Pleasant pages (by S.P. Newcombe). [With suppl., entitled] Fireside facts from the Great exhibition, Volume 1

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Page 307 - I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it.
Page 108 - He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes, He kissed their drooping leaves ; It was for the Lord of Paradise He bound them in his sheaves. " My Lord has need of these flowerets gay," The reaper said, and smiled ; " Dear tokens of the earth are they, Where he was once a child.
Page 176 - THE shades of night were falling fast, As through an Alpine village passed A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice, A banner with the strange device, Excelsior ! His brow was sad ; his eye beneath, Flashed like a falchion from its sheath, And like a silver clarion rung The accents of that unknown tongue, Excelsior!
Page 176 - and rest Thy weary head upon this breast !" A tear stood in his bright blue eye, But still he answered, with a sigh, Excelsior ! " Beware the pine-tree's withered branch ! Beware the awful avalanche ! " This was the peasant's last Good-night.
Page 108 - I have nought that is fair?" saith he; "Have nought but the bearded grain? Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me, I will give them all back again." He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes, He kissed their drooping leaves ; It was for the Lord of Paradise He bound them in his sheaves.
Page 68 - PAUSE not to dream of the future before us; Pause not to weep the wild cares that come o'er us; Hark, how Creation's deep, musical chorus, Unintermitting, goes up into heaven ! Never the ocean wave falters in flowing ; Never the little seed stops in its growing; More and more richly the rose-heart keeps glowing, Till from its nourishing stem it is riven. " Labor is worship ! " — the robin is singing ; "Labor is worship!
Page 307 - ... measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse ; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again.
Page 105 - He goes on Sunday to the church, And sits among his boys; He hears the parson pray and preach, He hears his daughter's voice, Singing in the village choir, And it makes his heart rejoice. It sounds to him like her mother's voice, Singing in Paradise! He needs must think of her once more How in the grave she lies; And with his hard, rough hand he wipes A tear out of his eyes.
Page 176 - At break of day, as heavenward The pious monks of Saint Bernard Uttered the oft-repeated prayer, A voice cried through the startled air Excelsior ! A traveller, by the faithful hound, Half-buried in the snow was found, Still grasping in his hand of ice That banner with the strange device Excelsior ! There in the twilight cold and gray, Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay, And from the sky, serene and far, A voice fell, like a falling star, Excelsior ! POEMS ON SLAVERY.
Page 105 - Week in, week out, from morn till night, You can hear his bellows blow ; You can hear him swing his heavy sledge, With measured beat and slow, Like a sexton ringing the village bell, When the evening sun is low. And children coming home from school Look in at the open door ; They love to see the flaming forge, And hear the bellows roar, And catch the burning sparks that fly Like chaff from a threshing floor.

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