So, when thoughts of evil doers
Waken scorn, or hatred move,
Shall a mournful fellow-feeling
Temper all with love.
ALBERT PIKE. 1809-. (Manual, p. 523.)
294. From "Lines written on the Rocky Mountains.”
THE deep, transparent sky is full
Of many thousand glittering lights
Unnumbered stars that calmly rule
The dark dominions of the night.
The mild, bright moon has upward risen,
Out of the gray and boundless plain,
And all around the white snows glisten,
Where frost, and ice, and silence, reign, -
While ages roll away, and they unchanged remain.
ANNE C. LYNCH BOTTA. About 1809-. (Manual, p. 523.)
THE planted seed, consigned to common earth,
Disdains to moulder with the baser clay,
But rises up to meet the light of day,
Spreads all its leaves, and flowers, and tendrils forth,
And, bathed and ripened in the genial ray,
Pours out its perfume on the wandering gales,
Till in that fragrant breath its life exhales.
So this immortal germ within my breast,
Would strive to pierce the dull, dark clod of sense;
With aspirations, wingéd and intense,
Would so stretch upward, in its tireless quest,
To meet the Central Soul, its source, its rest:
So in the fragrance of the immortal flower,
High thoughts and noble deeds, its life it would outpour.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 1809-. (Manual, pp. 478, 520.)
COME, while the morning of thy life is glowing-
Ere the dim phantoms thou art chasing die;
Ere the gay spell which earth is round thee throwing,
Fade like the sunset of a summer sky;
Life hath but shadows, save a promise given,
Which lights the future with a fadeless ray;
O, touch the sceptre — win a hope in heaven
Come-turn thy spirit from the world away.
Then will the crosses of this brief existence,
Seem airy nothings to thine ardent soul;
And shining brightly in the forward distance,
Will of thy patient race appear the goal;
Home of the weary! where in peace reposing,
The spirit lingers in unclouded bliss,
Though o'er its dust the curtained grave is closing —
Who would not early choose a lot like this?
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. (Manual, pp. 503, 520.)
298. From "The Present Crisis." (1848.)
WHEN a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth's aching breast
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west, And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime
Of a century, bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time.
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or
blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right,
And the choice goes by forever, 'twixt that darkness and that light.
We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great,
Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate,
But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din,
List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,
"They enslave their children's children, who make compromise with
EDGAR ALLEN POE. (Manual, p. 510.)
ONCE upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door;
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door, -
Only this, and nothing more.”
Ah! distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow,
From my books, surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the lost Lenore,
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore,
Nameless here for evermore.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping, something louder than before.
Surely," said I, — "surely that is something at my window-lattice; Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore,
Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore ;
'Tis the wind, and nothing more."
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or staid he ;
But with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door,
Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door, —
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
1 We give only the opening stanzas of this remarkable poem.
1811-. (Manual, pp. 522, 531.)
300. THE GRAY FOREST EAGLE.
WITH storm-daring pinion and sun-gazing eye,
The gray forest-eagle is king of the sky!
O, little he loves the green valley of flowers,
Where sunshine and song cheer the bright summer hours.
There the red robin warbles, the honey-bee hums,
The timid quail whistles, the sly partridge drums;
And if those proud pinions, perchance, sweep along,
There's a shrouding of plumage, a hushing of song;
The sunlight falls stilly on leaf and on moss,
And there's nought but his shadow black gliding across ;
But the dark, gloomy gorge, where down plunges the foam,
Of the fierce, rock-lashed torrent, he claims as his home.
301. AN AUTUMN LANDSCAPE.
There is a blending of cloud, haze, and sky;
A silvery sheet, with spaces of soft hue;
A trembling veil of gauze is stretched athwart
The shadowy hill-sides and dark forest-flanks
A soothing quiet broods upon the air,
And the faint sunshine winks with drowsiness.
Far sounds melt mellow on the ear: the bark,
The bleat, the tinkle, whistle, blast of horn,
The rattle of the wagon-wheel, the low,
The fowler's shot, the twitter of the bird,
And even the hue of converse from the road.
The sunshine flashed on streams,
Sparkled on leaves, and laughed on fields and woods.
All, all was life and motion, as all now
Is sleep and quiet. Nature in her change
Varies each day, as in the world of man
She moulds the differing features. Yea, each leaf
Is variant from its fellow. Yet her works
Are blended in a glorious harmony,
For thus God made his earth. Perchance His breath.
Was music when He spake it into life,
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