Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE COMING ERA, by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: They tell us that the muse is soon to fly hence Last Line: And song still live, the science of the heart. | ||||||||
THEY tell us that the Muse is soon to fly hence, Leaving the bowers of song that once were dear, Her robes bequeathing to her sister, Science, The groves of Pindus for the axe to clear. Optics will claim the wandering eye of fancy, Physics will grasp imagination's wings, Plain fact exorcise fiction's necromancy, The workshop hammer where the minstrel sings. No more with laughter at Thalia's frolics Our eyes shall twinkle till the tears run down, But in her place the lecturer on hydraulics Spout forth his watery science to the town. No more our foolish passions and affections The tragic Muse with mimic grief shall try, But, nobler far, a course of vivisections Teach what it costs a tortured brute to die. The unearthed monad, long in buried rocks hid, Shall tell the secret whence our being came; The chemist show us death is life's black oxide, Left when the breath no longer fans its flame. Instead of crack-brained poets in their attics Filling thin volumes with their flowery talk, There shall be books of wholesome mathematics; The tutor with his blackboard and his chalk. No longer bards with madrigal and sonnet Shall woo to moonlight walks the ribboned sex, But side by side the beaver and the bonnet Stroll, calmly pondering on some problem's x. The sober bliss of serious calculation Shall mock the trivial joys that fancy drew, And, oh, the rapture of a solved equation, -- One selfsame answer on the lips of two! So speak in solemn tones our youthful sages, Patient, severe, laborious, slow, exact, As o'er creation's protoplasmic pages They browse and munch the thistle crops of fact. And yet we've sometimes found it rather pleasant To dream again the scenes that Shakespeare drew, -- To walk the hill-side with the Scottish peasant Among the daisies wet with morning's dew; To leave awhile the daylight of the real, Led by the guidance of the master's hand, For the strange radiance of the far ideal, -- "The light that never was on sea or land." Well, Time alone can lift the future's curtain, -- Science may teach our children all she knows, But Love will kindle fresh young hearts, 't is certain, And June will not forget her blushing rose. And so, in spite of all that Time is bringing, -- Treasures of truth and miracles of art, Beauty and Love will keep the poet singing, And song still live, the science of the heart. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A SEA DIALOGUE by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A SUN-DAY HYMN [OR LAMENT] by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES AFTER A LECTURE ON KEATS by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES BILL AND JOE by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES BIRTHDAY OF DANIEL WEBSTER by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES BOSTON COMMON: 1630 by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES BOSTON COMMON: 1774 by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES BOSTON COMMON: 1869 by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES BROTHER JONATHAN'S LAMENT FOR SISTER CAROLINE [DECEMBER 2O, 1860] by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES CACOETHES SCRIBENDI by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES |
|