IN the suburb, in the town, On the railway, in the square, Came a beam of goodness down Doubling daylight everywhere: Peace now each for malice takes, Beauty for his sinful weeds, For the angel Hope aye makes Him an angel whom she leads. ESSAY IX New England Reformers A Lecture read before the Society…
In countless upward-striving waves The moon-drawn tide-wave strives; In thousand far-transplanted grafts The parent fruit survives; So, in the new-born millions, The perfect Adam lives. Not less are summer-mornings dear To every child they wake, And each with novel life his sphere Fills for his proper sake. ESSAY VIII Nominalist and Realist I cannot often…
Gold and iron are good To buy iron and gold; All earth’s fleece and food For their like are sold. Boded Merlin wise, Proved Napoleon great, — Nor kind nor coinage buys Aught above its rate. Fear, Craft, and Avarice Cannot rear a State. Out of dust to build What is more than dust, —…
The rounded world is fair to see, Nine times folded in mystery: Though baffled seers cannot impart The secret of its laboring heart, Throb thine with Nature’s throbbing breast, And all is clear from east to west. Spirit that lurks each form within Beckons to spirit of its kin; Self-kindled every atom glows, And hints…
Gifts of one who loved me, — ‘T was high time they came; When he ceased to love me, Time they stopped for shame. Essay V Gifts It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world owes the world more than the world can pay, and ought to go…
“How near to good is what is fair! Which we no sooner see, But with the lines and outward air Our senses taken be. Again yourselves compose, And now put all the aptness on Of Figure, that Proportion Or Color can disclose; That if those silent arts were lost, Design and Picture, they might boast…
The sun set; but set not his hope: Stars rose; his faith was earlier up: Fixed on the enormous galaxy, Deeper and older seemed his eye: And matched his sufferance sublime The taciturnity of time. He spoke, and words more soft than rain Brought the Age of Gold again: His action won such reverence sweet,…
The lords of life, the lords of life,— I saw them pass, In their own guise, Like and unlike, Portly and grim, Use and Surprise, Surface and Dream, Succession swift, and spectral Wrong, Temperament without a tongue, And the inventor of the game Omnipresent without name; — Some to see, some to be guessed, They…
A moody child and wildly wise Pursued the game with joyful eyes, Which chose, like meteors, their way, And rived the dark with private ray: They overleapt the horizon’s edge, Searched with Apollo’s privilege; Through man, and woman, and sea, and star, Saw the dance of nature forward far; Through worlds, and races, and terms,…