When Truth herself was Slavery's slave Thy hand the prisoned suppliant gave The rainbow wings of fiction. And Truth who soared descends to-day Bearing an angel's wreath away, Its lilies at thy feet to lay With heaven's own benediction. The following poem was read by Doctor Holmes at the Unitarian Festival, June 2, 1882. The waves upbuild the wasting shore: Where mountains towered the billows sweep: Yet still their borrowed spoils restore And raise new empires from the deep. So, while the floods of thought lay waste The old domain of chartered creeds, The heaven-appointed tides will haste To shape new homes for human needs. Be ours to mark with hearts unchilled The change an outworn age deplores; The legend sinks, but Faith shall build A fairer throne on new-found shores, The star shall glow in western skies, That shone o'er Bethlehem's hallowed shrine, And once again the temple rise That crowned the rock of Palestine. Not when the wondering shepherds bowed Did angels sing their latest song, Nor yet to Israel's kneeling crowd Did heaven's one sacred dome belong-- Let priest and prophet have their dues, The Levite counts but half a man, Whose proud "salvation of the Jews" Shuts out the good Samaritan! Though scattered far the flock may stray, His own the shepherd still shall claim,-- The saints who never learned to pray,-- The friends who never spoke his name. Dear Master, while we hear thy voice, That says, "The truth shall make you free," Thy servant still, by loving choice, O keep us faithful unto Thee! Doctor Holmes being unable to attend the annual reunion of the Harvard Club in New York City, February 21, 1882, sent the following letter and sonnet which were read at the banquet: DEAR BROTHERS ALUMNI: As I am obliged to deny myself the pleasure of being with you, I do not feel at liberty to ask many minutes of your time and attention. I have compressed into the limits of a sonnet the feelings I am sure we all share that, besides the roof that shelters us we have need of some wider house where we can visit and find ourselves in a more extended circle of sympathy than the narrow ring of a family, and nowhere can we seek a truer and purer bond of fellowship than under the benignant smile of our _Alma Mater_. Let me thank you for the kindness which has signified to me that I should be welcome at your festival. In all the rewards of a literary life none is more precious than the kindly recognition of those who have clung to the heart of the same nursing mother, and will always flee to each other in the widest distances of space, and let us hope in those unbounded realms in which we may not utterly forget our earthly pilgrimage and its dear companions.