Against Wind and Tide

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Townsend, W.A. & Company, 1860 - American fiction - 436 pages

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Page 7 - The which observed, a man may prophesy, With a near aim, of the main chance of things As yet not come to life ; which in their seeds, And weak beginnings, lie intreasured. Such things become the hatch and brood of time...
Page 109 - We have not wings, we cannot soar: But we have feet to scale and climb, By slow degrees, by more and more, The cloudy summits of our time.
Page 9 - I remember the gleams and glooms that dart Across the school-boy's brain; The song and the silence in the heart, That in part are prophecies, and in part Are longings wild and vain. And the voice of that fitful song Sings on, and is never still: "A boy's will is the winds will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.
Page 107 - God! that one might read the book of fate, And see the revolution of the times Make mountains level, and the continent, Weary of solid firmness, melt itself Into the sea; and other times to see The beachy girdle of the ocean Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock, And changes fill the cup of alteration With divers liquors! O, if this were seen, The happiest youth, viewing his progress through, What perils past, what crosses to ensue, Would shut the book and sit him down and die.
Page 201 - O, thou child of many prayers ! Life hath quicksands, Life hath snares ! Care and age come unawares ! Like the swell of some sweet tune, Morning rises into noon, May glides onward into June.
Page 190 - I think there was more general heed given to the plain precept of doing our duty in the station of life to which it had pleased God to call us. There was more simplicity of feeling and manners, and less striving and jealousy, as it seems to me, and Robert Hawthorne had had his early training amongst those who, while holding themselves independently, honestly, and discreetly in their own condition, still felt a respectful humility towards their betters, as the old Church Catechism has it.
Page 375 - ... last hour she had been diligently copying some music of her uncle Manuel's, and away she went to one of the front '.•<* windows to look out. She knew Cyrus in a moment, altered and disfigured as he was, and without a word, while the blood rushed violently back upon her heart, she ran downstairs and into the garden. He began to walk away as soon as he saw her approaching in her fresh morning beauty of face and dress, but she called after him pleadingly, " Oh ! Cyrus, Cyrus, will you not speak...
Page 201 - MAIDEN ! with the meek, brown eyes, In whose orbs a shadow lies Like the dusk in evening skies ! Thou whose locks outshine the sun, Golden tresses, wreathed in one, As the braided streamlets run ! Standing, with reluctant feet, Where the brook and river meet, Womanhood and childhood fleet...
Page 141 - PHILLIS is my only joy, Faithless as the winds or seas, Sometimes coming, sometimes coy, Yet she never fails to please ; If with a frown I am cast down, Phillis smiling And beguiling Makes me happier than before. Though alas ! too late I find Nothing can her fancy fix, Yet the moment she is kind I forgive her all her tricks ; Which though I see, I can't get free. She deceiving, I believing, What need lovers wish for more?
Page 305 - Let our unceasing, earnest prayer Be too for light,— for strength to bear Our portion of the weight of care That crushes into dumb despair One half the human race. O suffering, sad humanity ! O ye afflicted ones, who lie Steeped to the lips in misery, Longing, and yet afraid to die, Patient, though sorely tried...

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