Poem Lake | Page 2 | The Greatest Poems of All Time

Under the Violets Her hands are cold; her face is white; No more her pulses come and go; Her eyes are shut to life and light;— Fold the white vesture, snow on snow, And lay her where the violets blow. But not beneath a graven stone, To plead for tears with... Poet: Oliver Wendell Holmes	Hymn of Trust O love Divine, that stooped to share Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear, On Thee we cast each earth-born care, We smile at pain while Thou art near! Though long the weary we tread, And sorrow crown each lingering year, No path we shun,... Poet: Oliver Wendell Holmes	Epilogue to the Breakfast Table Series A crazy bookcase, placed before A low-price dealer’s open door; Therein arrayed in broken rows A ragged crew of rhyme and prose, The homeless vagrants, waifs, and strays Whose low estate this line betrays (Set forth the lesser birds to lime)... Poet: Oliver Wendell Holmes	Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes... Poet: Oliver Wendell Holmes
The Strong Heroic Line Friends of the Muse, to you of right belong The first staid footsteps of my square-toed song; Full well I know the strong heroic line Has lost its fashion since I made it mine; But there are tricks old singers will not learn, And this grave measure still... Poet: Oliver Wendell Holmes	From "The Iron Gate" As on the gauzy wings of fancy flying From some far orb I track our watery sphere, Home of the struggling, suffering, doubting, dying, The silvered globule seems a glistening tear. But Nature lends her mirror of illusion To win from saddening... Poet: Oliver Wendell Holmes	Bill and Joe From “Poems of the Class of ’Twenty-nine” [Harvard] COME, dear old comrade, you and I Will steal an hour from days gone by,— The shining days when life was new, And all was bright as morning dew,— The lusty days of long ago, When you were... Poet: Oliver Wendell Holmes	The Boys From “Poems of the Class of ’Twenty-nine” [Harvard] HAS there any old fellow got mixed with the boys? If there has, take him out, without making a noise. Hang the Almanac’s cheat and the Catalogue’s spite! Old Time is a liar! We ’re twenty to-night! ... Poet: Oliver Wendell Holmes
The Old Man Dreams O For one hour of youthful joy! Give back my twentieth spring! I ’d rather laugh a bright-haired boy Than reign a gray-beard king! Off with the spoils of wrinkled age! Away with learning’s crown! Tear out life’s wisdom-written page,... Poet: Oliver Wendell Holmes	The Voiceless We count the broken lyres that rest Where the sweet wailing singers slumber, But o’er their silent sister’s breast The wild-flowers who will stoop to number? A few can touch the magic string, And noisy Fame is proud to win them:— Alas for... Poet: Oliver Wendell Holmes