Henri Rousseau Gallery Gustave Dore Gallery Michelangelo Gallery Denis Nolet Gallery Diane Romanello Gallery

First Lines of Oliver Wendell Holmes

A still, sweet, placid, moonlight face, Ah Clemence! when I saw thee last As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green, Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! Behold the rocky wall Bring me my broken harp, he said; Come back to your mother, ye children, for shame, Come, dear old comrade, you and I Day hath put on his jacket, and around Dearest, a look is but a ray Devoutest of my Sunday friends, Do you know the Old Man of the Sea, of the Sea? Full well I know the frozen hand has come Grandmother's mother: her age, I guess, Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, He died not as the martyr dies, Her hands are cold; her face is white; How sweet the sacred legend -- if unblamed I love to hear thine earnest voice, I must leave thee, lady sweet! I saw him once before, I saw the curl of his waving lash, I sometimes sit beneath a tree, I wrote some lines once on a time If sometimes in the dark blue eye, I'm not a chicken; I have seen In the hour of twilight shadows Is thy name Mary, maiden fair? It may be so, -- perhaps thou hast It was a tall young oysterman lived by the river-side, It was not many centuries since, It was the stalwart butcher man, Let greener lands and bluer skies, Little I ask; my wants are few; Mine ancient Chair! thy wide-embracing arms My aunt! my dear unmarried aunt! No more the summer floweret charms, No! never such a draught was poured Now, by the blessed Paphian queen, O Love Divine, that stooped to share O there are times Oh! I did love her dearly, Poor conquered monarch! though that haughty glance Qui Vive! The sentry's musket rings, See how yon flaming herald treads She has gone, -- she has left us in passion and pride. -- She twirled the string of golden beads, Slow toiling upward from the misty vale, Slowly the mist o'er the meadow was creeping, Strange! that one lightly-whispered tone Sweet Mary, I have never breathed 'T Is like stirring living embers when, at eighty, one remembers Tell me, O Provincial! speak, Ceruleo-Nasal! The Comet! He is on his way, The dinner-bell, the dinner-bell The folks, that on the first of May The stars are rolling in the sky, The sun stepped down from his golden throne, The sun-browned girl, whose limbs recline The two proud sisters of the sea, There are three ways in which men take There was a giant in time of old, There was a sound of hurrying feet, There's a thing that grows by the fainting flower, They bid me strike the idle strings, This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Through my north window in the wintry weather, -- Wan-visaged thing! thy virgin leaf We count the broken lyres that rest Well, Miss, I wonder where you live, What flower is this that greets the morn, What is a poet's love? -- When rose the cry Great Pan is dead! When the Puritans came over. Where is this patriarch you are kindly greeting? Where, O where are the visions of morning, Yes, dear departed, cherished days, Yes, lady! I can ne'er forget,