Holmes's first and finest book of poems, written at Covington, was entitled _Under a Fool's Cap: Songs_ (London, 1884), and contained one hundred and forty-four pages in an edition that did not exceed five hundred copies. The poet whimsically placed his boyhood name of "Daniel Henry Junior" upon the title-page. This little volume is one of the most unique things ever done by an American hand. Holmes took twenty-four old familiar nursery jingles, which are printed in black-face type at the top of the lyrics relating to them, and he worked them over and turned them over and did everything but parody them; and in only one of them--_Margery Daw_--did he discard the original metres. He employed "three methods of dealing with his nursery rhymes; he either made them the basis of a story, or he took them as an allegory and gave the 'modern instance,' or he simply continued and amplified. The last method is, perhaps, the most effective and successful of all," the poems done in this manner being far and away the finest in the book. Holmes spent the seven years subsequent to the appearance of _Under a Fool's Cap_, in France, Italy, and Germany. In 1890 his father gave him Holmesdale. He returned to Kentucky, and the remaining years of his life were spent at Covington, save several winters abroad.
Holmes's second book of lyrics, _A Pedlar's Pack_ (New York, 1906), which was largely written at Holmesdale, contained many exceedingly clever and charming poems, but, with the exception of some fine sonnets, _A Pedlar's Pack_ is verse, while _Under a Fool's Cap_ is genuine poetry. Holmes was an accomplished musician, and his _Hempen Homespun Songs_ (Cincinnati, 1906), mostly written in Dresden, contained fourteen songs set to music, of which four had words by the poet. Of the other ten songs, three were by W. M. Thackeray, two by Alfred de Musset, and Austin Dobson, Henri Chenevers, W. E. Henley, Edgar Allan Poe, and Alfred Tennyson were represented by having one of their songs set to music. This was his only publication in the field of music, and his third and final book. Holmes's last years were spent at the old house in Covington, devoted to arranging his large library, collected from the bookshops of the world, and to his music. His life was one of endless ease, the universal pursuit of wealth being neither necessary nor engaging. He had lived parts of more than forty years of his life at Holmesdale when he left it for the last time in the fall of 1908 to spend the winter at Hot Springs, Virginia, where he died suddenly on December 14, 1908. He had hardly found his grave at Cincinnati before lovers of poetry on both sides of the Atlantic arose and demanded word of his life and works. This demand has been in part supplied by Mr. Thomas B. Mosher, the Maine publisher, who has exquisitely reprinted _Under a Fool's Cap_, and written this beautiful tribute to the poet's memory: