DEAR friends, left darkling in the long eclipse <br />That veils the noonday,--you whose finger-tips <br />A meaning in these ridgy leaves can find <br />Where ours go stumbling, senseless, helpless, blind. <br />This wreath of verse how dare I offer you <br />To whom the garden's choicest gifts are due? <br />The hues of all its glowing beds are ours, <br />Shall you not claim its sweetest-smelling flowers? <br /> <br />Nay, those I have I bring you,--at their birth <br />Life's cheerful sunshine warmed the grateful earth; <br />If my rash boyhood dropped some idle seeds, <br />And here and there you light on saucy weeds <br />Among the fairer growths, remember still <br />Song comes of grace, and not of human will: <br />We get a jarring note when most we try, <br />Then strike the chord we know not how or why; <br />Our stately verse with too aspiring art <br />Oft overshoots and fails to reach the heart, <br />While the rude rhyme one human throb endears <br />Turns grief to smiles, and softens mirth to tears. <br />Kindest of critics, ye whose fingers read, <br />From Nature's lesson learn the poet's creed; <br />The queenly tulip flaunts in robes of flame, <br />The wayside seedling scarce a tint may claim, <br />Yet may the lowliest leaflets that unfold <br />A dewdrop fresh from heaven's own chalice hold.<br /><br />Oliver Wendell Holmes<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/prelude-to-a-volume-printed-in-raised-letters-for-the-blind/
