Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Oh! I did love her dearly,     And gave her toys and rings,     And I thought she meant sincerely,     When she took my pretty things.     But"

"Anniversary Of The Berkshire Agricultural Society, October 4, 1849     Clear the brown path, to meet his coulter's gleam!     Lo! on he comes, behi"

"A prologue? Well, of course the ladies know, -     I have my doubts. No matter, - here we go!     What is a Prologue? Let our Tutor teach:"

"She gathered at her slender waist     The beauteous robe she wore;     Its folds a golden belt embraced,     One rose-hued gem it bore.     T"

"Sexton! Martha's dead and gone;     Toll the bell! toll the bell!     Her weary hands their labor cease;     Good night, poor Martha, - sleep i"

"The dirge is played, the throbbing death-peal rung,     The sad-voiced requiem sung;     On each white urn where memory dwells     The wreath o"

"Yes! the vacant chairs tell sadly we are going, going fast,     And the thought comes strangely o'er me, who will live to be the last?     When"

"Precisely. I see it. You all want to say     That a tear is too sad and a laugh is too gay;     You could stand a faint smile, you could manage"

"When rose the cry "Great Pan is dead!"     And Jove's high palace closed its portal,     The fallen gods, before they fled,     Sold out their"

"I bring the simplest pledge of love,     Friend of my earlier days;     Mine is the hand without the glove,     The heart-beat, not the phrase."

"At A Bookstore Anno Domini 1972     A crazy bookcase, placed before     A low-price dealer's open door;     Therein arrayed in broken rows"

"The Play is over. While the light     Yet lingers in the darkening hall,     I come to say a last Good-night     Before the final Exeunt all."

"He sleeps not here; in hope and prayer     His wandering flock had gone before,     But he, the shepherd, might not share     Their sorrows on"

""Qui vive?" The sentry's musket rings,     The channelled bayonet gleams;     High o'er him, like a raven's wings     The broad tricolored bann"

""Dumque virent genua     Et decet, obducta solvatur fonte senectus."     The muse of boyhood's fervid hour     Grows tame as skies get chill a"

"Vex not the Muse with idle prayers, -     She will not hear thy call;     She steals upon thee unawares,     Or seeks thee not at all.     S"

"O God! in danger's darkest hour,     In battle's deadliest field,     Thy name has been our Nation's tower,     Thy truth her help and shield."

"Wendell Phillips, Orator; Charles Godfrey Leland, Poet     "The Dutch have taken Holland," - so the schoolboys used to say;     The Dutch have tak"

"I like, at times, to hear the steeples' chimes     With sober thoughts impressively that mingle;     But sometimes, too, I rather like - don't y"

"CITY OF BOSTON, JUNE 1, 1865 CHORAL: "LUTHER'S JUDGMENT HYMN."     O thou of soul and sense and breath     The ever-present Giver,     Unto thy"

"(by supposition) An Hymn set forth to be sung by the Great Assembly at Newtown, [Mass.] Mo. 12. 1. 1636. [Written by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, eldest"

"Thoughtful in youth, but not austere in age;     Calm, but not cold, and cheerful though a sage;     Too true to flatter and too kind to sneer,"

"1630     All overgrown with bush and fern,     And straggling clumps of tangled trees,     With trunks that lean and boughs that turn,     Bent e"

"The dinner-bell, the dinner-bell     Is ringing loud and clear;     Through hill and plain, through street and lane,     It echoes far and near"

"I thank you, MR. PRESIDENT, you've kindly broke the ice;     Virtue should always be the first, - I 'm only SECOND VICE -     (A vice is someth"

"The mountains glitter in the snow     A thousand leagues asunder;     Yet here, amid the banquet's glow,     I hear their voice of thunder;"

"This is our place of meeting; opposite     That towered and pillared building: look at it;     King's Chapel in the Second George's day,     Re"

"Come, heap the fagots! Ere we go     Again the cheerful hearth shall glow;     We 'll have another blaze, my boys!     When clouds are black an"

"Yes, tyrants, you hate us, and fear while you hate     The self-ruling, chain-breaking, throne-shaking State!     The night-birds dread morning,"

"Dear friends, left darkling in the long eclipse     That veils the noonday, - you whose finger-tips     A meaning in these ridgy leaves can find"

"Listen, young heroes! your country is calling!     Time strikes the hour for the brave and the true!     Now, while the foremost are fighting an"

"Who of all statesmen is his country's pride,     Her councils' prompter and her leaders' guide?     He speaks; the nation holds its breath to he"

"Sister, we bid you welcome, - we who stand     On the high table-land;     We who have climbed life's slippery Alpine slope,     And rest, stil"

"I'm not a chicken; I have seen     Full many a chill September,     And though I was a youngster then,     That gale I well remember;     The"

"To My Old Readers     You know "The Teacups," that congenial set     Which round the Teapot you have often met;     The grave DICTATOR, him yo"

"Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,     That was built in such a logical way     It ran a hundred years to a day,     And then, of a"

"I give you the health of the oldest friend     That, short of eternity, earth can lend, -     A friend so faithful and tried and true     That"

"One memory trembles on our lips;     It throbs in every breast;     In tear-dimmed eyes, in mirth's eclipse,     The shadow stands confessed."

"I 'm ashamed, - that 's the fact, - it 's a pitiful case, -     Won't any kind classmate get up in my place?     Just remember how often I've r"

""Lucy." - The old familiar name     Is now, as always, pleasant,     Its liquid melody the same     Alike in past or present;     Let others c"

"As Life's unending column pours,     Two marshalled hosts are seen, -     Two armies on the trampled shores     That Death flows black between"

"O even-handed Nature! we confess     This life that men so honor, love, and bless     Has filled thine olden measure. Not the less.     We cou"

"When legislators keep the law,     When banks dispense with bolts and looks,     When berries - whortle, rasp, and straw -     Grow bigger dow"

"With Slight Alterations By A Teetotaler - (...)     Come! fill a fresh bumper, for why should we go     While the nectar (logwood) still reddens ou"

"When life hath run its largest round     Of toil and triumph, joy and woe,     How brief a storied page is found     To compass all its outward"

"As through the forest, disarrayed     By chill November, late I strayed,     A lonely minstrel of the wood     Was singing to the solitude"

"As o'er the glacier's frozen sheet     Breathes soft the Alpine rose,     So through life's desert springing sweet     The flower of friendship"

"Behold the rocky wall     That down its sloping sides     Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall,     In rushing river-tides!"

"1855     And what shall be the song to-night,     If song there needs must be?     If every year that brings us here     Must steal an hour from"

"Oh, there are times     When all this fret and tumult that we hear     Do seem more stale than to the sexton's ear     His own dull chimes."

"'T is like stirring living embers when, at eighty, one remembers     All the achings and the quakings of "the times that tried men's souls";"

"Thus I lift the sash, so long     Shut against the flight of song;     All too late for vain excuse, -     Lo, my captive rhymes are loose."

"Kiss mine eyelids, beauteous Morn,     Blushing into life new-born!     Lend me violets for my hair,     And thy russet robe to wear,     And"

"How sweet the sacred legend - if unblamed     In my slight verse such holy things are named -     Of Mary's secret hours of hidden joy,     Si"

"Slow toiling upward from' the misty vale,     I leave the bright enamelled zones below;     No more for me their beauteous bloom shall glow,"

"I stood On Sarum's treeless plain,     The waste that careless Nature owns;     Lone tenants of her bleak domain,     Loomed huge and gray the"

"It is a pity and a shame - alas! alas! I know it is,     To tread the trodden grapes again, but so it has been, so it is;     The purple vintage"

"At The Dinner To The President, Boston, June 26, 1877     How to address him? awkward, it is true     Call him "Great Father," as the Red Men do?"

"The pledge of Friendship! it is still divine,     Though watery floods have quenched its burning wine;     Whatever vase the sacred drops may ho"

"We will not speak of years to-night, -     For what have years to bring     But larger floods of love and light,     And sweeter songs to sing"