THE IRON GATE. BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. WHERE is this patriarch you are kindly greeting? Nor yet unknown to many a joyous meeting 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, 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, Ah, while around us rosy youth rejoices, 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 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, 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, 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 ; 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 |