The life in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this year higher than man has ever known it, and flood the parched upla...nds; even this may be the eventful year, which will drown out all our muskrats. It was not always dry land where we dwell. I see far inland the banks which the stream anciently washed, before science began to record its freshets. Every one has heard the story which has gone the rounds of New England, of a strong and beautiful bug which came out of the dry leaf of an old table of apple-tree wood, which had stood in a farmer's kitchen for sixty years, first in Connecticut, and afterward in Massachusetts,--from an egg deposited in the living tree many years earlier still, as appeared by counting the annual layers beyond it; which was heard gnawing out for several weeks, hatched perchance by the heat of an urn. Who does not feel his faith in a resurrection and immortality strengthened by hearing of this? Who knows what beautiful and winged life, whose egg has been buried for ages under many concentric layers of woodenness in the dead dry life of society, deposited at first in the alburnum of the green and living tree, which has been gradually converted into the semblance of its well-seasoned tomb,--heard perchance gnawing out now for years by the astonished family of man, as they sat round the festal board,--may unexpectedly come forth from amidst society's most trivial and handselled furniture, to enjoy its perfect summer life at last! I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this; but such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The heavy burden of the growing soul Perplexes and offends more, day by day;... Week by week, offends and perplexes more With the imperatives of "is and seems" And may and may not, desire and control.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When you grow up you realize that there isn't really any Santa but the monsters are still around. If only they were big and hairy;... now they're just dark and amorphous, and they're no longer afraid of the light. Sometimes they're the guy who climbs in the window and takes your television. And sometimes they're the guy who walks out the front door with your heart in his hand and never comes back. And sometimes they're the job or the bank or the wife or the boss or just that sort of dark heavy feeling that sits between your shoulder blades like a backpack. There are always terrible things waiting to grab you by the ankle, to pull you under, to get you with their long horrible arms. And you lie in bed and look at the shadows on the ceiling and feel, under the covers, just for a moment, like you're safe. One more day alive.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun... is but a morning star.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Ask me no more where Jove bestows, When June is past, the fading rose;... For in your beauty's orient deep These flowers, as in their causes, sleep.
Ask me no more whither do stray The golden atoms of the day; For in pure love heaven did prepare Those powders to enrich your hair.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Day by day, dear Lord, of thee three things I pray: to see thee more clearly,... love thee more dearly, follow thee more nearly, day by day.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If thou survive my well-contented day When that churl death my bones with dust shall cover,... And shalt by fortune once more re-survey These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover; Compare them with the bettering of the time, And though they be outstripped by every pen, Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme Exceeded by the height of happier men. Oh, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought-- \'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age, A dearer birth than this his love had brought, To march in ranks of better equipage: But since he died, and poets better prove, Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love.'LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.... Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, Nor shall Death brag thou wand'rest in his shade When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st. So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We arrived in New York, by rail, the day before Christmas. Everything looked bright and gay in our streets. It seemed to me that t...he sky was clearer, the air more refreshing, and the sunlight more brilliant than in any other land!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »