Poetry Codex

American

Oliver Wendell Holmes

1809–1894

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809–1894) was a Boston physician, Harvard professor of anatomy and physiology, essayist and poet, one of the Fireside Poets who made New England verse a household possession. His 1830 poem “Old Ironsides” is credited with helping to save the frigate Constitution from being broken up.

His genial comic and occasional verse — “The Deacon’s Masterpiece,” “The Last Leaf,” the dinner poems read for his Harvard classmates — sits beside the more serious “The Chambered Nautilus,” first printed in his Atlantic Monthly series “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table” (1857–58). The poems here follow his collected Poetical Works as issued in 1893.

Poems (322)

  1. To My Readers
  2. Old Ironsides
  3. The Last Leaf
  4. The Cambridge Churchyard
  5. To an Insect
  6. The Dilemma
  7. My Aunt
  8. Reflections of a Proud Pedestrian
  9. Daily Trials
  10. Evening
  11. The Dorchester Giant
  12. To the Portrait of "A Lady"
  13. The Comet
  14. The Music-Grinders
  15. The Treadmill Song
  16. The September Gale
  17. The Height of the Ridiculous
  18. The Last Reader
  19. Poetry: A Metrical Essay
  20. The Pilgrim's Vision
  21. The Steamboat
  22. Lexington
  23. On Lending a Punch-Bowl
  24. A Song: For the Centennial Celebration of Harvard College
  25. The Island Hunting-Song
  26. Departed Days
  27. The Only Daughter
  28. Song: Written for the Dinner Given to Charles Dickens by the Young Men of Boston, February 1
  29. Lines: Recited at the Berkshire Jubilee, Pittsfield, Mass., August 23
  30. Nux Postcoenatica
  31. Verses for After-Dinner
  32. A Modest Request
  33. The Parting Word
  34. A Song of Other Days
  35. Song: For a Temperance Dinner
  36. A Sentiment
  37. Urania: A Rhymed Lesson
  38. Terpsichore: An After-Dinner Poem
  39. The Morning Visit
  40. The Two Armies
  41. The Stethoscope Song
  42. Extracts from a Medical Poem
  43. A Portrait
  44. A Sentiment
  45. A Poem: For the Meeting of the American Medical Association at New York, May 5
  46. A Sentiment
  47. Rip Van Winkle, M. D.
  48. Prologue
  49. Agnes
  50. The Ploughman
  51. Spring
  52. The Study
  53. The Bells
  54. Non-Resistance
  55. The Moral Bully
  56. The Mind's Diet
  57. Our Limitations
  58. The Old Player
  59. A Poem: Dedication of the Pittsfield Cemetery, September 9,1850
  60. To Governor Swain
  61. To an English Friend
  62. After a Lecture on Wordsworth
  63. After a Lecture on Moore
  64. After a Lecture on Keats
  65. After a Lecture on Shelley
  66. At the Close of a Course of Lectures
  67. The Hudson
  68. The New Eden
  69. Semi-Centennial Celebration of the New England Society
  70. Farewell: To J. R. Lowell
  71. For the Meeting of the Burns Club
  72. Ode for Washington's Birthday
  73. Birthday of Daniel Webster
  74. The Voiceless
  75. The Two Streams
  76. The Promise
  77. Avis
  78. The Living Temple
  79. At a Birthday Festival: To J. R. Lowell
  80. A Birthday Tribute: To J. F. Clarke
  81. The Gray Chief
  82. The Last Look: W. W. Swain
  83. In Memory of Charles Wentworth Upham, Jr.
  84. Martha
  85. Meeting of the Alumni of Harvard College
  86. The Parting Song
  87. For the Meeting of the National Sanitary Association
  88. For the Burns Centennial Celebration
  89. At a Meeting of Friends
  90. Boston Common: Three Pictures
  91. The Old Man of the Sea
  92. International Ode
  93. Vive la France
  94. Brother Jonathan's Lament for Sister Caroline
  95. Bill and Joe
  96. A Song of "Twenty-Nine"
  97. Questions and Answers
  98. An Impromptu
  99. The Old Man Dreams
  100. Remember--Forget
  101. Our Indian Summer
  102. Mare Rubrum
  103. The Boys
  104. Lines
  105. A Voice of the Loyal North
  106. J. D. R.
  107. Voyage of the Good Ship Union
  108. "Choose You This Day Whom Ye Will Serve"
  109. F. W. C.
  110. The Last Charge
  111. Our Oldest Friend
  112. Sherman's in Savannah
  113. My Annual
  114. All Here
  115. Once More
  116. The Old Cruiser
  117. Added for the Alumni Meeting
  118. Hymn for the Class-Meeting
  119. Even-Song
  120. The Smiling Listener
  121. Our Sweet Singer: J. A.
  122. H. C. M., H. S., J. K. W.
  123. What I Have Come for
  124. Our Banker
  125. For Class Meeting
  126. "Ad Amicos"
  127. How Not to Settle It
  128. The Last Survivor
  129. The Archbishop and Gil Blas
  130. The Shadows
  131. Benjamin Peirce
  132. In the Twilight
  133. A Loving-Cup Song
  134. The Girdle of Friendship
  135. The Lyre of Anacreon
  136. The Old Tune
  137. The Broken Circle
  138. The Angel-Thief
  139. After the Curfew
  140. The Chambered Nautilus
  141. Sun and Shadow
  142. Musa
  143. A Parting Health: To J. L. Motley
  144. What We All Think
  145. Spring Has Come
  146. Prologue
  147. Latter-Day Warnings
  148. Album Verses
  149. A Good Time Going!
  150. The Last Blossom
  151. Contentment
  152. Aestivation
  153. The Deacon's Masterpiece; or, The Wonderful "One-Hoss Shay"
  154. Parson Turell's Legacy; or, The President's Old Arm-Chair
  155. Ode for a Social Meeting
  156. Under the Violets
  157. Hymn of Trust
  158. A Sun-Day Hymn
  159. The Crooked Footpath
  160. Iris, Her Book
  161. Robinson of Leyden
  162. St. Anthony the Reformer
  163. The Opening of the Piano
  164. Midsummer
  165. De Sauty: An Electro-Chemical Eclogue
  166. Homesick in Heaven
  167. Fantasia
  168. Aunt Tabitha
  169. Ambition
  170. Regrets
  171. Sympathies
  172. Master and Scholar
  173. Alone
  174. Questioning
  175. Worship
  176. Manhood
  177. Rights
  178. Truths
  179. Idols
  180. Love
  181. At a Bookstore
  182. Opening the Window
  183. Programme
  184. In the Quiet Days
  185. Dorothy Q.: A Family Portrait
  186. The Organ-Blower
  187. At the Pantomime
  188. After the Fire
  189. A Ballad of the Boston Tea-Party
  190. Nearing the Snow-Line
  191. To Canaan
  192. "Thus Saith the Lord, I Offer Thee Three Things."
  193. Never or Now
  194. One Country
  195. God Save the Flag
  196. Hymn After the Emancipation Proclamation
  197. Hymn for the Fair at Chicago
  198. Under the Washington Elm, Cambridge
  199. Freedom, Our Queen
  200. Army Hymn
  201. The Flower of Liberty
  202. The Sweet Little Man
  203. Union and Liberty
  204. America to Russia
  205. Welcome to the Grand Duke Alexis
  206. At the Banquet to the Grand Duke Alexis
  207. At the Banquet to the Chinese Embassy
  208. At the Banquet to the Japanese Embassy
  209. Bryant's Seventieth Birthday
  210. A Farewell to Agassiz
  211. At a Dinner to Admiral Farragut
  212. At a Dinner to General Grant
  213. To H. W. Longfellow
  214. To Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg
  215. A Toast to Wilkie Collins
  216. For the Services in Memory of Abraham Lincoln
  217. For the Commemoration Services
  218. Edward Everett
  219. Shakespeare
  220. In Memory of John and Robert Ware
  221. Humboldt's Birthday
  222. Poem: At the Dedication of the Halleck Monument
  223. Hymn: For the Laying of the Cornerstone of Harvard Memorial Hall
  224. Hymn: For the Dedication of Memorial Hall at Cambridge
  225. Hymn: At the Funeral Services of Charles Sumner
  226. Address: For the Opening of the Fifth Avenue Theatre
  227. A Sea Dialogue
  228. Chanson Without Music
  229. For the Centennial Dinner
  230. A Poem Served to Order
  231. The Fountain of Youth
  232. No Time Like the Old Time
  233. A Hymn of Peace
  234. Grandmother's Story of Bunker-Hill Battle
  235. At the "Atlantic" Dinner
  236. "Lucy"
  237. Hymn: For the Inauguration of the Statue of Governor Andrew
  238. A Memorial Tribute
  239. Joseph Warren, M. D.
  240. Old Cambridge
  241. Welcome to the Nations
  242. A Familiar Letter
  243. Unsatisfied
  244. How the Old Horse Won the Bet
  245. An Appeal for "the Old South"
  246. The First Fan
  247. To R. B. H
  248. The Ship of State
  249. A Family Record
  250. The Iron Gate
  251. Vestigia Quinque Retrorsum
  252. My Aviary
  253. On the Threshold
  254. To George Peabody
  255. At the Papyrus Club
  256. For Whittier's Seventieth Birthday
  257. Two Sonnets: Harvard
  258. The Coming Era
  259. In Response
  260. For the Moore Centennial Celebration
  261. To James Freeman Clarke
  262. Welcome to the Chicago Commercial Club
  263. American Academy Centennial Celebration
  264. The School-Boy
  265. The Silent Melody
  266. Our Home--Our Country
  267. Poem: At the Centennial Anniversary Dinner of the Massachusetts Medical Society
  268. Rhymes of a Life-Time
  269. At My Fireside
  270. At the Saturday Club
  271. Our Dead Singer: H. W. L.
  272. To Harriet Beecher Stowe: I. At the Summit
  273. To Harriet Beecher Stowe: II. The World's Homage
  274. A Welcome to Dr. Benjamin Apthorp Gould
  275. To Frederick Henry Hedge
  276. To James Russell Lowell
  277. To John Greenleaf Whittier
  278. Prelude to a Volume Printed in Raised Letters for the Blind
  279. Boston to Florence
  280. At the Unitarian Festival
  281. Poem: For the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of Harvard College
  282. Post-Prandial
  283. The Flaneur
  284. Ave
  285. King's Chapel
  286. Hymn: For the Two Hundredth Anniversary of King's Chapel
  287. Hymn: The Word of Promise
  288. Hymn: For the Dedication of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Hospital
  289. On the Death of President Garfield
  290. The Golden Flower
  291. Additional Verses to "Hail, Columbia!"
  292. Poem: For the Dedication of the Fountain at Stratford-on-Avon
  293. To the Poets Who Only Read and Listen
  294. For the Dedication of the New City Library, Boston
  295. For the Window in St. Margaret's
  296. James Russell Lowell
  297. To the Eleven Ladies Who Presented Me with a Silver Loving Cup
  298. The Peau de Chagrin of State Street
  299. Cacoethes Scribendi
  300. The Rose and the Fern
  301. I Like You and I Love You
  302. La Maison d'Or
  303. Too Young for Love
  304. The Broomstick Train; or, The Return of the Witches
  305. Tartarus
  306. At the Turn of the Road
  307. In Vita Minerva
  308. To My Old Readers
  309. The Banker's Secret
  310. The Exile's Secret
  311. The Lover's Secret
  312. The Statesman's Secret
  313. The Mother's Secret
  314. The Secret of the Stars
  315. La Grisette
  316. The Star and the Water-Lily
  317. The Philosopher to His Love
  318. L'inconnue
  319. Stanzas
  320. To the Portrait of "A Gentleman" in the Athenaeum Gallery
  321. The Strong Heroic Line
  322. The Ballad of the Oysterman

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