Great Throughts Treasury

"The words of fire that from his pen were flung upon the fervid page, still move, still shake the hearts of men, amid a cold and coward age."

"There is a day of sunny rest for every dark and troubled night; and a grief may bid, and evening guest, bot joy shall come with early light."

"There is a power whose care teaches thy way along that pathless coast, ? the desert and illimitable air, ? lone wandering, but not lost."

"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."

"These are the gardens of the Desert, these the unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful, for which the speech of England has no name -- The Prairies."

"These shades are still the abodes of gladness; the thick roof of green and stirring branches is alive and musical with birds, that sing and sport in wantonness of spirit; while below the squirrel, with raised paws and form erect, chirps merrily."

"These struggling tides of life that seem in wayward, aimless course to tend, are eddies of the mighty stream that rolls to its appointed end."

"They talk of short-lived pleasures?be it so?pain dies as quickly: stern, hard-featured pain expires, and lets her weary prisoner go. The fiercest agonies have shortest reign; and after dreams of horror, comes again the welcome morning with its rays of peace."

"They waste us-ay-like April snow In the warm noon, we shrink away; And fast they follow, as we go Towards the setting day- Till they shall fill the land, and we Are driven into the Western sea."

"Thine eyes are springs in whose serene and silent waters heaven is seen; their lashes are the herbs that look on their young figures in the brook."

"Thou blossom! Bright with autumn dew, and color's with the heaven's own blue, that openest when the quiet light succeeds the keen and frosty night."

"Thou dost know the faults to which the young are ever prone; the will is quick to act, the judgment weak."

"Thou shalt lie down with patriarchs of the infant world,?with kings, the powerful of the earth,?the wise, the good,"

"Thou unrelenting past! Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain, and fetters, sure and fast, hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign."

"Thou who wouldst see the lovely and the wild mingled in harmony on Nature's face, ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot fail not with weariness, for on their tops the beauty and the majesty of earth, spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget the steep and toilsome way."

"Thus change the forms of being. Thus arise races of living things, glorious in strength, and perish, as the quickening breath of God fills them, or is withdrawn."

"Thy early smile has stayed my walk; but midst the gorgeous blooms of May, I passed thee on thy humble stalk."

"To him who in the love of nature holds communion with her visible forms, she speaks a various language; for his gayer hours she has a voice of gladness, and a smile and eloquence of beauty, and she glides into his darker musings, with a mild and healing sympathy, that steals away their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts of the last bitter hour come like a blight over thy spirit, and sad images of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, and breathless darkness, and the narrow house, make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;? go forth, under the open sky, and list to nature?s teachings, while from all around?earth and her waters, and the depths of air?comes a still voice?yet a few days, and thee the all-beholding sun shall see no more in all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, and, lost each human trace, surrendering up thine individual being, shalt thou go to mix forever with the elements, to be a brother to the insensible rock and to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold. Yet not to thine eternal resting-place shalt thou retire lone, nor couldst thou wish couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down with patriarchs of the infant world?with kings, the powerful of the earth?the wise, the good, fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, all in one mighty sepulchre. The hills rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,?the vales stretching in pensive quietness between; the venerable woods?rivers that move in majesty, and the complaining brooks that make the meadows green; and, poured round all, old ocean?s gray and melancholy waste,? are but the solemn decorations all of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, the planets, all the infinite host of heaven, are shining on the sad abodes of death, through the still lapse of ages. All that tread the globe are but a handful to the tribes that slumber in its bosom.?take the wings of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness, or lose thyself in the continuous woods where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, save his own dashings?yet the dead are there: and millions in those solitudes, since first the flight of years began, have laid them down in their last sleep?the dead reign there alone. So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw in silence from the living, and no friend take note of thy departure? All that breathe will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh when thou art gone, the solemn brood of care plod on, and each one as before will chase his favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave their mirth and their employments, and shall comeand make their bed with thee. As the long train of ages glide away, the sons of men, the youth in life?s green spring, and he who goes in the full strength of years, matron and maid, the speechless babe, and the gray-headed man? shall one by one be gathered to thy side, by those, who in their turn shall follow them. 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 to 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."

"To me it seems that one of the most important requisites for a great poet is a luminous style. The elements of poetry lie in natural objects, in the vicissitudes of human life, in the emotions of the human heart, and the relations of man to man."

"Truth crushed to earth shall rise again."

"Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again; th' eternal years of God are hers; but Error, wounded, writhes in pain, and dies among his worshippers."

"Vainly the fowler's eye might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, as, darkly painted on the crimson sky, thy figure floats along."

"Virtue cannot dwell with slaves, nor reign o'er those who cower to take a tyrant's yoke."

"We plant, upon the sunny lea, a shadow for the noontide hour, a shelter from the summer shower, when we plant the apple-tree."

"Weep not that the world changes -- did it keep a stable, changeless state, it were cause indeed to weep. All that tread, the globe are but a handful to the tribes, that slumber in its bosom."

"What plant we in this apple tree? Sweets for a hundred flowery springs To load the May-wind's restless wings, When, from the orchard-row, he pours Its fragrance through our open doors; A world of blossoms for the bee, Flowers for the sick girl's silent room, For the glad infant sprigs of bloom, We plant with the apple tree."

"When April winds grew soft, the maple burst into a flush of scarlet flowers. The tulip tree, high up, opened in airs of June her multitude of golden chalices to humming-birds and silken-wing'd insects of the sky."

"When beechen buds begin to swell, And woods the blue-bird's warble know, The yellow violet's modest bell Peeps from the last year's leaves below."

"When shrieked the bleak November winds, and smote the woods, and the brown fields were herbless, and the shades that met above the merry rivulet were spoiled, I sought, I loved them still; they seemed like old companions in adversity."

"Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood in brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?"

"Where fall the tears of love the rose appears, And where the ground is bright with friendship's tears, Forget-me-not, and violets, heavenly blue, Spring glittering with the cheerful drops like dew."

"Where hast thou wandered. gentle gale, to find the perfumes thou dost bring?"

"Who shall face the blast that wakes the fury of the sea? The vast hulks Are whirled like chaff upon the waves; the sails Fly, rent like webs of gossamer; the masts Are snapped asunder."

"Wild was the day; the wintry sea moaned sadly on New England's strand, when first the thoughtful and the free, our fathers, trod the desert land."

"Wind of the sunny south! Oh, still delay in the gay woods and in the golden air, Like to a good old age released from care, Journeying, in long serenity, away. In such a bright, late quiet, would that I Might wear out life like thee, mid bowers and brooks, And, dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks, And music of kind voices ever nigh; And when my last sand twinkled in the glass, Pass silently from men as thou dost pass."

"Winning isn't everything, but it beats anything in second place."

"Within the woods, whose young and half transparent leaves scarce cast A shade, gray circles of anemones Danced on their stalks."

"Woo the fair one when around Early birds are singing; When o'er all the fragrant ground Early herbs are springing: When the brookside, bank, and grove All with blossom laden, Shine with beauty, breathe of love, Woo the timid maiden."

"Yet will that beauteous image make the dreary sea less drear and thy remembered smile will wake the hope that tramples fear."

"Your peaks are beautiful, ye Apennines! In the soft light of these serenest skies; From the broad highland region, black with pines, Fair as the hills of Paradise they rise, Bathed in the tint Peruvian slaves behold In rosy flushes on the virgin gold."