General Books

SMALL MEANS AND GREAT ENDS; OR, THE WIDOW'S POT OF OIL. BY JULIA A. FLETCHER. "Oh! how I do wish I was rich!" said Eliza Melvyn, dropping her work in her lap, and looking up discontentedly to her mother; "why should not I be rich as well as Clara Payson? There she passes in her father's carriage, with her fine clothes, and haughty ways; while I sit here—sew—sewing—all day... more...

MAY-DAY.   Daughter of Heaven and Earth, coy Spring,With sudden passion languishing,Maketh all things softly smile,Painteth pictures mile on mile,Holds a cup with cowslip-wreaths,Whence a smokeless incense breathes.Girls are peeling the sweet willow,Poplar white, and Gilead-tree,And troops of boysShouting with whoop and hilloa,And hip, hip three times three.The air is full of whistlings bland;What... more...

PHILOSOPHER'S GARDEN     "See this my garden,      Large and fair!"—Thus, to his friend,The Philosopher.   "'Tis not too long,"His friend replied,With truth exact,—  "Nor yet too wide.  But well compact,   If somewhat cramped    On every side." Quick the reply—  "But see how high!—  It reaches up  To God's blue sky!"... more...

THE QUAKER OF THE OLDEN TIME. THE Quaker of the olden time!How calm and firm and true,Unspotted by its wrong and crime,He walked the dark earth through.The lust of power, the love of gain,The thousand lures of sinAround him, had no power to stainThe purity within. With that deep insight which detectsAll great things in the small,And knows how each man's life affectsThe spiritual life of all,He... more...

ON LOVE What is love? Ask him who lives, what is life? ask him who adores, what is God? I know not the internal constitution of other men, nor even thine, whom I now address. I see that in some external attributes they resemble me, but when, misled by that appearance, I have thought to appeal to something in common, and unburthen my inmost soul to them, I have found my language misunderstood, like one... more...

THE ORCHARD’S GRANDMOTHER. I MUST ask you to go back more than two hundred years, and watch two people in a quiet old English garden. One is an old lady reading. In her young days she was a famous beauty. That was very long ago, to be sure; but I think she is a beauty still—do not you? She has such a lovely face, and her eyes are so sweet and bright! and better than that, they are the kind which... more...

They who maintained their rights,Through storm and stress,And walked in all the waysThat God made known,Led by no wandering lights,And by no guess,Through dark and desolate daysOf trial and moan:Here let their monumentRise, like a wordIn rock commemorativeOf our Land's youth;Of ways the Puritan went,With soul love-spurredTo suffer, die, and liveFor faith and truth.Here they the corner-stoneOf... more...

BILLY KHAKI MARCHING somewhat out of order   when the band is cock-a-hoop,There's a lilting kind of magic in the swagger   of the troop,Swinging all aboard the steamer with her   nose toward the sea.What is calling, Billy Khaki, that you're foot-   ing it so free? Though his lines are none too level,   And he lacks a bit of style.And he's swanking like the devil   Where... more...

Lord Roehampton During a late election LordRoehampton strained a vocal chordFrom shouting, very loud and high,To lots and lots of people whyThe Budget in his own opin--Ion should not be allowed to win. He sought a Specialist, who said:"You have a swelling in the head:Your Larynx is a thought relaxedAnd you are greatly over-taxed." "I am indeed! On every side!"The Earl (for such he was)... more...

I propose to treat of Poetry in itself and of its various kinds, noting the essential quality of each; to inquire into the structure of the plot as requisite to a good poem; into the number and nature of the parts of which a poem is composed; and similarly into whatever else falls within the same inquiry. Following, then, the order of nature, let us begin with the principles which come first. Epic... more...