Choice Specimens of American Literature

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Page 46 - Peace, peace ! but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brethren are already in the field. Why stand we here idle ? What is it that gentlemen wish ? What would they have ? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery ? Forbid it, Almighty God ! I know not what course others may take ; but, as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!
Page 63 - Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
Page 196 - THERE is no flock, however watched and tended, But one dead 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...
Page 200 - But now his nose is thin, And it rests upon his chin Like a staff, And a crook is in his back, And a melancholy crack In his laugh.
Page 174 - O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?
Page 177 - The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift. And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow ; From coral rocks the sea-plants lift Their boughs, where the tides and billows flow; The water is calm and still below. For the winds and waves are absent there, And the sands are bright as the stars that glow 'In the motionless fields of upper air...
Page 106 - History of New York, from the beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty.
Page 17 - There goes many a ship to sea, with many hundred souls in one ship, whose weal and woe is common, and is a true picture of a commonwealth, or a human combination or society. It hath fallen out sometimes, that both papists and protestants, Jews and Turks, may be embarked in one ship; upon which supposal I affirm, that all the liberty of conscience, that ever I pleaded for, turns upon these two hinges— that none of the papists, protestants, Jews, or Turks, be forced to come to the ship's prayers...
Page 58 - I profess, sir, in my career, hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country...
Page 192 - Of her bright face one glance will trace A picture on the brain, And of her voice in echoing hearts A sound must long remain; But memory, such as mine of her, So very much endears, When death is nigh my latest sigh Will not be life's, but hers.

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