The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell
Holmes, Vol. 1, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
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Title: The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vol. 1
Earlier Poems (1830-1836)
Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Release Date: September 30, 2004 [EBook #7388]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOLMES POETRY, VOL. 1 ***
Produced by David Widger
THE POETICAL WORKS
OF
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
[1893 three volume set]
CONTENTS:
TO MY READERS
EARLIER POEMS (1830-1836).
OLD IRONSIDES
THE LAST LEAF
THE CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD
TO AN INSECT
THE DILEMMA
MY AUNT
REFLECTIONS OF A PROUD PEDESTRIAN
DAILY TRIALS, BY A SENSITIVE MAN
EVENING, BY A TAILOR
THE DORCHESTER GIANT
TO THE PORTRAIT OF "A LADY"
THE COMET
THE Music-GRINDERS
THE TREADMILL SONG
THE SEPTEMBER GALE
THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS
THE LAST READER
POETRY: A METRICAL ESSAY
TO MY READERS
NAY, blame me not; I might have spared
Your patience many a trivial verse,
Yet these my earlier welcome shared,
So, let the better shield the worse.
And some might say, "Those ruder songs
Had freshness which the new have lost;
To spring the opening leaf belongs,
The chestnut-burs await the frost."
When those I wrote, my locks were brown,
When these I write--ah, well a-day!
The autumn thistle's silvery down
Is not the purple bloom of May.
Go, little book, whose pages hold
Those garnered years in loving trust;
How long before your blue and gold
Shall fade and whiten in the dust?
O sexton of the alcoved tomb,
Where souls in leathern cerements lie,
Tell me each living poet's doom!
How long before his book shall die?
It matters little, soon or late,
A day, a month, a year, an age,--
I read oblivion in its date,
And Finis on its title-page.
Before we sighed, our griefs were told;
Before we smiled, our joys were sung;
And all our passions shaped of old
In accents lost to mortal to
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