Rich or poor, every child comes into the world with some imperative need of its own, which shapes its individuality.
A journal of the ‘subjective’ kind I have always thought foolish, as nurturing a morbid self -consciousness in the writer; and yet, alone so much as I am, it is well to have some sort of a ventilator from the interior.
Every phase of our life belongs to us. The moon does not, except in appearance, lose her first thin, luminous curve, nor her silvery crescent, in rounding to her full. The woman is still both child and girl, in the completeness of womanly character.
Let us not depreciate Earth. There is no atom in it but is alive and astir in the all-penetrating splendor of God. From the infinitesimal to the infinite, everything is striving to express the thought of His Presence with which it overflows.
To different minds, poetry may present different phases. To me, the reverent faith of the people I lived among, and their faithful everyday living, was poetry; blossoms and trees and blue shies were poetry. God himself was poetry.
The soul, cramped among the petty vexations of Earth, needs to keep its windows constantly open to the invigorating air of large and free ideas: and what thought is so grand as that of an ever-present God, in whom all that is vital in humanity breathes and grows?
Thou hastenest down between the hills to meet me at the road, The secret scarcely lisping of thy beautiful abode Among the pines and mosses of yonder shadowy height, Where thou dost sparkle into song, and fill the woods with light.
O Mariner-soul, Thy quest is but begun, There are new worlds Forever to be won.
Whoever claims to understand another person completely, is either entirely ignorant of himself, or else has a nature so small that he can measure it easily, and supposes it to be the standard of every other nature.
We were not meant to mask ourselves before our fellow-beings, but to be, through our human forms, true and clear utterances of the spirit within. Since God gave us these bodies, they must have been given us as guides to Him and revealers of Him.
The true idea of a church has not yet been shown the world, a visible Church, I mean, unless it was in the very earliest times; yes, the twelve disciples bound to their Lord in love, to do his work forever, that was a church, a Christian family.
The land is dearer for the sea, The ocean for the shore.
I believe the best poetry of our times is growing too artistic; the study is too visible. If freedom and naturalness are lost out of poetry, everything worth having is lost.
My ‘must-have’ was poetry. From the first, life meant that to me. And, fortunately, poetry is not purchasable material, but an atmosphere in which every life may expand. I found it everywhere about me...
The peach-bud glows, the wild bee hums, and wind-flowers wave in graceful gladness.
Because its myriad glimmering plumes Like a great army’s stir and wave; Because its golden billows blooms, The poor man’s barren walks to lave: Because its sun-shaped blossoms show How souls receive the light of God, And unto earth give back that glow I thank him for the Goldenrod.
Some of us must wait for the best human gifts until we come to heavenly places. Our natural desire for musical utterance is perhaps a prophecy that in a perfect world we shall all know how to sing.
Our relatives form the natural setting of our childhood. We understand ourselves best and are best understood by others through the persons who came nearest to us in our earliest years.
One mistake with beginners in writing is, that they think it important to spin out something long. It is a great deal better not to write more than a page or two, unless you have something to say, and can write it correctly.
The children with the streamlets sing, When April stops at last her weeping; And every happy growing thing Laughs like a babe just roused from sleeping.