Or soft suffusing o'er the varied scene	U
Life's common coloring intellectual green	U
	-
Thus Heaven repeating its material plan	V
Arched over all the rainbow mind of man	V
But he who blind to universal laws	W
Sees but effects unconscious of their cause	X
Believes each image in itself is bright	J
Not robed in drapery of reflected light	J
Is like the rustic who amidst his toil	Y
Has found some crystal in his meagre soil	Y
And lost in rapture thinks for him alone	P
Earth worked her wonders on the sparkling stone	P
Nor dreams that Nature with as nice a line	Z
Carved countless angles through the boundless mine	Z
	-
Thus err the many who entranced to find	J
Unwonted lustre in some clearer mind	J
Believe that Genius sets the laws at naught	J
Which chain the pinions of our wildest thought	J
Untaught to measure with the eye of art	J
The wandering fancy or the wayward heart	J
Who match the little only with the less	A2
And gaze in rapture at its slight excess	A2
Proud of a pebble as the brightest gem	B2
Whose light might crown an emperor's diadem	B2
	-
And most of all the pure ethereal fire	B
Which seems to radiate from the poet's lyre	C
Is to the world a mystery and a charm	C2
An AEgis wielded on a mortal's arm	C2
While Reason turns her dazzled eye away	J
And bows her sceptre to her subject's sway	J
And thus the poet clothed with godlike state	J
Usurped his Maker's title to create	J
He whose thoughts differing not in shape but dress	A2
What others feel more fitly can express	A2
Sits like the maniac on his fancied throne	P
Peeps through the bars and calls the world his own	P
	-
There breathes no being but has some pretence	A2
To that fine instinct called poetic sense	A2
The rudest savage roaming through the wild	J
The simplest rustic bending o'er his child	J
The infant listening to the warbling bird	J
The mother smiling at its half formed word	J
The boy uncaged who tracks the fields at large	D2
The girl turned matron to her babe like charge	D2
The freeman casting with unpurchased hand	J
The vote that shakes the turret of the land	J
The slave who slumbering on his rusted chain	N
Dreams of the palm trees on his burning plain	N
The hot cheeked reveller tossing down the wine	Z
To join the chorus pealing Auld lang syne	Z
The gentle maid whose azure eye grows dim	E2
While Heaven is listening to her evening hymn	E2
The jewelled beauty when her steps draw near	D
The circling dance and dazzling chandelier	D
E'en trembling age when Spring's renewing air	F2
Waves the thin ringlets of his silvered hair	F2
All all are glowing with the inward flame	G2
Whose wider halo wreathes the poet's name	G2
While unenbalmed the silent dreamer dies	A2
His memory passing with his smiles and sighs	A2
	-
If glorious visions born for all mankind	J
The bright auroras of our twilight mind	J
If fancies varying as the shapes that lie	H2
Stained on the windows of the sunset sky	H2
If hopes that beckon with delusive gleams	A2
Till the eye dances in the void of dreams	A2
If passions following with the winds that urge	I2
Earth's wildest wanderer to her farthest verge	I2
If these on all some transient hours bestow	J
Of rapture tingling with its hectic glow	J
Then all are poets and if earth had rolled	J
Her myriad centuries and her doom were told	J
Each moaning billow of her shoreless wave	O
Would wail its requiem o'er a poet's grave	O
	-
If to embody in a breathing word	J
Tones that the spirit trembled when it heard	J
To fix the image all unveiled and warm	J2
And carve in language its ethereal form	J2
So pure so perfect that the lines express	A2
No meagre shrinking no unlaced excess	A2
To feel that art in living truth has taught	J
Ourselves reflected in the sculptured thought	J
If this alone bestow the right to claim	G2
The deathless garland and the sacred name	G2
Then none are poets save the saints on high	H2
Whose harps can murmur all that words deny	H2
	-
But though to none is granted to reveal	K2
In perfect semblance all that each may feel	K2
As withered flowers recall forgotten love	R
So warmed to life our faded passions move	L2
In every line where kindling fancy throws	A2
The gleam of pleasures or the shade of woes	A2
	-
When schooled by time the stately queen of art	J
Had smoothed the pathways leading to the heart	J
Assumed her measured tread her solemn tone	Z
And round her courts the clouds of fable thrown	Z
The wreaths of heaven descended on her shrine	Z
And wondering earth proclaimed the Muse divine	Z
Yet if her votaries had but dared profane	Z
The mystic symbols of her sacred reign	Z
How had they smiled beneath the veil to find	J
What slender threads can chain the mighty mind	J
	-
	-
Poets like painters their machinery claim	G2
And verse bestows the varnish and the frame	G2
Our grating English whose Teutonic jar	M2
Shakes the racked axle of Art's rattling car	M2
Fits like mosaic in the lines that gird	J
Fast in its place each many angled word	J
From Saxon lips Anacreon's numbers glide	J
As once they melted on the Teian tide	J
And fresh transfused the Iliad thrills again	Z
From Albion's cliffs as o'er Achaia's plain	Z
The proud heroic with its pulse like beat	J
Rings like the cymbals clashing as they meet	J
The sweet Spenserian gathering as it flows	A2
Sweeps gently onward to its dying close	A2
Where waves on waves in long succession pour	N2
Till the ninth billow melts along the shore	N2
The lonely spirit of the mournful lay	J
Which lives immortal as the verse of Gray	J
In sable plumage slowly drifts along	O2
On eagle pinion through the air of song	O2
The glittering lyric bounds elastic by	H2
With flashing ringlets and exulting eye	H2
While every image in her airy whirl	P2
Gleams like a diamond on a dancing girl	P2
	-
Born with mankind with man's expanded range	Q2
And varying fates the poet's numbers change	Q2
Thus in his history may we hope to find	J
Some clearer epochs of the poet's mind	J
As from the cradle of its birth we trace	A2
Slow wandering forth the patriarchal race	A2
	-
	-
	-
I	H2
	-
When the green earth beneath the zephyr's wing	R2
Wears on her breast the varnished buds of Spring	R2
When the loosed current as its folds uncoil	Y
Slides in the channels of the mellowed soil	Y
When the young hyacinth returns to seek	S2
The air and sunshine with her emerald beak	S2
When the light snowdrops starting from their cells	A2
Hang each pagoda with its silver bells	A2
When the frail willow twines her trailing bow	T2
With pallid leaves that sweep the soil below	J
When the broad elm sole empress of the plain	Z
Whose circling shadow speaks a century's reign	Z
Wreathes in the clouds her regal diadem	B2
A forest waving on a single stem	B2
Then mark the poet though to him unknown	Z
The quaint mouthed titles such as scholars own	Z
See how his eye in ecstasy pursues	A2
The steps of Nature tracked in radiant hues	A2
Nay in thyself whate'er may be thy fate	J
Pallid with toil or surfeited with state	J
Mark how thy fancies with the vernal rose	A2
Awake all sweetness from their long repose	A2
Then turn to ponder o'er the classic page	U2
Traced with the idyls of a greener age	U2
And learn the instinct which arose to warm	J2
Art's earliest essay and her simplest form	J2
	-
To themes like these her narrow path confined	J
The first born impulse moving in the mind	J
In vales unshaken by the trumpet's sound	J
Where peaceful Labor tills his fertile ground	J
The silent changes of the rolling years	A2
Marked on the soil or dialled on the spheres	A2
The crested forests and the colored flowers	A2
The dewy grottos and the blushing bowers	A2
These and their guardians who with liquid names	A2
Strephons and Chloes melt in mutual flames	A2
Woo the young Muses from their mountain shade	J
To make Arcadias in the lonely glade	J
	-
Nor think they visit only with their smiles	A2
The fabled valleys and Elysian isles	A2
He who is wearied of his village plain	Z
May roam the Edens of the world in vain	Z
'T is not the star crowned cliff the cataract's flow	J
The softer foliage or the greener glow	J
The lake of sapphire or the spar hung cave	O
The brighter sunset or the broader wave	O
Can warm his heart whom every wind has blown	Z
To every shore forgetful of his own	Z
	-
Home of our childhood how affection clings	A2
And hovers round thee with her seraph wings	A2
Dearer thy hills though clad in autumn brown	Z
Than fairest summits which the cedars crown	Z
Sweeter the fragrance of thy summer breeze	A2
Than all Arabia breathes along the seas	A2
The stranger's gale wafts home the exile's sigh	H2
For the heart's temple is its own blue sky	H2
	-
Oh happiest they whose early love unchanged	J
Hopes undissolved and friendship unestranged	J
Tired of their wanderings still can deign to see	A2
Love hopes and friendship centring all in thee	A2
	-
And thou my village as again I tread	J
Amidst thy living and above thy dead	J
Though some fair playmates guard with charter fears	A2
Their cheeks grown holy with the lapse of years	A2
Though with the dust some reverend locks may blend	J
Where life's last mile stone marks the journey's end	J
On every bud the changing year recalls	A2
The brightening glance of morning memory falls	A2
Still following onward as the months unclose	A2
The balmy lilac or the bridal rose	A2
And still shall follow till they sink once more	N2
Beneath the snow drifts of the frozen shore	N2
As when my bark long tossing in the gale	V2
Furled in her port her tempest rended sail	V2
	-
What shall I give thee Can a simple lay	J
Flung on thy bosom like a girl's bouquet	J
Do more than deck thee for an idle hour	B
Then fall unheeded fading like the flower	B
Yet when I trod with footsteps wild and free	A2
The crackling leaves beneath yon linden tree	A2
Panting from play or dripping from the stream	W2
How bright the visions of my boyish dream	W2
Or modest Charles along thy broken edge	X2
Black with soft ooze and fringed with arrowy sedge	X2
As once I wandered in the morning sun	Z
With reeking sandal and superfluous gun	Z
How oft as Fancy whispered in the gale	V2
Thou wast the Avon of her flattering tale	V2
Ye hills whose foliage fretted on the skies	A2
Prints shadowy arches on their evening dyes	A2
How should my song with holiest charm invest	J
Each dark ravine and forest lifting crest	J
How clothe in beauty each familiar scene	Z
Till all was classic on my native green	Z
	-
As the drained fountain filled with autumn leaves	A2
The field swept naked of its garnered sheaves	A2
So wastes at noon the promise of our dawn	Z
The springs all choking and the harvest gone	Z
	-
Yet hear the lay of one whose natal star	M2
Still seemed the brightest when it shone afar	M2
Whose cheek grown pallid with ungracious toil	Y
Glows in the welcome of his parent soil	Y
And ask no garlands sought beyond the tide	J
But take the leaflets gathered at your side	J
	-
	-
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II	H2
	-
But times were changed the torch of terror came	G2
To light the summits with the beacon's flame	G2
The streams ran crimson the tall mountain pines	A2
Rose a new forest o'er embattled lines	A2
The bloodless sickle lent the warrior's steel	K2
The harvest bowed beneath his chariot wheel	K2
Where late the wood dove sheltered her repose	A2
The raven waited for the conflict's close	A2
The cuirassed sentry walked his sleepless round	J
Where Daphne smiled or Amaryllis frowned	J
Where timid minstrels sung their blushing charms	A2
Some wild Tyrtaeus called aloud To arms	A2
	-
When Glory wakes when fiery spirits leap	Y2
Roused by her accents from their tranquil sleep	Y2
The ray that flashes from the soldier's crest	J
Lights as it glances in the poet's breast	J
Not in pale dreamers whose fantastic lay	J
Toys with smooth trifles like a child at play	J
But men who act the passions they inspire	C
Who wave the sabre as they sweep the lyre	C
	-
Ye mild enthusiasts whose pacific frowns	A2
Are lost like dew drops caught in burning towns	A2
Pluck as ye will the radiant plumes of fame	G2
Break Caesar's bust to make yourselves a name	G2
But if your country bares the avenger's blade	J
For wrongs unpunished or for debts unpaid	J
When the roused nation bids her armies form	J2
And screams her eagle through the gathering storm	J2
When from your ports the bannered frigate rides	A2
Her black bows scowling to the crested tides	A2
Your hour has past in vain your feeble cry	H2
As the babe's wailings to the thundering sky	H2
	-
Scourge of mankind with all the dread array	J
That wraps in wrath thy desolating way	J
As the wild tempest wakes the slumbering sea	A2
Thou only teachest all that man can be	A2
Alike thy tocsin has the power to charm	C2
The toil knit sinews of the rustic's arm	C2
Or swell the pulses in the poet's veins	A2
And bid the nations tremble at his strains	A2
	-
The city slept beneath the moonbeam's glance	A2
Her white walls gleaming through the vines of France	A2
And all was hushed save where the footsteps fell	Z2
On some high tower of midnight sentinel	A3
But one still watched no self encircled woes	A2
Chased from his lids the angel of repose	A2
He watched he wept for thoughts of bitter years	A2
Bowed his dark lashes wet with burning tears	A2
His country's sufferings and her children's shame	G2
Streamed o'er his memory like a forest's flame	G2
Each treasured insult each remembered wrong	O2
Rolled through his heart and kindled into song	O2
His taper faded and the morning gales	A2
Swept through the world the war song of Marseilles	A2
	-
Now while around the smiles of Peace expand	J
And Plenty's wreaths festoon the laughing land	J
While France ships outward her reluctant ore	N2
And half our navy basks upon the shore	N2
From ruder themes our meek eyed Muses turn	Z
To crown with roses their enamelled urn	Z
	-
If e'er again return those awful days	A2
Whose clouds were crimsoned with the beacon's blaze	A2
Whose grass was trampled by the soldier's heel	K2
Whose tides were reddened round the rushing keel	K2
God grant some lyre may wake a nobler strain	Z
To rend the silence of our tented plain	Z
When Gallia's flag its triple fold displays	A2
Her marshalled legions peal the Marseillaise	A2
When round the German close the war clouds dim	E2
Far through their shadows floats his battle hymn	E2
When crowned with joy the camps' of England ring	R2
A thousand voices shout God save the King	R2
When victory follows with our eagle's glance	A2
Our nation's anthem pipes a country dance	A2
	-
Some prouder Muse when comes the hour at last	J
May shake our hillsides with her bugle blast	J
Not ours the task but since the lyric dress	A2
Relieves the statelier with its sprightliness	A2
Hear an old song which some perchance have seen	Z
In stale gazette or cobwebbed magazine	Z
There was an hour when patriots dared profane	Z
The mast that Britain strove to bow in vain	Z
And one who listened to the tale of shame	G2
Whose heart still answered to that sacred name	G2
Whose eye still followed o'er his country's tides	A2
Thy glorious flag our brave Old Ironsides	A2
From yon lone attic on a smiling morn	Z
Thus mocked the spoilers with his school boy scorn	Z
	-
	-
	-
III	H2
	-
When florid Peace resumed her golden reign	Z
And arts revived and valleys bloomed again	Z
While War still panted on his broken blade	J
Once more the Muse her heavenly wing essayed	J
Rude was the song some ballad stern and wild	J
Lulled the light slumbers of the soldier's child	J
Or young romancer with his threatening glance	A2
And fearful fables of his bloodless lance	A2
Scared the soft fancy of the clinging girls	A2
Whose snowy fingers smoothed his raven curls	A2
But when long years the stately form had bent	J
And faithless Memory her illusions lent	J
So vast the outlines of Tradition grew	H
That History wondered at the shapes she drew	H
And veiled at length their too ambitious hues	A2
Beneath the pinions of the Epic Muse	A2
	-
Far swept her wing for stormier days had brought	J
With darker passions deeper tides of thought	J
The camp's harsh tumult and the conflict's glow	J
The thrill of triumph and the gasp of woe	J
The tender parting and the glad return	Z
The festal banquet and the funeral urn	Z
And all the drama which at once uprears	A2
Its spectral shadows through the clash of spears	A2
From camp and field to echoing verse transferred	J
Swelled the proud song that listening nations heard	J
Why floats the amaranth in eternal bloom	B3
O'er Ilium's turrets and Achilles' tomb	B3
Why lingers fancy where the sunbeams smile	C3
On Circe's gardens and Calypso's isle	C3
Why follows memory to the gate of Troy	D3
Her plumed defender and his trembling boy	D3
Lo the blind dreamer kneeling on the sand	J
To trace these records with his doubtful hand	J
In fabled tones his own emotion flows	A2
And other lips repeat his silent woes	A2
In Hector's infant see the babes that shun	Z
Those deathlike eyes unconscious of the sun	Z
Or in his hero hear himself implore	N2
Give me to see and Ajax asks no more	N2
	-
Thus live undying through the lapse of time	G
The solemn legends of the warrior's clime	G
Like Egypt's pyramid or Paestum's fane	Z
They stand the heralds of the voiceless plain	Z
Yet not like them for Time by slow degrees	A2
Saps the gray stone and wears the embroidered frieze	A2
And Isis sleeps beneath her subject Nile	C3
And crumbled Neptune strews his Dorian pile	C3
But Art's fair fabric strengthening as it rears	A2
Its laurelled columns through the mist of years	A2
As the blue arches of the bending skies	A2
Still gird the torrent following as it flies	A2
Spreads with the surges bearing on mankind	J
Its starred pavilion o'er the tides of mind	J
	-
In vain the patriot asks some lofty lay	J
To dress in state our wars of yesterday	J
The classic days those mothers of romance	A2
That roused a nation for a woman's glance	A2
The age of mystery with its hoarded power	B
That girt the tyrant in his storied tower	B
Have passed and faded like a dream of youth	E3
And riper eras ask for history's truth	E3
	-
On other shores above their mouldering towns	A2
In sullen pomp the tall cathedral frowns	A2
Pride in its aisles and paupers at the door	N2
Which feeds the beggars whom it fleeced of yore	N2
Simple and frail our lowly temples throw	J
Their slender shadows on the paths below	J
Scarce steal the winds that sweep his woodland tracks	A2
The larch's perfume from the settler's axe	A2
Ere like a vision of the morning air	F2
His slight framed steeple marks the house of prayer	F2
Its planks all reeking and its paint undried	J
Its rafters sprouting on the shady side	J
It sheds the raindrops from its shingled eaves	A2
Ere its green brothers once have changed their leaves	A2
	-
Yet Faith's pure hymn beneath its shelter rude	J
Breathes out as sweetly to the tangled wood	J
As where the rays through pictured glories pour	N2
On marble shaft and tessellated floor	N2
Heaven asks no surplice round the heart that feels	A2
And all is holy where devotion kneels	A2
Thus on the soil the patriot's knee should bend	J
Which holds the dust once living to defend	J
Where'er the hireling shrinks before the free	A2
Each pass becomes a new Thermopylae	J
Where'er the battles of the brave are won	Z
There every mountain looks on Marathon	Z
	-
Our fathers live they guard in glory still	J
The grass grown bastions of the fortressed hill	J
Still ring the echoes of the trampled gorge	F3
With God and Freedom England and Saint George	F3
The royal cipher on the captured gun	Z
Mocks the sharp night dews and the blistering sun	Z
The red cross banner shades its captor's bust	J
Its folds still loaded with the conflict's dust	J
The drum suspended by its tattered marge	D2
Once rolled and rattled to the Hessian's charge	D2
The stars have floated from Britannia's mast	J
The redcoat's trumpets blown the rebel's blast	J
	-
Point to the summits where the brave have bled	J
Where every village claims its glorious dead	J
Say when their bosoms met the bayonet's shock	G3
Their only corselet was the rustic frock	G3
Say when they mustered to the gathering horn	Z
The titled chieftain curled his lip in scorn	Z
Yet when their leader bade his lines advance	A2
No musket wavered in the lion's glance	A2
Say when they fainted in the forced retreat	J
They tracked the snow drifts with their bleeding feet	J
Yet still their banners tossing in the blast	J
Bore Ever Ready faithful to the last	J
Through storm and battle till they waved again	Z
On Yorktown's hills and Saratoga's plain	Z
	-
Then if so fierce the insatiate patriot's flame	G
Truth looks too pale and history seems too tame	G
Bid him await some new Columbiad's page	U2
To gild the tablets of an iron age	U2
And save his tears which yet may fall upon	Z
Some fabled field some fancied Washington	Z
	-
	-
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IV	H2
	-
But once again from their AEolian cave	H2
The winds of Genius wandered on the wave	H2
Tired of the scenes the timid pencil drew	H
Sick of the notes the sounding clarion blew	H
Sated with heroes who had worn so long	O2
The shadowy plumage of historic song	O2
The new born poet left the beaten course	A2
To track the passions to their living source	A2
	-
Then rose the Drama and the world admired	J
Her varied page with deeper thought inspired	J
Bound to no clime for Passion's throb is one	Z
In Greenland's twilight or in India's sun	Z
Born for no age for all the thoughts that roll	J
In the dark vortex of the stormy soul	J
Unchained in song no freezing years can tame	G
God gave them birth and man is still the same	G
So full on life her magic mirror shone	Z
Her sister Arts paid tribute to her throne	Z
One reared her temple one her canvas warmed	J
And Music thrilled while Eloquence informed	J
The weary rustic left his stinted task	H3
For smiles and tears the dagger and the mask	H3
The sage turned scholar half forgot his lore	N2
To be the woman he despised before	N2
O'er sense and thought she threw her golden chain	Z
And Time the anarch spares her deathless reign	Z
	-
Thus lives Medea in our tamer age	U2
As when her buskin pressed the Grecian stage	U2
Not in the cells where frigid learning delves	A2
In Aldine folios mouldering on their shelves	A2
But breathing burning in the glittering throng	O2
Whose thousand bravoes roll untired along	O2
Circling and spreading through the gilded halls	A2
From London's galleries to San Carlo's walls	A2
	-
Thus shall he live whose more than mortal name	G
Mocks with its ray the pallid torch of Fame	G
So proudly lifted that it seems afar	M2
No earthly Pharos but a heavenly star	M2
Who unconfined to Art's diurnal bound	J
Girds her whole zodiac in his flaming round	J
And leads the passions like the orb that guides	A2
From pole to pole the palpitating tides	A2
	-
	-
	-
V	H2
	-
Though round the Muse the robe of song is thrown	Z
Think not the poet lives in verse alone	Z
Long ere the chisel of the sculptor taught	J
The lifeless stone to mock the living thought	J
Long ere the painter bade the canvas glow	J
With every line the forms of beauty know	J
Long ere the iris of the Muses threw	H
On every leaf its own celestial hue	H
In fable's dress the breath of genius poured	J
And warmed the shapes that later times adored	J
	-
Untaught by Science how to forge the keys	A2
That loose the gates of Nature's mysteries	A2
Unschooled by Faith who with her angel tread	J
Leads through the labyrinth with a single thread	J
His fancy hovering round her guarded tower	B
Rained through its bars like Danae's golden shower	B
	-
He spoke the sea nymph answered from her cave	H2
He called the naiad left her mountain wave	H2
He dreamed of beauty lo amidst his dream	G
Narcissus mirrored in the breathless stream	G
And night's chaste empress in her bridal play	J
Laughed through the foliage where Endymion lay	J
And ocean dimpled as the languid swell	J
Kissed the red lip of Cytherea's shell	J
	-
Of power Bellona swept the crimson field	J
And blue eyed Pallas shook her Gorgon shield	J
O'er the hushed waves their mightier monarch drove	H2
And Ida trembled to the tread of Jove	H2
	-
So every grace that plastic language knows	A2
To nameless poets its perfection owes	A2
The rough hewn words to simplest thoughts confined	J
Were cut and polished in their nicer mind	J
Caught on their edge imagination's ray	J
Splits into rainbows shooting far away	J
From sense to soul from soul to sense it flies	A2
And through all nature links analogies	A2
He who reads right will rarely look upon	Z
A better poet than his lexicon	Z
	-
There is a race which cold ungenial skies	A2
Breed from decay as fungous growths arise	A2
Though dying fast yet springing fast again	Z
Which still usurps an unsubstantial reign	Z
With frames too languid for the charms of sense	A2
And minds worn down with action too intense	A2
Tired of a world whose joys they never knew	H
Themselves deceived yet thinking all untrue	H
Scarce men without and less than girls within	Z
Sick of their life before its cares begin	Z
The dull disease which drains their feeble hearts	A2
To life's decay some hectic thrill's imparts	A2
And lends a force which like the maniac's power	B
Pays with blank years the frenzy of an hour	B
	-
And this is Genius Say does Heaven degrade	J
The manly frame for health for action made	J
Break down the sinews rack the brow with pains	A2
Blanch the right cheek and drain the purple veins	A2
To clothe the mind with more extended sway	J
Thus faintly struggling in degenerate clay	J
	-
No gentle maid too ready to admire	C
Though false its notes the pale enthusiast's lyre	C
If this be genius though its bitter springs	A2
Glowed like the morn beneath Aurora's wings	A2
Seek not the source whose sullen bosom feeds	A2
But fruitless flowers and dark envenomed weeds	A2
	-
But if so bright the dear illusion seems	A2
Thou wouldst be partner of thy poet's dreams	A2
And hang in rapture on his bloodless charms	A2
Or die like Raphael in his angel arms	A2
Go and enjoy thy blessed lot to share	F2
In Cowper's gloom or Chatterton's despair	F2
	-
Not such were they whom wandering o'er the waves	A2
I looked to meet but only found their graves	A2
If friendship's smile the better part of fame	G
Should lend my song the only wreath I claim	G
Whose voice would greet me with a sweeter tone	Z
Whose living hand more kindly press my own	Z
Than theirs could Memory as her silent tread	J
Prints the pale flowers that blossom o'er the dead	J
Those breathless lips now closed in peace restore	N2
Or wake those pulses hushed to beat no more	N2
	-
Thou calm chaste scholar I can see thee now	T2
The first young laurels on thy pallid brow	T2
O'er thy slight figure floating lightly down	Z
In graceful folds the academic gown	Z
On thy curled lip the classic lines that taught	J
How nice the mind that sculptured them with thought	J
And triumph glistening in the clear blue eye	H2
Too bright to live but oh too fair to die	H2
	-
And thou dear friend whom Science still deplores	A2
And Love still mourns on ocean severed shores	A2
Though the bleak forest twice has bowed with snow	J
Since thou wast laid its budding leaves below	J
Thine image mingles with my closing strain	Z
As when we wandered by the turbid Seine	H2
Both blessed with hopes which revelled bright and free	H2
On all we longed or all we dreamed to be	H2
To thee the amaranth and the cypress fell	J
And I was spared to breathe this last farewell	J
	-
But lived there one in unremembered days	A2
Or lives there still who spurns the poet's bays	A2
Whose fingers dewy from Castalia's springs	A2
Rest on the lyre yet scorn to touch the strings	A2
Who shakes the senate with the silver tone	Z
The groves of Pindus might have sighed to own	Z
Have such e'er been Remember Canning's name	G
Do such still live Let Alaric's Dirge proclaim	G
	-
Immortal Art where'er the rounded sky	H2
Bends o'er the cradle where thy children lie	H2
Their home is earth their herald every tongue	I3
Whose accents echo to the voice that sung	I3
One leap of Ocean scatters on the sand	J
The quarried bulwarks of the loosening land	J
One thrill of earth dissolves a century's toil	J
Strewed like the leaves that vanish in the soil	J
One hill o'erflows and cities sink below	J
Their marbles splintering in the lava's glow	J
But one sweet tone scarce whispered to the air	F2
From shore to shore the blasts of ages bear	F2
One humble name which oft perchance has borne	Z
The tyrant's mockery and the courtier's scorn	Z
Towers o'er the dust of earth's forgotten graves	A2
As once emerging through the waste of waves	A2
The rocky Titan round whose shattered spear	D
Coiled the last whirlpool of the drowning sphere	D

Oliver Wendell Holmes

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