From “The Bell-Founder”
AH! little they know of true happiness, they whom satiety fills,
Who, flung on the rich breast of luxury, eat of the rankness that kills.
Ah! little they know of the blessedness toil-purchased slumber enjoys
Who, stretched on the hard rack of indolence, taste of the sleep that destroys:
Nothing to hope for, or labor for; nothing to...
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A Good wife rose from her bed one morn,
And thought, with a nervous dread,
Of the piles of clothes to be washed, and more
Than a dozen mouths to be fed.
“There ’s the meals to get for the men in the field,
And the children to fix away
To school, and the milk to be skimmed and churned;
And all to be done this day.”It had...
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Pause not to dream of the future before us;
Pause not to weep the wild cares that come o’er us;
Hark! how Creation’s deep, musical chorus,
Unintermitting, goes up into Heaven!
Never the ocean-wave falters in flowing;
Never the little seed stops in its growing;
More and more richly the rose-heart keeps glowing,
Till from its nourishing... -
From the German by Samuel Atkins Eliot
From “Song of the Bell”LET us with care observe
What from our strength, yet weakness, springs;
For he respect can ne’er deserve
Who hands alone to labor brings.
’T is only this which honors man;
His mind with heavenly fire was warmed,
That he with deepest thought might scan... -