Great Throughts Treasury

"The virtue lies in the struggle, not the prize."

"They who have steeped their soul in prayer can every anguish calmly bear."

"My exit is the result of too many entries [entrees] - (Last words)"

"A grace within his soul hath reigned Which nothing else can bring; Thank God for all that I have gained By that high sorrowing."

"In reverence will w speak of those who woo The ear divine with clear and ready prayer; And while their voices cleave the Sabbath air, Know their bright thoughts are winging heavenward too. Yet many a one,--"the latchet of whose shoe" These might not loose--will often only dare Lay some poor words between him and despair-- "Father, forgive! we know not what we do.""

"That man is thought a dangerous knave, Or zealot plotting crime, Who for advancement of his kind Is wiser than his time."

"Grand Thoughts that never can be wearied out, Showing the unreality of Time."

"He who for love hath undergone The worst that can befall, Is happier thousandfold than one Who never loved at all."

"A Vision Of The Argonauts - It is a privilege of great price to walk With that old sorcerer Fable, hand in hand, Adown the shadowy vale of History: There is no other wand potent as his, Out of that scene of gloomy pilgrimage, Where prostrate splendors and unsated graves Are ever rained upon by human tears, To make a Paradise of noblest art, A gallery of bright thoughts, serene ideas, Pictorial graces, everlasting tints, To the heart's eye delicious,--pure delight Of Beauty and calm Joy alternating With exercise of those high attributes, Which make the will of man indomitable,-- Justice, and enterprise, and patriot--love. That Peasant's simple question to my thoughts Became a mystic thread,--a golden clue; For when I drew it towards me, all the veil Of the deep past shrunk up, and light profuse Fell round me from time--clouded memories; The full--noon--day, it seemed to me, went back, And passed into the pearly grey of morn, From which, in outline dim, slowly came forth Pelion,--his lower steeps (now populous With village voices) desolate and bare; And the now naked range of loftier rock, Thick--vested with a mantle of warm pine. Along the shore, the turreted serail, And bright--adorned kiosks, and low bazaar, Into a city strange, of ancient form, But to my spirit's sight faintly defined, Was changed;--yet I could palpably discern A crowd that stood before a portico, And a thin smoke that from the midst arose, As of a sacrifice; and close beside, The waters rested in inviolate calm. Upon their edge, yet clinging to the sand, There was a shape, of other frame and kind Than I had ever seen the wave embrace; A burden of full--armèd men it bore, And from its centre the aspiring stem Of a straight oak, Dodona's holy growth, Upsprung, with leafy coronal unshorn. The joy of prosperous omens on the land Awoke the silence of that solemn dawn; And as it ceased, a clear and manly voice Out of the shape responded musical, And thus its meaning sunk into my soul. ``Not with the rapid foot and panting breast, With which, be Pelion's dark--haired front And mountain--thickets far away Our witnesses, the eager heart was wont To lead us to the boar's absconded rest Unwearied, while before us lay The hope of an illustrious prey,-- Nor, by the impulse of Pheraean steeds, Bearing the warrior and the car Into the central depths of war, While he, thus, wingèd, hardly heeds The presence of opposing spears, More than the north wind fears The grove whose mass he can crush down like reeds; --Not thus the work is to be done, Which this fleet--passing hour will see begun. ``For these are means, whose excellence can lead To victory in the practised chase Or common usage of heroic arms:-- Our thought is now to do a hardier deed; Sublimer energy our spirit warms Than bard has ever sung in Grecian halls;-- Where to succeed will place Our name 'mid nations' festivals, And where to fail itself will be A glory for eternity. ``Over a wider and more dreary plain, Than curious mortals know, Trackless and markless as fresh--fallen snow,-- An awful space, on which the stain Of human foot has never lain,-- Uncrossed by cheerful bird,-- Where never sound is heard, But the unpausing din, Half laughter and half groan, Of the Divinity that stirs within, And answers all the winds that blow In thunder--tone;-- Over this mystic plain,-- The earth--enclosing Ocean--plain, We are about to go. ``And let no holy fear restrain The hearts, that know no fear beside; For, not in impious disdain Of the eternal rules, that bind The destinies of human kind Within sage limits, and wild pride, But with the free obedience Of a most perfect reverence, Dare we the untamèd billow to bestride. ``For had it been in truth the imperial will Of Mother Nature, when her plastic hand Did the vast depths with buoyant liquid fill, To plant a barrier betwixt land and land, And keep each portion separate, Encircled by a special fate; How could the Gods, the everwise, Have urged us to our enterprise With favouring voices and protecting eyes? How could our rude sea--chariot be Made instinct with applauding Deity? ``A just and noble aim, The Gods with love regard,-- But the self--glorious, the bold Who honour not the laws of old, A jealous justice will reward, With woe and bitter shame; We have not forgot The miserable lot Of Tantalus, ambrosia--fed, Tantalus, whose kingly head Deep in deepest Hades lies, Eminent in agonies; Even where our journey leads, In that Eastern distance, bound To an ice--peak, ever bleeds He of the unclosed heart--wound, The unsubdued and godlike one, Who robbed the treasury of the sun; But he such warnings little heeds, Whose soul is fixed upon an honest end,-- Him must the Gods befriend. ``And is it not a virtuous aim, Even to the earth's extremest shore, By means no mortal force essayed before, To bear the glory of the Grecian name? To spoil the spoiler, wash away the stain Of foully--slaughtered parentage, restore To Greece the precious gift of yore, Kind Gods to Helle and her brother gave, Though Destiny restrained the power to save. ``Thus hasting to a sacred war, With Paean and delighted song, We feel our feet upon the Car, Which the broad--wingèd Winds shall bear along; No strength of ours their turbulence restrains, No will of ours their vagrant course commands, But ye who love us, fear not, for the reins Are in almighty and benignant hands.-- And if the blindly--falling brand Of Fate, that neither spares the wise or brave, Far from his loved paternal land, Should lay some Hero under the dark wave; Yet let him not be deeply mourned, As dead inglorious, or cast out unurned: For the fond--pitying Nymphs below, Will cover him with golden sand, And sing above him songs of woe, Sweeter than we can understand; The grace of song shall breathe upon his name, And his Elysian bliss be endless as his fame.'' There was a moment's pause, and then, methought, The exuberant shout, that to the warriors' strain Had made tumultuous prelude, came again, But with still loftier passion; to the cause I gave a quick attention, and beheld Above the low Magnesian promontory, A small and solitary flaccid cloud Lowly suspended, by the clear round sun (Which seemed to halt behind it as he rose) Gorgeously glorified; to this all eyes Were turned, and every voice a homage paid: ``The Fleece, the Golden Fleece, our Golden Fleece,'' Rose in a storm of sound, and instantly, Though with no visible wind or ruffled tide, But as impregnate with propelling power, The Shape, no more dependent on the sand, Into the open waters past, serene. Then as the Vision fainted, self--dispersed In the full--flaring light, a melody, Whose sense I could not justly apprehend, But that it was of blessing and delight, Emitted from th' oracular central tree, Caught up my heart, and bore it swift along With that strange shape, into mysterious depths Of placid darkness and undreaming sleep. "

"Grief sat beside the fount of tears, And dipt her garland in it, While all the paly flowers she wears Grew fainter every minute. Joy gamboled by the other side, In gay and artless guise, And to her gloomy sister cried, With laughter in her eyes-- ``Oh! prithee leave that stupid task, That melancholy fountain; I go in Pleasure's sun to bask, Or dance up Fancy's mountain.'' ``Insolent fooler!--go--beware,'' Said Grief, in moody tone, ``How thus you frivolously dare Approach my solemn throne!'' And then, on Joy's fair wreath she threw, With sideward glance of malice, Some drops of that embitter'd dew Fresh from a poison'd chalice. But Joy laugh'd on;--``In vain, in vain You try to blight one flower; That which you meant for fatal bane Shall prove my brightest dower:-- ``Friendship and Love on every leaf Shall wear the pearly toy, And all, who shrink from tears of Grief, Shall pray for tears of Joy.'' "

"Back again, back again! We are passing back again; We are ceasing to be men! Without the strife Of waning life, Or weary fears Of loveless years,-- Without the darkened eye, Without the paling brow, Without a pulse of pain, Out of our maturity, We are passing now Back again! Clap your hands! clap your hands! Now are broken all the bands Of dull forms and phantom power, That could prevent us doing What joy would wish to do,-- For out of manhood's ruin, We are growing, hour by hour, Happy children too!-- From out the din And storm of sin, From out the fight Of wrong and right, Where the wrong Is all too strong, We glide our backward course along: From out the chilly weather, In which we laid, of old, Our hearts so close together, To keep them from the cold:-- From the folly of the wise, From the petty war of gain, From Pleasure's painèd votaries, We are hasting back again, Into other, healthier, lands,-- Clap your hands,-- Back again! Faery fruit! faery fruit! Can our charmèd hearts be mute, When they feel at work within Thine almighty medicine? Joy through all our hearts is tingling,-- Joy with our life--blood is mingling,-- Before us rise The dancing eyes, That cannot speak Of aught but light, Unknowing gloom,-- The rounded cheek, For ever bright With cool, red, bloom;-- Our faded leaves are closing, Our petals are reposing Within their undeveloped stem;-- It is beautiful to see Archetypes of infancy, For we are growing like to them. The wisdom of the common earth, And reason's servile royalty, Dust to dust,--the nothing--worth,-- Tread it down triumphantly, To a just oblivion,-- Freely--springing hearts and pure, Who are putting on Consecrated vestiture Of a new, old, communion!-- Our home! our home! Our native air,--our brothers' song, That we have lost so long! We are worthy now to come, Where dwelleth the Divine;-- Through the narrow door of Death Pass;--we breathe eternal breath,-- Father! father! we are thine! "

"A man's best things are nearest him, Lie close about his feet."

"But the beating of my own heart was all the sound I heard."

"Great thoughts, great feelings, came to them, Like instincts, unawares."

"Dream no more that grief and pain could such hearts as ours enchain, safe from loss and safe from gain, free, as love makes free. When false friends pass coldly by, sigh, in earnest pity, sigh, turning thine unclouded eye up from them to me. Hear not danger's trampling feet, feel not sorrow's wintry sleet, trust that life is just and meet, with mine arm round thee. Lip on lip, and eye to eye, love to love, we live, we die; no more thou, and no more I, we, and only we!"

"I wandered by the brook-side, I wandered by the mill; I could not hear the brook flow, The noisy wheel was still."

"My exit is the result of too many entrees."