James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.
August 29To O. W. Holmes
By Paul Hamilton Hayne (18301886)D
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?
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.
By some spirit elect, a grand deed has been done—
Its electrical spell like the lightning’s would dart,
Though the globe lay between, to thrill first in your heart!
Ay! shrewd scientist too—who shall fathom your mind,
Shall plumb that strange sea to the uttermost deep,
With its vast under-tides, and its rhythmical sweep?
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!