Behold the rocky wall
That down its sloping sides
Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall,
In rushing river-tides!
Yon stream, whose sources run
Turned by a pebble’s edge,
Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun
Through the cleft mountain-ledge.
The slender rill had strayed,
But for the slanting stone,
To evening’s ocean, with the tangled braid
Of foam-flecked Oregon.
So from the heights of Will
Life’s parting stream descends,
And, as a moment turns its slender rill,
Each widening torrent bends, —
From the same cradle’s side,
From the same mother’s knee, —
One to long darkness and the frozen tide,
One to the Peaceful Sea!
(Oliver Wendell Holmes)
More Poetry from Oliver Wendell Holmes:
- Poetry: A Metrical Essay, Read Before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, Harvard (Oliver Wendell Holmes Poems)
- Poem For The Two Hundred And Fiftieth Anniversary Of The Founding Of Harvard College (Oliver Wendell Holmes Poems)
- Agnes (Oliver Wendell Holmes Poems)
- Astraea: The Balance Of Illusions (Oliver Wendell Holmes Poems)
- The School-Boy (Oliver Wendell Holmes Poems)
- The Banker's Secret (Oliver Wendell Holmes Poems)