 |
Philip Van Artevelde. Part i. Act i. Sc. 5.
We figure to ourselves The thing we like; and then we build it up, As chance will have it, on the rock or sand,— For thought is tired of wandering o'er the world, And homebound Fancy runs her bark ashore.
Philip Van Artevelde. Part i. Act i. Sc. 5.
Such souls, Whose sudden visitations daze the world, Vanish like lightning, but they leave behind A voice that in the distance far away Wakens the slumbering ages.
Philip Van Artevelde. Part i. Act i. Sc. 7.
WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 1801-1872.
There is a higher law than the Constitution.
Speech, March 11, 1850.
It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces.
Speech, Oct. 25, 1858.
W. M. PRAED. 1802-1839.
Twelve years ago I was a boy, A happy boy at Drury's.
School and Schoolfellows.
Some lie beneath the churchyard stone, And some before the speaker.
School and Schoolfellows.
I remember, I remember How my childhood fleeted by,— The mirth of its December And the warmth of its July.
I remember, I remember.
GEORGE P. MORRIS. 1802-1864.
Woodman, spare that tree! Touch not a single bough![595-1] In youth it sheltered me, And I 'll protect it now.
Woodman, spare that Tree! 1830.
A song for our banner! The watchword recall Which gave the Republic her station: "United we stand, divided we fall!" It made and preserves us a nation![595-2] The union of lakes, the union of lands, The union of States none can sever, The union of hearts, the union of hands, And the flag of our Union forever!
The Flag of our Union.
Near the lake where drooped the willow, Long time ago!
Near the Lake.
FOOTNOTES:
[595-1] See Campbell, page 516.
[595-2] See Key, page 517.
ALBERT G. GREENE. 1802-1868.
Old Grimes is dead, that good old man We never shall see more; He used to wear a long black coat All buttoned down before.[596-1]
Old Grimes.
FOOTNOTES:
[596-1] John Lee is dead, that good old man,— We ne'er shall see him more; He used to wear an old drab coat All buttoned down before. To the memory of John Lee, who died May 21, 1823.
An Inscription in Matherne Churchyard.
Old Abram Brown is dead and gone,— You 'll never see him more; He used to wear a long brown coat That buttoned down before.
HALLIWELL: Nursery Rhymes of England, p. 60.
LYDIA MARIA CHILD. 1802-1880.
England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile with bulrushes as to fetter the step of Freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land than where she treads the sequestered glens of Scotland, or couches herself among the magnificent mountains of Switzerland.
Supposititious Speech of James Otis. The Rebels, Chap. iv.
DOUGLAS JERROLD. 1803-1857.
He is one of those wise philanthropists who in a time of famine would vote for nothing but a supply of toothpicks.
Douglas Jerrold's Wit.
The surest way to hit a woman's heart is to take aim kneeling.
Douglas Jerrold's Wit.
The nobleman of the garden.
The Pineapple.
That fellow would vulgarize the day of judgment.
A Comic Author.
The best thing I know between France and England is the sea.
The Anglo-French Alliance.
The life of the husbandman,—a life fed by the bounty of earth and sweetened by the airs of heaven.
The Husbandman's Life.
Some people are so fond of ill-luck that they run half-way to meet it.
Meeting Troubles Half-way.
Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest.
A Land of Plenty [Australia].
The ugliest of trades have their moments of pleasure. Now, if I were a grave-digger, or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment.
Ugly Trades.
A blessed companion is a book,—a book that fitly chosen is a life-long friend.
Books.
There is something about a wedding-gown prettier than in any other gown in the world.
A Wedding-gown.
He was so good he would pour rose-water on a toad.
A Charitable Man.
As for the brandy, "nothing extenuate;" and the water, put nought in in malice.
Shakespeare Grog.
Talk to him of Jacob's ladder, and he would ask the number of the steps.
A Matter-of-fact Man.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 1803-1882.
Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. All are needed by each one; Nothing is fair or good alone.
Each and All.
I wiped away the weeds and foam, I fetched my sea-born treasures home; But the poor, unsightly, noisome things Had left their beauty on the shore, With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.
Each and All.
Not from a vain or shallow thought His awful Jove young Phidias brought.
The Problem.
Out from the heart of Nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old.
The Problem.
The hand that rounded Peter's dome, And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, Wrought in a sad sincerity; Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew: The conscious stone to beauty grew.
The Problem.
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon As the best gem upon her zone.
The Problem.
Earth laughs in flowers to see her boastful boys Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs; Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet Clear of the grave.
Hamatreya.
Good bye, proud world! I 'm going home; Thou art not my friend, and I 'm not thine.[598-1]
Good Bye.
For what are they all in their high conceit, When man in the bush with God may meet?
Good Bye.
If eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.
The Rhodora.
Things are in the saddle, And ride mankind.[599-1]
Ode, inscribed to W. H. Channing.
Olympian bards who sung Divine ideas below, Which always find us young And always keep us so.
Ode to Beauty.
Heartily know, When half-gods go, The gods arrive.
Give all to Love.
Love not the flower they pluck and know it not, And all their botany is Latin names.
Blight.
The silent organ loudest chants The master's requiem.
Dirge.
By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattl'd farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world.[599-2]
Hymn sung at the Completion of the Battle Monument.
What potent blood hath modest May!
May-Day.
And striving to be man, the worm Mounts through all the spires of form.
May-Day.
And every man, in love or pride, Of his fate is never wide.
Nemesis.
None shall rule but the humble, And none but Toil shall have.
Boston Hymn. 1863.
Oh, tenderly the haughty day Fills his blue urn with fire.
Ode, Concord, July 4, 1857.
Go put your creed into your deed, Nor speak with double tongue.
Ode, Concord, July 4, 1857.
So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can!
Voluntaries.
Whoever fights, whoever falls, Justice conquers evermore.
Voluntaries.
Nor sequent centuries could hit Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit.
Solution.
Born for success he seemed, With grace to win, with heart to hold, With shining gifts that took all eyes.
In Memoriam.
Nor mourn the unalterable Days That Genius goes and Folly stays.
In Memoriam.
Fear not, then, thou child infirm; There 's no god dare wrong a worm.
Compensation.
He thought it happier to be dead, To die for Beauty, than live for bread.
Beauty.
Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill? Pay every debt, as if God wrote the bill?
Suum Cuique.
Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.
Quatrains. Nature.
Though love repine, and reason chafe, There came a voice without reply,— "'T is man's perdition to be safe When for the truth he ought to die."
Sacrifice.
For what avail the plough or sail, Or land or life, if freedom fail?
Boston.
If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.[601-1]
Nature. Addresses and Lectures. The American Scholar.
There is no great and no small[601-2] To the Soul that maketh all; And where it cometh, all things are; And it cometh everywhere.
Essays. First Series. Epigraph to History.
Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.
Essays. First Series. History.
Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.
Essays. First Series. History.
A man is a bundle of relations, a knot of roots, whose flower and fruitage is the world.
Essays. First Series. History.
The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.
Essays. First Series. Self-Reliance.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
Essays. First Series. Self-Reliance.
To be great is to be misunderstood.
Essays. First Series. Self-Reliance.
Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will.
Essays. First Series. Self-Reliance.
Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.
Essays. First Series. Compensation.
It is as impossible for a man to be cheated by any one but himself, as for a thing to be and not to be at the same time.
Essays. First Series. Compensation.
Proverbs, like the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions.
Essays. First Series. Compensation.
Every action is measured by the depth of the sentiment from which it proceeds.
Essays. First Series. Spiritual Laws.
All mankind love a lover.
Essays. First Series. Love.
A ruddy drop of manly blood The surging sea outweighs; The world uncertain comes and goes, The lover rooted stays.
Essays. First Series. Epigraph to Friendship.
A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature.
Essays. First Series. Friendship.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Essays. First Series. Circles.
There is nothing settled in manners, but the laws of behaviour yield to the energy of the individual.
Essays. Second Series. Manners.
And with Caesar to take in his hand the army, the empire, and Cleopatra, and say, "All these will I relinquish if you will show me the fountain of the Nile."
New England Reformers.
He is great who is what he is from Nature, and who never reminds us of others.
Representative Men. Uses of Great Men.
Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?[602-1]
Representative Men. Montaigne.
Thought is the property of him who can entertain it, and of him who can adequately place it.
Representative Men. Shakespeare.
The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue.
English Traits. Race.
I find the Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in his shoes.
English Traits. Manners.
A creative economy is the fuel of magnificence.
English Traits. Aristocracy.
The manly part is to do with might and main what you can do.
The Conduct of Life. Wealth.
The alleged power to charm down insanity, or ferocity in beasts, is a power behind the eye.
The Conduct of Life. Behaviour.
Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.
The Conduct of Life. Behaviour.
Good is a good doctor, but Bad is sometimes a better.
The Conduct of Life. Considerations by the Way.
God may forgive sins, he said, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth.
The Conduct of Life. Society and Solitude.
Hitch your wagon to a star.
The Conduct of Life. Civilization.
I rarely read any Latin, Greek, German, Italian, sometimes not a French book, in the original, which I can procure in a good version. I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven. I should as soon think of swimming across Charles River when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my books in originals when I have them rendered for me in my mother tongue.
The Conduct of Life. Books.
We do not count a man's years until he has nothing else to count.
The Conduct of Life. Old Age.
Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.
Letters and Social Aims. Social Aims.
By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.
Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.
Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.[604-1]
Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.
When Shakespeare is charged with debts to his authors, Landor replies, "Yet he was more original than his originals. He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them into life."
Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.
In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.
Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.
The passages of Shakespeare that we most prize were never quoted until within this century.
Letters and Social Aims. Quotation and Originality.
Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force; that thoughts rule the world.
Progress of Culture. Phi Beta Kappa Address, July 18, 1867.
I do not find that the age or country makes the least difference; no, nor the language the actors spoke, nor the religion which they professed, whether Arab in the desert or Frenchman in the Academy. I see that sensible men and conscientious men all over the world were of one religion.[604-2]
Lectures and Biographical Sketches. The Preacher.
FOOTNOTES:
[598-1] See Byron, page 544.
[599-1] I never could believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden.—RUMBOLD (when on the scaffold).
[599-2] No war or battle sound Was heard the world around.
MILTON: Hymn of Christ's Nativity, line 31.
[601-1] Everything comes if a man will only wait.—DISRAELI: Tancred, book iv. chap. viii.
[601-2] See Pope, page 316.
[602-1] See Davies, page 176.
[604-1] There is not less wit nor less invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought. Cardinal du Perron has been heard to say that the happy application of a verse of Virgil has deserved a talent.—BAYLE: vol. ii. p. 779.
Though old the thought and oft exprest, 'T is his at last who says it best.
LOWELL: For an Autograph.
[604-2] See Johnson, page 370.
RICHARD HENGEST HORNE. 1803- ——.
'T is always morning somewhere in the world.[604-3]
Orion. Book iii. Canto ii. (1843.)
FOOTNOTES:
[604-3] 'T is always morning somewhere.—LONGFELLOW: Wayside Inn. Birds of Killingworth, stanza 16.
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 1804-1879.
My country is the world; my countrymen are mankind.[605-1]
Prospectus of the Public Liberator, 1830.
I am in earnest. I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard!
Salutatory of the Liberator, Jan. 1, 1831.
Our country is the world; our countrymen are mankind.
Motto of the Liberator, Vol. i. No. 1, 1831.
I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice.
The Liberator, Vol. i. No. 1, 1831.
Our country is the world; our countrymen are all mankind.
Prospectus of the Liberator, Dec. 15, 1837.
The compact which exists between the North and the South is a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.[605-2]
Resolution adopted by the Antislavery Society, Jan. 27, 1843.
FOOTNOTES:
[605-1] Socrates said he was not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.—PLUTARCH: On Banishment.
Diogenes, when asked from what country he came, replied, "I am a citizen of the world."—DIOGENES LAERTIUS.
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.—THOMAS PAINE: Rights of Man, chap. v.
[605-2] We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement.—Isaiah xxviii. 15.
MARY HOWITT. 1804-1888.
Old England is our home, and Englishmen are we; Our tongue is known in every clime, our flag in every sea.
Old England is our Home.
"Will you walk into my parlour?" said a spider to a fly; "'T is the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy."
The Spider and the Fly.
SARAH FLOWER ADAMS. 1805-1848.
Nearer, my God, to Thee! Nearer to Thee! E'en though it be a cross That raiseth me, Still all my song shall be, Nearer, my God, to Thee! Nearer to Thee!
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON. 1805-1873.
Curse away! And let me tell thee, Beausant, a wise proverb The Arabs have,—"Curses are like young chickens, And still come home to roost."
The Lady of Lyons. Act v. Sc. 2.
Beneath the rule of men entirely great, The pen is mightier than the sword.[606-1]
Richelieu. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Take away the sword; States can be saved without it.
Richelieu. Act ii. Sc. 2.
In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves For a bright manhood, there is no such word As "fail."
Richelieu. Act ii. Sc. 2.
The brilliant chief, irregularly great, Frank, haughty, rash,—the Rupert of debate![606-2]
The New Timon. (1846.) Part i.
Alone!—that worn-out word, So idly spoken, and so coldly heard; Yet all that poets sing and grief hath known Of hopes laid waste, knells in that word ALONE!
The New Timon. (1846.) Part ii.
When stars are in the quiet skies, Then most I pine for thee; Bend on me then thy tender eyes, As stars look on the sea.
When Stars are in the quiet Skies.
Buy my flowers,—oh buy, I pray! The blind girl comes from afar.
Buy my Flowers.
The man who smokes, thinks like a sage and acts like a Samaritan.
Night and Morning. Chap. vi.
FOOTNOTES:
[606-1] See Burton, page 189.
[606-2] In April, 1844, Mr. Disraeli thus alluded to Lord Stanley: "The noble lord is the Rupert of debate."
BENJAMIN DISRAELI (EARL BEACONSFIELD). 1805-1881.
Free trade is not a principle, it is an expedient.[607-1]
On Import Duties, April 25, 1843.
The noble lord[607-2] is the Rupert of debate.[607-3]
Speech, April, 1844.
A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.
Speech, March 17, 1845.
A precedent embalms a principle.
Speech, Feb. 22, 1848.
It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.
Speech, Jan. 24, 1860.
The characteristic of the present age is craving credulity.
Speech, Nov. 25, 1864.
Assassination has never changed the history of the world.
Speech, May, 1865.
I see before me the statue of a celebrated minister,[607-4] who said that confidence was a plant of slow growth. But I believe, however gradual may be the growth of confidence, that of credit requires still more time to arrive at maturity.
Speech, Nov. 9, 1867.
The secret of success is constancy to purpose.
Speech, June 24, 1870.
The author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children.
Speech, Nov. 19, 1870.
Apologies only account for that which they do not alter.
Speech, July 28, 1871.
Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilizers of man.
Speech, April 3, 1872.
I repeat . . . that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people and for the people all springs, and all must exist.[608-1]
Vivian Grey. Book vi. Chap. vii.
Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men.
Vivian Grey. Book vi. Chap. vii.
The disappointment of manhood succeeds to the delusion of youth: let us hope that the heritage of old age is not despair.
Vivian Grey. Book viii. Chap. iv.
The first favourite was never heard of, the second favourite was never seen after the distance post, all the ten-to-oners were in the rear, and a dark horse[608-2] which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grand stand in sweeping triumph.
The Young Duke. Book i. Chap. v.
Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius.
Contarini Fleming. Part iv. Chap. v.
Youth is a blunder; manhood a struggle; old age a regret.
Coningsby. Book iii. Chap. i.
But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day, and the race a life.
Sybil. Book i. Chap. ii.
Only think of Cockie Graves having gone and done it!
Sybil. Book i. Chap. ii.
The Duke of Wellington brought to the post of first minister immortal fame,—a quality of success which would almost seem to include all others.
Sybil. Book i. Chap. iii.
The Egremonts had never said anything that was remembered, or done anything that could be recalled.
Sybil. Book i. Chap. iii.
If the history of England be ever written by one who has the knowledge and the courage,—and both qualities are equally requisite for the undertaking,—the world will be more astonished than when reading the Roman annals by Niebuhr.
Sybil. Book i. Chap. iii.
That earliest shock in one's life which occurs to all of us; which first makes us think.
Sybil. Book i. Chap. v.
To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.
Sybil. Book i. Chap. v.
Principle is ever my motto, not expediency.
Sybil. Book ii. Chap. ii.
Property has its duties as well as its rights.[609-1]
Sybil. Book ii. Chap. xi.
Mr. Kremlin was distinguished for ignorance; for he had only one idea, and that was wrong.[609-2]
Sybil. Book iv. Chap. v.
Everything comes if a man will only wait.[609-3]
Tancred. Book iv. Chap. viii. (1847.)
That when a man fell into his anecdotage, it was a sign for him to retire.
Lothair. Chap. xxviii.
You know who critics are?—the men who have failed in literature and art.[609-4]
Lothair. Chap. xxxv.
His Christianity was muscular.
Endymion. Chap. xiv.
The Athanasian Creed is the most splendid ecclesiastical lyric ever poured forth by the genius of man.
Endymion. Chap. lii.
The world is a wheel, and it will all come round right.
Endymion. Chap. lxx.
"As for that," said Waldenshare, "sensible men are all of the same religion." "Pray, what is that?" inquired the Prince. "Sensible men never tell."[610-1]
Endymion. Chap. lxxxi.
The sweet simplicity of the three per cents.[610-2]
Endymion. Chap. xcvi.
FOOTNOTES:
[607-1] It is a condition which confronts us, not a theory.—GROVER CLEVELAND: Annual Message, 1887. Reference to the Tariff.
[607-2] Lord Stanley.
[607-3] See Bulwer, page 606.
[607-4] William Pitt, Earl of Chatham.
[608-1] See Webster, page 532.
[608-2] A common political phrase in the United States.
[609-1] See Drummond, page 582.
[609-2] See Johnson, page 371.
[609-3] See Emerson, page 601.
All things come round to him who will but wait.—LONGFELLOW: Tales of a Wayside Inn. The Student's Tale. (1862.)
[609-4] See Coleridge, page 505.
[610-1] See Johnson, page 370.
An anecdote is related of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper (1621-1683), who, in speaking of religion, said, "People differ in their discourse and profession about these matters, but men of sense are really but of one religion." To the inquiry of "What religion?" the Earl said, "Men of sense never tell it."—BURNET: History of my own Times, vol. i. p. 175, note (edition 1833).
[610-2] See Stowell, page 437.
ROBERT MONTGOMERY. 1807-1855.
And thou, vast ocean! on whose awful face Time's iron feet can print no ruin-trace.[610-3]
The Omnipresence of the Deity. Part i.
The soul aspiring pants its source to mount, As streams meander level with their fount.[610-4]
The Omnipresence of the Deity. Part i.
The solitary monk who shook the world From pagan slumber, when the gospel trump Thunder'd its challenge from his dauntless lips In peals of truth.
Luther. Man's Need and God's Supply.
And not from Nature up to Nature's God,[610-5] But down from Nature's God look Nature through.
Luther. A Landscape of Domestic Life.
FOOTNOTES:
[610-3] See Byron, page 547.
[610-4] We take this to be, on the whole, the worst similitude in the world. In the first place, no stream meanders or can possibly meander level with the fount. In the next place, if streams did meander level with their founts, no two motions can be less like each other than that of meandering level and that of mounting upwards.—MACAULAY: Review of Montgomery's Poems (Eleventh Edition). Edinburgh Review, April, 1830.
These lines were omitted in the subsequent edition of the poem.
[610-5] See Bolingbroke, page 304.
CHARLES JEFFERYS. 1807-1865.
Come o'er the moonlit sea, The waves are brightly glowing.
The Moonlit Sea.
The morn was fair, the skies were clear, No breath came o'er the sea.
The Rose of Allandale.
Meek and lowly, pure and holy, Chief among the "blessed three."
Charity.
Come, wander with me, for the moonbeams are bright On river and forest, o'er mountain and lea.
Come, wander with me.
A word in season spoken May calm the troubled breast.
A Word in Season.
The bud is on the bough again, The leaf is on the tree.
The Meeting of Spring and Summer.
I have heard the mavis singing Its love-song to the morn; I 've seen the dew-drop clinging To the rose just newly born.
Mary of Argyle.
We have lived and loved together Through many changing years; We have shared each other's gladness, And wept each other's tears.
We have lived and loved together.
LADY DUFFERIN. 1807-1867.
I 'm sitting on the stile, Mary, Where we sat side by side.
Lament of the Irish Emigrant.
I 'm very lonely now, Mary, For the poor make no new friends; But oh they love the better still The few our Father sends!
Lament of the Irish Emigrant.
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 1807-1882.
(From the edition of 1886.)
Look, then, into thine heart, and write![612-1]
Voices of the Night. Prelude.
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.[612-2]
A Psalm of Life.
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.
A Psalm of Life.
Art is long, and time is fleeting,[612-3] And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still like muffled drums are beating Funeral marches to the grave.[612-4]
A Psalm of Life.
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!
A Psalm of Life.
Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time.
A Psalm of Life.
Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate;[612-5] Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labour and to wait.
A Psalm of Life.
There is a reaper whose name is Death,[613-1] And with his sickle keen He reaps the bearded grain at a breath, And the flowers that grow between.
The Reaper and the Flowers.
The star of the unconquered will.
The Light of Stars.
Oh, fear not in a world like this, And thou shalt know erelong,— Know how sublime a thing it is To suffer and be strong.
The Light of Stars.
Spake full well, in language quaint and olden, One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, When he called the flowers, so blue and golden, Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.
Flowers.
The hooded clouds, like friars, Tell their beads in drops of rain.
Midnight Mass.
No tears Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.
Sunrise on the Hills.
No one is so accursed by fate, No one so utterly desolate, But some heart, though unknown, Responds unto his own.
Endymion.
For Time will teach thee soon the truth, There are no birds in last year's nest![613-2]
It is not always May.
Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary.
The Rainy Day.
The prayer of Ajax was for light.[614-1]
The Goblet of Life.
O suffering, sad humanity! O ye afflicted ones, who lie Steeped to the lips in misery, Longing, yet afraid to die, Patient, though sorely tried!
The Goblet of Life.
Standing with reluctant feet Where the brook and river meet, Womanhood and childhood fleet!
Maidenhood.
O thou child of many prayers! Life hath quicksands; life hath snares!
Maidenhood.
She floats upon the river of his thoughts.[614-2]
The Spanish Student. Act ii. Sc. 3.
A banner with the strange device.
Excelsior.
This is the place. Stand still, my steed,— Let me review the scene, And summon from the shadowy past The forms that once have been.
A Gleam of Sunshine.
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.
The Day is done.
A feeling of sadness and longing That is not akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only As the mist resembles the rain.
The Day is done.
And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares that infest the day Shall fold their tents like the Arabs, And as silently steal away.
The Day is done.
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!
The Building of the Ship.
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!
The Building of the Ship.
The leaves of memory seemed to make A mournful rustling in the dark.
The Fire of Drift-wood.
There is no flock, however watched and tended, But one dead lamb is there; There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, But has one vacant chair.
Resignation.
The air is full of farewells to the dying, And mournings for the dead.
Resignation.
But oftentimes celestial benedictions Assume this dark disguise.
Resignation.
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers May be heaven's distant lamps.
Resignation.
There is no death! What seems so is transition; This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life elysian, Whose portal we call Death.
Resignation.
Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution, She lives whom we call dead.
Resignation.
In the elder days of Art, Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part; For the gods see everywhere.
The Builders.
This is the forest primeval.
Evangeline. Part i.
When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.
Evangeline. Part i. 1.
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.
Evangeline. Part i. 3.
And as she looked around, she saw how Death the consoler, Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it forever.
Evangeline. Part ii. 5.
God had sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for this planting.[616-1]
The Courtship of Miles Standish. iv.
Into a world unknown,—the corner-stone of a nation![616-2]
The Courtship of Miles Standish. iv.
Saint Augustine! well hast thou said, That of our vices we can frame A ladder, if we will but tread Beneath our feet each deed of shame.[616-3]
The Ladder of Saint Augustine.
The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight, But they while their companions slept Were toiling upward in the night.
The Ladder of Saint Augustine.
The surest pledge of a deathless name Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.
The Herons of Elmwood.
He has singed the beard of the king of Spain.[616-4]
The Dutch Picture.
The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet serenity of books.
Morituri Salutamus.
With useless endeavour Forever, forever, Is Sisyphus rolling His stone up the mountain!
The Masque of Pandora. Chorus of the Eumenides.
All things come round to him who will but wait.[617-1]
Tales of a Wayside Inn. The Student's Tale.
Time has laid his hand Upon my heart gently, not smiting it, But as a harper lays his open palm Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.
The Golden Legend. iv.
Hospitality sitting with Gladness.
Translation from Frithiof's Saga.
Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate, Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours Weeping upon his bed has sate, He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers.
Motto, Hyperion. Book i.[617-2]
Something the heart must have to cherish, Must love and joy and sorrow learn; Something with passion clasp, or perish And in itself to ashes burn.
Hyperion. Book ii.
Alas! it is not till time, with reckless hand, has torn out half the leaves from the Book of Human Life to light the fires of passion with from day to day, that man begins to see that the leaves which remain are few in number.
Hyperion. Book iv. Chap. viii.
Hold the fleet angel fast until he bless thee.[618-1]
Kavanagh.
There is no greater sorrow Than to be mindful of the happy time In misery.[618-2]
Inferno. Canto v. Line 121.
FOOTNOTES:
[612-1] See Philip Sidney, page 34.
[612-2] Things are not always what they seem.—PHAEDRUS: Fables, book iv. Fable 2.
[612-3] See Chaucer, page 6.
Art is long, life is short.—GOETHE: Wilhelm Meister, vii. 9.
[612-4] Our lives are but our marches to the grave.-BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: The Humorous Lieutenant, act iii. sc. 5.
[612-5] See Byron, page 553.
[613-1] There is a Reaper whose name is death.—ARNIM AND BRENTANO: Erntelied. (From "Des Knaben Wunderhorn," ed. 1857, vol. i. p. 59.)
[613-2] Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last.—CERVANTES: Don Quixote, part ii. chap. lxxiv.
[614-1] The light of Heaven restore; Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more.
POPE: The Iliad, book xvii. line 730.
[614-2] See Byron, page 553.
[616-1] See Stoughton, page 266.
[616-2] Plymouth rock.
[616-3] I held it truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things.
TENNYSON: In Memoriam, i.
[616-4] Sir Francis Drake entered the harbour of Cadiz, April 19, 1587, and destroyed shipping to the amount of ten thousand tons lading. To use his own expressive phrase, he had "singed the Spanish king's beard."—KNIGHT: Pictorial History of England, vol. iii. p. 215.
[617-1] See Emerson, page 601.
[617-2] Wer nie sein Brod mit Thraenen ass, Wer nicht die kummervollen Naechte Auf seinem Bette weinend sass, Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Maechte.
GOETHE: Wilhelm Meister, book ii. chap. xiii.
[618-1] Quoted from Cotton's "To-morrow." See Genesis xxx. 3.
[618-2] See Chaucer, page 5.
In omni adversitate fortunae, infelicissimum genus est infortunii fuisse felicem (In every adversity of fortune, to have been happy is the most unhappy kind of misfortune).—BOETHIUS: De Consolatione Philosophiae, liber ii.
This is truth the poet sings, That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.
TENNYSON: Locksley Hall, line 75.
JOHN G. WHITTIER. 1807- ——.
So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn Which once he wore; The glory from his gray hairs gone For evermore!
Ichabod!
Making their lives a prayer.
To A. K. On receiving a Basket of Sea-Mosses.
And step by step, since time began, I see the steady gain of man.
The Chapel of the Hermits.
For still the new transcends the old In signs and tokens manifold; Slaves rise up men; the olive waves, With roots deep set in battle graves!
The Chapel of the Hermits.
Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time, So "Bonnie Doon" but tarry; Blot out the epic's stately rhyme, But spare his "Highland Mary!"
Lines on Burns.
For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
Maud Muller.
Low stir of leaves and dip of oars And lapsing waves on quiet shores.
Snow Bound.
The hope of all who suffer, The dread of all who wrong.
The Mantle of St. John de Matha.
I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care.
The Eternal Goodness.
SALMON P. CHASE. 1808-1873.
The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States.
Decision in Texas v. White, 7 Wallace, 725.
No more slave States; no slave Territories.
Platform of the Free Soil National Convention, 1848.
The way to resumption is to resume.
Letter to Horace Greeley, March 17, 1866.
SAMUEL FRANCIS SMITH. 1808- ——.
My country, 't is of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing: Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims' pride, From every mountain-side Let freedom ring.
National Hymn.
Our fathers' God, to thee; Author of liberty, To thee I sing; Long may our land be bright With freedom's holy light; Protect us by thy might, Great God, our King!
National Hymn.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 1809-1861.
There Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb The crowns o' the world; oh, eyes sublime With tears and laughter for all time!
A Vision of Poets.
And Chaucer, with his infantine Familiar clasp of things divine.
A Vision of Poets.
And Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, Ben, Whose fire-hearts sowed our furrows when The world was worthy of such men.
A Vision of Poets.
Knowledge by suffering entereth, And life is perfected by death.
A Vision of Poets. Conclusion.
Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west.
Toll slowly.
And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness, Round our restlessness His rest.
Rhyme of the Duchess.
Or from Browning some "Pomegranate," which if cut deep down the middle Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.
Lady Geraldine's Courtship. xli.
But since he had The genius to be loved, why let him have The justice to be honoured in his grave.
Crowned and buried. xxvii.
Thou large-brain'd woman and large-hearted man.
To George Sand. A Desire.
By thunders of white silence.
Hiram Power's Greek Slave.
And that dismal cry rose slowly And sank slowly through the air, Full of spirit's melancholy And eternity's despair; And they heard the words it said,— "Pan is dead! great Pan is dead! Pan, Pan is dead!"[621-1]
The Dead Pan.
Death forerunneth Love to win "Sweetest eyes were ever seen."
Catarina to Camoens. ix.
She has seen the mystery hid Under Egypt's pyramid: By those eyelids pale and close Now she knows what Rhamses knows.
Little Mattie. Stanza ii.
But so fair, She takes the breath of men away Who gaze upon her unaware.
Bianca among the Nightingales. xii.
God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face, A gauntlet with a gift in 't.
Aurora Leigh. Book ii.
The growing drama has outgrown such toys Of simulated stature, face, and speech: It also peradventure may outgrow The simulation of the painted scene, Boards, actors, prompters, gaslight, and costume, And take for a worthier stage the soul itself, Its shifting fancies and celestial lights, With all its grand orchestral silences To keep the pauses of its rhythmic sounds.
Aurora Leigh. Book v.
FOOTNOTES:
[621-1] Thamus . . . uttered with a loud voice his message, "The great Pan is dead."—PLUTARCH: Why the Oracles cease to give Answers.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1809-1865.
I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.
Speech, June 16, 1858.
Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us dare to do our duty as we understand it.
Address, New York City, Feb. 21, 1859.
In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free,—honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.
Second Annual Message to Congress, Dec. 1, 1862.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.[622-1]
Speech at Gettysburg, Nov. 19, 1863.
With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.[622-2]
Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865.
FOOTNOTES:
[622-1] See Daniel Webster, page 532.
[622-2] See J. Q. Adams, page 458.
CHARLES DARWIN. 1809-1882.
I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection.
The Origin of Species. Chap. iii.
We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence.[622-3]
The Origin of Species. Chap. iii.
The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient.[622-4]
The Origin of Species. Chap. iii.
FOOTNOTES:
[622-3] The perpetual struggle for room and food.—MALTHUS: On Population. chap. iii. p. 48 (1798).
[622-4] This survival of the fittest which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called "natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life."—HERBERT SPENCER: Principles of Biology. Indirect Equilibration.
ALFRED TENNYSON. 1809- ——.
(From the edition of 1884.)
This laurel greener from the brows Of him that utter'd nothing base.
To the Queen.
And statesmen at her council met Who knew the seasons, when to take Occasion by the hand, and make The bounds of freedom wider yet.
To the Queen.
Broad based upon her people's will, And compassed by the inviolate sea.
To the Queen.
For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Recollections of the Arabian Nights.
Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, The love of love.
The Poet.
Like glimpses of forgotten dreams.
The Two Voices. Stanza cxxvii.
Across the walnuts and the wine.
The Miller's Daughter.
O love! O fire! once he drew With one long kiss my whole soul through My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.[623-1]
Fatima. Stanza 3.
Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,— These three alone lead life to sovereign power.
OEnone.
Because right is right, to follow right Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.
OEnone.
I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house, Wherein at ease for aye to dwell.
The Palace of Art.
Her manners had not that repose Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere. Stanza 5.
From yon blue heaven above us bent, The grand old gardener and his wife[624-1] Smile at the claims of long descent.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere. Stanza 7.
Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'T is only noble to be good.[624-2] Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere. Stanza 7.
You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear; To-morrow 'll be the happiest time of all the glad New Year,— Of all the glad New Year, mother, the maddest, merriest day; For I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be queen o' the May.
The May Queen.
Ah, why Should life all labour be?
The Lotus-Eaters. iv.
A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, And most divinely fair.[624-3]
A Dream of Fair Women. Stanza xxii.
God gives us love. Something to love He lends us; but when love is grown To ripeness, that on which it throve Falls off, and love is left alone.
To J. S.
Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace! Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul, While the stars burn, the moons increase, And the great ages onward roll.
To J. S.
Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet! Nothing comes to thee new or strange. Sleep full of rest from head to feet; Lie still, dry dust, secure of change.
To J. S.
More black than ash-buds in the front of March.
The Gardener's Daughter.
Of love that never found his earthly close, What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts; Or all the same as if he had not been?
Love and Duty.
The long mechanic pacings to and fro, The set, gray life, and apathetic end.
Love and Duty.
Ah, when shall all men's good Be each man's rule, and universal peace Lie like a shaft of light across the land, And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, Thro' all the circle of the golden year?
The Golden Year.
I am a part of all that I have met.[625-1]
Ulysses.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use,— As tho' to breathe were life!
Ulysses.
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles whom we knew.
Ulysses.
Here at the quiet limit of the world.
Tithonus.
In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove; In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
Locksley Hall. Line 19.
Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight.
Locksley Hall. Line 33.
He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.
Locksley Hall. Line 49.
This is truth the poet sings, That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.[626-1]
Locksley Hall. Line 75.
Like a dog, he hunts in dreams.
Locksley Hall. Line 79.
With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart.
Locksley Hall. Line 94.
But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels.
Locksley Hall. Line 105.
Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new.
Locksley Hall. Line 117.
Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns.
Locksley Hall. Line 137.
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.
Locksley Hall. Line 141.
I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.
Locksley Hall. Line 168.
I, the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time.
Locksley Hall. Line 178.
Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change.
Locksley Hall. Line 182.
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.
Locksley Hall. Line 184.
I waited for the train at Coventry; I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge, To watch the three tall spires; and there I shaped The city's ancient legend into this.
Godiva.
And on her lover's arm she leant, And round her waist she felt it fold, And far across the hills they went In that new world which is the old.
The Day-Dream. The Departure, i.
And o'er the hills, and far away Beyond their utmost purple rim, Beyond the night, across the day, Thro' all the world she follow'd him.
The Day-Dream. The Departure, iv.
We are ancients of the earth, And in the morning of the times.
L'Envoi.
As she fled fast through sun and shade The happy winds upon her play'd, Blowing the ringlet from the braid.
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere.
For now the poet cannot die, Nor leave his music as of old, But round him ere he scarce be cold Begins the scandal and the cry.
To ——, after reading a Life and Letters.
But oh for the touch of a vanish'd hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break.
But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me.
Break, break, break.
For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever.
The Brook.
Mastering the lawless science of our law,— That codeless myriad of precedent, That wilderness of single instances.
Aylmer's Field.
Rich in saving common-sense, And, as the greatest only are, In his simplicity sublime.
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. Stanza 4.
Oh good gray head which all men knew!
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. Stanza 4.
That tower of strength Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew.
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. Stanza 4.
For this is England's greatest son, He that gain'd a hundred fights, And never lost an English gun.
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. Stanza 6.
Not once or twice in our rough-island story The path of duty was the way to glory.
Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. Stanza 8.
All in the valley of death Rode the six hundred.
The Charge of the Light Brigade. Stanza 1.
Some one had blunder'd: Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.
The Charge of the Light Brigade. Stanza 2.
Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them. . . . . Into the jaws of death,[628-1] Into the mouth of hell Rode the six hundred.
The Charge of the Light Brigade. Stanza 3.
That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies; That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright; But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight.
The Grandmother. Stanza 8.
O Love! what hours were thine and mine, In lands of palm and southern pine; In lands of palm, of orange-blossom, Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine!
The Daisy. Stanza 1.
So dear a life your arms enfold, Whose crying is a cry for gold.
The Daisy. Stanza 24.
Read my little fable: He that runs may read.[629-1] Most can raise the flowers now, For all have got the seed.
The Flower.
In that fierce light which beats upon a throne.
Idylls of the King. Dedication.
It is the little rift within the lute That by and by will make the music mute, And ever widening slowly silence all.
Idylls of the King. Merlin and Vivien.
His honour rooted in dishonour stood, And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.
Idylls of the King. Launcelot and Elaine.
The old order changeth, yielding place to new; And God fulfils himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
The Passing of Arthur.
I am going a long way With these thou seest—if indeed I go (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)— To the island-valley of Avilion, Where falls not hail or rain or any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea, Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.
The Passing of Arthur.
With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans, And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair.
The Princess. Prologue. Line 141.
A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, And sweet as English air could make her, she.
The Princess. Part i. Line 153.
Jewels five-words-long, That on the stretch'd forefinger of all Time Sparkle forever.
The Princess. Part ii. Line 355.
Blow, bugle, blow! set the wild echoes flying! Blow, bugle! answer, echoes! dying, dying, dying.
The Princess. Part iii. Line 352.
O Love! they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river: Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow forever and forever. Blow, bugle, blow! set the wild echoes flying! And answer, echoes, answer! dying, dying, dying.
The Princess. Part iii. Line 360.
There sinks the nebulous star we call the sun.
The Princess. Part iv. Line 1.
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean. Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.
The Princess. Part iv. Line 21.
Unto dying eyes The casement slowly grows a glimmering square.
The Princess. Part iv. Line 33.
Dear as remember'd kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd On lips that are for others; deep as love,— Deep as first love, and wild with all regret. Oh death in life, the days that are no more!
The Princess. Part iv. Line 36.
Sweet is every sound, Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet; Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees.
The Princess. Part vii. Line 203.
Happy he With such a mother! faith in womankind Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high Comes easy to him; and tho' he trip and fall, He shall not blind his soul with clay.
The Princess. Part vii. Line 308.
Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null.
Maud. Part i. ii.
That jewell'd mass of millinery, That oil'd and curl'd Assyrian Bull.
Maud. Part i. vi. Stanza 6.
Gorgonized me from head to foot, With a stony British stare.
Maud. Part i. xiii. Stanza 2.
Come into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, has flown; Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone.
Maud. Part i. xxii. Stanza 1.
Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls.
Maud. Part i. xxii. Stanza 9.
Ah, Christ, that it were possible For one short hour to see The souls we loved, that they might tell us What and where they be.
Maud. Part ii. iv. Stanza 3.
Let knowledge grow from more to more.
In Memoriam. Prologue. Line 25.
I held it truth, with him who sings[631-1] To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things.[631-2]
In Memoriam. i. Stanza 1.
But for the unquiet heart and brain A use in measured language lies; The sad mechanic exercise Like dull narcotics numbing pain.
In Memoriam. v. Stanza 2.
Never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break.
In Memoriam. vi. Stanza 2.
And topples round the dreary west A looming bastion fringed with fire.
In Memoriam. xv. Stanza 5.
And from his ashes may be made The violet of his native land.[632-1]
In Memoriam. xviii. Stanza 1.
I do but sing because I must, And pipe but as the linnets sing.[632-2]
In Memoriam. xxi. Stanza 6.
The shadow cloak'd from head to foot.
In Memoriam. xxiii. Stanza 1.
Who keeps the keys of all the creeds.
In Memoriam. xxiii. Stanza 2.
And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech.
In Memoriam. xxiii. Stanza 4.
'T is better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.[632-3]
In Memoriam. xxvii. Stanza 4.
Her eyes are homes of silent prayer.
In Memoriam. xxxii. Stanza 1.
Whose faith has centre everywhere, Nor cares to fix itself to form.
In Memoriam. xxxiii. Stanza 1.
Short swallow-flights of song, that dip Their wings in tears, and skim away.
In Memoriam. xlviii. Stanza 4.
Hold thou the good; define it well; For fear divine Philosophy Should push beyond her mark, and be Procuress to the Lords of Hell.
In Memoriam. liii. Stanza 4.
Oh yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill.
In Memoriam. liv. Stanza 1.
But what am I? An infant crying in the night: An infant crying for the light, And with no language but a cry.
In Memoriam. liv. Stanza 5.
So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life.
In Memoriam. lv. Stanza 2.
The great world's altar-stairs, That slope through darkness up to God.
In Memoriam. lv. Stanza 4.
Who battled for the True, the Just.
In Memoriam. lvi. Stanza 5.
And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And breasts the blows of circumstance.
In Memoriam. lxiv. Stanza 2.
And lives to clutch the golden keys, To mould a mighty state's decrees, And shape the whisper of the throne.
In Memoriam. lxiv. Stanza 3.
So many worlds, so much to do, So little done, such things to be.
In Memoriam. lxxiii. Stanza 1.
Thy leaf has perish'd in the green, And while we breathe beneath the sun, The world, which credits what is done, Is cold to all that might have been.
In Memoriam. lxxv. Stanza 4.
O last regret, regret can die!
In Memoriam. lxxviii. Stanza 5.
There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds.
In Memoriam. xcvi. Stanza 3.
He seems so near, and yet so far.
In Memoriam. xcvii. Stanza 6.
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky!
In Memoriam. cv. Stanza 1.
Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow!
In Memoriam. cv. Stanza 2.
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in!
In Memoriam. cv. Stanza 5.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease, Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace!
In Memoriam. cv. Stanza 7.
Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand! Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be!
In Memoriam. cv. Stanza 8.
And thus he bore without abuse The grand old name of gentleman, Defamed by every charlatan, And soil'd with all ignoble use.
In Memoriam. cxi. Stanza 6.
Some novel power Sprang up forever at a touch, And hope could never hope too much In watching thee from hour to hour.
In Memoriam. cxii. Stanza 3.
Large elements in order brought, And tracts of calm from tempest made, And world-wide fluctuation sway'd, In vassal tides that follow'd thought.
In Memoriam. cxii. Stanza 4.
Wearing all that weight Of learning lightly like a flower.
In Memoriam. Conclusion. Stanza 10.
One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event To which the whole creation moves.
In Memoriam. Conclusion. Stanza 36.
FOOTNOTES:
[623-1] See Marlowe, page 41.
[624-1] This line stands in Moxon's edition of 1842,—
"The gardener Adam and his wife,"—
and has been restored by the author in his edition of 1873.
[624-2] See Chapman, page 37.
[624-3] See Pope, page 340.
[625-1] See Byron, page 543.
[626-1] See Longfellow, page 618.
[628-1] Jaws of death.—SHAKESPEARE: Twelfth Night, act iii. sc. 4. DU BARTAS: Weekes and Workes, day i. part 4.
[629-1] See Cowper, page 422.
[631-1] The poet alluded to is Goethe. I know this from Lord Tennyson himself, although he could not identify the passage; and when I submitted to him a small book of mine on his marvellous poem, he wrote, "It is Goethe's creed," on this very passage.—Rev. Dr. GETTY (vicar of Ecclesfield, Yorkshire).
[631-2] See Longfellow, page 616.
[632-1] See Shakespeare, page 144.
[632-2] I sing but as the linnet sings.—GOETHE: Wilhelm Meister, book ii. chap. xi.
[632-3] See Crabbe, page 444.
RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES (LORD HOUGHTON). 1809-1885.
But on and up, where Nature's heart Beats strong amid the hills.
Tragedy of the Lac de Gaube. Stanza 2.
Great thoughts, great feelings came to them, Like instincts, unawares.
The Men of Old.
A man's best things are nearest him, Lie close about his feet.
The Men of Old.
I wandered by the brookside, I wandered by the mill; I could not hear the brook flow, The noisy wheel was still.
The Brookside.
The beating of my own heart Was all the sound I heard.
The Brookside.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 1809- ——.
Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky.
Old Ironsides.
Nail to the mast her holy flag, Set every threadbare sail, And give her to the god of storms, The lightning and the gale!
Old Ironsides.
Like sentinel and nun, they keep Their vigil on the green.
The Cambridge Churchyard.
The mossy marbles rest On the lips that he has prest In their bloom; And the names he loved to hear Have been carved for many a year On the tomb.
The Last Leaf.
I know it is a sin For me to sit and grin At him here; But the old three-cornered hat, And the breeches, and all that, Are so queer!
The Last Leaf.
Thou say'st an undisputed thing In such a solemn way.
To an Insect.
Their discords sting through Burns and Moore, Like hedgehogs dressed in lace.
The Music-Grinders.
You think they are crusaders sent From some infernal clime, To pluck the eyes of sentiment And dock the tail of Rhyme, To crack the voice of Melody And break the legs of Time.
The Music-Grinders.
And since, I never dare to write As funny as I can.
The Height of the Ridiculous.
When the last reader reads no more.
The Last Reader.
The freeman casting with unpurchased hand The vote that shakes the turrets of the land.
Poetry, a Metrical Essay.
'T is the heart's current lends the cup its glow, Whate'er the fountain whence the draught may flow.
A Sentiment.
Yes, child of suffering, thou mayst well be sure He who ordained the Sabbath loves the poor!
A Rhymed Lesson. Urania.
And when you stick on conversation's burrs, Don't strew your pathway with those dreadful urs.
A Rhymed Lesson. Urania.
Thine eye was on the censer, And not the hand that bore it.
Lines by a Clerk.
Where go the poet's lines? Answer, ye evening tapers! Ye auburn locks, ye golden curls, Speak from your folded papers!
The Poet's Lot.
A few can touch the magic string, And noisy Fame is proud to win them; Alas for those that never sing, But die with all their music in them!
The Voiceless.
O hearts that break and give no sign Save whitening lip and fading tresses!
The Voiceless.
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
The Chambered Nautilus.
His home! the Western giant smiles, And twirls the spotty globe to find it; This little speck, the British Isles? 'T is but a freckle,—never mind it.
A Good Time going.
But Memory blushes at the sneer, And Honor turns with frown defiant, And Freedom, leaning on her spear, Laughs louder than the laughing giant.
A Good Time going.
You hear that boy laughing?—you think he 's all fun; But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done; The children laugh loud as they troop to his call, And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all.
The Boys.
Good to the heels the well-worn slipper feels When the tired player shuffles off the buskin; A page of Hood may do a fellow good After a scolding from Carlyle or Ruskin.
How not to settle it.
A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. i.
People that make puns are like wanton boys that put coppers on the railroad tracks.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. i.
Everybody likes and respects self-made men. It is a great deal better to be made in that way than not to be made at all.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. i.
Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. vi.
There is that glorious epicurean paradox uttered by my friend the historian,[637-1] in one of his flashing moments: "Give us the luxuries of life, and we will dispense with its necessaries." To this must certainly be added that other saying of one of the wittiest of men:[638-1] "Good Americans when they die go to Paris."
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. vi.
Boston State-house is the hub of the solar system. You could n't pry that out of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation straightened out for a crow-bar.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. vi.
The axis of the earth sticks out visibly through the centre of each and every town or city.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. vi.
The world's great men have not commonly been great scholars, nor its great scholars great men.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. vi.
Knowledge and timber should n't be much used till they are seasoned.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. vi.
The hat is the ultimum moriens of respectability.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. viii.
To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old.
On the Seventieth Birthday of Julia Ward Howe (May 27, 1889).
FOOTNOTES:
[637-1] John Lothrop Motley.
Said Scopas of Thessaly, "We rich men count our felicity and happiness to lie in these superfluities, and not in those necessary things."—PLUTARCH: On the Love of Wealth.
[638-1] Thomas G. Appleton.
ROBERT C. WINTHROP. 1809- ——.
Our Country,—whether bounded by the St. John's and the Sabine, or however otherwise bounded or described, and be the measurements more or less,—still our Country, to be cherished in all our hearts, to be defended by all our hands.
Toast at Faneuil Hall on the Fourth of July, 1845.
A star for every State, and a State for every star.
Address on Boston Common in 1862.
There are no points of the compass on the chart of true patriotism.
Letter to Boston Commercial Club in 1879.
The poor must be wisely visited and liberally cared for, so that mendicity shall not be tempted into mendacity, nor want exasperated into crime.
Yorktown Oration in 1881.
Slavery is but half abolished, emancipation is but half completed, while millions of freemen with votes in their hands are left without education. Justice to them, the welfare of the States in which they live, the safety of the whole Republic, the dignity of the elective franchise,—all alike demand that the still remaining bonds of ignorance shall be unloosed and broken, and the minds as well as the bodies of the emancipated go free.
Yorktown Oration in 1881.
JAMES ALDRICH. 1810-1856.
Her suffering ended with the day, Yet lived she at its close, And breathed the long, long night away In statue-like repose.
A Death-Bed.
But when the sun in all his state Illumed the eastern skies, She passed through Glory's morning-gate, And walked in Paradise.
A Death-Bed.
THEODORE PARKER. 1810-1860.
There is what I call the American idea. . . . This idea demands, as the proximate organization thereof, a democracy,—that is, a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people; of course, a government of the principles of eternal justice, the unchanging law of God. For shortness' sake I will call it the idea of Freedom.[639-1]
Speech at the N. E. Antislavery Convention, Boston, May 29, 1850.
FOOTNOTES:
[639-1] See Daniel Webster, page 532.
EDMUND H. SEARS. 1810-1876.
Calm on the listening ear of night Come Heaven's melodious strains, Where wild Judea stretches far Her silver-mantled plains.
Christmas Song.
It came upon the midnight clear, That glorious song of old.
The Angels' Song.
MARTIN F. TUPPER. 1810-1889.
A babe in a house is a well-spring of pleasure.
Of Education.
God, from a beautiful necessity, is Love.
Of Immortality.
EDGAR A. POE. 1811-1849.
Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door,— Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
The Raven.
Whom unmerciful disaster Followed fast and followed faster.
The Raven.
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door! Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
The Raven.
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted—Nevermore!
The Raven.
To the glory that was Greece And the grandeur that was Rome.
To Helen.
WENDELL PHILLIPS. 1811-1884.
Revolutions are not made; they come.
Speech, Jan. 28, 1852.
What the Puritans gave the world was not thought, but action.
Speech, Dec. 21, 1855.
One on God's side is a majority.
Speech, Nov. 1, 1859.
Every man meets his Waterloo at last.
Speech, Nov. 1, 1859.
Revolutions never go backward.
Speech, Feb. 12, 1861.
FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE. 1811- ——.
A sacred burden is this life ye bear: Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly, Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly. Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin, But onward, upward, till the goal ye win.
Lines addressed to the Young Gentlemen leaving the Lenox Academy, Mass.
Better trust all, and be deceived, And weep that trust and that deceiving, Than doubt one heart, that if believed Had blessed one's life with true believing.
Faith.
BARTHOLOMEW DOWLING.
Ho! stand to your glasses steady! 'T is all we have left to prize. A cup to the dead already,— Hurrah for the next that dies![641-1]
Revelry in India.
FOOTNOTES:
[641-1] This quatrain appears with variations in several stanzas. "The poem," says Mr. Rossiter Johnson in "Famous Single and Fugitive Poems," "is persistently attributed to Alfred Domett; but in a letter to me, Feb. 6, 1879, he says: 'I did not write that poem, and was never in India in my life. I am as ignorant of the authorship as you can be.'"
ALFRED DOMETT. 1811- ——.
It was the calm and silent night! Seven hundred years and fifty-three Had Rome been growing up to might, And now was queen of land and sea. No sound was heard of clashing wars, Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain; Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars Held undisturbed their ancient reign In the solemn midnight, Centuries ago.
Christmas Hymn.
JULIA A. FLETCHER (NOW MRS. CARNEY).
Little drops of water, little grains of sand, Make the mighty ocean and the pleasant land. So the little minutes, humble though they be, Make the mighty ages of eternity.
Little Things, 1845.
Little deeds of kindness, little words of love, Help to make earth happy like the heaven above.
Little Things, 1845.
AUSTEN H. LAYARD. —— -1894.
I have always believed that success would be the inevitable result if the two services, the army and the navy, had fair play, and if we sent the right man to fill the right place.[642-1]
Speech in Parliament, Jan. 15, 1855.[642-2]
FOOTNOTES:
[642-1] See Sydney Smith, page 461.
[642-2] This speech is reported in Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, Third Series, vol. cxxxviii. p. 2077.
ROBERT BROWNING. 1812-1890.
Any nose May ravage with impunity a rose.
Sordello. Book vi.
That we devote ourselves to God, is seen In living just as though no God there were.
Paracelsus. Part i.
Be sure that God Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart.
Paracelsus. Part i.
I see my way as birds their trackless way. I shall arrive,—what time, what circuit first, I ask not; but unless God send his hail Or blinding fire-balls, sleet or stifling snow, In some time, his good time, I shall arrive: He guides me and the bird. In his good time.
Paracelsus. Part i.
Are there not, dear Michal, Two points in the adventure of the diver,— One, when a beggar he prepares to plunge; One, when a prince he rises with his pearl? Festus, I plunge.
Paracelsus. Part i.
God is the perfect poet, Who in his person acts his own creations.
Paracelsus. Part ii.
The sad rhyme of the men who proudly clung To their first fault, and withered in their pride.
Paracelsus. Part iv.
I give the fight up: let there be an end, A privacy, an obscure nook for me. I want to be forgotten even by God.
Paracelsus. Part v.
Progress is The law of life: man is not Man as yet.
Paracelsus. Part v.
Say not "a small event!" Why "small"? Costs it more pain that this ye call A "great event" should come to pass From that? Untwine me from the mass Of deeds which make up life, one deed Power shall fall short in or exceed!
Pippa Passes. Introduction.
God 's in his heaven: All 's right with the world.
Pippa Passes. Part i.
Some unsuspected isle in the far seas,— Some unsuspected isle in far-off seas.
Pippa Passes. Part ii.
In the morning of the world, When earth was nigher heaven than now.
Pippa Passes. Part iii.
All service ranks the same with God,— With God, whose puppets, best and worst, Are we: there is no last nor first.
Pippa Passes. Part iv.
I trust in Nature for the stable laws Of beauty and utility. Spring shall plant And Autumn garner to the end of time. I trust in God,—the right shall be the right And other than the wrong, while he endures. I trust in my own soul, that can perceive The outward and the inward,—Nature's good And God's.
A Soul's Tragedy. Act i.
Ever judge of men by their professions. For though the bright moment of promising is but a moment, and cannot be prolonged, yet if sincere in its moment's extravagant goodness, why, trust it, and know the man by it, I say,—not by his performance; which is half the world's work, interfere as the world needs must with its accidents and circumstances: the profession was purely the man's own. I judge people by what they might be,—not are, nor will be.
A Soul's Tragedy. Act ii.
There 's a woman like a dewdrop, she 's so purer than the purest.
A Blot in the 'Scutcheon. Act i. Sc. iii.
When is man strong until he feels alone?
Colombe's Birthday. Act iii.
When the fight begins within himself, A man 's worth something.
Men and Women. Bishop Blougram's Apology.
The sprinkled isles, Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea.
Cleon.
And I have written three books on the soul, Proving absurd all written hitherto, And putting us to ignorance again.
Cleon.
Sappho survives, because we sing her songs; And AEschylus, because we read his plays!
Cleon.
Rafael made a century of sonnets.
One Word More. ii.
Other heights in other lives, God willing.
One Word More. xii.
God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures Boasts two soul-sides,—one to face the world with, One to show a woman when he loves her!
One Word More. xvii.
Oh their Rafael of the dear Madonnas, Oh their Dante of the dread Inferno, Wrote one song—and in my brain I sing it; Drew one angel—borne, see, on my bosom!
One Word More. xix.
The lie was dead And damned, and truth stood up instead.
Count Gismond. xiii.
Over my head his arm he flung Against the world.
Count Gismond. xix.
Just my vengeance complete, The man sprang to his feet, Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed! So, I was afraid!
Instans Tyrannus. vii.
Oh never star Was lost here but it rose afar.
Waring. ii.
Sing, riding 's a joy! For me I ride.
The last Ride together. vii.
When the liquor 's out, why clink the cannikin?
The Flight of the Duchess. xvi.
That low man seeks a little thing to do, Sees it and does it; This high man, with a great thing to pursue, Dies ere he knows it. That low man goes on adding one to one,— His hundred 's soon hit; This high man, aiming at a million, Misses an unit. That has the world here—should he need the next, Let the world mind him! This throws himself on God, and unperplexed Seeking shall find him.
A Grammarian's Funeral.
Lofty designs must close in like effects.
A Grammarian's Funeral.
I hear you reproach, "But delay was best, For their end was a crime." Oh, a crime will do As well, I reply, to serve for a test As a virtue golden through and through, Sufficient to vindicate itself And prove its worth at a moment's view! . . . . . . Let a man contend to the uttermost For his life's set prize, be it what it will! The counter our lovers staked was lost As surely as if it were lawful coin; And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost Is—the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.
The Statue and the Bust.
Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.
Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came. xxxiii.
Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick in his coat.
The Lost Leader. i.
We shall march prospering,—not thro' his presence; Songs may inspirit us,—not from his lyre; Deeds will be done,—while he boasts his quiescence, Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire.
The Lost Leader. ii.
They are perfect; how else?—they shall never change: We are faulty; why not?—we have time in store.
Old Pictures in Florence. xvi.
What 's come to perfection perishes. Things learned on earth we shall practise in heaven; Works done least rapidly Art most cherishes.
Old Pictures in Florence. xvii.
Italy, my Italy! Queen Mary's saying serves for me (When fortune's malice Lost her Calais): "Open my heart, and you will see Graved inside of it 'Italy.'"
De Gustibus. ii.
That 's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture.
Home-Thoughts from Abroad. ii.
God made all the creatures, and gave them our love and our fear, To give sign we and they are his children, one family here.
Saul. vi.
How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!
Saul. ix.
'T is not what man does which exalts him, but what man would do.
Saul. xvii.
O woman-country![647-1] wooed not wed, Loved all the more by earth's male-lands, Laid to their hearts instead.
By the Fireside. vi.
That great brow And the spirit-small hand propping it.
By the Fireside. xxiii.
If two lives join, there is oft a scar. They are one and one, with a shadowy third; One near one is too far.
By the Fireside. xlvi.
Only I discern Infinite passion, and the pain Of finite hearts that yearn.
Two in the Campagna. xii.
Round and round, like a dance of snow In a dazzling drift, as its guardians, go Floating the women faded for ages, Sculptured in stone on the poet's pages.
Women and Roses.
How he lies in his rights of a man! Death has done all death can. And absorbed in the new life he leads, He recks not, he heeds Nor his wrong nor my vengeance; both strike On his senses alike, And are lost in the solemn and strange Surprise of the change.
After.
Ah, did you once see Shelley plain, And did he stop and speak to you, And did you speak to him again? How strange it seems, and new!
Memorabilia. i.
He who did well in war just earns the right To begin doing well in peace.
Luria. Act ii.
And inasmuch as feeling, the East's gift, Is quick and transient,—comes, and lo! is gone, While Northern thought is slow and durable.
Luria. Act v.
A people is but the attempt of many To rise to the completer life of one; And those who live as models for the mass Are singly of more value than they all.
Luria. Act v.
I count life just a stuff To try the soul's strength on.
In a Balcony.
Was there nought better than to enjoy? No feat which, done, would make time break, And let us pent-up creatures through Into eternity, our due? No forcing earth teach heaven's employ?
Dis Aliter Visum; or, Le Byron de nos Jours.
There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before; The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound; What was good shall be good, with for evil so much good more; On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.
Abt Vogler. ix.
Then welcome each rebuff That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go! Be our joys three-parts pain! Strive, and hold cheap the strain; Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!
Rabbi Ben Ezra.
What I aspired to be, And was not, comforts me.
Rabbi Ben Ezra.
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure.
Rabbi Ben Ezra.
For life, with all it yields of joy and woe, And hope and fear (believe the aged friend), Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,— How love might be, hath been indeed, and is.
A Death in the Desert.
The body sprang At once to the height, and stayed; but the soul,—no!
A Death in the Desert.
What? Was man made a wheel-work to wind up, And be discharged, and straight wound up anew? No! grown, his growth lasts; taught, he ne'er forgets: May learn a thousand things, not twice the same.
A Death in the Desert.
For I say this is death and the sole death,— When a man's loss comes to him from his gain, Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance, And lack of love from love made manifest.
A Death in the Desert.
Progress, man's distinctive mark alone, Not God's, and not the beasts: God is, they are; Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be.
A Death in the Desert.
The ultimate, angels' law, Indulging every instinct of the soul There where law, life, joy, impulse are one thing!
A Death in the Desert.
How sad and bad and mad it was! But then, how it was sweet!
Confessions. ix.
So may a glory from defect arise.
Deaf and Dumb.
This could but have happened once,— And we missed it, lost it forever.
Youth and Art. xvii.
Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face. . . . . . . . No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers, The heroes of old; Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears Of pain, darkness, and cold.
Prospice.
It 's wiser being good than bad; It 's safer being meek than fierce; It 's fitter being sane than mad. My own hope is, a sun will pierce The thickest cloud earth ever stretched; That after Last returns the First, Though a wide compass round be fetched; That what began best can't end worst, Nor what God blessed once prove accurst.
Apparent Failure. vii.
In the great right of an excessive wrong.
The Ring and the Book. The other Half-Rome. Line 1055.
Was never evening yet But seemed far beautifuller than its day.
The Ring and the Book. Pompilia. Line 357.
The curious crime, the fine Felicity and flower of wickedness.
The Ring and the Book. The Pope. Line 590.
Of what I call God, And fools call Nature.
The Ring and the Book. The Pope. Line 1073.
Why comes temptation, but for man to meet And master and make crouch beneath his foot, And so be pedestaled in triumph?
The Ring and the Book. The Pope. Line 1185.
White shall not neutralize the black, nor good Compensate bad in man, absolve him so: Life's business being just the terrible choice.
The Ring and the Book. The Pope. Line 1236.
It is the glory and good of Art That Art remains the one way possible Of speaking truth,—to mouths like mine, at least.
The Book and the Ring. The Pope. Line 842.
Thy[651-1] rare gold ring of verse (the poet praised) Linking our England to his Italy.
The Ring and the Book. The Pope. Line 873.
But how carve way i' the life that lies before, If bent on groaning ever for the past?
Balaustion's Adventure.
Better have failed in the high aim, as I, Than vulgarly in the low aim succeed,— As, God be thanked! I do not.
The Inn Album. iv.
Have you found your life distasteful? My life did, and does, smack sweet. Was your youth of pleasure wasteful? Mine I saved and hold complete. Do your joys with age diminish? When mine fail me, I 'll complain. Must in death your daylight finish? My sun sets to rise again.
At the "Mermaid." Stanza 10.
"With this same key Shakespeare unlocked his heart"[652-1] once more! Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he!
House. x.
God's justice, tardy though it prove perchance, Rests never on the track until it reach Delinquency.[652-2]
Cenciaja.
FOOTNOTES:
[647-1] Italy.
[651-1] Mrs. Browning.
[652-1] See Wordsworth, page 485.
[652-2] See Herbert, page 206.
CHARLES DICKENS. 1812-1870.
A demd, damp, moist, unpleasant body!
Nicholas Nickleby. Chap. xxxiv.
My life is one demd horrid grind.
Nicholas Nickleby. Chap. lxiv.
In a Pickwickian sense.
Pickwick Papers. Chap. i.
Oh, a dainty plant is the ivy green, That creepeth o'er ruins old! Of right choice food are his meals, I ween, In his cell so lone and cold. Creeping where no life is seen, A rare old plant is the ivy green.
Pickwick Papers. Chap. vi.
He 's tough, ma'am,—tough is J. B.; tough and devilish sly.
Dombey and Son. Chap. vii.
When found, make a note of.
Dombey and Son. Chap. xv.
The bearings of this observation lays in the application on it.
Dombey and Son. Chap. xxiii.
Barkis is willin'.
David Copperfield. Chap. v.
Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, all very good words for the lips,—especially prunes and prism.
Little Dorrit. Book ii. Chap. v.
Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving HOW NOT TO DO IT.
Little Dorrit. Book ii. Chap. x.
In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile.
Christmas Carol. Stave 2.
CHRISTOPHER P. CRANCH. 1813- ——.
Thought is deeper than all speech, Feeling deeper than all thought; Souls to souls can never teach What unto themselves was taught.
Stanzas.
We are spirits clad in veils; Man by man was never seen; All our deep communing fails To remove the shadowy screen.
Stanzas.
F. W. FABER. 1814-1863.
For right is right, since God is God,[653-1] And right the day must win; To doubt would be disloyalty, To falter would be sin.
The Right must win.
Labour itself is but a sorrowful song, The protest of the weak against the strong.
The Sorrowful World.
FOOTNOTES:
[653-1] See Crabbe, page 444.
CHARLES MACKAY. 1814- ——.
Cleon hath a million acres,—ne'er a one have I; Cleon dwelleth in a palace,—in a cottage I.
Cleon and I.
But the sunshine aye shall light the sky, As round and round we run; And the truth shall ever come uppermost, And justice shall be done.
Eternal Justice. Stanza 4.
Aid the dawning, tongue and pen; Aid it, hopes of honest men!
Clear the Way.
Some love to roam o'er the dark sea's foam, Where the shrill winds whistle free.
Some love to roam.
There 's a good time coming, boys! A good time coming.
The Good Time coming.
Old Tubal Cain was a man of might In the days when earth was young.
Tubal Cain.
ELLEN STURGIS HOOPER. 1816-1841.
I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty; I woke, and found that life was Duty. Was thy dream then a shadowy lie? Toil on, poor heart, unceasingly; And thou shalt find thy dream to be A truth and noonday light to thee.
Life a Duty.
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY. 1816- ——.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best. Life 's but a means unto an end; that end Beginning, mean, and end to all things,—God.
Festus. Scene, A Country Town.
Poets are all who love, who feel great truths, And tell them; and the truth of truths is love.
Scene, Another and a Better World.
America! half-brother of the world! With something good and bad of every land.
Scene, The Surface.
ELIZA COOK. 1817- ——.
I love it, I love it, and who shall dare To chide me for loving that old arm-chair?
The Old Arm-Chair.
How cruelly sweet are the echoes that start When memory plays an old tune on the heart!
Old Dobbin.
NATHANIEL P. WILLIS. 1817-1867.
At present there is no distinction among the upper ten thousand of the city.[655-1]
Necessity for a Promenade Drive.
For it stirs the blood in an old man's heart, And makes his pulses fly, To catch the thrill of a happy voice And the light of a pleasant eye.
Saturday Afternoon.
It is the month of June, The month of leaves and roses, When pleasant sights salute the eyes, And pleasant scents the noses.
The Month of June.
Let us weep in our darkness, but weep not for him! Not for him who, departing, leaves millions in tears! Not for him who has died full of honor and years! Not for him who ascended Fame's ladder so high From the round at the top he has stepped to the sky.
The Death of Harrison.
FOOTNOTES:
[655-1] See Haliburton, page 580.
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. 1817- ——.
I laugh, for hope hath happy place with me; If my bark sinks, 't is to another sea.
A Poet's Hope.
I sing New England, as she lights her fire In every Prairie's midst; and where the bright Enchanting stars shine pure through Southern night, She still is there, the guardian on the tower, To open for the world a purer hour.
New England.
Most joyful let the Poet be; It is through him that all men see.
The Poet of the Old and New Times.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 1819-1891.
Earth's noblest thing,—a woman perfected.
Irene.
Be noble! and the nobleness that lies In other men, sleeping but never dead, Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.
Sonnet iv.
Great truths are portions of the soul of man; Great souls are portions of eternity.
Sonnet vi.
To win the secret of a weed's plain heart.
Sonnet xxv.
Two meanings have our lightest fantasies,— One of the flesh, and of the spirit one.
Sonnet xxxiv. (Ed. 1844.)
All thoughts that mould the age begin Deep down within the primitive soul.
An Incident in a Railroad Car.
It may be glorious to write Thoughts that shall glad the two or three High souls, like those far stars that come in sight Once in a century.
An Incident in a Railroad Car.
No man is born into the world whose work Is not born with him. There is always work, And tools to work withal, for those who will; And blessed are the horny hands of toil.
A Glance behind the Curtain.
They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak. . . . . . They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three.
Stanzas on Freedom.
Endurance is the crowning quality, And patience all the passion of great hearts.
Columbus.
One day with life and heart Is more than time enough to find a world.
Columbus.
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, God's new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight, Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right; And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.
The Present Crisis.
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne.
The Present Crisis.
Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is prosperous to be just; Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside, Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified.
The Present Crisis.
Before man made us citizens, great Nature made us men.
On the Capture of Fugitive Slaves near Washington.
Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold.
To the Dandelion.
This child is not mine as the first was; I cannot sing it to rest; I cannot lift it up fatherly, And bless it upon my breast.
Yet it lies in my little one's cradle, And sits in my little one's chair, And the light of the heaven she 's gone to Transfigures its golden hair. |
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