OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES ''S POEM - THE LAST BLOSSOM

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On the 17 th day of the Blog chatter’s #WRITEAPAGEADAY, Here is a poem with love as the major theme.

 

Poet: OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

Poem:  THE LAST BLOSSOM

 

 

 

 Though young no more, we still would dream

Of beauty's dear deluding wiles;

The leagues of life to graybeards seem

Shorter than boyhood's lingering miles.

Who knows a woman's wild caprice?
It played with Goethe's silvered hair,
And many a Holy Father's "niece"
Has softly smoothed the papal chair.

When sixty bids us sigh in vain
To melt the heart of sweet sixteen,
We think upon those ladies twain
Who loved so well the tough old Dean.

We see the Patriarch's wintry face,
The maid of Egypt's dusky glow,
And dream that Youth and Age embrace,
As April violets fill with snow.

Tranced in her Lord's Olympian smile
His lotus-loving Memphian lies,--
The musky daughter of the Nile
With plaited hair and almond eyes.

Might we but share one wild caress
Ere life's autumnal blossoms fall,
And Earth's brown, clinging lips impress
The long cold kiss that waits us all!

My bosom heaves, remembering yet
The morning of that blissful day
When Rose, the flower of spring, I met,
And gave my raptured soul away.

Flung from her eyes of purest blue,
A lasso, with its leaping chain
Light as a loop of larkspurs, flew
O'er sense and spirit, heart and brain.

Thou com'st to cheer my waning age,
Sweet vision, waited for so long
Dove that would seek the poet's cage
Lured by the magic breath of song!

She blushes ! Ah, reluctant maid,
Love's drapeau rouge the truth has told!
O'er girlhood's yielding barricade
Floats the great Leveller's crimson fold!

Come to my arms--love heeds not years;
No frost the bud of passion knows.--
Ha! what is this my frenzy hears?
A voice behind me uttered,--Rose!

Sweet was her smile,--but not for me;
Alas, when woman looks too kind,
Just turn your foolish head and see,--
Some youth is walking close behind!

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on August 29, 1809, and was the son of the staunch old Calvinist who had ministered to the First Church of Boston for 40 years. In 1825 he went to Harvard, here he was a universal favourite elected class poet. He published a first collection of his verse in 1837. It included a versified Essay on Poetry, The Last Leaf, and a boyish quip typical of the poet – My Aunt. In 1852 he gave a course of lectures on English Poets of the 19^th Century, at the Lyceum. He is the Autocrat, Poet, and Professor of the Breakfast Table.

 A man of strong personal charm, of keen sympathy and kindly thought of everyone, he was, said one who knew him well, “the perfect essence of wit and hospitality, courteous, amiable and entertaining to a degree, which is more easily remembered than imparted or described.”