Courage

Love

Life

Nature

Death

Friendship

Inspirational

Heartbreak

Sadness

Family

Hope

Happiness

Loss

War

Dreams

Spirituality

Courage

Freedom

Identity

Betrayal

Loneliness

Page 43 of 1791

To An Unknown Bust In The British Museum.

"Sermons in stones."


Who were you once? Could we but guess,
We might perchance more boldly
Define the patient weariness
That sets your lips so coldly;
You "lived," we know, for blame and fame;
But sure, to friend or foeman,
You bore some more distinctive name
Than mere "B. C.,"--and "Roman"?

Your pedestal should help us much.
Thereon your acts, your title,
(Secure from cold Oblivion's touch!)
Had doubtless due recital;
Vain hope!--not even deeds can last!
That stone, of which you're minus,
Maybe with all your virtues past
Endows ... a TIGELLINUS!

We seek it not; we should not find.
But still, it needs no magic
To tell you wore, like most mankind,
Your comic mask and tragic;
And held that things were false and tr...

Henry Austin Dobson

Looking Backward.

Gray towers make me think of thee,
Thou girl of olden minstrelsy,
Young as the sunlight of to-day,
Silent as tasselled boughs in May!

A wind-flower in a world of harm,
A harebell on a turret's arm,
A pearl upon the hilt of fame
Thou wert, fair child of some high name.

The velvet page, the deep-eyed knight,
The heartless falcon, poised for flight,
The dainty steed and graceful hound,
In thee their keenest rapture found.

But for old ballads, and the rhyme
And writ of genius o'er the time
When keeps had newly reared their towers,
The winning scene had not been ours.

O Chivalry! thy age was fair,
When even knaves set out to dare
Their heads for any barbarous crime,
And hate was brave, and love sublime.

The bugle-no...

Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

The Teacher's Monologue.

The room is quiet, thoughts alone
People its mute tranquillity;
The yoke put off, the long task done,
I am, as it is bliss to be,
Still and untroubled. Now, I see,
For the first time, how soft the day
O'er waveless water, stirless tree,
Silent and sunny, wings its way.
Now, as I watch that distant hill,
So faint, so blue, so far removed,
Sweet dreams of home my heart may fill,
That home where I am known and loved:
It lies beyond; yon azure brow
Parts me from all Earth holds for me;
And, morn and eve, my yearnings flow
Thitherward tending, changelessly.
My happiest hours, aye! all the time,
I love to keep in memory,
Lapsed among moors, ere life's first prime
Decayed to dark anxiety.

Sometimes, I think a narrow heart
Makes me thus ...

Charlotte Bronte

An Ode In Time Of Hesitation

(After seeing at Boston the statue of Robert Gould Shaw, killed while storming Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863, at the head of the first enlisted negro regiment, the 54th Massachusetts.)


        I

        Before the solemn bronze Saint Gaudens made
        To thrill the heedless passer's heart with awe,
        And set here in the city's talk and trade
        To the good memory of Robert Shaw,
        This bright March morn I stand,
        And hear the distant spring come up the land;
        Knowing that what I hear is not unheard
        Of this boy soldier and his negro band,
        For all their gaze is fixed so stern ahead,
        For all the fatal rhythm of their tread.
        The land they died to save from death and shame
        Trembles and waits,...

William Vaughn Moody

The Sicilian's Tale - The Wayside Inn - Part Second

THE BELL OF ATRI

At Atri in Abruzzo, a small town
Of ancient Roman date, but scant renown,
One of those little places that have run
Half up the hill, beneath a blazing sun,
And then sat down to rest, as if to say,
"I climb no farther upward, come what may,"--
The Re Giovanni, now unknown to fame,
So many monarchs since have borne the name,
Had a great bell hung in the market-place
Beneath a roof, projecting some small space,
By way of shelter from the sun and rain.
Then rode he through the streets with all his train,
And, with the blast of trumpets loud and long,
Made proclamation, that whenever wrong
Was done to any man, he should but ring
The great bell in the square, and he, the King,
Would cause the Syndic to decide thereon.
Such was the pr...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Fragments Of College Exercises.

Nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus.--JUV.


Mark those proud boasters of a splendid line,
Like gilded ruins, mouldering while they shine,
How heavy sits that weight, of alien show,
Like martial helm upon an infant's brow;
Those borrowed splendors whose contrasting light
Throws back the native shades in deeper night.

Ask the proud train who glory's train pursue,
Where are the arts by which that glory grew?
The genuine virtues with that eagle-gaze
Sought young Renown in all her orient blaze!
Where is the heart by chymic truth refined,
The exploring soul whose eye had read mankind?
Where are the links that twined, with heavenly art,
His country's interest round the patriot's heart?

            *            *            *            *   ...

Thomas Moore

Maidenhood

Maiden! with the meek, brown eyes,
In whose orbs a shadow lies
Like the dusk in evening skies!

Thou whose locks outshine the sun,
Golden tresses, wreathed in one,
As the braided streamlets run!

Standing, with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!

Gazing, with a timid glance,
On the brooklet's swift advance,
On the river's broad expanse!

Deep and still, that gliding stream
Beautiful to thee must seem,
As the river of a dream.

Then why pause with indecision,
When bright angels in thy vision
Beckon thee to fields Elysian?

Seest thou shadows sailing by,
As the dove, with startled eye,
Sees the falcon's shadow fly?

Hearest thou voices on the shore,
That ...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Ode To Naples.

EPODE 1a.

I stood within the City disinterred;
And heard the autumnal leaves like light footfalls
Of spirits passing through the streets; and heard
The Mountain's slumberous voice at intervals
Thrill through those roofless halls;
The oracular thunder penetrating shook
The listening soul in my suspended blood;
I felt that Earth out of her deep heart spoke -
I felt, but heard not: - through white columns glowed
The isle-sustaining ocean-flood,
A plane of light between two heavens of azure!
Around me gleamed many a bright sepulchre
Of whose pure beauty, Time, as if his pleasure
Were to spare Death, had never made erasure;
But every living lineament was clear
As in the sculptor's thought; and there
The wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy, and pine,
Like w...

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Preface to Maurine And Other Poems

I step across the mystic border-land,
And look upon the wonder-world of Art.
How beautiful, how beautiful its hills!
And all its valleys, how surpassing fair!

The winding paths that lead up to the heights
Are polished by the footsteps of the great.
The mountain-peaks stand very near to God:
The chosen few whose feet have trod thereon
Have talked with Him, and with the angels walked.

Here are no sounds of discord - no profane
Or senseless gossip of unworthy things - 
Only the songs of chisels and of pens.
Of busy brushes, and ecstatic strains
Of souls surcharged with music most divine.
Here is no idle sorrow, no poor grief
For any day or object lef...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

To Lucasta On Going To The War, For The Fourth Time
It doesn't matter what's the cause,
What wrong they say we're righting,
A curse for treaties, bonds and laws,
When we're to do the fighting!
And since we lads are proud and true,
What else remains to do?
Lucasta, when to France your man
Returns his fourth time, hating war,
Yet laughs as calmly as he can
And flings an oath, but says no more,
That is not courage, that's not fear,
Lucasta he's a Fusilier,
And his pride sends him here.

Let statesmen bluster, bark and bray,
And so decide who started
This bloody war, and who's to pay,
But he must be stout-hearted,
Must sit and stake with quiet breath,
Playing at cards with Death.
Don't plume yourself he fights for you;
It is no courage, love, or hate,
But let us do the things we do;
Robert von Ranke Graves

Words.
Is it not brave to be a king, Techelles! -
Usumcasane and Theridamas,
Is it not passing brave to be a king,
And ride in triumph through Persepolis? - MARLOWE.

Bring the great words that scourge the thundering line
With lust and slaughter - words that reek of doom
And the lost battle and the ruined shrine; -
Words dire and black as midnight on a tomb;
Hushed speech of waters on the lip of gloom;
Huge sounds of death and plunder in the night; -
Words whose vast plumes above the ages meet,
Girdling the lost, dark centuries in their flight,
The slave of their unfetterable feet.

Bring words as pure as rills of earliest Spring
In some far cranny of the hillside born
To stitc...
Muriel Stuart

Storm-bound.
My careful plans all storm-subdued,
In disappointing solitude
The weary hours began;
And scarce I deemed when time had sped,
Marked only by the passing tread
Of some pedestrian.

But with the morrow's tranquil dawn,
A fairy scene I looked upon
That filled me with delight;
Far-reaching from my own abode,
The world in matchless splendor glowed,
Arrayed in spotless white.

The surface of the hillside slope
Gleamed in my farthest vision's scope
Like opalescent stone;
Rich jewels hung on every tree,
Whose crystalline transparency
Golconda's gems outshone.

Beyond the line where wayside posts
Stood up, like fear-inspiring ghosts
Of awful form and mien,
A mansion tall, my neighbor's pride,
A see...
Hattie Howard

Destiny
That you are fair or wise is vain,
Or strong, or rich, or generous;
You must add the untaught strain
That sheds beauty on the rose.
There's a melody born of melody,
Which melts the world into a sea.
Toil could never compass it;
Art its height could never hit;
It came never out of wit;
But a music music-born
Well may Jove and Juno scorn.
Thy beauty, if it lack the fire
Which drives me mad with sweet desire,
What boots it? What the soldier's mail,
Unless he conquer and prevail?
What all the goods thy pride which lift,
If thou pine for another's gift?
Alas! that one is born in blight,
Victim of perpetual slight:
When thou lookest on his face,
Thy heart saith, 'Brother, go thy ways!
None shall ask thee what thou doest,
Or care a rush ...
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Poppy And Mandragora
Let us go far from here!
Here there is sadness in the early year:
Here sorrow waits where joy went laughing late:
The sicklied face of heaven hangs like hate
Above the woodland and the meadowland;
And Spring hath taken fire in her hand
Of frost and made a dead bloom of her face,
Which was a flower of marvel once and grace,
And sweet serenity and stainless glow.
Delay not. Let us go.

Let us go far away
Into the sunrise of a fairer May:
Where all the nights resign them to the moon,
And drug their souls with odor and soft tune,
And tell their dreams in starlight: where the hours
Teach immortality with fadeless flowers;
And all the day the bee weights down the bloom,
And all the night the moth shakes strange perfume,
Like music, from the flower-bel...
Madison Julius Cawein

Illusions.
I.

As down life's morning stream we glide,
Full oft some Flower stoops o'er its side,
And beckons to the smiling shore,
Where roses strew the landscape o'er:
Yet as we reach that Flower to clasp,
It seems to mock the cheated grasp,
And whisper soft, with siren glee,
"My bloom is not oh not for thee!"

II.

Within Youth's flowery vale I tread,
By some entrancing shadow led
And Echo to my call replies
Yet, as she answers, lo, she flies!
And, as I seem to reach her cell
The grotto, where she weaves her spell
The Nymph's sweet voice afar I hear
So Love departs, as we draw near!

III.

Upon a mountain's dizzy height,
Ambition's temple gleams with light:
Proud forms are moving fair within,
And bid u...
Samuel Griswold Goodrich

To His Orphan Grandchildren.
("O Charles, je te sens près de moi.")

[July, 1871.]

I feel thy presence, Charles. Sweet martyr! down
In earth, where men decay,
I search, and see from cracks which rend thy tomb,
Burst out pale morning's ray.

Close linked are bier and cradle: here the dead,
To charm us, live again:
Kneeling, I mourn, when on my threshold sounds
Two little children's strain.

George, Jeanne, sing on! George, Jeanne, unconscious play!
Your father's form recall,
Now darkened by his sombre shade, now gilt
By beams that wandering fall.

Oh, knowledge! what thy use? did we not know
Death holds no more the dead;
But Heaven, where, hand in hand, angel and star
Smile at the grave we dread?

A Heave...
Victor-Marie Hugo

Fears And Scruples
Heres my case. Of old I used to love him,
This same unseen friend, before I knew:
Dream there was none like him, none above him,
Wake to hope and trust my dream was true.

Loved I not his letters full of beauty?
Not his actions famous far and wide?
Absent, he would know I vowed him duty;
Present, he would find me at his side.

Pleasant fancy! for I had but letters,
Only knew of actions by hearsay:
He himself was busied with my betters;
What of that? My turn must come some day.

Some day proving, no day! Heres the puzzle.
Passed and passed my turn is. Why complain?
Hes so busied! If I could but muzzle
Peoples foolish mouths that give me pain!

Letters? (hear them!) You a judge of writing?
Ask the experts! How they shake the hea...
Robert Browning

Dejection: An Ode
Late, late yestreen I saw the new moon,
With the old moon in her arms;
And I fear, I fear, my master dear!
We shall have a deadly storm.

Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence.

I

Well! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made
The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,
This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence
Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade
Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes,
Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes
Upon the strings of this Aeolian lute,
Which better far were mute.
For lo! the New-moon winter-bright!
And overspread with phantom light,
(With swimming phantom light o'erspread
But rimmed and circled by a silver thread)
I see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling
The coming-on of rain...
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Page 43 of 1791

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Page 43 of 1791