Poems From The Breakfast Table

Project Gutenberg EBook The Poetical Works of O. W. Holmes, Volume 6. Poems From The Breakfast Table Series?#20 in our series by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
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Title: The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Volume 6.
Poems From The Breakfast Table Series
Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Release Date: January, 2005 [Etext #7393]?[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]?[Most recently updated: April 22, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
? START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY OF O. W. HOLMES, V6 ***
This eBook was produced by David Widger [[email protected] ]
THE POETICAL WORKS
OF
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
1893
(Printed in three volumes)
CONTENTS:
POEMS FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE (1857-1858)
THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS?SUN AND SHADOW?MUSA?A PARTING HEALTH: To J. L. MOTLEY?WHAT WE ALL THINK?SPRING HAS COME?PROLOGUE?LATTER-DAY WARNINGS?ALBUM VERSES?A GOOD TIME GOING!?THE LAST BLOSSOM?CONTENTMENT?AESTIVATION?THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE ; OR, THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSE SHAY " PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY ; OR, THE PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR ODE FOR A SOCIAL MEETING, WITH SLIGHT ALTERATIONS BY A TEETOTALER
POEMS FROM THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE (1858-1859)
UNDER THE VIOLETS?HYMN OF TRUST?A SUN-DAY HYMN?THE CROOKED FOOTPATH?IRIS, HER BOOK?ROBINSON OF LEYDEN?ST ANTHONY THE REFORMER?THE OPENING OF THE PIANO?MIDSUMMER?DE SAUTY
POEMS FROM THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE (1871-1872)
HOMESICK IN HEAVEN?FANTASIA?AUNT TABITHA?WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS?EPILOGUE TO THE BREAKFAST-TABLE SERIES
POEMS FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE
1857-1858
THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS
THIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,?Sails the unshadowed main,--?The venturous bark that flings?On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings?In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,?And coral reefs lie bare,?Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;?Wrecked is the ship of pearl!?And every chambered cell,?Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,?As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,?Before thee lies revealed,--?Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!
Year after year beheld the silent toil?That spread his lustrous coil;?Still, as the spiral grew,?He left the past year's dwelling for the new,?Stole with soft step its shining archway through,?Built up its idle door,?Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,?Child of the wandering sea,?Cast from her lap, forlorn!?From thy dead lips a clearer note is born?Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn?While on mine ear it rings,?Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:--
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,?As the swift seasons roll!?Leave thy low-vaulted past!?Let each new temple, nobler than the last,?Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,?Till thou at length art free,?Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
SUN AND SHADOW
As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green,?To the billows of foam-crested blue,?Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen,?Half dreaming, my eyes will pursue?Now dark in the shadow, she scatters the spray?As the chaff in the stroke of the flail;?Now white as the sea-gull, she flies on her way,?The sun gleaming bright on her sail.
Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun,--?Of breakers that whiten and roar;?How little he cares, if in shadow or sun?They see him who gaze from the shore!?He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef,?To the rock that is under his lee,?As he drifts on the blast, like a wind-wafted leaf,?O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea.
Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves?Where life and its ventures are laid,?The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves?May see us in sunshine or shade;?Yet true to our course, though the shadows grow dark,?We'll trim our broad sail as before,?And stand by the rudder that governs the bark,?Nor ask how we look from the shore!
MUSA
O MY lost beauty!--hast thou folded quite?Thy wings of morning light?Beyond those iron gates?Where Life crowds hurrying to