Oliver Wendell Holmes

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Aug 29, 1809 - Oct 7, 1894

 

First Lines of Oliver Wendell Holmes

A still, sweet, placid, moonlight face,Ah Clemence! when I saw thee lastAs I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green,Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!Behold the rocky wallBring me my broken harp, he said;Come back to your mother, ye children, for shame,Come, dear old comrade, you and IDay hath put on his jacket, and aroundDearest, a look is but a rayDevoutest of my Sunday friends,Do you know the Old Man of the Sea, of the Sea?Full well I know the frozen hand has comeGrandmother'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 unblamedI 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 timeIf sometimes in the dark blue eye,I'm not a chicken; I have seenIn the hour of twilight shadowsIs thy name Mary, maiden fair?It may be so, -- perhaps thou hastIt 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 armsMy aunt! my dear unmarried aunt!No more the summer floweret charms,No! never such a draught was pouredNow, by the blessed Paphian queen,O Love Divine, that stooped to shareO there are timesOh! I did love her dearly,Poor conquered monarch! though that haughty glanceQui Vive! The sentry's musket rings,See how yon flaming herald treadsShe 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 toneSweet Mary, I have never breathed'T Is like stirring living embers when, at eighty, one remembersTell me, O Provincial! speak, Ceruleo-Nasal!The Comet! He is on his way,The dinner-bell, the dinner-bellThe folks, that on the first of MayThe stars are rolling in the sky,The sun is fading in the skiesThe sun stepped down from his golden throne,The sun-browned girl, whose limbs reclineThe two proud sisters of the sea,There are three ways in which men takeThere 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 leafWe count the broken lyres that restWell, 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,