American Literature

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Scott, Foresman, 1901 - 364 pages
 

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Page 260 - I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things...
Page 105 - 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 125 - THE skies they were ashen and sober, The leaves they were crisped and sere — The leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year; It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, In the misty mid region of Weir — It was down by the dank tarn of Auber, In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
Page 99 - Green be the turf above thee, Friend of my better days ! None knew thee but to love thee, Nor named thee but to praise.
Page 97 - Flag of the free heart's hope and home, By angel hands to valor given ! Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, And all thy hues were born in heaven. Forever float that standard sheet ! Where breathes the foe but falls before us, With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us ? JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.
Page 99 - Thinks of thy fate and checks her tears. And she, the mother of thy boys. Though in her eye and faded cheek Is read the grief she will not speak, The memory of her buried Joys, And even she who gave thee birth, Will by their pilgrim-circled hearth Talk of thy doom without a sigh: For thou art freedom's now and fame's, One of the few, the immortal names, That were not born to die.
Page 167 - Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know What rainbows teach, and sunsets show? Verdict which accumulates From lengthening scroll of human fates, Voice of earth to earth returned, Prayers of saints that inly burned, — Saying, What is excellent, As God lives, is permanent ; Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain, Heart's love will meet thee again.
Page 161 - Books are the best of things, well used ; abused, among the worst. What is the right use ? What is the one end, which all means go to effect ? They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book, than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system.
Page 218 - Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, — Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
Page 160 - Our day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close. The millions that around us are rushing into life, cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests.

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