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| | For Art is Nature made by Man |
| To Man the interpreter of God. |
| 1 |
| | Meanwhile |
| The sun, in his setting, sent up the last smile |
| Of his power, to baffle the storm. And, behold! |
| O’er the mountains embattled, his armies, all gold, |
| Rose and rested: while far up the dim airy crags, |
| Its artillery silenced, its banners in rags, |
| The rear of the tempest its sullen retreat |
| Drew off slowly, receding in silence, to meet |
| The powers of the night, which, now gathering afar, |
| Had already sent forward one bright, single star. |
| 2 |
| | No life |
| Can be pure in its purpose and strong in its strife, |
| And all life not be purer and stronger thereby. |
| 3 |
| | That caressing and exquisite grace—never bold, |
| Ever present—which just a few women possess. |
| 4 |
| | That old miracle—Love-at-first-sight— |
| Needs no explanations. The heart reads aright |
| Its destiny sometimes. |
| 5 |
| | That’s best |
| Which God sends. ’Twas His will: it is mine. |
| 6 |
| | The glittering tresses which, now shaken loose, |
| Shower’d gold. |
| 7 |
| | The man who seeks one thing in life, and but one, |
| May hope to achieve it before life be done; |
| But he who seeks all things, wherever he goes, |
| Only reaps from the hopes which around him he sows |
| A harvest of barren regrets. |
| 8 |
| | The sylphs and ondines |
| And the sea-kings and queens |
| Long ago, long ago, on the waves built a city, |
| As lovely as seems |
| To some bard in his dreams, |
| The soul of his latest love-ditty. |
| 9 |
| | There is war in the skies! |
| Lo! the black-winged legions of tempest arise |
| O’er those sharp splinter’d rocks that are gleaming below |
| In the soft light, so fair and so fatal, as though |
| Some seraph burn’d through them, the thunderbolt searching |
| Which the black cloud unbosom’d just now. |
| 10 |
| | When time is flown, how it fled |
| It is better neither to ask nor tell, |
| Leave the dead moments to bury their dead. |
| 11 |
| | You know |
| There are moments when silence, prolonged and unbroken, |
| More expressive may be than all words ever spoken. |
| It is when the heart has an instinct of what |
| In the heart of another is passing. |
| 12 |
| Are not great men the models of nations? | 13 |
| Be very sure that no man will learn anything at all unless he first will learn humility. | 14 |
| Genius does what it must; and talent does what it can. | 15 |
| Good-humor is goodness and wisdom combined. | 16 |
| Great sorrow makes sacred the sufferer. | 17 |
| Heaven’s slow but sure redress of human ills. | 18 |
| Life is good, but not life in itself. | 19 |
| Sometimes a dark thought crossed my fancy, like the sullen bat that flies athwart the melancholy moon at eve. | 20 |
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| There is a pleasure that is born of pain. | 21 |
| There is nothing certain in man’s life but this, that be must lose it. | 22 |
| There is purpose in pain; otherwise it were devilish. | 23 |
| There was war in the skies! | 24 |
| They only fall that strive to move, or lose that care to keep. | 25 |
| Thought alone is eternal. | 26 |
| ’T is more brave to live than to die. | 27 |
| True eyes, too pure and too honest in aught to disguise the sweet soul shining through them. | 28 |
| We are but as the instrument of heaven. | 29 |
| We gain justice, judgment, with years, or else years are in vain. | 30 |
| We stand in our own light wherever we go, and fight our own shadows forever. | 31 |
| Who knows nothing base, fears nothing known. | 32 |
| Words, however, are things. | 33 |
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