Poetry of Oliver Wendell Holmes | Page 3

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 cut the Victory, a one-hundred gun ship (which it will be
recollected bore the flag of Lord Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar,)
down to a seventy-four, but so loud were the lamentations of the people
upon the proposed measure that the intention was abandoned. We

confidently anticipate that the Secretary of the Navy will in like manner
consult the general wish in regard to the Constitution, and either let her
remain in ordinary or rebuild her whenever the public service may
require."--New York Journal of Commerce.
The poem was an impromptu outburst of feeling and was published on
the next day but one after reading the above paragraph.
AY, tear her tattered ensign down
Long has it waved on high,
And
many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it
rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon's roar;--
The meteor of

the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more.
Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished
foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves were
white below,
No more shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know the
conquered knee;--
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of
the sea!
Oh better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her
thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;

Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give
her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!
THE LAST LEAF
This poem was suggested by the appearance in one of our
streets of a
venerable relic of the Revolution, said to be one of the party who threw
the tea overboard in Boston Harbor. He was a fine monumental
specimen in his cocked hat and knee
breeches, with his buckled shoes
and his sturdy cane. The smile with which I, as a young man, greeted
him, meant no disrespect to an honored fellow-citizen whose costume
was out of date, but whose patriotism never changed with years. I do
not recall any earlier example of this form of verse, which was
commended by the fastidious Edgar Allan Poe, who made a copy of the
whole poem which I have in his own handwriting. Good Abraham
Lincoln had a great liking for the poem, and repeated it from memory
to Governor Andrew, as the governor himself told me.
I SAW him once before,
As he passed by the door,
And again
The
pavement stones resound,
As he totters o'er the ground
With his
cane.
They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife