Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness – a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster children into strength and athletic proportion.
A stable, changeless state, ’twere cause indeed to weep.
And the blue gentian-flower, that, in the breeze, Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last.
God hath yoked to guilt her pale tormentor, – misery.
The rugged trees are mingling Their flowery sprays in love; The ivy climbs the laurel To clasp the boughs above.
And at my silent window-sill The jessamine peeps in.
Virtue cannot dwell with slaves, nor reign O’er those who cower to take a tyrant’s yoke.
The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come, And make their bed with thee.
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief;.
The rose that lives its little hour Is prized beyone the sculpted flower.
Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again.
Sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
These struggling tides of life that seem In wayward, aimless course to tend, Are eddies of the mighty stream That rolls to its appointed end.
Old ocean’s gray and melancholy waste.
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Old Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste, – Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man.
Genius, with all its pride in its own strength, is but a dependent quality, and cannot put forth its whole powers nor claim all its honors without an amount of aid from the talents and labors of others which it is difficult to calculate.
Follow thou thy choice.
The fiercest agonies have shortest reign; And after dreams of horror, comes again The welcome morning with its rays of peace.
Pleasantly, between the pelting showers, the sunshine gushes down.
Ah, why Should we, in the world’s riper years, neglect God’s ancient sanctuaries, and adore Only among the crowd and under roofs That our frail hands have raised?
There is no glory in star or blossom till looked upon by a loving eye; There is no fragrance in April breezes till breathed with joy as they wander by.