Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, the — Volume 06: Poems from the Breakfast Table Series by Oliver Wendell Holmes
page 85 of 100 (85%)
page 85 of 100 (85%)
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Can show her inmost heart-leaves to the sun.
He yields some fraction of the Maker's right Who gives the quivering nerve its sense of pain; Is there not something in the pleading eye Of the poor brute that suffers, which arraigns The law that bids it suffer? Has it not A claim for some remembrance in the book That fills its pages with the idle words Spoken of men? Or is it only clay, Bleeding and aching in the potter's hand, Yet all his own to treat it as He will And when He will to cast it at his feet, Shattered, dishonored, lost forevermore? My dog loves me, but could he look beyond His earthly master, would his love extend To Him who--Hush! I will not doubt that He Is better than our fears, and will not wrong The least, the meanest of created things! He would not trust me with the smallest orb That circles through the sky; He would not give A meteor to my guidance; would not leave The coloring of a cloudlet to my hand; He locks my beating heart beneath its bars And keeps the key himself; He measures out The draughts of vital breath that warm my blood, Winds up the springs of instinct which uncoil, Each in its season; ties me to my home, My race, my time, my nation, and my creed |
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