Oliver Wendell Holmes

"At A Dinner Given Him On His Eightieth Birthday, December 12, 1885 With a bronze statuette of John of Bologna's Mercury, presented by a few friends."

"Our ancient church! its lowly tower,     Beneath the loftier spire,     Is shadowed when the sunset hour     Clothes the tall shaft in fire;"

"I sometimes sit beneath a tree     And read my own sweet songs;     Though naught they may to others be,     Each humble line prolongs     A t"

"Once more, ye sacred towers,     Your solemn dirges sound;     Strew, loving hands, the April flowers,     Once more to deck his mound.     A"

"For The Semi-Centennial Celebration Of The Settlement Of Cambridge, Mass., December 28, 1880     Your home was mine, - kind Nature's gift;     My l"

"Well, Miss, I wonder where you live,     I wonder what's your name,     I wonder how you came to be     In such a stylish frame;     Perhaps y"

"It was the stalwart butcher man,     That knit his swarthy brow,     And said the gentle Pig must die,     And sealed it with a vow.     And"

"Now, men of the North! will you join in the strife     For country, for freedom, for honor, for life?     The giant grows blind in his fury and"

"While fond, sad memories all around us throng,     Silence were sweeter than the sweetest song;     Yet when the leaves are green and heaven is"

"Breakfast at the Century Club, New York, May, 1879.     Such kindness! the scowl of a cynic would soften,     His pulse beat its way to some eloque"

"This is your month, the month of "perfect days,"     Birds in full song and blossoms all ablaze.     Nature herself your earliest welcome breath"

"Reader - gentle - if so be     Such still live, and live for me,     Will it please you to be told     What my tenscore pages hold?     Here"

"Three paths there be where Learning's favored sons,     Trained in the schools which hold her favored ones,     Follow their several stars with"

"No mystic charm, no mortal art,     Can bid our loved companions stay;     The bands that clasp them to our heart     Snap in death's frost and"

"1858     Flash out a stream of blood-red wine,     For I would drink to other days,     And brighter shall their memory shine,     Seen flaming t"

"Ah, here it is! the sliding rail     That marks the old remembered spot, -     The gap that struck our school-boy trail, -     The crooked pa"

"Danvers, 1866     Bankrupt! our pockets inside out!     Empty of words to speak his praises!     Worcester and Webster up the spout!     Dead bro"

"I pray thee by the soul of her that bore thee,     By thine own sister's spirit I implore thee,     Deal gently with the leaves that lie before"

"Complied With After The Dinner At President Everett's Inauguration     Scene, - a back parlor in a certain square,     Or court, or lane, - in shor"

"(New York Mercantile Library Association, November, 1842)     A health to dear woman! She bids us untwine,     From the cup it encircles, the fast-"

"It may be so, - perhaps thou hast     A warm and loving heart;     I will not blame thee for thy face,     Poor devil as thou art.     That t"

"Not bed-time yet! The night-winds blow,     The stars are out, - full well we know     The nurse is on the stair,     With hand of ice and chee"

"THE DIVINE VOICE     Go seek thine earth-born sisters, - thus the Voice     That all obey, - the sad and silent three;     These only, while th"

"Friend, whom thy fourscore winters leave more dear     Than when life's roseate summer on thy cheek     Burned in the flush of manhood's manlies"

"Celebration Of The Mercantile Library Association, February 22, 1856     Welcome to the day returning,     Dearer still as ages flow,     While th"

"'T is midnight: through my troubled dream     Loud wails the tempest's cry;     Before the gale, with tattered sail,     A ship goes plunging b"

"Here's the old cruiser, 'Twenty-nine,     Forty times she 's crossed the line;     Same old masts and sails and crew,     Tight and tough and a"

"From The Young Astronomer's Poem I. AMBITION     Another clouded night; the stars are hid,     The orb that waits my search is hid with them."

"Proudly, beneath her glittering dome,     Our three-hilled city greets the morn;     Here Freedom found her virgin home, -     The Bethlehem w"

"Come, spread your wings, as I spread mine,     And leave the crowded hall     For where the eyes of twilight shine     O'er evening's western w"

"This poem, published anonymously in the Boston Evening Transcript, was claimed by several persons, three, if I remember correctly, whose names I have"

"Dear friends, we are strangers; we never before     Have suspected what love to each other we bore;     But each of us all to his neighbor is de"

"The painter's and the poet's fame     Shed their twinned lustre round his name,     To gild our story-teller's art,     Where each in turn must"

"The Banker's dinner is the stateliest feast     The town has heard of for a year, at least;     The sparry lustres shed their broadest blaze,"

"Yet in the darksome crypt I left so late,     Whose only altar is its rusted grate, -     Sepulchral, rayless, joyless as it seems,     Shamed"

"God bless our Fathers' Land!     Keep her in heart and hand     One with our own!     From all her foes defend,     Be her brave People's Frie"

"'T was a vision of childhood that came with its dawn,     Ere the curtain that covered life's day-star was drawn;     The nurse told the tale wh"

"Too young for love?     Ah, say not so!     Tell reddening rose-buds not to blow     Wait not for spring to pass away, -     Love's summer mo"

"Welcome, thrice welcome is thy silvery gleam,     Thou long-imprisoned stream!     Welcome the tinkle of thy crystal beads     As plashing rain"

"One country! Treason's writhing asp     Struck madly at her girdle's clasp,     And Hatred wrenched with might and main     To rend its welded"

"How the mountains talked together,     Looking down upon the weather,     When they heard our friend had planned his     Little trip among the"

"Poor conquered monarch! though that haughty glance     Still speaks thy courage unsubdued by time,     And in the grandeur of thy sullen tread"

"I.     Fallen with autumn's falling leaf     Ere yet his summer's noon was past,     Our friend, our guide, our trusted chief, -     What words"

"For him the Architect of all     Unroofed our planet's starlit hall;     Through voids unknown to worlds unseen     His clearer vision rose ser"

"A lovely show for eyes to see     I looked upon this morning, -     A bright-hued, feathered company     Of nature's own adorning;     But ah"

"When Eve had led her lord away,     And Cain had killed his brother,     The stars and flowers, the poets say,     Agreed with one another."

"Our Poet, who has taught the Western breeze     To waft his songs before him o'er the seas,     Will find them wheresoe'er his wanderings reach"

"The fount the Spaniard sought in vain     Through all the land of flowers     Leaps glittering from the sandy plain     Our classic grove embow"

"When Advent dawns with lessening days,     While earth awaits the angels' hymn;     When bare as branching coral sways     In whistling winds e"

"Giver of all that crowns our days,     With grateful hearts we sing thy praise;     Through deep and desert led by Thee,     Our promised land"

""Man wants but little here below"     Little I ask; my wants are few;     I only wish a hut of stone,     (A very plain brown stone will do,)"

"1859     Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?     If there has, take him out, without making a noise.     Hang the Almanac's cheat an"

"PART FIRST THE KNIGHT     The tale I tell is gospel true,     As all the bookmen know,     And pilgrims who have strayed to view     The wrecks"

"Land where the banners wave last in the sun,     Blazoned with star-clusters, many in one,     Floating o'er prairie and mountain and sea;"

"At the meeting of the New York Harvard Club, February 21, 1878.     "CHRISTO ET ECCLESLE." 1700     To GOD'S ANOINTED AND HIS CHOSEN FLOCK     So"

"The glory has passed from the goldenrod's plume,     The purple-hued asters still linger in bloom     The birch is bright yellow, the sumachs ar"

"Dear Governor, if my skiff might brave     The winds that lift the ocean wave,     The mountain stream that loops and swerves     Through my br"

"Come, dear old comrade, you and I     Will steal an hour from days gone by,     The shining days when life was new,     And all was bright with"

"I saw the curl of his waving lash,     And the glance of his knowing eye,     And I knew that he thought he was cutting a dash,     As his stee"

"We welcome you, Lords of the Land of the Sun!     The voice of the many sounds feebly through one;     Ah! would 't were a voice of more musical"