Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 4,188 pages of information about Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works.

Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 4,188 pages of information about Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works.
As the rider that rests with the spur on his heel,
As the guardsman that sleeps in his corselet of steel,
As the archer that stands with his shaft on the string,
He stoops from his toil to the garland we bring.

   What pictures yet slumber unborn in his loom
   Till their warriors shall breathe and their beauties shall bloom,
   While the tapestry lengthens the life-glowing dyes
   That caught from our sunsets the stain of their skies!

   In the alcoves of death, in the charnels of time,
   Where flit the dark spectres of passion and crime,
   There are triumphs untold, there are martyrs unsung,
   There are heroes yet silent to speak with his tongue!

   Let us hear the proud story that time has bequeathed
   From lips that are warm with the freedom they breathed! 
   Let him summon its tyrants, and tell us their doom,
   Though he sweep the black past like Van Tromp with his broom!

   The dream flashes by, for the west-winds awake
   On pampas, on prairie, o’er mountain and lake,
   To bathe the swift bark, like a sea-girdled shrine
   With incense they stole from the rose and the pine.

   So fill a bright cup with the sunlight that gushed
   When the dead summer’s jewels were trampled and crushed;
   the true knight of learning,—­the world holds him dear,—­

   Love bless him, joy crown him, God speed his career!

B.

Habits and methods of study.

Mr. Motley’s daughter, Lady Harcourt, has favored me with many interesting particulars which I could not have learned except from a member of his own family.  Her description of his way of living and of working will be best given in her own words:—­

“He generally rose early, the hour varying somewhat at different parts of his life, according to his work and health.  Sometimes when much absorbed by literary labor he would rise before seven, often lighting his own fire, and with a cup of tea or coffee writing until the family breakfast hour, after which his work was immediately resumed, and he usually sat over his writing-table until late in the afternoon, when he would take a short walk.  His dinner hour was late, and he rarely worked at night.  During the early years of his literary studies he led a life of great retirement.  Later, after the publication of the ‘Dutch Republic’ and during the years of official place, he was much in society in England, Austria, and Holland.  He enjoyed social life, and particularly dining out, keenly, but was very moderate and simple in all his personal habits, and for many years before his death had entirely given up smoking.  His work, when not in his own library, was in the Archives of the Netherlands, Brussels, Paris, the English State Paper Office, and the British Museum, where
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