Beautiful isles! beneath the sunset skies tall, silver-shafted palm-trees rise, between full orange-trees that shade the living colonade.
I hear the howl of the wind that brings The long drear storm on its heavy wings.
Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?
There is no glory in star or blossom till looked upon by a loving eye; There is no fragrance in April breezes till breathed with joy as they wander by.
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 by 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.
All that tread, the globe are but a handful to the tribes, that slumber in its bosom.
So they, who climb to wealth, forget The friends in darker fortunes tried. I copied them--but I regret That I should ape the ways of pride.
Truth crushed to earth shall rise again,- The eternal years of God are hers; But Error, wounded, writhes with pain, And dies among his worshippers.
Christ taught an astonishing thing about physical death: not merely that it is an experience robbed of its terror but that as an experience it does not exist at all. To "sleep in Christ," like one that wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
But Winter has yet brighter scenes-he boasts Splendors beyond what gorgeous Summer knows; Or Autumn with his many fruits, and woods All flushed with many hues.
Ye winds ye unseen currents of the air, Softly ye played a few brief hours ago; Ye bore the murmuring bee; ye tossed the air O'er maiden cheeks, that took a fresher glow; Ye rolled the round white cloud through depths of blue; Ye shook from shaded flowers the lingering dew; Before you the catalpa's blossoms flew, Light blossoms, dropping on the grass like snow.
Glorious are the woods in their latest gold and crimson, Yet our full-leaved willows are in the freshest green. Such a kindly autumn, so mercifully dealing With the growths of summer, I never yet have seen.
The birch-bark canoe of the savage seems to me one of the most beautiful and perfect things of the kind constructed by human art.
The breath of springtime at this twilight hour Comes through the gathering glooms, And bears the stolen sweets of many a flower Into my silent rooms.
Ah, never shall the land forget How gush'd the life-blood of the brave, Gush'd warm with hope and courage yet, Upon the soil they fought to save!
Oh, river! darkling river! what a voice Is that thou utterest while all else is still-- The ancient voice that, centuries ago, Sounded between thy hills, while Rome was yet A weedy solitude by Tiber's stream!
A stable, changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep.
Poetry is the eloquence of verse.
Hark to that shrill, sudden shout, The cry of an applauding multitude, Swayed by some loud-voiced orator who wields The living mass as if he were its soul!
A silence, the brief Sabbath of an hour, Reigns o'er the fields; the laborer sits within His dwelling; he has left his steers awhile, Unyoked, to bite the herbage, and his dog Sleeps stretched beside the door-stone in the shade. Now the gray marmot, with uplifted paws, No more sits listening by his den, but steals Abroad, in safety, to the clover-field, And crops its juicy-blossoms.
I gazed upon the glorious sky And the green mountains round, And thought that when I came to lie At rest within the ground, 'Twere pleasant, that in flowery June When brooks send up a cheerful tune, And groves a joyous sound, The sexton's hand, my grave to make, The rich, green mountain-turf should break.
Error's monstrous shapes from earth are driven They fade, they fly--but truth survives the flight.
The sad and solemn night hath yet her multitude of cheerful fires; The glorious host of light walk the dark hemisphere till she retires; All through her silent watches, gliding slow, Her constellations come, and climb the heavens, and go.
Ah! never shall the land forget How gushed the life-blood of her brave -
Come when the rains Have glazed the snow and clothed the trees with ice, While the slant sun of February pours Into the bowers a flood of light. Approach! The incrusted surface shall upbear thy steps And the broad arching portals of the grove Welcome thy entering.
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