Once to every man and nation comes the moment to

decide,

In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or

evil side;

Some great cause, God's new Messiah offering each the bloom or blight,

Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right;

And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.

The Present Crisis.

Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne.

Ibid.

Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her

wretched crust,

Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is prosperous to be just;

Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,

Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified.

Ibid.

Before man made us citizens, great Nature made us On the Capture of Fugitive Slaves near Washington.

men.

Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold.

To the Dandelion.

This child is not mine as the first was;

I cannot sing it to rest;

I cannot lift it up fatherly,
And bless it upon my breast.

Yet it lies in my little one's cradle,

And sits in my little one's chair,

And the light of the heaven she's gone to

Transfigures its golden hair.

The thing we long for, that we are

For one transcendent moment.

The Changeling.

Longing.

She doeth little kindnesses

Which most leave undone, or despise.

Not only around our infancy
Doth heaven with all its splendors lie;
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,
We Sinais climb and know it not.

My Love. iv.

The Vision of Sir Launfal. Prelude to Part First, "Tis heaven alone that is given away; 'Tis only God may be had for the asking.

Ibid.

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;

Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays.

Ibid.

Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it;

We are happy now because God wills it.

Ibid.

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how.

Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, -
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me.

Ibid.

Part Second. viii.

There comes Emerson first, whose rich words, every one, Are like gold nails in temples to hang trophies on.

A Fable for Critics.

Nature fits all her children with something to do. Ibid.

Ez fer war, I call it murder,
There you hev it plain an' flat;

I don't want to go no furder
Than my Testyment fer that.

An' you've gut to git up airly
Ef you want to take in God.

The Biglow Papers. First Series. No. i.

Laborin' man an' laborin' woman

Hev one glory an' one shame e;
Ev'y thin' thet's done inhuman

Injers all on 'em the same.

Ibid.

This goin' ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable feetur."
The Biglow Papers. First Series. No. ii.

Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man;
He's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf;
But consistency still wuz a part of his plan,
He's ben true to one party, an' thet is himself.

We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage.

But John P.
Robinson, he

Sez they did n't know everythin' down in Judee.

I don't believe in princerple,

But oh I du in interest.

Of my merit

On thet pint you yourself may jedge;

All is, I never drink no sperit,

Nor I haint never signed no pledge.

Ez to my princerples, I glory

In hevin' nothin' o' the sort.

Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown
An' peeked in thru' the winder,
An' there sot Huldy all alone,

'Ith no one nigh to hender.

Ibid.

No. ini.

Ibid.

No. vi.

No. vii.

Ibid.

Like streams that keep a summer mind
Snow-hid in Jenooary.

The Biglow Papers. Second Series. The Courtin'.

Our Pilgrim stock wuz pithed with hardihood.

No. vi.

Soft-heartedness, in times like these,

Shows sof'ness in the upper story.

Earth's biggest country's gut her soul,
An' risen up earth's greatest nation.

Under the yaller pines I house,

When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented,
An' hear among their furry boughs

The baskin' west-wind purr contented.

Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth

No. vii.

Ibid.

No. x.

On war's red techstone rang true metal;

Ibid.

Who ventered life an' love an' youth
For the gret prize o' death in battle?

From lower to the higher next,
Not to the top, is Nature's text;
And embryo Good, to reach full stature,
Absorbs the Evil in its nature.

Festina Lente. Moral.

Though old the thought and oft exprest,

'Tis his at last who says it best.1

Nature, they say, doth dote,

And cannot make a man

Save on some worn-out plan,

Repeating us by rote.

For an Autograph.

Ode at the Harvard Commemoration, July 21, 1865.

Here was a type of the true elder race,

And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face.

1 See Emerson, page 604.

Ibid.

Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past.

The one thing finished in this hasty world.

The Cathedral.

These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred,
Each softly lucent as a rounded moon;
The diver Omar plucked them from their bed,
Fitzgerald strung them on an English thread.

Ibid.

In a copy of Omar Khayyam.

The clear, sweet singer with the crown of snow
Not whiter than the thoughts that housed below.

To George William Curtis.

But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet
Lessen like sound of friends' departing feet;
And Death is beautiful as feet of friend
Coming with welcome at our journey's end.
For me Fate gave, whate'er she else denied,
A nature sloping to the southern side;
I thank her for it, though when clouds arise
Such natures double-darken gloomy skies.

In life's small things be resolute and great
To keep thy muscle trained: know'st thou when Fate
Thy measure takes, or when she 'll say to thee,
"I find thee worthy; do this deed for me"?

In vain we call old notions fudge,
And bend our conscience to our dealing;
The Ten Commandments will not budge,
And stealing will continue stealing.

Ibid.

Epigram

Motto of the American Copyright League (written Nov. 20, 1885).

Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.

Among my Books. First Series. Dryden.

A wise scepticism is the first attribute of a good critic. Shakespeare Once More.

One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness

of warning.

Ibid.