Tag: Longfellow

So many ghosts, and forms of fright, Have started from their graves to-night, They have driven sleep from mine eyes away; I will go down to the chapel and pray.

There are two angels that attend unseen Each one of us, and in great books record Our good and evil deeds. He who writes down The good ones, after every action closes His volume, and ascends with it to God. The other keeps his dreadful day-book open Till sunset, that we may repent; which doing, The record of the action fades away, And leaves a line of white across the page. Now if my act be good, as I believe it, It cannot be recalled. It is already Sealed up in heaven, as a good deed accomplished. The rest is yours.

O, though oft oppressed and lonely, All my fears are laid aside, If I but remember only Such as these have lived and died!

Sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O Union, strong and great.

Down to the Plymouth Rock, that had been to their feet as a doorstep Into a world unknown—the corner-stone of a nation!

Don Quixote thought he could have made beautiful bird-cages and tooth- picks if his brain had not been so full of ideas of chivalry. Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambi- tions.

Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.

Ambition’s cradle oftenest is its grave.

And the maize-field grew and ripened, Till it stood in all the splendor Of its garments green and yellow.

The course of my long life hath reached at last, In fragile bark o’er a tempestuous sea, The common harbor, where must rendered be, Account of all the actions of the past.

I venerate old age; and I love not the man who can look without emotion upon the sunset of life, when the dusk of evening begins to gather over the watery eye, and the shadows of twilight grow broader and deeper upon the understanding.

For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

How far the gulf-stream of our youth May flow into the Arctic region of our lives, Where little else than life itself survives.

Time has laid his hand upon my heart gently, not smiting it; but as a harper lays his open palm upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.

Be still, sad heart, and cease repining, Behind the clouds the sun is shining; Thy fate is the common fate of all; Into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary.

What seem to us but dim funereal tapers may be heaven’s distant lamps.

Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was wasted; If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters, returning Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full of refreshment; That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain.

Know how sublime a thing it is to suffer and be strong.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each to-morrow Finds us farther than to-day. Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act, — act, in the living Present! Heart within, and God o’erhead!

All the means of action-the shapeless masses, the materials lie everywhere about us; what we need is the celestial fire to change the flint into transparent crystal, bright and clear.

Let us then be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.

Nothing with God can be accidental.

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.