Celebrities of the Day, British and Foreign, Volume 2

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S. E. Thomas
W. Poole, 1881 - Celebrities
 

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Page 423 - Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, And that cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, The young birds are chirping in the nest, The young fawns are playing with the shadows, The young flowers are blowing toward the west But the young, young children, O my brothers, They are weeping bitterly ! They are weeping in the playtime of the others, In the country of the free.
Page 74 - Slaves cannot breathe in England ; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free ; They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
Page 423 - ... stirred? When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word. And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding) Strangers speaking at the door; Is it likely God, with angels singing round him, Hears our weeping any more ? "Two words, indeed, of praying we remember. And at midnight's hour of harm, 'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber, We say softly for a charm. We know no other words except 'Our Father...
Page 27 - Hence in a season of calm weather, Though inland far we be, Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither, Can in a moment travel thither, And see the Children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore...
Page 18 - Nor if I stand, or lie, or sit, or kneel. So much I know, not knowing how I know, That the vast universe, where I have dwelt, Is quitting me, or I am quitting it. Or I or it is rushing on the wings Of light or lightning on an onward course, And we e'en now are million miles apart.
Page 124 - The habit of contemplating and brooding over the ideas of great geniuses, till you find yourself warmed by the contact, is the true method of forming an artist-like mind ; it is impossible, in the presence of those great men, to think, or invent, in a mean manner ; a state of mind is acquired that receives those ideas only which relish of grandeur and simplicity.
Page 424 - How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation, Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart, — Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation, And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper, And your purple shows your path; But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper Than the strong man in his wrath!
Page 18 - I cannot make my fingers or my lips By mutual pressure witness each to each, Nor by the eyelid's instantaneous stroke Assure myself I have a body still. Nor do I know my very attitude, Nor if I stand, or lie, or sit, or kneel.
Page 423 - we are weary, And we cannot run or leap; If we cared for any meadows, it were merely To drop down in them and sleep. Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping, We fall upon our faces, trying to go; And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping, The reddest flower would look as pale as snow. For all day we drag our burden tiring Through the coal-dark, underground; Or all day we drive the wheels of iron In the factories, round and round.
Page 424 - They look up with their pale and sunken faces, And their look is dread to see. For they mind you of their angels in high places, With eyes turned on Deity. " How long," they say, " how long, O cruel nation, Will you stand, to move the world on a child's heart, — Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation, And tread onward to your throne amid the mart ? Our blood splashes upward...

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