Poets and Problems

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Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 1886 - 386 pages

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Page 356 - Then, welcome each rebuff That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! Be our joys three-parts pain! Strive, and hold cheap the strain; Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!
Page 357 - So, take and use thy work : Amend what flaws may lurk, What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim! My times be in thy hand!
Page 30 - What soul was his, when, from the naked top Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun Rise up, and bathe the world in light ! He looked — Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth And ocean's liquid mass, beneath him lay In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touched, And in their silent faces could he read Unutterable love.
Page 29 - I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, Singing at dawn on the alder bough ; I brought him home, in his nest, at even ; He sings the song, but it cheers not now, For I did not bring home the river and sky; — He sang to my ear, — they sang to my eye.
Page 343 - I have gone the whole round of creation: I saw and I spoke. I, a work of God's hand for that purpose, received in my brain, And pronounced on, the rest of his handwork, — returned him again His creation's approval or censure; I spoke as I saw. I report, as a man may of God's work: all's love, yet all's law.
Page 345 - A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me, "Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever: a Hand like this hand "Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!
Page 161 - The wages of sin is death : if the wages of Virtue be dust, Would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm and the fly? She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just, To rest in a golden grove, or to bask in a summer sky: Give her the wages of going on, and not to die.
Page 356 - Fool! All that is, at all, Lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: What entered into thee, That was, is, and shall be : Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.
Page 345 - Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich, To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would — knowing which, I know that my service is perfect.
Page 124 - Not for itself, but thro' thy living love For one to whom I made it o'er his grave Sacred, accept this old imperfect tale, New-old, and shadowing Sense at war with Soul Rather than that gray king, whose name, a ghost, Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak, And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still...

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