Gratefully yours,
Oliver Wendell Holmes
The most popular poem, however, of this class is one dedicated to Wyatt M. Redding, the telegraph operator who during the yellow fever epidemic of 1878 bravely died at the post of duty in the plague stricken city of Grenada. For its historical as well as poetical value it should be preserved.
WYATT M. REDDING.
GRENADA, 1878.
Click, Click
Like the beat of a death-watch, sharp and quick,
From hearts that are stifled and lips that are dumb
With the lightning's speed, and the lightning's thrill,
The dark words go and come:
Click, click, and a pulse is still—
There's a form to shroud and a grave to fill,
For the Yellow Death is upon the air,
And the city lies in the clutch of Despair.
Not less a hero than he whose plume
Goes blood-stained down in the conflict's gloom,
Not less a martyr than those who slake
A blood-thirst, bound to the burning stake,
Is he who stands as the last defence
Against the shock of the pestilence.
Click, Click
His heart is strong and his fingers quick,
'Tis a fearful work of hand and brain,
Each click is a groan, each word is a pain,
But he falters not in the fight with death,
Even under his wings as he breathes his breath,
The shrouded city before him lies,
And the dead drop down 'neath the burning skies,
Never a smile, or a word to cheer,
Brightens his eye, or falls on his ear,
All is dreary and all is dumb,
Save the hourly wail from a stricken home.
Click, Click
'Tis the only hope where the dead are thick,
Where the living strewn by the plague's hot breath
Are sown with the ripening seeds of death.
Still, the hero-boy at his key-board stands,
And many a far off city feels
The thrill of the wire, and its mute appeals,
And hands are stretched from the East and West
Their upward palms with a blessing blest,
As it comes to those who meet their doom
Like scorched leaves struck by the hot simoon.
Click, Click
Like the beat of a death-watch, sharp and quick,
'Tis the last note struck, 'tis the first wild touch
He gives the key, as he feels the vague
An creeping chill of the deadly plague.
Ere its burns with the strength of its fever clutch.
He falters, falls, and his work is done,
And the fiend has marked his victim won,
Not long he dallies with those who fall
Beneath the curse of his yellow thrall,
O city, beneath his merciless sway,
Mourn, mourn, for your hero dies today.
Passing several poems of genuine humor and two or three more lengthy ones of epic cast and tragic interest, this appreciation of William Ward's life and poetry, though incomplete must find an end. What poetry in the abstract is, the world has not yet determined, and probably never will. Whether it be "the rhythmical creation of beauty" or the "lyrical expression of emotion," or both; whether its end be truth or beauty or merely sensuous delight, one or all, each will decide for himself, according as he is provincial or cosmopolitan in his culture. What is poetry to one is doggerel or riming prose to another. "The Ring and the Book" is intolerable to many who enjoy "The Idylls of the King." Wordsworth is for the most part childish or meaningless to numbers who delight in Scott or Byron. Where Poe is lauded, Whitman very likely will be scouted.