Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-11-08

ny OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
Scarce could the parting ocean close.
Scanned by the Mayfower's cleaving bow,
When DER the rugged ocean rose
The waves that tracked the Pilgrims plough.
Then sprang from many rock strewn field
The ripping grass, the noddlng grain
Such growths as English meadows YIELD
To scanty sun and frequent rain.
But when the fiery days were done,
And Autumn brought his purple haze,
Then, kindling in the santed sun,
The hill-sides cleaned with golden maize.
Nor treat his homely gift with scorn;
Whose fading memory scarce can save
The hiocks where he sowed his corn,
The mounds that m ark his nameIess grave.
The food was scant the fruits were few,
red streak gstened here and there;
Perchance in stateier precincts grew
Some stern old Puritanic pear
Austere in taste and tough at core,
Its unrelenting bulk was shed,
To ripen in the Pilgrims store
When all his summer sweets were fed.
Such was his lot, to front the storm
With iron heart and marble brow,
Nor ripen till his earthly form
Was cast from life's Autumnal bough.
But ever on the bleakest rock
We bid the brightest beacon glow,
And still upon the thorniest stock
The sweetest roses love to blow,
So on our rude and wintry soil
We feed the kindling flame OF art
And steal the tropics blushing spoil
To bloom on natures icy heart.
See how the softening Mothers breast
Warns to her chdren's patient wiles,-
Her lips by loving Labor pressed
Break In thousand dumping smiles.
From where the flushing bud Of June
Dawns with its first auroral hue,
Till shines the rounded harvest moon,
And velvet dahlias drink the dew.
Nor these the only gifts she brings;
Look where the laboring orchard groans
And yields its beryl-threaded strings
For Chestnut bur and Hemlock cones.
Dear though the shady maple be,
And dearer still the whispering pine,
Dearest yOn russet-laden tree,
Drowned by the heavy rubbing kline.
There childhood flung its veaturous stone,
And bOyhood tried its daring climb,
And though our summer birds lave flown,
1t blooms as in the olden time.
Nor be the Jennings pride forgot,
With swinging drops and dropping bells,
Freckled aud splashed with streak and spot,
On the warm-breasted, soping swells;
Nor Persa's painted garden queen
Frail Houri of the trellised wal, -
His deep-ceft bosom scarfed with green,-
Fairest to see and first TO fall.
When man provoked his mortal doom,
And Eden trembled as he fell,
When blossoms sighed their last perfume,
And branches waived their long farewell.
One sucker crept beneath the gate,
One seed was waited DER the wall,
One bough sustained his trembling weight
These left the garden,-these were all.
And far DER many distant zone
These wrecks of Eden still are flung
The irnits that Paradise hath known
Are still in earthly gardens hung.
Yes, by our own unstoried stream
The pnk-white apple-bossoms burst,
Thai saw the young Euphrates gleam,-
That Gihon's circling waters nursed.
For US the ambrosial pear displays
The wealth its arching branches hold,
Bathed by hundred summary days
In floods of minghng fire and gold.
And here, where beauty's cheek of fame
With mornings earliest beam is fed,
The sunset painted peach may claim
To rival its celestial red.
What though in some unmostened vale
The summer leaf grows brown and sere,
Say, shall our star of promise fail
That circles half the rolling sphere.
From beaches salt with bitter spray
O'er prare's green with softest rain
And ridges bright with evenings ray,
To rocks that shade the stormless main
If by our sender-threaded streams,
The blade and leaf and blossoms die
II drained by noontide's parching beams
The milky veins of Nature dry.
Bee, with her swelling bosom bare,
YUn wild-eyed Sister in the West
The ring Of empire round her hair,
The Indians wampum on her breasti
We saw the August sun descend
Day after day with blood-rei STAIN
And the blue mountains dmly blend
With smoke-wreaths from the burning plain.
Beneath the hot Sirocco's wings
We sat and told the whitening hours.
Till Heaven unsealed its azure springs,
And babe them leap in flashing showers.
Yet in our Ishnaeps thirst we knew
The mercy of the sovereign hand
Would pour the fountains quickeninR dew
To feed some harvest of the land.
No flashing swords Of wrath surround
Our second Garden Of the BEST
1t spreads beyond its rocky bound,
1t climbs Nevada's glittering crest;
God keep the tempter from its gate
God shield the children, lest they fall
From their stern fathers free estate,
Till Ocean is its only wall