Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.,
To My Readers
(1862)
“ Deal gently with us, ye who read! Our largest hope is unfulfilled,— The promise still outruns the dead,— The tower, but not the spire, we build. Our whitest pearl we never find; Our ripest fruit we never reach; The flowering moments of the mind Drop half their petals in our speech. These are my blossoms; if they wear One streak of morn or evening's glow, Accept them; but to me more fair The buds of song that never blow. April 8, 1862. This work was published before January 1, 1928, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. ”
