Once a sculptor who saw for sale a block of marble was so struck with its beauty that he could not resist the temptation to buy it. When it was in his studio he thought to himself, "Now what shall my chisel make of it? Shall it...
Warrior of the youthful brow, Eager heart and eagle eye! Pants thy soul for battle now? Burns thy glance with victory? Dost thou dream of conflicts done, Perils past and trophies won?...
Ho! thou who seekest late and long A License from the Holy Book For brutal lust and fiendish wrong, Man of the Pulpit, look! Lift up those cold and atheist eyes, This ripe fruit of thy teaching see;...
BOCCACE alone is not my only source; T'another shop I now shall have recourse; Though, certainly, this famed Italian wit Has many stories for my purpose fit. But since of diff'rent dishes we should taste;...
'Tis time to sleep, my little boy: Why gaze thy bright eyes so? At night our children, for new joy Home to thy father go, But thou art wakeful! Sleep, my child; The moon and stars are gone;...
When I was up the country in the rough and early days, I used to work along ov Jimmy Nowlett's bullick-drays; Then the reelroad wasn't heered on, an' the bush was wild an' strange,...
O! call not me to justify the wrong That thy unkindness lays upon my heart; Wound me not with thine eye, but with thy tongue: Use power with power, and slay me not by art,...
How heavy do I journey on the way, When what I seek, my weary travel's end, Doth teach that ease and that repose to say, 'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!'...
You sect most adverse to the good and true, Degenerate from your origin divine, Pastured on lies and shadows by the line Of Thais, Sinon, Judas, Homer! You,...
If men were happy in that age of gold, We yet may hope to see mild Saturn's reign; For all things that were buried live again, By time's revolving cycle forward rolled....
Thy followers to-day are less like Thee, The crucified, than those who made Thee die, Good Jesus, wandering all ways awry From rules prescribed in Thy wise charity....
Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck; And yet methinks I have astronomy, But not to tell of good or evil luck, Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality; Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,...
The battle is fought and won By King Ladislaus the Hun, In fire of hell and death's frost, On the day of Pentecost. And in rout before his path From the field of battle red...
Rabbi Ben Levi, on the Sabbath, read A volume of the Law, in which it said, "No man shall look upon my face and live." And as he read, he prayed that God would give His faithful servant grace with mortal eye...
Into the city of Kambalu, By the road that leadeth to Ispahan, At the head of his dusty caravan, Laden with treasure from realms afar, Baldacca and Kelat and Kandahar,...
King Solomon, before his palace gate At evening, on the pavement tessellate Was walking with a stranger from the East, Arrayed in rich attire as for a feast,...