Oliver Wendell Holmes Poems

I STOOD On Sarum's treeless plain,
The waste that careless Nature owns;
Lone tenants of her bleak domain,
Loomed huge and gray the Druid stones.
...

HE sleeps not here; in hope and prayer
His wandering flock had gone before,
But he, the shepherd, might not share
...

WHILE in my simple gospel creed
That 'God is Love' so plain I read,
Shall dreams of heathen birth affright
My pathway through the coming night?
...

THE painter's and the poet's fame
Shed their twinned lustre round his name,
To gild our story-teller's art,
...

WE sing 'Our Country's' song to-night
With saddened voice and eye;
Her banner droops in clouded light
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O MY lost beauty!--hast thou folded quite
Thy wings of morning light
Beyond those iron gates
Where Life crowds hurrying to the haggard Fates,
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WHY linger round the sunken wrecks
Where old Armadas found their graves?
Why slumber on the sleepy decks
While foam and clash the angry waves?
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You bid me sing,--can I forget
The classic ode of days gone by,--
How belle Fifine and jeune Lisette
Exclaimed, 'Anacreon, geron ei'?
...

THE Play is over. While the light
Yet lingers in the darkening hall,
I come to say a last Good-night
Before the final _Exeunt all_.
...

THE house was crammed from roof to floor,
Heads piled on heads at every door;
Half dead with August's seething heat
...