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THE IRON GATE.

BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

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 greybeard! 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 Æsop, 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,
Passions 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 labours 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 deemed it sin to gladden

This vale of sorrow with a wholesome laugh.

If word of mine another's gloom has brightened, Through my dumb lips the heaven-sent message

came;

If hand of mine another's task has lightened,
It felt the guidance that it dares not claim.

But, O my gentle sisters, O my brothers,

These thick-sown snow-flakes hint of toil's releas

These feebler pulses bid me leave to others

The tasks once welcome; evening asks for

peace.

Time claims his tribute; silence now is golden ;
Let me not vex the too-long-suffering lyre;
Though to your love untiring still beholden,
The curfew tells me-cover up the fire.

And now with grateful smile and accents cheerful, And warmer heart than look or word can tell, In simplest phrase these traitorous eyes are tearful

Thanks, Brothers, Sisters,-Children,-and farewell!

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

THE WRITINGS OF OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, IN THIRTEEN VOLUMES,

1891.

VOLUME

I. THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.

II. THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.

III. THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.

IV. OVER THE TEACUPS.

V. ELSIE VENNER.

VI. THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.

VII. A MORTAL ANTIPATHY.

VIII. PAGES FROM AN OLD VOLUME OF LIFE: Bread and the Newspaper; My Hunt after "The Captain"; The Inevitable Trial; The Physiology of Walking; The Seasons; The Human Body and its Management; Cinders from the Ashes; Mechanism in Thought and Morals; The Physiology of Versification; Crime and Automatism; Jonathan Edwards; The Pulpit and the Pew.

Uor M

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