THE POETICAL WORKS OF HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (YEAR 1912)

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Page 152 - 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 107 - THE ARROW AND THE SONG. I SHOT an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where ; For, so swiftly it flew, the sight Could not follow it in its flight. I breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where ; For who has sight so keen and strong, That it can follow the flight of song ! Long, long afterward, in an oak I found the arrow, still unbroke; And the song, from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend.
Page 39 - His hair is crisp and black and long, His face is like the tan ; His brow is wet with honest sweat, He earns whate'er he can, And looks the whole world in the face, For he owes not any man.
Page 39 - Week in, week out, from morn till night, You can hear his bellows blow; You can hear him swing his heavy sledge, With measured beat and slow, Like a sexton ringing the village bell, When the evening sun is low.
Page 103 - And nights devoid of ease, Still heard in his soul the music Of wonderful melodies. Such songs have power to quiet The restless pulse of care, And come like the benediction That, follows after prayer. Then read from the treasured volume The poem of thy choice, And lend to the rhyme of the poet The beauty of thy voice. 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.
Page 45 - In happy homes he saw the light Of household fires gleam warm and bright; Above, the spectral glaciers shone, And from his lips escaped a groan, Excelsior! "Try not the pass!
Page 292 - If the British march By land or sea from the town to-night, Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch Of the North Church tower as a signal light, — One, if by land, and two, if by sea ; And I on the opposite shore will be, Ready to ride and spread the alarm Through every Middlesex village and farm, For the country folk to be up and to arm.
Page 4 - saith he ; " Have naught but the bearded grain ? Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me, I will give them all back again." He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes, He kissed their drooping leaves ; It was for the Lord of Paradise He bound them in his sheaves. "My Lord has need of these flowerets gay," The Reaper said, and smiled ; " Dear tokens of the earth are they, Where he was once a child.
Page 3 - 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. 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.
Page 93 - Were half the power, that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth, bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals nor forts: The warrior's name would be a name abhorred!

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