Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1864-12-03
A BEAUTIFUL POEM.
BRYASTS SEFESTIETH BIRTHDAY.

THE following beautiful poem .wasi read by Dr.
o. w. HOLMES, at the FESTIVAL OF thefSentury Club
in NewsYork.City, November Sd given in honor OF
the poet BRYANT, who that day attained his
SEVENTEEN year,
o even-handed nature veeonfess. -
This life that ,s; @es s g h0no lovs s NOs Ses
Strike the level Of the golden grain,
But heap it high with years, that earth may gain
What heaven can Iose-for heaven is rich in song;
Do not all poets, dying, still prolong
Their broken chants amid the seraph throng,
Where blind nj more, Ionia's bard is seen,
And highlands heavenly minstrel sits between
The Mantuan and the wan-eheeked florentnes
This vas the fret singer in the cage
OF our elose-woven life. newborn age
: Claims in his vesper song its heritagei -
Spare us, oh, spare us long our hearts desired
NoIoeh. who calls children through the FIRE;
Leaves us the gentle master Of the Tyre
wecOunt not on the dial of the sun -.
The hours, the minutes, that his sands run,
Rather, on chose flowers that one by one
- From earliest dawn their ordered bloom display
e E Till evening planet with Der guiding ray
Leads in the blind old mother OF the days
We reekon BY his songs, each song flower,
The long, long daylight, numbering hour by hour,
-r Each breathing sweetnessslise a bridal bower
IS His morning glory shall We e'er forgetf
His noontide's full-blown lily cOronett
- lf. HIS evening primrose has uotopened yet
Nay even if creeping Time should hide the skies
In midnight from his century laden eyes,
Darkened ike his who sang TO Paradise,
As the Respondent cactus Of the night
That floods the gloom with fragrance and with
hghtl s--
How can we praise the verse whose music flows
With solemn cadence and males &c close,
Pure the dew that filters through the rOsei
How shall we thank him that in evil days
-r faltered never; nor Tor blame, nor praise,
Nor hires nor party, shamed his earlier days5
But as his boz hood was of manifest hue,
SO to his youth his manly years were true,-
All dyed his royal purple through and through!
-.
Needs not the ia teriug toll Of mortal tongue;
Let not the singer grieTe to die unsung L.
Marbles forget their message to mankind;
In his verse the poet still We find,
In his own page his memoir lives enshTined.
Asin their amber sweets the smothered bees :
AS the fair cedar. fallen before the breeze.
Poets like youns est children, never grow
Out of their mothers fondness. Nature so
r Holds their hands up and viii net let them go,
Till at the last they track with feet -
Her ~ thmic footsteps, and their pulses beat
Twinned with her pulses, and theirfps repeat
The secrets she has told them, their own;
Thus is the Utmost soul OF nature known,
And the rapt minstrel shares her awful throne!
o lover of her mountains and her woods, :
Her bridal eharmer's leafy solitudes,
Where love himself with tremu lous step ntrndes,
Her SHOWS fall harmless thy sacred fre;-
Far be the day that claims thy sounding Tyre
Tojoin the music ofthe angel choir =
Yet, since Iife's ampIest measure must be alled;
And all must fade that evening sunsets gid,
Grant Father ere he close the mortal eyes
That see q Nations reekng sacrifice,
Its smoke may vanish from these blackened
skies.
Then, when his summons comes, since come it
And, Iooking HeAvenward, with unfaItering
trust,
He wraps his drapery round him for the dust,
His last fond glance will show him Ger his head
The Northern fires beyond the zenith spread
In ambent glory, blue and white, and red.
Tba Southern cross Ufthout its bleeding load
The milky way of peace all freshly strewed,
And every white -throned star fixed in its lost
oil