FAVORITES OF SONG.
WHEN we come to consider Doctor Holmes on the poet side of his many-sided nature, his own words at the famous Breakfast-Table are vividly brought to mind:
"The works of other men live, but their personality dies out of their labors; the poet, who reproduces himself in his creation, as no other artist does or can, goes down to posterity with all his personality blended with whatever is imperishable in his song.... A single lyric is enough, if one can only find in his soul and finish in his intellect one of those jewels fit to sparkle on the stretched forefinger of all time."
In the poems of Doctor Holmes we are quite sure there are many just such lyrics that the world will not willingly let die. The Last Leaf, The Voiceless, The Chambered Nautilus, The Two Armies, The Old Man's Dream, Under the Violets, Dorothy Q.—but where shall we stop in the long enumeration of popular favorites like these?
Oliver Wendell Holmes touches the heart as well as the intellect, and that aside from his power as a humorist, is one great secret of his success.
Listen, for instance, to this exquisite bit:
Yes, dear departed, cherished days
Could Memory's hand restore
Your Morning light, your evening rays
From Time's gray urn once more,—
Then might this restless heart be still,
This straining eye might close,
And Hope her fainting pinions fold,
While the fair phantoms rose.
But, like a child in ocean's arms,
We strive against the stream,
Each moment farther from the shore
Where life's young fountains gleam;—
Each moment fainter wave the fields,
And wider rolls the sea;
The mist grows dark,—the sun goes down,—
Day breaks,—and where are we?
And what a dainty touch is given to this Song of the Sun-Worshipper's Daughter!
Kiss mine eyelids, beauteous Morn
Blushing into life new born!
Send me violets for my hair
And thy russet robe to wear,
And thy ring of rosiest hue
Set in drops of diamond dew!