The Vision of Sir Launfal and Other Poems

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Houghton Mifflin, 1910 - 113 pages

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Page 30 - New occasions teach new duties ; Time makes ancient good uncouth ; They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth ; Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires ! we ourselves must Pilgrims be, Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea, Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key.
Page 3 - And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays; Whether we look, or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; Every clod feels a stir of might, An instinct within it that reaches and towers, And groping blindly above it for light, Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers...
Page 83 - THE snow had begun in the gloaming, And busily all the night Had been heaping field and highway With a silence deep and white. Every pine and fir and hemlock Wore ermine too dear for an earl, And the poorest twig on the elm-tree Was ridged inch deep with pearl.
Page 28 - Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust. Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just. Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside. Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified. And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.
Page 9 - As the lashes of light that trim the stars: He sculptured every summer delight In his halls and chambers out of sight...
Page 14 - When he girt his young life up in gilded mail And set forth in search of the Holy Grail. The heart within him was ashes and dust ; He parted in twain his single crust, He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink, And gave the leper to eat and drink...
Page 7 - The leper raised not the gold from the dust : " Better to me the poor man's crust, Better the blessing of the poor, Though I turn me empty from his door...
Page 12 - For another heir in his earldom sate; An old, bent man, worn out and frail, He came back from seeking the Holy Grail; Little he recked of his earldom's loss, No more on his surcoat was blazoned the cross, But deep in his soul the sign he wore, The badge of the suffering and the poor.
Page 25 - ... 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. Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous throe, when the travail of the ages wrings earth's systems to and fro; at the birth of each new era, with a recognizing start, nation wildly...
Page 84 - Like brown leaves whirling by. I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn Where a little headstone stood; How the flakes were folding it gently, As did robins the babes in the wood. Up spoke our own little Mabel, Saying, "Father, who makes it snow?

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