Little Classics, Volume 15

Front Cover
Rossiter Johnson
Houghton, Mifflin, 1875

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Page 77 - When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favorite phantom ; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee.
Page 214 - Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn!
Page 76 - Earth and her waters, and the depths of air — Comes a still voice. Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground, Where thy pale form was laid with many tears, Nor in the embrace of ocean shall exist Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again...
Page 148 - WHAT CONSTITUTES A STATE? WHAT constitutes a state ? Not high-raised battlement or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate ; Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned ; Not bays and broad-armed ports, Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride, Not starred and spangled courts, Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. No, — men, high-minded men...
Page 17 - Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war!
Page 81 - He that hath found some fledged bird's nest may know At first sight if the bird be flown; But what fair well or grove he sings in now, That is to him unknown. And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams Call to the soul when man doth sleep, So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes, And into glory peep.
Page 118 - I know it is a sin For me to sit and grin At him here ; But the old three-cornered hat, And the breeches, and all that, Are so queer...
Page 64 - Oft in the stilly night Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Fond memory brings the light Of other days around me: The smiles, the tears Of boyhood's years, The words of love then spoken; The eyes that shone, Now dimmed and gone, The cheerful hearts now broken! Thus in the stilly night Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Sad memory brings the light Of other days around me.
Page 117 - I saw him once before, As he passed by the door, And again The pavement stones resound, As he totters o'er the ground With his cane. They say that in his prime, Ere the pruning-knife of Time Cut him down, Not a better man was found By the Crier on his round Through the town. But now he walks the streets, And he looks at all he meets Sad and wan, And he shakes his feeble head, That it seems as if he said, "They are gone.
Page 50 - O, therefore, love, be of thyself so wary, As I not for myself but for thee will; Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.

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