Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO O.W. HOLMES ON HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY, by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Dear wendell, why need count the years Last Line: Deathless at least in epitaph? Subject(s): Friendship; Holmes, Oliver Wendell (1809-1894) | ||||||||
DEAR Wendell, why need count the years Since first your genius made me thrill, If what moved then to smiles or tears, Or both contending, move me still? What has the Calendar to do With poets? What Time's fruitless tooth With gay immortals such as you Whose years but emphasize your youth? One air gave both their lease of breath; The same paths lured our boyish feet; One earth will hold us safe in death, With dust of saints and scholars sweet. Our legends from one source were drawn, I scarce distinguish yours from mine, And don't we make the Gentiles yawn With "You remembers?" o'er our wine! If I, with too senescent air, Invade your elder memory's pale, You snub me with a pitying "Where Were you in the September Gale?" Both stared entranced at Lafayette, Saw Jackson dubbed with LL. D. What Cambridge saw not strikes us yet As scarcely worth one's while to see. Ten years my senior, when my name In Harvard's entrance-book was writ, Her halls still echoed with the fame Of you, her poet and her wit. 'T is fifty years from then to now: But your Last Leaf renews its green, Though, for the laurels on your brow (So thick they crowd), 't is hardly seen. The oriole's fledglings fifty times Have flown from our familiar elms; As many poets with their rhymes Oblivion's darkling dust o'erwhelms. The birds are hushed, the poets gone Where no harsh critic's lash can reach, And still your wingëd brood sing on To all who love our English speech. Nay, let the foolish records be That make believe you 're seventy-five: You're the old Wendell still to me, And that's the youngest man alive. The gray-blue eyes, I see them still, The gallant front with brown o'erhung, The shape alert, the wit at will, The phrase that stuck, but never stung. You keep your youth as yon Scotch firs, Whose gaunt line my horizon hems, Though twilight all the lowland blurs, Hold sunset in their ruddy stems. You with the elders? Yes, 't is true, But in no sadly literal sense, With elders and coevals too, Whose verb admits no preterite tense. Master alike in speech and song Of fame's great antiseptic Style, You with the classic few belong Who tempered wisdom with a smile. Outlive us all! Who else like you Could sift the seedcorn from our chaff, And make us with the pen we knew Deathless at least in epitaph? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AN EPISTLE TO DR. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES; ON HIS 75TH BIRTHDAY by EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE TO O.W. HOLMES; ON HIS 70TH BIRTHDAY by PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES by LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON O. W. HOLMES ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER OUR AUTOCRAT by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (WHITTIER'S LAST POEM) by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES by WILLIAM HAMILTON HAYNE FILLING AN ORDER by JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE AFTER THE BURIAL by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL AN INTERVIEW WITH MILES STANDISH by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL |
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