Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1880-07-01
POETRY.
A CENTURY OF SCIENCE.

A CENTURY OF SCIENCE.
following is the poem of DR.. o. w. Holmes
at the centennial celebration of the American
Academy of Arts ard Sciences, Boston, May
90, 1880.
Sire, son and grandson; 90 the century glides;
Three lives, three strides, three footprints
in the sand:
Silent as midnight's falling meteor slides;
Into the stiffness Of the far of land;
How dim the space its little arc has span
ned
Bee on this opening page the names renowned
Tombed in these records on our dusty
shelves,
Scarce on the scroll of living memory found,
Save where the wan-eyed antiquarian
delves;
Shadows they seem; ah, what are we our
selyes7
Pale ghosts of Bowdoin, Winthrop, Willard,
West,
Ssges of busy brain and wrinkled brow,
Searcher's of Natures secrets unconfessed,
Asking of all things Whence and Why and
How?
What problems meet your larger vision
now7
Has Gannet tracked the wild Aurora's path?
Has Bowdoin found his sll-surrounding
sphere?
What questioning puzzles ciphering Philo-
msth?
Could Williams make the hidden causes
clear
OF the Dark Day that filled the land with
fear?
Dear ancient schoolboysl Nature taught to
them
The simple lessons of the star and flower,
Showed them strange sights; how on single
Admire the marvels of Creative Power!-
Twin apples grew, one sweet, the other
sour;
How from the hilltop where our eyes behold
In even ranks the plumed and hammered
maize
Range its long columns, in days of old
The live volcano shot its angry blaze
Dead since the showers of Noah's watery
days;
How, when the lightning split the mighty
rock,
The spreading fury of the shaft was spent;
How the young scion joined the alien stock,
And when and where the homeless swal-
lows went
To pass the winter of their discomfort.
Scant were the gleanings in those years of
dearth
No Cuvier yet had clothed the fossil bones
That slumbered, waiting for their second
birth;
No Lyell read the legend of the stones:
Science still pointed to her empty thrones.
Dreaming of orbs to eyes of earth unknown,
Herschel looked heavenward in the star
light pale;
Lost in those awful depths he trod alone.
Laplace stood mute before the lifted veil;
While home bred Humboldt trimmed his
toy ships sail.
No mortal feet those loftier heights had
gained
Whence the wide realms of Nature we des-
cry;
In vain our eyes our longing fathers strained
To scan with wondering gaze the submits
high
That far beneath their children's footpaths
lie.
Olllll6 dL LutlI eL1ldll NculuICS DIS VIC may,
The schoolboy's copy shapes the scholars
hand,
Their grateful memory fills our hearts to-day;
Brave, hopeful, wise, this bower peace
they planned,
While wars dread plowshare SCARED the
suffering land.
Child of our children's children yet unborn,
When on this yellow page you turn your
eyes,
Where the brief record of this MaydaT morn
In phrase antique and faded letters lies,
How vague, how pale Our fitting ghosts
will rise!
Yet in our veins the blood ran warm and red,
For us the fields were green, the skies were
blue.
Though from our dust the spirit long has fed,
We lived, we loved, we toiled, we dreamed
like you,
Smiled at our sires, and thought how much
we knew.
Oh, might our spirits for one hour return,
When the next century rounds its hund-
redth ring,
all the strange secrets it shall teach to learn,
To hear the larger truths its years shall
bring,
Its wiser sages talk, its sweeter minstrels
sing!