Earlier Poems (1830-1836)

Project Gutenberg EBook The Poetical Works of O. W. Holmes,
Volume 1. Earlier Poems (1830-1836)
#15 in our series by Oliver
Wendell Holmes, Sr.
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Title: The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes
Earlier Poems (1830-1836)
Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Release Date: January, 2005 [Etext #7388]
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0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY OF O.
W. HOLMES, V1 ***
This eBook was produced by David Widger [[email protected]
]
THE POETICAL WORKS
OF
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
1893
(Printed in three volumes)
CONTENTS
TO MY READERS
EARLIER POEMS (1830-1836).
OLD IRONSIDES
THE LAST LEAF
THE CAMBRIDGE
CHURCHYARD
TO AN INSECT
THE DILEMMA
MY
AUNT
REFLECTIONS OF A PROUD PEDESTRIAN
DAILY
TRIALS, BY A SENSITIVE MAN
EVENING, BY A TAILOR

THE DORCHESTER GIANT
TO THE PORTRAIT OF "A
LADY"
THE COMET
THE Music-GRINDERS
THE
TREADMILL SONG
THE SEPTEMBER GALE
THE
HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS
THE LAST READER

POETRY : A METRICAL ESSAY
TO MY READERS
NAY, blame me not; I might have spared
Your patience many a
trivial verse,
Yet these my earlier welcome shared,
So, let the better
shield the worse.
And some might say, "Those ruder songs
Had freshness which the

new have lost;
To spring the opening leaf belongs,
The
chestnut-burs await the frost."
When those I wrote, my locks were brown,
When these I write--ah,
well a-day!
The autumn thistle's silvery down
Is not the purple
bloom of May
Go, little book, whose pages hold
Those garnered years in loving
trust;
How long before your blue and gold
Shall fade and whiten in
the dust?
O sexton of the alcoved tomb,
Where souls in leathern cerements lie,

Tell me each living poet's doom!
How long before his book shall
die?
It matters little, soon or late,
A day, a month, a year, an age,--
I read
oblivion in its date,
And Finis on its title-page.
Before we sighed, our griefs were told;
Before we smiled, our joys
were sung;
And all our passions shaped of old
In accents lost to
mortal tongue.
In vain a fresher mould we seek,--
Can all the varied phrases tell

That Babel's wandering children speak
How thrushes sing or lilacs
smell?
Caged in the poet's lonely heart,
Love wastes unheard its tenderest
tone;
The soul that sings must dwell apart,
Its inward melodies
unknown.
Deal gently with us, ye who read
Our largest hope is unfulfilled,--

The promise still outruns the deed,--
The tower, but not the spire, we
build.
Our whitest pearl we never find;
Our ripest fruit we never reach;

The flowering moments of the mind
Drop half their petals in our

speech.
These are my blossoms; if they wear
One streak of morn or evening's
glow,
Accept them; but to me more fair
The buds of song that never
blow.
April 8, 1862.
EARLIER POEMS
1830-1836 OLD IRONSIDES
This was the popular name by which the frigate Constitution was
known. The poem was first printed in the Boston Daily
Advertiser, at
the time when it was proposed to break up the old ship as unfit for
service. I subjoin the paragraph which led to the writing of the poem. It
is from the Advertiser of Tuesday, September 14, 1830:--
"Old Ironsides.--It has been affirmed upon good authority
that the
Secretary of the Navy has recommended to the Board of Navy
Commissioners to dispose of the frigate Constitution. Since it has been
understood that such a step was in contemplation we have heard but
one opinion expressed, and that in decided
disapprobation of the
measure. Such a national object of interest, so endeared to our national
pride as Old Ironsides is, should never by any act of our government
cease to belong to the Navy, so long as our country is to be found upon
the map of nations. In England it was lately determined by the
Admiralty to