Classic and Contemporary Poetry
OUR INDIAN SUMMER, by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: You'll believe me, dear boys, 't is a pleasure to rise Last Line: While we've youth in our hearts we can never grow old! Subject(s): Aging; Classmates; Schoolmates | ||||||||
YOU'll believe me, dear boys, 't is a pleasure to rise, With a welcome like this in your darling old eyes; To meet the same smiles and to hear the same tone Which have greeted me oft in the years that have flown. Were I gray as the grayest old rat in the wall, My locks would turn brown at the sight of you all; If my heart were as dry as the shell on the sand, It would fill like the goblet I hold in my hand. There are noontides of autumn when summer returns, Though the leaves are all garnered and sealed in their urns, And the bird on his perch, that was silent so long, Believes the sweet sunshine and breaks into song. We have caged the young birds of our beautiful June; Their plumes are still bright and their voices in tune; One moment of sunshine from faces like these And they sing as they sung in the green-growing trees. The voices of morning! how sweet is their thrill When the shadows have turned, and the evening grows still! The text of our lives may get wiser with age, But the print was so fair on its twentieth page! Look off from your goblet and up from your plate, Come, take the last journal, and glance at its date: Then think what we fellows should say and should do, If the 6 were a 9 and the 5 were a 2. Ah, no! for the shapes that would meet with us here, From the far land of shadows, are ever too dear! Though youth flung around us its pride and its charms, We should see but the comrades we clasped in our arms. A health to our future -- a sigh for our past, We love, we remember, we hope to the last; And for all the base lies that the almanacs hold, While we've youth in our hearts we can never grow old! | 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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