Written by
Phillis Wheatley |
HAIL, happy day, when, smiling like the morn,
Fair Freedom rose New-England to adorn:
The northern clime beneath her genial ray,
Dartmouth, congratulates thy blissful sway:
Elate with hope her race no longer mourns,
Each soul expands, each grateful bosom burns,
While in thine hand with pleasure we behold
The silken reins, and Freedom's charms unfold.
Long lost to realms beneath the northern skies
She shines supreme, while hated faction dies:
Soon as appear'd the Goddess long desir'd,
Sick at the view, she languish'd and expir'd;
Thus from the splendors of the morning light
The owl in sadness seeks the caves of night.
No more, America, in mournful strain
Of wrongs, and grievance unredress'd complain,
No longer shalt thou dread the iron chain,
Which wanton Tyranny with lawless hand
Had made, and with it meant t' enslave the land.
Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song,
Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung,
Whence flow these wishes for the common good,
By feeling hearts alone best understood,
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate
Was snatch'd from Afric's fancy'd happy seat:
What pangs excruciating must molest,
What sorrows labour in my parent's breast?
Steel'd was that soul and by no misery mov'd
That from a father seiz'd his babe belov'd:
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway?
For favours past, great Sir, our thanks are due,
And thee we ask thy favours to renew,
Since in thy pow'r, as in thy will before,
To sooth the griefs, which thou did'st once deplore.
May heav'nly grace the sacred sanction give
To all thy works, and thou for ever live
Not only on the wings of fleeting Fame,
Though praise immortal crowns the patriot's name,
But to conduct to heav'ns refulgent fane,
May fiery coursers sweep th' ethereal plain,
And bear thee upwards to that blest abode,
Where, like the prophet, thou shalt find thy God.
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Written by
Henry David Thoreau |
"Friends, Romans, Countrymen, and Lovers."
Let such pure hate still underprop
Our love, that we may be
Each other's conscience,
And have our sympathy
Mainly from thence.
We'll one another treat like gods,
And all the faith we have
In virtue and in truth, bestow
On either, and suspicion leave
To gods below.
Two solitary stars--
Unmeasured systems far
Between us roll;
But by our conscious light we are
Determined to one pole.
What need confound the sphere?--
Love can afford to wait;
For it no hour's too late
That witnesseth one duty's end,
Or to another doth beginning lend.
It will subserve no use,
More than the tints of flowers;
Only the independent guest
Frequents its bowers,
Inherits its bequest.
No speech, though kind, has it;
But kinder silence doles
Unto its mates;
By night consoles,
By day congratulates.
What saith the tongue to tongue?
What hearest ear of ear?
By the decrees of fate
From year to year,
Does it communicate.
Pathless the gulf of feeling yawns;
No trivial bridge of words,
Or arch of boldest span,
Can leap the moat that girds
The sincere man.
No show of bolts and bars
Can keep the foeman out,
Or 'scape his secret mine,
Who entered with the doubt
That drew the line.
No warder at the gate
Can let the friendly in;
But, like the sun, o'er all
He will the castle win,
And shine along the wall.
There's nothing in the world I know
That can escape from love,
For every depth it goes below,
And every height above.
It waits, as waits the sky,
Until the clouds go by,
Yet shines serenely on
With an eternal day,
Alike when they are gone,
And when they stay.
Implacable is Love--
Foes may be bought or teased
From their hostile intent,
But he goes unappeased
Who is on kindness bent.
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Written by
Francesco Petrarch |
SONNET CCV. Fresco ambroso fiorito e verde colle. HE CONGRATULATES HIS HEART ON ITS REMAINING WITH HER. O hill with green o'erspread, with groves o'erhung!Where musing now, now trilling her sweet lay,Most like what bards of heavenly spirits say,Sits she by fame through every region sung:My heart, which wisely unto her has clung—More wise, if there, in absence blest, it stay![Pg 214]Notes now the turf o'er which her soft steps stray,Now where her angel-eyes' mild beam is flung;Then throbs and murmurs, as they onward rove,"Ah! were he here, that man of wretched lot,Doom'd but to taste the bitterness of love!"She, conscious, smiles: our feelings tally not:Heartless am I, mere stone; heaven is thy grove—O dear delightful shade, O consecrated spot! Wrangham. Fresh, shaded hill! with flowers and verdure crown'd,Where, in fond musings, or with music sweet,To earth a heaven-sent spirit takes her seat!She who from all the world has honour found.Forsaking me, to her my fond heart bound—Divorce for aye were welcome as discreet—Notes where the turf is mark'd by her fair feet,Or from these eyes for her in sorrow drown'd,Then inly whispers as her steps advance,"Would for awhile that wreteh were here aloneWho pines already o'er his bitter lot."She conscious smiles. Not equal is the chance;An Eden thou, while I a heartless stone.O holy, happy, and beloved spot! Macgregor.
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Written by
Francesco Petrarch |
[Pg 25] SONNET XXI. Amor piangeva, ed io con lui talvolta. HE CONGRATULATES BOCCACCIO ON HIS RETURN TO THE RIGHT PATH. Love grieved, and I with him at times, to seeBy what strange practices and cunning art,You still continued from his fetters free,From whom my feet were never far apart.Since to the right way brought by God's decree,Lifting my hands to heaven with pious heart,I thank Him for his love and grace, for HeThe soul-prayer of the just will never thwart:And if, returning to the amorous strife,Its fair desire to teach us to deny,Hollows and hillocks in thy path abound,'Tis but to prove to us with thorns how rifeThe narrow way, the ascent how hard and high,Where with true virtue man at last is crown'd. Macgregor.
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