Whate’er thy joys, they vanish with the day: Whate’er thy griefs, in sleep they fade away, To sleep! to sleep! Sleep, mournful heart, and let the past be past: Sleep, happy soul, all life will sleep at last.
God gives us love, someone to love he lends us.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease, Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace.
But while I breathe Heaven’s air and Heaven looks down on me, And smiles at my best meanings, I remain Mistress of mine own self and mine own soul.
Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower-but if I could understand What you are, root and all, all in all, I should know what God and man is.
Love is hurt with jar and fret; Love is made a vague regret.
No rock so hard but that a little wave may beat admission in a thousand years.
Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder’d string? I am shamed through all my nature to have lov’d so slight a thing.
And on her lover’s arm she leant, And round her waist she felt it fold, And far across the hills they went In that new world which is the old.
But for the unquiet heart and brain A use in measured language lies; The sad mechanic exercise Like dull narcotics numbing pain.
Yet is there one true line, the pearl of pearls: Man dreams of Fame while woman wakes to love.
The sin That neither God nor man can well forgive.
Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.
God gives us love. Something to love He lends us; but when love is grown To ripeness, that on which it throve Falls off, and love is left alone.
The time draws near the birth of Christ; The moon is hid; the night is still; The Christmas bells from hill to hill Answer each other in the mist.
Science grows and Beauty dwindles.
The old order changeth, yielding place to new, and god fulfills himself in many ways, lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
There is always change, bad customs pass and give way to better ones.
Of old sat Freedom on the heights The thunders breaking at her feet: Above her shook the starry lights; She heard the torrents meet.
Red of the Dawn Is it turning a fainter red? so be it, but when shall we lay The ghost of the Brute that is walking and hammering us yet and be free?