The Last Leaf by Oliver Wendell Holmes

A Last Leaf on a Tree (Photo credit: jakub.vacek)

The Last Leaf

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 of Time
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the crier on his round
Through the town.

But now he walks the streets,
And he looks at all he meets
Sad and wan,
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
“They are gone.”

The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has pressed
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.

My grandmamma has said –
Poor old lady, she is dead
Long ago –
That he had a Roman nose,
And his cheek was like a rose
In the snow.

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!

And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,
Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.

 

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The Chambered Nautilus by Oliver Wendell Holmes

shell of a nautilus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

           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 to 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 they dead lips a clearer not 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!

 

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The Crooked Footpath by Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

         The Crooked Footpath

Ah, here it is! the sliding rail
   That marks the old remembered spot –
The gap that struck our schoolboy trail –
   The crooked path across the lot.

It left the road by school and church,
   A penciled shadow, nothing more,
That parted from the silver birch
   And ended at the farmhouse door.

No line or compass traced its plan,
   With frequent bends to left or right.
In aimless, wayward curves it ran,
   But always kept the door in sight.

The gabled porch, with woodbine green –
   The broken millstone at the mill –
Though many a rood might stretch between,
   The truant child could see them still.

No rocks across the pathway lie,
   No fallen trunk is o’er it thrown.
And yet it winds, we know not why,
   And turns as if for tree or stone.

Perhaps some lover trod the way
   With shaking knees and leaping heart –
And so it often runs astray
   With sinuous sweep or sudden start.

Or one, perchance, with clouded brain,
   From some unholy banquet reeled –
And since our devious steps maintain
   His track across the trodden field.

Nay, deem not thus – no earth-born will
   Could ever trace a faultless line;
Our truest steps are human still –
   To walk unswerving were divine!

Truants from love, we dream of wrath –
   Oh, rather let us trust the more!
Through all the wanderings of the path,
   We still can see our Father’s door!

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photo by Simon Carey

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The Height Of The Ridiculous by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Image via Wikipedia

The Height of the Ridiculous

I wrote some lines once on a time
   In wondrous merry mood,
And thought, as usual, men would say
   They were exceeding good.

They were so queer, so very queer,
   I laughed as I would die;
Albeit, in a general way,
   A sober man am I.

I called my servant, and he came;
   How kind it was of him
To mind a slender man like me,
   He of the mighty limb.

“These to the printer,” I exclaimed,
  And in my humorous way,
I added, (as a trifling jest,)
   “There’ll be the devil to pay.”

He took the paper, and I watched,
   And saw him peep within;
At the first line he read, his face
   Was all upon the grin.

He read the next; the grin grew broad,
   And shot from ear to ear;
He read the third; a chuckling noise
   I now began to hear.

The fourth; he broke into a roar;
   The fifth; his waistband split;
The sixth, he burst five buttons off,
   And tumbled in a fit.

Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,
   I watched that wretched man,
And since, I never dare to write
   As funny as I can.

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Old Ironsides by Oliver Wendell Holmes

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              Old Ironsides

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!

O 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!

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