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

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Horace Elisha Scudder
Houghton, Mifflin, 1892 - 453 pages

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Page 194 - All day the hoary meteor fell; And, when the second morning shone, We looked upon a world unknown, On nothing we could call our own. Around the glistening wonder bent The blue walls of the firmament, No cloud above, no earth below,— A universe of sky and snow!
Page 186 - With a gesture of command, Waved his hand; And at the word, Loud and sudden there was heard, All around them and below, The sound of hammers, blow on blow, Knocking away the shores and spurs. And see ! she stirs ! She starts, — she moves, — she seems to feel The thrill of life along her keel, And, spurning with her foot the ground, With one exulting, joyous bound, She leaps into the ocean's arms...
Page 10 - Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest. 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?
Page 279 - He would dress me up in silks so fine, And praise and toast me at his wine. "My father should wear a broadcloth coat; My brother should sail a painted boat...
Page 187 - We know what Master laid thy keel, What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, What anvils rang, what hammers beat, In what a forge and what a heat Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Page 14 - Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and contentment. Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian farmers, — Dwelt in the love of God and of man. Alike were they free from Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice of republics.
Page 199 - Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, Nor looks to see the breaking day Across the mournful marbles play! Who hath not learned, in hours of faith, The truth to flesh and sense unknown, That Life is ever lord of Death, And Love can never lose its own!
Page 348 - 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 353 - 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...
Page 15 - Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers. Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the wayside, Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of her tresses ! Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed in the meadows.

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