Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO MY READERS, by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Nay, blame me not; I might have spared Last Line: The buds of song that never blow. Subject(s): Poetry & Poets | ||||||||
NAY, blame me not; I might have spared Your patience many a trivial verse, Yet these my earlier welcome shared, So, let the better shield the worse. And some might say, "Those ruder songs Had freshness which the new have lost; To spring the opening leaf belongs, The chestnut-burs await the frost." When those I wrote, my locks were brown, When these I write -- ah, well-a-day! The autumn thistle's silvery down Is not the purple bloom of May! Go, little book, whose pages hold Those garnered years in loving trust; How long before your blue and gold Shall fade and whiten in the dust? O sexton of the alcoved tomb, Where souls in leathern cerements lie, Tell me each living poet's doom! How long before his book shall die? It matters little, soon or late, A day, a month, a year, an age, -- I read oblivion in its date, And Finis on its title-page. Before we sighed, our griefs were told; Before we smiled, our joys were sung; And all our passions shaped of old In accents lost to mortal tongue. In vain a fresher mould we seek, -- Can all the varied phrases tell That Babel's wandering children speak How thrushes sing or lilacs smell? Caged in the poet's lonely heart, Love wastes unheard its tenderest tone; The soul that sings must dwell apart, Its inward melodies unknown. Deal gently with us, ye who read! Our largest hope is unfulfilled, -- The promise still outruns the deed, -- The tower, but not the spire, we build. Our whitest pearl we never find; Our ripest fruit we never reach; The flowering moments of the mind Drop half their petals in our speech. These are my blossoms; if they wear One streak of morn or evening's glow, Accept them; but to me more fair The buds of song that never blow. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ENVY OF OTHER PEOPLE'S POEMS by ROBERT HASS THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AS A SONG by ROBERT HASS THE FATALIST: TIME IS FILLED by LYN HEJINIAN OXOTA: A SHORT RUSSIAN NOVEL: CHAPTER 192 by LYN HEJINIAN LET ME TELL YOU WHAT A POEM BRINGS by JUAN FELIPE HERRERA JUNE JOURNALS 6/25/88 by JUAN FELIPE HERRERA FOLLOW ROZEWICZ by JUAN FELIPE HERRERA HAVING INTENDED TO MERELY PICK ON AN OIL COMPANY, THE POEM GOES AWRY by HICOK. BOB A BALLAD OF THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY [DECEMBER 16, 1773] by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES |
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