Its lifted finger oft displays
Our missing purse.
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In Bacon see the culminating prime
He dies and Nature, settling his affairs,Parts his endowments among us, his heirs:To every one a pinch of brain for seed,And, to develop it, a pinch of greed.Each thrifty heir, to make the gift suffice,Buries the talent to manure the vice.
When Dr. Bill Bartlett stepped out of the hum
To stand and deliver a lecture on ‘SomeConditions of Intellectual Life,’I cursed the offender who gave him the hallTo lecture on any conditions at all!But he rose with a fire divine in his eye,Haranguing with endless abundance of breath,Till I slept; and I dreamed of a gibbet reared high,And Dr. Bill Bartlett was dressing for…
You may say they won’t grow, and say they’ll decay-
Get up on your ear, blow your blaring bazooAnd hire a hall to proclaim it; and youMay stand on a stump with a lifted handAs a pine may stand or a redwood stand,And stick to your story and cheek it through.But I point with pride to the far divideWhere the Snake from its groves is…
Father! whose hard and cruel law
Thy works presumptuously we scanFor what the prophets say they saw.Unbidden still the awful slopeWalling us in we climb to gainAssurance of the shining plainThat faith has certified to hope.In vain! – beyond the circling hillThe shadow and the cloud abide.Subdue the doubt, our spirits guideTo trust the record and be still.To trust it loyally…
‘Twas a weary-looking mortal, and he wandered near the portal
He was pale and worn exceeding and his manner was unheeding,As if it could not matter what he did nor what he said.‘Sacred stranger’-I addressed him with a reverence befittingThe austere, unintermitting, dread solemnity he wore;‘Tis the custom, too, prevailing in that vicinage when hailingOne who possibly may be a person lately ‘gone before’‘Sacred stranger,…
Affronting fool, subdue your transient light;
If Genius stumble in the path to fame,‘Tis decency in dunces to go lame.