He was most interesting and animated as he spoke of the vigor of life and work and poetical composition which come from being in the open air and living in the country. He wrote, at the request of the neighborhood, his poem of "The Ploughman," to be read at a cattle-show in Pittsfield. "And when I came to read it afterwards I said, 'Here it is! Here is open air life, here is what breathing the mountain air and living in the midst of nature does for a man!' And I want to read you now a piece of that poem, because it contained a prophecy." And while he was looking for the verses, he said, in the vein of the Autocrat, "Nobody knows but a man's self how many good things he has done." So we found the first volume of the poems, and there is "The Ploughman," written, observe, as early as 1849. "O gracious Mother, whose benignant breast Wakes us to life, and lulls us all to rest, How thy sweet features, kind to every clime, Mock with their smile the wrinkled front of time! We stain thy flowers,--they blossom o'er the dead; We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread; O'er the red field that trampling strife has torn, Waves the green plumage of thy tasselled corn; Our maddening conflicts sear thy fairest plain, Still thy soft answer is the growing grain. Yet, O our Mother, while uncounted charms Steal round our hearts in thine embracing arms, Let not our virtues in thy love decay, And thy fond sweetness waste our strength away. No! by these hills, whose banners now displayed In blazing cohorts Autumn has arrayed; By yon twin summits, on whose splintery crests The tossing hemlocks hold the eagles' nests; By these fair plains the mountain circle screens, And feeds with streamlets from its dark ravines,-- True to their home, these faithful arms shall toil To crown with peace their own untainted soil; And, true to God, to freedom, to mankind, If her chained bandogs Faction shall unbind, These stately forms, that bending even now Bowed their strong manhood to the humble plough, Shall rise erect, the guardians of the land, The same stern iron in the same right hand, Till o'er the hills the shouts of triumph run, The sword has rescued what the ploughshare won!" Now, in 1849, I, who remember, can tell you, every-day people did not much think that Faction was going to unbind her bandogs and set the country at war; and it was only a prophet-poet who saw that there was a chance that men might forge their ploughshares into swords again. But you see from the poem that Holmes was such a prophet-poet, and now, forty-four years after, it was a pleasure to hear him read these lines. [Illustration: DOROTHY Q. FROM THE PORTRAIT IN DOCTOR HOLMES'S STUDY.]