Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.

There is no greater sorrow Than to be mindful of the happy time In misery.

Hospitality sitting with Gladness.

All is repose and peace, Untrampled lies the sod; The shouts of battle cease, It is the Truce of God! Rest, comrades, rest and sleep! The thoughts of men shall be As sentinels to keep

Ye have slept on the ground before, And started to your feet At the cannon’s sudden roar, Or the drum’s redoubling beat. But in this camp of Death No sound your slumber breaks; Here is no fevered breath,

Sleep, comrades, sleep and rest On this Field of the Grounded Arms, Where foes no more molest, Nor sentry’s shot alarms!

For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

Ah, nothing is too late Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.

The scholar and the world! The endless strife, The discord in the harmonies of life! The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet serenity of books; The market-place, the eager love of gain, Whose aim is vanity, and whose …

And now, my classmates; ye remaining few That number not the half of those we knew, Ye, against whose familiar names not yet The fatal asterisk of death is set, Ye I salute!

Let him not boast who puts his armor on As he who puts it off, the battle done. Study yourselves; and most of all note well Wherein kind Nature meant you to excel. Not every blossom ripens into fruit.

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another, Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.

Moons waxed and waned, the lilacs bloomed and died, In the broad river ebbed and flowed the tide, Ships went to sea, and ships came home from sea, And the slow years sailed by and ceased to be.

Our ingress into the world Was naked and bare; Our progress through the world Is trouble and care; Our egress from the world Will be nobody knows where;

His form was ponderous, and his step was slow; There never was so wise a man before; He seemed the incarnate "Well, I told you so!"

A town that boasts inhabitants like me Can have no lack of good society.

Stronger than steel is the sword of the Spirit; Swifter than arrows, the light of the truth; Greater than anger is love that subdueth.

And suddenly through the drifting brume The blare of the horns began to ring.

At all feasts where ale was strongest Sat the merry monarch longest, First to come and last to go.

All things come round to him who will but wait.

And yet, through the gloom and the light, The fate of a nation was riding that night.

One, if by land, and two, if by sea; And I on the opposite shore will be, Ready to ride and spread the alarm Through every Middlesex village and farm For the country folk to be up and to arm.

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.

Thinking the deed, and not the creed, Would help us in our utmost need.