Oliver Wendell Holmes
Last Lines
A mother's secret hope outlives them all.
And all the unclouded blue of heaven is thine!
And be sure that he'll have it on you!
And cheer the wakening nations!
And now they keep an oyster-shop for mermaids down below.
And the best of old -- water -- at nothing a glass.
And warm their hearts with sunbeams yet unspent!
As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven!
But join two altars both in one.
Day breaks, -- and where are we?
Falls on the arches of her pride!
Floats the fair emblem her heroes have won.
Forget, despise, but not reveal!
Hic jacet Joe. Hic jacet Bill.
His throat is swelling with baffled love.
Hushed up among one's friends!
In fact with nothing bird-like but my quill.
In sadness to her wounded tree.
It mocked them when they sighed.
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
Lies withered where the violets blow.
Living and dying, Thou art near!
Logic is logic. That's all I say.
May bless thee when those chords are still.
Must bow thy savage strength, the mockery of a child!
My loved, my long-lost breeches!
Nor ask how we look from the shore!
Of simple tastes and mind content!
Or some sweet angel; likest thee!
Our fingers sweep the stringless lyre!
Remember the pathway that leads to our door!
Sealed how often, Love, as now,
Shall be this flattering lay of mine!
Thanks, Brothers, Sisters -- Children -- and farewell!
That breathes in accents sweet to me alone.
That wears for us the sweetest smile.
That, -- in short, that's why I'm grandma, and you children are all here!
The self-stung reptile writhed and died!
The sun is fading in the skies
The wreaths of Père-la-Chaise!
Through a second youth of a hundred years.
To Aphrodite's fan-tailed pigeon.
When the last reader reads no more!
Where I can coil them in their wonted fashion.
Will play the tune as He shall please.
With the tandem that nature gave me!
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