Poems by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Download PDF

American Literature – American Poetry – Oliver Wendell Holmes – Poems by Oliver Wendell Holmes
< < <
> > >

Poems by Oliver Wendell Holmes

A Ballad of the Boston Tea-Party (1874)
No! never such a draught was poured
Since Hebe served with nectar
The bright Olympians and their Lord, … Continue Reading …

A Birthday Tribute (1860)
Who is the shepherd sent to lead,
Through pastures green, the Master’s sheep?
What guileless “Israelite indeed” … Continue Reading …

A Sun-Day Hymn
Lord of all being! throned afar,
Thy glory flames from sun and star;
Centre and soul of every sphere, … Continue Reading …

A Toast to Wilkie Collins (1874)
The painter’s and the poet’s fame
Shed their twinned lustre round his name,
To gild our story-teller’s art, … Continue Reading …

A Vision of the Housatonic (1855)
Come, spread your wings as I spread mine,
And leave the crowded hall
For where the eyes of twilight shine … Continue Reading …

After the Curfew (1889)
The Play is over. While the light
Yet lingers in the darkening hall,
I come to say a last Good-night … Continue Reading …

An After-Dinner Poem (1843)
In narrowist girdle, O reluctant Muse,
In closest frock and Cinderella shoes,
Bound to the foot-lights for thy brief display, … Continue Reading …

Angel of Peace (1869)
Angel of peace thou hast wandered too long; … Continue Reading …

At a Birthday Festival (1859)
We will not speak of years to-night,—
For what have years to bring
But larger floods of love and light, … Continue Reading …

At a Meeting of Friends (1859)
I remember — why, yes! God bless me! and was it so long ago?
I fear I’m growing forgetful, as old folks do, you know;
It must have been in ‘forty — I would say ‘thirty-nine — … Continue Reading …

At the Saturday Club (1888)
This is our place of meeting; opposite
That towered and pillared building: look at it;
King’s Chapel in the Second George’s day, … Continue Reading …

Cacoethes Scribendi
If all the trees in all the woods were men;
And each and every blade of grass a pen;
If every leaf on every shrub and tree … Continue Reading …

Contentment (1858)
Little I ask; my wants are few;
I only wish a hut of stone,
(A very plain brown stone will do,) … Continue Reading …

Daily Trials by a Sensitive Man (1830)
Oh, there are times
When all this fret and tumult that we hear
Do seem more stale than to the sexton’s ear … Continue Reading …

Departed Days (1840)
Yes, dear departed, cherished days,
Could Memory’s hand restore
Your morning light, your evening rays, … Continue Reading …

Dorothy Q (1874)
Grandmother’s mother: her age, I guess,
Thirteen summers, or something less;
Girlish bust, but womanly air; … Continue Reading …

Edward Everett: Our First Citizen (1865)
Winter’s cold drift lies glistening o’er his breast;
For him no spring shall bid the leaf unfold:
What Love could speak, by sudden grief oppressed, … Continue Reading …

Farewell to J. R. Lowell (1855)
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; … Continue Reading …

For the Services in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (1865)
O thou of soul and sense and breath
The ever-present Giver,
Unto thy mighty Angel, Death, … Continue Reading …

God Save The Flag! (1865)
Washed in the blood of the brave and the blooming,
Snatched from the altars of insolent foes,
Burning with star-fires, but never consuming, … Continue Reading …

Grandmother’s Story of Bunker Hill Battle (1874)
’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;” … Continue Reading …

For Whittier’s Seventieth Birthday (1877)
I believe that the copies of verse I’ve spun,
Like Scheherezade’s tales, are a thousand and one;
You remember the story,—those mornings in bed,— … Continue Reading …

Francis Parkman (1893)
He rests from toil; the portals of the tomb
Close on the last of those unwearying hands
That wove their pictured webs in History’s loom, … Continue Reading …

Harvard (1880)
Changeless in beauty, rose-hues on her cheek,
Old walls, old trees, old memories all around
Lend her unfading youth their charm antique … Continue Reading …

Hymn at the Funeral Services of Charles Sumner (1874)
Once more, ye sacred towers,
Your solemn dirges sound;
Strew, loving hands, the April flowers, … Continue Reading …

In Memory of J. W.—R. W. (1864)
No mystic charm, no mortal art
Can bid our loved companions stay;
The bands that clasp them to our heart … Continue Reading …

In Memory of John Greenleaf Whittier (1892)
Thou, too, hast left us. While with heads bowed low,
And sorrowing hearts, we mourned our summer’s dead,
The flying season bent its Parthian bow, … Continue Reading …

International Ode (1860)
God bless our Fathers’ Land!
Keep her in heart and hand
One with our own! … Continue Reading …

James Russell Lowell (1891)
Thou shouldst have sung the swan-song for the choir
That filled our groves with music till the day
Lit the last hilltop with its reddening fire, … Continue Reading …

Joseph Warren, M. D. (1875)
Trained in the holy art whose lifted shield
Wards off the darts a never-slumbering foe,
By hearth and wayside lurking, waits to throw, … Continue Reading …

Lord of All Being
Lord of all be – ing! throned a far. Thy glo – ry
flames in sun and star; Cen – tre and soul of
ev – ‘ry sphere, Yet to each lov – ing heart how near! … Continue Reading …

My Annual (1866)
HOW long will this harp which you once loved to hear
Cheat your lips of a smile or your eyes of a tear?
How long stir the echoes it wakened of old, … Continue Reading …

Never or Now (1862)
Listen, young heroes! your country is calling!
Time strikes the hour for the brave and the true!
Now, while the foremost are fighting and falling, … Continue Reading …

No Time Like the Old Time (1865)
There is no time like the old time, when you and I were young,
When the buds of April blossomed, and the birds of spring-time sung! … Continue Reading …

O Lord of Hosts, Almighty King (1861)
O Lord of hosts, Almighty King
Wake in our breasts the living fires,
Be thou a pillared flame to show … Continue Reading …

Ode for Washington’s Birthday (1856)
Welcome to the day returning,
Dearer still as ages flow,
While the torch of Faith is burning, … Continue Reading …

Old Cambridge (1875)
And can it be you’ve found a place
Within this consecrated space,
Which makes so fine a show, … Continue Reading …

Old Ironsides (1830)
Ay, tear the tat – tered en – sign down! Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see That ban – ner in the sky;
Be – neath it rung the bat – tle shout, And burst the can – non’s roar;— … Continue Reading …

Opening the Window (1875)
Thus I lift the sash, so long
Shut against the flight of song;
All too late for vain excuse,— … Continue Reading …

Our Dead Singer (1888)
Pride of the sister realm so long our own,
We claim with her that spotless fame of thine,
White as her snow and fragrant as her pine! … Continue Reading …

Poem at the Dedication of the Halleck Monument (1869)
Say not the Poet dies!
Though in the dust he lies,
He cannot forfeit his melodious breath, … Continue Reading …

Questions and Answers (1852)
Where, oh where are the visions of morning,
Fresh as the dews of our prime?
Gone, like tenants that quit without warning, … Continue Reading …

The Chambered Nautilus (1858)
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,—
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings … Continue Reading …

The Deacon’s Masterpiece or, the Wonderful “One-hoss Shay”: A Logical Story (1858)
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, … Continue Reading …

The Flâneur (1882)
I love all sights of earth and skies,
From flowers that glow to stars that shine;
The comet and the penny show, … Continue Reading …

The Flower of Liberty
. What flow’r is this that greets the morn, Its hues from heav’n so
fresh -ly born? With burn – ing star and flam – ing band It … Continue Reading …

The Girdle of Friendship (1884)
She gathered at her slender waist
The beauteous robe she wore;
Its folds a golden belt embraced, … Continue Reading …

The Height of the Ridiculous
I wrote some lines once on a time
In wondrous merry mood,
And though, as usual, men would say … Continue Reading …

The Katydid
O tell me where did Katy live … Continue Reading …

The Last Leaf (1831)
I saw him once before,
As he passed by the door,
And again … Continue Reading …

The Last Look (1858)
Behold—not him we knew!
This was the prison which his soul looked through,
Tender, and brave, and true. … Continue Reading …

The Last Reader
I sometimes sit beneath a tree
And read my own sweet songs;
Though naught they may to others be, … Continue Reading …

The Living Temple (1858)
Not in the world of light alone,
Where God has built his blazing throne,
Nor yet alone in earth below, … Continue Reading …

The Mind’s Diet (1850)
No life worth naming ever comes to good
If always nourished on the selfsame food;
The creeping mite may live so if he please, … Continue Reading …

The Music Grinders (1836)
There are three ways in which men take
One’s money from his purse,
And very hard it is to tell … Continue Reading …

The Parting Song (1857)
The noon of summer sheds its ray
On Harvard’s holy ground;
The Matron calls, the sons obey, … Continue Reading …

The Rose and the Fern (1890)
Lady, life’s sweetest lesson wouldst thou learn,
Come thou with me to Love’s enchanted bower;
High overhead the trellised roses burn; … Continue Reading …

The September Gale (1909)
I’m not a chicken: I have seen
Full many a chill September;
And though I was a youngster then, … Continue Reading …

The Steamboat (1840)
See how yon flaming herald treads
The ridged and rolling waves,
As, crashing o’er their crested heads, … Continue Reading …

The Stethoscope Song (1848)
There was a young man in Boston town,
He bought him a stethoscope nice and new,
All mounted and finished and polished down, … Continue Reading …

The Sweet Little Man
All the brave boys un – der can – vas are sleep – ing.
All of them press -ing to march with the van,
Far from the home where their sweet-hearts are weep – ing; … Continue Reading …

The Treadmill Song
The stars are rolling in the sky,
The earth rolls on below,
And we can feel the rattling wheel … Continue Reading …

The Two Armies (1858)
As Life’s unending column pours,
Two marshalled hosts are seen,—
Two armies on the trampled shores … Continue Reading …

The Two Streams (1859)
Behold the rocky wall
That down its sloping sides
Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall, … Continue Reading …

The Voiceless (1858)
We count the broken lyres that rest
Where the sweet wailing singers slumber,—
But o’er their silent sister’s breast … Continue Reading …

To a Blank Sheet of Paper (1830)
Wan-visaged thing! thy virgin leaf
To me looks more than deadly pale,
Unknowing what may stain thee yet,— … Continue Reading …

To an English Friend (1852)
The seed that wasteful autumn cast
To waver on its stormy blast,
Long o’er the wintry desert tost, … Continue Reading …

To an Insect (1831)
I love to hear thine earnest voice,
Wherever thou art hid,
Thou testy little dogmatist, … Continue Reading …

To H. W. Longfellow (1868)
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 … Continue Reading …

To James Freeman Clarke (1880)
I bring the simplest pledge of love,
Friend of my earlier days;
Mine is the hand without the glove, … Continue Reading …

To My Readers (1862)
Nay, blame me not; I might have spared
Your patience many a trivial verse,
Yet these my earlier welcome shared, … Continue Reading …

To the Poets Who Only Read and Listen (1888)
When evening’s shadowy fingers fold
The flowers of every hue,
Some shy, half-opened bud will holds … Continue Reading …

To the Teachers of America (1893)
Teachers of teachers! Yours the task,
Noblest that noble minds can ask,
High up Aonia’s murmurous mount, … Continue Reading …

Under the Violets (1859)
Her hands are cold; her face is white;
No more her pulse come and go;
Her eyes are shut to life and light;— … Continue Reading …

Under the Washington Elm, Cambridge (1861)
Eighty years have passed, and more,
Since under the brave old tree
Our fathers gathered in arms, and swore … Continue Reading …

Union and Liberty (1861)
Flag of the heroes who left us their glory,
Borne through their battle-fields’ thunder and flame,
Blazoned in song and illumined in story, … Continue Reading …

Youth (1882)
Why linger round the sunken wrecks
Where old Armadas found their graves?
Why slumber on the sleepy decks … Continue Reading …

< < <
> > >

American Literature – American Poetry – Oliver Wendell Holmes – Poems by Oliver Wendell Holmes

If you liked this article, subscribe , put likes, write comments!

Share on social networks

Visit us on Facebook or Twitter

Check out Our Latest Posts

Poems by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Leave a comment Cancel reply