The Iron Gate and Other Poems

Project Gutenberg EBook The Poetical Works of O. W. Holmes, Volume 9. The Iron Gate and Other Poems?#23 in our series by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
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Title: The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Volume 9.
The Iron Gate and Other Poems
Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Release Date: January, 2005 [Etext #7396]?[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]?[Most recently updated: April 22, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
? START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY OF O. W. HOLMES, V9 ***
This eBook was produced by David Widger [[email protected] ]
THE POETICAL WORKS
OF
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
1893
(Printed in three volumes)
CONTENTS:
THE IRON GATE AND OTHER POEMS.
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
AND OTHER POEMS
1877-1881
THE IRON GATE
Read at the Breakfast given in honor of Dr. Holmes's Seventieth Birthday by 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 broken,?Its labors ended and its story told.
Ah, while around us rosy youth rejoices,?For us the sorrow-laden breezes sigh,?And through the chorus of its jocund voices?Throbs the sharp note of misery's hopeless cry.
As on the gauzy wings of fancy flying?From some far orb I track our watery sphere,?Home of the struggling, suffering, doubting, dying,?The silvered globule seems a glistening tear.
But Nature lends her mirror of illusion?To win from saddening scenes our age-dimmed eyes,?And misty day-dreams blend in sweet confusion?The wintry landscape and the summer skies.
So when the iron portal shuts behind us,?And life forgets us in its noise and whirl,?Visions that shunned the glaring noonday find us,?And glimmering starlight shows the gates of pearl.
I come not here your morning hour to sadden,?A limping pilgrim, leaning on his staff,--?I, who have never