These are thine enemies-thy worst; They chain thee to thy lowly lot: Thy labor and thy life accursed. Oh, stand erect! and from them burst! And longer suffer not! Thou art thyself thine enemy! The great!-what better they than thou? As theirs, is not thy will as free? Has God with equal favors thee Neglected to endow? True, wealth thou hast not-'tis but dust! Of both a noble mind! With this, and passions under ban, True faith, and holy trust in God, Thou art the peer of any man. Look up, then, that thy little span Of life may be well trod! Out in the woods of Autumn!-I have cast Low on thy bank, where spreads the velvet moss, FROM "MIAMI WOODS." The autumn-time is with us! Its approach By hazy skies that veiled the brazen sun, And now, as wanders the dilating eye Oliver Wendell Holmes. AMERICAN. Holmes was born in Cambridge, Mass., in 1809, and educated at Harvard College, where he graduated in 1829. His father, the Rev. Abdiel Holmes, was the author of "American Annals" (1805). Our poet studied medicine abroad some three years. He received his degree of M.D. in 1836, and in 1847 was appointed Professor of Anatomy in Harvard College-succeeding Dr. Warren. As a lecturer on medical science, he was distinguished and popu lar. Indeed his scientific tastes seem to have equalled his literary. As a microscopist he has had few superiors in America. Holmes began to publish poetry in The Collegian (1830), a magazine somewhat on the plan of The Etonian, and containing pieces from John O. Sargent, William H. Simmons, and other undergraduates of Harvard; also from Epes Sargent. Here some of the wittiest of Holmes's early poems appeared. He contributed to the New England Magazine (1836) certain humorous papers, entitled "The Autocrat of the Breakfast-table' These he resumed, some twenty years afterward, in the Atlantic Monthly, and the result was the wittiest book by which American literature had yet been distinguished. It has been as much a favorite in England as in his own country, and has been translated into German. He subsequently contributed two novels, "Elsie Venner" and "The Guardian Angel," to the Atlantic Monthly. The first collection of his poems was published in Boston in 1836; a second appeared in 1848; and collections were published in England in 1845, 1852, 1853, and 1878. A complete American collection appeared in 1877. Holmes's strength lies in his lyrics and his short poems. Indeed, he has attempted no sustained flight of an epic or dramatic character. In his "Astræa" and other rhymed essays he shows a mastery of the heroic measure, not excelled by Pope or Goldsmith in its vigorous but mellifluous flow. He belongs, however, neither to the old nor the new school of verse. He has created a school of his own. In no poct of the day is the individuality more marked. In his poems of wit, humor, and pathos, which form the larger part of his productions, he reminds us of no predecessor or contemporary; and in his serious poems, like "The Nautilus," he is fresh and original, never imitative in style and thought. These qualities give to his verse enduring elements, which must commend them to a late posterity, equally with the works of the most eminent poets among his contemporaries, English and American. In his prose and in his poetry his wit has never a taint of coarseness or asperity. Brilliant, incisive, and delicate in style, it attains its end only by means the most pure and legitimate. Happy in his domestic and paternal relations, and in his host of friends, few poets have had so smooth a lot as Holmes, or such a foretaste of that posthumous fame which his writings must command. His seventieth birthday called forth a grand entertainment given by his Boston publishers, at which many of the leading men and women of letters in the country were present. BILL AND JOE. Come, dear old comrade, you and I Your name may flaunt a titled trail, You've won the great world's envied prize, And grand you look in people's eyes, With HON and LLD In big brave letters, fair to see,- You've won the judge's ermined robe; The chaffing young folks stare and say, How Bill forgets his hour of pride, Ah, pensive scholar, what is fame? The weary idol takes his stand, And shall we breathe in happier spheres No matter; while our home is here, No sounding name is half so dear; OLD IRONSIDES. Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! Shall sweep the clouds no more! Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, Where knelt the vanquished foe, When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, And waves were white below, No more shall feel the victor's tread, Or know the conquered knee;— The harpies of the shore shall pluck The eagle of the sea! Oh, better that her shattered hulk Set every threadbare sail, And give her to the god of storms,The lightning and the gale! RUDOLPH, THE HEADSMAN. Rudolph, professor of the headsman's trade, Bare armed, swart - visaged, gaunt and shaggybrowed, Rudolph the headsman rose above the crowd. NEARING THE SNOW-LINE. Slow toiling upward from the misty vale, Welcome thy frozen domes, thy rocky spires! THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. During the growth of the nautilus, parts of its shell are progressively vacated, and these are successively partitioned off into air-tight chambers. This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies revealed, Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! Year after year beheld the silent toil He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, From thy dead lips a clearer note is borne Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! |