Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A PARODY ON A PSALM OF LIFE, by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Life is real, life is earnest Last Line: When he sees, shall crow again. | ||||||||
LIFE IS REAL, life is earnest, And the shell is not its pen -- "Egg thou art, and egg remainest" Was not spoken of the hen. Art is long and Time is fleeting, Be our bills then sharpened well, And not like muffled drums be beating On the inside of the shell. In the world's broad field of battle, In the great barnyard of life, Be not like those lazy cattle! Be a rooster in the strife! Lives of roosters all remind us, We can make our lives sublime, And when roasted, leave behind us, Hen tracks on the sands of time. Hen tracks that perhaps another Chicken drooping in the rain, Some forlorn and henpecked brother, When he sees, shall crow again. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A SEA DIALOGUE by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES A SUN-DAY HYMN [OR LAMENT] by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES AFTER A LECTURE ON KEATS by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES BILL AND JOE by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES BIRTHDAY OF DANIEL WEBSTER by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES BOSTON COMMON: 1630 by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES BOSTON COMMON: 1774 by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES BOSTON COMMON: 1869 by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES BROTHER JONATHAN'S LAMENT FOR SISTER CAROLINE [DECEMBER 2O, 1860] by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES CACOETHES SCRIBENDI by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES |
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