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 | The complete poetical works of Oliver Wendell Holmes |  |
Who is the poet? He who matches rhymes
In the last fashion of the new-born times;
Sweats over sonnets till the toil seems worse
Than Heaven intended in the primal curse;
Work, duties, pleasures, every claim forgets,
To shape his rondeaus and his triolets?
Or is it he whose random venture throws
His lawless whimseys into moonstruck prose,
Where they who worship the barbarian's creed
Will find a rhythmic cadence as they read,
As the pleased rustic hears a tune, or thinks
He hears a tune, in every bell that clinks?
Are these the poets? Though their pens should blot
A thousand volumes, surely such are not.
In the last fashion of the new-born times;
Sweats over sonnets till the toil seems worse
Than Heaven intended in the primal curse;
Work, duties, pleasures, every claim forgets,
To shape his rondeaus and his triolets?
Or is it he whose random venture throws
His lawless whimseys into moonstruck prose,
Where they who worship the barbarian's creed
Will find a rhythmic cadence as they read,
As the pleased rustic hears a tune, or thinks
He hears a tune, in every bell that clinks?
Are these the poets? Though their pens should blot
A thousand volumes, surely such are not.
Who is the poet? He whom Nature chose
In that sweet season when she made the rose.
Though with the changes of our colder clime
His birthday will come somewhat out of time,
Through all the shivering winter's frost and chill,
The bloom and fragrance cling around it still.
He is the poet who can stoop to read
The secret hidden in a wayside weed;
Whom June's warm breath with childlike rapture fills,
Whose spirit “dances with the daffodils;”
Whom noble deeds with noble thoughts inspire
And lend his verse the true Promethean fire;
Who drinks the waters of enchanted streams
That wind and wander through the land of dreams;
For whom the unreal is the real world,
Its fairer flowers with brighter dews impearled.
He looks a mortal till he spreads his wings,—
He seems an angel when he soars and sings!
Behold the poet! Heaven his days prolong,
Whom Elmwood's nursery cradled into song!
In that sweet season when she made the rose.
Though with the changes of our colder clime
His birthday will come somewhat out of time,
Through all the shivering winter's frost and chill,
The bloom and fragrance cling around it still.
He is the poet who can stoop to read
The secret hidden in a wayside weed;
Whom June's warm breath with childlike rapture fills,
Whose spirit “dances with the daffodils;”
Whom noble deeds with noble thoughts inspire
And lend his verse the true Promethean fire;
Who drinks the waters of enchanted streams
That wind and wander through the land of dreams;
For whom the unreal is the real world,
Its fairer flowers with brighter dews impearled.
He looks a mortal till he spreads his wings,—
He seems an angel when he soars and sings!
Behold the poet! Heaven his days prolong,
Whom Elmwood's nursery cradled into song!
| The complete poetical works of Oliver Wendell Holmes | |