Vol VII – Society and Solitude (1870)

ONCE more,' the old man cried, ye clouds, Airy turrets purple-piled, Which once my infancy beguiled, Beguile me with the wonted spell. I know ye skilful to convoy The total freight of hope and joy Into rude and homely nooks, Shed mocking lustres on shelf of books, On farmer's byre, on pasture rude, And stony…

I REACHED the middle of the mount Up which the incarnate soul must climb, And paused for them, and looked around, With me who walked through space and time. Five rosy boys with morning light Had leaped from one fair mother's arms, Fronted the sun with hope as bright, And greeted God with childhood's psalms….

O DAY of days when we can read! The reader and the book, – either without the other is naught. THAT book is good Which puts me in a working mood. Unless to Thought be added Will Apollo is an imbecile. BOOKS IT is easy to accuse books, and bad ones are easily found ;…

I FRAMED his tongue to music, I armed his hand with skill, I moulded his face to beauty And his heart the throne of Will. ART ALL departments of life at the present day – Trade, Politics, Letters, Science, or Religion – seem to feel, and to labor to express, the identity of their law….

So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can. PERIL around, all else appalling, Cannon in front and leaden rain, Him duty, through the clarion calling To the van, called not in vain. COURAGE I OBSERVE that there are three…

OUR American people cannot be taxed with slowness in performance or in praising their performance. The earth is shaken by our engineries. We are feeling our youth and nerve and bone. We have the power of territory and of seacoast, and know the use of these. We count our census, we read our growing valuations,…