Chapter 458

The world knows nothing of its greatest men.

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EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON.

_Richelieu_. Act ii. Sc. 2.

Beneath the rule of men entirely great The pen is mightier than the sword.

PHILIP JAMES BAILEY.

_Festus_.

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.

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THOMAS K. HERVEY.

_The Devil's Progress_.

The tomb of him who would have made The world too glad and free.

* * * * *

He stood beside a cottage lone, And listened to a lute, One summer's eve, when the breeze was gone, And the nightingale was mute!

* * * * *

Like ships, that sailed for sunny isles, But never came to shore!

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JAMES ALDRICH.

_A Death-Bed_.

Her suffering ended with the day, Yet lived she at its close, And breathed the long, long night away, In statue-like repose!

But when the sun, in all his state, Illumined the eastern skies, She passed through Glory's morning gate, And walked in Paradise.

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WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

_Thanatopsis_.

To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language.

* * * * *

Go forth, under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings.

* * * * *

Sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, Like one that wraps the drapery of his couch. About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

* * * * *

_March_.

The stormy March has come at last, With wind and clouds and changing skies; I hear the rushing of the blast That through the snowy valley flies.

* * * * *

_Autumn Woods_.

But 'neath yon crimson tree, Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame, Nor mark, within its roseate canopy, Her blush of maiden shame.

_Forest Hymn_.

The groves were God's first temples.

* * * * *

_The Death of the Flowers_.

The melancholy days are come, The saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, And meadows brown and sear.

* * * * *

_The Battlefield_.

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.

* * * * *

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK.

_Marco Bozzaris_.

Strike--for your altars and your fires; Strike--for the green graves of y our sires; God, and your native land!

* * * * *

One of the few, the immortal names, That were not born to die.

* * * * *

_On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake_.

Green be the turf above thee, Friend of my better days; None knew thee but to love thee, Nor named thee but to praise.

_Burns_.

Such graves as his are pilgrim-shrines, Shrines to no code or creed confined-- The Delphian vales, the Palestines, The Meccas of the mind.

* * * * *

CHARLES SPRAGUE.

_Curiosity_.

Lo, where the stage, the poor, degraded stage, Holds its warped mirror to a gaping age.

* * * * *

Through life's dark road his sordid way he wends, An incarnation of fat dividends.

* * * * *

_Centennial Ode_.

Stanza 22.

Behold! in Liberty's unclouded blaze We lift our heads, a race of other days.

* * * * *

_To my Cigar_.

Yes, social friend, I love thee well, In learned doctor's spite; Thy clouds all other clouds dispel, And lap me in delight.

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

_A Psalm of Life_.

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.

* * * * *

Art is long, and Time is fleeting.

* * * * *

Let the dead Past bury its dead!

* * * * *

Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time.

* * * * *

Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.

* * * * *

_The Light of Stars_.

Know how sublime a thing it is To suffer and be strong.

* * * * *

_It is not always May_.

For Time will teach thee soon the truth, There are no birds in last year's nest!

_Maidenhood_.

Standing, with reluctant feet, Where the brook and river meet, Womanhood and childhood fleet!

* * * * *

_The Goblet of Life_.

O suffering, sad humanity! O ye afflicted ones, who lie Steeped to the lips in misery, Longing, and yet afraid to die, Patient, though sorely tried!

* * * * *

_Resignation_.

There is no flock, however watched and tended, But one dear lamb is there! There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, But has one vacant chair.

* * * * *

The air is full of farewells to the dying, And mournings for the dead.

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_The Golden Legend_.

Time has laid his hand Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it, But as a harper lays his open palm Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

_A Metrical Essay_.

The freeman casting with unpurchased hand The vote that shakes the turrets of the land.

* * * * *

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky.

* * * * *

Nail to the mast her holy flag, Set every threadbare sail, And give her to the god of storms, The lightning and the gale.

* * * * *

_Urania_.

Yes, child of suffering, thou mayst well be sure, He who ordained the Sabbath loves the poor!-- And, when you stick on conversation's burrs, Don't strew your pathway with those dreadful _urs_.

* * * * *

_The Music-Grinders_.

You think they are crusaders, sent From some infernal clime, To pluck the eyes of Sentiment, And dock the tail of Rhyme, To crack the voice of Melody, And break the legs of Time.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

_The Vision of Sir Launfal_.

And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays.

* * * * *

_The Changeling_.

This child is not mine as the first was, I cannot sing it to rest, I cannot lift it up fatherly And bless it upon my breast; Yet it lies in my little one's cradle And sits in my little one's chair, And the light of the heaven she's gone to Transfigures its golden hair.

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WILLIAM BASSE. 1613-1648.

_On Shakespeare_.

Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh To learned Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lie A little nearer Spenser, to make room For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb.

DAVID EVERETT. 1769-1813.

_Lines written for a School Declamation_.

You'd scarce expect one of my age To speak in public on the stage; And if I chance to fall below Demosthenes or Cicero, Don't view me with a critic's eye, But pass my imperfections by. Large streams from little fountains flow, Tall oaks from little acorns grow.

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JOSEPH HOPKINSON. 1770-1842.

_Hail Columbia_.

Hail Columbia! happy land! Hail, ye heroes! heaven-born band!

* * * * *

F. S. KEY.

_The Star-spangled Banner_.

The star-spangled banner, O long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

* * * * *

ALBERT G. GREENE.

_Old Grimes_.

Old Grimes is dead; that good old man, We ne'er shall see him more: He used to wear a long black coat, All buttoned down before.

JOHN LOUIS UHLAND.

_The Passage_. _Translated by Mrs. Sarah Austin_.

Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee; Take--I give it willingly; For, invisible to thee, Spirits twain have crossed with me.

* * * * *

CHRISTOPHER P. CRANCH.

_Stanzas_.

Thought is deeper than all speech; Feeling deeper than all thought; Souls to souls can never teach What unto themselves was taught.

* * * * *

EATON STANNARD BARRETT.

_Woman_.

Not she with trait'rous kiss her Master stung, Not she denied him with unfaithful tongue; She, when apostles fled, could danger brave, Last at his cross, and earliest at his grave.

* * * * *

MISS FANNY STEERS.

_Song_.

The last link is broken That bound me to thee, And the words thou hast spoken Have rendered me free.

RICHARD BAXTER. 1615-1691.

_Love breathing Thanks and Praise_.

I preached as never sure to preach again, And as a dying man to dying men.

* * * * *

ROGER L'ESTRANGE. 1616-1704.

_Fables from several Authors_.

Fable 398. Though this may be play to you, 'Tis death to us.

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MISCELLANEOUS.

_From Apophthegms_, &c., first gathered and compiled in Latin, by Erasmus, and now translated into English by Nicholas Vdall. 8vo. 1542. Fol. 239.

That same man, that rennith awaie, Maie again fight an other daie.

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_From the Musarum Deliciae_, compiled by Sir John Mennis and Dr. James Smith. 1640

He that fights and runs away May live to fight another day.[24]

[Note 24: See Butler--Hudibras, _ante_, p. 125.]

* * * * *

RICHARD GRAFTON.

_Abridgement of the Chronicles of Englande_. 1570. 8vo.

"A rule to knowe how many dayes euery moneth in the yeare hath."

Thirty dayes hath Nouember, Aprill, June, and September, February hath xxviii alone, And all the rest have xxxi.

* * * * *

_The Return from Parnassus_. 4to. London. 1606.

Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November, February eight-and-twenty all alone, And all the rest have thirty-one; Unless that leap year doth combine, And give to February twenty-nine.

* * * * *

_Lines used by Joint Hall, in encourage the Rebels in Wat Tyler's Rebellion. Hume's History of England_, Vol. I. Chap. 17.

Note i.

When Adam dolve, and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?

* * * * *

_From the Garland, a Collection of Poems_.

1721, by Mr. Br--st, author of a Copy of Verses called "The British Beauties." Praise undeserved is Satire in disguise.[25]

[Note 25: This line is quoted by Pope, in the 1st Epistle of Horace, Book ii,--"Praise undeserved is _Scandal_ in disguise."]

THOMAS A KEMPIS. 1380-1471.

_Imitation of Christ_.