Home
Fictions/Novels
Short Stories
Poems
Essays
Plays
Nonfictions
 
Authors
All Titles
 






In Association with Amazon.com

Home > Authors Index > Browse all available works of Oliver Wendell Holmes > Text of To John Greenleaf Whittier

A poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes

To John Greenleaf Whittier

________________________________________________
Title:     To John Greenleaf Whittier
Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes [More Titles by Holmes]

ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY

1887

FRIEND, whom thy fourscore winters leave more dear
Than when life's roseate summer on thy cheek
Burned in the flush of manhood's manliest year,
Lonely, how lonely! is the snowy peak
Thy feet have reached, and mine have climbed so near!
Close on thy footsteps 'mid the landscape drear
I stretch my hand thine answering grasp to seek,
Warm with the love no rippling rhymes can speak!
Look backward! From thy lofty height survey
Thy years of toil, of peaceful victories won,
Of dreams made real, largest hopes outrun!
Look forward! Brighter than earth's morning ray
Streams the pure light of Heaven's unsetting sun,
The unclouded dawn of life's immortal day!


[The end]
Oliver Wendell Holmes's poem: To John Greenleaf Whittier

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN