John Oldham Poems

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John Oldham
John Oldham (1592–1636) was an early Puritan settler in Massachusetts. He was a captain, merchant, and Indian trader. His death at the hands of the Indians was one of the causes of the Pequot War of 1637. Oldham was born in Derbyshire, England in 1592, and was baptized at the Church of All Saints in Derby on July 14, 1592. A follower of the Puritans from an early age, he emigrated to Plymouth Colony with his wife, children, and sister in 1623. Captain John Oldham was the father of Lucretia Oldham Brewster, who married Jonathon Brewster, son of William Brewster, a signer of the Mayflower Compact. Oldham grew rich in coastal trade and trading with the Indians. After being exiled for plotting against the government at Plymouth, Oldham became a representative to the General Court of Massachusetts from 1632 to 1634. He was the overseer of shot and powder for Massachusetts Bay Colony. Oldham's company granted ten acres in assignment of lands in 1623 presumably for each person in Oldham's family and for the following: Conant, Roger, Penn, and Christian.

tithonus
 
 
The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapors weep their burthen to the ground,
Ma... [read poem]
the brook (excerpt)
 
 
`O babbling brook,' says Edmund in his rhyme,
`Whence come you?' and the brook, why not? replie... [read poem]
mariana in the moated grange
 
 
With blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fe... [read poem]
a regular sort of a guy
 
 
He fights where the fighting is thickest
And keeps his high honor clean;
From finish t... [read poem]
villanelle of ye young poet's first villanelle to his ladye and ye difficulties thereof
 
 
To sing the charms of Rosabelle,
To pour my soul out at her feet,
I try to write this vill... [read poem]
break, break, break
 
 
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O sea!
And I would that my tongue could ... [read poem]
ulysses
 
 
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match... [read poem]
to winter
 
 
"Blow, blow, thou winter wind."
Away from here,
And I shall greet thy passing breath... [read poem]
the kraken
 
 
Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dre... [read poem]
charge of the light brigade
 
 
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
... [read poem]
the eagle (a fragment)
 
 
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the a... [read poem]
now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white
 
 
Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor... [read poem]
the lotos-eaters
 
 
"Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land,
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soo... [read poem]
the careless good fellow
 
 
A pox of this fooling, and plotting of late,
What a pother, and stir has it kept in the state?... [read poem]
ring out, wild bells
 
 
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dyi... [read poem]
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