WAN-VISAGED thing! thy virgin leaf <br />To me looks more than deadly pale, <br />Unknowing what may stain thee yet,-- <br />A poem or a tale. <br /> <br />Who can thy unborn meaning scan? <br />Can Seer or Sibyl read thee now? <br />No,--seek to trace the fate of man <br />Writ on his infant brow. <br /> <br />Love may light on thy snowy cheek, <br />And shake his Eden-breathing plumes; <br />Then shalt thou tell how Lelia smiles, <br />Or Angelina blooms. <br /> <br />Satire may lift his bearded lance, <br />Forestalling Time's slow-moving scythe, <br />And, scattered on thy little field, <br />Disjointed bards may writhe. <br /> <br />Perchance a vision of the night, <br />Some grizzled spectre, gaunt and thin, <br />Or sheeted corpse, may stalk along, <br />Or skeleton may grin. <br /> <br />If it should be in pensive hour <br />Some sorrow-moving theme I try, <br />Ah, maiden, how thy tears will fall, <br />For all I doom to die! <br /> <br />But if in merry mood I touch <br />Thy leaves, then shall the sight of thee <br />Sow smiles as thick on rosy lips <br />As ripples on the sea. <br /> <br />The Weekly press shall gladly stoop <br />To bind thee up among its sheaves; <br />The Daily steal thy shining ore, <br />To gild its leaden leaves. <br /> <br />Thou hast no tongue, yet thou canst speak, <br />Till distant shores shall hear the sound; <br />Thou hast no life, yet thou canst breathe <br />Fresh life on all around. <br /> <br />Thou art the arena of the wise, <br />The noiseless battle-ground of fame; <br />The sky where halos may be wreathed <br />Around the humblest name. <br /> <br />Take, then, this treasure to thy trust, <br />To win some idle reader's smile, <br />Then fade and moulder in the dust, <br />Or swell some bonfire's pile.<br /><br />Oliver Wendell Holmes<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-a-blank-sheet-of-paper/
