Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-94) had as auspicious a birth as any American, next-door to Harvard Yard, in the house where the Battle of Bunker Hill was planned. His father was minister of the First Congregationalist Church and his mother was a descendant of colonial Governor Simon Bradstreet and wife, Anne, the first published American poet!
When his wife came into an inheritance in 1848, they built a summer home in Pittsfield on an estate that now is the Canoe Meadows Wildlife Sanctuary on Holmes Road. Across the street from the site of the house Holmes built is Arrowhead, Herman Melville’s former farmstead.
Holmes was in the party that hiked Monument Mountain, Aug. 5, 1850. More soon…
Poetry by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Here are the concluding 3 of the 11 stanza poem Daily Trials by a Sensitive Man:
Cockneys that kill
Thin horses of a Sunday,—men, with clams,
Hoarse as young bisons roaring for their dams
From hill to hill.
Soldiers, with guns,
Making a nuisance of the blessed air,
Child-crying bellman, children in despair,
Screeching for buns.
Storms, thunders, waves!
Howl, crash, and bellow till ye get your fill;
Ye sometimes rest; men never can be still
But in their graves.
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