Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1864-11-21

Dr. Holmes poem, written for the Cen
tury Club festival viii appear in the De-
oember of the Atlantic Monthly. 1t is as
follows
BRTANT's SEVENTEENTH BIRTHDAY
BY OIIvER WENDELL HoLEEs
/ . Svsn-handed Nature we confess
| This life that men 50 honor, love and bless
Has hllsd thine olden measure. Not the less
We count the precious seasons that remain;
| Strike not the level ofthe golden grain,
But heap it high with years, that earth may gain
What heaven can IOse-for heaven is rich in song
nonot all poets, dying, still prolong
| Their broken chants amid the seraph tbronE
| Where, blind no more Ionia's bard is seen,
And EnglAnds heavenly minstrel sits between
The AantuRn and the wsn-cheekOd Florsntine7
This was the first sweet singer in the cage
OF our elose-woven life. new born age
Claims in his vesper song its heritage:
spare US, oh, spare US long our hearts desire *
Moloeh. who calls our children through the fire,
Leaves Us the gentle master Of the Tyre.
We count not on the dial Of the sun
The hours, the minutes, that his sands havs run
From earliest dawn their ordered bloom display
TIL evening planet with her guiding ray
1 eads in the blind old mother Of the day
We reckon by his songs, each song flower,
The long, long daylight, numbering hour by hour, =,
Each breathing sweetness ike bridal bower.
Bis morning glory shall we ere forget
his noontidss full-blown lily coronet
Bis evening primrose has not opened ystI
Nay, even If fereeping Time should hide the skies
IN midnight from his century.lsden eyes,
Darkened like his who sang OF Paradise,
Would not some hidden song-bud open bright
As the resplendent cactus Of the night
That foods the gloom with fragrance and with
light
How can we praise the vsrse whose music flows
With solemn cadence and majestic close,
Pure as the dew that filters through the rose
How shall we thank him that in evil days
De fatered never; nor for blame, nor praise,
Nor hire, nor party, shamed his earlier laysl
But as his boyhOod was Of manifest hue,
50 to his youth his manly days we're true,
All dyed in royal purple through and through
He for whose touch the Tyre of heaven is strung
Nesdsnot the fattering toll of mortal tongue
Let not the singer grievs to die unsungI
Marbles forget their message to mankind;
In his own verse the poet stiu We find,
In his own page bis memory lives enshrined,,
As in their amber sweets the smothered bees-
As the fair cedar, fallen before the breeze,
Lies self-embaimed amidst the mouldriDg trees
Poets, hksyoung-st children, never grow
Cut Of their mothsr's fondness. Nature so
hoos their soft hands, and will not let them go,
Till at the last they track with sven feet ..
Her rhythmic Footsteps and their pulses beat
Twined with her pulses, and their lips repeat
The secrets she has told them as their OWE
This is the innOst soul Of Nature known,
And the rapt minstrel shares her awful throne
lover other mountains sad her woods.
Her bridal chambers leafy solitudes,
Where Love himself with tremulous step intrudeSy
Ter SHOWS fall harmless on thy sacred FIRE:
Far be the day that claims thy sounding Tyre
To join the music Of the angel choirl
Yet, since life amplest measure must be hllsd,
Since tbrobbiDg hearts must be forever stilled,
And all mast fade tnat evening sunsets gid,
Grant. Father, ere he close the mortal eyes
That see a Nations resking sacrifice, 49,
Its smoke may vanish from these blaclened sidssI
Then, when his summons comes. since come # must
And, looking heavenwsrd with unfalteriRg trust,
dc wraps his drapery round for the dust,
Ihe Northern fires beyond the zenith spread
In lanbent goTy, bus and white aud red
The Southern cross without its bleediag load,
The mnky-way Of peace all freshly strewed
And SEsFy thronsd star fixed in its lost abods