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Fra Lippo, we have learned from thee
A lesson of humanity:
To every mother's heart forlorn,
In every house the Christ is born.
Topic: Christ
Source: A Madonna of Fra Lippo Lippi
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What babe new born is this that in a manger cries?
Near on her lowly bed his happy mother lies.
Oh, see the air is shaken with white and heavenly wings--
This is the Lord of all the earth, this is the King of Kings.
Topic: Christmas
Source: A Christmas Hymn (st. 4)
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We lean on Faith; and some less wise have cried,
"Behold the butterfly, the see that's cast!"
Vain hopes that fall like flowers before the blast!
What man can look on Death unterrified?
Topic: Faith
Source: Love and Death (st. 2)
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I am the laughter of the new-born child
On whose soft-breathing sleep an angel smiled.
Topic: Laughter
Source: Ode
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Against the darkness outer
God's light his likeness takes,
And he from the mighty doubter
The great believer makes.
Topic: Light
Source: The New Day (pt. IV, song XV)
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"Whose name was writ in water!" What large laughter
Among the immortals when that word was brought!
Then when his fiery spirit rose flaming after,
High toward the topmost heaven of heavens up-caught!
"All hail! our younger brother!" Shakespeare said,
And Dante nodded his imperial head.
Topic: Names
Source: Keats
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My name may have buoyancy enough to float upon the sea of time.
Topic: Names
Source: Keats
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Stream of the living world
Where dash the billows of strife!--
One plunge in the mighty torrent
Is a year of tamer life!
City of glorious days,
Of hope, and labour and mirth,
With room and to spare, on thy splendid bays
For the ships of all the earth!
Topic: New York
Source: The City
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What is a Sonnet? 'Tis the pearly shell
That murmurs of the far-off, murmuring sea;
A precious jewel carved most curiously;
It is a little picture painted well.
What is a Sonnet? 'Tis the tear that fell
From a great poet's hidden ecstasy;
A two-edged sword, a star, a song--ah me!
Sometimes a heavy tolling funeral bell.
Topic: Poetry
Source: The Sonnet
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Now you who rhyme, and I who rhyme,
Have not we sworn it, many a time,
That we no more our verse would scrawl,
For Shakespeare he had said it all!
Topic: Shakespeare
Source: The Modern Rhymer
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The smile of her I love is like the dawn
Whose touch makes Menmon sing:
O see where wide the golden sunlight flows--
The barren desert blossoms as the rose!
Topic: Smiles
Source: The Smile of Her I Love
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I am the spirit of the morning sea,
I am the awakening and the glad surprise.
Topic: Spirits
Source: Ode
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Oh, father's gone to market-town, he was up before the day,
And Jamie's after robins, and the man is making hay,
And whistling down the hollow goes the boy that minds the mill,
While mother from the kitchen door is calling with a will,
"Polly!--Polly!--The cows are in the corn!
Oh, where's Polly?"
Topic: Summer
Source: A Midsummer Song
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Since ancient Time began,
Ever on some great soul God laid an infinite burden--
The weight of all this world, the hopes of man,
Conflict and pain, and fame immortal are his guerdon.
Topic: Washington, George
Source: Washington, speech at Trenton
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