Society and the World

Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve, And Hope without an object cannot live.

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair— The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing— And Winter slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! And I the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.

The man hath penance done, And penance more will do.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea.

The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the lighthouse top.

Oh, poverty parts good company.

Respect was mingled with surprise, And the stern joy which warriors feel In foemen worthy of their steel.

Soldier, rest! thy warfare o’er, Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking, Dream of battled fields no more, Days of danger, nights of waking.

Hail to the Chief who in triumph advances! 1

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive!

Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the West, Through all the wide Border his steed was the best.

Stood for his country’s glory fast, And nail’d her colors to the mast!

In peace, Love tunes the shepherd’s reed; In war, he mounts the warrior’s steed; In halls, in gay attire is seen; In hamlets, dances on the green. Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above; For love is heaven, and heaven is love.

O Caledonia! stern and wild, Meet nurse for a poetic child! Land of brown heath and shaggy wood; Land of the mountain and the flood!

Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely calculated less or more.

We feel that we are greater than we know.

Where lies the land to which yon ship must go? Fresh as a lark mounting at break of day, Festively she puts forth in trim array.

The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room.

Me this unchartered freedom tires; I feel the weight of chance desires; My hopes no more must change their name, I long for a repose that ever is the same.

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong.

To check the erring, and reprove.