Talk not to me of souls that do conceive Sublime ideals, but, deterred by Fate And bound by circumstances, sit desolate, And long for heights they never can achieve. ...
Who climbs the mountain does not always climb. The winding road slants downward many a time; Yet each descent is higher than the last. Has thy path fallen? That will soon be past....
This is the song for a soldier To sing as he rides from home To the fields afar where the battles are Or over the ocean's foam: 'Whatever the dangers waiting In the lands I have not seen,...
Come near to me, I need Thy glorious presence. Through the dense darkness of this troubled hour Shine on my soul, and fill it with the essence Of Thy pervading and uplifting power....
When my blood flows calm as a purling river, When my heart is asleep and my brain has sway, It is then that I vow we must part forever, That I will forget you, and put you away...
He was a failure, and one day he died. Across the border of the mapless land He found himself among a sad-eyed band Of disappointed souls; they, too, had tried...
When first the shadows fell, like prison bars, And darkness spread before me, like a pall, I cried out for the sun, the earth, the stars, And beat the air, as madmen beat a wall,...
When I shall meet God's generous dispensers Of all the riches in the heavenly store, Those lesser gods, who act as Recompensers For loneliness and loss upon this shore,...
The age is too diffusive. Time and Force Are frittered out and bring no satisfaction. The way seems lost to straight determined action. Like shooting stars that zig-zag from their course...
How shall a maid make answer to a man Who summons her, by love's supreme decree, To open her whole heart, that he may see The intricate strange ways that love began....
God, what a glory, is this consciousness, Of life on life, that comes to those who seek! Nor would I, if I might, to others speak, The fulness of that knowledge. It can bless,...
How is it that men pray their earthly lot May be 'content and happiness'? Dire foes Without one common trait which kinship shows I hold these two. Contentment comes when sought,...
We were a baker's dozen in the house - six women and six men Besides myself; and all of us had known Those benefits supposed to come from school and church and brush and pen, And opportunities of being thrown...
I have lived this life as the skeptic lives it; I have said the sweetness was less than the gall; Praising, nor cursing, the Hand that gives it, I have drifted aimlessly through it all....
The world has crowned a thousand kings: But destiny has kept Her weightiest hour of kingly power To offer England's son. The rising bell of Progress rings; And Truths which long have slept,...
I want more lives in which to love This world so full of beauty, I want more days to use the ways I know of doing duty; I ask no greater joy than this (So much I am life's lover),...