The Poetical Works of James R. Lowell: Complete in Two Volumes

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Ticknor and Fields, 1858

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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 32 - THE FOUNTAIN INTO the sunshine, Full of the light, Leaping and flashing From morn till night; Into the moonlight, Whiter than snow, Waving so flower-like When the winds blow; Into the starlight Rushing in spray, Happy at midnight, Happy by day; Ever in motion, Blithesome and cheery, Still climbing heavenward, Never aweary; Glad of all weathers, Still seeming best, Upward or downward, Motion thy rest; Full of a nature Nothing can tame, Changed every moment, Ever the same; Ceaseless aspiring, Ceaseless...
Page 305 - Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how; Everything is happy now, Everything is upward striving ; 'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, — 'T is the natural way of living.
Page 251 - God is not dumb, that He should speak no more; If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness And find'st not Sinai, 'tis thy soul is poor; There towers the mountain of the Voice no less, Which whoso seeks shall find, but he who bends, Intent on manna still and mortal ends, Sees it not, neither hears its thundered lore.
Page 115 - No man is born into the world, whose work Is not born with him ; there is always work, And tools to work withal, for those who will; And blessed are the horny hands of toil I The busy world shoves angrily aside The man who stands with arms akimbo set.
Page 206 - Then think I of deep shadows on the grass, Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, Where, as the breezes pass, The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways, Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass, Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue That from the distance sparkle through Some woodland gap, and of a sky above, Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move.
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 46 - The rich man's son inherits cares; The bank may break, the factory burn, A breath may burst his bubble shares, And soft white hands could hardly earn A living that would serve his turn; A heritage, it seems to me, One scarce would wish to hold in fee.
Page 310 - Twas as if every image that mirrored lay In his depths serene through the summer day, Each fleeting shadow of earth and sky, Lest the happy model should be lost, Had been mimicked in fairy masonry By the elfin builders of the frost.
Page 276 - GREAT Truths are portions of the soul of man ; Great souls are portions of Eternity ; Each drop of blood that e'er through true heart ran With lofty message, ran for thee and me ; For God's law, since the starry song began , Hath been, and still forevermore must be, That every deed which shall outlast Time's span Must goad the soul to be erect and free...

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