223 quotes
Here was a type of the true elder race,
And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face.
Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration (1865)
There is no price set on the lavish summer,
And June may be had by the poorest comer.
The Vision of Sir Launfal (1848)
To say why gals acts so or so,
Or don't, 'ould be persumin';
Mebby to mean yes an' say no
Comes nateral to women.
The Biglow Papers (1848)
Ez fer war, I call it murder,—
Ther you hev it plain and flat;
I don't want to go no furder
Than my Testyment fer that.
The Biglow Papers (1848)
Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown
An' peeked in thru' the winder,
An there sot Huldy all alone,
'ith no one nigh to hender.
The Biglow Papers (1848)
The snow had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.
Under the Willows and Other Poems (1869)
His words were simple words enough,
And yet he used them so,
That what in other mouths was rough
In his seemed musical and low.
Poems (1844)
Freedom needs all her poets; it is they
Who give her aspirations wings,
And to the wiser law of music sway
Her wild imaginings.
The very room, coz she was in,
Seemed warm f'om floor to ceilin'.
Our slender life runs rippling by, and glides
Into the silent hollow of the past;
What is there that abides
To make the next age better for the last?
Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration (1865)
His Nature's a glass of champagne with the foam on 't,
As tender as Fletcher, as witty as Beaumont;
So his best things are done in the flash of the moment.
Fable for Critics (1848)
"What means this glory round our feet,"
The Magi mused, "more bright than morn!"
And voices chanted clear and sweet,
"To-day the Prince of Peace is born."
Bad work follers ye ez long's ye live.
The Biglow Papers (1848)
A beggar through the world am I,
From place to place I wander by.
Fill up my pilgrim's scrip for me,
For Christ's sweet sake and charity.
I have hinted that what people are afraid of in democracy is less the thing itself than what they conceive to be its necessary adjuncts and consequences.
On Democracy (1884)
I du believe with all my soul
In the gret Press's freedom,
To pint the people to the goal
An' in the traces lead 'em.
The Biglow Papers (1848)
Of my merit
On thet pint you yourself may jedge;
All is, I never drink no sperit,
Nor I haint never signed no pledge.
The Biglow Papers (1848)
It ain't by princerples nor men
My preudunt course is steadied—
I scent wich pays the best, an' then
Go into it baldheaded.
The Biglow Papers (1848)
Ef you take a sword an’ dror it,
An’ go stick a feller thru,
Guv’mint ain’t to answer for it,
God’ll send the bill to you.
The Biglow Papers (1848)
Of my merit
On that pint you yourself may jedge:
All is, I never drink no sperit,
Nor I haint never signed no pledge.