Gleanings from popular authors, grave and gay, Volume 1

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Page 65 - With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags Plying her needle and thread — Stitch ! stitch ! stitch ! In poverty, hunger and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, Would that its tone could reach the rich ! She sang this "Song of the Shirt.
Page 65 - Work - work work Till the brain begins to swim! Work - work - work Till the eyes are heavy and dim! Seam , and gusset , and band , Band , and gusset , and seam , Till over the buttons I fall asleep, And sew them on in a dream! "O men with sisters dear! O men with mothers and wives! It is not linen you're wearing out , But human creatures
Page 105 - With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, Agape they heard me call : Gramercy! they for joy did grin, And all at once their breath drew in, As they were drinking all. See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more! Hither to work us weal; Without a breeze, without a tide, She steadies with upright keel!
Page 105 - The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone : He cannot choose but hear ; And thus spake on that ancient man, The bright-eyed Mariner.
Page vi - LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five ; Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year.
Page 89 - Hear the sledges with the bells Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night! While the stars that oversprinkle All the heavens, seem to twinkle With a crystalline delight...
Page 89 - Hear the loud alarum bells, Brazen bells ! What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells ! In the startled ear of night How they screa,m out their affright ! Too much horrified to speak, They can only shriek, shriek, Out of tune, In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire...
Page 107 - I looked to heaven, and tried to pray ; But or ever a prayer had gusht, A wicked whisper came, and made My heart as dry as dust.
Page 22 - ... Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!" — at the same time Wolf bristled up his back and giving a low growl, skulked to his master's side, looking fearfully down into the glen. Rip now felt a vague apprehension stealing over him; he looked anxiously in the same direction and perceived a strange figure slowly toiling up the rocks and bending under the weight of something he carried on his back. He was surprised to see any human being in this lonely and unfrequented place, but supposing it to be some...
Page 22 - As they ascended, Rip every now and then heard long rolling peals, like distant thunder, that seemed to issue out of a deep ravine, or rather cleft, between lofty rocks, toward which their rugged path conducted.

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