Oliver Wendell Holmes

(1809-1894)

August 29,1809 was the birth date of this great American, who would flower as a physician by profession but achieve fame as a writer and be one of the best regarded American poets of the 19th century.

These accomplishments were a  result of a splendid education. He started at Phillips Academy and Harvard, graduating in 1829.  After his degree,  Holmes studied in Boston, Harvard, and Paris medical schools before graduating with a  Harvard M.D.in 1835.

Holmes published Poems the next year. His career then turned to medical writing and teaching with his appointment as a professor of anatomy at  Dartmouth College in 1838, and firmed up when he became Parkman Professor of Anatomy and Physiology, and Dean, at Harvard Medical School in 1847.

His first, most popular poem, written at 21, was "Old Ironsides."  

Old Ironsides was the popular name used for the frigate Constitution.

The poem was first printed in the Boston Daily Advertiser, at a time when it was proposed to break up the old ship as unfit for service. Old Ironsides was famous for defeating the British ship Guerriere in the War of 1812. Thanks to Holmes' poem,  Old Ironsides was saved. 

Old Ironsides
Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon's roar;
--The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more.

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know the conquered knee;
--The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!

Oh, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!
                          Oliver Wendell Holmes

Marriage to Amelia Lee Jackson in 1840 produced three children, one of whom (his  namesake) became a justice of the Supreme Court.
Holmes died in Boston on October 7, 1894.

 Suggested Reading List
(click on the title for ordering information)

The Imaginative Prose of Oliver Wendell Holmes

  by Weinstein, Michael A.

 Original, substantial, and revisionist...

Weinstein's approach is always intelligent and well presented....The reader will learn abundantly about an important and much neglected American poet, novelist, and essayist.  (from back cover)