Oliver Wendell Holmes

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Aug 29, 1809 - Oct 7, 1894

 

Last Lines of Oliver Wendell Holmes

A button in the hat!A mother's secret hope outlives them all.A treadmill of my own!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 dangle from the beam!And not the hand that bore itAnd now they keep an oyster-shop for mermaids down below.And pay for the punch beside.And sank in the stormy tide.And sweet shall be thy sleep!And the best of old -- water -- at nothing a glass.And warm their hearts with sunbeams yet unspent!As funny as I can.As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven!But in their graves.But join two altars both in one.Cry, All Right! DE SAUTY.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!God bless our Yankee girls!HERE WAS THE PILGRIM'S LAND!Hic jacet Joe. Hic jacet Bill.His throat is swelling with baffled love.Hushed up among one's friends!I saw her wipe a tear.In fact with nothing bird-like but my quill.In sadness to her wounded tree.It mocked them when they sighed.It was the butcher man.I've seen that face before.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.May cost thee, too, a sigh.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 love, or song, or wine!Of simple tastes and mind content!On my ancestral tree.One to the Peaceful Sea!Or scare the wild bird from her sleep.Or some sweet angel; likest thee!Or swell some bonfire's crackling pile.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!Shall hear what Katy did.Shall never wake in day!Thanks, Brothers, Sisters -- Children -- and farewell!That belt the soil of slaves!That breathes in accents sweet to me alone.That frightful tale to tell.That wears for us the sweetest smile.That, -- in short, that's why I'm grandma, and you children are all here!The British found so rough!The lightning and the gale!The paths they swept of old!The self-stung reptile writhed and died!The starry FLOWER OF LIBERTY!The wreaths of Père-la-Chaise!Through a second youth of a hundred years.Till the last pebble is dry.To Aphrodite's fan-tailed pigeon.Were interchanging cards!When the last reader reads no more!Where I can coil them in their wonted fashion.Where I cling.Will play the tune as He shall please.With the tandem that nature gave me!With urns and cherubs o'er thee!Your noble Robin Hood