Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each to-morrow Finds us further than to-day.

Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, "Life is but an empty dream!" For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem.

The hooded clouds, like friars, Tell their beads in drops of rain.

Spake full well, in language quaint and olden, One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, When he called the flowers, so blue and golden, Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.

Oh, fear not in a world like this, And thou shalt know erelong,— Know how sublime a thing it is To suffer and be strong.

The star of the unconquered will.

Oh, not in cruelty, not in wrath, The Reaper came that day; 'Twas an angel visited the green earth, And took the flowers away.

There is a Reaper, whose name is Death, And, with his sickle keen, He reaps the bearded grain at a breath, And the flowers that grow between.

I heard the trailing garments of the Night Sweep through her marble halls! I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light From the celestial walls!

Look, then, into thine heart, and write!

He has singed the beard of the king of Spain.

The surest pledge of a deathless name Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.

The leaves of memory seemed to make A mournful rustling in the dark.

This is the place. Stand still, my steed,— Let me review the scene, And summon from the shadowy past The forms that once have been.

Books are sepulchres of thought.

Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.

He that respects himself is safe from others; he wears a coat of mail that none can pierce.

O Bells of San Blas in vain Ye call back the Past again; The Past is deaf to your prayer! Out of the shadows of night The world rolls into light; It is daybreak everywhere.

There was a little girl, Who had a little curl, Right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, She was very good indeed, But when she was bad she was horrid.

Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending; Many a poem is marred by a superfluous verse.

In the long, sleepless watches of the night, A gentle face — the face of one long dead — Looks at me from the wall, where round its head The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.

He speaketh not; and yet there lies A conversation in his eyes.

Build on, and make thy castles high and fair, Rising and reaching upward to the skies; Listen to voices in the upper air, Nor lose thy simple faith in mysteries.