| James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902. | | | | August 29 | | To O. W. Holmes | | By Paul Hamilton Hayne (1830–1886) |
| | Oliver Wendell Holmes, born August 29, 1809
DEAR Doctor, whose blandly invincible pen | |
| Has honored so often your great fellow-men | |
| With your genius and virtues, who doubts it is true | |
| That the world owes in turn, a warm tribute to you? | |
| |
| Wheresoever rare merit has lifted its head | 5 |
| From the cool country calm or the city’s hotbed— | |
| You were always the first to applaud it by name, | |
| And to smooth for its feet the harsh pathway to fame. | |
| |
| Wheresoever beneath the broad rule of the sun, | |
| By some spirit elect, a grand deed has been done— | 10 |
| Its electrical spell like the lightning’s would dart, | |
| Though the globe lay between, to thrill first in your heart! | |
| |
| Philanthropist! poet! romancer! combined— | |
| Ay! shrewd scientist too—who shall fathom your mind, | |
| Shall plumb that strange sea to the uttermost deep, | 15 |
| With its vast under-tides, and its rhythmical sweep? | |
| |
| You have toiled in life’s noon, till the hot blasting light | |
| Blinds the eyes that would gauge your soul stature aright; | |
| But when eve comes at last, ’twill be clear to mankind, | |
| By the length of bright shadow your soul leaves behind! | 20 | | | |
|
|
