Oliver Wendell Holmes Poetry<\/p>\n
The Chambered Nautilus<\/p>\n
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
\nSails the unshadowed main,
\nThe venturous bark that flings
\nOn the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
\nIn gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
\nAnd coral reefs lie bare,
\nWhere the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.<\/p>\n
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
\nWrecked is the ship of pearl!
\nAnd every chambered cell,
\nWhere its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
\nAs the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
\nBefore thee lies revealed,
\nIts irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!<\/p>\n
Year after year beheld the silent toil
\nThat spread his lustrous coil;
\nStill, as the spiral grew,
\nHe left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
\nStole with soft steps its shining archway through,
\nBuilt up its idle door,
\nStretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.<\/p>\n
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
\nChild of the wandering sea,
\nCast from her lap, forlorn!
\nFrom thy dead lips a clearer note is born
\nThan ever Triton blew from wreath?d horn!
\nWhile on mine ear it rings,
\nThrough the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:<\/p>\n
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
\nAs the swift seasons roll!
\nLeave thy low-vaulted past!
\nLet each new temple, nobler than the last,
\nShut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
\nTill thou at length art free,
\nLeaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!<\/p>\n
Old Ironsides
\n by Oliver Wendell Holmes<\/p>\n
Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
\nLong has it waved on high,
\nAnd many an eye has danced to see
\nThat banner in the sky;
\nBeneath it rung the battle shout,
\nAnd burst the cannon’s roar;
\nThe meteor of the ocean air
\nShall sweep the clouds no more! <\/p>\n
Her deck, once red with heroes’ blood,
\nWhere knelt the vanquished foe,
\nWhen winds were hurrying o’er the flood
\nAnd waves were white below,
\nNo more shall feel the victor’s tread,
\nOr know the conquered knee;
\nThe harpies of the shore shall pluck
\nThe eagle of the sea! <\/p>\n
Oh, better that her shattered hulk
\nShould sink beneath the wave;
\nHer thunders shook the mighty deep,
\nAnd there should be her grave;
\nNail to the mast her holy flag,
\nSet every threadbare sail,
\nAnd give her to the God of storms,
\nThe lightning and the gale!<\/p>\n
The Deacons Masterpiece<\/p>\n
Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,
\nThat was built in such a logical way
\nIt ran a hundred years to a day,
\nAnd then, of a sudden, it – ah, but stay,
\nAnd I’ll tell you what happened without delay,
\nScaring the parson into fits,
\nFrightening people out of their wits,
\nHave you ever heard of that, I say?<\/p>\n
Seventeen hundred and fifty-five,
\nGeorgius Secundus was then alive,<\/p>\n
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
\nThat was the year when Lisbon-town
\nSaw the earth open and gulp her down,
\nAnd Braddock’s army was done so brown,
\nLeft without a scalp to its crown.
\nIt was on the terrible Earthquake-day
\nThat the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.<\/p>\n
Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,
\nThere is always somewhere a weaker spot,
\nIn hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
\nIn panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
\nIn screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, – lurking still,
\nFind it somewhere you must and will,
\nAbove or below, or within or without, <\/p>\n
And that’s the reason, beyond a doubt,
\nA chaise breaks down, but doesn’t wear out. <\/p>\n
But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do),
\nWith an “I dew vum,” or an “I tell yeou,”
\nHe would build one shay to beat the taown
\n‘N’ the keounty ‘n’ all the kentry raoun’;
\nIt should be so built that it couldn’ break daown:
\n“Fur,” said the Deacon, “‘t ‘s mighty plain
\nThut the weakes’ place mus’ stan’ the strain;
\n‘N’ the way t’ fix it, uz I maintain,
\nIs only jest
\nT’ make that place uz strong uz the rest.”<\/p>\n
So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
\nWhere he could find the strongest oak,
\nThat couldn’t be split nor bent nor broke,
\nThat was for spokes and floor and sills;
\nHe sent for lancewood to make the thills;
\nThe crossbars were ash, from the strightest trees,
\nThe panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,
\nBut lasts like iron for things like these;
\nThe hubs of logs from the “Settler’s ellum,”
\nLast of its timber,–they couldn’t sell ’em,
\nNever an axe had seen their chips,
\nAnd the wedges flew from between their lips,
\nTheir blunt ends frizzled like celery tips;
\nStep and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
\nSpring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
\nSteel of the finest, bright and blue;
\nThoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;
\nBoot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
\nFound in the pit when the tanner died.
\nThat was the way he “put her through.”
\n“There!” said the Deacon, “naow she’ll dew!”<\/p>\n
Do! I tell you, I rather guess
\nShe was a wonder, and nothing less!
\nColts grew horses, beards turned gray,
\nDeacon and Deaconess dropped away,
\nChildren and grandchildren – where were they?
\nBut there stood the stout old-one-hoss shay
\nAs fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!<\/p>\n
Eighteen Hundred; it came and found
\nThe Deacon’s masterpiece strong and sound.
\nEighteen hundred increased by ten;–
\n“Hahnsum kerridge” they called it then.
\nEighteen hundred and twenty came;–
\nRunning as usual; much the same.
\nThirty and forty at last arrive,
\nAnd then came fifty, and Fifty-five<\/p>\n
Little of all we value here
\nWakes on the morn of its hundredth year
\nWithout both feeling and looking queer.
\nIn fact, there’s nothing that keeps its youth,
\nSo far as I know, but a tree and truth.
\n(This as a moral that runs at large;
\nTake it, – You’re welcome. – No extra charge.)<\/p>\n
First of November – the-Earthquake-day,
\nThere are traces of age in the one-hoss-shay,
\nA general flavor of mild decay,
\nBut nothing local, as one may say.
\nThere couldn’t be, – for the Deacon’s art
\nHad made it so like in every part
\nThat there wasn’t a chance for one to start.
\nFor the wheels were just as strong as the thills,
\nAnd the floor was just as strong as the sills,
\nAnd the panels just as strong as the floor,
\nAnd the whipple-tree neither less nor more,
\nAnd spring and axle and hub encore,
\nAnd yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt
\nIn another hour it will be worn out! <\/p>\n
First of November, ‘Fifty-five!
\nThis morning the parson takes a drive.
\nNow, small boys, get out of the way!
\nHere comes the wonderful one-hoss shay,
\nDrawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.
\n“Huddup!” said the parson. Off went they.
\nThe parson was working his Sunday text,
\nHad got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
\nAt what the – Moses – was coming next.
\nAll at once the horse stood still,
\nClose by the meet’n’-house on the hill.
\nFirst a shiver, and then a thrill,
\nThen something decidedly like a spill,
\nAnd the parson was sitting up on a rock,
\nAt half-past nine by the meet’n’-house clock,
\nJust the hour of the Earthquake shock!
\nWhat do you think the parson found,
\nWhen he got up and stared around?
\nThe poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
\nAs if it had been to the mill and ground!
\nYou see, of course, if you’re not a dunce,
\nHow it went to pieces all at once,
\nAll at once, and nothing first,
\nJust as bubbles do when they burst.<\/p>\n
End of the wonderful one-hoss shay,
\nLogic is logic. That’s all I say.<\/p>\n
My Aunt
\nBy Oliver Wendell Holmes 1831<\/p>\n
My aunt! my dear unmarried aunt!
\nLong years have o’er her flown;
\nYet still she strains the aching clasp
\nThat binds her virgin zone;
\nI know it hurts her,– though she looks
\nAs cheerful as she can;
\nHer waist is ampler than her life,
\nFor life is but a span.
\nMy aunt! my poor deluded aunt!
\nHer hair is almost gray;
\nWhy will she train that winter curl
\nIn such a spring-like way?
\nHow can she lay her glasses down,
\nAnd say she reads as well,
\nWhen through a double convex lens
\nShe just makes out to spell?<\/p>\n
Her father– grandpapa! forgive
\nThis erring lip its smiles–
\nVowed she should make the finest girl
\nWithin a hundred miles;
\nHe sent her to a stylish school
\n‘T was in her thirteenth June;
\nAnd with her, as the rules required,
\n“Two towels and a spoon.”<\/p>\n
They braced my aunt against a board,
\nTo make her straight and tall;
\nThey laced her up, they starved her down,
\nTo make her light and small;
\nThey pinched her feet, they singed her hair,
\nThey screwed it up with pins ;–
\nOh, never mortal suffered more
\nIn penance for her sins.<\/p>\n
So, when my precious aunt was done,
\nMy grandsire brought her back
\n(By daylight, lest some rabid youth
\nMight follow on the track;)
\n“Ah!” said my grandsire, as he shook
\nSome powder in his pan,
\n“What could this lovely creature do
\nAgainst a desperate man!”<\/p>\n
Alas! nor chariot, nor barouche,
\nNor bandit cavalcade,
\nTore from the trembling father’s arms
\nHis all-accomplished maid.
\nFor her how happy had it been!
\nAnd Heaven had spared to me
\nTo see one sad, ungathered rose
\nOn my ancestral tree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Oliver Wendell Holmes Poetry<\/p>\n