The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes

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Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1899 - 426 pages

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Page 157 - 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...
Page xvi - But now his nose is thin, And it rests upon his chin Like a staff, And a crook is in his back, And a melancholy crack In his laugh. I know it is a sin For me to sit and grin At him here ; But the old three-cornered hat, And the breeches, and all that, Are so queer...
Page 165 - I always thought cold victual nice; — My choice would be vanilla-ice. I care not much for gold or land; — Give me a mortgage here and there, — Some good bank-stock, some note of hand, Or trifling railroad share, — I only ask that Fortune send A little more than I shall spend.
Page 157 - 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.
Page 172 - Sun of our life, thy quickening ray Sheds on our path the glow of day ; Star of our hope, thy softened light Cheers the long watches of the night. Our midnight is thy smile withdrawn ; Our noontide is thy gracious dawn ; Our rainbow arch thy mercy's sign ; All, save the clouds of sin, are thine...
Page 305 - While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; 'When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; 'And when Rome falls — the World.
Page 167 - Hundred; — It came and found The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound. Eighteen hundred increased by ten; "Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then. Eighteen hundred and twenty came; Running as usual; much, the same. Thirty and forty at last arrive, And then come fifty, and fifty-five.
Page 172 - LOVE Divine, that stooped to share Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear, On Thee we cast each earthborn care, We smile at pain while Thou art near ! Though long the weary way we tread, And sorrow crown each lingering year, No path we shun, no darkness dread, Our hearts still whispering, Thou art near...
Page 238 - GRANDMOTHER'S mother: her age, I guess, Thirteen summers, or something less; Girlish bust, but womanly air; Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair; Lips that lover has never kissed ; Taper fingers and slender wrist ; Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade; So they painted the little maid.
Page 27 - And all his sturdy men-at-arms were ranged about the board. He poured the fiery Hollands in, — the man that never feared, — He took a long and solemn draught, and wiped his yellow beard; And one by one the musketeers — the men that fought and prayed — All drank as 'twere their mother's milk, and not a man afraid.

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