• From “The Task,” Book VI.
      NOT to understand a treasure’s worth
    Till time has stol’n away the slighted good,
    Is cause of half the poverty we feel,
    And makes the world the wilderness it is.

  • When a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth’s aching breast
    Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west,
    And the slave, where’er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb
    To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime
    Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time.

    Through the walls of hut and...