American Poems: Longfellow: Whittier: Bryant: Holmes: Lowell: Emerson

Front Cover
Horace Elisha Scudder
Houghton, Mifflin, 1879 - 455 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 354 - And what is so rare as a day in June ? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries the 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 350 - There is Lowell, who's striving Parnassus to climb With a whole bale of isms tied together with rhyme, He might get on alone, spite of brambles and boulders, But he can't with that bundle he has on his shoulders, The top of the hill he will ne'er come nigh reaching Till he learns the .distinction 'twixt singing and preaching...
Page 17 - Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with snow-flakes; White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks as brown as the oak-leaves.
Page 12 - THIS is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Page 354 - And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean To be some happy creature's palace; 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...
Page 36 - Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.
Page 277 - But, when she glanced to the far-off town, White from its hill-slope looking down, The sweet song died, and a vague unrest And a nameless longing filled her breast — A wish, that she hardly dared to own, For something better than she had known.
Page 279 - Oft when the wine in his glass was red, He longed for the wayside well instead; And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms, To dream of meadows and clover-blooms. And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain, "Ah, that I were free again!
Page 13 - This is the forest primeval ; but where are the hearts that beneath it Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers, — Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands, Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven...
Page 61 - Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was wasted ; If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters, returning Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full of refreshment ; That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain.

Bibliographic information