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At first laying down, as a fact fundamental,
That nothing with God can be accidental.
Topic: Accident
Source: Christus--The Golden Legend (pt. VI)
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Let us, then, be up and doing, with a heart for any fate; still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labor and to wait.
Topic: Achievement
Source: None
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Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.
Topic: Achievement
Source: None
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Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
and things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art; to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Topic: Advice / Experience / Wisdom
Source: None
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Talk not of wasted affection; affection never was wasted.
Topic: Affection
Source: None
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I see, but cannot reach, the height
That lies forever in the light.
Topic: Ambition
Source: Christus--The Golden Legend (p. II, A Village Church)
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Most people would succeed in small things if they were not
troubled with great ambitions.
Topic: Ambition
Source: Drift-Wood--Table-Talk
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The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!
Topic: Ambition
Source: Excelsior
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Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.
Topic: Ambition
Source: None
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Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.
Topic: Ambition
Source: None
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So many ghosts, and forms of fright,
Have started from their graves to-night,
They have driven sleep from mine eyes away;
I will go down to the chapel and pray.
Topic: Apparitions
Source: The Golden Legend (pt. IV)
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I love the season well
When forest glades are teeming with bright forms,
Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell
The coming of storms.
Topic: April
Source: An April Day (st. 8)
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Sweet April! many a thought
Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed;
Nor shall they fail, till, to its autumn brought,
Life's golden fruit is shed.
Topic: April
Source: An April Day (st. 8)
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In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the gods see everywhere.
Topic: Architecture
Source: The Builders (st. 5)
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The architect
Built his great heart into these sculptured stones,
And with him toiled his children, and their lives
Were builded, with his own, into the walls,
As offerings unto God.
Topic: Architecture
Source: Christus--The Golden Legend (pt. III, In the Cathedral)
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Ah, to build, to build!
That is the noblest of all the arts.
Topic: Architecture
Source: Michael Angelo (pt. I, II, l. 54)
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Art is long, and time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still like muffled drums are beating Funeral marches to the grave.
Topic: Art
Source: None
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It was Autumn, and incessant
Piped the quails from shocks and sheaves,
And, like living coals, the apples
Burned among the withering leaves.
Topic: Autumn
Source: Pegasus in Pound
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O child! O new-born denizen
Of life's great city! on thy head
The glory of morn is shed,
Like a celestial benison!
Here at the portal thou dost stand,
And with thy little hand
Thou openest the mysterious gate
Into the future's undiscovered land.
Topic: Babyhood
Source: To a Child
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I have a passion for ballad. . . . They are the gypsy children of
song, born under green hedgerows in the leafy lanes and bypaths
of literature,--in the genial Summertime.
Topic: Ballads
Source: Hyperion (bk. II, ch. II)
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For bells are the voice of the church;
They have tones that touch and search
The hearts of young and old.
Topic: Bells
Source: Bells of San Blas
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Seize the loud, vociferous fells, and
Clashing, clanging to the pavement
Hurl them from their windy tower!
Topic: Bells
Source: Christus--The Golden Legend (prologue)
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These bells have been anointed,
And baptized with holy water!
Topic: Bells
Source: Christus--The Golden Legend (prologue)
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He heard the convent bell,
Suddenly in the silence ringing
For the service of noonday.
Topic: Bells
Source: Christus--The Golden Legend (pt. II)
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The bells themselves are the best of preachers,
Their brazen lips are learned teachers,
From their pulpits of stone, in the upper air,
Sounding aloft, without crack or flaw,
Shriller than trumpets under the Law,
Now a sermon and now a prayer.
Topic: Bells
Source: Christus--The Golden Legend (pt. III)
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Bell, thou soundest merrily,
When the bridal party
To the church doth hie!
Bell, thou soundest solemnly,
When, on Sabbath morning,
Fields deserted lie!
Topic: Bells
Source: Hyperion (bk. III, ch. III), (quoted)
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It cometh into court and pleads the cause
Of creatures dumb and unknown to the laws;
And this shall make, in every Christian clime,
The bell of Atri famous for all time.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
Topic: Bells
Source: Tales of a Wayside Inn--The Sicilian's Tale--The Bell of Atri
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Do you ne'er think what wondrous beings these?
Do you ne'er think who made them, and who taught
The dialect they speak, where melodies
Alone are the interpreters of thought?
Whose household words are songs in many keys,
Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught!
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
Topic: Birds
Source: Tales of a Wayside Inn--The Poet's Tale--The Birds of Killingworth
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In the thickets and the meadows
Piped the bluebird, the Owaissa.
On the summit of the lodges
Sang the robin, the Opechee.
Topic: Bluebirds
Source: Hiawatha (pt. XXI)
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A solid man of Boston;
A comfortable man with dividends,
And the first salmon and the first green peas.
Topic: Boston
Source: New England Tragedies--John Endicott (act IV)
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There's a brave fellow! There's a man of pluck!
A man who's not afraid to say his say,
Though a whole town's against him.
Topic: Bravery
Source: Christus (pt. III, John Endicott, act II, sc. 2)
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See, how the stream has overflowed
Its banks, and o'er the meadow road
Is spreading far and wide!
Topic: Brooks
Source: Christus--The Golden Legend (pt. III, sc. 7, The Nativity)
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The music of the brook silenced all conversation.
Topic: Brooks
Source: Kavanagh (ch. XXI)
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Ah! what would the world be to us If the children were no more? We should dread the desert behind us Worse than the dark before.
Topic: Children / Youth
Source: None
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Shepherds at the grange,
Where the Babe was born,
Sang with many a change,
Christmas carols until morn.
Topic: Christmas
Source: By the Fireside--A Christmas Carol (st. 3)
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I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Topic: Christmas
Source: Christmas Bells (st. 1)
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Hail to the King of Bethlehem,
Who weareth in his diadem
The yellow crocus for the gem
Of his authority!
Topic: Christmas
Source: Christus--The Golden Legend (pt. III)
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Well has the name of Pontifex been given
Unto the Church's head, as the chief builder
And architect of the invisible bridge
That leads from earth to heaven.
Topic: Churches
Source: Golden Legend (V)
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Even cities have their graves!
Topic: Cities
Source: Amalfi (st. 6)
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See yonder little cloud, that, borne aloft
So tenderly by the wind, floats fast away
Over the snowy peaks!
Topic: Clouds
Source: Christus--The Golden Legend (pt. V, l. 145)
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By unseen hand uplifted in the light
Of sunset, yonder solitary cloud
Floats, with its white apparel blown abroad,
And wafted up to heaven.
Topic: Clouds
Source: Michael Angelo (pt. II, 2)
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It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong. Ralph Nichols -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Topic: Communication
Source: None
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A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better
than ten years' study of books.
Topic: Conversation
Source: Hyperion (ch. VII), quoted from the Chinese
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Write on your doors the saying wise and old,
"Be bold! be bold!" and everywhere--"Be bold;
Be not too bold!" Yet better the excess
That the defect; better the more than less;
Better like Hector in the field to die,
Than like a perfumed Paris turn and fly.
Topic: Courage
Source: Morituri Salutamus
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Intelligence and courtesy not always are combined;Often in a wooden house a golden room we find.
Topic: Courtesy
Source: None
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The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized.
Topic: Criticism
Source: None
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Even the blackest of them all, the crow,
Renders good service as your man-at-arms,
Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail,
And crying havoc on the slug and snail.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
Topic: Crows
Source: Tales of a Wayside Inn--The Poet's Tale--Birds of Killingworth (st. 19)
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An angel with a trumpet said,
"Forever more, forever more,
The reign of violence is o'er!"
Topic: Cruelty
Source: The Occultation of Orion (st. 6)
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Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he call'd the flowers, so blue and golden,
Stars that on earth's firmament do shine.
Topic: Daisies
Source: Flowers (st. 1)
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Merrily, merrily whirled the wheels of the dizzying dances
Under the orchard-trees and down the path to the meadows;
Old fold and young together, and children mingled among them.
Topic: Dancing
Source: Evangeline (pt. I, IV)
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