Poems From The Breakfast Table

Project Gutenberg EBook The Poetical Works of O. W. Holmes,
Volume 6. Poems From The Breakfast Table Series
#20 in our series
by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
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Title: The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Volume 6.
Poems From The Breakfast Table Series
Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Release Date: January, 2005 [Etext #7393]
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0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POETRY OF O.
W. HOLMES, V6 ***
This eBook was produced by David Widger [[email protected]
]
THE POETICAL WORKS
OF
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
1893
(Printed in three volumes)
CONTENTS:
POEMS FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE
BREAKFAST-TABLE (1857-1858)
THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS
SUN AND SHADOW
MUSA

A PARTING HEALTH: To J. L. MOTLEY
WHAT WE ALL
THINK
SPRING HAS COME
PROLOGUE
LATTER-DAY
WARNINGS
ALBUM VERSES
A GOOD TIME GOING!

THE LAST BLOSSOM
CONTENTMENT
AESTIVATION

THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE ; OR, THE WONDERFUL
"ONE-HOSE SHAY " PARSON TURELL'S LEGACY ; OR, THE
PRESIDENT'S OLD ARM-CHAIR ODE FOR A SOCIAL
MEETING, WITH SLIGHT ALTERATIONS BY A
TEETOTALER
POEMS FROM THE PROFESSOR AT THE
BREAKFAST-TABLE (1858-1859)
UNDER THE VIOLETS
HYMN OF TRUST
A SUN-DAY
HYMN
THE CROOKED FOOTPATH
IRIS, HER BOOK

ROBINSON OF LEYDEN
ST ANTHONY THE REFORMER

THE OPENING OF THE PIANO
MIDSUMMER
DE SAUTY

POEMS FROM THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE
(1871-1872)
HOMESICK IN HEAVEN
FANTASIA
AUNT TABITHA

WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS
EPILOGUE TO THE
BREAKFAST-TABLE SERIES
POEMS FROM THE AUTOCRAT OF THE
BREAKFAST-TABLE
1857-1858
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 in 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 thy dead lips a
clearer note 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!
SUN AND SHADOW
As I look from the isle, o'er its billows of green,
To the billows of
foam-crested blue,
Yon bark, that afar in the distance is seen,
Half
dreaming, my eyes will pursue
Now dark in the shadow, she scatters
the spray
As the chaff in the stroke of the flail;
Now white as the
sea-gull, she flies on her way,
The sun gleaming bright on her sail.
Yet her pilot is thinking of dangers to shun,--
Of breakers that whiten
and roar;
How little he cares, if in shadow or sun
They see him who
gaze from the shore!
He looks to the beacon that looms from the reef,

To the rock that is under his lee,
As he drifts on the blast, like a
wind-wafted leaf,
O'er the gulfs of the desolate sea.
Thus drifting afar to the dim-vaulted caves
Where life and its
ventures are laid,
The dreamers who gaze while we battle the waves

May see us in sunshine or shade;
Yet true to our course, though the
shadows grow