The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell
Holmes, Vol. 9, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

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Title: The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vol. 9
The Iron Gate And Other Poems (1877-1881)

Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Release Date: September 30, 2004 [EBook #7396]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY OF HOLMES, VOL. 9 ***

Produced by David Widger

THE POETICAL WORKS

OF

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

[Volume 3 of the 1893 three volume set]

THE IRON GATE

AND OTHER POEMS

1877-1881

THE IRON GATE
VESTIGIA QUINQUE RETRORSUM
MY AVIARY
ON THE THRESHOLD
TO GEORGE PEABODY
AT THE PAPYRUS CLUB
FOR WHITTIER'S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY
TWO SONNETS: HARVARD
THE COMING ERA
IN RESPONSE
FOR THE MOORE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
TO JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE
WELCOME TO THE CHICAGO COMMERCIAL CLUB
AMERICAN ACADEMY CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
THE SCHOOL-BOY
THE SILENT MELODY
OUR HOME--OUR COUNTRY
POEM AT THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY DINNER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS
MEDICAL SOCIETY
RHYMES OF A LIFE-TIME

THE IRON GATE

Read at the Breakfast given in honor of Dr. Holmes's Seventieth Birthday
by the publishers of the "Atlantic Monthly," Boston, December 3, 1879.

WHERE is this patriarch you are kindly greeting?
Not unfamiliar to my ear his name,
Nor yet unknown to many a joyous meeting
In days long vanished,--is he still the same,

Or changed by years, forgotten and forgetting,
Dull-eared, dim-sighted, slow of speech and thought,
Still o'er the sad, degenerate present fretting,
Where all goes wrong, and nothing as it ought?

Old age, the graybeard! Well, indeed, I know him,--
Shrunk, tottering, bent, of aches and ills the prey;
In sermon, story, fable, picture, poem,
Oft have I met him from my earliest day.

In my old AEsop, toiling with his bundle,--
His