The Poetical Works of James R. Lowell ...

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Ticknor and Fields, 1866

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Page 125 - They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak ; They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think : They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three.
Page 309 - Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees Bending to counterfeit a breeze ; Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew But silvery mosses that downward grew; Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief With quaint arabesques...
Page 99 - GOD sends his teachers unto every age, To every clime, and every race of men, With revelations fitted to their growth And shape of mind, nor gives the realm of Truth Into the selfish rule of one sole race : Therefore each form of worship that hath swayed The life of man, and given it to grasp The master-key of knowledge, reverence, Infolds some germs of goodness and of right...
Page 305 - The little bird sits at his door in the sun, Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, And lets his illumined being o'errun With the deluge of summer it receives ; His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, — In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best...
Page 309 - Neath which he could house him, winter-proof; All night by the white stars' frosty gleams He groined his arches and matched his beams ; Slender and clear were his crystal spars...
Page 115 - Get but the truth once uttered, and 't is like A star newborn, that drops into its place, And which, once circling in its placid round, Not all the tumult of the earth can shake.
Page 16 - Yet in herself she dwelleth not, Although no home were half so fair ; No simplest duty is forgot, Life hath no dim and lowly spot That doth not in her sunshine share. She doeth little kindnesses, Which most leave undone, or despise ; For naught that sets one heart at ease, And giveth happiness or peace, Is low-esteemed in her eyes.
Page 163 - Rock sublime? They were men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts, Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue was the Past's; But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that hath made us free, Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender spirits flee The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove them across the sea.
Page 161 - Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word; Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, — Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
Page 305 - Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green; We sit in the warm shade and feel right well How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell; We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing That skies are clear and grass is growing...

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