Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, the — Volume 07: Songs of Many Seasons by Oliver Wendell Holmes
page 14 of 119 (11%)
page 14 of 119 (11%)
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To save a rich man's mortgaged soul;
No sister, fresh from holy vows, So humbly stoops, so meekly bows; His large obeisance puts to shame The proudest genuflecting dame, Whose Easter bonnet low descends With all the grace devotion lends. O brother with the supple spine, How much we owe those bows of thine Without thine arm to lend the breeze, How vain the finger on the keys! Though all unmatched the player's skill, Those thousand throats were dumb and still: Another's art may shape the tone, The breath that fills it is thine own. Six days the silent Memnon waits Behind his temple's folded gates; But when the seventh day's sunshine falls Through rainbowed windows on the walls, He breathes, he sings, he shouts, he fills The quivering air with rapturous thrills; The roof resounds, the pillars shake, And all the slumbering echoes wake! The Preacher from the Bible-text With weary words my soul has vexed (Some stranger, fumbling far astray To find the lesson for the day); |
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