Greenwood Leaves: A Collection of Sketches and Letters

Front Cover
Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1852 - 382 pages
 

Selected pages

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 38 - I hope to be able, with a pure heart and perfect composure, to appear before a higher tribunal — a tribunal where a Judge of infinite goodness, as well as of justice, will preside, and where, my lords, many — many of the judgments of this world will be reversed.
Page 123 - Tis only when they spring to heaven that angels Reveal themselves to you ; they sit all day Beside you, and lie down at night by you Who care not for their presence, muse or sleep, And all at once they leave you, and you know them...
Page 213 - When youthful Love, warm-blu.shing strong, Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along, Those accents, grateful to thy tongue, Th' adored Name, I taught thee how to pour in song, To soothe thy flame "I saw thy pulse's maddening play, Wild send thee Pleasure's devious way. Misled by Fancy's meteor ray, By Passion driven; But yet the light that led astray, Was light from Heaven.
Page 171 - Look thro' my very soul with thine! Untouch'd with any shade of years, May those kind eyes for ever dwell ! They have not shed a many tears, Dear eyes, since first I knew them well. Yet tears they shed : they had their part Of sorrow : for when time was ripe, The...
Page 112 - Look! how she moves adown the grooves, In graceful beauty now! How lowly on the breast she loves Sinks down her virgin prow! God bless her! wheresoe'er the breeze Her snowy wing shall fan, Aside the frozen Hebrides, Or sultry Hindostan! Where'er in mart or on the main, With peaceful flag unfurled, She helps to wind the silken chain Of commerce round the world!
Page 112 - Why lingers on these dusty rocks The young bride of the sea ? Look ! how she moves adown the grooves, In graceful beauty now ! How lowly on the breast she loves Sinks down her virgin prow ! God bless her ! wheresoe'er the...
Page 38 - To lift this island up — to make her a benefactor to humanity, instead of being the meanest beggar in the world, to restore to her her native powers and her ancient constitution, this has been my ambition, and this ambition has been my crime. Judged by the law of England, I know this crime entails the penalty of death; but the history of Ireland explains this crime, and justifies it. Judged by that history I am no criminal, I deserve no punishment.
Page 38 - I now bid farewell to the country of my birth, my passion, and my death ; the country whose misfortunes have invoked my sympathies; whose factions I have sought to still; whose intellect I have prompted to a lofty aim; whose freedom has been my fatal dream. I offer to that country, as a proof of the love I bear her, and the sincerity with which I thought and spoke and struggled for her freedom, the life of a young heart, and with that life all the hopes, the honors, the endearments, of a happy and...
Page 38 - With these sentiments, my lord, I await the sentence of the court. Having done what I felt to be my duty, — having spoken what I felt to be the truth, as I have done on every other occasion of my short career, — I now bid farewell to the country of my birth, my passion, and my death ; the country whose misfortunes have invoked my sympathies ; whose factions I have...
Page 178 - In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast; In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest; In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove; In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Bibliographic information