Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, the — Volume 06: Poems from the Breakfast Table Series by Oliver Wendell Holmes
page 34 of 100 (34%)
page 34 of 100 (34%)
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Died, _at one hundred_, years ago.)
He took lodgings for rain or shine Under green bed-clothes in '69. Know old Cambridge? Hope you do.-- Born there? Don't say so! I was, too. (Born in a house with a gambrel-roof,-- Standing still, if you must have proof.-- "Gambrel?--Gambrel?"--Let me beg You'll look at a horse's hinder leg,-- First great angle above the hoof,-- That 's the gambrel; hence gambrel-roof.) Nicest place that ever was seen,-- Colleges red and Common green, Sidewalks brownish with trees between. Sweetest spot beneath the skies When the canker-worms don't rise,-- When the dust, that sometimes flies Into your mouth and ears and eyes, In a quiet slumber lies, _Not_ in the shape of umbaked pies Such as barefoot children prize. A kind of harbor it seems to be, Facing the flow of a boundless sea. Rows of gray old Tutors stand Ranged like rocks above the sand; Rolling beneath them, soft and green, Breaks the tide of bright sixteen,-- One wave, two waves, three waves, four,-- |
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