Classic and Contemporary Poetry
MY ANNUAL, by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: How long will this harp which you once loved to hear Last Line: We echo its wrods, -- we are one! We are one! Subject(s): Classmates; Schoolmates | ||||||||
How long will this harp which you once loved to hear Cheat your lips of a smile or your eyes of a tear? How long stir the echoes it wakened of old, While its strings were unbroken, untarnished its gold? Dear friends of my boyhood, my words do you wrong; The heart, the heart only, shall throb in my song; It reads the kind answer that looks from your eyes, -- "We will bid our old harper play on till he dies." Though Youth, the fair angel that looked o'er the strings, Has lost the bright glory that gleamed on his wings, Though the freshness of morning has passed from its tone, It is still the old harp that was always your own. I claim not its music, -- each note it affords I strike from your heart-strings, that lend me its chords; I know you will listen and love to the last, For it trembles and thrills with the voice of your past. Ah, brothers! dear brothers! the harp that I hold No craftsman could string and no artisan mould; He shaped it, He strung it, who fashioned the lyres That ring with the hymns of the seraphim choirs. Not mine are the visions of beauty it brings, Not mine the faint fragrance around it that clings; Those shapes are the phantoms of years that are fled, Those sweets breathe from roses your summers have shed. Each hour of the past lends its tribute to this, Till it blooms like a bower in the Garden of Bliss; The thorn and the thistle may grow as they will, Where Friendship unfolds there is Paradise still. The bird wanders careless while summer is green, The leaf-hidden cradle that rocked him unseen; When Autumn's rude fingers the woods have undressed, The boughs may look bare, but they show him his nest. Too precious these moments! the lustre they fling Is the light of our year, is the gem of its ring, So brimming with sunshine, we almost forget The rays it has lost, and its border of jet. While round us the many-hued halo is shed, How dear are the living, how near are the dead! One circle, scarce broken, these waiting below, Those walking the shores where the asphodels blow! Not life shall enlarge it nor death shall divide, -- No brother new-born finds his place at my side; No titles shall freeze us, no grandeurs infest, His Honor, His Worship, are boys like the rest. Some won the world's homage, their names we hold dear, -- But Friendship, not Fame, is the countersign here; Make room by the conqueror crowned in the strife For the comrade that limps from the battle of life! What tongue talks of battle? Too long we have heard In sorrow, in anguish, that terrible word; It reddened the sunshine, it crimsoned the wave, It sprinkled our doors with the blood of our brave. Peace, Peace come at last, with her garland of white; Peace broods in all hearts as we gather to-night; The blazon of Union spreads full in the sun; We echo its wrods, -- We are one! We are one! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE CLASS by ALICIA SUSKIN OSTRIKER FOR A STUDENT SLEEPING IN A POETRY WORKSHOP by DAVID WAGONER BILL AND JOE by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES THE BOYS by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES THE OLD MAN DREAMS by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES GEORGE LEVISON OR, THE SCHOOLFELLOWS by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM BOOKS ET VERITAS by WILLIAM ROSE BENET CLASS POEM by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE THE GIRL FROM SOAP SUDS ROW by NATHALIA CRANE A BALLAD OF THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY [DECEMBER 16, 1773] by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES |
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