La oración es voz del alma,
Ya palabras lleve ó nó,
De una llama que arde oculta
Generosa vibración.
Un suspiro que se exhala,
Una lágrima de amor,
La mirada que elevamos
...
-
-
Vase un amigo, y otro, y otro luégo:
No hay vínculo suave
Que en esta vida, ajena de sosiego,
Con el morir no acabe.
Si aquí tuviese término el camino,
Fuera mísero asaz nuestro destino.Por cima de este valle de dolores,
... -
Friend after friend departs:
Who hath not lost a friend?
There is no union here of hearts
That finds not here an end;
Were this frail world our only rest,
Living or dying, none were blest.Beyond the flight of time,
Beyond this vale of death,
There surely is some blessèd clime
Where life is not a breath,
... -
Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed—
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast.Prayer is the burthen of a sigh,
The falling of a tear—
The upward glancing of an eye,
When none but God is near.Prayer is the simplest form of speech
That infant lips can try—
Prayer... -
The Bird that soars on highest wing
Builds on the ground her lowly nest;
And she that doth most sweetly sing
Sings in the shade, where all things rest;
In lark and nightingale we see
What honor hath humility.When Mary chose “the better part,”
She meekly sat at Jesus’ feet;
And Lydia’s gently opened heart
Was... -
FOREVER with the Lord!
Amen! so let it be!
Life from the dead is in that word,
And immortality.Here in the body pent,
Absent from him I roam,
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent
A day’s march nearer home.My Father’s house on high,
Home of my soul! how near,
At times, to faith’s foreseeing eye... -
From “The Pelican Island”
—BIRDS, the free tenants of land, air, and ocean,
Their forms all symmetry, their motions grace;
In plumage, delicate and beautiful,
Thick without burden, close as fishes’ scales,
Or loose as full-grown poppies to the breeze;
With wings that might have had a soul within them,
They bore their owners by such sweet... -
From “The Pelican Island”
EVERY one,
By instinct taught, performed its little task,—
To build its dwelling and its sepulchre,
From its own essence exquisitely modelled;
There breed, and die, and leave a progeny,
Still multiplied beyond the reach of numbers,
To frame new cells and tombs; then breed and die... -
[Battle of Sempach, fourteenth century]
“MAKE way for Liberty!”—he cried;
Made way for Liberty, and died!
In arms the Austrian phalanx stood,
A living wall, a human wood!
A wall, where every conscious stone
Seemed to its kindred thousands grown;
A rampart all assaults to bear,
Till time to dust their frames should wear;... -
There is a land, of every land the pride,
Beloved by Heaven o’er all the world beside,
Where brighter suns dispense serener light,
And milder moons imparadise the night;
A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth,
Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth:
The wandering mariner, whose eye explores
The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting...