Society and the World

White shall not neutralize the black, nor good Compensate bad in man, absolve him so: Life’s business being just the terrible choice.

The curious crime, the fine Felicity and flower of wickedness.

’Twas a thief said the last kind word to Christ: Christ took the kindness and forgave the theft.

That’s all we may expect of man, this side The grave: his good is—knowing he is bad.

Progress, man’s distinctive mark alone, Not God’s, and not the beasts’: God is, they are; Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be.

That low man seeks a little thing to do, Sees it and does it; This high man, with a great thing to pursue, Dies ere he knows it. That low man goes on adding one to one, His hundred’s soon hit; This high man, aiming at a million, Misses an unit. That, has the world here—should he need the next, Let the world mind him! This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed Seeking shall find Him.

He ventured neck or nothing—heaven’s success Found, or earth’s failure.

What’s become of Waring Since he gave us all the slip?

Open my heart, and you will see Graved inside of it, “Italy.”

Open my heart, and you will see Graved inside of it, “Italy.”

One more devils’-triumph and sorrow for angels, One more wrong to man, one more insult to God!

Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick in his coat.

Some unsuspected isle in far-off seas.

And when, amid no earthly moans, Down, down that town shall settle hence, Hell, rising from a thousand thrones, Shall do it reverence.

While from a proud tower in the town Death looks gigantically down.

The viol, the violet, and the vine.

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne In a strange city, lying alone Far down within the dim West, Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best Have gone to their eternal rest.

Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

“Who touches a hair of yon gray head Dies like a dog! March on!” he said.

“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, But spare your country’s flag,” she said.

“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, But spare your country’s flag,” she said.

Health that mocks the doctor’s rules, Knowledge never learned of schools.

The age is dull and mean. Men creep, Not walk.

From those great eyes The soul has fled: When faith is lost, when honor dies, The man is dead!