 | The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes |  |
THE GOLDEN CALENDAR
TO J. G. W.
Count not the years that hoarding Time has told,Save by the starry memories in their train;
Not by the vacant moons that wax and wane,
Nor all the season's changing robes enfold:
Look on the life whose record is unrolled!
Bid thought, word, action, breathe, burn, strive again,
Bid the freed captive clank his broken chain!
Old altars flame whose ashes scarce are cold,
So will we count thy years and months and days,
Poet whose heart-strings thrill upon thy lyre,
Whose kindling spirit lent like Hecla's fire
Its heat to Freedom's faint auroral blaze,
But waste no words the loving soul to tire
That finds its life in duty, not in praise!
| The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes | |