5 quotes
Nature, they say, doth dote,
And cannot make a man
Save on some worn-out plan,
Repeating us by rote.
Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration (1865)
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)
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)
They come transfigured back,
Secure from change in their high-hearted ways,
Beautiful evermore, and with the rays
Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation!
Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration (1865)
The little that we do
Is but half-nobly true;
With our laborious hiving
What men call treasure, and the gods call dross,
Life seems a jest of Fate's contriving,
Only secure in every one's conniving,
A long account of nothings paid with loss.
Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration (1865)