Expire in their rapture and wonder, But serene in the rapturous throng, With eyes unimpassioned and slow, From the spirits on earth that adore, Too heavy for mortals to bear. And he gathers the prayers as he stands, And beneath the great arch of the portal It is but a legend, I know, Of the ancient Rabbinical lore; But haunts and holds me the more. When I look from my window at night, All throbbing and panting with stars, And the legend, I feel, is a part To quiet its fever and pain. - Longfellow. FROM THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us ; The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, At the Devil's booth are all things sold, And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Every clod feels a stir of might, An instinct within it that reaches and towers, Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers; The flush of life may well be seen Thrilling back over hills and valleys; The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, To be some happy creature's palace; With the deluge of summer it receives; And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG - Lowell Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or to detract. The world will little note nor long rememberhat we say here; but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work that they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these honored dead we take in creased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last, full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth! - Lincoln. Printed in the United States of America. |