A Roman Aqueduct
THE sun-browned girl, whose limbs recline
When noon her languid hand has laid
Hot on the green flakes of the pine,
Beneath its narrow disk of shade;
As, through the flickering noontide glare,
She gazes on the rainbow chain
Of arches, lifting once in air
The rivers of the Roman's plain;--
Say, does her wandering eye recall
The mountain-current's icy wave,--
Or for the dead one tear let fall,
Whose founts are broken by their grave?
From stone to stone the ivy weaves
Her braided tracery's winding veil,
And lacing stalks and tangled leaves
Nod heavy in the drowsy gale.
[...] Read more
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Prelude To A Volume Printed In Raised Letters For The Blind
DEAR friends, left darkling in the long eclipse
That veils the noonday,--you whose finger-tips
A meaning in these ridgy leaves can find
Where ours go stumbling, senseless, helpless, blind.
This wreath of verse how dare I offer you
To whom the garden's choicest gifts are due?
The hues of all its glowing beds are ours,
Shall you not claim its sweetest-smelling flowers?
Nay, those I have I bring you,--at their birth
Life's cheerful sunshine warmed the grateful earth;
If my rash boyhood dropped some idle seeds,
And here and there you light on saucy weeds
Among the fairer growths, remember still
Song comes of grace, and not of human will:
We get a jarring note when most we try,
Then strike the chord we know not how or why;
Our stately verse with too aspiring art
Oft overshoots and fails to reach the heart,
While the rude rhyme one human throb endears
[...] Read more
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Song. For a Temperance Dinner
For a Temperance dinner to which ladies were
Invited (new York Mercantile library Association,
November, 1842)
A health to dear woman! She bids us untwine,
From the cup it encircles, the fast-clinging vine;
But her cheek in its crystal with pleasure will glow,
And mirror its bloom in the bright wave below.
A health to sweet woman! The days are no more
When she watched for her lord till the revel was o’er,
And smoothed the white pillow, and blushed when he came,
As she pressed her cold lips on his forehead of flame.
Alas for the loved one! too spotless and fair
The joys of his banquet to chasten and share;
Her eye lost its light that his goblet might shine,
And the rose of her cheek was dissolved in his wine.
[...] Read more
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
St. Anthony The Reformer
HIS TEMPTATION
No fear lest praise should make us proud!
We know how cheaply that is won;
The idle homage of the crowd
Is proof of tasks as idly done.
A surface-smile may pay the toil
That follows still the conquering Right,
With soft, white hands to dress the spoil
That sun-browned valor clutched in fight.
Sing the sweet song of other days,
Serenely placid, safely true,
And o'er the present's parching ways
The verse distils like evening dew.
But speak in words of living power,--
They fall like drops of scalding rain
That plashed before the burning shower
[...] Read more
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
A Noontide Lyric
THE dinner-bell, the dinner-bell
Is ringing loud and clear;
Through hill and plain, through street and lane,
It echoes far and near;
From curtained hall and whitewashed stall,
Wherever men can hide,
Like bursting waves from ocean caves,
They float upon the tide.
I smell the smell of roasted meat!
I hear the hissing fry
The beggars know where they can go,
But where, oh where shall I?
At twelve o'clock men took my hand,
At two they only stare,
And eye me with a fearful look,
As if I were a bear!
The poet lays his laurels down,
And hastens to his greens;
[...] Read more
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
One Country
ONE country! Treason's writhing asp
Struck madly at her girdle's clasp,
And Hatred wrenched with might and main
To rend its welded links in twain,
While Mammon hugged his golden calf
Content to take one broken half,
While thankless churls stood idly by
And heard unmoved a nation's cry!
One country! 'Nay,'--the tyrant crew
Shrieked from their dens,--'it shall be two!
Ill bodes to us this monstrous birth,
That scowls on all the thrones of earth,
Too broad yon starry cluster shines,
Too proudly tower the New-World pines,
Tear down the 'banner of the free,'
And cleave their land from sea to sea!'
One country still, though foe and 'friend'
Our seamless empire strove to rend;
[...] Read more
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Last Charge
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 spite,--
One blow on his forehead will settle the fight!
Flash full in his eyes the blue lightning of steel,
And stun him with cannon-bolts, peal upon peal!
Mount, troopers, and follow your game to its lair,
As the hound tracks the wolf and the beagle the hare!
Blow, trumpets, your summons, till sluggards awake!
Beat, drums, till the roofs of the faint-hearted shake!
Yet, yet, ere the signet is stamped on the scroll,
Their names may be traced on the blood-sprinkled roll!
Trust not the false herald that painted your shield
True honor to-day must be sought on the field!
Her scutcheon shows white with a blazon of red,--
The life-drops of crimson for liberty shed.
[...] Read more
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
What I Have Come For
I HAVE come with my verses--I think I may claim
It is not the first time I have tried on the same.
They were puckered in rhyme, they were wrinkled in wit;
But your hearts were so large that they made them a fit.
I have come--not to tease you with more of my rhyme,
But to feel as I did in the blessed old time;
I want to hear him with the Brobdingnag laugh--
We count him at least as three men and a half.
I have come to meet judges so wise and so grand
That I shake in my shoes while they're shaking my hand;
And the prince among merchants who put back the crown
When they tried to enthrone him the King of the Town.
I have come to see George--Yes, I think there are four,
If they all were like these I could wish there were more.
I have come to see one whom we used to call 'Jim,'
I want to see--oh, don't I want to see him?
[...] Read more
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Farewell To J. R. Lowell
FAREWELL, for the bark has her breast to the tide,
And the rough arms of Ocean are stretched for his bride;
The winds from the mountain stream over the bay;
One clasp of the hand, then away and away!
I see the tall mast as it rocks by the shore;
The sun is declining, I see it once more;
To-day like the blade in a thick-waving field,
To-morrow the spike on a Highlander's shield.
Alone, while the cloud pours its treacherous breath,
With the blue lips all round her whose kisses are death;
Ah, think not the breeze that is urging her sail
Has left her unaided to strive with the gale.
There are hopes that play round her, like fires on the mast,
That will light the dark hour till its danger has past;
There are prayers that will plead with the storm when it raves,
And whisper 'Be still!' to the turbulent waves.
[...] Read more
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Hudson
AFTER A LECTURE AT ALBANY
'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 when the shadows grew long,
And the mother's soft lullaby breathed it in song.
'There flows a fair stream by the hills of the West,'--
She sang to her boy as he lay on her breast;
'Along its smooth margin thy fathers have played;
Beside its deep waters their ashes are laid.'
I wandered afar from the land of my birth,
I saw the old rivers, renowned upon earth,
But fancy still painted that wide-flowing stream
With the many-hued pencil of infancy's dream.
I saw the green banks of the castle-crowned Rhine,
Where the grapes drink the moonlight and change it to wine;
I stood by the Avon, whose waves as they glide
[...] Read more
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!