101 Famous Poems by Various (compiled by Roy J. Cook). (2/3)
Title: 101 Famous Poems.
Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, James Whitcomb Riley, John James Ingalls, John Burroughs, William Shakespeare, Lucy Larcom, James Henry Leigh Hunt, Edgar Allan Poe, Alexander Anderson, John Milton, William Cullen Bryant, William Ernest Henley, John Masefield, Thomas Babington Macaulay, John Greenleaf Whittier, Robert Browning, Rudyard Kipling, Sir Walter Scott, Alice Cary, Mary Mapes Dodge, George Gordon Byron, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Alfred Noyes, Robert Burns, Eugene Field, Josiah Gilbert Holland, Henry Holcomb Bennett, William Watson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frank L. Stanton, George Washington Doane, George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), John Keats, Henry Cuyler Bunner, and Alfred Tennyson.
Genre: Literature, poetry.
Country: U.S., England, Scotland, U.K..
Language: English.
Publication Date: 1603, 1609, 1673, 1750, 1795, 1805, 1806-08, 1812-18, 1819, 1820, 1834, 1838, 1842, 1844, 1845, 1849, 1855, 1860, 1863, 1865, 1869, 1872, 1875, 1879, 1881, 1883, 1884, 1886, 1889, 1893, 1895, 1898, 1902, 1906, 1910, and 1911 (this edition 1958).
Summary: A collections of 111 poems (of which 4 are play excerpts) and 6 pieces of prose (1 of which is a letter and 2 are speeches). (Poems 48-92 in this post, refer to PART 1 for poems 1-48 and PART 3 for poems 93-111 and non-fiction). The Building of the Ship (1869) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow describes in detail the building and launching of a ship, and then makes the ship a symbol of the United States. Solitude (1883) by Ella Wheeler Wilcox is a poem about being ultimately alone in life, especially through life's toughest ordeals. Knee-Deep in June (1911) by James Whitcomb Riley is a poem about the beauty of relaxing in nature in June. Opportunity (1881) by John James Ingalls is a poem written from the perspective of opportunity, about its transient nature. Waiting (1863) by John Burroughs is a poem about trusting fate, and trusting that everything that belongs to you will be attracted to you regardless. Paul Revere's Ride (1860 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow liberally fictionalizes and commemorates the actions of American patriot Paul Revere on April 18, 1775, of his midnight ride to alert the colonial militia to the approach of British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord. That Time of Year (Sonnet 73) (1609) by William Shakespeare focuses on the theme of old age, and addresses "Fair Youth." In Plant a Tree (~1800s) by Lucy Larcom, the poet encourages people to plant trees to show love for the earth and their neighbourhood, and the potential every tree holds. Abou Ben Adhem (1834) by James Henry Leigh Hunt is a poem about the 7th century Sufi mystic Ibrahim ibn Adham, and his love for his fellow men. The Bells (posthumously 1849) by Edgar Allan Poe is about the sound of bells, and the feelings of horror and mystery the sound evokes. Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard (1750) by Thomas Gray is an elegy and thoughts on death and mortality in a graveyard, following the death of the poet Richard West in 1742. Cuddle Doon (1895) by Alexander Anderson is a poem about a happy family hearth. In Sonnet on His Blindness (1673) by John Milton, the poet reflects on his blindness, and draws wisdom and faith from his condition. Thanatopsis (unknown, likely 1810s) is, as the the title translating from the Greek literally means, "a consideration of death." The Children's Hour (1860) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow describes the poet's idyllic family life with his own three daughters, and the time he spends with them as evening approaches. Invictus (1888, written 1875) by William Ernest Henley is a poem about coming through great trials and tribulations fighting, with one's head raised high. Sea Fever (1902) by John Masefield is about the poet's thirst and love for the sea. Horatius (1842) by Thomas Babington Macaulay describes how Publius Horatius and two companions, Spurius Larcius and Titus Herminius, hold the Sublician bridge, the only span crossing the Tiber at Rome, against the Etruscan army of Lars Porsena, King of Clusium. Each in His Own Tongue (1895) by William Herbert Carruth highlights the difference of perspective on broad concepts. The Eternal Goodness (?~late 1800s) by John Greenleaf Whittier is a poem about the love of God and understanding of religion. Summum Bonum (1889) by Robert Browning directly translates to "means the highest good." If (1910, written 1895) by Rudyard Kipling was written as a tribute to Leander Starr Jameson, and is the paternal advice to the poet's son, John, about what it means to be a man. The Day is Done (1844) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is about the melancholy, restless feeling at the end of a long day. Love of Country (excerpt from The Lay of the Last Minstrel) (1805) by Walter Scott is about the love and patriotic feeling one should feel for one's country. Nobility (1849) by Alice Cary describes Nobility as a human quality not derived from birth, but from innate actions and values. The Minuet (1879) by Mary Mapes Dodge is about a grandmother telling her granddaughter about a minuet she danced when she herself was young. In Childe Harold's Farewell to England (excerpt from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812-18) by George Gordon Byron, the protagonist of the poem sets out to travel to discover the truth about the world, and about himself. God Save the Flag (1865) by Oliver Wendell Holmes is about the importance and glory of the American flag. The Raven (1845) by Edgar Allan Poe tells of a talking raven's mysterious visit to a distraught lover, tracing the man's slow descent into madness. The Highwayman (1906) by Alfred Noyes is a romantic ballad set in 18th-century rural England about an unnamed highwayman who is in love with a landlord's daughter, how he is betrayed, and his lover must make the ultimate sacrifice. A Psalm of Life (1838) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is a poem written not long after the death of his first wife, while thinking about how to make the best of life. For A' That and A' This (1795) by Robert Burns is a song that is an expression of egalitarian ideas of society, which may be seen as expressing the ideas of republicanism. Jest 'Fore Christmas (?~1879-1895) by Eugene Field is a children's poem about being very good right before Christmas comes around. Gradatim (1872) by Josiah Gilbert Holland is a poem about slowly building one's way up to Heaven, step by deed. The Barefoot Boy (1855) by John Greenleaf Whittier is about a barefoot boy who is both innocent and connected to nature, in a world of adults in which adults have to engage in endless struggles to stand out. In Polonius' Advice to Laertes (from Hamlet)** (1603) by William Shakespeare, Polonius offers his son advice on what it means to succeed in life and be a good man. The Flag Goes By (1898) by Henry Holcomb Bennett is a poem that pays respects and presents the symbolism of the American flag. The Things That Are More Excellent (1895) by William Watson is an earnest plea to appreciate the higher things in life, and forego the material and shallow. Concord Hymn (1886) by Ralph Waldo Emerson was sung at the completion of the Battle Monument commemorating those fallen in the American Civil War. Keep a-Goin' (1910) by Frank L. Stanton is a poem that encourages one to keep going regardless of the difficulty or circumstance. Life Sculpture (1855) by George Washington Doane is a poem about carving one's life as a sculptor carves a sculpture out of stone. The Choir Invisible (1884) by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) is the poets' description of Christianity and heaven. Marmion and Douglas (from Marmion) (1806-08) by Walter Scott is the part of the poem Douglas refuses Marmion entrance into his castle. Ode on a Grecian Urn (1819) by John Keats addresses an ancient Grecian urn, describing and discoursing upon the images depicted on it. The Heart of the Tree (1893) by Henry Cuyler Bunner is a message that the one who plants a tree not only contributes to the betterment of nature for all the other creatures, but he also helps in nation's growth. Crossing the Bar (1889) by Alfred Tennyson is an elegy wherein the poet uses an extended metaphor to compare death with crossing the "sandbar" between the river of life, and the ocean that lies beyond death, the "boundless deep", to which we return.
**Refer to entry for full quotes and information.
My rating: 8/10
My review:
♥ Loud and sudden there was heard,
All around them and below,
The sound of hammers, blow on blow,
Knocking away the shores and spurs.
And see! she stirs!
She starts-she moves-she seems to feel
The thrill of life along her keel,
And, spurning with her foot the ground,
With one exulting, joyous bound,
She leaps into the ocean's arms!
And lo! from the assembled crowd
There rose a shout, prolonged and loud,
That to the ocean seemed to say,
"Take her, O bridegroom, old and gray,
Take her to thy protecting arms,
With all her youth and all her charms!"
♥ For gentleness and love and trust
Prevail o'er angry wave and gust;
And in the wreck of noble lives
Something immortal still survives!
Thou, too, sail on, O ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Woman wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat,
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
'Tis of the wave and not the rock;
'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale.
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee-are all with thee!
~~from The Building of the Ship by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
♥ Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.
Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.
Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.
~~Solitude by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
♥ Ketch a shadder down below,
And look up to find the crow-
Er a hawk-away up there,
'Peerantly froze in the air!-
Hear the old hen squawk, and squat
Over ever' chick she's got,
Suddent-like-and she knows where
That-air hawk is, well as you!-
You jes' bet yer life she do!-
Eyes a-glitterin' like a glass,
Waitin' till he makes a pass!
♥ Sun out in the fields kin sizz,
But flat on yer back, I guess,
In the shade 's where glory is!
That's jes' what I'd like to do
Stiddy fer a year er two!
Plague! ef they ain't somepin' in
Work 'at kindo' goes ag'in
My convictions!-'long about
Here in June especially!-
Under some old apple-tree,
Jes' a-restin' through and through,
I could git along without
Nothin' else at all to do
Only jes' a-wishin' you
Wuz a-gittin' there like me,
And June was eternity!
Lay out there and try to see
Jes' how lazy you kin be!-
~~from Knee-Deep in June by James Whitcomb Riley.
♥ Master of human destinies am I.
Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait,
Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate
Deserts and seas remote, and, passing by
Hovel, and mart, and palace, soon or late
I knock unbidden, once at every gate!
If sleeping, wake-if feasting, rise before
I turn away. It is the hour of fate,
And they who follow me reach every state
Mortals desire, and conquer every foe
Save death; but those who hesitate,
Condemned to failure, penury and woe,
Seek me in vain and uselessly implore-
I answer not, and I return no more
~~Opportunity by John James Ingalls.
♥ Serene, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind nor tide nor sea;
I rave no more 'gainst time or fate,
For lo! my own shall come to me.
I stay my haste, I make delays-
For what avails this eager pace?
I stand amid the eternal ways
And what is mine shall know my face.
Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me,
No wind can drive my bark astray
Nor change the tide of destiny.
What matter if I stand alone?
I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap where it has sown,
And garner up its fruit of tears.
The waters know their own, and draw
The brook that springs in yonder height;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delight.
The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave unto the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.
~~Waiting by John Burroughs.
♥ Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,-
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead..
♥ But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
♥ Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
♥ It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the clock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.
♥ So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,-
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the house of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
~~from Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
♥ That time of year thou may'st in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang:
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all the rest:
In me thou see'st the flowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death[bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by:
-This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
~~That Time of Year (Sonnet 73) by William Shakespeare.
♥ He who plants a tree
Plants a hope.
Rootlets up through fibres blindly grope;
Leaves unfold into horizons free.
So man's life must climb
From the clods of time
Unto heavens sublime.
Canst thou prophesy, thou little tree,
What the glory of thy boughs shall be?
He who plants a tree
Plants a joy;
Plants a comfort that will never cloy..
♥ If thou couldst but know, thou happy tree,
Of the bliss that shall inhabit thee!
He who plants a tree,-
He plants peace.
Under its green curtains jargons cease.
Leaf and zephyr murmur soothingly;
Shadows soft with sleep
Down tired eyelids creep,
Balm of slumber deep.
Never hast thou dreamed, thou blessèd tree,
Of the benediction thou shalt be.
He who plants a tree,-
He plants youth;
Vigor won for centuries in sooth;
Life of time, that hints eternity!
♥ Thou shalt teach the ages, sturdy tree,
Youth of soul is immortality.
He who plants a tree,-
He plants love,
Tents of coolness spreading out above
Wayfarers he may not live to see.
Gifts that grow are best;
Hands that bless are blest;
Plant! life does the rest!
Heaven and earth help him who plants a tree,
And his work its own reward shall be.
~~from Plant a Tree by Lucy Larcom.
♥ Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An Angel writing in a book of gold:
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou?" The Vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the Angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men."
The Angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest!
~~Abou Ben Adhem by James Henry Leigh Hunt.
♥ Hear the sledges with the bells-
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells,-
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
♥ Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells,-
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
Hear the loud alarum bells-
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror now their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor,
Now-now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells-
Of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells,-
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
Hear the tolling of the bells-
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people-ah, the people-
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone-
They are neither man nor woman-
They are neither brute nor human-
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
~~from The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe.
♥ The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
♥ Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bow'r,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade.
Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,
The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!
Let not ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the poor.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Nor you, ye Proud, impute to These the fault,
If Mem'ry o'er their Tomb no Trophies raise,
Where thro' the long-drawn isle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre.
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page
Rich the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark, unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little Tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.
Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes,
Their lot forbad: nor cicumscrib'd alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd;
Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,
The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhimes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
Their names, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing ling'ring look behind?
On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev'n from the tom, the voice of Nature cries,
Ev'n in our Ashes live their wonted Fires.
♥ THE EPITAPH
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A Youth of Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,
He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.
No father seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,-
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
The bosom of his Father and his God.
~~from Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard by Thomas Gray.
♥ When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent, which is death to hide,
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He, returning, chide:
"Doth God exact day labor, light denied?"
I fondly ask; but Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work, or His own gifts; who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state
Is kingly. Thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."
~~Sonnet on His Blindness by John Milton.
♥ To him who, in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language: for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart,-
Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around-
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air-
Comes a still voice:-Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements;
To be a brother to the insensible rock,
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold.
Yet not to thine eternal resting place
Shalt thou retire alone-nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world-with kings,
The powerful of the earth-the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulcher. The hills,
Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun; the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods; rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks,
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste-
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man! The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls thew Oregon and hears no sound
Save his own dashings-yet the dead are there;
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep-the dead reign there alone!
So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living; and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before shall chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men-
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man-
Shall one by one be fathered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
So live that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan that moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
~~Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant.
♥ Between the dark and the daylight,
When the light is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupations
That is known as the Children's Hour.
♥ Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all?
I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.
And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the wall shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away.
~~from The Children's Hour by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
♥ Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matter not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.
~~Invictus by William Ernest Henley.
♥ I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist of the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied..
♥ I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.
~~from Sea Fever by John Masefield.
♥ But the Consul's brow was sad,
And the Consul's speech was low,
And darkly looked he at the wall,
And darkly at the foe:
"Their van will be upon us
Before the bridge goes down;
And if they once may win the bridge
What hope to save the town?"
Then outspake brave Horatius.
The captain of the gate:
"To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods?"
♥ Then, whirling up his broadsword
With both hands to the height,
He rushed against Horatius,
And smote with all his might,
With shield and blade Horatius
Right deftly turned the blow,
The blow, though turned, came yet too nigh;
It missed his helm, but gashed his thigh.
The Tuscans raised a joyful cry
To see the red blood flow.
He reeled, and on Herminius
He leaned one breathing-space,
Then, like a wild-cat mad with wounds,
Sprang right at Astur's face.
Through teeth and skull and helmet
So fierce a thrust he sped,
The good sword stood a handbreadth out
Behind the Tuscan's head.
And the great lord of Luna
Fell at that deadly stroke,
As falls on Mount Avernus
A thunder-smitten oak.
Far o'er the crashing forest
The giant arms lie spread;
And the pale augurs, muttering low,
Gaze on the blasted head.
On Astur's throat Horatius
Right firmly pressed his heel,
And thrice and four times tugged amain,
Ere he wrenched out the steel.
"And see," he cried, "the welcome,
Fair guests, that waits you here!
What noble Lucumo comes next
To taste our Roman cheer?"
♥ Alone stood brave Horatius,
But constant still in mind,-
Thrice thirty thousand foes before,
And the broad flood behind.
"Down with him!" cried false Sextus,
With a smile on his pale face;
"Now yield thee," cried Lars Porsena,
"Now yield thee to our grace!"
Round turned he, as not deigning
Those craven ranks to see;
Naught spake he to Lars Porsena,
To Sextus naught spake he;
But he saw on Palatinus
The white porch of his home;
And he spake to the noble river
That rolls by the towers of Rome:
"O Tiber! Father Tiber!
To whom the Romans pray
A Roman's life, a Roman's arms,
Take thou in charge this day!"
So he spake, and, speaking, sheathed
The good sword by his side,
And, with his harness on his back,
Plunged headlong in the tide.
No sound of joy or sorrow
Was heard from either bank,
But friends and foes in dumb surprise,
With parted lips and straining eyes,
Stood gazing where he sank;
And when above the surface
They saw his crest appear,
All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry,
And even the ranks of Tuscany
Could scarce forbear to cheer.
But fiercely ran the current,
Swollen high by months of rain,
And fast his blood was flowing;
And he was sore in pain,
And heavy with his armor,
And spent with changing blows;
And oft they thought him sinking,
But still again he rose.
* * *
And now he feels the bottom;-
Now on dry earth he stands;
Now round him throng the Fathers
To press his gory hands.
And, now, with shouts and clapping,
And noise of weeping loud,
He enters through the River Gate,
Borne by the joyous crowd.
~~from Horatius by Thomas Babington Macaulay.
♥ A fire-mist and a planet,
A crystal and a cell,
A jelly-fish and a saurian,
And caves where the cave-men dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty
And a face turned from the clod-
Some call it Evolution,
And others call it God.
A haze on the far horizon,
The infinite, tender sky,
The ripe rich tint of the cornfields,
And the wild geese sailing high-
And all over upland and lowland
The charm of the golden-rod-
Some of us call it Autumn
And others call it God.
Like tides on a crescent sea-beach,
When the moon is new and thin,
Into our hearts high yearnings
Come welling and surging in-
Come from the mystic ocean,
Whose rim no foot has trod,-
Some of us call it Longing,
And others call it God.
A picket frozen on duty,
A mother starved for her brood,
Socrates drinking the hemlock,
And Jesus on the rood;
And millions who, humble and nameless,
The straight, hard pathway plod,-
Some call it Consecration,
And others call it God.
~~Each in His Own Tongue by William Herbert Carruth.
♥ No offering of my own I have,
Nor works my faith to prove;
I can but give the gifts He gave,
And plead His love for love.
And so beside the Silent Sea
I wait the muffled oar;
No harm from Him can come to me
On ocean or on shore.
I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.
I brothers! if my faith is vain,
If hopes like these betray,
Pray for me that my feet may gain
The sure and safer way.
And Thou, O Lord! by whom are seen
Thy creatures as they be,
Forgive me if too close I lean
My human heart to Thee!
~~from The Eternal Goodness by John Greenleaf Whittier.
♥ If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance of their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream-and not make dreams your master;
If you can think-and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And-which is more-you'll be a Man, my son!
~~If by Rudyard Kipling.
♥ The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
That my soul cannot resist:
A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.
Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.
For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor;
And tonight I long for rest.
~~from The Day is Done by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
♥ Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said:
"This is my own, my native land?"
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned
As home his footsteps he hath turned,
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power and pelf,
The wretch concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.
~~Love of Country (from The Lay of the Last Minstrel) by Walter Scott.
♥ For whatever men say in their blindness,
And spite of the fancies of youth,
There's nothing so kingly as kindness,
And nothing so royal as truth.
♥ The air for the wing of the sparrow,
The bush for the robin and wren,
But always the path that is narrow
And straight, for the children of men.
'Tis not in the pages of story
The heart of its ills to beguile,
Though he who makes courtship to glory
Gives all that he hath for her smile.
For when from her heights he has won her,
Alas! it is only to prove
That nothing's so sacred as honor,
And nothing so loyal as love!
We cannot make bargains for blisses,
Nor catch them like fishes in nets;
And sometimes the thing our life misses
Helps more than the thing which it gets.
♥ Through envy, through malice, through hating,
Against the world, early and late,
No jot of our courage abating-
Our part is to work and to wait.
And slight is the sting of his trouble
Whose winnings are less than his worth;
For he who is honest and noble,
Whatever his fortunes or birth.
~~from Nobility by Alice Cary.
♥ Washed in the blood of the brave and the blooming,
Snatched from the altars of insolent foes,
Burning with star-fires, but never consuming,
Flash its broad ribbons of lily and rose.
Vainly the prophets of Baal would rend it,
Vainly his worshippers pray for its fall;
Thousands have died for it, millions defend it,
Emblem of justice and mercy to all:
Justice that reddens the sky with her terrors,
Mercy that comes with her white-handed train,
Soothing all passions, redeeming all errors,
Sheathing the sabre and breaking the chain.
Borne on the deluge of old usurpations,
Drifted our Ark o'er the desolate seas,
Bearing the rainbow of hope to the nations,
Torn from the storm-cloud and flung to the breeze!
God bless the Flag and its loyal defenders,
While its broad folds o'er the battle-field wave,
Till the dim star-wreath rekindle its splendors,
Washed from its stains in the blood of the brave!
~~God Save the Flag by Oliver Wendell Holmes.
♥ Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the lost Lenore,
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore,
Nameless here forevermore.
♥ Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!"
Merely this, and nothing more.
♥ Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven, of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door;
Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door,
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven, wandering from the nightly shore.
Tell me what the lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore."
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."
♥ But the raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered;
Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before;
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said, "Nevermore."
♥ Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee-by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite-respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, O quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore!"
"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!-prophet still, if bird or devil!
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted-
In this home by horror haunted-tell me truly, I implore:
Is there-is there balm in Gilead?-tell me-tell me I implore!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."
♥ Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."
"Be that word our sign of parking, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting-
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!-quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form form off my door!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."
And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's hat is dreaming;
And the lamplight e'er him streaming throws the shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted-nevermore!
~~from The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.
♥ Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
.."One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize tonight,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way."
He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the West.
♥ They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window;
And hell at one dark window,
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.
They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"Now keep good watch!" and they kissed her.
She heard the dead man say-
Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!
She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years,
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!
The tip of one finger touched it; she trove no more for the rest!
Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
She would not risk their hearing! she would not strive again;
For the road lay bare in the moonlight,
Blank and bare in the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love's refrain.
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear;
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still!
Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide fore a moment! she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him-with her death.
He turned, he spurred to the West; he did not know she stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it; his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.
Back he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden moon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.
~~from Highwayman by Alfred Noyes.
♥ Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!-
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,-act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
~~A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
♥ Heaven is not gained at a single bound;
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,
And we mount to its summit round by round.
I count this thing to be grandly true,
That a noble deed is a step toward God-
Lifting the soul from the common sod
To a purer air and a broader view.
♥ We hope, we aspire, we resolve, we trust,
When the morning calls us to life and light,
But our hearts grow weary, and, ere the night,
Our lives are trailing the sordid dust.
We hope, we resolve, we aspire, we pray,
And we think that we mount the air on wings
Beyond the recall of sensual things,
While our feet still cling to the heavy clay.
Wings for the angels, but feet for men!
We may borrow the wings to find the way-
We may hope, and resolve, and aspire, and pray,
But our feet must rise, or we fall again.
~~from Gradatim by Josiah Gilbert Holland.
♥ Blessings on thee, little man,
Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!
With thy turned-up pantaloons,
And thy merry whistled tunes;
With thy red lip, redder still,
Kissed by strawberries on the hill;
With the sunshine on thy face,
Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace,
From my heart I give thee joy,-
I was once a barefoot boy.
♥ Oh, for boyhood's painless play,
Sleep that wakes in laughing day,
Health that mocks the doctor's rules,
Knowledge never learned of schools,
Of the wild bee's morning chase,
Of the wild flower's time and place,
Flight of fowl and habitude
Of the tenants of the wood;
How the tortoise bears his shell,
How the woodchuck digs his cell,
And the groundmole sinks his well;
How the robin feeds her young,
How the oriole's nest is hung,
Where the whitest lilies blow,
Where the freshest berries grow,
Where the ground-nut trails its vine,
Where the wood-grape's clusters shine,
Of the black wasp's cunning way,-
Mason of his walls of clay,-
And the architectural plans
Of gray-hornet artisans!-
For, eschewing books and tasks,
Nature answers all he asks,
Hand in han`1d with her he walks,
Face to face with her he talks,
Part and parcel of her joy,-
Blessings on the barefoot boy!
♥ Larger grew my riches too;
All the world I saw or knew
Seemed a complex Chinese toy
Fashioned for a barefoot boy.
♥ Cheerily, then, my little man,
Live and laugh as boyhood can!
Though the flinty slopes be hard,
Stubble-speared the new-mown sward,
Every morn shall lead thee through
Fresh baptisms of the dew;
Every evening from thy feet
Shall the cool wind kiss the heat;
All too soon these feet must hide
In the prison cells of pride,
Lose the freedom of the sod,
Like a colt's for work be shod,
Made to tread the mills of toil,
Up and down in ceaseless moil;
Happy if their track be found
Never on forbidden ground;
Happy if they sink not in
Quick and treacherous sands of sin,
Ah! that thou couldst know thy joy,
Ere it passers, barefoot boy!
~~from The Barefoot Boy by John Greenleaf Whittier.
♥ There,-my blessing with you!
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character.-Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
~~Polonius' Advice to Laertes (from Hamlet) by William Shakespeare.
♥ The colors before us fly;
But more than the flag is passing by.
Sea-fights and land-fights, grim and great,
Fought to make and to save the State:
Weary marches and sinking ships;
Cheers of victory on dying lips;
Days pf plenty and years of peace;
March of a strong land's swift increase;
Equal justice, right and law,
Stately honor and reverent awe;
Sign of a nation, great and strong
To ward her people from foreign wrong:
Pride and glory and honor,-all
Live in the colors to stand or fall.
~~from The Flag Goes By by Henry Holcomb Bennett.
♥ As we wax older on this earth,
Till many a toy that charmed us seems
Emptied of beauty, stripped of worth,
And mean as dust and dead as dreams,-
For gauds that perished, shows that passed,
Some recompense the Fates have send:
Thrice lovelier shine the things that last,
The things that are more excellent.
♥ Shall we perturb and vex our soul
For "wrongs" which no true freedom mar,
Which no man's upright walk control,
And from no guiltless deed debar?
What odds though tonguesters heal, or leave
Unhealed, the grievance they invent?
To things, not phantoms, let us cleave-
The things that are more excellent.
Nought nobler is, than to be free:
The stars of heaven are free because
In amplitude of liberty
Their joy is to obey the laws.
♥ And in appropriate dust be hurled
That dull, punctilious god, whom they
That call their tiny clan the world,
Serve and obsequiously obey..
♥ To hug the wealth ye cannot use,
And lack the riches all may gain,-
O blind and wanting wit to choose,
Who house the chaff and burn the grain!
And still doth life with starry towers
Lure to the bright, divine ascent!-
Be yours the things ye would: be ours
The things that are more excellent.
The grace of friendship-mind and heart
Linked with their fellow heart and mind;
The gains of science, gifts of art;
The sense of oneness with our kind;
The thirst to know and understand-
A large and liberal discontent:
These are the goods in life's rich hand,
The things that are more excellent.
~~from The Things That Are More Excellent by William Watson.
♥ Chisel in hand stood a sculptor boy
With his marble block before him,
And his eyes lit up with a smile of joy,
As an angel-dream passed o'er him.
He carved the dream on that shapeless stone,
With many a sharp incision;
With heaven's own light the sculpture shone,-
He'd caught that angel-vision.
Children of life are we, as we stand
With our lives uncarved before us,
Waiting the hour when, at God's command,
Our life-dream shall pass o'er us.
If we carve it then on the gilding stone,
With many a sharp incision,
Its heavenly beauty shall be our own,-
Our lives, that angel-vision.
~~Life Sculpture by George Washington Doane.
♥ Oh, may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge men's search
To vaster issues. So to live is heaven:
To make undying music in the world,
Breaking a beauteous order that controls
With growing sway the growing life of man.
So we inherit that sweet purity
For which wee struggled, failed, and agonized
With widening retrospect that bred despair.
♥ And all our rarer, better, truer self
That sobbed religiously in yearning song,
That watched to ease the burden of the world,
Laboriously tracing what must be,
And what may yet be better,-saw within
A worthier image of the sanctuary,
And shaped it forth before the multitude,
Divinely human, raising worship so
To higher reverence more mixed with love,-
That better self shall live will human Time
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky
Be fathered like a scroll within the tomb
Unread forever. This is life to come,-..
♥ May I reach
That purest heaven,-be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense!
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.
~~from The Choir Invisible by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans).
♥ Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but more endeared,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone;
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal-yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
♥ Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or seashore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou are desolate, can e'er return.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble mean and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"-that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
~~from Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats.
♥ What does he plant who plants a tree?
He plants a friend of sun and sky;
He plants the flag of breezes free;
The shaft of beauty, towering high;
He plants a home to heaven high
For song and mother-croon of bird
In hushed and happy twilight heard-
The treble of heaven's harmony-
These things he plants who plants a tree.
What does he plant who plants a tree?
He plants cool shade and tender rain,
And seed and bud of days to be,
And years that fade and flush again;
He plants the glory of the plain;
He plants the forest's heritage;
The harvest of a coming age;
The joy that unborn eyes shall see-
These things he plants who plants a tree.
What does he plant who plants a tree?
He plants, in sap and leaf and wood,
In love of home and loyalty
And far-cast thought of civic good-
His blessings on the neighborhood
Who in the hollow of His hand
Holds all the growth of all our land-
A nation's growth from sea to sea
Stirs in his heart who plants a tree.
~~from The Heart of the Tree by Henry Cuyler Bunner.
♥ Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me,
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho' from out our bourne of time and place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.
~~Crossing the Bar by Alfred Tennyson.