Sepulchral, rayless, joyless as it seems,
Shamed by the glare of May's refulgent beams, While the dim seasons dragged their shrouded train Its paler splendors were not quite in vain.
From these dull bars the cheerful firelight's glow Streamed through the casement o'er the spectral snow; Here, while the night-wind wreaked its frantic will On the loose ocean and the rock-bound hill, Rent the cracked topsail from its shivering yard, And rived the oak a thousand storms had scarred, Fenced by these walls the peaceful taper shone Nor felt a breath to swerve its trembling cone.
Nor all unblest the mild interior scene When the red curtain spread its folded screen; O'er some light task the lonely hours were past, And the long evening only flew too fast; Or the wide chair its leathern arms would lend In genial welcome to some easy friend Stretched on its bosom with relaxing nerves, Slow molding, plastic to its hollow curves; Perchance indulging, if of generous creed, In brave Sir Walter's dream-compelling weed. Or happier still the evening hour would bring
To the round table its expected ring,
And while the punch-bowl's sounding depths were stirred Its silver cherubs smiling as they heard,
O'er caution's head the blinding hood was flung,
And friendship loosed the jesses of the tongue.
Then follows an enumeration not merely of books but of printers, which, I confess, took me a little by surprise. I knew that wide readers were widely spread in the United States; and that there was no lack either of ripe scholars or of extensive libraries. I should fully have expected to find such a man as Dr. Holmes among the buyers of the best works, ancient and modern, but hardly among the collectors of choice editions. That, I confess, did give me a very pleasant astonishment. Woman although I be, I have lived enough with such people to hold them in no small reverence. Ay, and I know the Baskerville Virgil well enough by sight to recognize the wonderful accuracy of the portrait. Is there any thing under the sun that Dr. Holmes can not paint!
Such the warm life this dim retreat has known, Not quite deserted when its guests were flown;
Nay, filled with friends, an unobtrusive set, Guiltless of calls and cards and etiquette, Ready to answer, never known to ask, Claiming no service, prompt for every task.
On those dark shelves no housewife lore profanes, O'er his mute files the monarch folio reigns,
A mingled race, the wreck of chance and time, That talk all tongues and breathe of every clime; Each knows his place, and each may claim his part In some quaint corner of his master's heart. This old Decretal, won from Kloss's hoards, Thick-leafed, brass-cornered, ribbed with oaken boards, Stands the gray patriarch of the graver rows, Its fourth ripe century narrowing to its close; Not daily conned, but glorious still to view, With glistening letters wrought in red and blue. There towers Stagira's all-embracing sage, The Aldine anchor on his opening page; There sleep the births of Plato's heavenly mind In yon dark tome by jealous clasps confined, "Olim e libris"-(dare I call it mine)
Of Yale's great Head and Killingworth's divine! In those square sheets the songs of Maro fill The silvery types of smooth-leaved Baskerville; High over all, in close compact array, Their classic wealth the Elzevirs display.
In lower regions of the sacred space
Range the dense volumes of a humbler race; There grim chirurgeons all their mysteries teach In spectral pictures or in crabbed speech; Harvey and Haller, fresh from Nature's page, Shoulder the dreamers of an earlier age, Lully and Geber and the learned crew That loved to talk of all they could not do. Why count the rest, those names of later days That many love and all agree to praise? Or point the titles where a glance may read The dangerous lines of party or of creed? Too well perchance the chosen list would show What few may care and none can claim to know. Each has his features, whose exterior seal
A brush may copy or a sunbeam steal; Go to his study-on the nearest shelf Stands the mosaic portrait of himself.
What though for months the tranquil dust descends, Whitening the heads of these mine ancient friends. While the damp offspring of the modern press Flaunts on my table with its pictured dress;
Not less I love each dull familiar face,
Nor less should miss it from the appointed place. I snatch the book along whose burning leaves His scarlet web our wild romancer weaves, Yet, while proud Hester's fiery pangs I share, My old Magnalia must be standing there."
Such is the opening of the " Astræa." It speaks much for the man whose affluence of intellect could afford such an outpouring for a single occasion, the recitation of one solitary evening; and hardly less for the audience that prompted and welcomed such an effort.
The little book was sent to me among many others by a most kind and talented young friend, to whose unfailing attention I owe pleasure upon pleasure of this high nature. In my answer I expressed the admiration which I so truly felt, and the next packet brought a fresh claim upon my gratitude; a volume of Dr. Holmes's Collected Poems," of I know not what edition; for as man and as author he commands an immense popularity in Boston, the capital of literature in North America. This volume is enriched with an autograph and a portrait, both eminently characteristic the handwriting being clear, free, vigorous, delicate, such a hand as could be written by none but an accomplished gentleman; and the engraving just like the picture which I had painted of him in my own mind. There is a print of Hogarth's, "The Election Ball," full of people with their hats flung into a corner, and it is said of that print that every hat could be adjusted to the figure to which it belonged. Now I feel quite certain that if there were a collection of living authors of all countries, Dr. Holmes's head would be assigned to its right owner; the features and expression, not according to this system or that, but according to that stamp of character and intellect which we all tacitly recognize, belong so entirely to him individually, as we see him in his works.
Besides this engraving, the volume contains, together with a good deal of very pleasant occasional poetry, much truth and much beauty. I transcribe some passages full of charity, a quality which, especially in a religious sense, is perhaps rarer than either. The power will speak for itself:
"What is thy creed ?" a hundred lips inquire;
"Thou seekest God beneath what Christian spire ?"
Nor ask they idly, for uncounted lies Float upward on the smoke of sacrifice; When man's first incense rose above the plain, Of earth's two altars, one was built by Cain!
Uncursed by doubt our earliest creed we take; We love the precepts for the teacher's sake; The simple lessons which the nursery taught Fell soft and stainless on the buds of thought, And the full blossom owes its fairest hue To those sweet tear-drops of affection's due.
Too oft the light that led our earlier hours Fades with the perfume of our cradle flowers; The clear cold question chills to frozen doubt Tired of beliefs we dread to live without.
Oh! then if Reason waver at thy side, Let humbler memory be thy gentle guide; Go to thy birthplace, and if faith was there, Repeat thy father's creed, thy mother's prayer.
Faith loves to lean on Time's destroying arm, And age, like distance, lends a double charm. In dim cathedrals, dark with vaulted gloom, What holy awe invests the saintly tomb! There Pride will bow, and anxious Care expand, And creeping Avarice come with open hand;
The gay can weep, the impious can adore
From morn's first glimmerings on the chancel floor Till dying sunset sheds his crimson stains Through the faint halos of the irised panes.
Yet there are graves whose rudely-shapen sod Bears the fresh footprints where the sexton trod; Graves where the verdure has not dared to shoot, Where the chance wild-flower has not fixed its root, Whose slumbering tenants, dead without a name, The eternal record shall at length proclaim Pure as the holiest in the long array
Of hooded, mitred or tiaraed clay!
Deal meekly, gently with the hopes that guide The lowliest brother straying from thy side; If right, they bid thee tremble for thine own, If wrong, the verdict is for God alone.
What though the champions of thy faith esteem The sprinkled fountain or baptismal stream;
Shall jealous passions in unseemly strife
Cross their dark weapons o'er the waves of life?
Let my free soul expanding as it can
Leave to his scheme the thoughtful Puritan ; But Calvin's dogma shall my lips decide? In that stern faith my angel Mary died, Or ask if Mercy's milder creed can save, Sweet sister risen from thy new-made grave?
True, the harsh founders of thy church reviled That ancient faith, the trust of Erin's child ;— Must thou be raking in the crumbled past For racks and fagots in her teeth to cast? See from the ashes of Helvetia's pile
The whitened skull of old Servetus smile!
Grieve as thou must o'er History's reeking page; Blush for the wrongs that stain thy happier age; Strive with the wanderer from the better path, Bearing thy message meekly, not in wrath; Weep for the frail that err, the weak that fall, Have thine own faith,-but hope and pray for all!
I conclude with the following genial stanzas, worth all the temperance songs in the world, as inculcating temperance. They really form a compendium of the History of New England:
This ancient silver bowl of mine, it tells of good old times, Of joyous days, and jolly nights, and merry Christmas chimes; They were a free and jovial race, but honest, brave and true, That dipped their ladle in the punch, when this old bowl was new.
A Spanish galleon brought the bar,- -so runs the ancient tale,- 'Twas hammered by an Antwerp smith, whose arm was like a flail; And now and then between the strokes, for fear his strength should fail, He wiped his brow, and quaffed a cup of good old Flemish ale.
'Twas purchased by an English squire, to please his loving dame, Who saw the cherubs, and conceived a longing for the same; And oft, as on the ancient stock, another twig was found, 'Twas filled with caudle, spiced and hot, and handed smoking round.
But changing hands, it reached at length a Puritan divine, Who used to follow Timothy, and take a little wine,
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