Poems and Prose

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Bowring and Lusher, 1892 - 219 pages
 

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Page 166 - How sleep the Brave who sink to rest By all their country's wishes blest! When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallowed mould, She there shall dress a sweeter sod Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. By fairy hands their knell is rung; By forms unseen their dirge is sung; There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps their clay; And Freedom shall awhile repair, To dwell a weeping hermit there!
Page 192 - Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
Page 160 - Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt In solitude, where we are least alone ; A truth, which through our being then doth melt And purifies from self: it is a tone, The soul and source of music, which makes known Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, Binding all things with beauty ; — 'twould disarm The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.
Page 191 - A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today. "Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.
Page 212 - For the enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath smitten my life down to the ground; he hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead.
Page 213 - Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust : cause me to know the way wherein I should walk ; for I lift up my soul unto thee.
Page 181 - On that hard Pagan world disgust And secret loathing fell. Deep weariness and sated lust Made human life a hell. "In his cool hall, with haggard eyes, The Roman noble lay; He drove abroad, in furious guise, Along the Appian way. "He made a feast, drank fierce and fast, And crown'd his hair with flowers— No easier nor no quicker pass'd The impracticable hours.
Page 163 - A few short hours, and he will rise To give the morrow birth ; And I shall hail the main and skies, But not my mother earth. Deserted is my own good hall, Its hearth is desolate ; Wild weeds are gathering on the wall, My dog howls at the gate.
Page 213 - I stretch forth my hands unto thee : my soul gaspeth unto thee as a thirsty land. 7 Hear me, O LORD, and that soon, for my spirit waxeth faint : hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit.
Page 215 - Thus may we gather honey from the weed, And make a moral of the devil himself.

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