C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Mrs. Hemans

Ay, call it holy ground,

The soil where first they trod.

They have left unstained, what there they found—

Freedom to worship God.

Calm on the bosom of thy God,

Fair spirit! rest thee now!

Christ hath arisen! O mountain peaks, attest—

Witness, resounding glen and torrent wave!

The immortal courage in the human breast

Sprung from that victory—tell how oft the brave

To camp ’midst rock and cave,

Nerved by those words, their struggling faith have borne,

Planting the cross on high above the clouds of morn!

Come to the sunset tree!

The day is past and gone;

The woodman’s axe lies free,

And the reaper’s work is done;

The twilight star to heaven,

And the summer dew to flowers,

And rest to us is given

By the cool, soft evening hours.

Dust, to its narrow house beneath!

Soul, to its place on high!

They that have seen thy look in death,

No more may fear to die.

Fair land! of chivalry the old domain,

Land of the vine and olive, lovely Spain!

Though not for thee with classic shores to vie

In charms that fix th’ enthusiast’s pensive eye;

Yet hast thou scenes of beauty, richly fraught

With all that wakes the glow of lofty thought;

Fountains, and vales, and rocks, whose ancient name

High deeds have raised to mingle with their fame.

Fill with Forgetfulness, fill high! yet stay—

—’Tis from the past we shadow forth the land

Where smiles, long lost, again shall light our way,

—Though the past haunt me as a spirit—yet I ask not to forget!

Gird your hearts with silent fortitude,

Suffering, yet hoping all things.

I come, I come! ye have called me long,

I come o’er the mountain with light and song:

Ye may trace my step o’er the wakening earth,

By the winds which tell of the violet’s birth,

By the primrose-stars in the shadowy grass,

By the green leaves, opening as I pass.

In thy heart there is a holy spot,

As ’mid the waste an isle of fount and palm,

Forever green!—the world’s breath enters not,

The passion-tempest may not break its calm,

’Tis thine, all thine.

It is written on the rose

In its glory’s full array:

Read what those buds disclose—

“Passing away.”

Joy! the lost one is restor’d!

Sunshine comes to hearth and board.

From the far-off countries old,

Of the diamond and red gold,

From the dusky archer bands,

Roamers of the desert sands,

He hath reach’d his home again.

O! ask not, hope thou not too much

Of sympathy below;

Few are the hearts whence one same touch

Bids the sweet fountains flow.

Oh! call my brother back to me!

I cannot play alone;

The summer comes with flower and bee—

Where is my brother gone?

Oh! how could fancy crown with thee,

In ancient days, the God of Wine,

And bid thee at the banquet be

Companion of the vine?

Ivy! thy home is where each sound

Or revelry hath long been o’er;

Where song and beaker once went round,

But now are known no more.

Oh! lightly, lightly tread!

A holy thing is sleep,

On the worn spirit shed,

And eyes that wake to weep.

Return, my thoughts, come home!

Ye wild and wing’d! what do ye o’er the deep?

And wherefore thus th’ abyss of time o’ersweep

As birds the ocean foam?

Oh, no! return ye not!

Still farther, loftier let your soarings be!

Go, bring me strength from journeyings bright and free

O’er many a haunted spot.

Go, visit cell and shrine

Where woman has endur’d!—through wrong, through scorn,

Unshar’d by fame—yet silently upborne

By promptings more divine!

Rome, Rome, thou art no more

As thou hast been!

On thy seven hills of yore

Thou sat’st a queen.

The blue, deep, glorious heavens!—I lift mine eye,

And bless thee, O my God! that I have met

And own’d thine image in the majesty

Of their calm temple still! that never yet

There hath thy face been shrouded from my sight

By noontide blaze, or sweeping storm of night!

I bless thee, O my God!

The Cottage Homes of England!

By thousands on her plains,

They are smiling o’er the silvery brooks,

And round the hamlet-fanes;

Through glowing orchards forth they peep,

Each from its nook of leaves;

And fearless there the lowly sleep,

As the birds beneath their eaves.

The soul, the mother of deep fears,

Of high hopes infinite,

Of glorious dreams, mysterious tears,

Of sleepless inner sight;

Lovely, but solemn, it arose,

Unfolding what no more might close.

The wind, the wandering wind

Of the golden summer eves—

Whence is the thrilling magic

Of its tunes amongst the leaves?

Oh, is it from the waters,

Or from the long, tall grass?

Or is it from the hollow rocks

Through which its breathings pass?

—There is a strength

Deep-bedded in our hearts, of which we reck

But little, till the shafts of heaven have pierced

Its fragile dwelling. Must not earth be rent

Before her gems are found?

There’s beauty all around our paths, if but our watchful eyes

Can trace it ’midst familiar things, and through their lowly guise.

They speak of hope to the fainting heart,

With a voice of promise they come and part,

They sleep in dust through the wintry hours,

They break forth in glory—bring flowers, bright flowers!

Thou’rt bearing hence thy roses,

Glad summer, fare thee well!

Thou’rt singing thy last melodies

In every wood and dell.

We endow

Those whom we love, in our fond, passionate blindness,

With power upon our souls too absolute

To be a mortal’s trust.

We pine for kindred natures

To mingle with our own.

Where’er a spire points up to heaven,

Through storm and summer air,

Telling that all around have striven,

Man’s heart, and hope, and prayer.

Willow, in thy breezy moan,

I can hear a deeper tone;

Through thy leaves come whispering low,

Faint sweet sounds of loud ago—

Willow, sighing willow!

Yet, the great ocean hath no tone of power

Mightier to reach the soul, in thought’s hushed hour,

Than yours, ye lilies! chosen thus and graced!

A holy thing is sleep, on the worn spirit shed, and eyes that wake to weep.

A passion for flowers is, I really think, the only one which long sickness leaves untouched with its chilling influence.

Beyond the clouds and beyond the tomb.

Dreams cannot picture a world so fair; sorrow and death may not enter there.

In the busy haunts of men.

Let me dream that love goes with us to the shore unknown.

Not where death hath power may love be blest.

O the things unseen, untold, undreamt of, which like shadows pass hourly over that mysterious world, a mind to ruin struck by grief!

“Passing away” is written on the world, and all the world contains.

Strength is born in the deep silence of long-suffering hearts; not amidst joy.

The opening and the folding flowers, that laugh to the summer’s day.

There is in all this cold and hollow world no fount of deep, strong, deathless love, save that within a mother’s heart.

There is strength and a fierce instinct, even in common souls, to bear up manhood with a stormy joy when red swords meet in lightning.

There is strength deep bedded in our hearts, of which we reck but little till the shafts of heaven have pierced its fragile dwelling. Must not earth be rent before her gems are found?

They speak of hope to the fainting heart.

Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O death!

We endow those whom we love, in our fond, passionate blindness, with power upon our souls too absolute to be a mortal’s trust.

Ye may trace my step o’er the wakening earth by the winds which tell of the violet’s birth.

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