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Poems about Life
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Never go gloomily, man with a mind!
Hope is a better companion than fear;
The waves, the winds of Circumstance!
What arm their strength can stem?
Evil-eyed loiterer, pilgrim of fashion,
Sunless and hard is thy frost-bitten heart;
Alas, how many vain and bitter things
My zeal, and pride, and natural haste have wrought;
Honest fellow, sore beset,
Vext by troubles quick and keen,
After all said,— how many more
Of shames and sorrows by the score
Men of money, shrewd and skill'd
In putting capital to nurse,
O cheerful Christmas hearth!
Bright with the blazing coals,
Drudgery all the day,
Drudgery half the night,—
A walk in the city by day ;—
When rural simplicity stops
"The Song of the Shirt,"— O heart-stirring hymn
How sternly and terribly true
Wisely for us within night's sable veil
God hides the future; and, if men turn pale
First, honour thou the immortal gods, as a law of thy being:
Next, religiously keep thine oath, and reverence heroes:
Not in self-seeking doth the Poet draw
From his own wells, and analyse his heart;
LIBERTY
Liberty! — Who shall be free?—
O thousands, who have never found your mates,
But pine in secret for their love unknown,
No man can die, till all his work is done:
But who shall say, what work he had to do?—
Yes! out of the worst, on the instant, right out!
It is better — ay best — so to show it;
BEFORE I left I planted twenty
Ruby hawthorns, they’d be plenty
I told the Sun that I was glad,
I'm sure I don't know why;
Oh! The present is gay,
And the future is bright.
Way down in Greenwich Village
There's something, 'twould appear,
I met him in a crowd;
As if with care 'twas weighted,
When first I whispered words of love,
When first you turned aside to hear,
At the epoch which I write of quite the smartest men in town
Were Marmaduke de Coucy and Adolphus Brummel-Brown;
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