The Writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes: The autocrat of the breakfast-table

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Printed at the Riverside Press, 1891

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Page 97 - 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!
Page 98 - 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!
Page 98 - 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...
Page 255 - For the wheels were just as strong as the thills, And the floor was just as strong as the sills And the panels just as strong as the floor, And the whipple-tree neither less nor more, And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore.
Page 253 - T' make that place uz strong uz the rest." So the Deacon inquired of the village folk Where he could find the strongest oak, That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke, — That was for spokes and floor and sills; He sent for lancewood to make the thills; The crossbars were ash, from the straightest...
Page 269 - ... value for their power to please, And selfish churls deride ; — One Stradivarius, I confess, Two Meerschaums, I would fain possess. Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn, Nor ape the glittering upstart fool ; — Shall not carved tables serve my turn, But all must be of buhl ? Give grasping pomp its double share, — I ask but one recumbent chair. Thus humble let me live and die, Nor long for Midas...
Page 309 - If it please the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and the thing seem right before the king, and I be pleasing in his eyes, let it be written to reverse the letters devised by Haman the...
Page 98 - 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!
Page 93 - I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving...
Page 69 - Why, yes ; for memory would recall My fond paternal joys ; I could not bear to leave them all ; I'll take — my — girl — and — boys ! The smiling angel dropped his pen, — " Why this will never do ; The man would be a boy again, And be a father too...

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