Oliver Wendell Holmes
First Lines
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!
"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
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 the curl of his waving lash,
I sometimes sit beneath a tree,
I wrote some lines once on a time
I'm not a chicken; I have seen
If sometimes in the dark blue eye,
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
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 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,
When rose the cry "Great Pan is dead!"
Where is this patriarch you are kindly greeting?
Where, O where are the visions of morning,
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