 | The complete poetical works of Oliver Wendell Holmes
|  |
|
Health to the art whose glory is to give
The crowning boon that makes it life to live.
Ask not her home;—the rock where nature flings
Her arctic lichen, last of living things;
The gardens, fragrant with the orient's balm,
From the low jasmine to the star-like palm,
Hail her as mistress o'er the distant waves,
And yield their tribute to her wandering slaves.
Wherever, moistening the ungrateful soil,
The tear of suffering tracks the path of toil,
There, in the anguish of his fevered hours,
Her gracious finger points to healing flowers;
Where the lost felon steals away to die,
Her soft hand waves before his closing eye;
Where hunted misery finds his darkest lair,
The midnight taper shows her kneeling there!
Virtue,—the guide that men and nations own;
And Law,—the bulwark that protects her throne;
And Health,—to all its happiest charm that lends;
These and their servants, man's untiring friends:
Pour the bright lymph that Heaven itself lets fall,
In one fair bumper let us toast them all!
| The complete poetical works of Oliver Wendell Holmes
| |
|
