John Greenleaf Whittier Quotes
d. 1892 United States
John Greenleaf Whittier (17 December 1807 – 7 September 1892) was an American Quaker poet and abolitionist.
- United States
- 19th-century poets
- Poets
Also known as: Whittier, John Greenleaf
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93 quotes
Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah me!
That I the Judge's bride might be!
He would dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine."
Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!
God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
Maud Muller (1856)
Yet sometimes glimpses on my sight,
Through present wrong the eternal right;
And, step by step, since time began,
I see the steady gain of man
A bending staff I would not break,
A feeble faith I would not shake,
Nor even rashly pluck away
The error which some truth may stay,
Whose loss might leave the soul without
A shield against the shafts of doubt.
Oh, for boyhood's time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon,
When all things I heard or saw,
Me, their master, waited for.
With warning hand I mark Time's rapid flight,
From Life's glad morning to its solemn night;
Yet, through the dear Lord's love, I also show
There's light above me by the shade I throw.
As yonder tower outstretches to the earth
The dark triangle of its shade alone
When the clear day is shining on its top;
So, darkness in the pathway of man's life
Is but the shadow of God's providence,
By the great Sun of wisdom cast thereon;
And what is dark below is light in heaven.
Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)
So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.
But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love-tune.
Maud Muller (1856)
And beautiful maidens moved down in the dance,
With the magic of motion and sunshine of glance:
And white arms wreathed lightly, and tresses fell free
As the plumage of birds in some tropical tree.
Our lives are albums written through
With good or ill, with false or true;
And as the blessed angels turn
The pages of our years,
God grant they read the good with smiles,
And blot the ill with tears!
I have friends in Spirit Land,—
Not shadows in a shadowy band,
Not others but themselves are they,
And still I think of them the same
As when the Master's summons came.
Cast not the clouded gem away,
Quench not the dim but living ray,—
My brother man, Beware!
With that deep voice which from the skies
Forbade the Patriarch's sacrifice.
God's angel, cries, Forbear!
Somehow not only for Christmas
But all the long year through,
The joy that you give to others
Is the joy that comes back to you.
And the more you spend in blessing
The poor and lonely and sad,
The more of your heart's possessing
Returns to make you glad.
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