75 quotes
I saw old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like Silence, listening
To silence.
Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care;
Fashioned so slenderly,
Young and so fair!
How bravely Autumn paints upon the sky
The gorgeous fame of Summer which is fled!
Such a blush
In the midst of brown was born,
Like red poppies grown with corn.
Ben Battle was a soldier bold,
And used to war's alarms;
But a cannon-ball took off his legs,
So he laid down his arms.
Sewing at once a double thread,
A shroud as well as a shirt.
The Song of the Shirt (1843)
She stood breast-high amid the corn
Clasped by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,
Who many a glowing kiss had won.
She stood breast-high amid the corn,
Clasp'd by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,
Who many a glowing kiss had won.
Ruth (1827)
How widely its agencies vary,—
To save, to ruin, to curse, to bless,—
As even its minted coins express,
Now stamped with the image of Good Queen Bess,
And now of a Bloody Mary.
Alas! for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the sun!
The Bridge of Sighs (1844)
The Quaker loves an ample brim,
A hat that bows to no Salaam;
And dear the beaver is to him
As if it never made a dam.
Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears our hopes belied;
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died.
Straight down the Crooked Lane,
And all round the Square.
And however our Dennises take offence,
A double meaning shows double sense;
And if proverbs tell truth,
A double tooth
Is wisdom's adopted dwelling.
Some dreams we have are nothing else but dreams,
Unnatural and full of contradictions;
Yet others of our most romantic schemes
Are something more than fictions.
'Tis strange how like a very dunce,
Man, with his bumps upon his sconce,
Has lived so long, and yet no knowledge he
Has had, till lately, of Phrenology—
A science that by simple dint of
Head-combing he should find a hint of,
When scratching o'er those little pole-hills
The faculties throw up like mole hills.
Craniology, reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922)
Work! work! work!
While the cock is crowing aloof!
And work—work—work,
Till the stars shine through the roof!
The Song of the Shirt (1843)
Oh, Men, with Sisters dear!
Oh, Men, with Mothers and Wives!
It is not linen you're wearing out,
But human creatures' lives!
The Song of the Shirt (1843)
* And soon
Their hushing dances languished to a stand,
Like midnight leaves when, as the Zephyrs swoon,
All on their drooping sterns they sink unfanned.
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,
Would that its tone could reach the Rich,
She sang this "Song of the Shirt!"