Or the steel harness of the steeds of steam;

All who, by skill and patience, anyhow
Make service noble, and the earth redeem
From savageness. By kingly accolade

Than theirs was never worthier knighthood made.
Well for them, if, while demagogues their vain
And evil counsels proffer, they maintain

Their honest manhood unseduced, and wage
No war with Labor's right to Labor's gain
Of sweet home-comfort, rest of hand and brain,
And softer pillow for the head of Age.

II

And well for Gain if it ungrudging yields
Labor its just demand; and well for Ease
If in the uses of its own, it sees

No wrong to him who tills its pleasant fields
And spreads the table of its luxuries.
The interests of the rich man and the poor
Are one and same, inseparable evermore;
And, when scant wage or labor fail to give
Food, shelter, raiment, wherewithal to live,
Need has its rights, necessity its claim.
Yea, even self-wrought misery and shame
Test well the charity suffering long and kind.
The home-pressed question of the age can find
No answer in the catch-words of the blind
Leaders of blind. Solution there is none
Save in the Golden Rule of Christ alone.

T

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1809-1864)

HE Poet Laureate of Harvard University was a professor of

anatomy in that institution for twenty-five years. Dr. Holmes chose writing as his avocation, which he pursued with considerable enthusiasm. To him Boston was the "Hub of the Universe" with Harvard as its guiding spirit. Much of his poetry was written to celebrate important events connected with her or to enliven the banquets of his class. His best known prose work, The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table, by its very title suggests superiority. The essays in this book and in those which followed it appeared first in the Atlantic Monthly and did much to give that magazine at its inception the leadership in the periodical field. When Lowell undertook the editorship of this new magazine, he made it a condition that Holmes should be the first contributor. He realized that the position and character of the professor would give an aristocratic tone to the magazine.

Holmes was not, however, a teacher in his writings. He was an entertainer, whose outstanding characteristic was his humor. It is true that his humor is of the intellectual type and to a large extent conscious, but it is also nearly always appropriate and enlivening. In The Height of the Ridiculous he told how one of his poems sent his servant into an hysterical fit of laughter, which lasted ten days. "And since," he said, "I never dare to write as funny as I can."

Over one hundred and thirty of his poems were written for special occasions. The Welcome to the Chicago Commercial Club, written in 1880 when the club visited Boston, is typical of these. It shows his good fellowship and prejudice tempered by his irresistible humor.

LATTER-DAY WARNINGS

When legislators keep the law,

When banks dispense with bolts and locks,

When berries-whortle, rasp, and strawGrow bigger downwards through the box,

When he that selleth house or land

Shows leak in roof or flaw in right,When haberdashers choose the stand Whose window hath the broadest light,—

When preachers tell us all they think,
And party leaders all they mean,—
When what we pay for, that we drink,
From real grape and coffee-bean,-

When lawyers take what they would give, And doctors give what they would take,— When city fathers eat to live,

Save when they fast for conscience' sake,—

When one that hath a horse on sale
Shall bring his merit to the proof,

Without a lie for every nail

That holds the iron on the hoof,—

When in the usual place for rips

Our gloves are stitched with special care,

And guarded well the whalebone tips

Where first umbrellas need repair,

When Cuba's weeds have quite forgot
The power of suction to resist,
And claret-bottles harbor not

Such dimples as would hold your fist,―

When publishers no longer steal,

And pay for what they stole before,-
When the first locomotive's wheel

1_

Rolls through the Hoosac Tunnel's bore; 1

Till then let Cumming 2 blaze away,

3

And Miller's saints blow up the globe;

But when you see that blessed day,

Then order your ascension robe!

WELCOME TO THE CHICAGO COMMERCIAL CLUB

January 14, 1880.

Chicago sounds rough to the maker of verse;
One comfort we have-Cincinnati sounds worse;

If we only were licensed to say Chicagó!

But Worcester and Webster won't let us, you know.

No matter, we songsters must sing as we can;

We can make some nice couplets with Lake Michigan,
And what more resembles a nightingale's voice,
Than the oily trisyllable, sweet Illinois?

Your waters are fresh, while our harbor is salt,
But we know you can't help it-it isn't your fault;

Our city is old and your city is new,

But the railroad men tell us we're greener than you.

You have seen our gilt dome, and no doubt you've been told That the orbs of the universe round it are rolled;

But I'll own it to you, and I ought to know best,

That this isn't quite true of all stars of the West.

You'll go to Mount Auburn-we'll show you the track,-
And can stay there,-unless you prefer to come back;
And Bunker's tall shaft you can climb if you will.
But you'll puff like a paragraph praising a pill.

You must see-but you have seen-our old Faneuil Hall, Our churches, our school-rooms, our sample-rooms, all; And, perhaps, though the idiots must have their jokes, You have found our good people much like other folks.

There are cities by rivers, by lakes, and by seas,
Each as full of itself as a cheese-mite of cheese;
And a city will brag as a game-cock will crow;

Don't your cockerels at home-just a little, you know?

But we'll crow for you now-here's a health to the boys,
Men, maidens, and matrons of fair Illinois,
And the rainbow of friendship that arches its span
From the green of the sea to the blue Michigan!