Produced by David Widger
THE POETICAL WORKS
OF
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
[Volume 3 of the 1893 three volume set]
THE IRON GATE
AND OTHER POEMS
1877-1881
THE IRON GATE VESTIGIA QUINQUE RETRORSUM MY AVIARY ON THE THRESHOLD TO GEORGE PEABODY AT THE PAPYRUS CLUB FOR WHITTIER'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY TWO SONNETS: HARVARD THE COMING ERA IN RESPONSE FOR THE MOORE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE WELCOME TO THE CHICAGO COMMERCIAL CLUB AMERICAN ACADEMY CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION THE SCHOOL-BOY THE SILENT MELODY OUR HOME—OUR COUNTRY POEM AT THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY DINNER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY RHYMES OF A LIFE-TIME
THE IRON GATE
Read at the Breakfast given in honor of Dr. Holmes's Seventieth Birthdayby the publishers of the "Atlantic Monthly," Boston, December 3, 1879.
WHERE is this patriarch you are kindly greeting?
Not unfamiliar to my ear his name,
Nor yet unknown to many a joyous meeting
In days long vanished,—is he still the same,
Or changed by years, forgotten and forgetting,
Dull-eared, dim-sighted, slow of speech and thought,
Still o'er the sad, degenerate present fretting,
Where all goes wrong, and nothing as it ought?
Old age, the graybeard! Well, indeed, I know him,—
Shrunk, tottering, bent, of aches and ills the prey;
In sermon, story, fable, picture, poem,
Oft have I met him from my earliest day.
In my old AEsop, toiling with his bundle,—
His load of sticks,—politely asking Death,
Who comes when called for,—would he lug or trundle
His fagot for him?—he was scant of breath.
And sad "Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher,"—
Has he not stamped the image on my soul,
In that last chapter, where the worn-out Teacher
Sighs o'er the loosened cord, the broken bowl?
Yes, long, indeed, I've known him at a distance,
And now my lifted door-latch shows him here;
I take his shrivelled hand without resistance,
And find him smiling as his step draws near.
What though of gilded baubles he bereaves us,
Dear to the heart of youth, to manhood's prime;
Think of the calm he brings, the wealth he leaves us,
The hoarded spoils, the legacies of time!
Altars once flaming, still with incense fragrant,
Passion's uneasy nurslings rocked asleep,
Hope's anchor faster, wild desire less vagrant,
Life's flow less noisy, but the stream how deep!
Still as the silver cord gets worn and slender,
Its lightened task-work tugs with lessening strain,
Hands get more helpful, voices, grown more tender,
Soothe with their softened tones the slumberous brain.
Youth longs and manhood strives, but age remembers,
Sits by the raked-up ashes of the past,
Spreads its thin hands above the whitening embers
That warm its creeping life-blood till the last.
Dear to its heart is every loving token
That comes unbidden ere its pulse grows cold,
Ere the last lingering ties of life are