Stole with soft step its shining archway through,

20

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,

Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton1 blew from wreathed horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!

30

Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

(1858)

THE LIVING TEMPLE

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

[Originally called "The Anatomist's Hymn." It will be seen how the author interprets poetically the respiratory and circulatory systems, the muscular and nervous structure, the organs of sight and hearing, and the brain and nerves.]

Not in the world of light alone,
Where God has built his blazing throne,
Nor yet alone in earth below,
With belted seas that come and go,
And endless isles of sunlit green,
Is all thy Maker's glory seen:
Look in upon thy wondrous frame,-
Eternal wisdom still the same!

The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves Flows murmuring through its hidden caves,

ΤΟ

Whose streams of brightening purple rush,

Fired with a new and livelier blush,
While all their burden of decay
The ebbing current steals away,

And red with Nature's flame they start
From the warm fountains of the heart.

1 Triton. A Greek sea-god, with trumpet of shell.

20

No rest that throbbing slave may ask,
Forever quivering o'er his task,
While far and wide a crimson jet
Leaps forth to fill the woven net
Which in unnumbered crossing tides
The flood of burning life divides,
Then, kindling each decaying part,
Creeps back to find the throbbing heart.

But warmed with that unchanging flame
Behold the outward moving frame,
Its living marbles jointed strong
With glistening band and silvery thong,
And linked to reason's guiding reins
By myriad rings in trembling chains, 30
Each graven with the threaded zone
Which claims it as the master's own.

Then mark the cloven sphere that holds
All thought in its mysterious folds;
That feels sensation's faintest thrill,
And flashes forth the sovereign will;
Think on the stormy world that dwells
Locked in its dim and clustering cells!
The lightning gleams of power it sheds
Along its hollow glassy threads!

O Father! grant thy love divine
To make these mystic temples thine!
When wasting age and wearying strife
Have sapped the leaning walls of life,
When darkness gathers over all,
And the last tottering pillars fall,
Take the poor dust thy mercy warms,
And mould it into heavenly forms!
(1858)

A SUN-DAY HYMN
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

Lord of all being! throned afar,
Thy glory flames from sun and star;
Centre and soul of every sphere,
Yet to each loving heart how near!

50

BATTLE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC

JULIA WARD HOWE

[Written as a war-song for the Union cause in the Civil War, and set to the tune of "John Brown's Body," a favorite among the soldiers.]

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:

He is trampling out the vintage where
the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of
His terrible swift sword:

His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:

His day is marching on.