all hail! thou noble land,
      Our Fathers’ native soil!
    Oh, stretch thy mighty hand,
      Gigantic grown by toil,
O’er the vast Atlantic wave to our shore!
    For thou with magic might
    Canst reach to where the light
    Of...

Fallen? how fallen? States and empires fall;
    O’er towers and rock-built walls,
And perished nations, floods to tempests call
With hollow sound along the sea of time:
    The great man never falls.
He lives, he towers aloft, he stands sublime:...

That sovereign thought obscured? That vision clear
  Dimmed in the shadow of the sable wing,
  And fainter grown the fine interpreting
Which as an oracle was ours to hear!
Nay, but the Gods reclaim not from the seer
  Their gift,—although he ceases here to...

I served in a great cause:
Long had I doubted the call I heard, wantoning the seasons dead;
The opportune days were deserts, the sunlight fell on a waste,
But the dawn brought me face to face with itself, with the opening flowers:
I looked upon my sea casting its...

Poet: Horace L

To eastward ringing, to westward winging, o’er mapless miles of sea,
On winds and tides the gospel rides that the furthermost isles are free,
And the furthermost isles make answer, harbor, and height, and hill,
Breaker and beach cry each to each, “’T is the Mother who...

From the Greek by Leigh Hunt
I DREAMT I saw great Venus by me stand,
Leading a nodding infant by the hand;
And that she said to me familiarly—
“Take Love, and teach him how to play to me.”
She vanished then. And I, poor fool, must turn
To teach the...

How seldom, Friend! a good great man inherits
  Honor or wealth with all his worth and pains!
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits.
If any man obtain that which he merits,
  Or any merit that which he obtains.

For shame, dear Friend; renounce...

      ALL hail; thou noble land,
        Our Fathers’ native soil!
      O, stretch thy mighty hand,
        Gigantic grown by toil,
O’er the vast Atlantic wave to our shore!
      For thou with magic might
      Canst reach to where the light...

Great Nature is an army gay,
Resistless marching on its way;
          I hear the bugles clear and sweet,
I hear the tread of million feet.
          Across the plain I see it pour;
It tramples down the waving grass;
Within the echoing mountain-...

The Maid, as by the papers doth appear,
Whom fifty thousand dollars made so dear,
To test Lothario’s passion, simply said:
“Forego the weed before we go to wed.
For smoke take flame; I ’ll be that flame’s bright fanner:
To have your Anna, give up your...

Poet: Anonymous