A Primer of American Literature

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D. C. Heath & Company, 1909 - 147 pages
 

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Page 98 - ... rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.
Page 5 - I'd divide And burn in many places ; on the topmast, The yards, and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly, Then meet and join. Jove's lightnings, the precursors O...
Page 47 - So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, which moves To that mysterious realm, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
Page 30 - ... Fair flower, that dost so comely grow, Hid in this silent, dull retreat, Untouched thy honied blossoms blow, Unseen thy little branches greet: No roving foot shall crush thee here, No busy hand provoke a tear. By Nature's self in white arrayed, She bade thee shun the vulgar eye...
Page 53 - Hear the tolling of the bells — Iron bells! What a world of solemn thought their monody compels) In the silence of the night, How we shiver with affright, At the melancholy menace of their tone!
Page 86 - Life may be given in many ways, And loyalty to truth be sealed As bravely in the closet as the field, So bountiful is Fate; But then to stand beside her, When craven churls deride her, To front a lie in arms and not to yield, This shows, methinks, God's plan And measure of a stalwart man, Limbed like the old heroic breeds, Who stands self-poised on manhood's solid earth, Not forced to frame excuses for his birth, Fed from within with all the strength he needs.
Page 102 - But oh, not the hills of Habersham, And oh, not the valleys of Hall Avail : I am fain for to water the plain. Downward the voices of Duty call — Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main, The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn, And a myriad flowers mortally yearn, And the lordly main from beyond the plain Calls o'er the hills of Habersham, Calls through the valleys of Hall.
Page 63 - Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O UNION strong and great! Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate. We know what master laid thy keel; What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel; Who made each mast and sail and rope ; What anvils rang, what hammers beat; In what a forge and what a heat Were shaped the anchors of thy hope.
Page 82 - Forevermore ! Revile him not — the Tempter hath A snare for all ; And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath, Befit his fall ! Oh ! dumb be passion's stormy rage, When he who might Have lighted up and led his age, Falls back in night.
Page 69 - To please the desert and the sluggish brook. The purple petals, fallen in the pool, Made the black water with their beauty gay; Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool, And court the flower that cheapens his array. Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being: Why thou wert there, 0 rival of the rose!

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