The voices / 148 fragments

Oliver Wendell Holmes

1809 AD — Undated

Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.

Author and source reference ↗

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Historical source references

Old Ironsides
The Cambridge Churchyard
The Last Leaf
To an Insect
The Music-Grinders
The Height of the Ridiculous
The Last Reader
Poetry, a Metrical Essay
A Sentiment
A Rhymed Lesson
Lines by a Clerk
The Poet's Lot
The Voiceless
The Chambered Nautilus
A Good Time going
The Boys
How not to settle it
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table
On the Seventieth Birthday of Julia Ward Howe (May 27, 1889)
Quote1550 · printed citation: OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES: A Rhymed Lesson, Line 229
Quote649 · printed citation: OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES: The Dilemma
Complete signed selection 8; printed byline: Oliver Wendell Holmes; New York: Dodge Publishing Company, 1901
Complete signed selection 176; printed byline: Holmes; New York: Dodge Publishing Company, 1901
Complete signed selection 346; printed byline: Oliver Wendell Holmes; New York: Dodge Publishing Company, 1901
Complete signed selection 413; printed byline: Oliver Wendell Holmes; New York: Dodge Publishing Company, 1901
Complete signed selection 543; printed byline: Holmes; New York: Dodge Publishing Company, 1901
Complete signed selection 29; printed byline: Oliver Wendell Holmes; Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1911; printed copyright 1907
Complete signed selection 57; printed byline: Oliver Wendell Holmes; Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1911; printed copyright 1907
Complete signed selection 195; printed byline: Oliver Wendell Holmes; Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1911; printed copyright 1907
Complete signed selection 289; printed byline: Oliver Wendell Holmes; Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1911; printed copyright 1907

Archive entries

01c. 1809 AD

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.

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

02c. 1809 AD

Nail to the mast her holy flag, Set every threadbare sail, And give her to the god of storms, The lightning and the gale!

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

03c. 1809 AD

Like sentinel and nun, they keep Their vigil on the green.

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

04c. 1809 AD

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

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

05c. 1809 AD

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!

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

06c. 1809 AD

Thou say'st an undisputed thing In such a solemn way.

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

07c. 1809 AD

Their discords sting through Burns and Moore, Like hedgehogs dressed in lace.

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

08c. 1809 AD

You think they are crusaders sent From some infernal clime, To pluck the eyes of sentiment And dock the tail of Rhyme, To crack the voice of Melody And break the legs of Time.

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

09c. 1809 AD

And since, I never dare to write As funny as I can.

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

10c. 1809 AD

When the last reader reads no more.

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

11c. 1809 AD

The freeman casting with unpurchased hand The vote that shakes the turrets of the land.

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

12c. 1809 AD

'T is the heart's current lends the cup its glow, Whate'er the fountain whence the draught may flow.

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

13c. 1809 AD

Yes, child of suffering, thou mayst well be sure He who ordained the Sabbath loves the poor!

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

14c. 1809 AD

And when you stick on conversation's burrs, Don't strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

15c. 1809 AD

Thine eye was on the censer, And not the hand that bore it.

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

16c. 1809 AD

Where go the poet's lines? Answer, ye evening tapers! Ye auburn locks, ye golden curls, Speak from your folded papers!

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

17c. 1809 AD

A few can touch the magic string, And noisy Fame is proud to win them; Alas for those that never sing, But die with all their music in them!

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

18c. 1809 AD

O hearts that break and give no sign Save whitening lip and fading tresses!

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

19c. 1809 AD

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!

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

20c. 1809 AD

His home! the Western giant smiles, And twirls the spotty globe to find it; This little speck, the British Isles? 'T is but a freckle,—never mind it.

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

21c. 1809 AD

But Memory blushes at the sneer, And Honor turns with frown defiant, And Freedom, leaning on her spear, Laughs louder than the laughing giant.

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

22c. 1809 AD

You hear that boy laughing?—you think he 's all fun; But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done; The children laugh loud as they troop to his call, And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all.

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

23c. 1809 AD

Good to the heels the well-worn slipper feels When the tired player shuffles off the buskin; A page of Hood may do a fellow good After a scolding from Carlyle or Ruskin.

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote

24c. 1809 AD

A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times.

Oliver Wendell Holmes / quote