John Greenleaf Whittier Quotes - Page 5

What does the good ship bear so well? The cocoa-nut with its stony shell, And the milky sap of its inner cell.

Once more the liberal year laughs out O'er richer stores than gems or gold: Once more with harvest song and shout Is nature's boldest triumph told.

Simple duty hath no place for fear.

Low stir of leaves and dip of oars And lapsing waves on quiet shores.

The Fates are just: they give us but our own; Nemesis ripens what our hands have sown.

Around the mighty master came The marvels which his pencil wrought, Those miracles of power whose fame Is wide as human thought.

Despair is infidelity and death.

Life's sunniest hours are not without The shadow of some lingering doubt-- Amid its brightest joys will steal Spectres of evil yet to feel-- Its warmest love is blent with fears, Its confidence a trembling one-- Its smile--the harbinger of tears-- Its hope--the change of April's sun! A weary lot--in mercy given, To fit the chastened soul for heaven.

Time is hastening on, and we What our fathers are shall be,-- Shadow-shapes of memory! Joined to that vast multitude Where the great are but the good.

With our sympathy for the wrongdoer we need the old Puritan and Quaker hatred of wrongdoing; with our just tolerance of men and opinions a righteous abhorrence of sin.

Round the boles of the pine-wood the ground-laurel creeps, Unkissed of the sunshine, unbaptized of showers, With buds scarcely swelled, which should burst into flowers!

Nature eschews regular lines; she does not shape her lines by a common model. Not one of Eve's numerous progeny in all respects resembles her who first culled the flowers of Eden. To the infinite variety and picturesque inequality of nature we owe the great charm of her uncloying beauty.

A charmed life old goodness hath; the tares may perish, but the grain is not for death.

Like warp and woof all destinies Are woven fast, Linked in sympathy like the keys Of an organ vast. Pluck one thread, and the web ye mar; Break but one Of a thousand keys, and the paining jar Through all will run.

Oh, talk as we may of beauty as a thing to be chiselled from marble or wrought out on canvas, speculate as we may upon its colors and outlines, what is it but an intellectual abstraction, after all? The heart feels a beauty of another kind; looking through the outward environment, it discovers a deeper and more real love-liness.

Few have borne unconsciously the spell of loveliness.

But let the good old corn adorn The hills our fathers trod; Still let us, for his golden corn, Send up our thanks to God!

A felon's cell-- The fittest earthly type of hell!

God's ways seem dark, but, soon or late, They touch the shining hills of day; The evil cannot brook delay, The good can well afford to wait, Give ermined knaves their hour of crime; Yet have the future grand and great, The safe appeal of Truth to Time!

God is good and God is light In this faith I rest secure, Evil can but serve the right, Over all shall love endure.

A bending staff I would not break, A feeble faith I would not shake, Nor even rashly pluck away The error which some truth may stay, Whose loss might leave the soul without A shield against the shafts of doubt.

Quite the ugliest face I ever saw was that of a woman whom the world called beautiful. Through its silver veil the evil and ungentle passions looked out, hideous and hateful. On the other hand, there are faces which the multitude, at first glance, pronounce homely, unattractive and such as "Nature fashions by the gross," which I always recognize with a warm heart-thrill. Not for the world would I have one feature changed; they please me as they are; they are hallowed by kind memories, and are beautiful through their associations.

The age is dull and mean. Men creep, Not walk; with blood too pale and tame To pay the debt they owe to shame; Buy cheap, sell dear; eat. drink, and sleep down-pillowed, deaf to moaning want; Pay tithes for soul-insurance; keep Six days to Mammon, one to Cant

I hear the tread of pioneers Of nations yet to be, The first low wash of waves where soon Shall roll a human sea.

Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck, And hear a cry from a reeling deck!